by Fay Jacobs
That darn stray cat I’d let into the office for a drink of water the day before must have had fleas. I walked to the convenience store, purchased some over-the-counter flea spray, gave my office a little shot and went home.
Back at the ranch, Bonnie gleefully told the dogs not to get near me because I had fleas. She rushed to apply prophylactic flea soap to the boys and threatened to wash me with it as well.
Overnight, in Rehoboth’s own Monsters, Inc., the fleas propagated their entire species in my place of employment. By morning, when I walked in the door, literally thousands of little black spots attached themselves to me, my clothes, my desk chair, etc.
In the time it took me to call an exterminator, open my e-mail, get my phone messages and flee the flea circus, the attack on my person was akin to the first forty-five minutes of Saving Private Ryan.
If you’re wondering if I’d sat down in my desk chair, let me assure you I had. Benadryl spray was schpritzed head to toe, including, as Noel Coward once said, right up to Trafalgar Square.
I had flea bites down my shirt, up my pants, in my ears, it was disgusting. I didn’t know whether to go to the dermatologist or the vet. And I couldn’t even soothe my agony with a scoop of chocolate mint chip, which made me both intolerant and grumpy.
Fast forward, several days later. The exterminator had thousands of notches to add to his bombers’ nose cone and my bites began to disappear. Except for a peculiar-looking one in the plunging neckline of my shirt. Hmmm, now that I looked at it in the mirror, it didn’t look like a fleabite at all. This odd red blemish looked, well, more sinister.
Now here’s a sentence you don’t often hear: “It’s a good thing you had fleas.”
But that’s what my dermatologist said as she did a biopsy of my non-fleabite.
Turns out that waaay back in my 20s or 30s I’d probably gotten waaaay too much sun in a low cut bathing suit and there it was—a small skin cancer that required attention.
Gee, since the biopsy was just a little scrape, I figured the trip back to the doctor to remove the thing was no big deal. Okay, I was delusional. Turns out the dermatologist gave me a local anesthetic and hoped I wouldn’t notice that she and her team were using what appeared to be a front-end loader to make an incision on my chest. The damn thing took ten stitches to close. Who knew I was going to have a quasi-lumpectomy?
So there I was with stitches in my cleavage. If you bump your head or hurt your arm you’re allowed to favor the injury. What could I do, walk around saying the Pledge of Allegiance?
Well, this whole organ recital thing finally came full circle on our drive home from the dermatologist. I decided to write about these events since the disgusting attack of the flea circus seemed, after all, to have some higher purpose. I could warn sun worshippers to use sunscreen or at least check for things that don’t look like flea bites.
But the really odd part of this medical mystery happened as I had my hand to my chest, giving the impression I was doing a Mea Culpa. I already felt queasy from the minor surgery, so I figured that having a good old-fashioned milk shake to make myself feel better couldn’t hurt. The hell with intolerance.
Funny thing was, I was just fine. The next morning, I snuck milk in my coffee. No problem. By nightfall I had my face in a half-gallon of Cherry Garcia. My lactose intolerance must have been mere temporary indigestion. I can be a dairy queen again.
That’s a good thing. So is being careful about too much sun. Go get checked out, please.
March 2003
IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEADS
You can tell a winter night in Rehoboth. We were watching sports at our favorite bar. No, not football. We were watching the Dog Agility Trials on Animal Planet.
There we were, a bar-stool cheering section hollering, “Go, Sparky!,” “Atta Boy, Rufus!”
We had everyone rooting for the four-legged critters, even our vaunted bar tender. “Hey, this is great,” said one patron. “I was in a sports bar the other night and every TV had football or basketball. I guessed it would be dangerous to ask if they could change to House & Garden’s Trading Spaces.” Smart move. I could just imagine.
