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Prairie Lite... Ask Aunt Carla |
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Thursday, 28 June 2007 |
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In my never-ending quest to do as little as possible and still earn a living, I’m contemplating a career change. I want to be an advice columnist.With the possible except of seventh and eighth grades, I’ve gradually been accumulating wisdom. Granted, it’s more along the lines of, “It always looks darkest just before it turns completely black,” but hey.I’m not sure how my advice will fly in our strange world, though. Since I’m 60 now, I don’t really care, and this may be a problem. Example: I vividly recall (and so do they) the time I took Mary Ruth and Sam to the fabric store. They didn’t want to be there, of course, but I had to take them along, so as not to be a bad mother.Sam was picking on his sister – jumping at her from between bolts of cloth. His number was up when, as we were leaving the store, she suddenly decked him.Wow, there he was, suddenly staring up at fluorescent lights. If a mother writes me now to ask for advice on what to do at such a fraught moment, so help me, I would reply: “Whatever you do, honey, don’t let them see you laughing out loud. And don’t say, ‘Serves you right, you little criminal.’”To my credit, I neither laughed nor said that, but I wanted to. Update on Mary Ruth and Sam: They get along fine now. Mary Ruth’s little girl, Ruby, is Sam’s best buddy.Useful advice requires too much nuance for me. I can answer simple questions, such as: “Dear Aunt Carla, What do you call people who live in Charlotte, North Carolina.”Answer: “They’re Charlatans, dearie.”I’d be a flop as an advice columnist, mainly because the people who desperately need my advice would never ask for it. I am referring to teens would walk around in baggy pants with the crotch hanging down to their knees.I want to say, “For heaven’s sake, pull up your pants, get a belt, and while you’re at it, take out the rings from your [choose a body part]. And while I’m on the subject, get a library card and use it, you ignoramus.”Maybe the next best thing would be for me to become a CRC: Certified Reality Consultant. Jeremy and I were discussing this on the phone recently. It’s a new job we’ve created, best suited to a veteran mother or a cop.We were laughing about Paris Hilton doing whatever it is she does. I remarked to my son that people like Ms. Hilton don’t show much judgment in everyday matters because they surround themselves with toadies who agree with and validate everything they do.That’s when Jeremy suggested an additional staff member: reality consultant.The Romans did that. When a conquering general returned to Rome after subduing massive amounts of people and geography, he was rewarded with a parade down Main Street (called the Via Appia, I think).Riding with him in the chariot was a slave whose duty it was to tell him at intervals, when the crowd was cheering its loudest: “Remember, thou art but a man.” (By inference: Buddy, you still have to drape your toga over one shoulder and under the opposite armpit, same as the rest of us.)Lt. Col. George Custer needed a Certified Reality Consultant at the Little Big Horn. He had made a point of surrounding himself with favorite officers in the Seventh Cavalry whose fawning adulation bordered on the creepy, in my opinion.That Sunday afternoon at the LBH, he divided his forces, sending Capt. Fred Benteen, whom he despised (and vice versa), on a pointless lope across distant hills, far from the impending action.Custer sent Major Marcus Reno (didn’t like him either) and his battalion to attack the Indian encampment on the bank of the river.If Custer had employed a Reality Consultant, his RC would have ridden up at a quick trot, given George a dope slap and said, “Only an idiot would divide his forces in the face of an unknown enemy. Were you sleeping on the back row at West Point when your professor covered that in Remedial Tactics? You call back Fred and Marcus, and we’ll forget this little incident ever took place.”Alas for George. The 131st anniversary of his demise was earlier this week on the 25th. A Certified Reality Consultant might have made a difference.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 20 December 2007 )
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