Which Reminds Me

Who knew in the fourth grade at missionary kid school that our teacher would later go on to become a shamelessly trashy slut and homewrecker, having stolen a rich husband in Colorado? All the more reason to found an orphanage somewhere, perhaps needing a place to masquerade as a "good" person and forget about your self-imposed troubles, but I really don't know anything about it. I only know that the scummy stupid Benners of Colorado were not my problem. I have no connection whatever to that slobbering idiot Don Benner and was never interested in learning more about the operation of orphanages and the financing thereof. So will someone shut off the stupid machine? Where do I go to turn off the stupid scripting machine? Ahhhh!!!!

But that's the way it goes under Murphy's Law. Everything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Which Reminds Me

That was John Bueno who was talking about how he is so proud of Rosanne having snared herself a rich husband. They were at the Buenos' house when we went over there for a meeting. Beyond those handful of meetings I really never saw them. They came to found an orphanage, a noble pursuit when you have extra money in the pocket and burned all your bridges back home. But that is no concern of mine. The Benners were not my problem. I don't know very much about that.

Which Reminds Me

It is a bit awkward, these pathetically stupid trashy Benners trying to make themselves the focus of our social circles when actually they were nothing to us, just a tangential circumstance of no importance to anyone, coming down there and masquerading as if they were missionaries when actually they were just boring rich people. Nobody should be giving such weight to the idiotic rantings of these Colorado Benners. We never even met them. We don't know anything about it. We don't understand what their problem is.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is hard for us to understand why our fourth grade teacher, Miss Murphy, would sacrifice her honor to steal someone else's husband, after all only just a disgusting repulsive creepy rich man, Don Benner, who was shipped into exile to limit the damages. No one actually wants to be getting these creepy "rich man" messages from Don Benner. He is a disgrace. I probably don't know the half of it. I only get the idea.

Which Reminds Me

As the scripting goes, I suppose you are waiting for me to say something about Carmen, a high school classmate whom I mostly disliked. Just because she married a U.S. citizen, that does not mean anything to me. To me Carmen is just a boring person whose existence I mostly ignore because I really couldn't care less.

Carmen is just a nasty, hateful, arrogant person who loathes white people, a protegé of the obnoxious whiney Benners of Colorado. But I don't need to actually say anything about that. The evidence speaks for itself.

Which Reminds Me

It is hard for us to understand why all the fuss about this Back-Us? How is your local deity, Back-Us, different from your neighbor's focus of adoration, Bail-R-Us? These are important spelling dilemmas that demand attention.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, my enemies want to make political hay out of some emails that I wrote and sent to someone who it turns out was not my friend. Oh well. It is not that there would be any obscene words there. It is just that they obviously are blackmailing me with that and will be twisting whatever I say to suit their own political purposes. So it is not like I have any choice in the matter. If only I had just never gone there, never communicated with anyone in this lifetime, there would be no paper trail. But there is no end to the "if only's" in my life. Everything I say or do hits some people the wrong way. There is just nothing that I can do or say right about that.

Which Reminds Me

So, basically, how do I politely say that I don't want or need your political Boonedoggle? To me, your Boonedoggle is nothing but a huge headache. Shooting turkeys might be an important part of celebrating Thanksgiving, I am just saying. It just doesn't make any sense to me. How do we draw a bead in shooting George's Boonedoggle butt out of the water? I am confused.

Which Reminds Me

How many times do I have to explain that, personally, I don't own any guns? Not that it would be my place to say who can have guns or who can't. I remember as a child watching that television program, Daniel Boone, the American hero who was a quick shot with a rifle or shotgun in hand. So we often see these guns in action on television even when we would not want to risk mishandling guns in our own homes. In real life we are cautious about these matters but we are not blind to what is happening out there in the real world, especially nowadays with cameras everywhere.

Was Kentucky the home state of Daniel Boone? Or was it some other state? I am confused about the history of that. Even so, I was never in Kentucky and don't know anything about it.

