Lessons in Wine Snobbery

“Can you pick up just a hint of vanilla?” asks the director of the wine tasting.  

Why yes, I think I do. But I would never have come up with that on my own. Therefore, I will sometimes read tasting notes for a wine I have recently enjoyed. “I like this wine, but why?” 

Apparently, my palette so unsophisticated that I need someone to tell me what I’m tasting.

People that write tasting notes are full of it. They are snobs, and they go to great lengths to put their snobbery on display.

I was reading tasting notes for a particular cabernet sauvignon, and it said I should ‘experience’ licorice (yuck), chocolate (yum), leather (uh..) and lead pencil.

Seriously? I haven’t had a lead pencil in my mouth since second grade, and best I recall it wasn’t to see if the #2 lead tasted better than the #4. (Leather, by the way, is popular in whiskey tasting notes, but we’ll do that some other time.)

Right now, I want to up your status in life.  With my help, you too can be a wine snob. Let’s get started. 

It all boils down to proper verbiage. For example, while it’s proper to call a wine ‘red wine’, you never us the word ‘red’ to describe its color. Use purple, violet, even ruby.

It was recently written of a particular red wine that it “pours a lovely violet color with some light reddish rusty hues on the edges”. That’s wine snobbage for, “reckon why they call it red wine when it ain’t red at all?”

It’s very popular to relate what you’re tasting to the ground. ‘Earthy’, ‘foresty’, ‘loamy soil’ are common ways to do this. It’s even OK to use the word ‘dirt’, but you want to be careful. There’s a big difference in saying, “I taste the dirt” and “this wine tastes like dirt”.

Wine snobs use key words, like ‘notes.’ This word is often used for plant material, from fruits to grasses: notes of sawgrass, or notes of pear, even notes of underbrush, because I was just eating some underbrush yesterday and it tastes just like this wine.

Another popular word is ‘hint’. Tasters will sometimes use ‘hint’ for flavors that might not be so appealing but are there, nonetheless. A hint of tobacco or a hint of tar.

This is just a start, but I encourage you to put your new knowledge to work. 

Go forth, nose held high in the air, and impress everyone in the room at your next gathering. Proclaim aloud and with confidence, “This wine taste like grapes! With notes of pine straw and a hint of dog poop.”

That wine would be from a southern winery, likely. One with a dog.

The 'Opposite' Family: Role Playing

Chicks in charge. I’m used to it.

When a guy marries ‘up’, he gets used to being the lieutenant. I actually like the role. Something goes wrong? Hey, not my fault!

It’s just part of the social evolution, for the most part. Women shattering the glass ceiling stuff. Good for them. I think they are more level-headed than men, anyway.

Our house is almost completely opposite of my memories from childhood. My wife does the heavy lifting, I cheer her on and make martinis at the end of the day.

If you’re old enough, the first television cooking show you likely remember is Julia Childs. She glorified the woman’s ‘role’ in the kitchen. Nowadays, there’s w-a-a-ay more men cooking on TV.

In fact, get outta my kitchen.

I embrace my role as chief cook in our house. I’m much more creative. Tell my wife to serve burgers and fries, you will get a good hamburger and, most likely, tater tots from a bag. Do not dismiss this as being anything less than the perfect meal! 

But…

Put me in charge and the burgers will be part venison or buffalo, seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic and probably more. They will topped off with a slice of Maasdammer cheese. The fries might well be hand-cut sweet potatoes, sprinkled with cinnamon and sea salt.

You get the picture. Even if you don’t, what are you doing in my kitchen?

We’ve laughed at our household roles a lot recently. My wife has decided the basement needs a remodeling and the process is underway.

It is important. We spend ZERO time down there, and once every two or three years we have enough guests that someone needs to ‘go downstairs’ to sleep, so it should be perfect.

Besides, why waste money on fine bourbon when you can replace perfectly good carpet?

I’m not bitter.

My part in this project is to stay out of the way. While she talked to contractors, I played golf. While she packed boxes, I paid bills. While she pulled up carpet, I did the grocery shopping.

In fact, it is while she has gone to buy sandpaper that I write down these thoughts. I have nothing else to do. I’ve already folded the clothes.

Mind you, I have not abdicated the throne. I am still king of the castle! Lord of the manor! Etc., etc.

I still have my man card, and she knows it. In fact, I think she may keep it in her purse.

Follow me on Twitter @AllenTibbetts

Shopping With Grumpy Cat

I do the grocery shopping. My wife hates it, and I actually kind of like it, so that’s my domain. But I have grocery store issues.

More correctly, I have people-in-grocery-store issues.

It’s the woman waddling down the isle with her cell phone attached to her ear that you can’t get past. It’s the person perfectly capable of getting out of their car, walking across the parking lot and into the store, but then plop their rump into a motorized shopping cart. I can’t get past them either.

Just the other day, I waited to get a shopping cart while the guy in front of me spent a half hour wiping down his cart with a Sani-Wipe. You’re not washing your car, man, get out of my way!

I don’t like kids in grocery stores. I don’t blame the kids, I blame you. You are a terrible parent and let them run around like a pack of wild dogs. Or you are a wonderful parent who makes them sit in the cart and keep their hands to themselves, and they cry the whole time. Either way, you should have chained them to the bumper while you shopped.

Check-out is a whole ‘nother issue.

Pick a line. Doesn’t matter. You’re going to be behind that person that needs to pay for the first one hundred items one way, then pay for next one hundred another way. Or the lady with 4,000 coupons. Or the lady that pays with just the right amount of cash. It’ll take her four years to count out 23 cents she needs because it’s mostly pennies. Pennies should be outlawed.

