Only in Keswick

By Tony Vanderwarker

It’s as much an absolute certainty as rain coming with thunder or income taxes in April, when the wife says, “I’m coming,” you can be certain you’re in for a good long wait. Same thing with, “Just give me a minute,” or “I’ll be there in a jiffy.” The minute turns into twenty and “jiffy” gets stretched into an eternity. It’s cool your heels time. And I’ve found it makes no sense to time her because that’s an unspoken signal for her to take more time. And prodding her is even worse, a guarantee that she’ll stretch out your wait. 

The best way to deal with your exasperation is to rid your mind of the intended destination and read a long article in the New York Times. Pick a five-pager, something about the Supreme Court’s recent decisions, for instance. Or anything that can keep your mind from dwelling on the fact that she’s now kept you waiting for thirteen minutes and counting. Because exasperation can easily morph into anger and you find yourself yelling at the top of your lungs, “C’mon, goddamnit, you said you’d be there in an effing jiffy!” 

An outburst like that will extend your wait from thirteen minutes to thirty and now your heels are so cool they’re almost frozen. And you can rest assured that when she finally does show, you’ll get a retort like, “I was just putting a load in the dryer, you do want clean clothes don’t you?” Or, “I was just taking something out of the freezer, for our dinner.” 

It’s punishment for not behaving like a mushroom and patiently sitting in the driver’s seat, stifling your frustration. She can extend your sentence by saying, “Honestly, I don’t see why you get so upset over having to wait for a few minutes, that’s pretty childish, don’t you think? I mean you’re acting like a little boy.”

And if you try to fight back with, “I don’t see why you have to make me wait all the time.” You can be sure she’ll hop out of the car, slamming the door and muttering, “You can go to Lowe’s by your goddamn self.”

Now you’ve got a marital calamity on your hands and you’ve given yourself no choice but to go into your penitent mode because now you’re the bad guy. What seemed to be a perfectly reasonable reaction to having to wait for twenty minutes she’s now turned into your fault. So now you have to clamber out of the car and hustle after her saying, “Look, I’m sorry, you’re right. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

I was at an engagement party recently and I was talking to the prospective groom. He was talking about how he was looking forward to getting married and I had to resist the urge to tell him he had no idea of what he was getting into. If I had to add up all the time I’d spent waiting for the wife, I bet it would be a good three months total. Three months out of my life cooling my heels. After thinking of saying to the soon-to-be groom, “Delete three months from your life that you’ll spend waiting for you wife.” I decided that could only get me a puzzled look so I decided that learning to wait for the wife is something a husband needs to learn by himself. 

I recently discovered some retaliatory tactics that can help the wife realize how her tardiness in showing up skyrockets my blood pressure.

Say she’s a good five minutes late to go out to a party. I hop on the Kubota and start mowing the lawn. When she finally shows, she’s standing there with her hands on her hips snorting, “What the hell are you mowing the lawn for, we’re supposed to be going to a party.”

“I’ve just got a few more rows to mow, won’t take long,” I shout over the mower’s noise. “Just give me a few seconds more and I’ll be ready to go.”

“But you’re not even dressed!” She says, getting more and more irritated.

“It’ll just take me a few minutes to get ready.”

Now she’s good and steamed up. I finish mowing, change clothes and open the fridge.

“I’m just going to grab a beer and I’ll be ready.”

“What? How long’s that going to take?”

“I’ll be finished in a jiffy,” I answer.

Of course, I savor every sip like I haven’t had a beer in years and now steam is coming out of her ears. 

“Can you speed that up?

Now I’ve got her where I want her. 

“You don’t want me to get indigestion, do you?”

“I couldn’t care less and listen, if this is one of your stupid payback schemes for having to wait a couple minutes here and there, it isn’t going to work. Okay?”

I never thought I’d grow up to be a waiter, but that’s exactly what I am and my new motto is: Later Than Sooner.

By Tony Vanderwarker

Everyone’s had weird things happen to them, events or happenings that are so out of the ordinary that they stick in your mind in a way that normal occurrences don’t. 

Like the experience I had in Munich in the middle of my adolescence. I was an upper-middle class, preppy, suburban kid and at that time madras shorts were the rage. So naturally, when our parents decided to take the kids on a summertime trip to Europe, I packed my madras shorts thinking I’d sport them around England, France and Germany. 

All went well in the first two countries but when I put them on in Germany and took a walk around the hotel, I was in for a shock. At first it was two teenage German guys pointing at me from across the street. Not only were they pointing, but they were laughing uproariously. I looked around to see what they were laughing at, never imagining it was me they found so funny, until a couple other kids joined them and they formed a group, every single one of them pointing at me and howling hysterically. I distinctly remember looking down at my shorts and suddenly realizing it was my madras trunks they found so hilarious.

By this time, the group of kids had grown into a crowd, everyone motioning at me and guffawing loudly. I was totally embarrassed and turned beet red, almost the color of the plaid pattern on my shorts. How could the madras shorts that were so popular back home, be the object of ridicule in Germany? I couldn’t figure it out but hightailed back to our hotel totally humiliated. I hustled through the lobby and up to the room, took off the shorts, stuffed them into the bottom of my bag and didn’t put them on again until I got back to the States. 

