Seriously, people, I am warning you; DO NOT get sh*tfaced at The Local on Ponce de Leon on Monday, Wednesday or Friday unless you want me to hear about it from Grant. For one, I always beg Grant to tell me the "idiot stories" the mornings after his bartending gigs, and he always has at least one doozy to relate. His latest has to do with "the 45-year-old lady" who works the counter at a fast-food joint down the street. Grant kept saying he should have known she'd be a problem because at first she was "so inappropriately nice." I asked him what the hell that meant. He said she placed her order like this: "Excuse me, I don't want to be a bother -- sorry to interrupt -- you sure you're not busy? [The bar was empty.] Do you mind -- only if it's no problem -- do mind if I have a PBR and a shot of Jaeger?"          
    "How does that flag her as a problem drunk?" I asked.     
    "It means she's been thrown out of bars before," he said, which really made sense. When I was a flight attendant, I remember the most odious dicksack of a drunk passenger I ever encountered was really super nice at first. It's like he was trying to connect with us on the Dr. Jekyll level so that when Mr. Hyde emerged we'd be too invested in his friendship to throw his abusive ass off the plane. But he was wrong. Anyway, Grant knew she'd be a problem but he served her 8 -- EIGHT -- eight damn shots of Jaeger anyway, PLUS like four PBRs. "It's almost like you wanna see where it goes," he said, "but you gotta stop before it goes too far." he added. Well, evidently he was one Jaeger shot too late.     
    By the end of the night she had to be shoveled out of the bar, but not before she forcibly molested practically every other customer in the place, especially the other women. She had a penchant for grabbing breasts and screaming, "You're so BEAUTIFUL!" By then end of the night she was burying her face in every cleavage that came near her barstool, including, but not limited to, those of the waitresses. I remember when I was a waitress -- the job is seriously bad enough without having to deal with a drunk-ass middle-aged minimum-wage earner repeatedly boob raping you with her face. Finally Grant got her to pay her tab and got her out of the bar, but the process went as smoothly as a broken blender. Carrying her to the door was like carting water in a colander. In all, she made Grant's job about twice as hard as it had to be that night.
    "Serves you right," I said.
    "I know," he conceded. "I knew the beast was in there, I shouldn't have been curious to see what it looked like." 

I told Grant and Lary I made a resolution to reduce my monthly expenses or figure out a way to make more money, so here are their tips on how to pull that off:

Roll drunks.

Roof soccer Moms and steal their purses.

Two-for-one blowjobs.

Marry an old rich man, then wait for him to die or

Marry a young rich man, then kill him.

Stop making mortgage payments, then buy my house for a fraction of its value at the foreclosure auction.

Birth a litter of surrogate babies.

Start a meth lab in my kitchen.

Collect bull-semen samples for a cosmetic companies. ("I saw the ad online!")

Open a brothel catering to clients who like hookers with colostomy bags. ("Specialization!")

Get knocked up by a professional athlete. ("Don't forget the bullet-proof vest!")

Run drugs from South America.

Move to South America!

Then kidnap an American corporate consultant.

Forge checks.

Start a phone-sex hotline.

Steal Lary's autographed picture of Jesus and sell it on eBay.

My neighbor Dolly is missing -- not missing missing, like alert the FBI missing -- just laying-low kinda missing. Two days ago my friends Lary and Michael erected a trampoline in my backyard, and usually that brings her out in her bare feet to see what all the "goddam hoohaw" is about, especially considering Lary looks like a serial killer. My neighbors are usually pretty good about checking on my welfare, regardless of how unworthy I am. Dolly's mother used to come over all the time when she heard me screaming, but I was only ever screaming at telemarketers, and in fact I was impersonating Dolly's mother, because I learned that acting like you have Alzheimers is an effective way to ward them off. But there has been a lot of screaming going on at my place since we put up the trampoline, and no sign of Dolly. I will have to go over there and check on her. I will have to hear why her Christmas was so horrible. I will have to be neighborly, even though neighborliness is new to me. Wish me luck.

Click HERE to see the trampoline but no Dolly.