Here’s another favorite: me waiting in line while you argue with the clerk that grapes are supposed to be 30 cents off this week.  The clerk then has to find a newspaper insert so that together you can find the page it’s on so that you can point out to her that you are right and she can point out to you that it’s the green grapes that are 30 cents off, not the red ones.

Bonus points for you if you then want to go back and swap for the ‘on sale’ grapes while I wait.

If you’re in the ‘15 items or less’ line, I’m behind you counting your items. Though I must admit I was recently “that guy.” I’m waiting to check out with an almost full buggy when the cashier at the 15-or-less line motioned me over. She had no one waiting and assured me it was fine.

How long do you think it took for someone to come up to that line with just three items?  If you said, “about 10 seconds”, you’re a winner every time.

Palmetto Bluff: Living Large and Beyond My Means

Palmetto Bluff is a playground for the rich, and occasionally, the famous. Pop singer Kelly Clarkson supposedly was here recently playing golf. 

The 20,000 acre development in Bluffton, South Carolina, oozes Southern charm. With the May River as a backdrop, enormous live oaks drip with Spanish moss. Beautiful homes are tastefully set along well-manicured fairways; paved pathways allow walkers, bicyclists and golf carts to navigate safely separate from traffic. Much of the land is a nature preserve. 

The place smells like money.

My wife and I do not qualify to live in such opulence, but apparently we have friends that do. For the weekend, we pretend we belong.

The occasion is an annual event called ‘Music To Your Mouth’. It is an event that Caligula would have approved of: an orgy of food and drink. (We’ll let the orgy references stop there.)

Noted – and unnoted – chefs gather to show off their skills of preparing Southern fare.  

Beer artisans offer snooty beers. Wineries from the East to West coasts offer unlimited tastes of their best reds and whites. And there is a bacon forest, where bacon – plain, smoked, candied, and drizzled in chocolate – hangs from lines, waiting to be ‘picked’ and eaten.

 Admission is the cost of a year’s tuition at UGA. We took out a loan.  

When it is over, the whole affair has lasted only four hours, but that was enough. Decadent indulgence has its limits.

Another time, for another event, I would tell you that we all went back to the house and passed out for the remainder of the afternoon. But this is Palmetto Bluff. The top drawer. The upper end. 

We napped.

Grits and the People That Eat Them

As Southerns, we enjoy a special infatuation with our food. Especially those that are uniquely our own. Like grits.

For most of time I was on the radio, I co-opted Lewis Grizzard’s line that inferred grits grew on trees. I don’t know if anyone else found it funny, but it never got old for me.

Recently, on a trip through North Carolina, my wife and I wound up at a nice little bed and breakfast. For breakfast, they served very traditional Southern fare: biscuits, gravy, eggs, waffles… and grits. Grits with your choice of redeye gravy or a cream gravy.

Hearing the ‘you’re not from here’ people discover that grits were a part the buffet was a lot of fun. 

“Hey, look at this. He says it’s grits!”

For them, grits was more of an attraction than it was food. One lady took a picture but didn’t eat any, despite my insistence that it was only corn.

I chose cream with mine, only because that’s an option not usually available. I usually eat grits with butter, cheese, salt, pepper, and sometimes bacon or ham. On this day, I decided to be a sophisticate of some sort for no apparent reason. Besides, I was having milk gravy with my biscuits. If I had redeye gravy on my grits, the gravies would be confused. 

I have personal litmus test for the proper way to load up on biscuits and gravy, by the way. If you can still see biscuit, you ain’t got enough gravy! Feel free to co-opt that as your own.

Full disclaimer: I have had triple bypass surgery. 

I do not believe it has anything to do with gravy.

Doing Disney, Part 1

My wife and I have just returned from her first trip to Disney World. If you have never been but have thought about it, in this article we will discu$$ the cost. Hang on to your wallet.

This was not my first trip to Disney, but for quick context on how long it had been, on my last visit I paid $8 to get into the Magic Kingdom. Today, a one-day pass is $105. PER PERSON!! 

Is it worth it? 18 million-plus people a year think so.

I knew I was in trouble when I started researching the trip and discovered there are actually finance plans to help you pay for your Disney vacation. You can even set up a Disney savings account to start putting money aside now to pay for your future visit. You know, sort of the same thing you’re supposed to be doing for retirement.

Further warning signs: the two of us spent $161.52 on dinner the very first night there. I blame me. I insisted on a bottle of wine and not wanting to appear to the Disney staff to be the Two Buck Chuck-er I am, I opted not to get the cheapest wine on the menu. No, that would have been the $49 bottle of… swill, probably.

I ordered the $51 bottle.

I’m sure the staff was impressed. I suspect they talked about it in the kitchen. “Hey the guy at table 27, he’s really upping his game tonight!” They may have also discussed that we asked for a red wine to go with the fish we ordered, but for the record, I do not drink white wine. Unless, of course, that’s all you have. 

My snootiness has its limitations.

Disney is expensive. But here’s the brilliance of it all. You don’t need money! You don’t. For visitors to a Disney resort, you get a wrist band, and that cute Mickey-eared bracelet takes care of everything.

Tap your wrist band to your door, that’s your room key. Want a drink? Tap your band to the machine and out comes a $3 Coke. A beer, you say? Tap. Entrance to the parks, your entry on the rides, meals, snacks, hats, shirts, pins… anything and everything can be bought with just a tap.

Oh, sure, that wrist band is tied to some personal information like, say, a credit card you’ve put on file. But at no time do you ever have to pull out cash or a card. Spending has never been so easy. 

It’s genius on a level Walt Disney himself would be proud of.

I must admit, I do think it was worth the money. We had a great time! But yeah, that mouse got away with a little bit more than just my cheese.

The Alcohol Prescription

A long-time listener from the time I spent on the radio emailed recently. “I’ve got something for you,” she wrote.

