The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

We just got back from the American Outback, ready for the dreaded Chores with happy hearts, exactly what a vacation is supposed to do for ya. But life is always full of those surprises that are meant to provide an extra helping or two of Humble Pie. So we woke to find a puddle of water on the downstairs bathroom floor. After mowing some lawn I went in the upstairs bath to do the dreaded troubleshooting. I am very very familiar with the sadistic tendencies of the plumbing gods and I do not trespass lightly on their turf, not with the scars I could offer up as proof of their capricious cruelty.

No sir, I intended to proceed with Utmost Caution! The leak, it was determined by my vast experience in matters household hydrologic, was in a recessed cranny up under the pedestal sink where only hobo spiders dared lurk. I tried tightening the nut up in there, but you know and I did too, that would be far Too Easy. I sensed a trap, no fool I. Ignoring any obvious warning signs, I began to disassemble drainpipe, cabinetry, any impediment to providing clearance to that obstinate brass nut. The first water inlet valve uncoupled with some considerable effort — the second the hot water, wouldn’t budge. A bit more force, I deduced … and snapped the half inch CPVC plastic pipe right off the wall. Hot water shot out in a 5 gallon per minute stream. I reacted with alacrity and stuck a finger in the gaping wound, the Dutch Boy Dike Strategem.

Only … how long could I wait? The Dutch Kid had a town to come and help. I had old age and slow starvation before help arrived. I pulled the plug, my finger, and raced to the basement shutoff, knowing the water was spewing freely upstairs. Got back up and no let up, just the hot water tank emptying its 40 gallons. I grabbed buckets, I threw down towels, I offered my first born to these plumbing gods, I swore, I emptied pail after pail and squeezed towel after sopping towel.

When it finished disgorging the tank, I was totally soaked, the bathrooms were swimming pools, the gas hot water heater was heating air. I finally shut off the gas, not sure if this would ruin it without water.

As I write this, the pedestal sink sits in the middle of the room while I’m mowing my little park across the island. I’m drinking a beer before the next grassy section along the highway. I’ve learned these things, plumbing, I mean, they take time. Lots of time. I’m sure glad to be home. You know … if I decide to return.

Rumor has it that Ivanka and Melania persuaded the Donald to stop separating the kids from their parents down at the borders. Even the usually gutless GOP Congress became alarmed at the creepy optics of children torn from their moms’ arms, wailing and crying, something out of old Nazi propaganda films. The Trumpster declared he wouldn’t back down, but his wife and daughter made their case and lo and behold, the President did his first about-face since taking office. He takes lots of U-turns and detours, but never reverses course. This time he did.

Course, next day Melania cruises down to the sunny Southwest to take a peek at conditions at the rendition centers, maybe tour the cages where the kids sleep on the floor, a sign perhaps that compassion, even in the Time of Trump, isn’t completely dead, just somnambulistic. So she wears her fashionable jacket with the words I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U? in huge script on the back. My knee jerk reaction was it must mean something else and the liberal lying media missed the joke or chose to characterize it in the worst possible light.

I mean, who the hell would make a pilgrimage to the detention centers after convincing her husband to show a modicum of compassion, and wear a jacket that screams I DON’T GIVE A DAMN, DO YOU???? Did she think twice when choosing her attire? Was the jacket so fashionably pleasing that the message on the back slipped by her completely? Did her staff mention it to her on the tarmac, maybe just leave the coat on the plane, Mrs. T….?

It’s incomprehensible. It’s stupid. It couldn’t be an oversight, now could it? Doing a great job there, Brownie, on that Katrina windstorm! A spokesperson declared they hoped the press would focus on her compassion, not her wardrobe, that there was no message intended. No message intended? Jeff Sessions said yesterday they hadn’t intended to separate the kids from the parents. Which is a provable fib. The Prez sez no one wants to see kids taken from their moms. But now he’s back on the stump blaming anyone but himself and crowing about longer detentions. Compassion in this crowd? Melania pretty much hit it on the head. They don’t really care. Do you?

So the World Health Organization just declared a new psychopathology, Gaming Disorder, the addictive propensity to sit for hour after hour with an X-box, disdaining sleep and food and exercise. Good diagnosis, guyz! But you forgot to include Facebook, You-Tube, computer addictions, porn and cellphone. Maybe, just maybe, they’re really all one disease. Ya think?

I guess the Facebook zombies actually stop to eat. And it could even be argued that this social media is really social. A new social, I guess, no face to face necessary, just tweets and instagrams, nothing too up-close and personal. Tim Cook, the new warden at Apple, recently declared sitting at a computer terminal to be the new cancer. Thanks, Tim, for asking the troops to stand up. How about asking them to go outdoors and exercise? Or quit their carcinogenic jobs? Or get a life?

We’re rewiring our brains, no doubt about it. B.F. Skinner and the Pavlovian dogs, peck a button and the bait, I mean the reward, comes tumbling out, time after time, predictable as an IV of opiods. Try this experiment if you’re a doubter: put away your cellphone, turn off your computer, unplug the TV and peripherals and devices, see how long you can last before the shakes and the fevers start. I bet about an hour. We might be missing important stuff. You know, Trump, Beyonce, Oprah, the photo from a friend you rarely see, Trump, the latest movie star scandal, did I mention Trump? If I did, let me add Trump again anyway.

This is our reality now. We even made a reality show huckster our Leader. We get what we deserve, the old adage goes in regard to a country and its rulers. Times certainly change and now they’re changing in hyper-drive. If anyone thinks, myself included, that there will be a cure for this disorder, we got another think coming. In about two tweets.

Scientists on the South End have announced yet another major breakthrough in the genetics front. Hot off the heels of the first known cloning of old growth nettles, the labs at Tyee Technologies have grown meat from the stem cells of Wanda Davenport’s Rhode Island Reds, blue ribbon winners at the county fair three years running for biggest chickens. Dr. Frank Steinberger brought reporters from the Stanwoodopolis Gazette to witness the world’s first Hot Wings artificially grown on yo-yo strings in the sterile environment of their laboratories. From petri dish to deep fat fryer in 30 days, the zesty morsels were sampled and declared ‘hotter than a Texas abortion debate’ by patrons of the Diner where the tasting was conducted.

Dr. Steinberger, asked what the purported production costs might be, stated that to feed, say, a half time Super Bowl party of 6, would be in the range of $250,000. Or over $50,000 per person. “In other words, Bill Gates might afford this if he didn’t invite two many gridiron pals.” The scientist did say costs would drop appreciably when Full Production was reached and that Tyson Foods had already expressed an interest in the formula for the secret sauce along with Tyee Technologies’ advanced bio-engineering know-how. “Already we have teams working on Teriyaki Wings, Honolulu Lava Wings, a Cool Ranchero dip and others I’m not at liberty to divulge at this time.”

Asked what the nuggets would taste like without their grease-released flavorings, Dr. Steinberger, ever the comedian, cracked up the packed crowd of reporters by saying, “they taste a lot like chicken.” He went on to explain that artificially grown poultry would soon supplant the muss and fuss of “that barnyard mess, feather picking, manure and the ever dangerous bird flu. In a world clamoring for hotwings, we foresee a bright future. I think you’ll find the venture capitalists doing the flocking from now on,” he crowed.

This reporter hoped they were working on bio-engineered Pepto Bismol.