I Used to be Disgusted, Now I'm Just Amused...

This past Sunday I was talking to a man with whom I attend church.  He is very intelligent and highly placed in local academia.  During our conversation we both lamented the low, nearly non-existent spelling and grammar standards we encounter when reading the newspaper or an on-line article.  Yes, I suppose I could be referred to as a "grammar Nazi" , but, let me just say in my defense, that although I notice nearly every misspelling or shoddily assembled paragraph I read on Facebook or my other favorite Internet haunts, I never point them out to the writer.  I'm not perfect.  I'm not without sin.  I don't need to cast stones.  Stones hurt.  I usually just shake my head in resignation and disgust and move on.  Until today...

Below is a cut and pasted version of a recent discussion I had with a (and I can hardly say this with a straight face) "customer service" representative for a website from which I ordered some merchandise...

From: Stacey Shannon
To: Customer Service
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2013 5:17 PM
Subject: Orders/Shipping - Order #776594

Hello, I placed my order on 1/22/13 and am still waiting for it.  I 
understand it was damaged during shipment and has been reshipped.  I am 
requesting a refund of the $6.95 shipping fee.  Thank you.

From: customer service
To: Stacey Shannon
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 2:15:34 PM
Subject: Orders/Shipping - Order #776594

Dear Ms. Shannon,

  I regretfully must inform you that we are able to issue you a refund. The 
package was sent in a timely manor. We have reshipped your package due to 
the damage that was done to it by the shipping company that was used, other 
then that I am sorry ma'am but we are unable to further extend our services. 
The package that was reshipped to you is out for delivery today.

Sincerely,
Customer Service

 

From: Stacey Shannon

To: Customer Service

Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 12:55 PM

Subject: Orders/Shipping - Order #776594

The package did arrive today.  However, I paid $6.95 for UPS Ground Shipment, expecting it to arrive within the specified 1-5 day period.  This did not happen.  While I understand your company may have shipped the package in a timely manner, it was not delivered in a timely manner.  Surely a refund of less than $7.00 would be a shining example of excellent customer service.  Perhaps your company could recoup that amount from UPS as they are to blame for the damage and unreasonably slow delivery of the package.  

Put yourself in my shoes--would you be happy if you paid a fee for shipping and then had to wait 21 days for it to arrive?  Without so much as an apology or other accommodation from the company you ordered it from? I am not making an unreasonable request.  I'm just asking for some customer service from the Customer Service department.  Thank you. 

From: customer service
To: Stacey Shannon
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 4:41:52 PM
Subject: Orders/Shipping - Order #776594

Dear Ms. Shannon,   I understand the incontinence that you were put through during this time and we apologize for this. However our answer remains, there is nothing else we can further extend to you at this time. The package was scheduled to arrive at the specified time, but due to the damage it was sent back to us so we could mail out a replacement package to you at our cost. The original claim was denied by UPS. We are in the process of reopening the case. If our shipping fees get adjusted we will do the same for you. Sincerely,Customer Service

From: Stacey Shannon

To: Customer Service

Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 2:34 PM

Subject: Orders/Shipping - Order #776594

O.K., fair enough.  I look forward to hearing from you regarding the UPS claim.  

And just to be clear, I was merely inconvenienced during the lengthy wait for my package, not incontinent.  

Thank you, Stacey Shannon 

And...you, "Customer Service" representative are OWNED!  At this point, I've had such a good laugh they can keep my $6.95.  It was worth it.  



But, a bit later I received this as a postscript...

Dear Ms. Shannon,

 

   My apologize for the grammar error, it was a human/ electrical error. We will let you know about the claim as soon as we get more information on it.

 

Sincerely,

Customer Service

Oh Dude, just turn off the computer before you hurt yourself...

Oh, so THAT'S what that tail is for...

It's not so much "deer in the headlights" as "rabbit in the headlights"...

One late night, about 25 years ago, I was driving home from work.
With my previously mentioned boyfriend who was neither a boy nor a friend. (See Wine for my Horses, Chocolate for my Girls).
I was driving.
In my car.
Because my 40-something boyfriend did not have a car.
Because his credit was bad.
Because he had declared Bankruptcy.
Because he had opened (and closed) a failed nightclub in Florida.
That is the story he told me. Now I wonder how much of it was true.

And by the way, in one of my many, many head-shakingly embarrassing "Hellooooo McFlyyyy" moments of my clueless 20's, why did it not occur to me that a 45 year old man who tends bar for a living, has no car nor home of his own was probably not what we would call "a keeper"??