I know her just well enough to know we share a similar sense of humor, so we set up a meeting: Wednesday, 1 p.m. in the beer and wine aisle at a local grocery store. (Why not do some meaningful shopping while you wait, eh?)

What she had for me was a prescription for alcohol. I had no idea such a thing existed. Dated 1927, that would place this artifact squarely in the middle of the prohibition era for the United States, a time when alcohol became mostly illegal.

Best I can tell from my twenty seconds of research, the government did allow for alcohol – mostly whiskey and brandy – to be distilled for pharmaceutical use during prohibition, starting in 1920. Cancer, indigestion, depression… it apparently was the fix for numerous ailments.

This particular prescription called for one tablespoon three times a day. Pardon me for saying so, but that amount would be just about enough to pi** off a real drinking man. (I’m guessing.)

It did, however, start me wondering about the creative ways one might have obtained such a prescription back then.

“Doc, my Model T’s done throwed a wheel, so looks like I’ll be walking to work. Can you give me something for my sore feet?”

“Doc, my girl’s done hauled off and joined one of them travelin’ hoochie-coochie shows. Can you give me something to ease the shame?”

“Doctor, my best layin’ hen ain’t puttin’ out eggs no more. What am I gonna do?”

“You’re gonna get you another hen”, says the doctor. “Meantime, take this three times a day.”

Historians seem to generally agree that prescription alcohol was a racket. You paid your doctor for the prescription then you paid the pharmacist for the elixir. The doctors and druggists were getting rich; you were getting your buzz on.  Everyone was happy, I suppose.

I wouldn’t be. And here’s why:

A tablespoon is half a fluid ounce.  Therefore, three tablespoons would be an ounce and a half. A standard jigger is an ounce and a half. A jigger is also known as a shot glass. Conclusion: the doctor was prescribing a shot a day that you would basically divide into three sips.

One. Shot.

If my doctor prescribed that for me, I’d take it. But then I’d fling the shot glass at his head. Let’s see if one shot is enough for his pain.

I'm a Cowboy

That’s right.  I’m a cowboy.  Got me some chip-kickers (sorry, they allow me only so much editorial freedom) to prove it. Tony Lamas, baby.

A friend gave me these nice cowboy boots over twenty-five years ago, and until recently, I had worn them maybe twice. I’m a sneaker dude. What I am is a lazy dresser, but sneakers are the preferred shoe of slobs worldwide.

A wedding I attended back in the fall was loosely Western themed, so putting the boots on seemed the appropriate thing to do. Problem is, those boots are size 11; my foot is now a 12. It was a tight fit, but my wife encouraged me to gut it out for the night.  After all, I’m a cowboy, right? We laugh at pain.

Wearing those boots for 8 hours that day either stretched them out a bit or shrunk my foot. The boots still don’t fit but feel fine enough that I recently wore them when I accompanied my wife to a dinner with a bunch of her redneck friends. 

I fit right in.

Here’s the thing: I’m different when I’m wearing my boots. Maybe I just don’t pay attention, but do I always point my toes out when I walk? In my boots I feel like I’m bow-legged. Like I just got off a horse.

I talk differently, too. Instead of a “nah” to your question, you will get “naw”. “Hey” becomes “howdy” as I greet you. Being raised in the South, I tend to say “ma’am” to women most of the time, regardless of their age, but when I’m wearing boots, it becomes a two-syllable word: ‘may-yum’.

The very act of wearing cowboy boots invokes a certain swagger in your personality that you don’t normally display. It’s how we get popular 5-foot, 2-inch country singers. They may be wearing a t-shirt and a necklace, but put on them boots, a cowboy hat, and give ‘em a git-tar, and they are by-god ranch hands that just drove the herd across Montana right before hopping on stage to sang you this here song.

I get it. ‘Cause I too am a cowboy. So if you see me in the saloon, go ahead, call me out for being an imposter. But be aware, I’ve got a six-shooter. I mean, I’ve had six shooters.

And if you’re wearing flip-flops, I’ll trade you. These boots are killin’ my feet.

Real Man Food!

It’s no great revelation that our tastes change as we, uh… mature.

Think about the first wine you drank. Pink right? Or peach or strawberry or whatever Boone’s Farm blend you could get your hand on. 

White zinfandel, which is pink, is still popular with novices. In fairness to white zin, it’s still popular with girls and gay guys, too. No offense intended; I have girl friends and gay guy friends. I know what they like.

My own wine experience started with sauterne, which is a dessert wine. I recall drinking it over pizza with a girlfriend. It’s really sweet and a terrible choice with pizza, but it’s where your taste buds are. Or were.  

These days, I prefer syrahs, zins (not white), and cabernets: rich, hardy, almost heavy wines with lots of big tannins and a warm alcohol feel.

Coffee is another good example of changing tastes. It’s pretty common to start drinking it with lots of milk and sugar which, except for it being hot, makes it more like a coffee milk shake. I’m a late-in-life coffee drinker, but I only want it one way: black and strong.

Chocolate: I will eat creamy milk chocolate if you offer it, but I would marry a Hershey’s Special Dark bar if the law allowed and it could say “I do”.

Syrup: Aunt Jemima is for sissies. Give me a buttered biscuit and some blackstrap molasses - or sorghum, and get out of my way!

Anchovies: Like most folks, I grew up thinking they were yucky. Now, I routinely use anchovy paste in certain dishes. Sardines? Nothing but big anchovies. Open a can and let’s eat.

Spices and herbs: more, more, more! Pepper, cumin, and cilantro. Garlic could duke it out with dark chocolate for my deepest affections.

But you see the trend, yes?  Bigger, bolder, richer... words already used.  Here’s another word that applies: stinkier.  I want my cheese to stink. Bleu, gorgonzola… give me any cheese with mold in it. That seems odd to even say.

