Plucky Letters to US soldiers in Iraq

Friday June 20, 2003



Dear Rob & Buddies,

Anybody need anything? I read in an article that your living conditions are still not optimal. Do you even get hot food yet? Showers? Do you get to watch CNN or Fox News? I hope so. Wouldn’t want you to miss out on the intricate maneuverings in the Laci Peterson case. (Everytime I see that crap I want to throw something at the TV. I don’t want to know about Laci Peterson, I want to know about the 101st Airborne!) Don’t let deprivation get to you. I’ll send you an article about living conditions in the 16th century. By comparison, you’ll feel that you are living in relative luxury.

Dylan and I have to go to the dreaded Best Buy so he can get a new tape player. He needs it to listen to the new Harry Potter book coming out tomorrow. He prefers to listen to books on tape than to read. I think he doesn’t like anything, such as reading, to interfere with his compulsion to constantly manipulate small toys and make representative noises on their behalf. He has little plastic “guys”; animals, Pokemon & YU GI OH! characters, etc. They must be frequently flown to and fro by Dylan-power. They must be made to speak or make odd noises to each other. Doing this keeps him much too busy to actually read a lengthy book.

I detest Best Buy almost as much as Wal-mart. The Best Buy employees are lazy untrained nincompoops. They stand around looking bored until you wander up and beg them for assistance. Then they shrug and say, “This isn’t my section.” (Well then why are you standing around looking bored in it??) They don’t try to find the dull half-wit whose section it actually IS or anything. They just continue staring blankly into space or lazily stocking shelves. They spend an inordinate portion of their work days playing video games.

Rudy and I were in there last year to buy a DVD player. We asked the guy about the difference between two DVD players and he read to us off the box. It should have been quite obvious that we’d already read the boxes, since we’d been there an hour and had the boxes lined up on the floor at the time we finally interrupted his Nintendo game to ask. I didn’t mind so much that he didn’t know anything about the product he was supposed to be selling. I minded that he didn’t even bother to try to find out. He just strolled over, read the box out loud, then went back to playing Doom, or whatever.

Maybe I’ll go in there wearing a blue shirt and see if I can sell stuff from one department to the employees in another department. Or I’ll try to confuse them, just for fun. I’ll walk up to various employees and say things like, “Can I help you sell something today?” and, “Is there anything you can help me find?” I’ll use exactly the same "sales voice" one would use to ask a customer if you can help them find something. I’ll approach another bored employee and ask, “Are you working here for a living, or do you just want to look around?”

If I speak quickly enough, in just the right tone of voice, I’ll bet a few of them would automatically say, “No, thanks” or “I’m fine” before they realized anything was backwards. After selecting a tape player in the electronics department, I’ll ask the sales guy, “Would I be interested in a Best Buy extended warranty on this?” In the checkout lane I’ll say- in my most chipper sing-song voice- “Did I find everything I was looking for today?”

There’s got to be a way to make this work in restaurants, too. I really hate it when a waiter asks, “How does everything taste?” I don’t know why, but that drives me crazy. It seems too personal- too intimate. I feel like they’re asking me to let them lick my spoon.

I don’t want to describe to some stranger how my food tastes specifically. That’s private information shared only between me and my tongue. It’s inside-my-mouth private business. I much prefer, “Is everything alright?” Much less intrusive. Whenever a waiter asks me how everything “tastes”, I want to whisk a shower curtain around my plate and yell “None of your damned business!” I’ve got to think up an answer that will shut them up for good. Rudy has suggested a cheery “Tastes great! How does it look?” whereupon he will open his mouth and display the food in question, chewed to perfection, upon his extended tongue. Hard to top that idea.


Much Love,

--Mom