Ramblings from the Desert

The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. ~Benjamin Franklin

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Location: New Mexico

Author of the urban fantasy novel, The Music of Chaos, and the paranormal romance, The Canvas Thief.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Women Who Stare at Goats

Eight o'clock in the morning, and the greyhound and I are back from our morning walk. As usual, he flops down onto his bed, a cloud of white hair poofing into the air. How exactly can an animal with so little hair on his body, generate so much hair?

I park my ass on the couch and flip on the television. Ann Curry of the Today Show is introducing a "story" (because you couldn't call it news) about a woman who left her husband and one-year-old baby.

My immediate reaction is to reach for the remote. This isn't news; this is Jerry Springer, without the hair pulling and colorful language.

I stop and reconsider. Maybe, rather than merrily isolating myself from the daily pageant of lurid stuff that fuels water cooler conversations, I should watch, forge a connection with the rest of easily distracted America. I'm a writer, no? And writers write about people.

Hand twitching, I manage to restrain my desire to change the station, and emerge from my cultural vacuum.

Anyway, the recurrent theme, as in phrase repeated over and over, is "she left her daughter for ANOTHER MAN."

As opposed to what? I wonder. A goat? "Woman leaves family for goat. 'It's the beard,' she says." Now that would be a headline!

The story, btw, is titled, "How can a mother leave her daughter?" I dunno? With her feet, one in front of the other?

Or maybe, her daughter was the Anti-Christ, a la The Omen. And mom got sick of the wildlife going ape shit everywhere she and demon spawn went.

The short version of the story, which is also the long version, is that a dim-witted, and too stupid to reproduce woman, wandered off with her new boyfriend, leaving her husband and infant daughter.

The only vaguely newsy part of the story is the fact that a small fortune in public dollars were spent trying to find Mrs. Thang, because she neglected to tell anyone that she'd be taking a walk on the wild side with a man who's actually gone through puberty.

The other man is a pudgy forty-something, who is also married. Her husband, who looks about twelve and who would probably blow away in a stiff wind, says he forgives his wife.

When asked why he forgave her, Tehan said, "I don't know. It's supernatural."

Supernatural. As in their daughter is Satan in a cute, cuddly, baby suit?

From the same ABC link, husband says, "There may be issues to work out, but that's okay. Issues we can work out." Issues. Ya think? The stupid is strong with this one.

The video ends and the show moves onto two experts who will now tell me why a mother would leave her daughter for ANOTHER MAN.

"Because she was fresh out of goats," I tell the television, before changing the channel.

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