You know...

...almost everything is considered contraband in jail. For some inexplicable reason, they only gave me 2X prison garb to wear and I’m a size zero on a good day. With pants so loose on me that I had to hold them up around my boobs, I was walking around looking like an escapee from a Tennessee fat farm that worked far too well. One morning a guard walked past me and I sang, “Thank God I’m a country girl.” But that’s not what she heard. She heard, “Thank God I’ve got some contraband.” And, unfortunately, I did. I was wearing 2 sweatshirts and that’s one sweatshirt too many. So, before they tacked on more time for improper attire, I took the extra sweatshirt off and turned it over.

Those prisoners are some awfully resourceful chicks. They could make a cake out of cookies and make up out of M&M’s. I “bought” some prison make up from a woman (who was the pod Radar O’Reilly) for two packs of M&M’s on the next commissary day. But, you know my luck...not one damn red M&M in the whole bag. I had plenty of blue M&M’s, but since the 60’s, blue make up just isn’t done. So, I had to work with browns, yellows and oranges. A chick named Lisa gave me a plastic stick and some ink to use as mascara. An African American lady braided my hair for me because I wanted to look nice for my visitation day.

What an amazing group of ladies I was locked up with! I swear, if those women had used the same ingenious thinking on the outside, they’d be rich. They used the cardboard that was wrapped around their boxes of Oodles of Noodles to make calendars with and they did laundry with the bleach that they were given to clean up with. Oddly though, one of them asked for a dust pan. I couldn’t believe it. She ripped the elastic band off the top of her socks to use as a pony tail holder and yet she couldn’t fashion her own damn dust pan.

Mealtimes were like auctions...“An orange for an oatmeal pie” or “Chips for a sandwich” could be heard from the women who traded their foodstuffs like they were working the floor at the New York Stock Exchange. Blue packs were the most preferred food item available. They were the closest thing to drugs that you could get your hands on there...coffee with caffeine. One blue pack could fetch a chocolate cupcake AND a bologna sandwich.

The most resourceful of all the women were the ones who found love in jail. They took women with short hair and made them their lovers. Must be nice...they can find love wherever they go. Personally, I’m what they call “strictly dickly” so I had to just do without. Of course, that’s not new to me so it wasn’t a problem at all. Now, some of the women refused to do without...“strictly dickly” or “leniently liberal”. For them...there were a couple of truly entrepreneurial chicks who were quite the industrious type. They had a bit of a cottage industry going on. After obtaining some blue rubber gloves from the trustees and some maxi pads from some other trusting souls (like me) who didn’t really need them at the time, they took them and shoved them into the gloves, creating some rather odd looking...dildos...sorry, no other way to put that one.

I don’t know what they went for, probably more than a “blue pack”. One night an inmate that we all called Anna Nicole for her amazing resemblance to Anna BEFORE she went on the diet, apparently snitched on the entrepreneurs. We couldn’t have sworn to it, but she did get to move to another pod that same night. Her new home contained a rather masculine looking “female” at whom she had previously been making googly eyes through the glass. Anna gained the favor of the guards who often let her come out of the pod and wander around the common area unshackled...something that wasn’t allowed and that no one else was ever able to do. She worked hard for those favors...we assumed that her job was that of the pod snitch. My neighbor was fond of saying, in reference to Anna, “Snitches are witches who lie in ditches with stitches. Prison poetry...what a trip.

Anyway, the night that Anna was transferred, the screws came in and tossed two bunks...acquiring all of the product that the two business prisoners had manufactured. Then, the guards would walk in wearing the gloves. That was sort of brave of them...the customer base no doubt got ideas when they saw a chick in those gloves.

The criminal mind is a very interesting thing. Too stupid to stay out of jail, but bright enough to contrive some rather imaginative items when they found themselves in need. Of course, I always wondered whether or not I could have been considered an accessory before the fact for my innocent contribution to their enterprise. Oh well, I’m outta there now. I must say...those women were quite the source of inspiration. Oh, by the way...the dildo couple did have to go to lock down for their little caper.

Lock down wouldn’t have been too terribly bad (much quieter than general population) if it weren’t for the fact that their meals were served blended and formed into patties consisting of everything in the regular meals. That was a rather repulsive thought, especially considering that the meals were pretty ghastly in their original form. Fear Factor has nothing on prison food...I must say.

