Road Kill

One thing’s for certain when you move to a small town: You can expect to see more dead animals in the road. It’s simple math. The less populated a city is with two-legged creatures, the more living space there is for the four-legged variety.

About the second week I moved here, I noticed a dead raccoon on the side of the road right around the corner from my home. Poor guy, I thought. Poor BIG guy. Not sure what he had been scavenging when he was alive, but I’m certain this bruiser of a raccoon didn’t die hungry.

Surely, someone would pick up his carcass – HEAVE-HO! -- and dispose of it properly, I thought. Hey, don’t look at me . . . . eeewwww!! I’m a city gal at heart. We don’t do that kind of thing. But there must be some designated city worker in this small, critter-filled town whose only job is to harvest road kill, right?

Well, we’re going on two and a half months later, and believe it or not, that dead raccoon is STILL lying face-down on the side of the road! But thanks to the marvelous science of decomposition, it’s not so big anymore. (EEWWWW!) My stomach turns every time we pass it when I think about how many seasons that carcass has endured.

What amazes me is that no one seems to care. Complete indifference. Where’s animal control? Where are the city health inspectors, because surely it must be a health hazard by now? I see people walking right by the shrinking dead raccoon, lots of joggers, too. The people who own the home on the hill above the rotting raccoon wheel their trash out to the side of the road, faithfully, every week, and position their can within feet of that poor ’coon. I mean, would it kill them to just grab his formerly bushy tail and HEAVE-HO him into their trash can? What’s wrong with these rural folks?? Have they no respect for their road kill?

It must smell something awful by now. I wouldn’t know. I keep the windows rolled up tight when I pass by. But I must confess: I do look. I can’t help myself. It’s that weird car-crash-mentality thing. No one wants to see dead bodies, but when you pass a car wreck, you can’t help but stare, half-expecting (and half-hoping, right, all you sickos??) to see a head roll.

Today, there was a dead squirrel in the middle of the road in our housing tract. We may as well dress him up with garland and holly because I suspect he’s going to be there for a while. Quite possibly until the ’coons come home.

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Mad Mom Responds To Del Taco Uproar

First off, welcome to my blog. Glad you found me in the dark of night, even if you were carrying torches and pitchforks. Nothing like a public lynching to get your day off to a good start!

I thought it best to create a separate blog to respond to all your responses, so here goes:

Look, you don’t know me, and I don’t know you. So while I could react very defensively to some of the vicious, mean-spirited attacks on me, I’m not going there. Nope, not me. I’m above all that. I’m resilient. Made of rubber. I soar with eagles.

Well . . . I’ll try not to go there, anyway. But you know, I am human. And female. So I may be little, teensie-bit offended by your barbs. But I’ll try not to show it. Turn the other cheek. Shrug it off. Bounce.

So, um . . . do you really think my blog makes me look FAT??

Anyway, for the sake of brevity, let me sum up your responses this way: About 98% of you think I am a bad mom who stifles her children, a prude who needs to get laid, an overreactive psycho divorcee who is screwing up her children for life because I try to shelter my daughters from society’s attempts to oversexualize them.

It's a wonder that I get anything done around here.

I just have one question for all the people out there who have these lovely thoughts about me: How many of you are parents? I suspect not many. Because if you were a parent, you would understand the need, the impulse, the fierce, mother-bear instinct to want to protect your children from things they don’t YET need to know about.

And I don’t think an 11-year-old needs to know what “bagging a hottie” means! Let’s stay focused on the issue here! One of you named “Anonymous,” and there were many, made my point for me when you said that 11-year-olds already know all about sex because they’re giving each other blowjobs in middle school.

Where do you think the knowledge of blowjobs is coming from, Anonymous? Could it be that there aren’t enough boundaries out there between adults and children? That the line between what children need to know and what they don’t has become terribly blurred, possibly in the name of entertainment? That maybe we are exposing our children to messages and information that they don’t need to understand yet at their young age?

All right, maybe the call for a boycott was a little overreactive, I’ll give you that much. And yes, maybe I shouldn’t be feeding my kids fast food. But it was the middle of the afternoon, we were far from home, the kids were hungry for an after-school snack, what was I supposed to do? Drive around until I found a Mother’s Market or a vegetarian co-op? No time for that. We had an appointment to get to in 10 minutes.

Sifting through all the negative comments, I came across a few CONSTRUCTIVE ones that I think are worthy of mention. First, the one that suggested I ask everyone to recycle the Del Taco bags, not throw them away. VERY good point. Very green of you.

And then this one, which I think sums up all the hysteria in a very logical, non-emotional way. Whoever you are, thank you for being the voice of sanity in a sea of madness:

Poor choice in advertising on the part of Del Taco.

Poor choice of food on the part of mom.

Del Taco: Please consider changing your advertisement to something that might be more appropriate for families with young children.

Families with young children: Please stop feeding your kids dinner from the nearest fast food joint.

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Zac’s New Movie – NOT Cute!

Wouldn’t we all love to go back in time to when we were 17 and make decisions that could have altered the courses our lives ended up taking? That’s the premise behind Zac Efron’s new movie, “17 Again.”