But ‘stinky’ seems like a good place to stop and begin to address the elephant in the room. And that is how all of this affects us. More importantly, how it affects the people around us. Or we could just ignore it. 

Either way, COULD SOMEBODY PLEASE OPEN A WINDOW AND GET SOME FRESH AIR IN HERE!?!?

Doing Disney, Part 2

Welcome to our show, boys and girls! Today’s game is called Disney World: Addiction Or Devotion?

Let’s meet our contestants. (Y’all, these are actual people and real stories. They share information on the promise their real names would not be used.)

Today’s first contestants, the Benjamins! The Benjamins are in their upper 30’s, both work, no kids and consider themselves devotees to The Happiest Place on Earth. They stay at the same place and eat at the same places each time they go. Because they own a travel agency, they do get a few price breaks but will spend approximately $3,000 for an 8-day trip that they take once a year. Or twice, if the mouse moves them.

Let’s take a commercial break so that I can cuss the Benjamins. My 4-day trip cost almost $3500, although I suspect the Benjamins don’t have the same beverage bill that my wife and I are capable of running up.

And we’re back!

Our next contestants are the JJs, James and Joanne! The JJs hail from Utah and are retired. While raising their three children, the JJs always took their family vacations at either Disney Land in California or Disney World in Florida. “The kids loved it, so it was a really easy choice for us.” Now, the JJs are here once or twice a year on their own. They stay in an off-Disney property to mitigate costs, but they generally do not worry about expenses. They are devotees.

Let’s take another break while we ponder why a retired couple in their 70s hops a plane twice a year in Salt Lake City and flies to Orlando to frolic with Cinderella and Goofy.

Next, let’s meet the Double Ds. These people look normal: good looking, gainfully employed, and like the Benjamins, also in their upper 30’s. They however, have a child. They are looking forward to going to Disney World in just a couple of weeks for spring break. It will be their 21^st trip (not a typo) to Disney World. The DDs also enjoy a financial break at Disney World, theirs being a military discount. Still, for their 4 day stay the DDs will usually spend well over $2,000. With a 6-year old child, they can be forgiven for making Disney a regular vacation spot, but 21 times in 8 years?!? And because they plan to renew their wedding vows at Disney World in a couple of years, we have labeled them the Disney Dorks!

And now meet our final contestants. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the STDs!  Seriously Trained Disney-ites. Looking like average people of a similar age to me and my wife, we struck up a conversation with the STDs while waiting in line at the popular attraction at Epcot known as Soarin’. What we learned was that Disney World was every single vacation they ever took with their children. In the first two years of retirement, the STDs made 12 trips to Disney World, at which point they decided to move to Orlando. They now visit one of the Disney parks – Epcot is the favorite – two or three times a week! And they love it. No golf, no tennis, no Europe, no Mexico… Disney World is their world.

Stop the game.  I think we’ve found our winner.

50 Shades of Gray(ing)

1.      Well, look at that.

2.      Where’d that come from?

3.      Guess you knew you’d see one at some point

4.      Just pluck it out.

5.      Dang, didn’t you just pluck that out last week?

6.      Uh oh.  There’s one here, too.

7.      Double-pluck.

8.      Oh, crap.  They’ve called in reinforcements.

9.      So what? It’s just a few, right?

10.  Probably, no one notices.

11.  If anybody notices, color.

12.  It’s not really color, it’s a rinse. Color is for girls, right?

13.  They notice.

14.  So what?  At this rate, you’ll be dead before you’re all gray.

15.  Maybe not.

16.  Nowhere close to dead.

17.  (Hopefully).

18.  So what?  It’ll make you look distinguished.

19.  Right?

20.  Besides, you’re just gray-ish.

21.  Still mostly dark hair.

22.  At worst, half and half.

23.  Starting to look really distinguished.

24.  Et tu, mustache?

25.  And beard?  And sideburns?

26.  Ha ha!  Look a gray chest hair.

27.  Hang on. You don’t know any young men with gray chest hair.

28.  Or even young-ish.

29.  Most are called “grandpa”.

30.  You are different.

31.  A very young-looking gray.

32.  Dang, he looks young to have that hair, they’ll say.

33.  Nobody is saying that.

34.  Plucked a gray hair today from eyebrow.

35.  So what? It was just one.

36.  Co-workers start calling you “old man”.

37.  Some are only 10 years younger than you.

38.  They think it’s funny.

39.  They’re just jealous of your wisdom.

40.  You still da man!!

41.  Ha ha! You’re young at heart!

42.  Gray arm hair?

43.  Nah, just be bleached from the sun.

44.  Pluck eyebrows daily.

45.  More gray?

46.  NOT THERE! PLEASE, NOT THERE!!

47.  Calm down, you’ve still got it.

48.  Check body in the mirror.

49.  Side view, not so good. Check front view.

50.  Pull the shades and turn out the lights.

Ain’t nobody wanna see that.

Eatin' Bugs: Life with an Entomologist

“There’s a lizard in here.”

That proclamation from my wife carried no weight, warning, nor was it a call for help. It was just a statement. No further action required at this time and none was taken.

Such is life with my wife, an entomologist in her former life.

Entomologists are bug people. A lizard is not a bug, got it, but it eats bugs. So by extension, it gets a hall pass. For now.

Living with someone who understands bugs has its downsides. There have been countless 4-H programs where she would single me out as an unsuspecting man-on-the-street and shove a plate of sautéed crickets or meal worms in my face and proclaim to the kids, “See, this guy will eat them.”

(By the way, they are tasty, but you never quite get past the fact that YOU’RE EATING A BUG!!)

Life with a doctor of bug-ology means every little creature you discover in the house is not a crisis. And squealing like a 5-year old girl every time you see something creepy is apparently not an aphrodisiac. Grow some, boy.