Well, I’m about ready to fall asleep. I wasn’t able to sleep much at all during my time at the pokey and I’m still having a bit of trouble doing so. I’d like to see if I can sleep the entire night without jumping up at 5 AM for head count. So, until tomorrow...good night.

Meg

email me at megbkelso@gmail.com

Hi!

Here's a quick post to let you guys know about my new email addy: MegBKelso@gmail.com. I haven't been able to get my stupid password from the kind folks at Gmail. Gmail is a great email service, lots of security. So much so that I can't get into my own account. If you have sent an email to my old address, I'm not ignoring you, I just can't get to it. So, until Gmail is convinced that I am me, just write to me at the above address. For those of you who wrote to me at sarah.rofsted@gmail.com, I'll be checking those emails over the next couple of days...they've really piled up on me during my little vacation. But, that address was never meant to be used for anything other than catching Rick e-cheating (it worked!) so I don't usually go to it. I'll go there to answer the emails that are there now, but after that, I won't be going there so from now on, just write to me at the new one.

If you would like one of those super secure Gmail accounts, send me an email (to the new addy I just mentioned) and I'll send you an invite. I saw that people were selling those invites at eBay...I have 99 more of them and will be happy to send you one for nuttin' honey!

See ya,

Meg

Random acts of cruelty and general shitty conditions...

...a young man is kept in “medical”, also known as the holding cells, rather than general population, because he is diabetic and his blood sugars are consistently well over 400 (normal being between 70 and 120). The staff accuses him of stealing food...why else would his blood sugars be so high? Well, he’s what you call a brittle diabetic. Stress induces the body into “fight or flight” conditions and tosses sugar into his body to make him ready to fight or flee. Days later, his blood sugars are still at those high levels even though he has been in a filthy padded cell for days...alone with no food except what is delivered to him. He develops open sores on his face and neck which are becoming infected. His cell still has body waste from the previous “tenant”...a psychotic man who liked to smear his feces all over his body. When he asks a guard how much longer he’s to be kept in that cell, we all heard her say, “I don’t know and I don’t care. I wouldn’t mind if you just fell of the face of the earth.” His cries over not being able to see his little girl are met with mocking laughs from guards as they pass by his cell.

A woman lies on the floor in “medical” with chest pains. Other inmates call for help. A hideous old “lady” guard walks in and says, “Looks like she’s done too much meth to me.” I was that woman. I’ve never so much as been accused of anything like that and I’ve never so much as seen meth. Her accusation was based on my extreme weight loss.

In the one holding cell for women, all 7 of us were in an 8 x 12 cell, and a filthy one at that. Bugs are all around, crawling all over us and one woman is, as I write this, being eaten up by ant and spider bites. Why they prefer her, I don’t know but they seemed to, or maybe she just has more severe reactions to the bites. We told the guards and in the two days that I was kept there, not once did they spray the cell for bugs nor did they wash the filthy place. Although many of the women were kept there briefly upon intake, most were sick women who were kept in this pathetic pit because they were too sick to be “populated”. The trash from our meals was removed twice a day, after breakfast and in the evening. The ants seemed to know right where to find the leftovers.

A man who was making too much noise was visited by two guards. He was beaten, we don’t know why...but the blood was squirting everywhere. The man had come in drunk and full of injuries so the guards could easily say that they were there when he got there. God help the inmate who comes into the jail with visible injuries...what’s a few more?

We asked to use the phone that was in the hallway. We were constantly told “No.” even though I needed to call my son to bring my heart medicine and another woman wanted to call her sister to bring her bond money so she could get out. Upon my release, I saw a memo that said that “Inmates in the holding area have the same phone privileges as those in general population.” I pointed that out to a guard who replied, “Yeah, but only when we have the time.” The memo didn’t mention that at all and it wouldn’t have taken much time or effort to just say, “Sure, there’s the phone.” I’m at home with my medicine, but that other woman with no bond is still sitting in that hell hole, unable to call her family to have them bring her money to the jail so she could bond out.

A “doctor” forces people to submit to numerous sticks for blood draws and IV starts...after the inmates would try to refuse the “treatment”. A person who has not been declared mentally incompetent has the right to refuse treatment. This “doctor” didn’t seem to agree with that LAW. He threatens anyone who resists with the following statement, “We have a bunch of big strong guards here who will hold you down if you don’t let us do what we want.” When I was so sick and dehydrated that they couldn’t hit my veins, the doctor said, “If this doesn’t work, we can put the IV in your neck.” Then, he would pass my cell, point at his neck and laugh.”, taunting me and mocking my fear of being stuck.

