Huh?

It's Hallowe'en and while I am prepared in case little goblins show up, at 7:30PM, none has so far. Of course, there isn't one light on in the whole street. I heard from someone that pickin's were slim on her street as well - blames it on the economy.

Meanwhile, I pass the time watching something called Sister Wives. Yet another reality show on TLC. Where do they find these people?

Anyway, premise is this polygamous family who "want to show everyone what our life style is like". Oooookay. What it's like is three women who appear to be normal, but the fact that the weasel they are "married" to makes me gag has me wondering how normal they could possibly be. And now he has added another "wife" to the mix. Along with her three children from a previous marriage. Now this fool has three other wives with an aggregate of 13 children (all his) and he's slobbering over this new chick who doesn't appear to have much to say except, "howdy".

All the while, one of the "old" wives is preggers with her sixth child. All three of the koo-koos live in the same house, divided up into three suites so each wife and her offspring has their own living quarters. Hubs spends rotational nights with each one. His interaction with the kids seems limited and they don't seem too enamored of Dear Old Dad. F'rinstance, when he was packing to visit Candidate #4, who was living four hours away, none of the kids was around to say goodby to him.
But that's none of my concern.

Now that the new wife/concubine/mistress/whatever is "legal", whatever that means to them, she is ensconced in a home half a mile away from the "compound", a place of her own which none of the other three have. Would I be ticked? You betcha!

Mr. OMYGODWHATDOTHEYSEEINHIM has a job in advertising, and the word is that he has lost clients because of the revelation on TV of his life style. Meri, the original wife, was the only one employed outside the home, and has lost her job (in the mental health field!!) since the advent of the show. But I'm sure that TLC is providing plenty of dollars to this freak show. The authorities are taking a long look at the group, since polygamy is illegal. Funny, even if the marriages are not true civic unions, it is apparently against the law where they live to present yourself as married if you aren't.

To add to the nauseating factor, he has the gall to drag some of his old kids and a couple of the Stepford Wives down south to help pack and move Miss Dumb-As-A-Stump and her kids to her new home. (To make it more interesting, one of her kids has Asperger's Syndrome, which I'm guessing entitles her to some gubmint money.)

How these unfortunate children are being dragged into this is making me cringe. It isn't as if they signed on to live a polygamous life-style. And they don't go to public school. And the daughter who wants to go to the Naval Academy doesn't have a prayer because her education is limited by the schooling she is receiving.

We've had our share of multiple births, and dwarfs who want to prove they can be self-sufficient, and people who hoard and people who need intervention for their addictions. Every Tom, Dick, and Mary bakes cakes, and fishing for crabs, lobsters, and other sea creatures is supposed to be riveting entertainment.

All of this reality is becoming way too unreal. And far creepier than the Hallowe'en kids that I wish were here instead.

The Sunday Funnies

There was a time, maybe about 25 years ago, that I couldn't call my Sunday complete until I had read the comics section. I had favorites, of course, and some I never bothered to read at all. Prince Valiant was one I never read. That said, I admired the astounding attention to detail of the artist, and that was a case where I just "looked at the pitchers". Now the comics section had changed quite a bit from the time I was a child. Some of my old favorites were gone - Smilin' Jack; Li'l Abner; Dick Tracy; Alley Oop; Mary Worth; Gasoline Alley - lost either to discontinuation of the strip or because the strip no longer existed. Over the years, lots more of them disappeared and were replaced with some stuff that just didn't hold my interest. And so, as I aged, I was less and less interested in the funnies.

Until this week. The last time anyone read the funnies to me, it was Fiorello LaGuardia, Mayor of NYC, who read them on the radio during a newspaper strike so as not to deprive people of the continuity of the strips that were following a story-line. But this week, my five-year-old granddaughter read Hagar the Horrible to me, giving it a twist that only she could conceive.

Bearing in mind that she is in Kindergarten, and while she is accomplished at printing her name, first AND last, and her sister's name, she has not yet learned to read, but she enjoys looking at the pictures and telling the story as she perceives it.

Thus it was that Hagar, (the boy) was dressed for Hallowe'en. He was dressed like a "warrior" who "kills people" and they "don't get alive again". And Helga, "the girl" is dressed "like a Grandmom" and "she cooks".

I'm sure the rest of the story was just as compelling, but I had to leave the room so as not to insult the child by laughing. (By this time, I was actually holding back a snort! Or maybe that's a snert?)

After regaining my composure, I sat with her and turned the page, and she was barely able to contain her delight when she realized there were even more comics on the inside pages. I offered to read them to her but she said she would read them herself. Her interpretations could actually get me interested in the funnies once again.

There's nothing like the point of view of a five-year-old to make us realize how jaded we have become.