Nice premise. But here’s the problem (and you’ll want to click out of this quickly if you haven’t seen the movie and you don’t want to know what happens in the end): Zac’s character got his girlfriend pregnant when they were 17, and he married her. Two kids and many years later, this guy is filled with regrets and “what ifs.”

After two hours on the screen of Zac reliving his very predictable glory years in high school, he realizes that getting a girl pregnant at 17 and marrying her was the right thing to do, after all. And suddenly he has a new appreciation for what he had all along.

Leave it to Hollywood to glamorize teen pregnancy once AGAIN in “17 Again!” Two years ago, it was “Juno.” And wasn’t that smart-mouthed, sassy Juno so adorable, you just wanted to be her – the young girl who accidentally got pregnant, had the baby, then gave it up for adoption right before she went to Senior Prom?

“Juno” and “17 Again!” are the kind of movies that make you all warm and fuzzy inside about teen pregnancy. And THAT’S the problem! These movies are aimed at the teen set, and the danger is, these teenagers leave the theaters thinking that it’s OK to get pregnant when you’re 16 and 17, because it all works out in the end. Just like it does in Hollywood. Life all wrapped up in a pink or blue bow.

My 15-year-old daughter saw this movie with her girlfriends. I didn’t know what the movie was about (except that it was rated PG-13) until I picked them up afterward and they spilled the entire plot and ending for me. Surprised by it all, I asked one of her friends in the car, “What did you think of the ending?”

“It was SO cute!” she gushed.

CUTE?! Since when is getting pregnant at 17 a cute thing? How can my sensible message of college-career-marriage-and-THEN-babies possibly compete with the multi-million-dollar-mega-watt-charm of Zac Efron, who is basically telling these young kids that it’s OK to skip to the end and have babies, first?

Is it any wonder that teen pregnancies are on the rise again for the first time since 1991?

How about if Hollywood made a movie about a teenager who does everything right – gets good grades, stays away from drugs and alcohol, respects her parents, graduates from college, lands a decent job, moves out on her own, falls in love with a great guy, gets married and has babies, in that order?

Or is that just TOO boring??

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Octomom Gets A Tattoo

Did you hear the EXCITING news?? Nadya Suleman (a.ka. "Octomom") got a tattoo to pay tribute to her eight brand-spanking-new babies.

Forget the Swine Flu outbreak. This is, by far, so much more newsworthy!

I just have one question: While "Mom of the Year" was spending hours at a tattoo parlor, exposing her flesh in a tight shirt and pursing those collagen-infused, sausage lips for the cameras, who was watching her 14 children???? And after a few hours, wouldn't they be pretty damn hungry, ready and waiting for the milk wagon to pull up?

Does it get any more white-trash than this? Someone should call Child Protective Services. Watch the video for yourself here.

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Can Anyone Help Ivan?

Lindsay Lohan (via last.fm)

A 17-year-old student named Ivan posted the following comment on my blog, "Careful -- The Kids Are Watching!"

"im writing an important essay about the effect of society and media on the people and while doing my research i found your site i strongly identify with you and i really like what you talk about so i wanted to ask you: what is the negative effect of society and media on our alredy decadent society? your answer will help me alot!"

Not sure I answered Ivan's question, but I've posted my response. And I'd like to encourage all of you to help this young scholar with his essay and offer up a response of your own. I'll be happy to post it. You can send it to: Boatfolk@aol.com.


Ivan -- To answer your question . . . freedom of the press is an important right afforded to a democratic society. A free flow of information is generally a good thing. As a journalist, I believe in the public’s right to know. However, do we really need to know EVERYTHING?? I don’t really care where Paris Hilton partied last night or that Lindsay Lohan is a lesbian or where OctoMom shops for her octuplets’ clothes.

I think the danger we face in our democratic society is that with so much information (news, pictures, videos, blogs, etc.) being floated through the various media channels every day, a lot of junk gets through and that tends to normalize values and behaviors that are otherwise questionable. For instance, my daughter might come across a video on YouTube of two lesbians making out and the men standing around watching it are cheering them on. That sends the message to her that it’s “cool” and “normal” to be kissing girls.

Rap music is another great example of the destructive influence that pop culture has on our children. Kids hear Rap blaring from cars at stoplights, they hear it at the mall being played in their favorite stores -- usually with a cool video on a screen overhead – and it’s the music du jour that they are downloading on their iPods. Since Rap music is EVERYWHERE, kids are getting the message that it’s OK to act like a degenerate, to walk around with pants belted around your kneecaps, to act tough and swagger like a “gangsta,” and to degrade women and call them all “Shorty.”

When you mainstream the destructive behaviors of a few, it becomes the norm, and before you know it, you have an entire culture of degenerates.

I can’t stop the free flow of information. More to the point, I don’t want to. I believe in democracy and our freedom to choose what we want to read and watch and listen to. As a parent, I just wish there was more of a balance of choices, some louder and stronger voices crying out against the sometimes “value-less” mainstream.

I wish I could do more. I’m just one mom with a blog and a hectic life I can barely manage sometimes. I think the change I am seeking, the rally cry against some of this pop culture crap, begins at home. If parents became more vigilant and worked harder at instilling good values in their children, maybe that would help buffer the blow of the rapid degeneration of our society.

Does anyone else want to answer Ivan's question? Send your response to Boatfolk@aol.com.