So we’ve had to set boundaries.

Rule one: roaches are disgusting. No, they don’t attack and don’t bite, but they are nasty. On this, we pretty much agree. What I’ve had to live with, though, is that one roach does not an infestation make; they can come in from outside.

That’s her take. As far as I’m concerned, one roach is reason enough to call professional exterminators to come tent our house and fumigate it with DDT while we move to a motel. Roaches die.

Scorpions also die. We live on a heavily wooded lot and occasionally get scorpions inside. Our version has very little venom and the only downside of getting stung is a little pain. Or so I’m told.

I’ve never been stung by a scorpion but she has. Twice. The result was language that would get your mouth washed out with soap as a kid. (Bonus: tequila helps get over the pain. Or so I’m told. I could only do a sympathy sip.)

Ants in the house are not acceptable. Neither are flies.

Spiders? Spiders are not considered evil ‘round her. Unfortunately, spiders mean spider housing, and…

spider webs are a no-no,
so the spider must go-go.
They don’t always die, though;
sometimes they just get relo’d

(That’s ‘relocated’. To the outdoors. Sorry, I got caught up in the moment.)

I must say, living with an entomologist has taught me a lot about bees. As a result, I do not run, nor even flinch, in the presence of any bee or wasp. Yes, I do kill wasps nesting on the house, and I don’t tolerate carpenter bees burrowing into the wood siding, but if you’re a bee just buzzing around, welcome.

We also have a few crickets. A portion of our basement is living space; the other part is cool, dark storage. I’ve intended for that part to become a wine cellar, but wine around here has as long of a life span as chocolate does at your house, so crickets occupy that space.

As long as I’m not having to harvest them for snacks, I’m all good. Besides, they’re good lizard snacks, and as far as I know, we still have a house guest.

The Wedding: An Affair to Remember

A fine occasion, it was. The barn had been rented and decorated in burlap and ribbons. The bride and groom were long-time roommates, friends, and lovers. The time had come to make it official.

I booked a room at the same hotel as the wedding party, only to find out that the wedding party had moved to another hotel. It seems that upon arriving at the original hotel, one of the wedding party members discovered a condom in their room. A complaint to the hotel manager didn’t bring the appropriate response, so they cancelled all the rooms and moved down the road. 

Some people might think finding a condom in their hotel room was a perk, kind of like chocolates on your pillow. Not this group.

Wedding day: the girls all get their hair and nails ‘did’; the boys grabbed their pistols and went to the firing range. Guests from out of town gathered at the Waffle House for something scattered, covered and smothered. “An acceptable level of ecstasy”, Lyle Lovett would say in a song.

Guests arrived at the barn, parking in a field down the road. The preacher arrived and within 5 minutes fell and broke his hip. I’m not making this up, but feel free to steal it if you need a story line for your comic book. Nothing like an ambulance waling into your wedding to kick-start your dream night.

I offered to perform the marriage, figuring the whole ceremony has a script and being that I can read. By that time, however, the preacher’s son had been designated as the replacement. It all goes off without a hitch under the pecan tree out back.

Afterwards, there’s bocce ball, horseshoes, cornhole and croquet on the lawn. The bar is open and dinner is a huge buffet. A big box of cigars awaits those who head to the fire pit.

This was a lavish affair.

And there was dancing. The DJ spun the bride’s favorite tunes. Anyone ever notice who storms the dance floor when “Fat Bottom Girls” is played? It’s like the national anthem for those that qualify for the title of the song.

Nothing quite like a southern wedding.

The bride is my niece, and I had a moment with her before she and her new husband departed through a sea of sparklers that lead to their limo. She confided that the preacher’s son was not a ‘real’ preacher. He had no legal authority to marry anyone, and as the night ends, her big fat wedding was not a wedding at all. 

She laughed heartily, and I felt better because of it. Like I said, it went off without a hitch.

Retirement? What Retirement?

"Playing a lot of golf?”

I get that a lot since I retired. I am an avid, though quite atrocious, golfer. But the answer is ‘no’.

I am approaching the one-year mark since I officially retired. I use the word ‘official’ because I spent 41 years as a radio announcer. My wife was an administrator at the University of Georgia; that’s some heavy lifting. It can be argued that I never really worked.

We chose to retire on the same date. Some friends and colleagues wondered if that was a good idea. Several have admitted to going back to work in some capacity to get away from their spouse for at least part of the day.

I get that. When you and your partner have been separated for most of the day 5 or 6 days a week, suddenly having all that time together could be… challenging? Suffocating? Time to question whether murder is really a sin?

We’ve struck a nice balance on the togetherness thing. I play golf; she’s not invited. She joined the gym; I’m not invited. She reads; I watch TV. We do our online shopping on separate computers and without consulting one another. (To that last item, our coffee maker recently died. We now have two. Be in touch if you’re interested.)

Advice from friends already retired on how much free time I would have was a mixed bag. Some had found other jobs, if only volunteer or part time, to fill the void left by not having to show up at the office. Mostly, though, the warnings were opposite, that I wouldn’t know where the hours of the day went.

Boy, were they right. In fact, whoever told me, “You won’t know how you ever had time for work!” nailed it.

In the year before I retired, I played 122 rounds of golf. As I reach the one year anniversary of no job, I will have played well less than half that many times.

Isn’t that supposed to be the other way around? What happened?

Travel gets some of the blame. Or credit, perhaps. By the time we reach the one year mark, we will have been to Alaska, Europe, Mexico, Disney World, Boston and New York City, not to mention trips to see family and friends closer by.

Moreover, though, I think work brought structure to my day. Working, I was up at 4 a.m., finished with work and on the golf course by noon, then whatever needed tending to would happen after that.

