Best Political Call EVER

Dear GPS Crossroads, STOP CALLING ME. I’ve already voted and you wouldn’t like the way I cast my ballot. All those political calls can be really annoying, but this one was awesome.

The caller ID showed the same number from two previous unanswered calls. I didn’t pick up because I knew it was another political call. Might as well pick up this time since they just keep calling back if you don’t. The caller was a woman with a soft, timid voice, haltingly reading a script.

Caller: “Constitution blah blah blah Constitution yadda yadda yadda Constitution something something something Constitution.” I zoned out waiting for her to finish the script so she could mark the call as complete and NOT CALL BACK. Conclusion: “So will you vote for candidates who will uphold the Constitution?”

Hmm. No mention of any candidate or party, but “Constitution” has kind of become code for tea party nutjobs, so I thought I’d see if I could find out if the call was being made on behalf of any particular candidate.

Me: “Which candidates would that be? Anyone who gets elected to a federal office swears to uphold the Constitution, so wouldn’t that be all of them? Or are there particular candidates you think I should vote for?”

Caller: “I don’t know about any particular candidates.”

Me: “Well, who will you be voting for?”

Caller: (very softly, hesitantly) . . . “Actually, I . . . don’t vote.”

Me: “Oh, you really should vote. What issues are most important to you?”

Caller: “Umm . . . education I guess.”

Me: “Do you have kids?”

Caller: “Yeah, two.”

Me: “Which candidate do you think will be better for education?”

Caller: “Probably Obama.”

Me: “I think you’re right about that. So you really should vote for Obama and any other candidates you think are going to be the best for education.”

Caller: (her voice a little more certain now) “I guess I should.”

Me: “I hope you’ll vote, for yourself and for your kids. Set the example that your voice matters, and when they're older, theirs will too.”

Caller: (more decisively) “Yeah. I think I will.”

Best political call EVER.

Oh summer people. Most of you leave after Labor Day, and you’ll be missed. Your little playlets make simple errands fraught with drama.

In the grocery store on the Friday of Labor Day weekend, this scene was playing out in the dairy department: Mom dressed in casual but expensive summer chic, three adolescent-to-teenage boys in T-shirts and wakeboard shorts. The boys are apparently in search of some special ingredient they can’t find in the dreadful backwater where they’ve chosen to have their lakefront mansion. Mom impatiently taps her foot and glares at her shopping list.

“Hey Mom, here’s whole . . . “

Mom: “NO!”

Door slams, doors open. “How about this? Says ‘two percent’” – “NO!” Slam, open, “This one here’s called ‘one percent’” “NO!” Slam! Open, “I dunno what this is – says ‘fat-free’” – “NO!” Slam! “What’s this half and half stuff?” “NO!” “Soy milk?” “NO!”

Open, yell, slam, open, yell, slam. What exotic dairy product were they were looking for? Fermented yak milk from Martha Stewart’s private herd? Imported goat milk infused with saffron and white truffle and dotted with edible gold? Artisanal cheese salted with the tears of the poor?

Mom: “I said I need SKIM MILK!”

Slam, open “Well, Mom, how about fat-free?”

Mom: “NO! I said SKIM!”

Uhhh . . . seriously? Should I explain? But then she whipped out her cell phone and proceeded to give the person on the other end of the call an earful about “this STUPID store in this STUPID town that doesn’t even have STUPID SKIM MILK.”

I’m guessing she probably doesn’t do much grocery shopping. In her regular world, milk simply appears, along with everything else in the kitchen and pantry. Clean laundry, a freshly scrubbed bathroom and a manicured lawn just happen.

Okay then. I’ll just slip in here, get what I need and get out of your way. But damn, it wasn’t until I was at the check-out that I realized I missed my chance to say, “Excuse me, could I just slip by you one-percenters? I need some one percent.”

