The Banjo Minnow

Mama, don't you give all the lard away,
Save some up for a rainy day...
---Some '20s or '30s jug band whose name I can't recall.

I don't have a lot of time at the moment, but I have been hankering to tell you about something that happened on the way during my trip here to Stately Wayne Manor.

A co-worker has come up with a new and interesting use of the word "display," that being as a way to describe some kind of intolerable public behavior. It is most commonly used among my co-workers to point out a particularly disgusting bit of ass-kissing, and those of you who have been here a while know how I feel about that. "Look at that Display," he will say (I like to capitalize it in this usage), and everyone will stop what they are doing and look over in hopes of catching a little bit of the ass-kissing or other shameless behavior, though I cannot bear to look at such things anymore if I can at all avoid it. I guess 30-some years of my line of work have left me with a sort of "thousand-yard stare" when it comes to ass-kissing and that sort of thing.
But this is a bit different from that, in fact a lot different, but I found it nearly as disgusting.
I was in some food court deep in the wretched bowels of O'Hare Airport, eating some "food" that alleged to be Chinese curry but tasted more like canned vegetables in a sauce whipped up from a bit of jimson weed and 40-weight motor oil. (Fuck those little baby corns...who the hell grows them, and why?) As I was trying to choke this stuff down, I noticed the arrival of a spectacularly beautiful miniskirted young woman. I am sorry to point out that I noticed, but that's the way it is. Ever see the old commercials for the Banjo Minnow, a lure that supposedly invokes a "genetic response" in fish that actually forces them to hit at it whether they want to or not? There is a genetic response in males to the arrival of such women, and I have always assumed there is a similar genetic response in women to the arrival of comparably attractive males, but I can only make an educated guess that it's the case there too.

The trick is, of course, that at my age and with my marital status happily being what it is, the initial genetic response passes within a brief moment of having the Banjo Minnow appear before me.

So that's what happened here. I noticed her, then went on about the business of eating my dismal, shitty $16 meal (did I say "fuck those baby corns?" If not, I am saying it now), and all would have been forgotten had she not then sat down at one of the tables directly across from me and immediately assumed a very immodest pose that made clear to the world that she'd "forgotten" to put anything on under this embarrassingly short skirt.

It seemed as if every male within 60 yards noticed this right away (genetic response! The Banjo Minnow people are right!), and if I am not mistaken there was a little jostling for seating of the unobstructed view variety, especially among the young, available males.

I probably had the best seat in the house for this, but I am sorry (or glad, as the case may be) to report that my reaction to this was utter and total revulsion. All I could think of was my co-worker saying "Look at that Display" with complete disgust, and that was how I felt about it. I am sorry, people, but I am not interested in seeing your private parts while I am trying to eat, whether it be good food or bad food, and whether you be a Banjo Minnow-type female, a drill sergeant or whatever.

So it was kind of funny because I was very obviously averting my eyes. While everyone else seemed to be totally drawn to this Display, I was busy reading restroom signs, checking out the offerings at the other food stands in hopes of getting something marginally edible next time I was there, reading the back of the newspaper being read by a woman who was sitting near me (and who clearly was not interested in the Banjo Minnow Display).

I could be wrong about this, but I could not help but get the feeling that this Banjo Minnow person was thoroughly enjoying putting on this Display. Or maybe that's just a guy thing left over from my youth, during which I imagined that a lot of women thoroughly enjoy tormenting men by doing things like this in public. And I was determined not to fall into this trap, if it indeed was a trap. Besides, sorry, but the food was unappetizing enough on its own without the added side dish of having to look at all that.

I have had Zelig-like tendencies throughout my life for some reason, meaning that I seem to be present when all sorts of monumental or ridiculous things happen, and had I been, say, 21 at this time of this Banjo Minnow sighting I would have thought of little else for, say, the next 18 months or so.