Anyway....

We were driving home from work, down an unpaved road in one of the many housing developments of the Pocono Mountains of PA when a rabbit darted in front of my car.  Now, for my Pennsylvania wildlife-challenged Readers Dear, let me explain something to you.  A white-tailed deer will often stop and look at the headlights of the car that is about to hit it for a moment or two until it decides to run out of harm's way. Hence the phrase "deer in the headlights".   A rabbit?  Not so much.  A rabbit will run, but not in a logical, straight line. It will zig-zag back and forth in front of the car.  So, try as you might to not hit it, the rabbit will make it really difficult for you. And, true to form, this rabbit zigged as I zigged and zagged as I zagged.  All the while bartender-boy sat in the shotgun seat half-joking, but not really, about my driving.

In recent days, for some reason, every time I close my eyes I see that rabbit   I see the darkness of the night held back by the soft glow coming from my single-chick-Ford-Mustang headlights.  I see that brown little bunny, frantically bounding back and forth from ditch to ditch, with his little powder puff tail in the air.  I remember the dismay I felt, willing him to just pick a spot, sit still, and let me drive around him already so I could just go home and rest.  And I can still feel my right hand as it itched to flip the bird to my smart-ass not-a-friend-boyfriend.

Some days you're the headlights, some days you're the rabbit.  This day, this month, (It's January again.  Awesome.) I am the rabbit.  Frantically running around in a spastic zig-zag, trying to avoid the truckload of grief heading my way with it's annual delivery.  I zig -- "hey let's plan a girl's night".  I zag --"I'm  entirely too much of a hot mess to be around anyone."  I waffle between inertia and frenzy.  Zig. Zag. Zig. Zag...the headlights are upon me ...

I know they are coming.  I know it's going to be bad.  I don't deny it anymore. I'm not even going to fight it. I know I should just pick a spot, sit still and let the headlights, and the attached truck, wash over me.  But, oh, how I want to run.   There is only me, the headlights and and my white, puffy tail, waving in surrender.

 

Magic for the SantaMama

I don't believe in magic anymore.  Do you?

It's Christmas Eve and today, like the past 9 Christmases, I have been in charge of making the magic.  I am not a little girl anymore, Christmas lost it's magic for me a long time ago.  I grew up and became the SantaMama at my house.  (shout out to my fellow SantaMamas who are in various stages of exhaustion and panic at 7:30pm on Christmas Eve)

And, like the rest of my fellow SantaMamas, I have spent the waking hours of the past 10 days in or near tears as my heart re-broke at the terrible news coming out of Newtown, CT.  The magic, it seems, for our entire country is out of reach this year.  I have trudged through my magic-making duties -- the wrapping, the baking, the hiding of gifts, the cleaning, even church, with a heavy heart and a good measure of guilt.

It has been some consolation to know that 2012 will not be the saddest Christmas I have ever lived through.  And, thanks to some faulty arithmetic on the part of some old Mayan dudes, it won't be my last Christmas.  Because I am the SantaMama in this house, in charge of all things magical, I have halfheartedly performed my magic making duties because, to paraphrase Robert Frost, I have promises to keep.

So, imagine, when, what to my wondering eyes (and ears) should appear, but a series of surprises as my Darling Dears and I left the 5pm Christmas Eve service at our church.  Upon our exit we were greeted by a brass quintet playing Christmas carols, their coats and hats dusted with (surprise!) softly falling snow.  As we said our good-byes and made our way to the car, the piercing sound of a fire engine cut through the darkness, startling me. Being in my nearly constant tearful state, my first thought was, "Oh no, more sadness for someone this Christmas."  But, as the fire truck came into view, my heart did a little flutter as I realized this was a special firetruck with a special cargo.  It was decorated with Christmas lights and carried Santa and Mrs. Claus!  My children and I hopped and waved, the siren blared and the lights twinkled, the band played and the snowflakes fell.  I threw back my head and laughed, for the first time in a week.  And for just a moment, with snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes, I was no longer 46, but 6, and I let my heart be light.

SantaMamas work so hard, trying to give to our  families the memories of Christmas Perfect.  It's all sugar and secrets, credit cards and The Carpenters.  So to walk out into a dark winter's night to have all these little Christmas treats handed to me and mine, unexpectedly, without work, without even asking for them, like so many cookies on a Christmas Eve plate, is not just perfection.  It's magic.

