It’s my party, and I’ll cry if I want to

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Last Updated on August 30, 2016 – 11:29 PM CDT

I want to be Danny Trejo in the Snickers commercial, slamming my ax into the coffee table when Ma and Pa Brady tell me to calm down.

I’m having one of those “Get Off My Lawn” kind of days. You know, those days when you sit on the front porch and glare at everyone walking by, even the cute little bunny that appears every morning, and just hope one of them gives you a reason to snap. It’s not endearing, I know, but endearing is not a trait I’m aspiring to today. I want to be Danny Trejo in the Snickers commercial, slamming my ax into the coffee table when Ma and Pa Brady tell me to calm down.

It’s rare that I get my drawers all up in a wad like this — well, OK, there was that football poster thing, but let’s not let poke that bear again — so I’ve kind of been enjoying sitting in the office all day simmering like a little toy tea kettle, my lid rattling and just a bit of steam coming out. Hardly intimidating or dangerous, but that’s all I have. All hat and no cattle kind of thing. I put my hand on my hip and stomped my foot a couple of times, but there was no one to see it, so there you go. I have no proof my Mt. Vesuvius temper sent people screaming out of the building in fear. I went outside to do it, but people looked at me funny, so I pretended I was just stomping some mud off my boot. So much for that hissy fit.

I don’t know what happened to get me riled up today. No, I’m not angry that our country is treating people of color badly like Colin Kaepernick. I’m not upset that I can’t drink a beer at an event on city property. I figure I’ll just wait until Dogie Days when I’m working in one of the Lions Club’s booths to do that. And I’m pretty much over how Perryton showed their unsportsmanlike asses Friday. Hey, can I say asses here? Sure I can, but only if it’s in reference to Perryton or Randall. Oh, and Dallas, too. Nothing really happened to bring on this mood. I just felt like having one of those days when someone did a No. 1 in your Post Toasties.

Sometimes you just want to throw yourself a pity party with a three-tier cake and a champagne fountain (just not on city property). Why can’t I have a $5,000 camera and a $2,000 lens that will let me take better sports photos? Why can’t I have a staff of 10? Why can’t I have hair? Important stuff. Stuff worthy of impressive fits. I just want to sit on the front porch and throw an empty beer bottle at the high school kid driving a car better than mine. I want to put up a For Sale sign on the News Press’ building (I’m honest), and I want to tell the ripped guy at the gym that I can’t wait to see him when he turns 50. Isn’t that just ugly? Well, that’s what you do when you have hissy fits in the middle of your pity party. You get ugly and go through the express line at the store with one more item than allowed. You get dangerous.

To be honest, this tempest has been brewing all weekend. I’m buried with work and can’t see the surface. The votes in the Photo Contest haven’t been counted, and the winners were supposed to be announced Monday. There’s all kinds of important news I’ve neglected to cover the last couple of weeks — like if we do build a wall on our southern border, should it be brick, metal or some scrap tin we’ve had lying around in the backyard? I’ve thought about a straw bale fence, but that’s just the Martha Stewart in me. Heck, I didn’t even go to the City Commission meeting on Monday. I was going to, but then I thought, “Nah, I’m just gonna sit on top of Milligan Mountain, drink beer (on city property) and eat popcorn while I watch the city fall into the predicted financial ruin when they build the relief route.” Kind of like Nero, just without the violin.

I just needed a time out, I suppose. Wasted days and wasted nights. Oh, wait. That’s a song that’s been stuck in my head ever since some guy was playing Freddy Fender when he pulled up to the convenience store. Freddy Fender? Are you kidding me? Can you even get his music other than on an 8-track? It’s like he was begging me to pick up his jacked-up truck and throw it into the next county. Cause I can do that, you know. If you’d seen me stomping my foot earlier today, you’d know that. Yeah, you wanna tread lightly with that Freddy Fender stuff, buddy. Just a heads up. I ain’t playin’.

I remember when I started the Journal 15 months ago. I sold my truck, all my furniture and the few marbles I could knock out of my head and ran full steam ahead with cute, idealistic notions. When friends questioned me, I told them I’d buy a new truck in a couple of months because people were going to be inundating me with subscription money. I’d have to walk around with a wheelbarrow to carry all of that cash. “Don’t worry,” I said. “The bank will probably have to install a second vault just to accommodate the money I’ll be depositing. Two months, three tops.”

Hmmmm. Didn’t quite work out that way. No, here I am. No jacked-up truck and no wheelbarrow full of money. I gave up and used the wheelbarrow as a planter. The purslane looks pretty in it. Instead, I’ve been stewing all day, and I’m just about ready to pull a Kaepernick and climb up on the jet in McDade Park and have a beer. But then the News Press would have it all over their front page, and the color would be all messed up, and I’d be mad about that, too. The world is just conspiring against me, I’m telling you.

I figure I have about 12 hours left to get all of this out of my system because like Scarlett O’Hara always said, “Tomorrow is another day.” Then she shot the Yankee square in the face.

I’m embarrassed I’m so behind with work. I’m thinking of pulling a diva act and checking myself into the hospital with complaints of “exhaustion” like the superstars do. “Cher has canceled her tour,” her manager reported,” because the poor thing has been hospitalized for exhaustion.” But clearly, my mind must be exhausted. Last week, when Sen. Kel Seliger and Rep. Four Price were at the Chamber, I was walking around taking photos of them and the people who attended the Town Hall Meeting. When it was all over, I realized my pants had been unzipped the whole time. I can only plead exhaustion.

OK, I have a couple more hours left before this pity party is over, so I’m going to enjoy it. If you see me at McDade Park, that’s not beer in my YETI. I would never.

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