What's good for the goose ain't so hot for his gander's fanny by Todd Foltz
Todd doesn't recommend trying this caper at home.
Maybe it was the fever that's to blame for the pummeling I nearly took last week. At least, that's what I'll maintain it was. But deep down I know that fever or no, I can't stay out of trouble for long. Everyone else blames my big mouth (well, that and my frisky nature and form-fitting stretch pants), but what do they know?
As it happens, I left the record store I own early last week to try to nap away some of the high fever that was really making me feel bad. Driving home in a daze, I wasn't paying too much attention to the road. I'll admit that. To be honest, with a maniacally red nose spurting snot like a disgruntled postal worker spraying bullets, I was contemplating where mucus comes from. I finally decided it must be made in Japan, because there's no way American workers would pull the triple shifts needed to keep my nose leaking this badly.
Now, scoff if you will, but I've never been confused with the great thinkers of Earth. So I don't care whether a tree makes sound when it falls in a forest with no one around, just so long as it doesn't hit me on the head. And I'm not sure whether ethics should be based on the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number of people or on a rigid code of laws. I'll leave that to the dorks who sit in the corners at parties and debate the ethical issues raised by Star Treck the Next Generation.
But it seems to me or at least it seemed to me when I had a fever of 103 that somebody needs to pay more attention to mucus. Where does it come from? Is there some biological bank with an interest-bearing snot account? I don't recall thinking, I've got some extra snot, should I put it in the bank for a rainy day or should I blow it? Or maybe it's the fault of the Republican party. The nasal system may be the only application of trickle-down economics that actually works.
Now, if I recall my college philosophy classes correctly, the great thinkers among the Greeks actually believed we had organs full of mucus in our bodies. Aristotle, I understand, called this organ "The Snotty Place." Today, of course, we realize that what he really was referring to was Sachs Sixth Avenue.
But let's not condemn poor Aristotle for his mistake. Anyone who's had a bad cold and a persistently runny nose understands the exasperation of running through boxes of tissue. At those times, it's easy to believe that there's a mucus-filled Tupperware container deep inside our heads that's roughly analogous to the windshield wiper fluid reservoirs in our cars. But, I was thinking as I drove home in my feverish haze, that analogy proves The Snotty Place doesn't exist. I mean, I haven't had windshield wiper fluid in my car since last winter. If I can't remember to fill that reservoir up, you'd think The Snotty Place would have gone dry years ago.
So I had just reached this conclusion when a retired gentleman in an extremely large, extremely expensive car cut me off in traffic. He didn't even have the decency to react to the rather insistant blaring of my horn. In fact, this man didn't even bother to look into his rearview mirror to glimpse the Have A Nice Day Finger I was waving emphatically in his direction. He just kept driving.
So did I. Having nothing better to do than go to sleep, I decided in my feverish haze to follow him for a few blocks. And that's when I noticed his bumper sticker. It read: PROUD TO BE A TAILHOOK MEMBER!
I was flabbergasted, and not just because it's such a fun word to say. This guy couldn't even drive a car adequately, and yet he was one of the Navy flyboys in charge of defending our territory with a supersonic jet. And oh, yeah! Suddenly I remembered the Tailhook scandal that got the Navy in so much trouble in the '90s. Remember? The one where all the male service personnel sexually harassed and assaulted female service personnel and a few selected strippers? I realized the man I was following was not only a bad driver, but just possibly a big, fat, sexist jerk.
He pulled into the parking lot of a hamburger stand, and because I had suddenly developed an appetite, I followed suit. The man got out of his car. He was still tall and wore a graying crew cut, but the G-forces of retirement had expanded his midsection. His eyes ran appreciatively up my legs, which were covered in crushed velvet tights, until they reached my crotch and noticed a bulge he wasn't expecting. Then he looked me in the eyes and glared at me. Real men, apparently, shouldn't have long hair or tight pants.
"Nice car!" I told him.
"It's my wife's," he grunted as he walked to the order window.
"I can see why she's proud to belong to Tailhook."
Ol' Top Gun stopped and turned toward me. I took that as a bad sign, but I chose to ignore it. It was the fever, I tell you!
"I belong to Tailhook. I bought her the car with my money. I put the bumper sticker on. Do you have a problem with that, hippie?"
Now, in retrospect, I acknowledge that maybe I shouldn't have said what I said next. But I wanted to make a point. And did I mention I had a fever?
"No, I like the bumper sticker. I just wondered if you'd mind if I grabbed your wife's butt?"
Well, I learned one thing: Navy flyboys don't need a jet to move really, really fast. And jeez, they're touchy.
In more ways than one, apparently.
Todd Foltz has also had the poor sense to incite a gang of Ku Klux Klan boys fresh from a mid-Missouri rally. Doctors think it's a genetic defect.