Which Reminds Me

What was the name of our first pediatrician when we were living in El Salvador? I really don't remember so why does the name of Dr. Guillen suddenly come to mind? I don't see what that has to do with high school paperwork. I am just here in high school to get good grades, not worrying about the Society pictures in the local newspaper and how that fits into the local hierarchy, which is not mentioned in my job description, and also not to discuss with you my blood pressure scores. Certainly the profession of medical doctor is a noble one, worthy of the honors and rewards due to it. Doctors do some good things, help to treat the symptoms and heal some of these diseases, although not really at the level of God who alone can heal all of these diseases. So I am just saying. So?

Which Reminds Me

I remember in college when I saw that Connie Seaward had dyed her red hair to blonde, and although I didn't say anything at the time I thought that she looked terrible because her skin tone did not blend with that and seemed washed out. But I do sort of understand about social pressures that might make some people feel that being blonde could be the only ticket to getting ahead socially, even if that means wearing a mask to disguise who you really are.

And then I remember in college how it was a blonde who made brownies laced with Ex-Lax (a laxative) and gave them to the boys. I suppose that is just a small sampling of how mean and nasty they can be, another reason not to get too chummy with these crazy social climbers. What else would they do to me? There is no limit to their mischief.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, and there is that snarky Monica Spayed-Her smugly smirking about how she got away with spaying me as if nobody ever noticed how it was "done" that way. Duh!

Which Reminds Me

I believe that I still have blood flowing through my veins, which proves that I am yet alive, although I don't feel any great need to prick myself with pins and needles in order to reassure myself on this minor point. Elementary, Mr. Dear Watson. And if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. So there is no fear in death. Why so afraid of dying? It is appointed to all once to die, and then the judgment. So don't be so afraid of dying. Fear the judgment. How will you account later for your rotten attitude? But I digress.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, at Evangel College you probably thought that was two redheaded girls rooming together, but actually you were never in the room or you would have heard Jan Green pontificating about how she dyes her hair red and is enjoying the change and no one should dare to condemn her. And then Jan asks me if my hair is dyed and I say no, actually this is my natural color, not that I was boasting or anything, just the facts, and then Jan tries to make herself the martyr, as if I were condemning her for dyeing her hair, which was ridiculous. How can I be expected to keep track of all these bottle blondes? Why should I trouble myself about such a personal decision? Why should I feel guilty just because Jan has this mental complex about herself being an artificially constructed copy of something else? So I'm just saying... So?

Which Reminds Me

How many times do I have to explain that there are no Czechs at this location? I don't know the first thing about Czechs and don't understand the reason for all these not-so-funny puns about Czechs. What I need is a paycheck, not another bad pun about Czechs. Just because I, and several others obviously, once read a novel by Marcia Davenport in which the heroine, a wealthy heiress from the steel mills of Pittsburgh, loved a Czech musician, that does not mean that I ever knew personally any Czechs. Fiction has no appropriate place in this discussion of paychecks so there is nothing intelligent that I can say about these unknown Czechs with whom I have no personal acquaintance.

Which Reminds Me

I vaguely remember that while at Evangel College the two Keating sisters from Oklahoma City lived on my floor. But I don't want to speculate on what their opinions of me might be later. I really don't care anymore about those crazy people.

Which Reminds Me

It is not enough to have a photographic memory when obviously you are too stupid to assemble the pieces into a coherent story. Just a snapshot here and there is not enough to explain what was going through your empty head. Maybe someday you will learn that God gave you a head to use for more than just a hatrack, to borrow a figure of speech for the purpose of clarifying the truth in a more picturesque way, never mind about Sharon's overblown distaste for my Dad's penchant for these pithy little quotations. Think.

Which Reminds Me

During college I remember Lynda Botsford, who was originally from Kansas, talking about how she really enjoyed attending a black gospel choir festival in downtown L.A. where the singing is very very loud. I didn't go with her to that. I only remember her talking about having gone there with her church. She flatters herself on having some insider track on the black gospel choir scene of L.A. but I don't understand. That is really not my style of music. I like some of it but it can get monotonous after a while listening to that, like anyting. Our churches are stuck in a time warp at least for now. Eventually something will change but for now that's all they have, just the loud and screaming black choir thing. Nobody can really sing along to that. It's a show. So we can just watch and listen or go and find some other white church that has a more old-fashioned type of music maybe if you can find one to suit you. I don't know. For me, I'm too old now to care. It just doesn't matter anymore. I'm just never going to do that again.