That was then and this is now, to coin a phrase. I am not 21 anymore, and maybe it is selfish of me to wish away events like this, which are the sort of thing many young fellows' dreams are made of. So please - please - if you want to show your goods to the world for some crazy reason, do it elsewhere and let me get indigestion in peace.

Indigestible baby corns and unfettered viewing of something that should not be seen in public do not make for a fine dining experience, especially for a world-weary person like myself.
(For those who have never seen the commercial...this is NOT an endorsement, and there will be no underwearless women in this link):

https://www.asseenontvnetwork.com/vcc/tristar/banjominnow/133257/

When Nature's Remorseless Biting Mofos Attack

VANCOUVER ISLAND - Well, greetings again, seekers. I received a mild taunt from one of my valued readers (when you only have six and are related to two of them, you value your readers greatly) about not having posted any outrages in, well, let's call it a few weeks.

Sorry. I have been busy/sick/hurt/tired/traveling/at music festivals/all of the above for the past month or so, and the Batcave is turning more and more into a semi-urban replica of an Appalachian shanty, so much so that I've actually having to do things to keep it from turning me into a flesh-covered pancake in my sleep. I'm currently out at Stately Wayne Manor on Vancouver Island, living the life of Riley and looking out the patio doors at the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Coastal Mountains, which is a hell of a sight better than the view out the window of the Batcave in upstate New York, from which the delightful sight line often is my neighbor's ass crack as he fiddles with his petunias, and since he really has petunias that is not supposed to be a metaphor.

By the way, I should point out that the title of this short screed is not a reflection on the correspondent who tweaked me for not writing in a while. It's actually something that happened to me a couple weeks ago while I was camping at folk festival.

I love going to these festivals, where I play fiddle with friends I only see at such events. A co-worker calls them "fiddling and diddling festivals" in the mistaken belief that what occurs at these things is that we all play music till the wee hours in the campground, drink beer and whiskey and, when the music is over, all have sex with each other multiple times. He is right about two of those things, and I will leave it to your imagination which two. However, I do nothing to discourage his firm belief that the third part of this actually happens, mainly because he can scarcely contain his envy.

So while camping at this festival, some goddamned awful living thing either lunched on my calf or decided to get even with the human race with one quick blow of the pedipalps, or whatever they call those things. Within 24 hours my entire lower leg looked as if I'd been having beet juice injections, so I wound up writhing in the emergency room and then flat on my back with an IV sticking out of my fiddling arm. I would have rather been at the imaginary orgy, believe me. Since then I have been back at the hospital once and at the doctor's office twice.

The best part of all that is that when a nurse asked to see the bite, she clasped her hands over her mouth and said "Oh, my God!" Great. What you do not want to hear in a medical setting is someone acting as if you have the worst thing they've ever seen.

But what amazes me is that after a couple sets of bloodwork, "they" still have no clue what bit me. The best they can come up with is that it "probably" was a spider, "possibly" a black widow, and that there's also a chance that it was a simple mosquito bite that became infected. It's hard to imagine how one could get such an infection while rolling around in a campground littered with all manner of filth, isn't it? The person tented next to me was drinking almost as much beer as I was, so I immediately suspected that he'd snuck over and peed (or worse) on my turf rather than walking the 50 yards to the portable shitter in the middle of the night. After all, he was from some other state, Connecticut or something, and who the hell knows what kind of people come from a place like that?

So here it is some two weeks from the bite, and it's still huge but healing. It kind of freaks me out to look at black widow bites on the Web and see how similar it is. That's one of the great things about the Internet...no matter how much of a hypochondriac you are, you can always find something to stoke your worst fears and make them far worse. I also looked at photos of brown recluse spider and hobo spider bites and for a short time convinced myself one of them would be the culprit, but nature seems to have placed them out West and not in the East, so even though it was neither of these that gave me the existing wound I will have ample opportunity for one of those little assholes to have at me while I'm here on the Left Coast.

So forgive my absence recently. Hopefully, it makes the heart grow fonder, or whatever that greeting-card-type bullshit saying is.