                                                  

The Insistence of Memory

Halloween is fast approaching, bringing it's usual trappings - tasteless lawn displays, scary movies on TV (I'm afraid to turn it on, for fear of what I might see), pumpkins, princesses, goblins, superheroes, and my favorite, Mini-Reese's Cups.  While my children are eagerly anticipating dressing in their costumes in order to pillage and plunder the neighborhood with the goal of triumphantly returning home with more pounds of candy than they can carry, I am thinking of ghosts. Old ghosts. 

I tell myself these ghosts have taken up more than their share of time and space in my life, that they deserve nothing more from me, but still they persist in their haunting, insist on my attention and resist my attempts to scoop them up and smash them under the big, slimy rock where they sometimes reside and where I wish they would just stay.  "Just go away", I say, but like gnats on a humid day in PA, they invade my eyes and my ears.  They discomfit and distract me, as insistent as a 3 year old who clings to my leg and cries because he's hungry while I stand at the stove making dinner.   

Ugh.  Fine.  O.K. Ghosts, you win.  I'll sit with you, you may have my undivided attention for the rest of the afternoon while I type out this blog.  But don't come crying to me when you don't like the attention I'm about to call to your bad behavior.  You've earned this.  What I once considered a flaw in myself is really yours.  Your choices, your shame.  Here you go, fill your Trick or Treat bag with this and then shove it up your ass.  

I was 9, the same age my daughter is now, when my father died.  Suddenly, of a heart attack at age 32.  And while my loss was soul-scarring, having happened in my tender, formative years, it pales in comparison to the surprising and preventable loss my little brothers and I suffered in the years following my father's death.  My father was taken from us, he did not go willingly and, as my very wise great-aunt pointed out to me that evening, he died loving us.  His family, my mother's in-laws, our aunts and uncles--not so much.  They, one by one, some immediately, some over a period of years turned their backs and walked away.  My grandmother, gone.  My cousins, taken from me.  In what situation, what world, is that ever o.k.?  It wasn't.  It isn't.  I don't know that it ever will be.

My mother's parents took us in for awhile, until she felt strong enough to return to the house where we lived with my father.  (How she was able to do that, I'll never know)  Her brothers stepped in to shore up their sister and care for us.  They are the men who took us fishing, taught me to ride my two-wheeler and hit a softball.  And while my other, (former) uncles had the grace to look embarrassed whenever we might chance to meet at the county fair during my teenage years, the damage was done.  There is no way for them to say "sorry" to that 9 year old.  There is no excuse valid enough, no explanation that will ever make her understand.  I recently bumped into a (former) aunt at a foliage festival in my hometown.  And while she and my mom made small talk (here again, I must marvel at my mother's fortitude) I really had nothing to say  to her.  I just looked at her through my big brown eyes.  I don't know what she may have seen in them as she returned my gaze.  I hope she saw my father, for my eyes are his, and I would guess she saw a door with "No Admittance.  Authorized Personnel Only" written upon it.  She had her chance(s).  She, and the rest of them, made their choices and we have all lived with them for thirty plus years.

Thirty plus years...wow, I'm a grown up now, with children of my own.  These scars, these ghosts I'm shining the light upon, they still affect me so.  I'm so used to this story, I know it inside and out, that I have almost reached the point of saying, "it's no big deal." Amazing what we live with, adapt to, assimilate into our beings.  But if I take myself outside of it, allow myself to imagine hearing this story from a dear friend, I would tell her, "Hell Yeah--It is a BIG FRICKIN' DEAL!"    I would be outraged for her and rush to assure her that it wasn't her, it was them.  That there is nothing wrong with her, that she is not unlovable, that she is worth knowing and treasuring.       

And perhaps, that is my lesson, the one that I can teach my own Darling Dears.  My in-laws, my children's grandparents, are not actively involved in our lives.  One evening, during my engagement, my 9 year old self cried inconsolably in my fiance's arms at the realization that his parents didn't really accept me.  "They are never going to love me!", I sobbed.  And though he made all the appropriate reassuring noises, really, what could the man say?  I didn't know it in the moment, but since then, I have come to realize the two of us were battling those old ghosts, and on that evening, they won.  

So, now, we don't talk about Grandma and Grandpa that much.  Once in awhile my daughter will ask when we are going to visit them again.  I want to shield their tender hearts from feeling the same scorch of rejection I have carried all these years.  One of the greatest pieces of advice I will ever give my children is this:  "Don't pursue a relationship where there is none to be had.  You will meet all kinds of people in your life. Some of them will be unable to recognize you as the treasure you are, and some of them will be unwilling to do the work needed in order to deserve your love."  