Which Reminds Me

Sometimes we forget about how Southern California District was invaded by Kansas, and also Ohio, bringing along their prairie dog games that nobody really knows anything about, so that many people just up and quit and moved back East to avoid the Kansas punch, or was it the Ohio punch. Why are these Kansas prairie dogs so fascinated with the gospel choirs of Compton when California has or rather had so many other attractions? I don't understand. Compton is no place for a white girl such as me to get ahead, they only promote from within and also I have no Kansas credentials, unlike some other people I can think of, so there is just nothing there now for us.

Which Reminds Me

I don't remember who it was in college who was saying that some of those guys are just wafflers. They waffle back and forth. They have split personalities. One day they are Dr. Jekyll, another day it is Mr. Hyde. Yes, well, I can't say it isn't true. So?

Which Reminds Me

You were telling me that the theater company and its theater people are under judgment because they escaped out the stage door and left the audience burning in their seats. Or maybe the fire prevented the people in the audience from access to the backstage door. Which was it? I can't quite remember who said what.

Which Reminds Me

Sharon from Nebraska never said anything to us about having an axe to grind in regards to her rich uncle Warren, but it does make you wonder, all this emphasis on work work work, never anything said about how sometimes rich people are working smarter than other people, which makes you wonder why these poor working people think that we are fooled by these working class games of yours. Sometimes just work work work just takes you around and around in a pointless circle, just work yourself to an early grave. Sometimes the smarter people will just always be a few steps ahead of the rest of us and that is just the way it is, not a reason to scream at me.

Which Reminds Me

Sharon from Nebraska married one of the local natives, the mixed Indian-Spanish Leonel, so that was her choice, but there is no law requiring that the rest of us American women also marry some dreary foreign national, just because I attended high school there while she did not. There is no law requiring that I follow the example of Sharon in imitation of her. I am my own person and thus I am not required to do whatever Sharon Turner thinks, just because Sharon, who was a "tough" cookie from Nebraska, John's secretary, has a problem with the definition of "white." Just because Sharon has some axe to grind in regards to the definition of "white," that does not mean that I was ever thinking in those terms. I just wasn't interested. Enough said.

Which Reminds Me

Who knew that Sharon Turner of Nebraska was such a crazy vindictive person? I really didn't remember her that way, but now that her stupid guts have been splattered all over the walls, it probably would be difficult for Sharon to show her face in public still pretending to be anything but a nuisance from Nebraska.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it was so utterly cruel of them to stop me this way. There she is sitting in her palatial mansion of wealth surrounded by moneybags and not a care in the world and yet she for some reason imagines that she can get away scott-free with taking away the life of poor little me just because I was sitting there on the other side of the classroom. Yet given a choice between the love of God and the hope of hobnobbing with some silly rich person, God wins every time. Sorry but anyway it was never about you.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, who is this simple-minded person who has not read in the New Testament, the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians, which was the quotation I chose to write next to my senior picture in my high school yearbook? Didn't our teacher talk about how that is the most important quotation in the entire Bible? But that was maybe a different teacher in a different class for another time. Still, I am not about to apologize later for my choice of yearbook quotation, even though quite a few clanging cymbals are still out there aiming to prove that they do not yet understand what they read. Sometimes it is not enough to just read. Low reading comprehension scores may yet disqualify your participation.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is a bit awkward, these strange rich people trying to attach me to them and ruin my life by remote control. The truth is that I never had much connection at all to Heather Catto and her Czech husband, don't know anything about it. She was only at our high school during 9th grade and we never really talked. Thus, there is not one thing that I can tell you about the Houston Chronicle and the dilemmas faced by newspaper owners such as the Hobby Lobby crafting crew, however that connects. Only much later did I do some research and learned that Heather's family at one time owned newspapers such as the Houston Chronicle. Oh, I didn't know that. Since I never had the slightest connection to Heather, there is no reason for you to be imagining that I would was planning to serve as Heather's surrogate in any capacity. I can easily imagine that some office whiners like to beat up on newspaper owners as a source of their special interest problems. However that may be, at least I know that I am not lost in the Orozco's Nicaraguan flow even if you don't know that. Personally, I am not interested in tilting at Catty windmills. There are just too many loose cannons rolling around the decks to dignify that with further discussion.

