It's Not the Same Thing!

It's no secret that text messaging is destroying our ability to spell, in spite of predict-a-text. Laziness is quickly masticating the English language and we're just one small swallow away from hopeless degeneration. Okay, okay, that might be a little dramatic. (Channeling Peter, Paul and Mary) Where have all the apostrophes gone? Since when are "your" and "you're" the same thing? PS--They're not the same thing.

Chat and text have created an entirely new language full of acronyms and abbreviations that never used to mean something, but hey, who cares about tradition, right?



But let's talk about one problem in particular with text messaging speak. For those who don't know, and that's everyone else besides my twin, my friend Kim, and me, there is a difference between "ya," "yeah," "yea," and "yay." Though I have other more pressing tasks I should be doing, I feel it my public duty to address this issue promptly, before you all embarrass yourselves more.

"Ya" is southern for "you" and that is the only word it replaces. So when I ask for affirmation from someone, and they reply with "ya," you can understand my confusion. Ya is not affirmative. It is the word we use when we want to say a non-committal "love you." We've all said it, we've all heard it. Love ya! Love you too, chicken butt!

So if you are trying to answer someone when they ask if you'll be at the party tonight, you really mean to say "yeah." That is the only way it works. It is the slang way of saying yes. If you were Miss Congeniality Sandra Bullock, you would be yelled at every time you used "yeah" instead of "yes." But since few of us are beauty queens, "yeah" it is. Several friends want to use it to express extreme joy for some occurrence, but they are wrong. Don't be one of them.

In a moment of sheer joy, say your friend got an A on her midterm, and you want her to know how excited you are, (and a colon-parenthesis just won't cut it)....what do you do? You say YEA! WRONG! That is scriptural for "to this extent" and that's not what you're trying to say. In fact, when will you ever need to use that word? Let me help you out...you won't. So back to the scenario of congratulation wishes for a friend...you would say "YAY!"

Yea, are we all clear? Yeah? Hey, Ya! Clear? Yeah? Yay!

Two years ago I thought it might be fun to be an elf at the Santa village in the mall. The job paid $7 an hour and I didn't have to wear pointy-toed shoes, just black slacks, a white dress shirt, and a shiny red vest. I thought it would be breezy.

I have never been so wrong.

I even suspected the Christmas spirit might sink to the center of my heart for the first time since Mom dispelled how Santa knew the exact name of the Cabbage Patch preemie I wanted. But that didn't happen either.

Instead, I spent seven-hour shifts lifting chubby kids onto Santa's lap so they could spiel off their greed. "I want the new Xbox 360, plus this game and that game, and oh by the way a new TV so I can play it in my room."

Is that all? What about world peace while we're at it? I'm not sure how Santa knew that all I wanted for Christmas was back problems, but he delivered.

Still, there were precious moments to be had, like the time 2-year-old twin girls came in and screamed and cried in unison. It was incredibly moving. Or how about when Santa's van, I mean sleigh, broke down and I lied to a line of anxious children and their angry parents by telling them Santa was late because of a storm over Alaska. There weren't enough candy canes in the world to quell that crowd.

If the fat, greedy kids weren't spirit-stealing enough, our second Santa was barely 20 years old and still sporting acne and skater shoes, which poked out from beneath the Naugahyde, boot-like wrap-arounds. He couldn't get his voice to drop low enough for Santa's ho-ho-ho to sound anything but puberty-burdened. But he was jolly.

As an elf, my job was to take photos of the kids on Santa's lap, and then convince the parents to buy a plethora of copies, more than anyone could ever give away. And I got a bonus if I sold them the cheap snow globe with photo insert. I managed to sell my share of keychain upgrades. No, really! It's cuter when they look panicked with arms outstretched.

Truthfully, there were cute moments; moments where children squeezed Santa's neck like he was better than any bear or doll; moments when 1-year-olds looked up quizzically at the massive, white beard; moments of whispered wishes followed by magical smiles. But those were as frequent as Aggie football wins.

As Christmas neared, the commercial emphasis overwhelmed me and I began to hope for my own new, shiny TV, or maybe shoes, or clothes. When the day came, and my family surrounded me with love instead of packages, all that vanished.

Maybe Christmas, I thought, doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas . . . perhaps . . . means a little bit more. Wait, did I steal that? Seuss who?

Six Years, Still Here

It was six years ago but when I close my eyes, the flashes and the sounds make it feel as if it was six minutes ago. I had just stepped out of the shower when I heard my mother yell that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Towers. Freak accident, we all thought. So I toweled off, pulled on my plaid robe, and twisted my hair into a towel turban. By the time I left the bathroom, the second plane had hit.

We stood there, paralyzed, not fully understanding how two planes could get so off course, not willing to entertain the possibility of an attack. But the words were used. Terrorist attack. Reports told of the vice president moving locations, though they would not disclose where, thereby averting attempts on his life. The images flashed back and forth between reporters and towers, smoke and ash, people running and screaming. We couldn't turn away. We couldn't change channels. I just stood there, my arms holding the robe tightly to my body in an effort to control my trembling, my head occasionally shaking in disbelief.

Then it happened. A reporter outside the Pentagon was reiterating how little was known about the two previous planes, and suddenly an explosion caused him to duck. He panicked, then quickly composed himself and spoke to the audience in that way reporters do, using a tone of authority with words that added up to say they knew nothing: "There was just an explosion of some kind. It came from the other side of the Pentagon. We will report to you any details as they become available."

Then minutes later we knew. A third plane had hit the Pentagon. I didn't realize then that I had just witnessed the murder of my friend.