Those people, especially, those who are supposed to love us while we are children, are contemptible poison. Let us save our gifts and our treasures for those who do care for us.  Let us not throw our pearls before  the swine.  

Now, where did I put those Reese's cups....

Half Life

My Readers Dear are highly intelligent. I know this because, well, because you are my Readers Dear.  So, perhaps you have noticed that most of  my posts regard friendship in all it's wondrous and blessed incarnations.   My entries amount to an inventory of people I've collected, courted, cultivated, and clung to.  I think most of my friends would say I'm steady and true.  Once you are mine, you remain, simply, mine.  Unless...

Unless you walk away from me, and then only if you don't look back.  But if you do look back, you'll probably see me give you a tentative wave and a small smile in case you need a little encouragement to walk my way once again.  I will welcome you back into my life because we all change our minds.  We make mistakes while we are running on emotion.  I've done it myself, and I hope to be forgiven for my bad judgement and the resulting bruises I've left on a tender heart or two.  It's called grace and we all need it.

But, I wonder, when does the grace we grant to another become punishment of self?  In other words:  how do we walk that line between being a soft place for a cherished one to fall and being the doormat for the insecure to wipe their feet upon?  How much is a girl supposed to take for cryin' out loud??

I'm talking about consciously choosing to end a friendship here.  I have done it.  Not lightly and not easily. And quite honestly, not soon enough.  I've allowed a friend to make me miserable for much longer than I should have. I granted her more of my grace than she deserved and now I am able to see that grace I gave was only a small drop in the ocean of endless damage and limitless envy in which she comfortably swam.  Today, buffered by a few years and a wide expanse of the United States, I am able to see the truth.  Truth is,  I was never going to make a difference.  I was never meant to save her.  The only one with sufficient grace for her is the One who made her. So I gave her back to Him.

Do you need the details?  I've asked myself this question a few times in the course of writing this one. (Actually, I've been trying to finish this particular entry for three weeks because of the turmoil it has stirred up in me.  But today, I am just pissed off enough to spew it out)   Do I need to dredge up the drama and the details?  Do you want to hear about the jealousy and one upsmanship?  The showing off and the selfishness?   I can tell you about the time she told me I was stupid, and the way she would casually mention pulling all of the medications out of her cupboard with the thought of taking enough to kill herself.  I have very illustrative stories about the unnecessary rudeness she would dish out to restaurant servers. Are you curious to know how she can claim to be an ace business professional in public while never making the connection that two personal bankruptcies before the age of 45 would give the lie? (yeah, I never really reconciled that one either)  I remember the way her jealousy would frantically rise up through her throat and threaten to choke her before shooting it's way out of her mouth in the form of a backhanded compliment or "constructive criticism" -- or the way it would turn her blue eyes to green when I would share happy news:  a new car, a surprise vacation, a pregnancy.  Her tedious attempts at control and manipulation left me emotionally exhausted and drained, but she never seemed to tire of it. Dee was my own personal Love Canal.  (get on the Google)  She insisted upon a clinging, clawing, possessive kind of love that nearly drowned me, and continues to taint the well from which I draw the water to nurture my current friendships.

I don't like to talk on the phone because Dee would call me up and use me as her therapist/sounding board for hours.  I don't let my friends know when I need them because Dee NEEDED so much from me.  I'm acutely aware of my own Drama Quotient and Neediness Factor because I don't want to be the Dee in my friends' lives.  I never want one of my friends to look at their Caller ID and groan because it's me calling. With another crisis.  Again.  I work hard at keeping my own counsel because Dee would ask me for advice and then not take it.  I reign in my judgmental tendencies (at least, I hope I do, I sincerely try) because Dee would use her professed Christianity as a tool to make herself look good in other's eyes as well as to diminish any sparkle of humanity she saw coming from others.   I don't make many demands on my friends' spare time because I don't want to seem clingy.  I could go on and on, but I won't--because DEE used to.

Being her friend was a lonesome place to be.  I would try to talk to other friends and family about my Deelimna but after awhile they didn't want to hear it.  The conversation would go like this:

Me:  "She's driving me crazy, she makes me miserable on the phone, I don't want to see her, I'm drained, I can't deal with her today...yada, yada, yada"
Friend:  "Just break up with her already!"
Me:  "I can't, I'm her only friend."
Friend:  "Helloooo, there's a reason you're her only friend...."