My neighbors Robert and Dolly aren't talking to each other. I live between them and they have known each other most of their almost 60 years of life. I just moved here three years ago and they seemed to be getting along fine then, but Dolly's mother was alive then, healthy even, though loony as a fruit bat. Somehow Dolly's mother being alive seemed to keep things civil between Robert and Dolly. Then Dolly's mother died and now there is consternation between the two. If I was the kind to get involved I would inquire, but I'm afraid of neighbors. Growing up I remember we always either avoided them or feuded with them, but we never were close to them. I remember there was the neighbor who hacked our crabapple bush back from the sidewalk without asking us, and that seemed to infuriate my parents, even though I never even knew that bush was supposed to be on our property. Then there was the neighbor who was a "disgraced dentist" and we weren't supposed to play with his kids. Then there was the drunk who lived across the street from us and kept hitting on me. My father said he would have beaten the crap out of him but he was black and my Dad didn't want to seem racist. So he beat the crap out of me instead, which I thought was really unfair. Then there was the neighbor who won a bunch of money on "Let's Make a Deal" and built a big addition on her house that blocked our city view, which infuriated my parents even though my mother was able to finagle a reduction in rent because of it. Then my parents divorced and my Dad died and my mother started flirting with our landlords and we were never in one place long enough to meddle or be meddled in on. Today I've been here three years, and three years is a long time for me to be in one place. Dolly and Robert look in on me. She left some presents and a Christmas card that said, "I had the worst Christmas in my entire life, don't even ask me about it," which of course means I should ask her about it. He came over and asked me if I liked their gift, and I said I did. It was a light-up Airstream trailer so of course I liked it. He said he and Dolly aren't talking, which was an invitation to talk to him about him and Dolly not talking. But I said I would talk to him later about it, knowing that when I get around to talking to him about it the two of them would be talking again. At least I hope so. Because with the two of them not talking to each other they keep wanting to talk to me, and I can't have that. I'm afraid of neighbors.

 The Magic Show

Ours were the last four seats on the very farthest right side of the front row, which means when the magician did all his famous slight-of-hand tricks he had his back to us, so we couldn’t see what the big deal was. What we did see, though, was his assistant when she slipped in from back stage to take his place in all those presto-change-o tricks. And of course we got to hear him preach to us about Christ, so much so that it almost seemed like a church service rather than a damn expensive and elaborate magic show, even if the magic show was in Pigeon Forge, TN, where people eat hefty helpings of Jesus three times a day.

Later I bought some candles from a shop owned by a guy who could not possibly have been more gay, but still he kept talking about his wife and how he drives his kid to school. I thought he would drop the act after I told him I was from Atlanta, seeing as how in Atlanta it’s okay to be gay, but he didn’t. Maybe I blended too well with the enemy, what with the festive fake antlers on my head that my girl insisted I wear. Or maybe he simply forgot who he is. That I totally get. In fact, this was only my second day here and I was starting to do it myself. For example, when I first came to the Smokey Mountains I fancied myself somewhat cosmopolitan. Then two days later presto-change-o! I’m in a candle shop, crowned with antlers, blending.

Three words: Pigeon Goddam Forge.

As far as family holidays go I suppose it wasn’t horrible. I can handle overwhelming cornball crapacity for a day or so before it becomes dangerous – and when I say dangerous, I don’t mean I am in danger of imploding with inward misery. What I mean is that I am in danger of, like, adapting. I am in danger of standing in my eightieth gift-slash-T-shirt shop looking at my eightieth set of grizzly-bear salt-and-pepper shakers and all of a sudden thinking, “These are kinda cute.”

But then, of course, I am saved by all the religi-kitsch. Because I cannot look at that and not revolt. Even if it’s only inward. Because I have never seen so many Confederate flags and Jesus-Christ-on-the-cross crapapalooza in one place in my entire life, and I’m a regular at the Sister Louisa gallery. In Gatlinburg and nearby Pigeon Forge, TN, there were so many Jesus coffee mugs and crown-of-thorns beverage coasters and Virgin Mary potholders and bloody Jesus-head night lights and crucifix lollipops and just plain people everywhere God blessing me all over the place that there was no way I wouldn’t revolt. Yes, outwardly I was smiling. But inwardly! Inwardly I was dancing naked in the moonlight, drinking the blood of the living.

 
Robert lent me his 40-year-old holiday inflatables to put on top of my trailer. These are not the common Japanese-made ones you see on lawns all over metro Atlanta -- the ones kept conveniently air-blown by little motorized fans commonly positioned, for example, in the happy polar bear's ass area and whatnot. No, with Robert's old inflatables you actually have to blow them up with your own actual lips and lungs. Or at least Robert insisted on using his, even though he is newly toothless and I informed him more than once that I actually have a small hand pump that works fine. I'd gotten the hand pump to make balloon animals for my girl's fifth birthday party, and I must say I was a huge hit even though my repertoire consisted solely of poodles. She's eight now, and balloon poodles no longer impress her.