Which Reminds Me

So just because your mother is maybe Connie Francis, you think of yourself as a Franciscan saint, which proves you are almost living in your own artificially created stagecraft theaterscape in New Jersey, of which I have no awareness. So?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, come to think of it, I can't remember when was the last time I discussed the subject of shooting. Not that you don't deserve to be shot through the heart. But only because, anyway, that would be missing the point.

Which Reminds Me

My sister's friend from high school seemed at first to have converted to Christianity, and then later she converted to Mormonism and moved to Utah and was never heard from again. I don't know anything else about Utah.

Which Reminds Me

One day during college, in the cafeteria I was approached by Sergio from Argentina, Jeff's friend, who was very chatty and friendly for several minutes and then was talking about how he needed a car to drive to somewhere, maybe downtown Los Angeles, to take care of some paperwork of his, and can he borrow my car. Sorry but I don't have a car to loan you, I told him. Sergio's attitude changed completely and suddenly he was disdainful of this poor wretched girl who has no car. And then he departed. And I just shrugged that off because, anyway, sometimes these pompous arrogant foreigners have such attitudes. I sort of understand that but I sort of also think that sometimes they expect too much. He didn't care about me. He only wanted to know what I could do for him.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it doesn't seem fair that these Breezy whiners should be allowed to get away with murder somehow, just because Greta Garbo was maybe their stepmother or something. I don't understand. Michael never explained anything to me. I only overheard something. I don't really know anything about that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is sad to learn of the existence of Harvey and Helen, who died forgotten and forsaken in the San Francisco area after returning from India. Why would they be living in San Francisco area when they were originally from the Midwest? I never knew these people existed so it would seem unreasonable and illogical of you to expect me to take sides in the personal squabblings of persons about whom I know absolutely nothing. I don't even know these people existed so obviously I cannot be expected to understand the significance of San Francisco, generally a magnet for nuts and flakes. Bay Area "Do Re Mi" whiners are such a nuisance.

Which Reminds Me

At the SFNN job, before Steve Ricci left he distributed copies of something. It was a mish-mash of comments and conversations that he had participated in and/or overheard which he transcribed without attribution in a huge mish mash of things that he thought were funny or memorable. I might have thrown away my copy of that. Some of the things that were going on in the office I really wasn't paying attention to and weren't something that I would care about remembering later. By now I probably wouldn't remember who said what. Steve was transferred somewhere first and then fired shortly after that but I don't have many details on that. I was mostly not included in the hiring and firing discussions.

Which Reminds Me

So you think that my typing test on file there entitles you to yank me around on a chain, even though you don't actually need me for anything. It's not like Catherine Pile ever discussed the details of her brilliant work there with me. It's not like I would ever get hired there. It's just that you enjoy yanking people's chains, especially mine. Yes, if only I had turned down the opportunity to apply for a job there, leaving you without a shred of paperwork with which to blackmail me later. But alas, it is not so. Should have, could have, would have.

Which Reminds Me

At work, there were five desks clustered together, across from me Bonnie, across from Bonnie Kathy, at my right was Eva, a Porto Rican. Later, Eva was not appearing at her desk for a long time and so I asked Bonnie and Kathy what happened to Eva and they said that Eva was fired because apparently editor Kathy was tired for redoing her sloppy work. Later it was learned that Eva returned to Porto Rico where she had no problem getting a better paying job than the one from which she was fired even though Kathy thought she was only semi-literate, but ethnic labeling is apparently a big advantage to them, superseding even a lack of spelling abilities. But then again Kathy's disreputable moonlighting jobs would give fodder to enemies of the truth. So there is really nothing that I need to say about those people that matters in the least.

