The Life of Riley

I left my credit card at the grocery store this evening, which caused a major back up in the line and required the manager to flag me down in the parking lot, since I’d also, apparently, failed to hit ‘okay’ on that dumbass little keypad. For reasons unknown, I decided that an appropriate response would be to abandon my shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot and run – yes, run – back into the store yelling to no one in particular, “GOSH, I just got so excited I ran right out of here! Sorry! EXCITED!”

I had to say it twice, I guess, for reasons unknown, which drew more awkwardness as I muttered to myself through the parking lot “Excited…EXCITED?” over and over again. I can only guess I was excited about eating Sundry’s Spicy Shrink-Yer-Butt salad, which I eat roughly three times a week (SO GOOD).

Speaking of butt shrinking, this morning was weigh-in day at Weight Watchers, and I lost half a pound this week, which moved the WW engine to give me a little sob story about how I’m probably “ambivalent” about this, when quite frankly, I was thrilled to bits, because at least I didn’t gain anything, given the proximity to piles of pizza, bacon and potato skins for the past week. What I am flat-out bitter about, however, is that little half pound was enough to push me into a different point class, which means I’m losing a daily point. The heartbreak. Jesus. That’s an apple. A glug of milk. Every day. It just seems totally unfair to offer that as a reward for losing weight. Congratulations! Now you have to eat even less!

Unrelated (per usual), we live in a really wealthy town, and it’s an odd sort of all-encompassing rich where the poor or even the middle class are hidden so far away that you can’t see them. Money – lots and lots and lots of money – is everywhere, and it’s created a sort of strange alternate reality, since the vast, and honestly, I mean the vast, majority of residents have incomes that are blindingly far beyond the national average. How they let the two of us in is beyond me, and further, why haven’t they kicked us out?

Adam overheard a conversation recently where a man and his wife were trying to determine the typical shopper demographic of Target, only to have the wife come to the conclusion that it’s a store designed for “poor, lower-income people, right? I mean, I’ve never been in one, of course.”

Chappy apparently nodded in agreement, and then let loose with a light, tinkly sort of giggle and marveled at how wonderful it is to fart rosebuds and gold ingots.

It boggles the mind that are people who are so sheltered they’ve never been in a Target, where they’re missing out on some really stellar boxed wine, is what I’m saying.

Anyway. The whole point of this is that high school graduation is coming up, and do you know what happens at high school graduation? Hummers happen, and I wish I was talking about blow jobs, because at least they’re more…appropriate. The graduation gift du jour is a Hummer – an H2 – with a big red bow on it. Last year, a female acquaintance had just moved here, and after seeing row upon row of bowed Hummers, was actually moved to innocently ask if Hummer was having some sort of spring special where they were immeasurably cheap.

I’m just not sure that I could, in good conscience, give my kid a Hummer for graduation no matter what my financial circumstances were. I mean, unless we’re expecting some sort of small, obscure-town urban warfare that I’m not aware of, or perhaps the deep south is expecting 15 feet of snow next winter, and no one told me. Granted, we really aren’t car people, as evidenced by the two nondescript, slightly decrepit Hondas in the driveway, but still.

Isn’t that a bit…excessive? I can’t help but wonder: if your kids are getting Hummers at 18, what on earth could they possibly have to look forward to later in life? It just doesn’t scream “bright, self-sufficient, well-adjusted kid” to me.

*Lightning Seeds. Do you remember them? I really liked them back in 1994 or so…such a catchy little number, that Life of Riley, and woefully unavailable on iTunes, and I only have it on cassette.

21 comments April 17th, 2007