To this day, when I spot an article of madras clothing, I can hear raucous giggling—in German.

Then there was the time when I was in Guinea, in West Africa, serving in the Peace Corps. A couple volunteers and I were visiting a small village out in the sticks and the villagers insisted that we stay and eat lunch with them. We had learned that the Africans were particularly welcoming to Americans and though none of us liked eating out of the communal pots with bare hands, we knew better than to refuse their kind gesture. 

Okay, so get this picture, the three of us sitting on our haunches with a bunch of village elders, around a large pot filled with some kind of murky-looking stew. One villager spoke French and he explained to us that the dish we were about to eat was poulet, chicken in French. Everyone gustily dug into the pot, I grabbed a handful of stew and brought it up to my mouth and just as I was about to take a bite, I realized that I was holding the head of a chicken and that its one eye was wide open, staring me right in the face. 

Needless to say, I dropped the head, eye, beak, cockscomb and all, back into the pot, much to the delight and amusement of my fellow diners. 

Later in my Peace Corps service, in the capital city, Conakry, I got on a large public bus to go somewhere and since the bus was packed with people and there were no available seats, I stood, holding onto one of the metal grab handles. As the bus got underway, I looked around at the other passengers and began to notice that everyone was staring at me. At first, I couldn’t figure it out. I wasn’t wearing madras shorts or anything out of the ordinary, but all the passengers were looking at me. Suddenly, looking at my arm holding the grab handle, I realized why they found me so interesting. All the other people on the bus were black, I was the only white person. That feeling of being singled out because of my skin color has stuck with me to this day. 

One more instance of being singled out—or almost singled out. This time much later when I was in the advertising business. I was down at the Anheuser-Busch headquarters in St. Louis to present a major ad campaign for one of its brands to the chairman, August Busch (Sallie Wheeler’s brother). I arrived early and decided to make a quick stop in the men’s room so I’d be all set for the presentation. Presenting ads to the chairman was a big deal, not only was he the top dog, but he was a tough customer, both demanding and dismissive. If he didn’t like something, you’d know it, quickly. So I was a bit preoccupied as a lot was riding on my presentation, like my career. I pushed open the door to the bathroom and not seeing any urinals, pushed open a stall and closed the door behind me. Just as I was about to pee, I heard people coming into the bathroom. What caused me to quickly clamber up on the toilet, carefully balancing myself on the seat, was the sound of their voices. They were female. 

I was in the Ladies Room. In my concentration on the upcoming presentation I had walked into the wrong bathroom. Praying they wouldn’t discover me and rush out screaming to alert the security guards about the weirdo in the Ladies Room, I stood stock still, hoping they’d go about their business and leave so I could scurry out undetected.

After what seemed like an eternity and as I watched my career flash before my eyes, imagining the headline in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reading, “Pervert ad exec arrested in Anheuser-Busch Ladies Room,” I heard the women opening the door and leaving. Whew! 

Though I don’t remember a thing about the presentation, I can remember every stinking detail about the five minutes I spent in a state of total terror standing on the toilet in the Ladies Room of our largest client. 

By Tony Vanderwarker

As if slogging through winter isn’t bad enough, when you add the threat of influenza, it turns into a really scary season. Social events are like running the gauntlet, with every hand you shake and every air-kiss you give, you’re wondering, is that the one that’s going to get me? Is it the air-kiss with Susie that’s going to bring me down, giving me hoarseness, eye and lip swelling, headaches, fever and nausea? Or the handshake with Gene that’s going to put me in bed coughing and groaning for ten days? These kind of worries can really wreck a party, leaving one wondering, did I get infected and am I going to wake up sick in the morning?

It’s enough to turn you into a germophobe, squirting endless dollops of sanitizer into your palm and washing your hands so often they begin to dry and crack. 

Supermarket carts really give me pause. I look at them and see millions of tiny microbes swarming over the plastic handle, I mean the bubonic plague could be lurking there so I furiously wipe them down with the sanitary wipe provided. No matter how silly I look standing at the entrance of the grocery store massaging the handle of my shopping cart with a moist cloth, I’m confident I’m killing millions of tiny critters with every swipe. 

Every winter, there are all kinds of flu triggers that appear. Like the commercials where someone coughs and a cloud of blue smoke billows out of their mouth? That visual sticks in your mind so when someone behind you in a movie theatre coughs, you see the blue cloud seeping down into your row. When this happens, my solution is to stop breathing, hoping that the blue cloud will pass me by. Needless to say, holding your breath in a movie is not the best way to enjoy the show. But if it keeps you from getting infected, who cares? You can always watch it again on Netflix.

Out in public, I have to resist the urge to hit the floor when someone emits blue smoke in front of me. Often, I’ll just quickly step aside to let the noxious blue stuff pass by. So going downtown can result in a lot of open field running, dodging this way and that, trying not to make a big thing of it so people will think you are nuts.

