Ahno, The Fat Trafficker

I want to be a fat trafficker. After reading a grisly story in the news, I had a great idea. It’s going to make me rich.

It seems a gang of criminals in Peru have been killing people in order to harvest their fat. This is rendered into liquid. Then it’s sold in Europe for about $600.00/pound. Apparently in Europe there are people so wrinkle phobic that they’ll  use any anti-wrinkle preparation no matter how ridiculous.

The section of this story that will change under my management is the part about killing people. Unnecessary. Think liposuction.

This could benefit the 73% of Americans who are obese. Think of all those undisciplined persons who get liposuction and then re-fat themselves by diving right back into their old habits. Under my scheme, they could just have another round of liposuction and then sell their lard.

Before long I can see myself managing a whole list of these individuals…making me a kind of farmer. Except instead of cows yielding milk, I’d have fat people yielding their blubber. Time after time. It would give them an excuse to keep on eating. If fat was money, who wouldn’t? A whole new industry.

“Where do you work, Bubba?”

“Oh, I’m an accountant, but I’m also an associate with Ahno’s Fat Farm.”

“What kind of work is that?”

“I eat very rich meals and I snack all day on high calorie goodies. Then every two years, I undergo liposuction and get paid.”

“How much money do you make?”

“That depends on how much fat I produce. After they harvest my fat, they liquefy it and weigh it. First they cover the cost of liposuction, which is about $10,000. I mean, essentially, the doctor gets my first seventeen pounds. They liquefy my harvested fat, weigh it, and I get half of what’s left. So I’m highly motivated to eat. The fatter the better. Last time I produced almost a hundred pounds of fat so it was a nice piece of change. $24,600. I bought a new car.”

“Where do I sign up?”

Free liposuction. Permission to eat like a pig. Extra cash. It’s beautiful.

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An Iraqi Credit Union?

Yesterday A.M. I stopped at Farm Fresh, buzzed around for a few quick supplies, pulled up to the check out where I had a brief wait.

Ahead of me was a large man with a large order of groceries. The girl rang him up and asked for the necessary amount. Mr. Customer ran his card and was told by the girl that he only had a six dollar balance in that account.

“WHAT???” he gasped. “That’s not true. My balance is six-hundred. There must be a mistake.”

The girl assured him that he was without funds. Grumbling, he hauled out a wad of cash and paid, saying, “I have my money in an Iraqi Credit Union. They make a lot of mistakes.”

This last was addressed to me. I replied, “Why an Iraqi Credit Union? That makes as much sense as buying your clothes from a Martian Costume Company.”

Looking offended, he HMMPHED and pushed his cart away. The girl and I agreed that neither of us had ever before met someone who kept his money in an Iraqi Credit Union.

Driving home I pondered possibilities. Could he be a terrorist? Is he one of those who worked a long time in Iraq under contract with our military? Either way, why keep his money in an out-of-control, at-war country on the other side of the world where, “They make a lot of mistakes?”

Yes, American banks have made disastrous mistakes of late, but there's the FDIC to protect cuxtomer accounts.

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Old School Spoken Here

I‘m Old School. In my opinion, men should do men’s stuff and women ought to take care of women’s stuff. True…there are people who never marry, or who marry and decide not to have kids. Their path is necessarily different. Also, it’s important for everyone’s quality of life that both men and women become fully educated, undertake careers, learn to take care of themselves before starting a family. That said, here’s my no-doubt-almost-extinct- dinosaur view of a normal and civil society.

1) Men should handle car-related chores. Oil change? The guy who’s wearing the pants needs to either do this or take the car in for service.

Yard work? That, also, is a man’s share of the load. Home maintenance, too. Painting, fixing. A man doesn’t have to do the work himself, but if he isn’t going to put on old clothes and get busy, he needs to hire someone.

What else should a man do? He should carry in the groceries after his wife returns from the store. Also, it’s his responsibility to keep the garage clean and free from clutter.

Very important…a man owes it to his wife to make her feel loved, appreciated, honored, valuable.

Also important… it’s a man’s job to earn enough money that his wife can stay home and take care of all the ways a family feels clean, fed, loved, and comfortable.

In my opinion, a man who does less than these responsibilities is useless. Any girl marrying such a person is headed for a life of frustration.

2) How about women? They should keep the house clean, organized, and clutter-free. They ought to do laundry, change beds and bathroom towels. A woman needs to be a good cook, able to prepare a delicious meal with no fuss. Also, Mom should handle post-meal clean-up. Women need to manage the budget and cope with family-related shopping...clothes, food, household products and supplies.

Women need skills…should be able to sew, fix rips and tears. A woman ought to be able to knit, crochet, arrange flowers, feng shui the home, get stains out, etc…whatever is required in order to keep the family feeling cozy and fussed-over. Mom doesn't have to do these jobs herself, but if not, it's her business to hire people and see that the work gets done.