Cherry Copters

This is what you wake up to on a rainy day here this time of year. The cherry copters. It's cherry harvest time - in fact, this weekend is the Cherry Festival. Should be a bumper crop this year, but if cherries get wet when they're just about ready to harvest, they burst. So after every shower, the Flathead Cherry Growers' Association sends around the cherry copters to dry off the orchards. This is the orchard just down the hill from our house, getting dried off:

This goes into the ever-growing file of "stuff I didn't know until I moved to Montana," like the fact that black bears come in different colors, what a shore station is, and how to use a chainsaw.

Enough with the bears . . .

Enough with the bears this year. Yesterday afternoon a small cinnamon bear came out of the trees and ambled along the edge of our driveway, then ran off toward where we store our boat. Which we were just going to finish getting ready for the season.

Me: You go finish getting the boat ready.

Dean: No, you go. You were doing a fine job this morning.

Me: No reason I should have all the fun. You go ahead.

We both went. One to clean and one to stand bearwatch.

Last night I was on the deck reading after Dean went to bed. Woody started growling, then barking, then ran to the edge of the deck. Another one. Bigger cinnamon bear in the clearing behind the house. Woody gave him his fiercest “red alert” bark, I added a little yelling and he ran off into the woods. Or she? Maybe the mama of the smaller one we saw earlier? Okay, it’s Montana. We have bears. But this is getting ridiculous. Might have go to all Fish & Wildlife on their ursine asses.

This Halloween, "Return to Oz"

Forget “Psycho.” Never mind “The Exorcist.” This Halloween, skip “Halloween.” Instead, cue up a little horror called “Return to Oz.”

Yes, Oz, as in “Wizard of.” Yes, Oz, the adorable and beloved children’s book that became an adorable and beloved movie. Which someone apparently watched on acid, and then wrote this.

As our story opens, it’s six months after the tornado. Dorothy apparently went back in time when she returned to Kansas, because it’s now 1899, she’s dressed like Laura Ingalls, and she lives in the Little not-yet-completely-rebuilt-after-the-tornado House on the Prairie. She’s also plagued with insomnia, so Aunt Em does the logical thing and drops her off at a spooky house where a doctor plans to cure her with electro-shock therapy.

So there’s cute little Dorothy in her cute little Half-Pint pioneer girl dress, strapped to a gurney and about to get her brain zapped, when a thunderstorm causes a power outage. Another little girl helps Dorothy escape, and together they fall into a raging river and are swept away. Dorothy wakes up in the “deadly desert” with a talking chicken. She realizes she must be in Oz, because animals talk there, so she picks up the chicken and steps carefully on some well-placed rocks to cross the deadly desert into Oz proper. Then it gets weird.

The recession has apparently hit Oz, because the place is run-down, there are no munchkins in sight, and the yellow brick road is in bad need of some stimulus funds. Dorothy and the chatty chicken nevertheless head up the shovel-ready yellow brick road, and along the way they realize that most of the inhabitants of Oz have been turned to stone, including her old pals, the lion and the tin man. The place is also over-run with “wheelers” – evil clowns (and aren’t they all, really?) with wheels for hands and feet. She needs some sidekicks, so she picks up a copper wind-up robot who looks like Wilford Brimley. Then it gets weird.

Her search for her old scarecrow buddy leads her to a princess with a gallery of interchangeable heads. Sounds handy – one of them is bound to be having a good hair day, right? But in practice it might not be so practical. At one point it’s suggested that she only has the memories of whatever head she happens to be wearing. I mean, you’d NEVER find your car keys.

Anyhoo, the princess takes it into her head – her current one, anyway – to lock Dorothy up so that when she grows to a suitable size, her noggin can be added to the collection. In lock-up, Dorothy gets another sidekick in the form of a stick man with a carved pumpkin for a head. Dorothy escapes, goes to the princess’ hall of heads and steals the magic powder that brings inanimate objects to life. With the help of robot Wilford and Pumpkinhead, she takes down a stuffed moose head, attaches it to a sofa, adds big palm fronds to the sides, sprinkles the whole thing to life and makes it fly. Dorothy, robot Wilford, chatty chicken and Pumpkinhead all escape in the flying moose-sofa. Then it gets weird.