The friendly warnings from the CDC don’t help either. “People over 65 should be particularly cautious of situations where you can contact the flu as it can be life-threatening for older people.” I was sixty-five a long time ago, now I guess I’m a sitting duck for the flu, ready for some virus from Hong Kong or Vietnam to take me down. One little air-kiss and that’s all she wrote for Tony. 

So every winter is running the flu gauntlet again. Who cares about slipping on a frozen sidewalk or going off the road when you hit black ice? That’s preferable than ending up on the wrong side of the dirt just because you shook someone’s hand.

When you hear that Louise has the flu, you scan your memory to see if you’d had any recent encounters with her. Even when Louise is fully recovered, you still give her a wide berth, turning your cart around at the supermarket when you see her coming down the aisle, or staying on the far side of the cocktail party and watching her warily to make sure she doesn’t invade your space and infect you. I mean, this girl had the flu and remnants could still be lurking around in her smile lines. 

For me, traveling during flu season is a no-no. Getting on an airplane is like entering a flu tube and is at the bottom of my bucket list–for to me, the inside of an airplane is one dense blue cloud. Not to mention tray tables that make shopping cart handles seem harmless. Just think of all the germs lurking there. 

As much as I enjoy watching UVa basketball, during flu season, I turn down every invite, fearing that 18,000 people screaming and cheering will exude enough blue smoke to take down the whole crowd. Same thing goes for elementary schools, in the winter, I wouldn’t be caught dead in one. 

Not that I’m a hypochondriac, I just don’t want to die from going to a movie or air-kissing someone.

Fortunately, my wife has all kinds of preventative pills, chalky orange ones that supposedly boost your immune system, over-the-counter remedies that reduce flu’s effects, witch doctor potions like olive leaf extract and oregano oil. Normally I’m not much of a pill-popper, but during flu season, I chomp them down like candy. 

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Only In Keswick, continued from page 14 <<< 

Unfortunately, my preoccupation with the flu makes me a pretty boring person. When someone asks me how my winter’s been going, I don’t have much to say since all I’ve been doing is keeping my head down. I can’t say, “I’ve been doing everything I can to duck the flu,” so I say, “Not much, it’s been a quiet winter.”

If they persist and ask, “Done any traveling?” I have to answer, “No, not really.”

Around here, people are pretty sociable, so they continue, “So what have you been up to?”

I want to answer, “I’ve been wiping off shopping carts, holding my breath in the movies, imbibing oregano oil and staying away from JPJ,” but instead I say, “Life’s been pretty dull, how about you?”

Asking about the other person always gets you out of a hole, so I’m home free in this conversation and just happy as hell he didn’t ask me to shake hands.

By Tony Vanderwarker

So it was ten years ago and my wife, who had just returned from shopping at Zions Crossroads, said she had a big idea. I winced a bit because big ideas on the part of the wife often involve great amounts of time and effort from the husband. 

“I saw this display of Santas at Walmart, a whole grouping of them,” and she shows me a photo on her phone. They were garishly painted plastic Santas a good three feet high. “Can you imagine a whole row of them lined up by the pool?”

“Frankly, I can’t. This house doesn’t need plastic Santas from Walmart.” We’d built a minimalist house with all the traditional geegaws stripped off. Plastic Santas would corrupt its design. 

“Oh, c’mon, it’ll be like a contemporary Christmas scene, it will be really cool.”

I fought her and her silly Santa idea off for about a week then one day she announces, “I’m going up to Walmart to get the Santas, want to come?”

That was probably the last thing I wanted to do but I knew she was dead-set on the Santas so I thought I could at least mitigate the situation, maybe talk her out of buying too many.

When I saw the Santa display, I could see why she was intrigued. They were grouped together, maybe thirty of them, all in a bunch so it looked like they were having a meeting or getting ready to sing a carol. Each was brightly painted in red with white, green and black accents and was holding a candy cane in one hand and cuddling a dwarf reindeer in the other who was gazing up at him adoringly. It was plastic kitsch of the worst kind. And my wife loved them.

“Can you just see them all lined up by the pool with their lights turned on, it will be fantastic. And look, they’re on sale.” The sign said, “Reduced, $13.99”

“I can see why they’re on sale,” I said. 

“Oh c’mon, where’s your Christmas spirit? So get another cart and we’ll load them up.”

“Another cart? How many are you planning on buying?”

“We need eight, I measured.”

“Eight, c’mon, that’s over a hundred bucks worth of plastic Santas.”

“But they’ll last forever.”

I was thinking, “That’s what I’m afraid of,” but I knew it was a done deal. Tony and Annie were going to get plastic Santas—eight of them!

Turned out, setting up eight plastic Santas on the far side of our pool turned into a bigger deal than I’d thought. The pool is seventy feet long and twenty-five feet off the house so we needed cords, yards of cords and tens of plugs because though we ran cords out to the two ends of the pool, we had to connect with each Santa. And they were eight feet apart so we needed gobs of extension cords—which meant many trips to Lowes.

We set them up, waited until it got dark, then plugged the whole shebang in. There was definitely a WOW factor, eight glowing Santas. Funny too, so out of place, eight Santas sitting in a row on a dark field. 