A woman with an IV complained that she didn’t want it there and she proceeded to take it out of her arm. A disgusted “nurse” restarted the IV with the old tubing that was full of blood. If that blood had clotted, the woman could have suffered a heart attack or stroke. I’ve started many an IV in my time and have never seen anyone leave blood in the line...it’s just not done. The woman was terrified and waited for the blood to cause her death. Although she has not been declared mentally incompetent, she did suffer from bi-polar disorder and she was in a true state of panic.

It was explained to me that Cobb County jail outsourced it’s “medical care” to a private company called PHS (Prison Health Services). PHS is staffed by “nurses” who, because of censures on their license, MUST work for PHS or not at all. I don’t know what these people did to have their licenses censured, but my first guess would be cruelty to humanity.

A 50 year old woman is, as I type this, lying on a single pad in that cell. She has a condition that has her in a wheel chair. To relieve herself, she voids into a Styrofoam cup and dumps it in the toilet which she stays very close to so that she can reach it for this very reason. She is allowed only one pad to lie on and her pain is unbelievable. When a kind guard gives her an extra pad to lie on, she is punished for having “contraband” as soon as one of the sadistic guards comes on duty. There is a guard who begins her day by checking to see if this poor woman has that extra pad. The extra pads are given to pregnant women and people with visible scars from back surgery. Those nasty pads are falling apart and the linings are shredded making me wonder what in the hell could be living in them. They are not cleaned in between use and are used for every inmate who comes into that holding area. When an inmate leaves the holding area with whatever parasitic infection they may have, the mat is returned to a pile to await use by the next person who comes in.

These are a few of the more acute acts of cruelty that I was witness to...I couldn’t begin to list the numerous little acts of nastiness that was perpetrated upon inmates, many of whom have yet to be tried and convicted of any crime. There was an inordinate amount of people locked up for non-payment of fines...I call them the “criminally poor”.

While I was in custody, I read a fascinating book called Raid which was about the raid upon Son Tay, a prisoner of war camp in North Viet Nam. I read about the conditions and treatment that was doled out to these prisoners and that made me know that I didn’t really have it so bad. If these young men could deal with the inhumane treatment that they received at the hands of their captors, surely I could handle my incarceration. I almost felt badly for complaining. But we are in America and I had no idea that any American could be so cruel to their fellow countrymen. I would be curious to see what the Geneva Convention calls for in the way of treatment of prisoners of war. The holding cells at that jail had no windows in them and the perception of time was rather distorted. Allowed nothing more than a Bible and a few toilet articles...the boredom was unbelievable and added to the distorted view of time. There’s a condition called ICU psychosis that was noted when patients in intensive care units that had no windows became psychotic because they had lost all perception of time. All ICU rooms now must contain a window so the circadian rhythm of the human body can be maintained. The holding cells had no windows and the inmates were only allowed to leave these pits for an occasional cold shower and any visits to sick call. Other than those moments, these people never leave these tiny, over populated cells and can walk no further than a few feet, stepping over other inmates who were lying on the floors on small mats.

I’m sure that the jail workers have bad days and appalling experiences at times. But there's no reason to be so hideously cruel to every single inmate who comes in. I’m not sure what it is in a human that makes them find delight in the power that they seem to find by being so nasty to other people. But they certainly do. I was raised to have respect for the people who “serve and protect” us...a LOT of respect. But over the past few weeks, most of that respect has eroded. I am trying to maintain some degree of esteem for them because there most certainly were a few people who treated the inmates with consideration and decency...thereby allowing them to maintain a bit of their own dignity. If I were to write a manual titled “How to create a mean and nasty person out of a generally civilized human being”, I would certainly include many of the actions that I’ve been witness to recently.

I’m trying to hold on to my standards and put this all in perspective so that I can remain objective and respectful of authority. These yahoos did nothing to make that easy for me. The anger and contempt that I have felt at times shows me how easily a person can be pushed to the breaking point. After a bit of this treatment, I see how people jailed for some minor infraction can come out of that sentence jaded, bitter and meaner than ever. This can’t be good for ANY OF US.