Very important…a woman owes it to her husband to build his identity as a good person, essential, loved, honored, appreciated.

Also important… a woman should see to it that her children grow up nice but are happy little people, too. She’s responsible to keep open lines of communication with the school, to help with homework. Mom should drive the kids to their various after-school activities, attend games, cheer, take Gator-aid and brownies for the team.

In my opinion, a woman unprepared to fulfill these duties is useless. A young man who marries such a person is in for a life of frustration.

3) If economic hardship forces both partners to work outside the home, both need to agree on how to fairly share practical responsibilities. 

4) The single parent, instead of being the norm, should be as rare as chicken teeth. One person making the money and also raising the kids...that's too stressful and shouldn't happen. Hard on the parent and tough on the kids.

5) Which brings me to the news. That young female soldier in Oakland, California, forced to deploy although she has no one to care for her baby. What in the world is the matter with us as a society that we tolerate this craziness? The idea of women going to war. Oy. Vey. Ugly. And wrong. Why? Because women make babies. I take it a step further and believe that women have no place in the military at all.

America needs to tell that girl, “The minute you got pregnant, you lost the right to be a soldier. For the next eighteen years, stay home and take care of your child.”

In a world where Mother doesn’t want to be Mother….where Dad doesn’t want to be Dad…it’s no surprise that we have kiddie crime, school drop-outs, and a huge population of troubled children, growing up uncertain of their place on the Great Mandela.

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Old Reliable

I see my car as part of the family. That’s an American thing. Walk-bike-take-the-bus mentality is European. And Asian. And third world. We Americans climb into the family jalopy and ride.

Americans talk to their cars, “Easy, big fella,” we caution a too motivated Mustang. “Hey, watch it,” the driver yells at an auto so in need of wheel alignment that it yearns for the curb.

My aunties named every gigantic DeSoto, “Patty.” They fed her only the best, treated her to completely un-necessary service in the over-priced dealer’s garage. Cried when each Patty eventually went byebye.

Watching car commercials lately, I react as though the sound track were trying to foist family-skeleton-type relatives on me.

Example…the new Chevy Malibu…wonderful mileage, OnStar, crash test ratings. I think, “Hm…this is as if somebody wanted to convince me to re-hire Cousin Bud, the one who’s been to rehab so often he leaves a toothbrush there.”

Cousin Bud, a Plymouth I owned for a while. That useless pile of trash let me down so thoroughly, so often. It had a nasty habit of dying in mid-left turn with traffic coming on. Cousin Bud forever finished my career as owner of an American-made car.

But now Bud’s back? All well and in his right mind? Maybe. I doubt it.

Out in the driveway sits my third Honda Accord, Old Reliable. Each Honda gets driven a hundred thousand miles at which point, I find it a forever home.

The last one went to a woman who’d ruined her life with substance abuse, prostitution, fraud, theft. She lived on entitlements, raised a welfare family of do-nothing children with a penchant for petty crime.

Then she turned herself around. Got a job. Kicked out whichever bad-guy boyfriends and children disdained her new direction. Went back to school and earned a late-life GED. Took on a second job. Saved her money. Went to confession and returned to the church. Kept her house clean. Volunteered to help two nearby and nearly helpless senior citizens by cleaning their houses.

She was a success story until the day her car died. Unable to get credit due to her bad history, she tried all sorts of strategies…like she exchanged rides for cooked meals and house cleaning. Finally, even this fell through and she faced losing both jobs, couldn’t get herself to work.

Just about then, Old Reliable Number Two reached its hundred thousand mile mark. I was ready for a new car. However, Old Reliable, with an owner who’d not go more than ten miles/day could live almost forever. So I gave OR2 to the out-of-luck lady who cried hysterically, couldn’t believe it, “But this is a GOOD CAR.” Very true. OR2 is still, six years later, taking her everywhere she needs to go. And she’s treating the old boy like a loved family member.

Am I tempted by these ads for the newest generation of GM cars? Nope. To me all American cars are some incarnation of Cousin Bud, good looking but likely to get me killed through failure to act right.

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Tell-All Book

I live in a neighborhood littered with literati. Authors here, authors there. One such person, Rose Thornton, told me about her latest,   Ugly Woman’s Guide To Internet Dating.

I’ve now read this paperback and as a public service, I’m here to say, it’s funny…and sad, grim, embarrassing, crazy, depressing, goofy. She had more than seventy first dates, so go figure.

The lady kept detailed records over a period of years dating from Marriage A until Marriage B. In this book she tells all, and she does it with the authenticity of a friend on the phone, “Hey, guess what?” I couldn’t put it down, had to learn what awful thing happened next.

