Some Little Questions
Dear Mr. Sarcasm,
1. Did your mom happen to belong to a certain group called “Modern Mothers for Obscenity”?
2. Don Knotts, friend or foe?
3. Question the TV made me think about-”Are we all scary and damaged?”
4. Where do your fire ants hibernate? Stu wants to see them.
5. Roller derby girls. Nothing makes me wish I was a lesbian more. How about you?
6. Go to the Sci-Fi channel website and look at the 3 guys who are trying for the last slot on “Who wants to be a Superhero?” Who would you vote for? Did the bald roly-poly one remind you of anyone?
Thank you for making me not hate the internet. I hope you write forever and ever.
Here. There. Wherever. Perhaps everywhere.
— Mrs. Silvertongue
Dear Lyra:
1. My mom was not a “group of concerned mothers” type of person. Oh sure, she’d make a face if she heard too many fuck-words coming out of my angsty teenage boombox. And once she tried to convince me that all those black t-shirts I wore were “satanic,” but I think that had more to do with wanting to see more color in my wardrobe. (Though something tells me Satan is more of a light-khaki sort of guy. Black just absorbs the heat. And hell is hot — that’s never been disputed by anybody.)
Anyway, no. My mom was younger than most other kids’ moms, and she worked in (and eventually ran) nightclubs. So she was significantly cooler than most moms, and never said a whole lot on the subject of obscenity. Growing up, as I did, in bars in a Navy town gave me remarkable insight into a much broader world of obscenity than most kids know. Not only did I learn how to swear like a drunken sailor, but many of my friends, as a result of one or both of their parents having been in the military, were from, or often visited, other countries. The practical upshot of this was, I knew how to swear in Spanish and the Filipino Tagalog before I even knew what the English words meant.
2. Don Knotts played Mr. Furley. Anyone who can pull off silky scarves and still claim, unironically, to be straight, is okay in my book. He also played Barney Fife and Mr. Limpet. Something about a guy who wants to be a real cop and also a fish just screams “friend” to me. His death last year is clear proof of the Three’s Company curse — which is to say, all the prominent cast members of Three’s Company appear to be mortal and will die someday. (See also: John Ritter and Norman Fell.) Though I may end up being proven wrong on this one as we one day discover that Joyce DeWitt is, in fact, some kind of immortal pixie being. And since I’m pretty certain that I’m never going to die, it’s in my best interests to keep tabs on my fellow immortals. I can certainly think of worse people to spend eternity with.
3. No, just you.
4. My fire ants apparently hibernate someplace really safe, because I’ve never actually seen them. Do I actually have fire ants? I’m not actually even sure I’ve seen a fire ant. My friend lit ants on fire once, but I don’t think that’s the same thing.
You know what I miss? The cicadas. Back in the summer of ‘96, southern Maryland had those suckers — or possibly some similar form of locust. Some kind of creepy bug thing with red eyes that only came out once every so many years. I never actually saw the things, but their sound was hypnotic. It was like that beautiful buzzing hum you get when your modem is working. I bet there are children alive now who don’t even remember the cicadas. Or modems. I feel old.
5. But not that old. Isn’t roller derby one of those things from the 70s that we’re all collectively trying to forget? Like avacado green appliances, rust orange shag carpet and Jimmy Carter? (My grandmother bears an uncanny resemblance for former President Carter, so our family has trouble with that one.)
I guess it still exists, because the area of Seattle in which I live (White Center, aka “Rat City”) has its own roller derby team. Well, I say they have — I’ve only seen the sign that claims that the stretch of road outside my apartment has been adopted by the “Rat City Rollergirls.” Boy, I’m doing a lot of “believing without seeing” this time around, aren’t I? One might begin to get the impression that I’m too lazy to check my facts.
I do wish you were a lesbian though.
6. I will not. I have an active policy of not going to any website that anyone tells me to go to, mostly out of spite. To be honest with you, the internet kind of creeps me out a bit. Let me give you a quick example.
The company that does my web hosting provides very detailed statistics on traffic. One of the things it tells me is what Google searches lead people to my site. Among the searches last week that brought people to www.aalgar.com: “need teeth extracted and have no coverage,” “kfc use cloned chickens,” and my personal favorite, “biography of emanuel lewis known as webster.”
Amusing, to be sure, but also more than a little bit creepy. Are these the sorts of people you want mingling with you out on the internet? More importantly: do you want them mingling with your kids? And just what sort of mother would that make you if you do?
A Mother for Obscenity, that’s what. Well done.
Thanks for writing!