A bit of bad luck has the potential to snowball and turn any one of us into career criminals. I was amazed at the large numbers of inmates who were in jail after life shit on them. Many Hurricane Katrina victims are locked up in one of the jails that I was just in. My own health problems, aggravated by the treatment that I received at the hands of my ex husband have certainly snowballed into some insane, unexpected twist on the path of my life.

If you ask me if I’m a criminal, I’d say no.
But it’s hard to deny as I’m sitting on this metal cot.
Got a plastic bracelet on my wrist
with the picture of a woman,
I look at it and ask,
Who the hell is this?
I guess it’s me, that’s my name
and my state issued number.
I see that snowball each time I awake from my slumber.
I could give them some cash and they’d open that door.
But that just isn’t an option for the criminally poor.

Meg

email me at megbkelso@gmail.com

There's no place like home...

...and that's where I am tonight. First, let me thank all of the folks who helped me out during one of the lowest points of my life. I must thank Anne and the many people who called on my behalf. I also want to thank my children for the many things that they did for me, they'll never know what it meant to me. My daughter was my rock, my son was my local rock and they are loved more than they will ever know.

I'd like to explain briefly what has happened over the past two weeks plus. Over time, I have so many things to tell you guys and eventually, I will tell you about all of them. I have had some extremely surreal experiences and even now, they all seem like some hideous nightmare from which I have finally awoken.

First, let me say that the gracious judge asked me not to use my probation officer’s real name on my blog so I shall respect that request and refer to her as Miss McCoy. Although he made no similar request regarding the police officer that she brought to my home, out of respect, I will refer to him as Officer Munster.

I will go into more detail in the very near future but for now, this will do. They came to my home after I called Miss McCoy to ask for help and under the guise of “concern for a suicidal woman”, she came to my home, Officer Munster in tow, after she told me that she would make a “few phone calls and get right back to me”.

She asked me to donate a specimen which I gladly did, forgetting a joint that I had smoked to help my appetite as I had begun losing weight again. That “dirty urine” was a violation of my probation. I was wrong to have done that but I did it anyway and for that, I freely admit responsibility. I was off to jail.

This all happened Monday morning, February 13th. I was booked and locked up with a court date to follow on Wednesday the 22nd. At that time, Miss McCoy offered me 45 days in county jail, 60 should I choose to go to trial. I did so. I went in front of the judge on that day and freely admitted my transgression and was willing to accept the consequences. During the trial, this blog was used against me.

After a brief trial, I was sentenced to 20 days in jail and with the 2 for 1 policy of Marietta city, that meant that I would be out of jail within 2 days. My attorney, as well as the judge, told me that Miss McCoy was a decent woman and not at all the liar that I had thought her to be. I decided that perhaps I had misjudged her and I decided to reassess my opinion of her.

After the trial was over, the woman came back into the holding cell where I was awaiting transport back to jail and she was now behaving in an manner inconsistent with the manner in which she conducted herself in front of the judge. Now a totally different person then she was in front of the judge, and with a contorted, angry face, she said some rather frightening things to me and promised to be “on me” in the future. Naturally, this behavior was not witnessed by the judge and for that I am dreadfully sorry.

When the time came for me to be released from custody, I learned that there was a “hold” on me for failure to appear at a court date in Cartersville for another traffic ticket that I received before I went on probation and that I would be held until Cartersville came to take me to Bartow County jail to await trial on that charge. I had that one immediately dismissed as I was in custody at the time. So, I just stood trial on the original violation and pled guilty so that I could leave jail today.

I am now home and a few of the fears that I had have come true. My phone has been disconnected as I was unable to pay the bill while I was in jail and now I am late on my rent and I hope that my landlord continues his patient and understanding manner. I am not sure how I will take care of these things, but as always, I will hopefully find a way to do so.

The time I spent in jail was quite an experience and I will be telling you about it in future posts. I was stunned at the numbers of people who were locked up for non-payment of fines and other such nonsense.

The treatment that was doled out to prisoners was despicable and I look forward to sharing some of the experiences that I had and that I was witness to.

My faith in law enforcement has been shaken and my respect for them has been shattered. I have been out of jail for a few hours now and I am going to spend a quiet evening at home recovering from my experience and then I should be back to my old self. I assure you, some of the things that I will be sharing will anger most decent humans. So, let me regroup tonight and then I hope that you tune in for the “rest of the story”.

