LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
CAMPOUT: A Rehoboth Journal - No grout about it... |
by Fay Jacobs |
Its all Bob Vilas fault. Strange grunting sounds are coming from my shower stall, where Bonnie is trying to cut wall tile. Shes been working on this project for so many weekends, people seeing me alone about town have started asking questions. Well, everythings fine. Its just that wisely, my manual labor skills werent requested, except to run for the occasional sandwich or caulk gun But we got lots of help. At one point there were so many assistants in the 32" x 32" shower it looked like a Marx Brothers movie. How many gay people does it take to... They sent me to Lowes on the last day the old store was open. With its 60% off sale, it was day of the locusts in there. Talk about diversity. Every gay and straight person I know was in Lowes. You think the Millennium 2000 gay rights march will be big? You didnt see the lesbians marching to the cash registers with their power tools. The boys were there, too. By 8 a.m. the place was picked clean of designer faucets. So now Im sitting here with my laptop, hoping Im out of grout splattering range. Is it just me, or do you also think spackle, grout and caulk are exactly the same crap in different containers? No matter what phase of the project were on, theres a pail of white goo to step in. Why dont they simply call it groulkle? Im convinced its a hoax perpetrated on a nation of Vilaheads. And speaking of hoaxes, lets face it, lifes been weird. Whoever thought Id be asking, "Whens Hustler coming out?" And did you hear about the National Security Agency banning Furbys in the workplace? Our nations top spooks feared the fuzzy toys would record and divulge defense secrets. Apparently government intelligence (oxymoron alert) failed to notice that Furby entrails dont include tape recorders. No wonder we cant find Saddam Hussein. But what really floored me was TV coverage of the presidents Senate trial. On opening day, every single news program led off with 20 minutes on the retirement of Air Jordan. It was a whole country telling Congress to take a quarter and call somebody who cares. And dont think its just been weird nationally. Here in Sussex County we had the infamous trophy defacingliterally. A sore loser from the Pumpkin Chunkin festival went out of his gourd when festival judges failed to find the gourd he fired. So he sawed the face off the gargoyle atop the festival trophy. Jeeesh. If other people behaved that way, Barbra Streisand would have decapitated Oscar after losing for Yentl. (She didnt, did she???) And for news of the weird even closer to home, heres a report for those of you who have been kind enough to inquire about Bonnies diagnosis from the Johns Hopkins sleep clinic. Readers may remember that last fall I wrote about my spouses snoring problem. (Weve both taken heat from friends over that column. One person noted that I made good and sure Bonnie would never leave me"whod go out with her after reading about the nighttime honking?" Bonnies comeback was "whod go out with Fay and risk seeing every embarrassing thing theyve ever done in print?" She had me there.) Well, it turns out that Bonnie does have sleep apnea and yes, its being treated so we can both get some rest. Bonnie sleeps hooked up to a machine that blows air up her nose all night. No, I am not making this up. Bonnie told me to tell you that shes sleeping like a baby, feeling rested, and the only downside is an inability to fall asleep at will during Ivory/Merchant films. Of course, for me, its like sleeping with somebody on life support. Shes got this snorkel over her nose, hooked to a rubber tube from the air machine on the night stand. Yes, a sense of humor comes in handy. We visited friends in Connecticut and when our hostess spied the set-up she couldnt help howling "My God, woman, you look like Lloyd Bridges in Seahunt." (If you dont remember Beau and Jeffs Dads show on Saturday nights before Gunsmoke, you arent AARP-eligible. Then we recalled when lots of people slept tethered by hoses to those big bonnet 1960s era hair-dryers. Heck, hostess and I got through our college social lives by having the roommate with the overnight guest put Keds on the wheels of the bed frame to reduce squeaking, while the roommate without the guest slept in the other bedroom with the hair dryer blowing on her head to muffle the er...noise. This story got Bonnies rapt attention, but hostess assured her that in those days, since I was still hanging in the closet with the bell bottoms and tie dye and had absolutely no interest in fraternity boys, hostess got most of the exercise while I wound up with a headful of split ends So on the whole, hearing the gentle whirr of the air machine is not unfamiliar to me. And it sure lets us get our rest. Although we do have to report that one night when Bonnie heard the dog coughing that pre-barf thing dogs do, she instinctively leapt up, grabbed Moxie off the bead and headed for the bathroom. She forgot she was still leashed to the night stand and got bungy-jumped back into the sack. The dog was so surprised he never did throw up. So its been pretty weird all over since we last spoke in the fall. With 65-degree weather in January, the Rehoboth off-season seems to have lasted about two days. In fact, I noticed hundreds of women milling about Baltimore Avenue and environs this weekend. Is there a fundraiser in town nobody told me about? "I bet theyre all here for the grand opening of the new Lowes on Route One," Bonnie said. Which sounded plausible until I realized it was her way of telling me to fetch more spackle. "I want the kind called Fast and Final," she said Yeah, like those two things could ever be true about one of our Bob Vila projects. Id better turn this column in to Steve on the way. I hear that the new Lowes is so big they hand out maps at the door. If Im not back by the next issue of LETTERS, hire a Sherpa guide and come rescue me. Ill be in the aisle with the groulkle. Or would that be spaulk? |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 9, No. 1, February 5, 1999 |