But as much as I like the dog shows, the rest of TV is a sludge pool lately. I should sue CSI for loss of consortium. That’s right, after two decades, my mate and I no longer watch the same television programs. It’s not that I don’t like mysteries and documentaries. It’s just that somebody replaced Murder She Wrote with Murder She Showed Us in Disgusting Detail.
With the highest rated shows being Crime Scene Investigation and Law and Order, guts and gore have completely engulfed television. Luckily, it’s not smellovision, but that’s gotta be next.
Used to be, when you saw a little leg on TV it was the Rockettes or the Miss America Pageant. Now you get some pathologist holding up an actual little leg. It’s disgusting.
Take CSI. I love the idea of forensic pathology. I loved it when Jack Klugman’s Quincy was on the tube, explaining how some barely detectable poison killed the guy everybody hated.
But he explained it. Now the pathologists show it to you in living, pumping color. And not just under a microscope. There’s always a big, full-screen zoom of an excavated corpse with identifiable organs. For this I need a 32-inch screen?
And if it’s realistic, that’s one thing, but CSI and some of the other shows now go in for special effects and futuristic travels through the esophagus of life. St. Elsewhere meets Star Wars.
And I love the TV Guide descriptions: “Horatio examines a torso found in the stomach of a tiger shark.” Um…what else is on?
I was watching The Learning Channel the other day and they were showing me stuff I didn’t need to learn. I mean there are lots of topics good to know, like how to escape a sinking car or survive a smoky fire, even if I’m lucky enough never to need the knowledge. But there is absolutely NO WAY I’ll ever accidentally participate in an 18-hour heart-lung transplant. Exactly who is the learning channel trying to teach? Interns are sleeping.
And with the “if it bleeds it leads” TV news mentality, we’re not spared platelets at six o’clock either. Why should I invest in a new large-screen plasma TV when all I’m able to watch is large screen plasma?
All this is just a preface to tell you that my spouse loves to watch this stuff. I try to stick it out and watch what she watches, but it always reaches a point where it gets way too disgusting and I have to leave the room. Not only am I thoroughly grossed out, but I never find out who dunnit.
Of course, sometimes these shows might be valuable. I can waltz through the TV room on the way to the kitchen for popcorn and accidentally become witness to an amputation or hysterectomy. An inadvertent glimpse of somebody’s oozing vital organ is one of very few things that can make me lose my appetite. For me, CSI can be minus 23 Weight Watcher points.
Channel surf and it doesn’t get any better. Yesterday, over on Animal Planet, I caught a big slobby sow birthing a dozen slippery, gooey piglets. “Here ya go, Louise,” says the vet, “let me see your teats. Yessir, they’re squirting pretty good. You’re due any second. Here they come!” Waaaay too much information.
Was that me squealing or the three little pigs? I huffed and I puffed and I managed to keep my lunch down. This isn’t Reality TV, it’s Fluid TV. If ESPN is all Sports all the time, and CNN is all News all the time, then the rest of the hundred channels are all mucous all the time.
I want to know how this bloody craze got started. And how to stop it. Even HBO’s Six Feet Under, as ghoulish (and as fabulous) as it is, can’t resist the temptation to give embalming lessons. I’m not squeamish about dead people. I’m squeamish about seeing the telltale signs of why they turned into dead people.
Okay, say this guts and gore craze is here to stay. Taken to a logical conclusion, the great ratings for entrail TV will inspire other perfectly lovely programs to get on the blood bath wagon.
What’s next, Food Network kitchen accidents? The implications for HGTV’s power tools are horrifi
c. Network executives could insist that Katie and Matt undergo on-air root canals. Would Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters be so eager to sign million dollar contracts if live electrolysis were part of their must-see TV deals?
Hey now. How about real bullets on those political cross fires? There have been days I’ve wanted to start shooting myself. The possibilities are endlessly disturbing.
Even Sponge Bob Square Pants is liable to drown and we’ll get to see his little cartoon self, tossing his cookies after CPR.
