No More Pizza for Hillary

I saw another Hillary Clinton on the playground the other day. The highly political nature of “JCrewville” seems to reveal another Clinton every day. This particular woman may not have been a change agent for over 35 years or have dodged sniper fire in Bosnia (oh wait….scratch that one), but she shares Hillary’s naked ambition, her presumptuous sense of entitlement. She thinks she can beat the system because of who she is and who she knows.  She’s betting the rest of us are too distracted to notice. Sadly, on some level, she’s right.

 

The other night was the annual “Family Fun Night” at my daughters’ elementary school.  It’s a desperate and dreadful night. Kids run around coked up on sugar, smeared in sugar, dyed different colors from sugar, licking sugar they’ve dropped on the dirty playground, only to cry, scream and stumble the whole way home, whacked out from all the sugar. It’s utter mayhem.

 

This year, I decided to forgo standing on the playground watching my kids snort sugar by opting to pitch in and volunteer behind the food table. The food table is where families pick up their pre-ordered slices of pizza to eat on the playground (in hopes of stemming the rapid stream of sugar into the bloodstream).  Turns out, we were short on pizza, so the head volunteer told us we could not sell any of it directly to anyone.  All the pre-ordered pizza was spoken for. Most everyone who attends Family Fun Night understands this can happen.  Still, more than half a dozen mothers asked if they could purchase some and were told no. These mothers followed the rules, despite their jittery, sugared-up kids; and all was good in the world…until Hillary Clinton-Woman showed up. 

 

“One piece of pizza, please” she ordered briskly, barely making eye-contact with the less well-known woman manning the pizza station.  

 

“Um, we don’t have any extra available for purchase.  This food has all been pre-ordered” said the volunteer – nicely.

 

HCW rolled her eyes.  She stood her ground, inhaled dramatically and tried again.

 

 “I said: one piece of pizza”.  She looked down, ignoring the volunteer and flipped through her crisp dollar bills with her manicured nails.

 

Again, she was told the rules.

 

Her blackened eyelashes narrowed and her nose crinkled.  She leaned forward, her Pucci t-shirt gaping to reveal her sharp clavicle bones – she was poised for a fight.

 

“I don’t think you understand,” she seethed, “I have been working over there all night, and now my son is VERY hungry, so I need just one piece of pizza. Surely, you can spare just one piece.”  Just then she spotted the former PTA president and fellow self-regarded, very-important-person walking over to the table.  “Oh hi, Alice!” she brightened. 

 

Alice stopped to see what was happening.  There was a private huddle, an efficient exchange and before I knew it, HCW was tucking her change back in the pocket of her tight white jeans and handing a piece of pizza to her sulky son. Everyone went back to their business, too busy with their own stuff to do anything about it.

 

This steamed me, and this is precisely why I can’t be objective about Hillary Clinton – even if I did agree with her policies. When I see her pulling her pranks and spreading divisive innuendo all under the guise of being “a fighter”, I see someone claiming someone else’s pizza.  The delegate votes in Michigan and Florida do not belong to her.  I don’t care how much she stomps her foot or tries to manipulate her connections; it was all decided ahead of time. Now today, when even the self-appointed poverty spokesman, John Edwards is signaling she needs to step aside, she still refuses to get off the stage. At some point, it’s time to do what’s right. Rules are rules for a reason: they are what separate the adults from the whining, sugared-crazed mob on the playground.

 

I know it’s a small comparison to make with a big woman, but the parallels are there. Small injustices breed bigger ones. When you watch someone get what she wants just by being a bitch, it makes visible the upside in being a bitch.  And before you know it, we’re all being bitches…and there’s no pizza left in the world.

 

And a world without pizza is no place where I want to live.

One Mother of a Playdate

Not too long ago, a young family moved in across the street. Nice, blonde and Dutch-looking, they have two adorable kids that are younger than mine.  I had met the mother, who is soft-spoken, achingly sweet and apparently a little church-going, so I have to really watch my language around her. Other than pleasant small talk, I hadn’t made the best neighborly effort.  We hadn’t had them over for dinner or brought them a pie. I’d been rather guilt-ridden about this.

 

So one day when my older daughter wanted to have their son, Mason, over for a play date, it was probably the guilt that got in the way.  Mason is a sweet four year-old with a round face, freckles and thick auburn hair. He stutters endearingly and waves furiously at us every time we drive by. He sooo wants to hang with my daughters.

