"Ma'am? Ma'am?”

Here's what I’d like to do just once: go to the mall and NOT have to duck those young solicitors. I go to there now and have to climb right to the mezzanine to miss them. You know what they look like: young and bright-eyed and striding toward you, "Ma’am hiiii, would you like to try some special Whale Placenta Lotion for your dry skin?" You try to be nice, make a joke, say “Ha ha no! Sometimes if my skin gets TOO dry I just work a little shoe polish into it," but "I’m good!” you say, “Really!” you say and you try to keep on walking. You can’t even slow down on the first level because they just just keep coming at you with all these products.And you can’t be mean to them; it just makes them more chirpy. "Talk to the hand!” you might even say and still they won't take offense. "You have a nice day now!" they sing.It's easier to just avoid them. Only it’s sad because you know you’re missing some cool stuff down on that first level, like the hungry hordes milling about in front of the Cheesecake Factory, and the 14-year-old girls in their underpants and raccoon mascara all still wearing their Uggs even though it’s 90 degrees out - and sometimes even the 14-year-old boys too. Plus really all you get up on the mezzanine is the weird stores, for ecology-minded pregnant women, and,.... people allergic to air.... and,..... that those weird little hobby shops with clerks who look like Wallace Shawn in “The Princes Bride.”Not that I don't look like Wallace Shawn in "The Princess Bride" myself  but I'm fine with that. HEY I'M JUST HERE LOOKING TO SCORE SOME TERIYAKI CHICKEN, I’M NOT INTERESTED IN FLAMELESS CIGARETTES ! Now if they had real cigarettes for sale those might come in handy; one of those you could brandish like a sword and when the chirpers came at you you could plant the hot-coal tip SSSSSTTT!  right on the smooth young palms of their outstretched hands.You have a nice day now, hear?

Uggs & Gloves, Or Why Didn't You Call Us Part II

About three months back something sort of freaky started happening to an area of my body, and it finally occurred to me I’d better get myself in to the Quickie-Care section of my hospital, one of the best in the world as they all seem to claim these days and who knows but this one is pretty great and famous and without naming it let’s just say JOHN WAYNE came here to die, OK?

Now I don’t care how famous the doctors are in places like this, the frontline people who see you first are Just Plain Folks and the Just Plain Folks person who saw me last Friday tried that nasty trick of weighing me first. “No-no-no-no-no,” I quickly said. “No need to WEIGH me, what, in these moon boots which I need several family members to help me get out of?” (Because what can I say I’m one of those meager older skinny-but-with-some-cellulite gals who is just freezing cold all the time and so wears Uggs and gloves right up until the first of June.

I had my Uggs on and no one was getting them off of me.

She shrugged. She didn’t care if I got weighed or not. She was just nice, just a nice, easy-going young woman whose first language was Spanish. So I told her there was something wrong with my tongue, and OK yes it's my tongue, and when I said this, her eyes widened in horror.

“Why you wait so long to come in? Not to scare you or no thing but your THUNG? You could have Cancer of the Thung! Not to scare you or no thing.”

“Ha ha!” said I. “C’mon, it’s just funny. I don’t have tongue cancer!”

“How you know this?” she demanded.

“I looked the problem up on the Internet.”

"The Internet?! The Internet don’t know shit!" she spat and if that didn’t stop me cold. Because maybe I have Cancer of the Thung and maybe I don’t but if the Internet REALLY don't know shit we’re all screwed because in my book at least The Internet in general and Wikipedia in particular have replaced God, the cops, the FDA, the Norton Anthology of British Verse, the OED and the Encyclo-friggin’-pedia Britannica as the highest authority. Wikipedia is entirely Internet- based and gets contributed to by more Just Plain Folks who write in with niggling corrections until by consensus a species of truth is agreed upon so hey: THE INTERNET you can hang your hat on!

Anyway…. I did get to see the Nurse Practitioner after all this and she and I entertained ourselves hugely for a good six or seven minutes with pictures of all the things that can go wrong with the human tongue which we got from – where else? - the Internet.

I realize there’s more to be said about my little affliction and I’ll say it when it’s cleared up but I’ll stop using my poor sick tongue altogether; I'll seal my mouth up with Plaster of Paris before I stop believing in the Internet.

What’s your vote I wonder? Touch the "comment" link at the top of this post and tell me, please tell me that you believe too. And do it right away if you can, OK? Just in case our friend the Internet DOES know shit and decides it might simply subtract itself from our lives - like Tinkerbell can do whenever she feels like it, like GOD can do on a day when he’s sick to death of us - if we don't all just start clapping really hard right now to show it that we believe!!