humor – My Little Country

In life, I have learned that there are some things you should never do.

Never wear white when you eat chocolate. Never wear anything with fringe when you’re on your period. Never eat a “floorboard burrito” (just ask my husband about that). Never roller-skate in a buffalo herd.

But today, I learned a new one: Never wear a skirt to a car wash.

It all started out okay. I went to the new car wash in town, Tidal Wave, because my car was gross. It was far beyond the point of my personal dirt level tolerance and looked like I had a semi-permanent garage sale set up in the back half. They happened to be running a special where you get a month of car washes for the same price as one and I happily took the bait. I always like car washes that do the manual pre-wash before you go through the automatic part and Tidal Wave does that. The auto wash went great and at the end there are those giant air blowers that make you feel like you’re in the middle of a tornado minus the debris. Frankly, I couldn’t believe that my windshield wipers or, for that matter, my windshield itself stayed intact. Yet it did, and I drove over to the vacuum area with a clean (and undamaged) car.

This place provides little towels and glass spray, two kinds of vacuums, and a compressed air blower. I wiped down the exterior and then it was time to vacuum. I had to load up the passenger seats with old mail, six bags of graduation party supplies, a gallon jug of water that is mostly empty, two containers of baby wipes, a Mother Earth News magazine from 1994, and 9,000 random shopping bags because they are very “good for the planet”. I removed the crevice tool vacuum and got done with the front floorboard. Then I realized I needed to step over the hose so I didn’t trip myself and SWWWWOOOOOOOP! I put the vacuum too close to the back of my leg and it sucked up a third of my skirt. Slightly annoyed, not to mention disgusted, I ripped my skirt out of the vacuum and turned, only to find that when I did I had gotten too close to my shirt and SWWWWOOOOOP! there went half of my shirt and about 18 percent of my right boob. As I furiously wrestled with the hose and attachment, I finally freed myself and prayed silently that no one at the nearby red light had gotten a video of me as I was being attacked by an industrial sized Hoover on steroids.

As I continued my cleaning, I managed to suck up the following, in no particular order:

A black straw of unknown origin
Three guava candies
A long-lost can of mixed nuts
A Splenda packet
A crispy wasp who presumptively died of heat stroke
A packet of Taco Bell sauce (hot)
My right boob

The last item listed fell victim to the vacuum because I was attempting to climb up in the back hatch all side-saddle style since I didn’t care to flash half the town if my skirt happened to ride up. I can’t tell you how thrilling it was to try and hang on to a 15 ft long hose with enough suction to rip off my bumper while trying to keep my skirt down AND sliding up sideways into my car, using one buttock at a time. And then, despite me being extremely careful, being viciously attacked on the other side of my chest while trying not to make a scene.

Despite the slight bruising (not my chest…I mean my pride), all in all, I still give the place 5 out of 5 stars. And you can bet your sweet little buttons that next time I go, my skirts will be at home on their hangers. When I got back home and did a little online reading, they do advertise their vacuums as being “high-powered” and buddy, you’d best believe it. We, as a family, know exactly how dangerous vacuums really are. After all, my husband almost lost his vision in a late-night incident with a rogue Bissell a few years back, but that’s a story for another day. Meanwhile, please do yourself a favor and dress appropriately for car washes.

Too bad that breastplates aren’t still in fashion.

Several years ago, I wrote about a very first world problem that has, sadly, only grown far, far worse.

Let’s see if any of this sounds familiar. It’s late afternoon and after a long day of spinning plates, juggling chainsaws and running your own personal mini-circus, you realize that you’d better figure out something to eat before you start gnawing on your own hands, faint with hunger.

Let’s say you want to make lentil soup, so you type “Lentil soup” into the search bar and up pops several beautiful soup pictures accompanied by hundreds of five star reviews. You click on the best looking one and here it comes.

First, there’s a catchy title like: “The Very Best Super Easy Amazingly Delicious Lentil Soup”. Great, that’s fine. That’s followed by a paragraph about how delicious and amazing and easy this soup is. One would assume the recipe would follow.

No. You’d think, but no.

The introductory paragraph is followed by a lengthy and personal story on the origins of said recipe or perhaps how the author feels about this particular lentil recipe. This is followed by more paragraphs on what exactly a lentil IS, where they are grown, when they were domesticated, lentil varieties, the full nutritional profile of a lentil, how lentils can be prepared, where to buy lentils, variations on the ingredients, variations on how to cook the soup, what an Instant Pot is, the best pot to prepare the soup in….you get the idea. Then you get a fully photographed series on each and every step of making the soup, and then…only THEN do you reach the actual recipe. Thank God for the “Jump to Recipe” button. Whoever invented that should be sainted.

This reminds me of the Alamo scene in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure where Pee-Wee finally makes it to the Alamo to look for his beloved stolen bicycle. He was told that his bike is in the basement of the Alamo, so he buys a ticket for the tour. The effervescent and irrepressible tour guide, Tina, (played by Jan Hooks) goes into a description of the Alamo as a visibly impatient Pee-Wee attempts to contain his anxiety as they view different rooms. But the gem…the ABSOLUTE GEM of a line is when they make it to the kitchen where Tina begins to talk about corn. The line is “There are thousands and THOUSANDS of uses for corn, all of which I will tell you about right now!”

And here is where Pee-Wee Herman and I merge into one being. The absolute annoyance, irritation, and dare I say disgust at having to wait for what we came for is very real. Pee-Wee just wanted to see the freaking basement. He didn’t want to hear twenty thousand ways to prepare corn. I just want to see a recipe before I give up and decide to eat a stale bag of Cheerios that have somehow been around, opened, since Halloween. (It’s March.)

I honestly thought this trend would slowly fade away but it’s only gotten much worse, especially with the rise of AI use in blogging. Am I the only one who can sniff out an AI written/assisted blog? It’s like that robotic woman’s voice that was so popular on memes a few years back. It’s human-esque, but creepy and…insincere.

I want to start a trend. Let’s get back to online recipe simplicity. Post a nice picture or two, a few sentences, and get that recipe back to the top, where it belongs!

I hereby declare war on the recipe novels!

End note: Many, many thanks to the awesome soul who created the above image!