A couple of things struck me…

1) A woman who quietly perseveres, Rose is nobody to mess with. Having set a goal, she went forward regardless. I’ve met her and her manner and appearance belie her character. She looks like a meek soul who wouldn’t swat a fly. Ha!

2) Husband A gets what’s coming to him in this volume. The book just came out and when his friends and family read it, he’ll be in deep doo for the rest of his life. By the time I reached chapter six, I wanted to tell the man what I thought of him. Without resorting to invective, the author places her first husband firmly among the heels and cads. Early in the story, readers find themselves on her side, rooting for her to meet someone better.

I mean, for example, he has a midlife crisis and as a result, he keeps the big house and the money?  She’s got to live in the basement of her former home until, on her own, she can scrape up enough dough to finance an apartment. How fair was that? He just tromped her into the ground. IN THE BASEMENT??? He's lucky I'm not his ex. 

It’s a book intended as entertainment, easy to read, light, funny. But if I ever meet her first husband, I’ll have a few things to say.

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Profiling My Neighbors

Pleasant Sunday-Monday weather took me back out to the porch…no mosquitoes, sunshine, comfy rocking chairs. From this point of vantage I watched the parade, ten types of pedestrians.

1) Moving briskly, there go people with post office chores, a letter in one hand or a small package. On a mission. Up and back. Done.

2) Then here come the work-day-but-I-ain’-got-nothing-to-do types, headed to 7-11 for a sack of forties. Young men in groups of two or three. Young…as in their twenties or more., certainly old enough to know and to do better. Dressed with falling-off pants, black hoodies, and over-sized knit hats. Theirs is a slow, foot-shuffling gait. As they walk, they inventory porches and curbside autos. They speak to one another very loudly as though yelling at deaf old Uncle Bubba. They laugh inanely at nothing, long, braying laughter.

3) School kids arrive in groups. Extremely loud. Pushing and shoving. Mock combat. Curse words. They, too, behave as if their listeners were nearly deaf. I can hear them coming even if I’m indoors, upstairs in the back bedroom.

4) Dog walkers move fast or slow depending on the dog. Several big-dog walkers run. One pit bull owner toils along dragging an animal unwilling to take direction. Small dog owners mosey by.

5) ODU students with a heavily-weighted back pack. They clomp at a steady pace, listening to their IPods.

6) Exercise walkers and runners get it over with as fast as possible. Huff puff chug chug.

7) An occasional grocery shopper struggles past, weighed down with bags.

8) Once in a while I see a poor soul headed for that Laundromat by Bottom Dollar, sweating under a black plastic bag of dirty clothes and a jug of detergent.

9) Homeless people, each with a conveyance for their possessions…maybe an Army duffel, or a shopping cart.

10) Young mothers, pushing a stroller, look avidly left and right as if hoping to remember a world outside the walls of their home. Police seeking information would be lucky to question one of these. Out for air, they pay attention, notice detail.

This neighborhood wears out the sidewalk. There’s plenty to see, sitting on the porch, profiling my neighbors.

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Water

Whew! Wasn’t that a sharp stick in the eye? I mean the storm. At Casa Ahno…

1) Damage. New recently, my roof developed leaks. The sound of drops plinking into metal pans punctuated this experience. At one point a section of kitchen ceiling gave way with a crash and water poured over the floor. Yes, I have the name and number of a good roof repair person. Novermber nor’easter was an expensive visitor.

2) More damage. Two little Chihuahuas absolutely re-used to go out into that driving rain. Result? I called Stanley Steamer for a soon appointment. On day one, I literally dragged those tiny, trembling mutts off the porch into wind and water. They both turned backwards, pulled hard for the porch as I pulled the other way and at last gave up, drenched.

3) Bottom Dollar… I was surprised to find a parking lot full of cars, a store crowded with shoppers, and a skeleton crew of employees to handle the rush.

Coming out of the store, I followed one of our always-there homeless people… the skinny, red-haired woman who lives up and down Colley. In a sideways wall of rain, she became enraged, threw back her head and faced the sky. She screamed, her fists shaking, “Why? Why all this rain. Rain! Rain! Rain! I hate you!!” On and on she ranted and raved as she walked slowly away, soaked to the skin, not even a coat to keep her dry.

4) It seemed to me that every few minutes I heard another siren, day and night, sirens sounding in every direction.

5) Friday evening’s high tide made it to a corner at the back of my house. Poor sump pump is exhausted. My neighbor’s whole back yard disappeared for a couple of days. Her basement flooded to the ceiling, took out her furnace. Costly trouble for a retired single senior citizen. Way too much water.

6) Bad news. Soup kitchen this week didn’t happen. Christ and St. Luke’s stood in the middle of the Stockley Gardens “inlet.” Good news. Last week’s new helper called, “Are we feeding people today?” prepared to return and help.