Turned out they were a big hit, my wife was right—AGAIN! The grandkids loved them so did visitors—except one—Katie Couric. She’s a big architecture fan and wanted to see our house. She loved it, but not the Santas. When I asked her, “How do you like our Santas?” She scowled, turning up her nose at the eight plastic Santas. They’d obviously offended her Upper East Side sensibilities. 

But we soon discovered we had a major problem. Santas were toppling over in brisk winds, flopping forlornly face down on top of the pool cover. 

“I know what we’ll do, fill their bases with sand so they can’t blow over.” Each Santa had a round opening in the back for the cord covered by a metal thingy. You had to unscrew the cover, stand the Santa on its head and pour sand into the hole. A three-hour operation with much spilling of sand and much swearing in the process. 

But though my sand solution worked, it had a downside. They were now heavy as hell and they had no handles so you ended up putting one hand under an elbow and the other under the reindeer’s ear, hugging the Santa to your chest and shuffling along. Embracing a plastic Santa and stumbling around the backyard was not my idea of how I wanted to spend Christmas.

“This gets old fast,” I said as I unloaded the Santas from the Gator and set them up along the pool. 

“C’mon, only six more to go,” Annie said. 

Each year we hauled the Santas out along with the bags of cords and plugs and set them up, tripping over their cords and spilling sand, changing burnt out bulbs and touching up the Santas’ feet and hands where the paint had rubbed off. Santa maintenance and installation made putting up a tree and decorating it seem like child’s play.

One year we traveled over Christmas so the Santas stayed in the barn. A couple of years, we agreed to rest the Santas but this year, by popular demand from family and friends, they’re coming out again. And after a month of being Santa Claused, it was time to load them in the Gator and hibernate them in the pole barn. Now they’re grouped together in a stall, looking like they’re taking a major meeting, maybe discussing the show they’re going to put on next year?

So when we say, “Santa Claus is coming to town”, at the Vanderwarkers, that’s for real.

By Tony VanderWarker

Remember how easy it used to be to open pill bottles before child-proof caps came in? Can you recall how simple it was to open a package containing a watch or a flashlight or any object before space-age blister packs showed up? Those nasty transparent containers that make the product shine on the rack but give you fits when you try to open them?

First, you run your fingers around the outside of the pack to see if there’s a hinge or opening that you can use to crack the thing open. Failing that, it’s scissor time. High density polyethylene (that’s the technical term for the stuff) fights back against the strongest shears as if the thing inside refuses to come out. And the pack fights back too, Your hands end up in a wrestling match with the stubborn stuff. I don’t know how many times the sharp edges have sliced open a finger. When you finally rip the blister pack open and free the object inside, you feel like you’ve gone ten rounds. Okay, the product looks great on the shelf and makes shoplifting more difficult but do manufacturers know how customers feel after a battle with a blister pack?

A variation on the blister pack is plastic berry box. It doesn’t hold a candle to the HDPE, but it can still drive you bonkers. With two plastic pegs on the corners of the top that fit tightly into round pockets on the bottom, it can make you crazy. You can wedge your fingers between the two but they still put up a good fight.

Even the seemingly innocuous cardboard cracker boxes pose frustrations. At the top of the box, there’s a little cardboard tab on which is printed “To open, lift flap.” Sounds easy enough, but when to try to pull it up, the flap resists as if its saying, “Oh, no, buster, I’m not making this easy for you, no way.” So you pull harder and the flap suddenly rips off and you’re left holding a scrap of cardboard.

And the package remains closed. Now it’s knife time, sliding the shiv under the flap you slide it up and down, hoping the flap will now pop open. If it does, you face Stage Two of the opening process. The cellophane packages inside holding the crackers are crimped at the top so they don’t tear easily so you have to stab the cellophane to free the crackers, ripping it open so the crackers you don’t take out quickly get stale or soggy. It’s payback time for the cardboard box.

How about the little plastic rings inside the spout of a milk carton? Sometimes you get lucky and you can pop the ring out but often the rings hunker down into the spout and won’t allow your finger to get under them. Standing by the open fridge trying to poke your finger into the ring is enough to get the day off to a bad start.

And resealable plastic bags holding stuff like granola where the top of the package has an arrow and the message “Tear here to open”? Sounds easy enough but to open these guys, you need luck. Because I don’t know how many times I’ve torn here and ended up with only strip of plastic between my fingers. So you keep tearing until you finally reveal the locking gizmo which is two lengths of plastic with long teeth that seal them together. Another obstruction. It says on the top of the package, “Resealable bag for freshness” and “Press along strip to reseal”. That’s if you can get the two plastic strips (often called a resealable zipper) to separate because they often fight back and you end up grabbing the bag on both sides and ripping it open. Which often wrecks the zipper so the contents go bad in no time.

As gorgeous as Apple packaging is, have you ever tried to open a box containing a new iPhone? Apple vacuum locks the phone inside so no matter how hard you shake it, the box will refuses to open. Maybe they don’t want iPhone boxes slipping apart on their trip back from China, but the box might as well be welded together so you can’t even wedge a fingernail between the two. So its “shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake” until the box gives and lets the inside sneak out enough for you to get your fingers around it and pry it out.