One quick thing...I was amazed at the strength that most of the women that I was locked up with possess. They found a way to smile in the face of adversity and their faith was astounding. Facing some of the toughest experiences of their lives, they impressed me with their fortitude and strength of spirit.

Well, that’s the condensed version and I promise, there will be much more to follow as I share my experiences with you.

OK, now I am going to sit quietly in my living room and relax for a while. Then, I’m going to bathe like a son of a gun to get the jail filth off of me and hopefully, feel even better so that I can come back and enlighten you all with some of the hideous behavior of people who are supposed to be “the good guys.”

See ya,

Meg

By the way, I'm sure that most of you are aware that there are places in this country that either allow medical marijuana or have, at the very least, decriminalized marijuana in general. Isn't it amazing that I'm a criminal in some parts of this country and not in others? I should have known better...I am in GOGIA after all. And, if that's not bad enough, I'm in COBB COUNTY GOGIA! COBB, Count On Being Busted Cobb! Count On Bringing Bail Cobb! County Officers Break Bad Cobb! To the rest of the nation, here's fair warning, COBB..come on vacation, leave on probation!!!

email me at megbkelso@gmail.com

Soon

Soon Meg will be home. Probably Friday.

She would like to thank everyone for her support!

Whenever I come home...

...no matter how long I’ve been gone...whether I’ve been gone for ten minutes or for ten days...two things are certain. My son will have left the same dirty dishes in the kitchen sink and he will have lowered the height of the chair at my desk.

Don’t you love that little surprise? Your purposeful movement gives way to gravity and for just a split second...you think the chair is gone.

Earlier, I spent a rather long time peeing. I hadn’t peed since South Carolina and I’ve been drinking truck stop cappuccino all afternoon so I had to go a LOT. I was sitting there for so long that I grabbed a bottle of Lime-A-Way and started to read it. I was so in to it that I kept on reading long after I had finished peeing. There I was with my pants down, reading the bottle and dripping. I risked that “I’ve been sitting on the toilet for so long that my legs have gone numb” thing just so I could read the back of the Lime-A-Way bottle.

There were a few things about the Lime-A-Way that annoyed me. First of all, the cap is so fricking stupid that it needs directions and THAT in itself is imprudent. Secondly, the directions don't help one little bit.

The next time you have access to a bottle of Lime-A-Way, look at the dumb cap. Then, read the back where it tells you how to open the stupid thing. This is what it says, “...use your fingernail or pen and apply slight backward pressure to the ridge of flip top.”

I don’t know which part of the thing is the “ridge” and I’m not breaking a nail trying to figure it out. Then it says not to use the stuff in coffeemakers that “hold water permanently”. I didn’t even know that was an option. Nor did I know that you would use this acidic preparation in a washing machine. I’ve never had a washer get so dirty that I needed acid to clean it.

I could have used it on some of the things that Rick put in the dirty clothes...but not on the machine itself.

Aw...I shouldn’t pick on Rick...I should work harder on trying to make our divorce a happy one. Divorce is a lifelong commitment and I’m going to do my darndest to make ours work.

A healthy divorce takes effort and dedication. You owe it to your spouse to work hard at making it last forever. I haven’t heard any statistics regarding divorce failure rates but I hope that Rick and I can be successfully divorced, till death do we make each other miserable.

Oh well, I am happy to be home...even with the dirty dishes in the sink. But, when I got here I was locked out. That’s always fun...isn’t it? I thought my son would be here, worried that I might be out stuck in the snow somewhere between Atlanta and Bumfuck North Carolina.

But instead, he was out having fun and the hidden emergency key was gone so I wandered around the house in the dark going from window to window trying to get in. The dog didn’t even try to run away. He wanted to get inside as badly as I did so he just stood next to me waiting for access to “home”.

Usually when I’m locked out of my house, I climb in through my bedroom window. I keep a chair out back for just that purpose but for some reason it was gone. I had to stand on an upside-down plastic planter and reach up. I should have found something more stable than a plastic planter. It collapsed underneath me and I fell back onto my ass. Since it was dark I couldn’t SEE any spiders...but I knew they were there somewhere.

It was rather exasperating because, as I mentioned earlier, I hadn’t peed since South Carolina. I considered squatting behind the house but I can’t pee outside. I never have been able to. Growing up in Chicago, it was never an issue but since I’ve moved to the South, it’s come up quite a few times. I never heard a man say, “Just pee behind that bush.” until I moved to the South. Then, when I balk, Southern men are a bit taken aback.