 

On this particular day, I was a bit more weary and tired than usual.  I was trying to eat less to get rid of my winter fat, so my blood sugar was low which makes me jittery and cranky.  Add that to the fact that I had had a lot of coffee and it was getting close to the dinner-making hour, and you have the beginnings of a perfect storm.  I should have said “no” more firmly, but the guilt and the whining wore me down.

 

“Pleeeeese, Mom” she begged, “Please, can Mason come over?” 

 

“Honey, it’s just not a good day,” I countered, wobbly. “I don’t feel good, and I need to clean up and make dinner. I can’t really keep an eye on Mason right now.”

 

“Oh Mommy, I’ll watch him, I promise” she negotiated.  “You won’t have to watch him at all…pleeeeease?”  

 

This went back and forth for a while and finally, I caved.  I was tired, worn down, and frankly, thought maybe this could help me get out of the bad-neighbor dog house.

 

When I called to invite Mason, his mom was down-right elated.  She needed a break. “Thank you, thank you” she kept saying gratefully as she stood on my porch, “I’m just going to go for a quick run, if that’s okay – oh, thank you so much for having him”.

 

“No problem, take your time” I smiled back neighborly. I shut the door and turned Mason over to my daughter Elizabeth.   

 

All went well, for the first couple of minutes, than the “wanting” began. Mason wanted a snack.  Mason wanted to use the bathroom.  Mason wanted to watch a movie.  Elizabeth came to me for all of this and I started simmering.  I was growing increasingly shaky and behind schedule.  I needed them out of the house.  I told them to go outside even though it was a cold March day, piles of half-melted snow dotting the muddy backyard.

 

They went outside, and I began trying to get dinner started.  Now, seriously shaking and running behind on things, I tried to keep an eye on them, but I was scattered and distracted.  I don’t know how much time elapsed before I noticed they were missing.

 

“Elizabeth!!!!” I yelled out.  No answer.  “ELIZABETH!! Where are you???!!” I yelled out.  Nothing. I started to panic. What if I had lost the new neighbor boy?

 

I couldn’t see them out the back windows, so I went out the front door, unknowingly leaving it ajar.  As I turned the corner to the back yard, I spotted them.  Elizabeth had the garden hose running in the 30 degree March air.  She was squirting the icy water on Mason’s bare feet and up his pant legs.  She was trying to wash the three-inch thick mud caked up to the thighs of his pants. He just stood there shivering in the foggy vapor, one little bare foot in a pile of snow.  Elizabeth had thick, dark mud up to her thighs and was barefoot as well. I snapped.

 

“ELIZABETH, What the ?????  Get inside, NOW!!!” I hissed. Mason jumped, wide-eyed and confused.  I scooped him up (gently) by the armpits, took him inside, stripped off his jeans and told him evenly to “go play, Elizabeth will be with you in a minute”. He scurried off into the living room.

 

 I grabbed Elizabeth by the arm, yanked her inside and wrestled her long, heavy eight-year old body onto the kitchen counter.  I was incensed and out of control. She started sniveling.

 

“DAMMIT!!!”  I yelled as I put her muddy feet in the sink, “Do you see why I DID NOT WANT MASON OVER HERE??!!, I seethed uncontrollably.  “I told you I did NOT WANT TO BABYSIT MASON right now!!  We should NOT HAVE INVITED HIM.  I have too much to do!!  This is UNACCEPT—-“

 

“Hello?” I hear behind me.  Shit.

 

I turned around and there she was, in my kitchen.  Obviously, I hadn’t heard her knock. But there was no way she did not hear me. Her half-naked son was alone in the living room, in his underwear, and probably climbing up an un-bolted bookshelf.

 

“Oh, hiiiii.” I said.  Shit. Shit. Shit.  “Um, just having a bad mommy moment” I stuttered. “I, um, was trying to —“

 

“Oh that’s okay”, she cut me off swiftly and gently without looking me in the eye.  “Come on, Mason, let’s go home now!” She sang out.  She swooped up her near-naked son and without stopping, gathered his muddy pants and wet shoes and said, “Thank you, again, for having him.” She smiled quickly and before I could say more, she was out the door, her son balanced on her hip in his underwear, his bare muddy feet flopping wildly as she sprinted across the street.

