I seem to have picked up a bad habit. Well. Another one. It’s happened the past few months. It’s completely age-inappropriate.
Somehow, the word, “Dear …” has snuck into my daily vocabulary. It’s wrong. I’m too young to be calling people — “Dear …” Either that, or I’m turning into the witch from “Hansel & Gretel.”
For those who attended or send your children to public school, “Hansel & Gretel” is the Late Middle Ages fable, later copied by the Brothers Grim in the early 19th century. It’s about how a punk-asterisk father lets his new, hag wife, talk him into abandoning his two lovable kids in the woods so the new missus can get more gruel rations or something. The kids stumble upon a gingerbread house, owned by a cannibalistic witch (not played by Hillary Clinton as she wasn’t born quite yet then). The Crone (good band name) has bad teeth, poor posture and says things like, “Hello — my pretties …!”
I haven’t stooped to chortling things like, “… my pretties” or, “… my plump little dumplings!!” But, I’m catching myself adding the word, “Dear …” to my conversations. Worse? I’m saying it in restaurants. To waitresses. Young, fetching waitresses.
To my credit, I don’t squint when I say, “Dear …” I don’t double over and guffaw. I don’t reach into a moth-eaten sow’s ear coin purse, offer a hearty, “Mwa ha ha ha ha …” and suggest, “… here’s a bright farthing if you will but follow me out to the parking lot and crawl into the trunk of my car …”
My Dear.
Where the heck did that come from?
To my credit, I don’t rub my hands together, as if washing them with an invisible bar of soap, when I say, “Dear …” I don’t cackle. At least, I don’t think I cackle. Surveillance footage from The Way Station will attest. My voice is strong, non-vibrato and straight as Interstate 5 right past Bakersfield. I haven’t begun to even approach middle age. So why am I talking like my junk mail for discount coffins and 25-cents-a-month life insurance (it’s a dime policy) gets sent to Assisted Living?
Who says — “Dear …?”
The Wicked Witch of the West from “The Wizard of Oz,” that’s who.
I remember those seventh-grade health films like it was yesterday. Nowhere was it mentioned that come a certain age (29) would you start talking like Long John Silver’s mom, who, really, under the best of circumstances, shouldn’t be on a pirate ship or any vessel as it’s bad luck to have women at sea?
Dear Mr. SCV:
First, apologies up front for abbreviating your Mr. Santa Clarita Valley title in the salutation. But, The Signal’s print news columns are thinner than a nail file and I didn’t want it to hyphenate Mr. Santa Clarita Valley 47 times. Going on record here in stating that I take umbrage at your reference of, and I quote, “… it’s bad luck to have women at sea.”
History touts countless brave and capable seafaring women, some with really nice legs. Swashbuckling ladies like Grace O’Malley, the 16th-century Pirate Queen of Ireland, China’s Zheng Yi Sao, who commanded tens of thousands of buccaneers in the 18th century, and 1928 aviator-ette, Amelia Earhart, who, by default, became ocean-bound. I know. I know. Women drivers.
On the other hand, there’s my husband, who had “… women at sea,” lots of the little mincing bobby soxers and look where it got him.
I remain,
Hillary Rodham Clinton
P.S. Aaaaargh, hoolie hoolie …
Look. I don’t go around cornering perfectly constructed young mommies in grocery stores, patting them on the back of the hand, telling them, “… it’s nice to see the next generation eat fresh vegetables!” then offering them 15 cents if they’ll sweep the sidewalk in front of my condo, which is good, because, last I looked, I don’t live in a damn condo nor do I own a damn sidewalk.
Many are the possibilities as to why I’m calling people — “Dear …” None of them are good. I hope EarlyDementia isn’t onsetting and I’m becoming, ewe, yick, cooties — sweet. Unrelated thought? Not to sound like the Wednesday night stand-up at a Palmdale House of Pies, but, why do they call it, Early Dementia? If you’ve got dementia, what’s it to you if it’s Early Dementia, Late Dementia or Middle Pleistocene Dementia? Screaming and Drooling is Screaming and Drooling, not to be confused with the plucky Castaic law firm of the same name, which, coincidentally, represents the city’s art council.
Eesh. There’s a group that needs some reassuring there-there pats on the back of the hand.
Not our city’s art council. Another city’s art council.
I suppose there’s worse things to call people, especially compelling waitresses. Like, “… oh — stewardess …” Or, “sweet cheeks.” Or, “Dude.” Or, “senorita.” Or, “Hey! Mrs. Clinton! No servie, no tippy! GET YOUR BUTT IN GEAR FOR THE LOVE OF MIKE!!!”
I hope I haven’t inadvertently fallen into the latter phase of full-blown senility. It’s right past the “Dear …” phase. That’s where you’re parked in a restaurant booth with a blank stare. The waitress comes over to ask, “What’s wrong, sir?” and you dully respond: “I live in Pennsylvania. Where am I?” Such a Hamlet-esque antic disposition might be a clever way to beat paying the check, but, how much can the 2:30 p.m. Early Bird Senior Runny Eggs Special cost, not counting the 35-cent tip?
I shouldn’t worry. It’s probably one of Life’s temporary parentheses which rhymes with sneezes and I’ll outgrow it. Still. You readers? You’ve all been a bunch of complete dears for listening. Take some cookies with you. And a photo album. Lock the gate on your way out so that mutant mob of imbecilic Rottweilers from the next ranch over doesn’t wander over to nap in my vegetable garden.
“Naked Came the Novelist,” Boston’s long-awaited sequel to “Naked Came the Sasquatch,” is on sale at JohnBoston-Books.com. (It should be a movie.) So are other fine books, including his two-part “SCV Monsters” series. Lifelong SCV resident John Boston, with 119 major writing awards and nearly 12,000 columns, is Earth history’s most prolific humorist and satirist.