“Why not?” they always seem to ask.

“Because I don’t want something to bite me in the ass.” I always answer.

Apparently, Southern women pee outside more than Northern women. Now, I don’t want to hear from every modest woman South of the Mason-Dixon Line...I’m sure that you don’t ALL pee outside. But, the number of Southern men who have expected me to pee outside, and their reaction when I refuse, has me thinking that quite a few of you DO, indeed, pee outside.

And yes, I’m sure that given the right set of circumstances, or a LOT of beer, I would probably pee outside myself. But, I try to avoid situations where that might be necessary.

All this pee talk has me needing to go again. I hope there’s something good to read in there. OH! There’s the entire feminine hygiene series! I better go get started on that.

See ya!

Meg

Oh, by the way, I still can't remember the password to my email and according to G-mail policy, I have to try again in 5 days. They'll only ask you the security question after your account has been inactive for 5 days. So, for now I have to keep using sarah.rofsted@gmail.com. And...if there's anyone out there who would like one of these hyper-secure G-mail accounts, let me know and I'll send you an invite. For some reason, people pay for them at e-Bay...I'll send you one for nothing if you email me. Ciao.

By the way...

...when I get to a computer that has some privacy, I'll explain what happened the other day. In the meantime, stay warm and be careful!

Meg

Hello again!

It's Sunday afternoon and I've just checked out of my room. I wanted to put a quick post up before I got back on the road. I had to thank the folks who called, I truly enjoyed speaking to you guys. And, to Joe, the guy who called in the middle of the night, I'm sorry I missed your call. The phone did wake me up but it switched over to the answering service before I picked up. It costs so much to call from a hotel that I couldn't call you back but I certainly wish I could have spoken to you. Email me and I'll call you when I get to a phone that has reasonable long distance charges.

I changed my email address password the other day and then I promptly forgot the new password so I haven't been able to access my email. I'll figure it out when I get back to my computer but in the meantime, you can just email me at sarah.rofsted@gmail.com until I get the password situation taken care of at my regular email address. That's the email address that I used when I made up the fake bait profile for Rick to flirt with at PlentyofFish.com last year. I remembered THAT password, just not the one that I created the other day.

I have no idea what the roads are going to be like out there. Under the best of circumstances, I should have 7 hours left but I fear that the worst of situations lie ahead of me. My dog is in the car and he's waiting for me so I should be headed out in a second. I'm near the hotel lobby and there are a bunch of people smoking out there. I haven't seen people smoking in a place like this in a very long time. I guess each state has it's own laws regarding smoking but I didn't think that there was any place left that let you smoke in the lobby like this.

Watching the news I heard that this is the worst blizzard the East Coast has seen in over a century so I guess this is going to be a fun ride. I'm used to stuff like that, though. One of the people I spoke with yesterday said that she liked my attitude. It comes from having such bad luck and enduring so many rotten things over my lifetime. I stopped sweating the small stuff a very long time ago. Now, I just look forward to the next thing that's going to happen. Living my life is sort of like reading a good book, I can't put it down because I am so curious to find out what happens next.

I checked out of my room before I took all of my stuff to the car so a couple of people called and were told that I had already checked out. I hope they read this so that they know that I wasn't ignoring them, I just didn't realize that the desk would tell them that I was gone. So...I'm on my way now...hopefully I'll be back at a computer soon!

OK, wish me luck, I'm outta here!

See ya,

Meg

Hi!

I'm stranded in Greensboro, North Carolina at the Embassy Suites Airport Hotel. It's a nice place to be stranded for sure but I'd rather be at home. There's a blizzard going on out there and I'm just hoping that it clears up before I have to leave at noon tomorrow. They have a dinner buffet which begins soon...at 6 PM and then I'm going back to my suite to relax and make messes that someone else has to clean up.

Last night I was stuck in Friday evening rush hour traffic in 3 different cities. That was fun. I have my dog with me. He doesn't seem to be dreafully impressed with our lovely accomodations. He hasn't eaten since we left except for a roast beef sandwich with au jus that I bought him when I stopped for dinner. I know that 6 bucks is an awful lot to spend on dinner for a dog but I thought that I would treat him to a nice dinner since he's pretty much the only male that I can count on. I fear that I may have spoiled him so badly that he may never eat Alpo again...but he better just eat the stupid dog food because he won't be getting another beef sandwich until he does something really cool like dial 911. He's up in the suite now just hanging out. I put the television on Animal Planet for him to watch so that he wouldn't get bored earlier but a lion roared and that freaked him out and he started barking. I can't get tossed out of this hotel on account of that dog so I muted the TV so that he could watch without getting upset at the sounds.

