mixed messages: a recurring theme

A week and a half or so ago, Miz Susan made the mistake of leaving me home alone for a night. She was off to some party where husbands were frowned upon and she, always the gracious guest, was quick to tell me that I couldn't come and that I'd better stay out of the leftover Halloween candy.

This is usually cause for minor celebration; even the Halloween candy part semed a small price to pay. I'm always looking forward to the half a dozen or so nights a year that I'm left unguarded at home. I plan out unhealthy eating excursions for months in advance. Local pizza and rib joints' owners may still be scratching their heads over spikes in same-store sales over the last year's numbers but they're never likely to figure out that these were solely because a certain someone was away from home and not serving up another meatless meal.

I thought hard this time about the appeal of an extra 3-5 thousand calories and damn hard about all the various ways I could make that happen. But it turned out to be a no-go. I think that all the possibilities froze me into indecision.

This is what comes from living in a vibrant metropolitan area with a lively restaurant scene. There are so many spots within 7-10 minutes which serve food that's both totally delicious and totally bad for me; it's godawful painful to narrow things down. I've even been getting daring lately and have started thinking about...gasp!...Lake Street. Yeah, I know; dangerous for an innocent St. Paul kid like me but, my god, the food. The food, I tell you! So anyway---Thai, Italian, burgers, ribs, Friday night fish fries and more. It's tough to pull the trigger when there are so many targets of opportunity.

OK, so I wimped out on the illicit food thing. Call me what you want but I decided I couldn't let a night alone go completely to waste. I decided to get really demented and I walked up to Cheapo/Applause or whatever they call themselves these days. I hit both the CD store on the far side of Snelling and the record store back across the street. And if I didn't actually buy anything other than a lottery ticket at SA (a loser, it turns out), that doesn't make me anything less of a rebel and a man's man. Does it?

Just as I was browsing the Nancy Wilson LP's, looking for a record that I'll never actually see even after multiple reincarnations, Miz Susan called. Where am I, what am I doing, how soon am I going to be home and you do know that it had better be damn soon, right? Yes ma'am, I'm on the way.

I wrapped up my business at the record store (does grabbing a free City Pages on the way out count as business?) and headed home. The front storm door was hooked on the inside. I already had a feeling where this was headed but I played dutiful and went around to the back where I found that door burglar- (and husband-) proofed as well, keys be damned. Back to the front porch where I wondered just how many blankets were in whichever car I had a key to. I called on my cell phone and, in my very meekest voice, asked: please, could I be allowed into the house? Please?

I saw this as a classic case of mixed messages. I'd been told to get my worthless, dead ass home, stat. But, when I got there, the doors were all locked. In her defense, Susan seemed genuinely happy to see me, said it was all reflex action that had led her to lock me out of the house. Maybe she wouldn't have been quite so happy if she'd known then what I know now about that lottery ticket.

Election night left me feeling pretty much the same way. Minnesota has got to be the mixed messages heavyweight champ of the Republic when it comes to voting to ensure zero-sum government. This, after all, is the state that sent Paul Wellstone and Rod Grams to the U.S. Senate. At the same time. Minnesota seems to have loved Tim Pawlenty (yeah, I don't get it either) despite stacking the Legislature solidly against him. Now, to even up that score, we find ourselves with a Legislature in the hands of the Republicans for the first time since Alexander Ramsey's second term but with Mark Dayton as our presumptive guv-elect. Mixed messages on a heavyweight championship scale.

It's been a struggle to watch the GOPers strut and preen and spout their "The people have spoken." blather, ad nauseum. Hell, the people spoke two years ago. And these sanctimonious cockroaches did nothing but sit on their hands and state publicly that they weren't going to do anything to acknowledge the voices that had been raised. And, further, that they were, by God, going to do everything they could to obstruct and sabotage any and all efforts to respond to those voices.

It's going to be a tough two years of watching Mitch McConnell drool his morning Cream of Wheat down his tie and listening to Minnesota GOP mouthpiece Tony Sutton drone his endless recount conspiracy theory schtick between bites of jelly donut. The entertainment value of that kind of stuff has a pretty limited shelf-life.

Maybe I'll see if Tony and some of the other Repub wonks want to go restaurant-hopping with me the next time Miz Susan goes out and forgets to hire the kids across the street to track my movements. I'll even offer to pick up the tab. That has all the makings of a helluva mixed message.