A Little Dab

On my first full “just hanging out, not really traveling anymore” day in the South, post-cross-country-odyssey, I was greeted by a series of images and circumstances that reminded me, in ways both subtle and obtuse, that I am a kind of Dorothy in my own Oz, and I’m not in my Kansas anymore. In fact, I am in AR-Kansas.

First, as I puttered around town in the morning, I was greeted by this billboard:

I’m usually dismissive of this kind of heavy-handed tactic; it’s so overt and cloying (“YOU WILL MEET GOD. Unless you don’t. Whatever.”) that it just begs to be mocked and dismissed. (Did none of these billboard peeps take Marketing 101? Or ever heard “Catch more flies with honey than vinegar”? I digress.) And until recently, I never saw such silliness on billboards, because life in Portland did not give an agreeable audience to this kind of ridiculous religious bullying. But on this day, as a freshly-minted “Southerner” again, I was less than amused. I was offended, really, because it is a great example of the sacred-cow-in-your-face-red-carpet that religious pontification, especially of the Christian variety, is given. If this billboard were to display some equally stupid threat from the Qur’an and refer to Allah or Mohammad, it would never have been put up at all,  for one thing. For another,  such blatant displays of what in any other circumstance would be evidence of mental illness or “eccentric behaviour” (believing in an Invisible Friend, anyone?)  gets lauded merely because it’s “religious.” Nay, it is “CHRISTIAN.” Blurgh.

Sam Harris has a lot of good stuff to say about how we give inordinate latitude to religious belief. An example of his thoughts, from Letter to a Christian Nation: "The President of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate to a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ludicrous or more offensive." I agree with him. It seems absurd to steer such a wide berth around concepts that increasingly only get traction because “these beliefs provide comfort.” So does Advil and morphine, marijuana and overeating. Except the last four things are regulated, illegal, or frowned-upon. Do I digress again? My point is merely this: only in this part of the United States (and, I should point out, places like Afghanistan and Iran) is this kind of religious extremism, which I find smacks a bit of terroristic threatening, allowed. Sadly, I even expect it. And it still pisses me off.

Next in line on what I’m now colloquaially calling “My First Day Back,” I encountered some cleverly irritating marketing of fruit.

THIS  is an Asian pear.

So is this:

Please notice that the box in the lower pictures does not say “Asian pear,” though. It says “Apple Pears.”

Hmm. Why the labeling drift? I wondered. Well, the “Apple Pears” were for sale in a Sam’s Club in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Where, I might guess, that “Asian-anything” is going to be viewed askance (at best) or hostilely (at worst). Ah, the great South and its magnanimous, tolerant ways. (Ahem. Meet my coping mechanism; it's called "sarcasm.") So they call an Asian pear something a bit less “furr-in.” (That’s a phonetic “foreign” for those unfamiliar with the Southern accent.)

Lastly, on that surprisingly-trying day a few weeks ago, I was confounded not once but twice over lunch in the same Sam’s Club that purveyed the doesn’t-exist-in-nature “apple pears.” First, every food option at the lunch counter featured either meat or sugar. By the metric fuckton. Second, when a woman asked me where I had gotten my napkins, she uttered the following word -- “Fudge!” -- and then *charmed me* (not really) with an unexpected and unwarranted explanation for why she could not find the napkins on her own. I could forgive the monologue about the tragic state of her affairs in being napkinless. But “fudge?” Really? As if that innocuous placeholder holds more or better sway in the English canon by being a clean version of the word she actually should have used, “fuck?” I am quite certain I rolled my eyes so hard as to cause vertigo in the people sitting within 10 feet of me, but she was unaware, so rapidly did she segue to her Lack o’Napkin story.

For what it's worth, the Mythbusters have proven that using actual foul language *does* increase the  body's tolerance for pain and stress-endurance. Should I have passed that little nugget on to the Fudge Lady? Mayhap. I pass it along to you now, dear reader:  Mythbusters No Pain No Gain.

I left the South more than once to live elsewhere, fully aware of my love/hate relationship with the land of my birth. I had thought the better part of a decade away would ameliorate that a bit, but I find thus far, that is not the case. Not only will a little dab do me. It might also do me in.