 

I’m thinking a pie would have been a better call.

———

 

Postscript: Happy Mother’s Day to my Mom – who laughs with me about so many things – especially the crazy moments of motherhood.  Could it be that she’s had a few as well? 

Beware of Killer Deer

My daughter Ceci recently informed us she was adopted.  Apparently she used to live with her “First Family” until they were “killed and eaten by a deer”.  Now, she’s announced, she “has to live with us”.  I think she’s mostly okay with this fate, although occasionally we’ll be going somewhere and she’ll comment nostalgically “Yeah, I used to go there with my First Family.” It seems she and the First Family had a heck of a time together. 

 

 

Poor Ceci. Those nasty, killer, family-eating deer — I guess I’ll have to spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to her.

Peace in the Front Row

We’ve started going to the pretty church in town and holy moly, what a scene.  I had been resisting going there because it seems claustrophobic to spend time on Sunday with the very same people I’ve spent Monday though Friday with. Come the Sabbath, I’m kind of looking for a break.  It’s work to navigate the tight social corridors of this town all week, and sometimes I just want to exhale and clean my heart in peace.  But here I sit, surrounded by all the locals. Totally bugged.  I’ve come to open my soul and now I’m pissed at that PTA babe who didn’t say hi to me outside even though I KNOW she saw me. And what am I wearing anyway?  An old, work suit from the late ‘90’s—some kind of vintage Ann Taylor corporate ensemble.  My skin feels tight, it hurts to smile…and my pants are even tighter (I did buy them a decade ago).  When did everyone else get such current clothing?  And why is everyone chatting so breezily? This isn’t cocktail hour at the club. Please people, I plead to myself, there is just too much noise here in the house of God.

 

I do like the minister though.  Surprise – we know him.  He lives around the corner.  I’ve always found him strangely warm and distant at the same time (very skilled at boundaries, I suspect).  He has a boyish face and curly, reddish hair that makes you want to trust him. When he stands tall at the pulpit in his black robe and satin sash, I do manage to forget he’s my neighbor.  His sermons are open, soulful and spiritually restorative, but I have to concentrate to keep the local observations out. “Listen. Focus” I tell myself.   If I look away, for even on second, I’ll start up again: rubber-necking and judging. There’s no peace there, man. 

 

One Sunday, I sat next to this woman I sort of know who brought a Styrofoam cup of coffee in the sanctuary with her.  She was just casually sitting there legs crossed, foot bouncing, and sipping away next to me and I was totally distracted by her every movement.  I was trying to pay attention, but the corner of my eye kept wandering over to her. Where did she get that coffee? Why was she drinking it in here? What was up with those rubber-soled shoes she was wearing? Meanwhile, while I was checking her out, I totally missed some important lesson about God that could have made me a kinder person. 

 

When we bowed our heads to pray the Lord’s Prayer, she poked me in the arm sometime after “Thy will be done” and stage whispered “I’m heading out. I’ll see you later.”

 

“Sounds good, on earth as it is in heaven” I whispered back.

 

Was she not listening?  HELLOOOO!! It was the Lord’s Prayer for Christ’s sake (literally). But honestly, I couldn’t help myself.  Before we got to “Amen” I was at it again: Where was she going?  What was so important?  Couldn’t she have at least stayed for the whole prayer? Was she going somewhere that might explain those shoes? 

 

And in the meantime — God’s Lesson #2 on Kindness: um…yeah, missed that one, too.

 

Apparently, I need to sit in the front row where there’s no where to look but straight ahead. I began to envy Monks who can worship silently. It’s much easier to feel the love when every one around you has stopped their yapping.  Holy conversations shouldn’t be interrupted by a bunch of junk about clothes and neighbors.

 

But then I thought about it.  This packed sanctuary is actually kind of a metaphor for life: busy, interrupted, surprising — scattered with friends, challenged by agendas, looking nice and searching for meaning. And as in life, even if you think you’re in the right place, it doesn’t mean everything will suddenly make sense.  If you want peace and answers, you have to quiet yourself down to hear them.  And sometimes that means you have to sit in the front row, where there’s no where to look but straight ahead.

 

Amen. 