The final blow was mercifully delivered while I was pregnant with my son.  I had finally hung up the phone on the third hour-plus call in as many days regarding her latest drama--her closeted, live-in boyfriend. I will be forever grateful to the hormonal state which allowed me to finally throw in the towel.  Literally, I threw in the towel.  I hung up the phone, and stepped into the shower.  Over the running water I heard God speak to me so clearly, so plainly, I knew it was finally time to let her go, and in doing so, set myself free.  He told me that Dee uses me as her counselor but that is His job.  And that if I were any good at it, she would be in better shape than she is.   He told me to put a boundary on our relationship:  take some meds, seek professional help, or we are done.  The next time we spoke, probably the following day, she knew right away "shit just got serious"-  I layed it out for her and she very calmly told me that she couldn't abide by the boundary I put in place and SHE ended the friendship.  It was all quite peaceful and civil and surprisingly one of the most drama-free conversations I ever had with her.

I shake my head and roll my eyes in exasperation when I ask myself, "What took you so long?"  I can only say I was ill-prepared to handle her. I was younger then, and hadn't learned about boundaries as they apply in a relationship.  I think, now, she wanted to consume me, literally eat me up if she could have.  Perhaps she wished to posses my body and therefore, my life, so I wouldn't exist anymore. In that way, she would have the best part of me and no one else would have any of me.  There must have been some part of her that knew most of my emotional resources would be poured into my babies and that was a competition she would never win.

I wish she didn't have such locust-like hunger for food, things, people. I wish she'd had a different life, without the trauma she experienced as a child.  I wish she'd been given to a different set of parents who would have treasured their little girl's soul.  But, only God knows why,  that's not the way it happened for her.  He placed her in that damaged home.  He put that huge hole in her soul.  There will never be enough of anything here on this earth, in this mortal life, to fill that.

I wish I'd never met her.  I wish I hadn't let it go on so long.  I wish it didn't still affect me so. I wish I didn't regret the decisions I made, the gifts I gave, the days I shared with her.  I wish I could be more secure in my present relationships instead of always holding back, walking on eggshells, unable to ask for what I need.  I wish...

It's been nearly 8 years since I heard her raspy, two-pack-a-day voice on the phone.  The half-life of Dee's toxicity lingers on here.  I like to think it will lessen it's presence a little more each year. Just as radioactivity has it's half-life, I pray, so too, will Dee's toxicity.  Then maybe I can begin to enjoy my life, and the people in it, more fully.

I wish Dee a full life too.  It's called Grace.  And we all need it--some of us more than others.

Snips and Snails, Sugar and Spice

Much has been written about the differences between men and women.  The sexual divide is a favorite subject for movies and television shows.  Stand up comics, in particular, have forged entire careers with just one perfectly written bit about taking out the garbage or shopping.  The self-help section at the book store has shelves and shelves on finding, dating, understanding, winning, marrying and surviving your mate.

Soon, I will have been married for 20 years.  In that time I have gone from wondering "why are we so different?" to "it is what it is."  No need to ask why, we just are, for that is how we were designed.   I have come to this place of serenity ("accept the man I cannot change") via a surprising route:  motherhood.

I am lucky to have been blessed with a child of each sex.  Now, I could gush for days with stories about my kids to illustrate the differences--drama and tenderheartedness from my girl, snuggles and steadiness from my boy.  I could tell you about how I immediately fell head over heals in love with my strawberry haired newborn girl.  And, conversely, how my brand spankin' new boy "wooed" me over a period of time after we came home from the hospital.  Truly, I can, and I have.   But, honestly, what can I say on the subject that hasn't already been said?  Lord knows I love words, and, well, yes, I suppose I have a way with them, but, as we all know, sometimes a picture is just as, if not more, effective.

My Darling Dears attended Vacation Bible School in June.  These crosses were produced during craft time one day.  One boy, one girl, each given the same materials, produced two completely different results.  Can you guess whose is whose?

Yes, I think we have firmly established it:  men and women are different.  I don't understand my husband because I can't.  Before he was my husband, he was first, a baby boy, knitted together of a completely different material than I was.  Having spent seven years bringing up a boy and a girl in the same house, on the same food, with the same rules, I can only conclude we come out of the womb this way.  We are what we are.  It is what it is.