They fly to the mountain of the Gnome King, who has imprisoned the scarecrow. He’s ticked off because he considers all the gemstones in all the world to be his rightful property. I mean, who does the think he is, the CEO of de Beers? Occupy Gnome Mountain! Mr. “I get all the sparkly rocks” Gnome King was ticked off about all the emeralds in the Emerald City, so he locked up the scarecrow. Plus he has those ruby slippers, too. He’s wearing them, which looks kind of drag-queeny on a king who’s essentially a pile of rocks with a face.

Dorothy & company may be able to free the scarecrow if they can guess which one of the items in the king’s trinket collection he’s been turned into. If they guess wrong, they get turned into ornaments too. One by one they head into the king’s big room of tchotchkes, never to return. Dorothy goes in last, correctly guesses that the big fat green emerald would be, you know, the king of the Emerald City, and poof, it turns into the scarecrow. They figure out the other green ornaments must be their pals, so they turn them back into robot Wilford, moose-sofa and Pumpkinhead. Then it gets weird.

The evil princess shows up in a chariot pulled by the wheeled evil clowns, blathering about “Ozma.” The Gnome King puts her in a cage, then realizes Dorothy has guessed correctly and freed the scarecrow and her pals. He doesn’t care for this turn of events, so he tries to eat Pumpkinhead. But hiding in that hollowed-out jack-o-lantern is the chatty chicken, who’s so distressed by this turn of events she lays an egg, which falls into the mouth of the Gnome King. In the single most unbelievable plot development – yes, more unbelievable than the flying moose-sofa – eggs turn out to be poison to gnomes, and the big rocky king dies. Or melts. Or smelts. Or something. Dorothy grabs the ruby slippers, no doubt thinking “Hey, I’m always grabbing these things off some dead evil creature,” and they skedaddle.

The ruby slippers have the amazing power to transport them all to the Emerald City and tie up all the loose plot points. The Oz inhabitants who were turned to stone are suddenly whatever they were before – people, lions, tin men, whatever. The evil princess is there, too, still in her cage. “Ozma” turns out to be Dorothy’s little pal from the psych ward, who was the queen of Oz before the wizard showed up. The evil princess had imprisoned her in a mirror and Dorothy pulls her out. She gives Ozma the ruby slippers and asks to be sent back to Kansas, because damn, she’s had all the “WTF?” one person can take.

Dorothy goes back to the Little now-more-finished House on the Prairie and is reunited with Aunt Em, Uncle Henry and Toto too. She can still chat with Ozma in her mirror. Just in case that ending should strike you as a little too normal for this fevered acid-dream of a movie, Ozma is holding the talking chicken, who’s helping her rule Oz. Or laying eggs to poison gnomes. Or something. The End.

Did I mention this is a Disney Movie?

The price of fame

Dean’s been working in radio in this market for eleven years. Most people don’t know him by sight unless they’ve been to a live remote or some event he’s emceed, but he often gets recognized around here by his voice. “Hey, you’re the guy on the radio.”

So this morning shortly after Dean got to work, the part-timer on the overnight shift went outside to empty a garbage can in the dumpster in the parking lot. He came back in and looked at Dean with awe. “You’re the guy with the Z!”

Dean had driven his 1979 Datsun 280Z to work. “Wow, my friends and I talk about that really nice maroon Z we see around town. We were wondering who owns it. Cool car – wait ‘til I tell them I know the guy who owns the Z!”

So now we know the price of fame. No, it’s not working your ass off in radio for years. It’s $3,000 – that’s what Dean paid for the Z in 2005. 

