Life's Contradiction of Terms, Oxymorons and Ironies

OFFLINE FOR A WHILE. BE BACK SOON.


There are a lot of things in life that are a contradiction of terms, oxymorons, ironies, and the like. Some can be funny and some just down right annoying.

Fast-food restaurants are certainly a contradiction of terms. I don’t know how many times I’ve impatiently waited near the end of a long, slow-moving line of cars at a fast-food restaurant’s drive-through window wondering to myself how these places earned the name fast food to begin with.

Speaking of drive-through windows, shouldn’t they be called drive-up windows? I mean, you don’t really drive through them, do you? No, you drive up to and stop at them to gather the food order you placed, which seemed like an hour ago, through one of those funky two-way microphone systems that garbles up voices so badly no one can understand what anyone is saying. Man, I hate those things.

One time, when placing an order in one of those, I thought I’d give the person on the other end a taste of his own medicine. I put my hand over my mouth and spoke into it when giving my order, thus beginning a long conversation consisting mostly of, “What?” It was good for laughs with the crowd in the car but our order sure got screwed up.

Then there are those express lanes at supermarkets, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, most busy stores out there. How many times have you been stuck waiting near the end of a long, slow moving line of people wondering to yourself how these check-out aisles ever got the name express lane to begin with? When in that situation, haven’t you ever wanted to shout, “Have you forgotten what the word EXPRESS means?!”

Our local Wal-Mart doesn’t even try to pretend that their express lanes are fast. They’ve installed televisions, tuned to their own Wal-Mart channel, in their express lanes to entertain you during your agonizingly long wait in their EXPRESS LANES!

But back to fast-food restaurants, McDonalds, or at least some of them, now give you the option of choosing between their regular menu and their gourmet menu, McDonalds and gourmet? Now there’s an oxymoron if ever there was one. Hey, when I go to McDonalds I’m not going there for gourmet. Heck no! I’m going there for a dripping-wet-with-grease, artery clogging, heart attack causing hamburger, with some greasy, salt-drenched fries. If I want gourmet I’ll go to a gourmet restaurant, thank you very much.

There are other oxymorons in life. There’s Army intelligence (Kidding, folks; it’s just a joke. I actually do support and respect the men and women of our armed services), jumbo shrimp that so many of us love to eat, and the Little Giant ladder, just to name a few.

A bill board I saw the other day provided me with a disgusting sort of irony. Since bill boards are a part of life I think it qualifies as an example of an irony of life. While driving home from my brother’s, I found it ironic that a local Harley Davidson dealership put on their marquee, “Don’t be a gas hole. Buy a Harley,” since that dealership is just a quarter mile or so up, and on the same side of, the interstate from the Holy Land Experience theme park.

With that I think this oxymoron will bid you adieu.

A Lone Island of Testosterone

After growing up in a family of four rowdy, unruly, and somewhat crude boys, and after raising three rowdy, unruly, and somewhat crude sons, marrying a woman with two young daughters is a whole new world for me. It’s like being a lone island of testosterone in a sea of estrogen, the quintessential “fish out of water.”

When I was a kid my brothers and I loved to watch Bugs bunny, Yosemite Sam, the Road Runner, Sylvester, Tweetie Bird, and Johnny Quest, to name a few. They were loud, somewhat rough and tumble for their day (some claimed they were even violent), and perhaps a bit obnoxious.

The boys of my sons’ generation watched shows like He-Man, G.I. Joe, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Again, loud, rough (perhaps a bit violent), and obnoxious.

But my how different TV watching is with girls. For them it’s none of that boyish rough and tumble stuff. No, they watch Caillou, Little Bear, Backyardigans, and Wonder pets—mild, cute, cartoons that teach a life lesson in a warm, fuzzy way.

No self-respecting boy would be caught dead watching those shows. Why, in my day (this lecture sounds eerily familiar) a boy who’d watched those shows might just as well have put on his mother’s dress and high heels and paraded around town; he would’ve been labeled something that today is politically incorrect to say.

In grammar school, the depictions on my lunch pales were G.I. Joe, Lassie, horses, cowboys, etc. My sons had wrestlers, He-Man, the “Turtles,” and the like.

Sweetie’s daughters’ lunch pales have Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty—sounds like I’m writing an advertisement for Disney--on them.

When raising sons I, as did my father before me, would trip over basketballs, footballs, baseball bats, skateboards, Lincoln Logs, Tonka Trucks, plastic army men, and cowboy boots strewn throughout the house.

Nowadays, I find myself tripping over mini kitchenettes, little pink purses, dolls and miniature baby strollers, batons, ballet slippers, My Little Pony horses, and snow globes with princesses in them.

Gone are the boyish things my sons, as did their father before them, left behind in the car. I now have ponytail bands around my gearshift, Snow White encased in a clear plastic container, plastic crowns with plastic jewels encrusted in them, and pink, princess flip-flops (there's the two P's again, pink and princess. Is there a theme going on here or what?) in my car.

But the biggest difference, and the toughest by far, that I’ve found between residing in a household of women compared to residing in a household of men is the curtailing of my crude side. No more flatulence contests (my brother onced echoed one off the walls of our basement. He won of course). Nope, now I hold it in until I resemble something like a human zeppelin, and I do believe there've been a few times I’ve come close to floating away right out of the house.

Now there’s no more making an art of burping—seeing who can hit middle “C” with his burp or who can say the alphabet in one big belch. There’s no downing several sodas at once and then trying to out do your comrades with the loudest and/or longest burp. Yes, I now bare the pain of holding in a burp to forgo the shame of letting one rip out loud.

There are also no more jokes about bodily functions, boogers, innards, and body parts. Now it’s just calling Cinderella Cinderfella, Snow White Snow Grey, My Little Pony My Little Phony (I have no idea why those last two are funny), and the funny little nicknames like Squirt and Sport that I’ve given the girls, which makes them giggle like someone's tickling their feet with a feather.

Yes, it’s different living a house full of females, and sometimes I do feel like an island of testosterone in a sea of estrogen. But life’s all about change isn’t it?
Change helps us to learn and to grow.

Speaking of which, it’s time to end this little chat. The Backyardigans are on and, um, oh yeah, I promised the girls I’d watch it with them. Yeah that's it, not that I actually like the show or anything mind you.