Take the car into the shop, buy groceries, make a Home Depot stop… on any given day, I could squeeze the necessary chores into whatever hours were left in the afternoon. What didn’t get done simply rolled over into the next day’s effort.

Nowadays, there is very little structure. Heck, we’re lucky if we to make the motion detector blink by 10 a.m. Breakfast often gets skipped because we’re too close to lunch by the time we get motivated to do anything.

That sort of inactivity can really shorten up a day!

Then once you do get moving, there’s always some sort of agenda: plant the garden, work in the yard, fix the leaky toilet, grocery store, drug store, doctors and dentists… oh my word, we could fill this page with doctor’s appointments.

I’ve often heard that the reason you retire is so you will have time to go to the doctor. I shouldn’t have dismissed that notion so nonchalantly. And we are healthy people!

So another day begins and golf is again not in the plan. I’ve been splitting firewood and have chosen a gorgeous spring day to try and get that finished up rather than frustrate myself trying to accurately move a little white ball 60 yards in less than five shots.

If I have time, I need to pick up the computer from the repair shop and run to Lowes. I could also use a haircut. Oh, and the ‘check engine’ light is on in the truck. I doubt anything is wrong with it, but the shop is clear across town. That takes time.

By day’s end, another day of retirement will have been filled up without going to a job and without playing golf. Then I’ll have to fire up the grill and drink a beer while cooking dinner.

*sighs heavily*

Do my chores never end?

Marketing 4 Dummies

Having spent my entire career in radio, I learned a few things about marketing. For example, did you know that “new” is considered a very powerful word? That’s why you hear something – for instance, a radio station that’s been on the air for years – still refer to itself as “the new” station.

“Free” is another power word. Having a sale or promotion? Throw in something for “free” and ears hear.

There is one area where I think marketing runs into the ditch: Razors.

Actually, I think once razor blades got so expensive that grocery stores had to put them under lock and key, society sort of ran into the ditch, but let’s stay focused.

When razors left behind the old single-blade, marketers got hyper-creative. 

Two blades became ‘twin blades’. No, wait. Too old-fashioned. Let’s call it the slim twin. Wait! The ST2. ST is for slim twin, and the 2 is for… two blades. And put a moisturizing strip on there and it can be the ST2 Hydro. Yeah, that’s it. (Read that again, but this time be breathless with excitement!)

Schick makes the ST2. They also make a three-blade for both men and women. Can’t call it three-blade, though. (Did you fail marketing class??) It’s the Xtreme3. And the four-blade is the Quattro. Because ‘cuatro’ is the Spanish word for ‘four’.

Get it? You can’t call it Cuatro because then only Spanish-speaking people would buy it, right? But Quattro sounds like cuatro, so they’ll think, hmm... 4 blades… but not just for Spanish-speaking people. Give everyone in marketing a raise!

Schick also makes a ladies’ razor called “Intuition.” I haven’t investigated, but I assume it knows when it’s time for you to shave your legs and hops in the shower with you on its own.

The grand prize in razor marketing goes to Gillette. 

Who decided to call a shaver the Mach3? Shouldn’t the Mach3 come with speakers that play NASCAR sounds as you shave? Am I to believe it will shave my face at warp speed? If not, then what?

But Gillette didn’t stop with the Mach3. Oh, no. They added “turbo”. If I’m using the Mach3 Turbo, I want flames shooting out of the end of that thing. I want it to soar across my face. I want to feel exhilarated. Like I just won the Le Mans across France!

Gillette also has a Fusion Proglide Silvertouch Manual Razor with Flexball Technology. Please note that most of the words in that name are registered or trademarked so don’t plan on stealing them for your own shaver. Since a whole lot of marketing genius was put into that thing – and I know my marketing - I’ll break it down for you as I see it.

-Fusion implies it becomes one with your face, so it touches your face.

-Proglide means you glide it over your face, but not like an amateur. Pro. Glide.

-Silvertouch means it’s silver. (It is.)

-And the Flexball part means it rotates on a ball of some sort.

Oh, forgot the ‘manual’ part. That means for all the money they spent on marketing and you spent on buying the thing, you still have to hold it and shave yourself.

Glad I could help.

Doggin' It (Dog People)

A neighbor was hosting happy hour recently when one of the guests showed up with her dog. It was a little yappy, high-energy thing. She called him Andre. Had a real dog been around, he could have been called Entrée.

The dog was not on a leash, immediately ran into the house, ran around all available legs, human and otherwise, hopped unto laps on the sofa, and generally, made itself at home.

“How cute”, thinks the dog’s owner.

“What the ****”, thinks anyone with any manners.

Was the dog invited? It wasn’t. Did you ask if you could bring your dog? You didn’t. In fact, had you asked, the host didn’t want the dog in the house, period. At what point in your development did you assume that because you love your dog, everyone else will, too?

I blame the world wide web.

Here’s what you’ve posted on social media in the last couple of days:

- your dog lying on the floor
- your dog lying on the couch
- your dog in the yard
- your dog in your lap
- your dog “smiling” (No, it’s not. Sorry.)

I have a friend that posts a picture of her dog every time she goes to the lake. She uses the hashtag #lakedog. And it’s always exciting stuff. “He’s tired!” (sleeping). Then here he is on a boat, a float, sleeping again, awake with tongue hanging out, standing, chewing a toy. 

Another friend and I were meeting for dinner recently. She set the time at eight o’clock because her Layla was graduating from obedience school. I was trying to argue that we should meet earlier.

“Honey, do you think she knows it’s graduation night”, I asked in my best condescending voice.

“Come on. She’s worked so hard. She deserves to graduate.”, says (former) friend.

As I am putting this article together, an acquaintance from Texas has posted a picture of his dog asleep on the bed. Did he take that photo because it’s cute? He would say, “yes”.