Summer People

The other day I ducked into the local discount store for a quick errand. I only needed one thing I could get from their outdoor garden center which has its own checkout. Just take a minute. I grabbed a bottle of rose aphid spray (wet spring, the damn things love that) and went to the checkout. Only a couple of women ahead of me – great. Then I noticed . . .

1. Neither one had a cart or was holding anything to ring up.

2. Each held a sale flier. One had what appeared to be a shopping list.

3. Both were dressed casually but expensively in designer summer chic.

Oh crap. Summer people.

And yes, we know at a glance you’re summer people. It’s not just the head-to-toe designer labels, from the Chanel sunglasses to the Prada sandals. It’s not just the flashy second-wife jewelry or the fact that you drove up to the local Wal-Mart in a Jaguar convertible. It’s the way you look at us, the little people who live here year-round. As if you’re mentally storing up amusing anecdotes about the “colorful locals” for the next time Martha invites you to the Hamptons.

I first ran into summer people at the grocery store the first year we lived here. This customer, at a small store that serves a blue-collar town of about 4,000 people, was incredulous that the butcher counter didn’t stock Kobe beef. “Look, just get me some. I don’t care what it costs. Hundred bucks a pound is fine. Just go get me some Kobe beef.” The kid working the butcher counter just shrugged in helpless resignation.

At the bakery, another summer person was aghast.

“You mean you don’t make your own homemade ice cream cones here?”

Clerk: “No ma’am.”

“That’s ridiculous. My kids HAVE to HAVE homemade ice cream cones.”

Clerk: “I’m sorry ma’am.”

“Well, where can I get them?”

Clerk: “There’s a bakery on Main Street. They might have them there.”

“Well, CALL THEM and find out!”

Clerk: “I can’t. I don’t have a phone or a phone book.”

“There’s one on the wall right behind you!”

Clerk: “That’s just a store intercom.”

“Well, FIND a PHONE, find a PHONEBOOK, and FIND OUT where I can get HOMEMADE ice cream cones!”

I resisted the temptation to tell her to go home, Google up a recipe and make some herself, since that would surely be the proper definition of homemade anyway.

So fast forward a few years. By now I know what to expect, and I know my quick errand won’t be quick. I’m in line behind summer people.

The clerk at the garden center looks a bit confused, as the summer person isn’t holding anything to ring up. “May I help you?”

Summer person, holding out sale flier: “I want one of these, two of these, four of those, one of these, two of these, but only if you have them in red instead of blue,” as she jabs the flier with her French-manicured fingertip.

The sales clerk, who is all alone in the garden center, looks helplessly at the lengthening line waiting to check out. “Ma’am, if you bring those things up here, I’ll be glad to check you out.”

The summer person merely holds out the sale flier again. “One of these, two of these, four of those, one of these, two of these in red not blue,” then walks off a couple of steps and whips out her cell phone. As she’s calling, she tosses back to the clerk, “Oh, and some ice too, of course.”

Summer person turns to her cell phone conversation, leaving the clerk nonplussed. She looks at the line waiting to check out, back at the summer person now deep in conversation but obviously expecting her order to be delivered. She reaches for her store intercom, but just then a manager walks by. “Aaron, thank goodness! Can you get these?” She hands over the sale flier and repeats the summer person’s order, down to “red, not blue.” Whew. Crisis solved.

So the next summer person is at the till. She hands over both a sale flier AND a shopping list. “One of these, three of those, I want this if you have it in green, four of these, plus this list . . ” I put the aphid spray back. I can get it at Ace Hardware. Summer people don’t shop at hardware stores.

I asked Dean to get some rose aphid spray at the hardware store the next day. He came back with it, but said, “Damn, that took forever. Only two people ahead of me, but damn.”

Me: “Summer people?”

Dean: “Yup.”

Me: “Sale flier, one of these, two of those, yadda yadda yadda?”

Dean: “Yup.”

I guess summer people do shop at hardware stores.