Thoughts I Couldn't Flesh Out Into Full Entries, With Only One Mention of Retardation (Two If You Count This One In The Title)

“Retarded”: So apparently “retarded” is the new word that absolutely must not be said. Never let it be said that blogging doesn’t teach you new things. I want to offer this little tale as a partial explanation for my wildly unpopular remarks: My parents were very big on that grey zone between kindness and abuse called “Christian charity.” This often took the form of making me play with the weirdest kids they could find, since these kids usually didn’t have any friends and it was “a kind thing to do.” Now, I got in trouble in pre-school, not once but several times, for claiming to have been abducted by aliens, so the kids that out-weirded me were generally straight-up moon units. And since most of my friendships were parent-mandated ones with weird kids, no one else wanted to be my friend, so it was all a big vicious cycle of having to hang out with the kid who stripped naked and put a surgical mask over his genitals and referred to himself as “Dr. Dick.” Anyway. This pattern reached its most dramatic moment when I was about eight. A very peripheral acquaintance of my mother’s was dying, and her husband asked us to watch “the kids” while he made funeral arrangements. Well, it turned out that the “kids” were twenty-year-old, severely retarded developmentally disabled dwarves. (And before you start with “little people,” these people had a condition called “dwarfism.”) So of course Mom takes us all to Long John Silver’s, where the “kids” proceed to get up, run around, and scream. I was such a shy child that I would literally rather have been struck than involved in a scene, and there I was with a fat lady chasing dwarves around a seafood restaurant. (Tulane Chris: A Life. Written by Groucho Marx, directed by Salvador Dali.) Somehow we got them home, where I was treated to one of the most ringing sentences ever crafted in English: “Chris, I need to you watch him and be sure he doesn’t run into the street while I change her menstrual pad.” “Watch” quickly devolved into “restrain.” Child vs. dwarf: watch for it on ESPN. So before you call me an “ableist” and cry, as one man did, know that as a mere child I sacrificed most of my sanity, all of my dignity, and a good deal of my physical comfort to keep someone with special needs from running out into the street.

King of Vegetables: A restaurant down the street has announced its annual tribute to “the King of Vegetables – White Asparagus.” I’m curious if white asparagus is always king, or if every year the crown is passed to a new vegetable. If for any reason White Asparagus is unable to perform its duties, will a runner-up vegetable – say, squash – be called upon? Also – annual tribute? If we don’t appease white asparagus with a menu featuring it each year, will its rage be unleashed?

Wine talk: I bought a bottle of wine for six dollars, including Pennsylvania sin-tax mark-up. This is what it says on the back: “When a fisherman has an especially good catch, it is said that they have the Fish Eye. They seem to have a sixth sense about where the fish are and what will attract their attention. Hopefully our Shiraz will attract yours. This hearty red makes a huge splash displaying aromas and flavors of ripe berries, spice and a lush finish. Watch out! This wine jumps out of your glass!” Nothing says quality wine like the fish eye, and any wine jumps out of the glass if you drink enough of it. What’s on the cheaper wine labels? “Garbage disposals are a convenient and modern addition to the American kitchen. Dispose-All Pinot Noir grinds up flavors of cherry, tannins, and coffee grounds to create a wine that goes right down the hatch!”

Superpowers: Can you imagine raising children, one of whom has superpowers?

“Bridget, take out the trash.”

“Can’t Jean do it? She’s omnipotent.”

“MOOOOOOM! Sue went invisible during hide and seek again!”

Scat Porn Movie Titles:

Void Where Prohibited Reporting for Doody
Doody Calls

Poops: I Did It Again

Shit Happens

Misty Water-Colored Memories: I could only remember one of the classes I took my last semester of college when Dad asked me last week, but I know the name of every actor on “Gilligan’s Island.” I decided, on some primal level, that a topic I spent months actually studying is less likely to come in handy than knowing that the actress who played the Millionaire’s Wife was named Natalie Schaeffer, and that she once guest-starred on “I Love Lucy” as a charm-school instructress.

No Offense: So, a while ago, someone commented on the blog something to the effect of “I like Tulane Chris now that he’s a regular writer, but – no offense – I hated his guest-writing stints and complained about them to my friends.” Fair enough. I hadn’t written regularly for a year or two when I started doing guest posts, and I was rusty. Also, sometimes posts just don’t come out right, like the time I tried to make Christmas cookies and left out cream of tartar with the reasoning that if I didn’t know what it was, it didn’t matter. (As it turns out, cream of tartar forms on the inside of barrels in which white wine is being aged, and it does something to eggs that makes them bind the cookies, so that – let’s just say for example – they don’t run together and form an inedible quarter-inch-thick sheet cake.) So you know, whatever. I’ve apparently won her over in the interim, which is nice. But… “no offense?” I wouldn’t have been offended if she hadn’t said “no offense,” but that phrase itself offends me. It’s supposed to be a talisman that keeps people from being mad at you, no matter what you do – ‘cause hey, no offense! “No offense, honey, but I slept with your brother.” Gun a man down in the street, provided that with every round, you shout “No offense, but die, motherfucker!” Paint “no offense” on bombs and drop them out of a plane named Sorr About The Bang. It’s cool! No offense.

Meggles: If you have time, please put up one of those maps of Nazi Germany’s expansion – the kind with all the arrows coming out of the swastika – with NO OFFENSE! written across the bottom.

Tulane Chris: I've been googling every combination of "map," "Nazi," "World War II," and "arrows" possible for the past 15 minutes and I have no idea what you're talking about. So here's a picture of Rolf from The Sound of Music instead:


NO OFFFENSE!!!!!!!1

Yang out the Ying-Yang: Every night, I look at the sky and I think about how Kevin Yang is under the same moon.