I will tell you the truth: the dog is lying on its back and everything it has is exposed for all the world to see. That’s really why the picture was taken. I can’t really tell, but I’m guessing his dog is a pointer.

I can’t take it! Look at that picture of your dog you just posted. Who do you think is interested, people?

Oh, it might make your mom grin, seeing what her ‘granddog’ is up to, but the rest of us are just seeing a dog lying on the floor. Get a real life! Including not referring to that dog as your granddog, grandma! 

I’ve concluded, though, that I don’t hate dogs. I hate their owners!!

I’m running out of exclamation points. And friends, I suspect. I’m OK with that. My pretend friends don’t have dogs.

Drinkin' and Flyin' (and Sanity in Seattle)

I feel sorry for people that get on an airplane and fall asleep. When the engines quit running or there’s a mid-air collision, they’ll miss all the excitement.

OK, I don’t fly well. It’s the ‘height’ issue. Since I fly frequently anyway, I’ve tried various methods to overcome my phobia. I tried hypnotism a couple of times. Didn’t help. Reading on the plane? Who can concentrate when a wing is about to break off?

My wife holds my hand when we take off. I thought it was to comfort me. Turns out, she thinks it’s amusing that my hands get all sweaty.

Drinking helps.

On my first flight to Europe many years ago, a pharmacist friend gave me two Xanax tablets. He said, “Take one of these four hours before your flight. When you get to the airport, take the other with a drink of something.” For my ‘something’, I chose Jack and diet (Jack Daniels and Diet Coke). And let’s make that a double.

I woke up somewhere over Iceland.

Since then, I’ve come to understand that just a drink, maybe two, works just fine for calming my nerves. Best done before takeoff, but an in-flight toddy works, too.

Side note: people are under the impression you can’t take booze on a plane. I do it all the time. It simply has to be in plastic bottles of less than 3.4 ounces and placed the same quart-sized baggie with all your other liquids. I use ‘airline bottles’ I’ve saved. The same ones you sneak into the University of Georgia’s Sanford Stadium. (He did not just say that!) Yes, you do have to pull that baggie out of your carry-on while going through security, but I’ve never had a single objection from security. Now, where were we?

We were in the Atlanta airport recently and I ordered a Jack and diet. Make it a double.

Now, in most bars in America – including airport bars – doubling up is about $3 more. Not so at Hartsfield-Jackson. And my server had apparently seen enough rage to give me a heads-up.

“Just so you know, a drink is $9; a double is going to be $18. Didn’t want you to have sticker shock.”

Wha-what??? I was under the impression that prices at Atlanta’s airport had to be somewhat in line with street prices. What bar charges $18 for drink, even if it is a double? I canceled the drink and washed down my burrito with water.

Then I put my mad, wicked, ninja math skills to work.

A standard 750 ml bottle of Jack Daniels is roughly $25 in your local package store. 750 ml is approximately 25 ounces, or in bar-speak, 16 shots. At the price that restaurant was charging, this restaurant values that bottle of Jack at $153!

The Hartsfield-Jackson word of the day, kids, is “gouging”. Let’s say it together.

The first leg of our flight was harrowing. Nothing happened, but I did it completely sober. Sweaty palms, sweaty pits. Lots of deep breathing and prayer. A non-stop session of Angry Birds helped.

The layover was in Seattle, and I found a bar.

“How much for a Jack and diet?”

“7.50,” she said “Outstanding. I’ll take one.”

“Would you like to make it a double for $3 more?”

I can only conclude that I am willing to pay for some peace of mind, but apparently, I have my limitations.

Golf, The Real Redneck Sport

Folks that don’t play golf tend to perceive it as a game for uppity people. After all, playing golf takes money. You either pay a membership fee, often hefty, or you pay every time you want to play a round.

Golf courses have clubhouses. Clubhouses can be very nice buildings with private locker rooms, fine dining and lots of rather expensive equipment. There are entire communities of rather fine homes built on golf courses, world-wide. The occupants of such opulent abodes surely have money.

Indeed, in many cases, they do have money. Lots of money. Which makes them… rich rednecks.

Reality check: the reason you don’t find many pool halls anymore? All those people are now on the golf course.

Golfers are crude, foul-mouthed, and loud. They show up at the golf course driving their pick-ups with coolers full of beer. They drink, they chew, and they spit. They spit even if they don’t chew. Recall that Tiger Woods was once fined for spitting on a green in the Dubai Open. He openly apologized. 

And that’s my point.

It’s not just the local, good ol’ boys we’re talking about here. John Daley has been seen playing shirtless. Ricky Fowler, who prowls the golf tour courses in colorful Puma garb recently admitted to playing shirtless if the course allows it.

Bubba Watson and some of his fellow pro golfer buddies have done a series of videos, calling themselves the “Golf Boys”. They are available for viewing on youtube. Watson appears shirtless, wearing overalls in them.

These are highly successful professionals. Likely, all are millionaires if not multi-millionaires. Sure, they’re allowed to have some fun. But in each case, we see them for what they are. Having money simply means that when we see them smile, they have a full mouth of teeth.

Why then, do we present events like The Masters in such hushed tones with announces in suits and ties and golfers dressed like GQ models? The event itself is played at a high-brow venue you have to be a jillionaire to even join. But a game for aristocrats, it is not. 

So I propose that we lose the façade. The next time Bubba rolls one in from 40 feet to clinch a major, let us not applaud politely and present him with a crystal vase. Let us instead shake up a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon, open ‘er up and spew it everywhere. Let’s rip off our shirts and chest bump and let Jim Nance scream, “Hot damn! Did y’all see that?!”

I, for one, am tired of playing the part of a gentleman.