 

Small Town Nervous Breakdown

A small town is a bad place to have a nervous breakdown. I know this firsthand. Two years ago I was working part-time as a consultant for a firm that marketed causes I didn’t believe in.  The more I learned about the causes, the slimier I felt. Every day when I went in to work, I felt as fraudulent as Dick Morris selling my soul for a cushy consulting gig.  Between that and the stress of two small kids, a babysitter I didn’t trust, and a husband who traveled, I came down with a wicked case of insomnia.  Two weeks of no sleep and I went in shaking and hollow to see my crack doctor who gave me ten minutes and three prescriptions.  Taken in combination (her idea), the drugs made me far sicker than the not sleeping.  Actually, at that point, I stopped sleeping all together because the side effects of the drugs were so bad. I can relate to how Heath Ledger might have felt, seriously. Getting off all that bad medication was no picnic either.  I spent two blurry, scared months weaning off the poison. I was shaking, sweating all night, bouncing off the walls and NOT SLEEPING.  The whole thing was, as bad as it got, it was ten times worse because I live in this perfect town where a nervous breakdown is in such bad taste.  I suffered mostly alone, hiding from even the mailman in my house.  When I did go out, I put on lipstick and a dry smile and did my best to make proper chit chat in the grocery store, but if anyone would have looked closely at me, they would have noticed my knee was jiggling and my eyes were wringed in dark purple circles.  Good news/bad news…not many people really did look all that closely.

 

I’m better now.  I quit the job, am off the junk and have the precious gift of hindsight that lets me laugh, sleep and feel wiser.  I’ve reconciled that I was in one of life’s “narrows” from which I emerged more self-aware and circumspect. But I’m also more jaded about life in this tiny town.  It would have been so much easier to have come undone in the wide, open spaces of a crowded city than in the socially-constricted precincts of “JCrew-ville”.  Here, living successfully is a local tradition.

 

In the city, I learned that people carve out space for themselves by remaining somewhat anonymous.  It was easier to get by if you didn’t know the people smashed up against you on the bus or crowded in tight with you in the elevator.  It was really, pretty liberating.  You could have a good cry on the street and people would act like that happened everyday. Not so in a small town. If you pass gas, people talk (okay-bad example, kinda shunned everywhere) and if you were to cry on the street, it could ruin you forever.

 

What I think happens in a small town is that people create emotional space by hiding everything unpleasant in their lives and feigning perpetual enjoyment. Our desires, sadness, and ambitions are all kept hidden in a vault deep below our on-going pleasant living.  We busy-up ourselves, art directing an outwardly perfect life and feeling fulfilled by the portraits of our own success.  I know there are a lot of people out there that are just perennially happy, but there are a lot of them that are pretty miserable, too.  I’m not being bitter, just statistically honest. I suspect many are afraid to admit to a rough patch for fear it will indefinitely define them. But the sad thing is, because everyone is hiding their self-doubt or masking their fears by keeping busy, when it’s your turn to come unhinged, you can feel pretty alone.

 

A few weeks ago, my neighbor woke up in the middle of the night, looked out his window and found the (already labeled “eccentric”) lady from across the street laying flat on her back in his driveway.  He froze behind his curtain and watched for a minute as she lay there flattened with her arms straight out on either side of her, like Jesus on the cross, gazing up to the sky. She was talking quietly, stretched out on the cold cement in the blue light of 3:00am.  At some point, her cat came out from behind a bush and gingerly crawled onto her chest.  They just stayed there for a while, her talking and fixating on the moon, the kitty keeping her company.   Some of this might seem a bit odd, but the fact that it was 3:30am and this was not her driveway actually makes it kinda crazy.  I love this story on so many levels, but mostly because it keeps my (sometimes) misery company.  I take comfort in knowing that maybe this woman felt she could only let out her inner craziness by doing it in the middle of the night.  And it sounds like it was rather cathartic for her, sort of like my crying on the crowded street.     

 

So here’s my advice: if you are contemplating a “simpler” life in a small town, get your shit together first, grow thick skin, know who you are, hold you good friends close, stay in love with your family, find a competent doctor and spend some money on good window coverings. And chose to be brave: be out-spoken, wear your honesty proudly, struggle openly, and question it all.  You might not fit in all the time, but if you’re cool with that – then pleeeeease move in next door to me.  I’ll be right over with a bottle of cold wine and a slab of fine cheese. Know that you can roll around in my driveway any time, day or night, or howl at the moon when you feel the need…but be warned: I just might join you.                  