Which Reminds Me

How many times do I have to repeat the same old stories about work, about that weird thing that Bonnie said while she was talking to Kathy about her boyfriend, she being somewhat bored of him, the rut they are in, but there was one thing holding them together, explaining this in such a way that there was clearly no doubt about Bonnie's lack of proper documentation. My desk facing them catty-cornered from the other direction, I could not avoid overhearing this sudden sharing of too much personal information. How these exchanges get into outside circulation I have no idea.

Which Reminds Me

So just because your haughty arrogant filty rich Libby is the most hateful nasty person imaginable, always taking every opportunity to denigrate and throw big sticks at everyone she possibly can, even if she apparently doesn't have much to work with, that does not mean that the rest of us Americans wish to be categorized in the same box as 'Big Stick' Libby. Some of us are not really thinking every minute about big sticks and how to fashion them. Some of us have other priorities in life than just hitting people with big sticks. But if you force us to retaliate in self-defense, well, we are not about to renounce our right to defend ourselves against unwarranted and frivolous attacks just so you can flatter yourself at our expense.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how strange are these imaginings, that such a haughty arrogant filthy rich political family would condescend to lecture poor little me on the subject of inherited wealth, as if I ever had any of that. Obviously, you must have gotten me confused with someone else. My fate is to work work work, just that. Do you have a problem with the concept of my working for a living? Because if so, your thinking is entirely illogical. And if I can't work, I can't live. So you have just "screwed" me up in a matter of speaking.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, that sounds so noble to say that we should not ask our country for anything, should passively allow the country to tell us wherever to go whenever they want, never having to make any decisions for ourselves, never to exercise our own judgments and discriminations or discernments in terms of what we want or what we think will be best for us to do or not do in terms of what is in our best interests or else not, to be a puppet on a string, to never say never, to never say no, to allow ourselves to be cowed and intimidated by authoritarian figureheads and moneybag gamesters, to imagine ourselves as creatures of government rather than the builders of it, etc. etc.

And in the same breath you blame Johnson for the Great Society, which teaches the poor to just stop trying, to accept their loser status, to just collect a welfare check and forget about it. The recipients of donation funds of any sort cannot presume to exercise the privileges of citizenship reserved for established affluent landowners. In short, beggars can't be choosers. The borrower is a slave to the lender.

The poor you have with you always, so we do have a sort of institutionalized slavery of a back-door variety.

But, anyway, who said we all have to win a contest? The thought of winning is a temptation. It may flatter the human ego to imagine that we could win the ultimate prize of money and prestige, and then we remember that we are but dust, that we are as grass that grows for a season and then withers away. Winning is just not that important in the long run. Of what use will be the money after your soul is taken away? We must prepare for eternity, which involves a different sort of race, not one of personal glories and achievements but rather one of a Christian nature that you wouldn't really understand, or rather your pride would not admit of even if I tried to tell you. So figure it out for yourself.

Which Reminds Me

Upon further investigation we see that the case files on the notorious spy Mata Hari, who was shot by a firing squad in 1917, were sealed shut for 100 years. Well, your 100 years are almost up. So, is that a problem for someone? All the people named in the files would probably be dead by now. I wasn't born at the time so obviously that has no bearing on me. I imagine that historians would find the additional information of interest and more books would be written about spies and World War I and other related points, after the files are opened. So?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is hard for me to understand what those volleyball sports girls are crowing about. Not meaning to be mean but I really couldn't care less what she does with her boring and uninteresting life after college. I never met her before college and only noticed later that her yearbook photo appears in the girls' volleyball team. I always thought sports girls were such bores, not to be mean you see, but I always hated sports generally speaking and am glad to have avoided having to be on the same team with those noisy whiners. I always thought it was fakey weird the way she would pretend to be so sweet and friendly toward me yet I somehow instinctively sensed that actually she hates my guts and is only awaiting another opportunity to trip me up somehow, so obviously that is not a friend that I can trust for anything. I can't imagine that there could be some deeper reason why she hates me, that is just how boring sports girls are everywhere, apparently.

Which Reminds Me

Sometimes I think that these crazy people forget that I was never on the CIA payroll so obviously I wouldn't know anything about that. If you are going to be throwing interference at me, don't be surprised later if you find that are actually talking to yourself.