Chicken is the New Cat (Chicken People)

Jerri had 14 cats. She even referred to herself as ‘crazy cat lady’. Crazy cat ladies are often referred to by another word: single.

“You’ll never find a man”, I told her repeatedly. She proved me wrong. She married him the day he was released from prison.

These days, I seem to be surrounded more and more by crazy chicken people. People I thought were normal are obsessed with chickens. They name them, they pet them, they talk to them like the chickens are their children. I do understand some of the appeal; farm-fresh eggs really do taste better.

But then all kinds of crazy breaks out. 

There is a website called Backyard Chickens for those people to chat with each other. My friend, Linda, met a dude named Bobby on the site. Bobby apparently knew a lot, and anytime Linda had questions, she sought Bobby’s advice. They chatted frequently.

Eventually their conversations lead her to purchase some baby chicks from Bobby. It was all neatly arranged. She would meet Bobby in the Wal-Mart parking lot (because where else do chicken people meet?). There, they would consummate the deal.

Linda was anxious and arrived early. Finally, she would meet the man who knew so much. Her go-to guy. Her fowl partner.

When the appointed hour finally struck, she was giddy to see the car Bobby described pull up. And out of it popped…

Bobby’s mom.

Turns out, Bobby is 15.

But the deal was real, so biddies were bought, and no cops were involved.

I helped my brother tile his laundry room floor last summer. A Polish hen named Lucy supervised. She occasionally left a comment on the job we were doing but it cleaned up pretty easily.

That same brother and his wife spend their happy hours watching “Chicken TV”. That is, they grab a beer, unfold chairs in the backyard and watch the chickens. How exciting!

Another chicken friend was raising chicks in a spare bedroom. All fine and good until the grandkids show up. It was only after the kids left that Grandma Chicken – that’s what they call her, y’all – discovered the chicks had been freed from their box and had spent several hours with the run of the room.

Feathers everywhere were the least of the problems. The birds had pooped all over the treadmill. This, however, did not ruffle Grandma Chicken’s feathers. As she put it, “somebody ought to use that thing”.

This final piece of evidence I offer to prove that chicken people are slightly off-center will require you envisioning a middle-aged woman, naked, and losing it. This is the email she sent to me:

“We had a hawk attack yesterday. I got out of the shower and looked out the window to see my beautiful chicken, Chardonnay, being attacked.”

Pause for a moment and ponder how that chicken got its name.

Continuing…

“I ran through the house and yelled, screamed and waved my arms when I got outside. Scared the hawk away, feathers were everywhere. Poor Chardonnay looked petrified. I picked her up, wrapped her in a towel, took her in the house and rocked her and sang to her. After 10 minutes she started talking to me and then she wanted out of my arms. She is fine.”

The chicken may be fine, but you, my dear, are nuts.

Call Me Sometime! (Why Telemarketers Must Die)

I’m not yet a fossil, but by admitting I still have a landline phone, I am a dinosaur. When I recently complained on a social media post about the proliferation of robo- and telemarketing calls, a common response was to ask why I still owned this relic.

Some legitimate reasons to hold on to your landline: home security is connected to it, though you can do that wirelessly now. Better still, and true, a wired phone is more likely to work in a power outage.

The reason I’ve held on is I do not like to talk on the phone, and the less my cell phone rings, the happier I am. With a ‘home’ phone, I have a number to give the dentist, doctor, drug store, etc., who may have a genuine need to reach me without having to give out my cell phone number.

However, my home phone is blowing up with unwanted calls. And I’m not alone. Yes, I’m on the ‘do not call’ list. Yes, I regularly renew my membership on said list. Why yes, I’ve even filed a few complaints, just for funsies. But the hits just keep on coming and in increasing numbers.

The Federal Trade Commission is charged with regulating these matters, but it’s either gotten to be too big of a problem for them, or they simply don’t care. It’s so bad now that I get up in the morning and take the phone off the hook. Sure, I can look at caller ID and ignore those calls, but they start around 8 in the morning. If my phone is ringing at 8 a.m., somebody better be dead.

Agreed, there are legit telemarketing firms making legal phone calls. That’s not what we’re getting, folks. I’m frankly mystified that anyone would want that job, a job where 99% of the people you talk to hate you.

My new theory – and I sincerely believe this – is that the mere act of answering the phone makes it worse. By answering, you’ve just told them there is a person at this number who will pick up the phone, and I believe that information gets shared amongst the predators. Hence, the increasing volume of calls.

I recently answered a call identified on caller ID as ‘I’. Just the letter ‘I’. Thought I would ask them to please remove me from their call list. Indeed, by law they are supposed to do that, but I don’t think we’re dealing with legitimate telemarketers anymore. What I heard sounded like a very well done computer-generated voice.

“Is this Allen?”

“It is”, I replied.

*click* (call ends) 

What happened? Did it end because I didn’t say “yes” or “no”? By the way, never say the word “yes” to a telemarketer. NEVER. A tactic they use is to be recording you. Even if they ask if you love your dog, if you say “yes”, they have you saying the word “yes”. It can be used maliciously against you.

So what to do? There is the old whistle trick: have a loud whistle you can blow into the phone when the vultures come calling. But that hurts my ears, too. My favorite solution so far is from my nephew and his wife. Their two-year old son, Oliver, loves to talk on the phone. When it’s a telemarketer, they just hand the phone to him and walk away. Mom’s happy, Dad’s happy, the kid’s happy.

While that’s a brilliant strategy (for now), it would force me to find someone with a two-year old for sale. Then I would have to decide whether I would rather have a two-year old in the house or a telemarketer on the line. And the jury is unprepared to render a verdict in that case, your honor!

(Drawing provided by 7-year old Carson Terrell, dinosaur expert from Oconee County,Georgia. It is an Ichthyosaur, but you should know that.)