What You Hear Is What You Get

Last week, I spent some time with SweaterGal and FlatulenceKing (my parents). It's always a blast from the past to head to Hoosier Land and try to carry on a conversation over the cranked-up-so-Dad-doesn't-have-to-wear-his-hearing-aids soundtrack of RFD-TV:

"Hey, Dad," says I, "don't you kinda think Marty Stuart's hair makes him look more like an 80's rocker wannabe than a country legend?"

"Huh?" grunts FlatulenceKing.

"Marty Stuart's hair...that's pretty wild stuff!"

FK's face screws itself into a question mark as he replies, "Oh, I doubt he even uses snuff, no matter how mild it is. But I'll tell you one thing...he needs a haircut."

I laugh out loud. 

"What...you don't think he needs a haircut?"

"Yes, I do," I snicker in reply.

"No I don't...I just cut mine last week."

Now I'm confused: "What?"

"You said I need a haircut, too, and I said I don't because I just got one last week. You wanna borrow my ears?"

"No, that's okay."

"They're right there on the table."

"I said, 'No'."

"So what?"

"Not so...I said, 'No'!"

"Go where?"

With a resigned sigh, I answer, "Branson...are you going to go to Branson?"

This State Is Not My Home

I don't know if it's like this in every part of every country, but around here, if you're not from around here, no matter how long you've lived around here, you are never truly from around here.

The fact that I don't really fit in Minnesota, nor will I ever, was made abundantly clear to me last night at a concert by Norah Jones. Ms Jones cranked it up with a slightly honky-tonk rendition of an old Johnny Cash tune, Cry, Cry, Cry. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP4G2QVX_wQ) It's a song just made for the audience to shout along in the chorus. (Cry! Cry! Cry!)

Well...that was never gonna happen in the comfy confines of The O'Shaughnessy theatre.

What's more, my hands were begging to clap along with the song, but my brain wouldn't allow them the pleasure, knowing that they would be alone in the crowd of politely-listening Scandehoovians.

I leaned close to Beloved and whispered, "Minnesotans just don't clap."

She replied, "That's because they don't know how."

And I immediately knew she was right (an occurrence with which I am intimately familiar). If they had attempted to clap, they'd be doing it on 1 and 3 instead of 2 and 4.

...And it occurs to me even now that many of you need me to explain what that last sentence even means.

Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

Limited Random Access Memory

I've never claimed to be an intellectual superstar, but I've always thought people in general had a general sense that I was generally more intelligent than I know that I really am...generally speaking.

Apparently, I haven't been fooling anyone. Last night, after our mid-week Prayer Pathways thang at church, a TV theme song from who knows how many eons ago popped into my head...and directly jumped into the atmosphere through my mouth. (Translation: I sang it out loud.)

It was at that moment that I learned the True Truth about the discrepancy between my perception of people's perception of me and their actual perception.

PrayerPal looked me in the eye and said, "I wonder what kind of important information you can't remember because you're taking up space with stuff like that."

To paraphrase Calvin & Hobbes: It's not that I'm stupid, I just have a mastery of totally useless information.