See Stick Run.

My daughter, Ceci, has a new pet stick.  Denied any real pets in our house, she now takes inanimate objects under her wing to nurture and to love.  This week, it’s a big stick.  Her benevolence is sort of adorable as she cuddles her orphan stick, broken off cruelly from the mother tree and left alone in the grass. And it is cold out, it’s so sad, the poor little….oh yeah, STICK. 

 

She brought it in the house the other day.  This chubby, gray stick that’s smooth on one end and flaking dead bark on the other.  She’s been talking to it, carrying it around. Somehow, it always seems to end up in the kitchen when I’m racing to clean up and start dinner.   And like with everything at that time of day, I have no patience.  I grab it and throw it far out the back door. It doesn’t take very long before Ceci notices.

 

 “MMMMOOOOMMMM!!!!!! WHERE’S MY STICK??????”

 

“Um, I don’t know. I think it went outside” I try sweetly.

 

“MMMMOOOOOMMMM!!! Quit throwing my stick outside!!!!”

 

She stomps outside to retrieve it, totally disgusted with my cold heartedness. Now it’s back in the house.  All cozy and warm, making little piles of dirty bark on my floor.  I’m going to kill that little stick.

The Great White Barista

There’s this woman who works at our Starbucks that I call the White Woman.  Not because she’s the only white woman – “J.Crew-ville” couldn’t be any more lily white. But because in a coffee shop that seems to only employ hip, sullen, young folk; she stands out glaringly.  She’s middle-aged, suburban and looks like someone’s mom. Her Dorothy Hamill haircut and neatly tucked-in golf shirts are too clean and prissy among the surly Starbucks staff.  The first time I saw her behind the counter, it startled me.    

 

She’s simultaneously too perky and too serious about her job.  She’s always trying to suggestive-sell some homemade muffin or an extra shot. The first time I ordered a tall-with-room, she asked me what kind of roast I wanted.  I got a little pissed.  Doesn’t she know that we expect a little attitude from the people at Starbucks?  Urban condescension with my morning coffee is part of the ritual. Disregard me and my day starts off on just the right note.  

 

If you asked anyone in town, they would readily complain about her. She was achingly slow.  All that questioning and suggestive selling dragged down the whole vibe.  She didn’t bark out drink orders to the barista, she tediously checked off the little boxes on the side of the cup and paused to ask you for your name which she printed carefully in correct spelling—even if you were the only one in the place.  When she got moved to working the espresso machine, it was excruciating.  You could tell she was the barista just by driving by because the line of frustrated people stretched far outside the door.  She was painful.

 

I confess I once planted a little seed to get rid of her. I had had enough of this mommy-looking woman who seemed to have added this part-time job to fill up her downtime.  One afternoon when she wasn’t working, I asked the young, hip manager if she was new.  “People are talking” I conspired, “she needs to pick the tempo”.

 

Then one day I was backing out my car on a cold morning when I actually drove the three blocks to Starbucks, and I caught her smoking in the alley. Wait, a flaw?  I would have to recalibrate. A sliver of guilt poked at my mean heart, and it cracked open slightly. It was only a cigarette, but I sensed there might be a whole back-story behind the bright, white golf shirts.  She looked lonely and tired, exhaling her carcinogenic smoke.   She had unknowingly exposed a vulnerability, and I would have to re-evaluate my disdain.  

 

I’m a firm believer that human fallibility is what connects us to each other. Good times may beget relationships but sharing a rough patch is what cements them. It’s why we love tragic stories and root for the underdog.  It’s why friendships shift and deepen the first time someone discloses a frailty. It’s why perfect people bug us so much.

 

Standing there in the alley, hunched over, hiding her dirty habit – I saw the White Woman had a dark spot on her otherwise squeaky clean veneer. My scorn for the bright barista lessened.  She’s human, I thought, and doing the best she can. 

 

It’s been three years since and the White Woman is still there, still slowing the whole joint down, but I’ve lost my impatient contempt.  I’m still brisk with her most days, as if this will somehow make her go faster, but I’ve come to accept she’s just another part of the slower pace that marks life in a small town.  And that means sometimes I just have to take my coffee slow with an extra shot of perky.   