But the ultimate enemy when it comes to packages are the white plastic pails that chlorine tablets come in. They have an inviolable locking mechanism with a red lever on the side and instructions stamped in raised lettering around the edge of the pail. Problem is the lettering is white and the box is white so you have to have a reading knowledge of Braille to understand the directions.

Getting into the Pharaoh’s tomb would have been easier than opening the chlorine can. I once spent twenty minutes trying to figure it out, finally giving up and heading into town to the pool supply business where I’d bought the stuff. Of course they had the code to opening it and quickly popped the red doohicky in the right direction and unscrewed the top. Needless to say, I carefully laid the top back on the pail when I’d finished, not wanting screw it down and find myself going back into town again.

Recently, we bought a Dyson battery operated vacuum. I dreaded opening the package and spending a half hour unloading all the parts. But the thing almost jumped out and assembled itself. Nothing fought back, the stuff was easy to get out, and with a series of drawings, showed you not only how to put it together but also how to operate it, making up in a small way for all the packaging battles with blister packs, resealable pouches, milk cartons and chlorine pails that I’d fought and lost.

By Tony Vanderwarker

I’m sure you’ve had the experience of standing in a checkout line when an old biddy says something like, “I’ve got the change,” and proceeds to fish around in her bag, finally pulling out a small fabric purse with a teeny gold clasp. “Oh no,” you think, “here goes three minutes out of my life.”

Snapping it open, she slowly begins to count out the change, You’re hoping she’s long on quarters and short on pennies because if she’s been saving coppers, you’re in for a long wait. “Twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five, forty…”

“Oh, crap,” you think, “she’s been hoarding nickels. This is going to take all day.”

“…fifty-five, sixty, sixty-one, sixty two, sixty-three, sixty-four…” Then the worst happens, she palms a hunk of pennies and plops them down on the counter, then pushes them one-by-one across toward the clerk as she counts them out. Meanwhile, the customers waiting in line behind her are going into a full figet, shaking their heads, scowling at one another, everyone itching to say, “C’mon lady, we don’t have all damn day!” But everyone knows better, after all, she’s an eighty-plus grandmother and everyone’s got one so they don’t say a word.

“…seventy-two, seventy-three, seventy-four…”

The counter girl stands with arms crossed, following the passage of each penny across the counter. You can tell she’s been here before and knows she has no choice to put up with it. I’ve seen clerks get so exasperated they reach down and quickly swoop the change off the counter like a Las Vegas croupier, saying, “That’s fine, ma’am, that’s enough, that’ll do.”

But it seldom works for the granny keeps going, “eighty-six, eighty-seven…”

Finally, when this granny gets to eighty-nine she says, “There!” with a note of triumph and pushes the collection of change across to the clerk as if to say, “It’s my God-given right to make the correct change and I’m darn well going to take advantage of it.”

So imagine my horror the other day when my wife unzipped the change section of her purse and reached inside. Now my wife’s not a biddy, in fact she’s pretty cute considering her age, but making change? “C’mon,” I protest, “haul out a card and charge it, don’t put me through the agony of watching you count out quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies.”

“Just relax,” she says and goes on counting, “…thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five…”

And I’m standing there behind her in total exasperation, thinking, “How did my wife become a change-counter? How could this have possibly happened to me? We don’t have antimacassars on our furniture or little bowls of candies set out on the coffee table with lace doilies under them or any of the other grandmother-like items that signal dotage. Why has my wife suddenly started counting out change?

“This is a pretty grandmother-like thing for you to do, you know that?”

“Maybe,” she says, “but I’ve got a lot of extra change in my purse and I don’t like carrying it around..”—and then she gets snarky—“…if it’s all right by you.”

I glance back at the other people waiting in line. I know they’re thinking, “This guy must be an old codger because his wife has got her change purse open and she’s counting out coins.” I smile weakly at them, as if to say, “I’ve tried, but to no avail.”

Heading out into the parking lot, I try again. “You know, I wish you wouldn’t go through that making change thing again.”

“Why?” she asks.

“Because it makes you look old, that’s why.”

“You know,” she begins to answer as she climbs into the car and finishes with, “I am, and so are you, so get used to it.”

So along with the aches and pains, the memory stumbling and the hair turning white, I’ve got to deal with the fact that my lovely wife is turning into an old biddy who hauls out her coin purse in the supermarket and counts out change.

Eeek!

By Tony Vanderwarker

I never was much of a candy eater. Oh, I’d chomp down a Mars bar once in a while or snack on seasonal goodies like candy corns at Halloween, candy canes at Christmas or those squishy yellow bunnies on Easter. But recently, I’ve found that I’ve become addicted to sweets.

