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The Newsletter >
Reality vs. Real Life
July 21, 2009
“The reality has got to stop,” I yelled, wrestling the channel changer out of my husband’s hands. “I can’t take any more reality.”
“But I like the crab fishing show.”
“That show should be called men smoking cigarettes who happen to catch crabs in the cold.”
“How about the truck guys driving on ice show?”
I clutched the channel changer harder. “You mean men smoking cigarettes that happen to skid trucks over ice? Ahhhhh! Reality is the worst. It’s like peaking into people’s windows to watch them smoke cigarettes.”
“How about when pets with two-hundred pound tumors go bad?” he said.
“No, no, no. It’s all cheaters, beaters, or eaters. You want reality. I’ll give you reality. Ploodle, our five pound Yorkshire Terrier, chewed through my computer power cord. It’s the fifth power cord I’ve had to buy this year. Those cords are ninety bucks a pop.”
“The dog chewed through five power cords?” He sounded mildly incredulous.
“Well, no, I messed up a couple all by myself. I had bad luck.” I tried not to sound pouty.
“Did you chew them?”
I could feel the wrinkles between my eyes deepen. I tried again. “You want reality. I’ll give you reality. We’ve had so much rain this season I saw an alligator in the back pasture.”
My husband eyed the channel changer in my hand, gauging the distance required to snatch it back.
“It was swimming,” I said, waving the channel changer so he couldn’t get a bead on it. He looked stumped and a little bit dizzy. “In our pasture, the alligator was swimming in our pasture. How’s that for reality?”
He thought it over. “Maybe an episode but hardly a series.”
Groaning, I said, “Oh man, I just want to watch something with a plot, dialog, and a little bit of character development, or maybe a mysterious, disappearing island with a guy living inside a giant, clay foot weaving a tapestry or two.”
It was my husband’s turn to groan or snore. They can sound the same.
I said, “I’ll tell you what; let’s compromise. Let’s go for a walk, and see if those Sand Hill Cranes are still hanging around our driveway and if those crazy birds are still attacking people when they get out of their cars. What do you say? Good times.”
Relenting, he said, “Well, it’s not crab fishing in the North Sea, but it’ll have to do.”
I smiled and patted his cheek. “And babe, don’t forget to bring the **snake stick, okay.”
Linda (Reality is for the Birds) Zern
** The former owner of our property congratulated me on the purchase, handed me a stick with a bent coat hanger hook on the end, told me it was the snake stick, and assured me that we would need it. We have.
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