Neanderpundit

It is getting cold. Not cold enough to be good deer hunting weather, but cold enough to keep the damned windows closed.

So sunday, the sisterinlaw makes a meatloaf, inside which are sausages, potatos, and hardboiled eggs. The meal is divine, and the leftovers are intense.

As is the gas.

A painful and horrid moment to not be able to open windows, I will say with no hesitation whatsoever.

The dog, on the other hand, is sleeping in the living room, away from the source of the evilness.

Being a guy, I have four shirts and two pair of jeans I wear most of the time. I make sure they get into the wash, and the Ogwife makes sure they get clean.

I also have a wad of dockers, chinos, polo shirts, etc. that I wear on “dress up” days at the office. I don’t like dressing like this, because I invariably destroy the garment, but whatever.

The other day it took me ten minutes to find a pair of black dockers that fit. So last night I decided It Was Time.

I dug through the closet, my dresser, even the laundry hamper, and discarded every single piece of too-large clothing, and there were garbage bags full. I also discovered that I had 185 T-shirts, most of which were WAY too large, or WAY too small. I kept two decorated shirts, (one of Wile E Coyote- I feel like that, sometimes, always running and occasionally finding myself under a rapidly descending anvil) and one from the Big Ass Fan Company. I also kept 12 “plain” shirts.

I tossed out 30 polo shirts, I dislike them, they look like crap, and I feel like a wurst wearing them. SO they’re gone. All the clothes in my closet and dresser, fit me, or will soon. And bags and bags of clothes go to Amvets. Nice to be on the backside of that.

When I lived in the little town in which I grew up, I was surrounded by folks who threw the N word around pretty regularly.

Until I was, say, nine, my parents were the only people I knew who didn’t, in fact.

I got so used to hearing it that I started tossing it around myself.

Until dad heard me.

Usually I got an asswhipping for fucking up, but this time hr reached across the kitchen table and slapped me upside the head, hard. Tears streamed down my face from the sheer pain- dad had a handshake that would break bones, so his hand was hard and strong. Mom said “He doesn’t understand, don’t be like that” but dad said “that’s no excuse, we raised him better”

Eventually, I did understand. I saw the way the ‘good old boy” network in my town worked, I saw the way my neighbors acted, I saw the racism and hatred.

There are a bucketload of people who are scum. Black, white, asian, mexican, whatever. Scum is scum. Using the N word is as unfair to the other scum as it is to black people it stereotypes.

The Internet is a wonderful place. It allows you to be hateful and intolerant of people you never met, regardless of their race, color or creed. You don’t need the N word, it’s rude and distasteful to anyone with class.

Keep this shit out of your vocabulary. Listening, Dog?