I Have Seen the Horsemen of the Apocalypse and They Are: Jerry, Steve and Maury

My husband and I did not live together before we were married.  Upon moving in with him imagine my dismay to discover he was a "Three Stooges" fan.  Ugh.  I can quickly conjure a headache just thinking about the days he spent on the couch while an endless stream of "wiseguy, eh?" and "nyuck, nyuck, nyuck" streamed from the TV, courtesy of a Stooges marathon.  The horror...

Now, in light of the bile that currently emanates from our boob tube, the Day of the Stooge seems such an innocent time.  For in it's place, is a limitless supply of raw sewage provided by a new breed of stooge.  Larry, Moe and Curly, I hope you are resting in peace, but fear you are turning in your graves as Maury, Steve and Jerry reign over the dark underworld of daytime TV.  

My husband has a great job as the manager of a supermarket.  The company he works for pays him well enough and affords good benefits which allow me to stay home with our children.  Managing a supermarket means he works on Saturdays so he takes his days off on Thursdays and Sundays.  This translates into weekly discomfort and a headache for me every Thursday as he settles in on our couch to bond with his "boys", the aforementioned Dark Lords of the Vast Wasteland. 

Where do I start?  I rub my throbbing temples and squeeze my eyes shut when I consider the sights and sounds which regularly assault me as I walk through the living room on my way to wash dishes or do laundry.  (hint, hint Hubster)  Would you, my Readers Dear, like to hear about all of the Baby Mama Drama on "Maury"?  Where paternity tests are ordered as frequently as french fries at McDonald's, sometimes over and over to the same woman who can't find her "baby daddy" and sometimes to the same man who has been hauled in repeatedly in order to prove that he has fathered yet another out of wedlock child?  Or perhaps I should tell you a tale about transsexual lesbian strippers who first sleep with their sister's boyfriends, then discard them after the family, and the doublewide in which they live has been destroyed,  such as those who appear on "Jerry Springer".  And here's something I KNOW you will enjoy--watch as Steve Wilkos first administers lie detector tests to and then throws off of his stage, child molesters, who, more often than not, have been accused of assaulting the little ones in their own families.  

Maybe, no, definitely, I won't go into further detail.  The brief, yet nauseating details I shared above are enough of an assault on the sensibilities of  you, my Readers Dear.  I want to take Maury's guests aside and beg them to please, please, please use a condom.  My heart breaks for the sweet little babies who are shown backstage who will not only be raised without their daddies, but who will also be able to pull up on YouTube, the episode where daddy called  mommy a whore and denied his own child. Apparently, a large portion of young Americans are out there indiscriminately having sex, ALL THE TIME, so much so they are unable to ascertain the parentage of the next generation.  They take no responsibility for their own health or the lives of the children they create.  It's disturbing and more than a little sad.  

Also disturbing and sad:  Steve Wilkos' "guests", who should be "guests" of the penal system in their respective states.  I want to throw up when I think of how easily the story of the violation of a child is sold and shared  for public consumption, not just consumption, but ENTERTAINMENT.  These people come on the stage for the price of an airline ticket and an evening in a hotel to air their dirty laundry, dirty laundry that will never disappear, again, thanks to YouTube. The digital imprint of that episode will echo for years and years on the world wide web until the innocent child views it and experiences their trauma all over again, only this time with the knowledge that a million strangers have heard their story too. 

And I just want to slap Jerry Springer.

What is our part in all of this?  Those who consume this daily diet of junk TV with it's  chemically imbalanced, spandex-wearing, mullet-sporting participants, do we bear any responsibility for the deterioration of American society?  Are we merely smug voyeurs , with our DVRs and ring side seats?  Or are we the root of the problem-active participants in the cycle of consumption?  These shows would not exist without a  strong viewership.

Osama Bin Laden is dead (allegedly-but that's a topic for another day) however, waiting in the wings are others like him, don't doubt it for it a minute , who rub their hands together in a mixture of glee and disgust, as they observe the crass, morally bankrupt TV viewing habits of the western infidel.  No wonder they thought they could bring down the Twin Towers and in doing so, bring a great country to it's knees--they think we are either out reproducing like rabbits, molesting our nieces and nephews, dancing around stripper poles or parked in front of our TVs, sucking down Red Bull while eating Moon Pies.  

Maybe Jerry Springer didn't bring down the World Trade Center, but is it much of a stretch to think he contributed to the tragedy?  When  we consider the televised destruction of an American family to be entertainment, surely the Apocalypse can't be far off.