But not just one, I pick them up and drop them like a teenage girl goes through boyfriends. I went through an Altoids phase (whoever came up with that name—reminds me of adenoids), next came caramels, then I jumped to peppermint Life Savers, and after that, I glommed onto Life Savers Gummies, red, green, yellow, orange in flavors like cherry, watermelon, strawberry, green apple and blackberry. My Gummie period lasted a good two years. I wouldn’t mix them but eat all red ones or all green ones and in even numbers, say, two, four or six at a time. Why? You’d have to ask my mother.

But about six months ago, I happened to taste a Butterfinger. Gummies quickly went bye, bye and I became hooked on what the package copy says is: the “crispety, crunchety, peanut-buttery taste.” Personally, I think that copywriter went a bit overboard with crispety and crunchety (to me, it sounds too much like crochety) but package copy is usually written by cub copywriters at the bottom of the ad agency’s totem pole so how are they to know? They’re just trying to make a mark for themselves and their bosses were probably too busy with other stuff to sniff out crispety and crunchety.

But then I went on the Butterfinger website and discovered that the entire tribe of Butterfinger writers was infected. Crispety and crunchety is all over the place and they even go so far as to state on one page: “Bolder than bold cravings can’t be contained so go on and indulge yourself in the one of a kind taste of an American classic that can never be replaced.” Woof! Now that’s some wicked writing! One of their slogans was: “Nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger.” These guys take their product seriously.

But to me, it’s just a tasty candy bar that comes in all shapes and sizes. You can get bars in a couple sizes, little cups like Reese’s and Butterfinger Bites, which are my current favorite. I consume them in pairs, letting the chocolate coating melt to uncover all the, well, you know, the crispety, crunchety, peanut-buttery taste. On a good day, I’ll go through six–which is only 150 calories.

How long will my Butterfinger phase last? I have no idea, but a challenger lurking at the back of the pack is salted caramel. I’m currently into salted caramel Lactaid ice cream and the right kind of salted caramel candy came along, I might drop Butterfingers like a hot potato.

Whoever thought of putting salt in caramel? Turns out that a French chef named Henri Le Roux attended candy school in Switzerland and later returned to France in the 1960s to open a store in Brittany. In Brittany, salted butter is big so it didn’t take long for Le Roux to come up with the idea of salting caramel. Salty and sweet are two major flavor profiles so it didn’t take long for the concept to take off.

In 2008 salted caramel took off in the U.S. with Haagen-Daaz introducing salted caramel ice cream and Starbucks with salted caramel hot chocolate. And when the south-of-the-border flavor, dulce de leche, made its way north, it helped popularize its salted caramel cousin,. Now there’s salted caramel popcorn, salted caramel cookies, salted caramel cupcakes, salted caramel yogurt, salted caramel martinis, even salted caramel-scented candles and just announced, salted caramel Pepsi. You name it, they’ll salt it.

In the meantime, I’m sticking with Butterfingers. That’s until some enterprising candy expert comes up with a salted caramel surprise. Who knows? Could be salted caramel marshmallows or salted caramel straws—maybe the folks at Nestle will invent salted caramel mixed with peanut butter and coated with chocolate? They could call it Saltyfingers—the crispety, crunchety, peanut-buttery, one of a kind salted caramel taste that can never be replaced.

I just might go for it.

By Tony Vanderwarker

How times have changed. Back when I was growing up, women wore skirts and dresses, wearing shorts was considered daring, not for the faint-hearted. But now everyone, even women with hips as wide as a Good Humor truck, wears tights. Everywhere there’s a parade of butts and crotches, everyone seemingly oblivious to the fact that their anatomical details are on full display. Me, though I don’t get it, I recently joined the crowd, buying my own pair of black sausage casings to wear to Pilates. When I put them on and headed out the door, my wife said, “You can’t go out in those.”

“Why not?”
“Because.”
“Because what?”
“Because I can see your package,” she said, pointing you-know-where.

“Look,” I said, “the whole female population of this country is sauntering around with their packages showing, I don’t see why I can’t.”

“It’s different,” she offered.

I was about to say, “A package is a package,” but I realized we were headed into no-mans-land, so I just said, “See you later,” and headed off to Pilates.
Needless to say, none of the women blinked when Tony walked in. Usually I’m the only male so it’s seven to one, and though I never paid much attention to it, I didn’t ever see one female checking out my package.

So I’ve joined the tights-wearing crowd. I even have a couple pairs of form-fitting, stretchy-fabric yoga shorts that I wear in the warmer times of the year. So I’m good with tights. After Pilates, I’ll even wear them into Trader Joe’s or the Giant, I mean, c’mon.

But not my wife. She gives me a slightly-horrified look every time I head out the door. But times are changing. Recently, she even went and bought herself a pair of tights.

“Hey, you look good in those,” I told her.
“Thanks, but they’re just for in the house, I’m not wearing them outside.”

“Why not?”
“Because I’m too old.”
“What? Is there a tag in them saying ‘Not to be worn by women over 65?’”
“No, it’s just a feeling I have. It’s just not proper.”

“Well, it’s proper for the rest of the world, I don’t see why it’s not proper for you.”
“Because.” She said, slamming the door on the conversation.

So though I’m far from being a Millennial, I feel kind of hip in my Pilates class, wearing my tights with the seven thirty-somethings wearing theirs. Like I’ve broken the tights barrier.

