Happy Halloqueen

Have you ever been to a corn maze?  Apparently, they’re pretty popular around here.  With an adventure to try it at least once, my boyfriend and I arrived 45 minutes before sunset (before the maze became “haunted”) to beat the crowd.

After buying our tickets, we passed the time until sunset watching a group of kids shooting corn from an air cannon.  A gaggle of teenagers half dressed in their costumes smoking and talking before they had to take their places to scare people at sunset. We sat together on a bale of hay at the entrance, we passed our time talking about people and tolerating the top 40 music blaring from the speakers.  Rednecks love Brittany Spears. 

The faint of heart meandered the maze during the daylight, before the “haunting.”  Mostly older couples or young children, but one small group caught my attention. They were two older women and a girl of about 12 making their way to the entrance of the maze. The little girl had a band-aid strapped on her forehead, and she clearly had Down Syndrome. As they approached the entrance of the maze, the little girl’s resistance to enter grew. Eventually, the unfortunate child was writhing in their grip.  The older, grey-haired woman literally grabbed the little girl from behind as if she were giving her the Heimlich maneuver. The girl threw her hands over her head and judging from the terrified look on her face appeared to be ready to scream and fight.  I didn’t know if I should be mad at the older woman for forcing the child into the maze or not. For all I knew, maybe the little girl was just scared of corn.  Who was I to judge?

The maze was interesting.  Nothing really to tell except people followed you around in costume and occasion someone would sneak up behind you with an air horn.  But the best part was that I accidentally smacked a kid in the face. I swear I didn’t mean to.

What happened was, I heard something behind me so I turned. Unfortunately, some kid’s face just happened to be in my hand’s line of fire. I swear I didn’t know what happened until I heard this prepubescent cry and saw the twerp double over, clutching his left eye.  For the briefest moment, I worried my victim was the down syndrome girl.  I felt bad until I realized he wasn’t accompanied by a guardian, then I didn’t care. Parents tend to be protective no matter how ignorant their spawn. Protective and litigious.

“My bad,” I muttered as the runt collected himself from the dirt ground. He wasn’t bleeding so I continued on.

I realized that my boyfriend seemed disappointed with my indifference so I forced myself to feign sympathy.

“I’m sorry. I do feel bad. I hope he’s ok.” I said.

“Oh please, you know you enjoyed yourself. You’re probably reliving it in your head,” he teased.

He knows me well.

I didn’t realize how claustrophobic that damn maze made me feel until after we made our way to the exit.  I was relieved to know that I wouldn’t be startled by another fucking air horn.  On our way back to the car, my boyfriend clarified that he was only kidding about making me feel bad for hurting the runt by saying, “You know how I was teasing you for hurting that kid? I didn’t mean it.”

“That ok,” I replied. “You know how I apologized for not caring? I didn’t mean it.”

Mom

I spent my day off from work yesterday with Mom at a spa in my small hometown.  While I was being pedicured in the back, she sat in the lobby, close to suffocating on the minty aroma of tea tree oil from the wall of Aveda testers in front of her, pretending to read an old Women’s Day magazine while eavesdropping on the younger ladies in the salon area. 

After my spa appointment, we strolled to lunch at a nearby restaurant.  With strolling, of course, comes casual conversation (especially in a slow Southern town when the weather is perfect).

“While I was waiting for you, I overheard some fat girl getting her hair done say, ‘I met the man that saved my life.’”

“The man that saved her life,” I asked.

“Yeah.  He was apparently her bone marrow donor.”

“Oh.”

“Well,” she continued, “She said that, and I couldn’t help but think, ‘You’re fat, honey.  You’re better off dead.’  Wasn’t that just horrible of me to think?  I mean, I couldn’t help it.  It just popped in there.  What’s becoming of me in my old age?”

“In a way, I can see what you mean.  It’s not like you don’t like fat people -”

“No, it’s not that at all.  I know a lot of fat people that I like.”

” – it’s just that you were thinking that dying of some sort of bone marrow disease is a much more dignified death than, let’s say, choking on a ham sandwich.  The latter is what you assume is more likely now that she won’t die of a bone marrow related disease.”

“Exactly” she exclaims.

You may wonder why I justified her demented thought.  You have to realize that this is what I was raised with.  It’s not like her harmless insincerity was much of a surprise considering it came from a woman that, during another odd conversation, stated “You can fix ugly a lot easier than you can fix retard.”  

How can you disagree with that?

Jesus has returned, and he’s DELICIOUS!

Yesterday, a local news program reported on a woman that found Jesus on a picture of her dead brother’s kitchen cabinet (and to clarify, he didn’t commit suicide; the gun he was sleeping with went off).

Click here for the amusing article.

No matter how I squint my eyes, I just don’t see it. I was never any good at those magic eye things (you know, the ones where if you stare off into space long enough you suddenly see a dolphin). Maybe her picture requires hallucinogenics? Her Emperor’s New Clothes tactic of, “Some people said they couldn’t see it. I don’t know if it’s a spiritual level you have to be on to appreciate this picture…” almost had me, though. Nice try.
She says some of her co-workers can see it, but I like to imagine them snickering behind her back when she walks away.

“Oh yeah, Jeanna,” (stifle laughter) “I DO see it. That’s amazing.” (stifle laughter) “Excuse me. I think I hear my phone ringing.” (hysterical giggle)

This paparazzi to the holy named Jeanna is not unique, though. There are numerous others that have caught cameos made by legendary stars of Christianity on things like a grilled cheese, a potato, a fish stick, and a mound of melted chocolate (to name a few), but here are my questions:

1.) Why are most sitings on food?

2.) How come people assume these images are of religious figures?

For this question, I have posted a few examples to illustrate my point:

Take a good look at the pictures below. Now tell me what YOU see?

Personally? I see is Jim Morrison, Marilyn Monroe, and a Rorschach ink blot (if that’s Jesus, he looks PISSED). Just like the latter, aren’t these sitings just projections of our personal beliefs? The ones that say they see Jesus in their oatmeal are just as crazy as the ones that believe them.

On a totally unrelated note: This trend is just screaming for merchandising. If they can make a buck from exploiting religion, then I should be able to make a buck off of them.

May I offer:

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to burn the image of Moses into a corn dog and sell it on Ebay. Gas ain’t cheap…