All the local TV weather forecasters agree: this weekend will be the Worst Storm Ever. Until, of course, the next storm and/or the one after that. Doubt it? Go to the Weather Channel and check it out for yourself. Praise the Lord for basic cable, eh?
Like everyone else (on earth or at least that's how it felt) I headed for the local grocery store. I never claimed to be an original thinker and my destination proves my point. The aisles are jammed with neighbors whom I've never met and people I see all the time whose names I'll never know.
So much for Norman Rockwell's portrait of America, eh? I'm not even sure if the Saturday Evening Post is still extant. And why would we want it when we have tabloids to tell me that "Rachel Ray Throws Out Husband" and that Katie is worried about her marriage to Tom.
The as-imagined-by-their-press-flacks lives of people whom I'll never meet adds a lustre to my own that no non-tabloid or a news magazine could ever provide.
Where else, but standing in the checkout line at a supermarket can I experience, admittedly vicariously, so much so quickly? How goofy must we be that Weekly World News, the tabloid that had 'Bat Boy' and the alien shake hands with everyone from H. Ross Perot through George Bush, both H. and W., cease publication because of flagging sales?
I LOVED WWN because I trusted EVERY news report, photo and feature was utterly bogus and knew I was never going to be disappointed. And what about the folks who placed ads in there! What were they thinking and who buys that stuff now that the newspaper is gone?
Lots of rainy day thoughts and concerns as we stand bravely and mostly silently behind one another waiting for the register operator (they're not really 'cashiers' anymore are they?) to say hello and ask us how we are, without ever waiting for, or listening to, the answer. We're past 'paper or plastic' aren't we? We may have given Al Gore an Oscar and a Nobel for his eco-movie, but I drove in my car alone, and passed a bus, to the store and have bought enough items over-packaged to single-handedly choke a landfill.
Now I'm home, enjoying the buzz from a food snack I bought and ate even though I shouldn't have. Empty calories are the best. They go straight to the waistline and skip the brain.
We need hurricanes more often-helps us get out of the house and mingle. You betcha!
-bill kenny
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