But I wonder what our kids will say when they see them. Will I get wrinkled-up noses and smirks of distaste along with remarks like, “Dad, you’re not wearing those?” I’ve already figured out my response, “Yup, I am, just like speed skaters and gymnasts in the Olympics—or pro football players–why am I any different?”

I can imagine rolls of the eyes and slowly-wagging heads in response. Then I plan to say, “Your mother even has a pair.”
To which I’ll inevitably get looks of shock like they just stuck their finger in a light socket.

Maybe I need to start a movement, “Men can wear tights, too!” the whole nine yards, buttons, placards, get Under Armour or lululemon to sponsor it, bring men’s tight-wearing out into the open, rid tight-wearing of the opprobrium and shame. Make it so mainstream, tight-wearing will even work for casual Fridays. You’ll see news anchors wearing them, on camera in skin hugging tights, packages on display for the world to see.
Now maybe politicians will draw the line at wearing tights, I mean, I don’t think you’d want to see them on the President or Mitch McConnell. Egads! Certainly not particularly appealing images and probably not appropriate for either the Capitol or White House. You don’t see anyone even wearing shorts in those places.

They probably don’t belong in churches or courtrooms either, Justice Sotomayor or Franklin Graham shouldn’t get caught dead wearing them, I’ll give you that.
But anyplace else on anyone else, it will be wide open.

So jump into your tights, men, and head for the barricades. The fight for tight-wearing freedom has just begun!

By Tony Vanderwarker

One of my Republican friends recently remarked about the precipitous declines in the stock market, “I don’t know about my boy Trump with these tariff threats, he’s wrecking the market.”

To which another friend who’s a Democrat replied, “I’m not getting into a discussion about Trump with you.”

As a result of the current chaotic presidency, there’s an ever-widening divide between Reps and Dems. While the Dems will spit and fume over the political situation among themselves, they know that bringing up the subject in front of their elephant-loving friends could be incendiary.

So in mixed company, you don’t hear talk about politics any longer. It’s a taboo subject, like bestiality. While politics used to be fair game, you’d hear friends from across the aisle arguing about taxes, Iraq or whatever the hottest political issue was at that time, now you don’t hear a peep. I’ve been to a bunch of parties recently and heard nary a word.

Even if you’re with one of your own, if you want to talk politics, you’d better put your hand up to your mouth and whisper so someone from the other side doesn’t eavesdrop otherwise a fracas might ensue. It’s like everyone’s nerves are rubbed so raw by what’s going on, it’s best not to bring it up. It’s like someone bought a clunker that burns gas and belches smoke, but no one in the neighborhood wants to rub the owner’s face in it.

Sore subject is what it’s turned into. Talking about politics is worse than bringing up Virginia basketball. Or like asking someone who’s been recently divorced, “You must be delighted he’s out of the picture.” Just try and bring up how things would have been if Hillary had been elected, you’d be lucky if you didn’t get a sock in the eye.

It’s too bad, I used to enjoy spirited tirades about politics. In fact, it can get pretty boring when all there is to talk about is the weather and sports. Especially when there are juicy topics like the porn star. I mean something like twenty-two million people watched her on 60 Minutes, but I haven’t yet heard her name brought up in mixed company. C’mon, there’s good stuff there, bars across the country were crowded with people drinking “Dark and Stormy Night” cocktails. Spanking the president with a rolled up magazine? Stuff like this hasn’t happened since the stripper Fanne Fox jumped into the Tidal Basin and wrecked Wilbur Mill’s career. By the way, after the incident, she changed her stage name from “The Argentine Firecracker” to “The Tidal Basin Bombshell”.

This stuff’s so rich, one wag said the Stormy video is the only one he doesn’t have to erase from his web browser history. “I was just checking her out,” he can say to the wife.

But no, you say, there’s too much at stake. There’s nothing funny about it. North Korea’s got nukes pointed at us, kids are getting shot in schools. It’s too dicey, everyone’s on edge about it.

So what am I supposed to do? Sit on the floor and regale my dogs with these stories? Has our sense of humor been put out to pasture?

“It’s just not funny,” you say.

“C’mon, we still made jokes about the blue dress when the president was getting impeached, about Jimmy Carter’s cardigan when gas prices were going through the roof, in the middle of the Cold War, with the Russians threatening to blow us off the map, we howled over, “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”.

C’mon, let’s yuk it up. As Mark Twain said: ‘Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”

Sure there are some things to take seriously, but there are silly things that happen on both sides. If we laughed at some of these antics, the god-awful posturing, the sanctimonious statements, the nonstop prevarications, the nonsensical answers, maybe politicians would get the message and start flying right.

You can do what you want to do, me, I’m going to walk around the farm chuckling to myself about a porn star spanking the president in his tighty-whitieys with a rolled up magazine.

By Tony Vanderwarker

I recently had the opportunity to get an inside look at the U.S. heacare system. The ER at MJ.

When I walked in, everything was going as fast as glue going uphill, “Sit down over there and fill out this form and bring it to me when you’re finished,” the nurse says. Hurry up and wait time. Whole waiting room is coughing. I’m thinking, “I’ll get the flu before I get seen.”