I could feel myself devolving into a pathetic bathrobe creature, standing there, staring blankly at a screen while plumes of smoke poured out of the tallest buildings in New York City. Without warning, the first tower collapsed. It just imploded. I felt my stomach lurch, the vomit rising in my throat. I swallowed hard, closed my eyes and prayed with ferocity. My legs didn't work. I needed to walk to my room and ready myself for my job. I would be late as it was, but my feet refused to move. A fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, but no one could be sure if it was related to the other three.

The images flashed quickly, repeatedly, and suddenly I was in first grade, watching the Challenger explode on perma-repeat. My mother behind me was sobbing, hot tears staining her cheeks. I just stared, thinking of the people who worked in those towers, the firemen rushing in, the people in the street gaping at the debris raining down, the innocent travelers who boarded a plane in D.C. and expected to walk off in L.A. The second tower fell 23 minutes after the first. Now I didn't know what to pray for, or for whom, or if it mattered. I felt numb.

The 30-minute drive to work crawled. The radio offered no new information, just recounts of what we had watched all morning. All I could think was whether or not my friend Liz's husband, Brady, who worked in a high clearance section of the Pentagon, was alive. Even Liz didn't know how to get hold of him. She was never given a number to reach him, so each day he had called her. But that Tuesday, her phone did not ring. What could she do but wait?

I, like most Americans, had no idea how to help, so I stood in line that evening to donate blood. What normally would have taken 45 minutes took three and a half hours, moving slowly forward from chair to chair as we inched our way closer to the blood draw stations. Every 30 minutes we called in to see if there was news on Brady. Nothing. Scoot forward. Scoot forward. Nothing. Scoot. Scoot. Nothing.

For seven days we would know nothing. Assumptions were made, but I never allowed myself to stop hoping that he was in a coma, sans identification, and when he awoke, we would get a call to say he was alive the whole time. But Monday's phone message didn't include a coma, or a miracle. Dental records had identified his body.

A week's worth of hope spilled out of me in a deluge of tears. The deep sobs bruised my chest and swelled my eyes. I wanted to be grateful that we knew, unlike so many families in New York City, but I had no room for gratitude. Brady was dead; Liz was a widow at 25. I had just seen her in March, excited about life, glad for the new job that had moved them to the area, the same job that would cost her husband his life. What now? I wrote a letter to express my deep sorrow for her loss, but nothing I said fixed this. Nothing I wrote made the hurt smaller. I'm not sure when I fell asleep that night, but I remember wishing I would not wake up.

Six years later, the question remains. What now? Today my heart is heavy, desperate to right this evil, desperate to help people remember and understand what was lost that day. We didn't just lose towers and strangers, faces known only to those who loved them. We lost hope, and a feeling of security. We lost the comfort of innocence and naivety. We lost our childhood.

I haven't slept well in six years. I want to feel safe again. I want to board a plane without fearing who else might be taking my flight. I want to pack a full tube of toothpaste in my carry-on. I want to feel good about bringing children into this world. I want back the life I had on Sept. 10, 2001. More than all of that, I want to fight this; I want to take back what was lost and fight for what is good. But my only weapon is words, and today they fail me.

A Wee Rant on Christmas Yard Art

I don’t remember reading about the Abominable Snowman attending the birth of our Savior, worshipping next to a shepherd, but that is the scene portrayed on the lawn of a home on 200 North.

Along Highway 38 in Deweyville, you will find Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Pluto in quick succession behind the wise men on course to worship the newborn Christ child. Funny how the New Testament left out that small detail. It smacks of Disney worshipping if you ask me. Others have equally offended the boundaries of commercial versus spiritual.

Maybe you don’t have this beef with the season, but I find it inappropriate to blend the “reasons for the season” on the same patch of lawn. I would be appeased if those people simply used the sidewalk leading up to their door as a divider, putting the Nativity on one side, and Santa or the Grinch on the other.

The offenses don’t stop there. How about the folks who turn on their Christmas lights just after Halloween? Granted, Thanksgiving decorations are a little harder to come by, merely because Wal-Mart doesn’t sell inflatable lawn turkeys. We should really talk to them about that.

I just got off the phone with Wal-Mart headquarters, and in fact they do sell inflatable lawn turkeys. So if you feel the need to adorn your lawn with tacky used car lot gimmicks, $100 can buy you a fix. Actually, I made that up. They don’t sell blow-up turkeys, but I’m sure some of you are halfway to your car with Visa check card in hand. I know, I know. I can be so cruel.

Instead of the air-blown turkey, a better idea would be to acquaint yourself with the farmers around here and talk them out of some dried corn stalks and left over pumpkins. It would be like choosing crème brulée over vanilla instant pudding. When it comes to yard art, there’s never room for J-E-L-L-O. A lovely fall scene after Halloween would allow enough time for the appropriate unveiling of all things Christmas.

Lest you discover my own Christmas shortcoming and think me hypocritical, I will confess to listening to SheDaisy’s Christmas CD beginning in October. But unless you’re riding in my car or sitting in my home, you remain unharmed by my dance with the devil. Yet no matter how hard I try to avert my eyes, the neighbors’ inflated crocodile pulling Santa’s sleigh in for a front row view of the Baby Jesus catches my peripheral vision, and burns my retinas.

I nearly gouged out my own eye when on yet another lawn the Polar Express passed by Bethlehem’s lowly manger scene. Next year I fully expect to see the magi kneeling before the King with their gold, frankincense, and myrrh followed closely by a polar bear with his Coca-Cola. There are better ways to honor Him, and we can start by giving the Nativity its own side of the yard.