Illustration by Jan A. Igoe
OK 2020, enough already.
During this break from life as we knew it, I caught up with the Kardashians and it’s official: Khloé is not pregnant. I’m not entirely sure if that’s a good or a bad thing, but as you know, the Kardashians aren’t endangered. They multiply like teenage rabbits on prom night.
I’ve even had time to explore the vast recesses of my fridge, where ancient artifacts are plentiful. Salad dressing that expired in 2014. Blue cheese that started out Swiss. Fruit so hairy you’d swear the plums were wearing toupees. All things that my mother would have served without a second thought.
Having survived the Great Depression, she didn’t put much stock in “Refrigerate After Opening” labels. She was more of a “Just eat it; you’ll live” kind of mom. Doctor visits were reserved for missing limbs or maybe a gushing head wound. Since Boomer kids wouldn’t recognize a helmet if it bit us on the bicycle seat, we were prone to those. We played Tarzan on steel jungle gyms anchored in concrete. We kissed pet turtles and juggled raw chicken. Anyway, room-temperature condiments hardly seemed like a credible threat.
Eating at my friend Rick’s was another story. His frugal mom was a world-class cheese recycler. Like any gracious hostess, she would bring out a tempting assortment of cheese at backyard barbecues, where it would have ample time to fester in the summer sun. Once everyone went home, she collected the liquified cheese, removed any flies that got stuck, and returned it to the freezer for the next barbecue. No one knew for sure how many round trips the cheese actually made, but if Alexander Fleming hadn’t discovered penicillin, Rick was sure his mom would have.
Somehow, we survived childhood (no small feat), and let’s assume we’ll survive the pandemic. Oops, not so fast. Now we’re under attack by supersized wasps. The giant Asian hornet, or Murder Wasp, is a 2-inch killing machine that decapitates hardworking honeybees with guillotine-sharp mandibles. Any human that gets in its way is in for agonizing pain, thanks to its rear-mounted samurai sword.
Experts (and I use the term loosely) advise us not to fret because mosquitoes kill far more people than homicidal wasps. If that makes you feel better, you don’t live in the South, where 3-pound skeeters are the runts of the litter. Sorry experts, when you start mixing words like “murder” and “wasp,” the only advice we need is how to prime a defibrillator.
That’s not the only horrifying news in the things-that-might-kill-us department. Undocumented tegu lizards are taking over Georgia, which is precariously close to South Carolina. The 4-foot reptiles have two mandates: 1) Be fruitful; and 2) multiply. They’ve embraced American cuisine, particularly the eggs of native birds and endangered tortoises. If the tegus have predators, they’re still in Argentina.
How did a lizard with a South American address end up here? Well mostly, they travel by idiot. Idiots covet small, exotic pets, particularly illegal ones. When those cute little pets inevitably morph into monsters, the idiots are genuinely shocked. Pretty soon the neighbor’s poodle goes missing, and people start asking why a 4-foot lizard is swimming laps in the condo pool. So it’s decision time for the idiot. He (or she) will wait till dark to set the lizard free before the owners association finds out. And just like that, it’s everyone’s problem.
So what comes next? Maybe locusts? Flying monkeys? Actually, my money’s on rabid unicorns.
For the foreseeable future, at least until we regain control of the planet, try to avoid wasps, lizards and Kardashians. There’s no way to avoid idiots, but you can offer them some recycled cheese and tell the wasps where they live.
Jan A. Igoe, having bounced off her head a few times, is the poster child for Boomer injuries. “Survival of the clumsiest” must be a real thing. Join us at HumorMe@SCLiving.coop and stay well.