7) Dan/Lydia/kids from hard-hit Ghent, into their second day of no power, came to my house for a place to be warm, eat a hot meal, soak in a hot bathtub. Whatever was in their fridge must now go bye-bye.

You, too, probably have storm stories. It was a crazy mess, but…hopefully…that’s it for this time.

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Unpopular Defendant

This morning I watched a news segment with Maj. Hassan’s lawyer.

The reporter acted as if Mr. Lawyer had horns, a red cape, and a spade tail. “How can you defend someone who’d shoot fellow soldiers?” The lawyer, a rather inarticulate specimen, bumble-mumbled.

In his place, I would have said, “When I defend anyone accused of a crime, I’m defending American justice. The more zealous I am, the better I do my job, the more secure we all are. No one in this country is safe from government overreaching unless every last citizen is also safe…and that includes people accused of terrible behavior.”

“So, I do my utmost for a guy everyone dislikes because it’s not just about him. I’m doing it for myself and for you, for all of us. The power of the US government on one side and a defendant and his lawyer on the other side…how fair is that? Evidentiary and procedural rules exist to balance the scales. Effective criminal defense makes government keep the rules. ”

“Yes,” you say, “but how fair to the community is it when a horrible person gets off on a technicality?”

Me: “That’s cause for celebration. It happens when government either violated defendant’s rights or tried to… and got caught. I want a do-right government.”

The United States of America looks us taxpayers in the eye and thunders, “Y’all behave.” I look right back and say, “You, too, Uncle Sam. As a matter of fact, you first. Show me the way.”

Maj. Hassan is a very unpopular fellow…and likely to become more so as we learn his whole story…but I hope he gets a fair trial.

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Rich Enough

Watching TV the other night, I saw one incredible home after another… a show about the world’s most expensive real estate. One house, now up for sale, will not be available should you request a walk-through. Why not? Because you don’t make more than $10,000,000.00/year. Another house needs $2,000,000.00/year for servant salaries alone.

Which brings me home where young Benny periodically tries to convince me, “Ahno, you’re rich. You have servants.” What?

Yesterday, one man installed curtain rods, fixed a porch railing, built shelves in an upstairs closet, put up a spice rack, changed a high-ceiling light bulb, stabilized a wobbly banister, mounted mirrors on upstairs walls.

While he worked indoors, in the back yard two men planted bulbs, put down anti-weed fabric, spread pine straw mulch…and they mowed and edged the front yard.

My cleaning lady called to say that she’d scheduled a plumber for today, “I noticed your upstairs bathroom sink…that drain runs slowly. He’ll fix it.”

Does any of this add up to “rich?” No, it means that I have a rickety old house requiring maintenance which I’m unwilling to perform.

My geriatric residence. Floors go up and downhill. Windows rattle in a storm. This place will never appear on a VH-1 episode of Fabulous Life.

It’s comfortable, though. Convenient. Exactly the right size for one old woman and two Chihuahuas…with space for grandkids’ stuff and crafts and sewing and a spinning wheel, electronics, video games, culinary projects big and small.

Two gas fireplaces chase the early morning chill of a November day. Riots of avian music trill from a curbside myrtle. On the porch, the morning Pilot awaits perusal.

Peeling paint by the doorframe testifies that this is not a wealthy address…but sometimes, like today, I’m thankful. Rich enough and then some.

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Anti-Muslim Reaction

“Be on the lookout for anti-Muslim reaction to the Fort Hood shootings,” quote General Casey, Army Chief of Staff.

I read the Quran just after 9/11. At that time I became convinced that Islam is the sort of thinking voted most likely to destabilize weak minds, encouraging them to kill the infidel.

However, we were all urged to seek common ground with Muslims, to tolerate, to understand. I did that by informing myself, delving deeper into Islam. I read and read…all those ancillary texts that detail the practice of Muslim belief. The more I learned, the more I felt that this stuff was an odd combination of goofy and dangerous.

Once a fluff-headed individual told me, “It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you’re sincere.” Baloney. Someone who believes that he owes his god the sight of my blood running over the sidewalk…whether he believes sincerely or on a casual basis...that's one profoundly bad belief.

If an Islamic family moved in next door, I’d make a casserole and cookies and take them over, say, “Welcome to the neighborhood.” However, I’d always wonder when they’re gonna rip off their wigs and start shooting.

What about the people down the street, the ones who play loud music?  Might their noise inflame Muslim anti-music prejudice enough to start a little bloodletting?  Or maybe the sight of my Chihuahuas. Could that possibly enrage anti-dog Muslims enough to make them pop both me and the dogs? How about the young ladies in a nearby home?  They spend warm weather in halter tops and short shorts. Could that be the last straw, inciting Muslims to purify the hood? I don't know, but I'd wonder.

Does that sound like an anti-Muslim reaction to the Fort Hood shootings? Yes, and so what?

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