Burning Questions

Say you're the curator of a small-town historical museum. You've always felt that your carefully arranged displays, complete with period furnishings, would benefit greatly from the addition of a few costumed mannequins to bring the scene to life. And you're in luck! The old Woolworth's on Main Street, which went bankrupt in the 1970s, has a few specimens in its basement: abandoned since 1957, sure; chewed on by rats, sure: still, you can't beat the price!
I can only imagine that was the thought process behind this display.

I like this one even more, because the questions it raises are almost theological in nature. Wait - who, exactly, is real here?!
Fortunately, babies during the old ranching days on the Panhandle Plains were made of sterner stuff than the floppy, helpless, pansy-assed babies we have these days. Or is that one of the dolls?! I'm confused.

This one isn't historically accurate, I'm sorry to say. A commercially-manufactured porcelain doll with rooted hair was a luxury item of the highest order, to be given as a treasured gift to a little girl in a well-to-do-family, treasured, cherished, and laid carefully away to pass on to the next generation. For a little North Texas ranch girl to own three is patently ridiculous. Sorry, people.

This one raises only one significant question, but it's a big one.
Is this a priest, or is it James Bond?! Usually it's easier to tell. Not in the turn-of-the-century Texas Panhandle, apparently.

Floosie never was popular with the other girls, even when she got that glamorous job as a switchboard operator. But she knew it was all just due to envy: her beauty, her intestinal-tract-defying slimness, her penchant for such futuristic footwear as no one had ever seen before. Baby, if you've got it going on this fierce, you know the other girls will never accept you.

It's a little-known fact that 1970s department-store mannequins suffered from a dietary deficiency that also plagued Civil War soldiers, which caused sometimes crippling defects.

Well, a few oranges will probably clear that right up. Until then, just grip your gun firmly between your toes.

The most urgent question for today: Do you think Panhandle Mannequin would make a good band name, or what?

Gettin' (Relatively) Busy

"Hey, do you want to go walking today?" I emailed a former coworker, still trapped in the Pointless Job of Eternal Uselessness; "I finally get a lunch break again, and it's been so crazy, and I hardly know what day of the week it is anymore."

"I know the feeling!" he wrote back a few hours later, which of course he doesn't. Has he been pulling a lot of night shifts? Did he work 13 hours on Sunday?? I don't think so.

And for me, these are rare, remarkable, impressive occurences. I can describe three or four long days, and my friends will ooh and aah sympathetically at me. My life is staggeringly easy.

One my favorite things about my Boss (I think I need to distinguish between her and my lower-case boss, who works for her, but who also assigns me work, and with whom I traveled to all the fun places I've been lately) is her sense of humor. I showed her my friend's email. I was quite outraged. She thought it was funny. "They think they're busy, over there, where you came from," she chuckled.

Once back in April, I said that I wasn't sure I'd have anything to do after our big annual conference was over. It turns out that no, we are busy all the time, with lots of things. But how was I to know? From the time I started this job, at the end of February, until our conference, I worked on nothing else. It was natural for me to believe this was all I had to do. How would I have known; but will she let me forget it?

She brings it up all the time. I have such a cool job!

Meanwhile, of course, the entirety of southeast Texas has gone to hell in a handbasket, and delivered the rest of us an extremely uncomfortable reminder of how very, very thin the line is that divides us complacent middle-class working taxpayers from a squalid Third-World existence. It's frightening. How often do we question what we consider the basic necessities of life: hygiene and mobility, courtesy of pumps for gasoline and sewage; resources for current information via internet, TV, radio, newspapers, and phone; water you can drink straight from the tap without a second thought; hospitals and medical clinics - however unneeded - always within a moment's reach; a place to grab a burger; police on call if you feel threatened; the U.S. mail, the mall, for heaven's sake. Don't even get me started about your family, your love, your friends, your pets... all there every day, unquestioned, forgotten, and wholly indispensable.

You can subscribe to National Geographic till the cows come home, but you don't understand what life is really about till you have to eat bugs and poop in the dirt, is all I'm saying here.

Whatever it is, you should be glad for what you have. You shouldn't fritter it away out of petty vanity or ego trips or any other stupid reason. You have something wonderful, you're so lucky; cherish it, nurture it, and be happy. What do I have to tell you?

Christmas in April

The best thing about industry tradeshows is that they give you coffee mugs, and when you get home, you can drink coffee out of those mugs: real coffee, ground immediately before brewing, with plenty of real cream and sugar.

This morning's celestially blissful cup comes courtesy of the East Texas Oil Museum. Thank you! Well, it's not actually that great. It's not strong enough; I guess I'm out of practice. But that's not you guys' fault.

You're at the tradeshow to network, and they're there to increase exposure; but the most obvious result of this process is that you come home with lots and lots and lots and lots of stuff. Or rather, you don't come home with the stuff. There's way too much stuff for you to carry. So there's a mail-back area in the back of the arena where you pack large boxes full of the stuff and they ship it to you at work or home. Naturally there are reams upon reams of literature, and so many business cards that, if they were one-dollar bills, you could buy a mound of cocaine the size of Greenland. But there's also the stuff: tape measures, miniature tool kits, pins, clips, wristbands, magnets, flashlights, and squishy stress toys; mugs and travel mugs, water bottles, T-shirts, koozies, caps, toiletry bags and tote bags; beach bags, beach mats, and cooler bags; bottles of honey and hot sauce, bags of popcorn and spiced pretzel mix, and jars of salsa and pickled tomatoes; picture frames, calculators, pedometers, and little portable fans; stuffed animals, pink cap guns, and a hat in the shape of a winged pig; fresh-cut roses, and wildflower and herbs starter kits; and ooh, here's a really clever one: flash drives, emblazoned with the presenter's logo, and preloaded with information about the organization.

The boxes beat me home; so yesterday afternoon, when I really wanted to lie down and take a 36-hour power nap, Anna instead made me open them up and go through everything. She immediately claimed the pig hat, which is pretty cute.

I'd still be sleeping, but Eric went to his grandma's yesterday and left his alarm clock set. So thank God (well, thank the East Texas Oil Museum) for the coffee mugs. All our dishes are dirty.