So I’m thinking of a class action suit to try to bring some class back to the action. TV needs a transfusion. I’m going to sue the networks for loss of consortium not to mention their loss of blood. Just like that old Faye Dunaway movie Network, I want to scream at the TV, I’m mad as hell and I don’t want to watch it anymore!!!!!
It’s like my favorite line from the old Broadway comedy Butterflies Are Free. After coming back from a contemporary play, a mother tells her son she’s disturbed by the violent content.
“But Mom,” says the son, “those things are all part of life.”
“Yes,” she says, “so is diarrhea, but I don’t classify it as entertainment.”
Amen.
March 2003
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
By now, those of you who pass my house regularly on the evacuation route out of town may have noticed we added a garage. The construction wasn’t without its adventures, but the final result is great. Especially for the blizzard of ’03.
But while having a garage to house two cars plus an assortment of tools, holiday ornaments and schmutz has its good points, there’s been at least one drawback.
My friends keep accosting me with the rant, “You are NEVER home! Where have you been? We keep driving by and there’s NEVER anybody there!”
Okay, pals, think about it. We are not skiing in Aspen; not out every night slurping Cosmos; and certainly not wintering in the tropics. We simply parked the chariots in the garage. Duh. I can’t tell you how many otherwise intelligent people didn’t connect those dots.
That being said, we did sneak off to Florida for a week in February and had a grand time visiting friends and family. Amid lots of fun came a story that’s too good to keep to myself.
My friend Ronni and I have known each other since the days when anti-war activists took to the streets and…hmmm. Okay, that time 30 years ago.
Unlike me, Ronni has a passion for exercise. Having been an enthusiastic but not particularly fast marathon runner, she always joked that her autobiography should be called I Finished Ahead of the Clean-up Truck.
Now that we’re older, and new generations of students are out running and protesting, Ronni has traded marathons for brisk dog walking. Last month when we visited her in Ft. Lauderdale, she set out early one morning to take her Jack Russell Terrier Rufus for a morning jog.
After quite a long time, she and Rufus returned, the both of them looking a little stunned. “What happened?” I asked.
“Well, we were coming back from our walk, when I saw this guy on the beach and he started running toward us. I couldn’t figure out what he was doing, and next thing I knew he came up to us, ripped my fanny pack right off me and jumped into a waiting car.”
She was giving me this horrid news, but seemed oddly bemused. Shock, I thought.
“Oh my god!” I said. “You could have been hurt, and he stole your purse, omigod!!!”
“Think about it, Fay,” said Ronni, “we were coming back from our walk. I’m a responsible citizen, what do you think was in the fanny pack?”
“He stole a bag of dog poop?”
She started to laugh. “Exactly. There was a ziploc bag full of it,” Ronni says. Now I’m laughing like a lunatic.
“Wait, there’s more. I was standing there, wondering what to do, when this car comes up and a man leans out the window saying ‘Lady, you just had your purse stolen, right? Well, I saw the guy get into the car and I chased him.’”
“I think ‘oh, no,’” says Ronni.
“But he got away,” says the stranger.
“I think ‘oh, good,’“ says Ronni.
The stranger says “But don’t worry, I called the police and reported it.”
Ronni tells me she thanked the guy and sent him on his way. From there, Ronni and Rufus walked back to their condo. Rounding the corner, Ronni sees a whole squad of police cars converged up the street and figures something awful has happened.
“Excuse me,” she says to a female officer, “I don’t want to bother you, but I wanted to report that my fanny pack was just stolen.”
With a look of relief and then glee, the officer shouts to her colleagues, “We got the victim!!!”
“We’re really glad we found you,” the officer explains, “because we caught the guy and recovered your purse. Now can you identify the contents of the purse?”
“Um, er…three keys….” says Ronni.
“Yup, the keys were there. Anything else?”
Ronni tries to gauge whether the officer is putting her on. No, she seems serious.
“Well, there was a plastic bag with…” Ronni looks down at Rufus and up at the officer. “Dog poop.”