Five minutes later I was sitting in a chair having an EKG. Before I knew it, the place went into warp speed. A team suddenly appeared out of nowhere, pushing me into a wheelchair, rushing me into a room crowded with blinking lights. They stripped off my shirt and put on one of those gowns that puts your butt on parade, slapped gizmos on my chest, stuck in an IV, everyone looking grim like I was going to say Sayonara right there. And they had an appointed angel, a Florence Nightingale trained in crisis management, “It’s okay, sweetheart,” she cooed to me, “don’t be concerned about all this rushing around, we just want to make sure you’re okay.” I felt like saying, “Who are you kidding? You guys are outdoing E.R., they could take lessons from you.” But of course, you say nothing

First, they treat you like you’re a goner, then when they’ve got you all wired up, wheel you into a room and park you for four hours while they usher in a bunch of docs. My primary care doc, one of my cardiologist’s colleagues and finally, my cardiologist. All the while, this infernal beeping is going on from the various machines they’ve got me hooked up to. And outside in the ER corridor, EMTs from Louisa and Orange are parading back and forth pushing poor saps on gurneys.
My cardiologist tells me, “I’m glad you came in, it’s time for the pacemaker. We’re scheduled for 7:30 tomorrow morning.”

In the meantime, I discover I’m going to spend the night cooped up in this tiny room in the ER. “We’re full up with flu cases so we don’t have a bed available for you,” a nurse explains. “But I can get you some food if you like. Up until midnight you can have anything you want.”

I’m tempted to say, “A double martini straight up with two olives,” but I know I’d be wasting my breath.

“No thanks,” I say, “I don’t have much of an appetite.”

“Suit yourself, just press the red button if you change your mind.”

I check my watch, 5:30. I’ve been in ER going on five hours now. Only fourteen more to go until the “procedure”. In hospitals, they don’t call anything by their real name. An operation is a “procedure.”

One thing I’m not good at is waiting. I complain to my wife when she visits, “I can’t believe I’m going to be locked up in this hellhole for half a damn day. I tell you, this is worse than a third-world hospital. I can’t sleep with all this beeping going on and the traffic going by outside is like being parked in the pull off lane on 64.”

“Let me see if I can get you something to help you sleep.”

She comes back with holding a capsule up between her fingers. “This should do the trick, I had to pull some strings to get it,” she tells me. “It’s an Ambien, you should sleep like a baby.”

When she leaves, I take the Ambien. Big mistake—no one told me Ambien is a psychedelic. I have nightmares about sliding naked down the gray hull of a sinking battleship toward the thirty-foot high waves, but I never get to them, just keep sliding, first this way, and then that. It is horrible.

Thankfully, I wake up and the sliding stops. I check my watch, it’s 4:30. Good–only three hours to go. Unfortunately, my ass has gone to sleep and I’m so wired up, I can’t move. By squinching around, I manage to shift the weight to my left cheek. Then to the right. Some relief but the beepings still there and the EMTs keep rushing by.

Out in the ER, I notice that no one seems to pay attention to the fact that it’s 4:30 in the morning. In the ER, I realize, the sun doesn’t go up or go down. It’s like living in the Arctic Circle.

Finally, I get a reprieve. A nurse comes in and announces, “We’re going to take you up to prep.”

Jailbreak! I finally get to escape from my prison. Who ever thought I’d be looking forward to my “procedure”? But I am. I delight in the new environments as she navigates my gurney down corridors, into elevators, more corridors, finally stopping in an open area with a couple of blue-gowned nurses standing around.
As they begin scrubbing me down, my cardiologist shows up.

“How’d you sleep?”

“I never got out of ER—so not well, thanks.”

“Oh dear,” he says. “Okay, let me explain what we’re going to do.”

He takes me through the procedure then says, “I’ve got to tell you the things that can go wrong.”

He sounds like he’s memorized them in medical school, ticking through them, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. They are so grim I’m tempted to say, “Okay, you talked me out of this. I’m going home.” But I’ve gotten this far, so what the hell?

He finishes up by stating, “But that only happens in 1% of the cases.” Why didn’t he start by saying that? I’m wondering.
From there on in, it was easy going. Didn’t feel a thing during the procedure, incision stung a bit but nothing I couldn’t deal with. And the best part? I got an actual room to recuperate in—bathroom, view of the surroundings, big screen TV, room service. Only problem was, I had to stay there for another night.

They promised me I’d be discharged by 9:30. One of my primary care docs showed up, the cardiologist—everyone said I was good to go. Except it never happened. 9:30 came and went, then 10, then 10:30, then 11. I decided it was easier to get out of a state prison than a hospital.

When my wife showed up, I put her on her meanest setting and let her loose on the hospital staff.

Finally, at 11:45 I escaped. Free–free at last!

By the way, here’s a gratuitous piece of advice. Try to avoid going to MJ during flu season. Other times, the place is a four-star hotel, but when flu time rolls around, stifle your symptoms if you can and give the place a wide berth.