One is the Loneliest Number

This is a true story:

 

When I was living in Chicago, I went through a very lonely period.  My post- college friends were all leaving the city to be nearer to their families and begin laying roots. I was working at this small agency that was going out of business, so my social pickings there were slim-to-none. I was 26 and faced with constructing a whole new group of friends from scratch.  It was a blue period, let me tell you.

 

During this time, I had been going to this big Presbyterian Church on Michigan Avenue that had a counseling center that put on helpful, not-too-churchy seminars: dealing with bereavement, balancing work/family, stuff like that. So one day when I read in the bulletin about an upcoming seminar called “How to Deal with Loneliness” I thought what did I have to lose?  Maybe I could get a few tips.  Plus, Chicago was such a big city; I felt protection in the anonymity of its size. Not likely anyone would know me there so I wouldn’t feel like a total loser. I called and registered.

 

Three or four weeks later, I get this call at work from someone at the counseling center.  Her voice is all nervous and she tells me unfortunately, they need to cancel the Loneliness Seminar.  “Okay,” I tell her, “Thanks for calling. I’m curious, though, why did they cancel it?”

 

 

Then she gets really nervous, “Um, I guess there was a lack of participation.”

 

“Really” I ask, “how many people signed up for it?”

 

 

 “You were the only one”.

 

I swear to God. 

 

I started laughing.  “I guess that makes me pretty lonely then”. 

 

I’m sure she was afraid I would jump off a bridge.  Imagine that.  You are the only one in the whole city of Chicago that signs up for a “How to Deal with Loneliness” seminar. 

 

 

Can you stand it?

Kindness in Isle 5

When you live in a small town, everyday people can begin to seem sort of folk hero-ish.  Locally famous because we all know who they are – we don’t call acknowledge them as celebs or treat them as such.  Then one day one of them dies and you find yourself in a strange state of disbelief and mourning, like when Anna Nicole Smith died.

 

There was this guy, Jamie, who was a cashier at the grocery store.  He was the nicest guy.   Every time you came in, he would chat with you, or laugh at how cute your kids were.  On many days when my kids were young, he was quite possibly my only source of adult human contact, standing there at the check-out.  Jamie was good with that. He was always in a good mood without being annoyingly cheerful.  He had the right balance of being personable, without slowing you down or irritating the people behind you.

 

The bad thing was he was extremely obese.  He was so huge he sort of struggled to maneuver in his little cashier space.  He had a beard and big glasses, which gave his size a friendly, Santa-like effect. My friend Laura got to know him a little more than the rest of us.  She knew his name (which is how I learned it unfortunately, posthumously) and she was the one who called me to tell me he had died suddenly in his sleep. I was shocked. I know I was just at the store the day before he died…in his isle (always – his isle).  I am haunted by the thought that I was there in front of him on his last day of life. Was I in a hurry?  Did I chat with him or did I rush on through, scolding my kids for begging for gum?  I feel a loss every time I go in the store now.  I truly miss him being there. I’m mad that he died, yet I didn’t even know his name.

 

They posted his obit near the customer service desk.  It was cut out from the local paper and sitting next to the lottery tickets in a little plastic stand. It was such a small tribute for such a big man.

 

I didn’t go to the funeral, though I really did think about it.  Instead, I’ve decided to pay respects in my own personal way.  In his honor, I’ve decided to be kind in the checkout lane…like he was to me. It’s like a little thing but trust me, it will be an effort.

 

In memory of Jamie, I will not roll my eyes. I will not make obvious gestures to look at my watch.  I will not sigh loudly.  When I see someone leisurely pull out a check book in the express line (hello — EXPRESS) after the debatable 15 items have been bagged (P.S- yogurt does not count as one item, when you buy SIX varieties), I will not mutter angrily and stomp over to another lane.  I will be kind, regardless of the violation.  I will remember that even the smallest moments of human contact can have an impact…that one little gesture of kindness can change the current of a whole day.  

 

Mother Theresa once said “Kind words can be easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless”. Thank you, Jamie – for your kind words and endless echoes.            

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Little Debut

Helloooo! This is my first posting.

Welcome to my take on the small things that happen in my small town.  I know it’s a little cliche, all this small stuff (of which I never sweat, of course), but it’s all about perspective, right?  Besides, if I can’t have some fun jabbering about life in Mayberry, then I’m heading back to the city where the food is sooooo much better.

So please tune in later for a “little business”.