The officer starts to laugh, barely being able to spit out “No, we didn’t recover any dog poop.” Both victim and cop picture the hapless thief inspecting his booty and dumping the offending package in disgust.
“And I thought I was having a bad day,” the officer says, looking at the police car where the poop snatcher sat, sullen and handcuffed.
“You are going to press charges, aren’t you?” she asks Ronni, “since we went to a lot of trouble to catch him and besides, this was a serious crime, you could have been hurt.”
The upshot was that Ronni had to go over and I.D. the guy and fill out a report telling the whole truth and nothing but.
A couple of days later, Ronnie found out that the hapless poop perp had already been arrested once for a drug offense. He was about to be put under house arrest for the doody heist and with the state having a three strikes law, it was only a matter of time before he broke out to score again.
The judge figures he’ll wind up doing fifteen to life for stealing a bag of shit. Les Miserables, indeed. Jean Valjean may have been arrested for stealing a loaf of bread, but nobody’s writing an opera for this doofus. Can’t you just picture him in the yard at the big house with his fellow inmates asking him what he’s in for?
And we thought we were tough on this sort of thing on the Rehoboth Boardwalk.
In Florida, if you doodo the crime, you doodo the time.
April 2003
E-MALE
I happen to know, really well, two women who left their husbands to run off with their high school sweeties. Let’s hear it for Classmates.com.
Apparently, the Internet really is a great way to reach out and eventually get to touch someone.
I was incredulous the first time I heard a story like that, taken aback by the second one, and now I’m just sitting around wondering who’ll be next. That both of my friends who linked up (no pun intended) with their former beaus were straight probably gave me a false sense of vicariousness to this phenomenon.
Then one day I was leafing through Damron’s, that wonderful gay travel guide, looking for New York accommodations, when I came across a B&B in the Chelsea section of the city. It had a website and I surfed over to it.
What follows is the e-mail exchange in its entirety. Only some names have been changed to protect the clueless.
Hello—I was browsing Damron looking for NYC accommodations when I came across (name of inn). I checked out your web site and got a surprise because I recognized the innkeeper’s name (he who shall remain nameless).
Are you the (first name) who was my senior prom date in 1965? Rhodes School, Waldorf Astoria and then a post prom ride to Bear Mountain state park????
If so, we should have known we were both gay. Nobody else hates camping and likes Broadway THAT much.
I live in
Rehoboth Beach (Gayberry RFD) with my partner of 21 years (Bonnie) and will definitely have to check out (name of inn) when we head for New York! If you have Damron’s Women, our photos are in the CAMP Rehoboth ad under Rehoboth Beach. We’re the two with dark hair on the right, front.
Cheers—Fay (Rubenstein) Jacobs
Dear Fay—Okay, I’m stunned (and my office staff is driving me crazy, insisting that you became a lesbian after you dated me!) and here’s what I remember:
We were introduced by our mutual friend (name omitted to protect the yente), while you were both attending the Rhodes school (your family had class, she was just pretentious), and your other best friend was Mary Ellen (who starred in Sound of Music on Broadway) and you starred in Outward Bound in high school (you were pretty good, but what a bad play!), and we used to make out furiously in your parents’ living room while they were out (Robert Goulet and Carol Lawrence lived in your W. 54th St. building, and so did the drunken Elaine Stritch, talk about your lesbian) and I hoped you’d never want to go further (which you didn’t for a while), and we went to the Top of the Sixes for your prom, and you had a Corvette which you were still too young to drive, and our trip to Bear Mountain, and your visit to my home in Brooklyn (and making out in my parents’ bed, which really freaked me out), and my telling you that we could never marry because my mother had the same name (!!!), and your going away to be drama counselor at summer camp and coming back and wanting to have more serious sex (God help me), which probably was the final wedge in our relationship. I still have photos of us dressed for your prom tucked away in my memory box (pretty scary).
How’s that for recall????