Well, they have a dinner buffet that's about to begin and there are other people who would like to use one of these computers so I should go but I'll come back down after dinner. It's Saturday night and I would think that most people have plans for the evening so I should be able to spend more time on the computer.

OMG! There's a little girl screaming and her parents are giving her a lollipop to shut her up. That's about the dumbest thing I've seen in a while. They are basically training her to scream for candy.

Oh! A lady who reads this thing and with whom I email back and forth called me earlier today! I thought that was so sweet of her. I AM stuck here in this hotel and I AM bored so if anyone else would like to call...do so! Ask for Margaret Kelso...I'm registered under my long name...they might not know who you meant if you asked for Meg. As I said, I'm going to eat before I go back to my room so give me a while. It's about 6 PM now. Except for when I come back down to post again, I'll be up in my room all evening. We drove until about 3 AM so I ended up sleeping til noon so I should be up pretty late so don't hesitate to call. Of course, should I get lucky, I may not answer...but I don't foresee that happening.

Have a nice evening and I'll be back soon!

Meggers

Life is such a treat...

...isn't it? I won't be moving after all. I'm so screwed that I'm spinning. I am about to hit the road. I just can't WAIT to see how this one ends. I'll be staying at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Greensboro tonight, the one off of I-40 (airport exit) so give me a call if you'd like! Ask for Margaret Kelso, I'll be there somewhere, sometime.

So, my dog and I are off on the road again. I had a total shock last night, one that I could never have seen coming. I have to get on the road before the blizzard hits so I must be off but with any luck at all, the hotel will have internet access and I'll pop in to say hello when I get settled in.

So, another day in the insane life of me.

See ya on the flipside,

Meg

Have you ever had one of those days?

I stopped by the house...

...on the way back from the doctor's and let the dogs out (now there are two of them). I had only planned on being in the house for a few minutes and then I was going back out and when I did, Payton was lying at the back door but the other dog was gone and the gate was wide open. I ran down the street calling her and some guy asked if I was looking for a black and tan dog. I said that I was and he pointed and said. "The cops are chasing her over there in the cemetery."

Two squad cars pulled up next to me and said they'd meet me down the street so I ran down to meet them so I could find the entrance to the cemetery. There was already another cop in there chasing the dog and now there was me and two more cops running through the place, jumping over tombstones and being all sacreligious to dead people because a dog had a notion to wander. I couldn't have been in that house for ten minutes and the entire police force was on the case of the wandering dog. Tax money well spent.

Then, I went to the store and they wouldn't take a check because it was out of state even though that state is two blocks away. I was annoyed to say the least. This is a suburb of a major American city (another hint) and most of the people here do business across the river so I was dismayed to say the least.

I'm not having a fun day. It's cold and I hate cold. I've been outside for most of the day and I hate outside. Now, I have to go back to the store with cash that I didn't want to spend just yet and that blows.

I'm quite pleased that Payton didn't run away. That dog wouldn't have been caught. The cops said they would give me a break this time, but from now on, it's a hundred bucks if the other dog gets loose again. Then, one of the cops started hitting on me. You don't tell a lady that the next time her dog gets loose it'll be a hundred bucks and then proceed to hit on her.

My dogs are fine but my daughter has broken a toe. It's the same toe that was injured when she was "hit by a car" when she was 8. Actually, she walked into a car, but the call I got said, "Everything is fine...but Annie's been hit by a car." Every mother's nightmare. She had one stitch in that toe back then and received a thousand dollars for it from the poor dude who's car she walked into. She was such a prequocious little girl, when I said, "You got a thousand bucks for one stitch?" She responded proudly, "High five."

That's the same kid who watched as I paced in front of the living room window, fearing that two of my men friends would come by at the same time and said, "This is a real Maalox moment, isn't it?" She was 7 then. What a joy she has been.

She's with the man that I think she will marry and I'm hoping that she gets a ring next week. I can't wait to find out. She did the mandatory breaking up after two years together with no ring last month and I have a feeling that she'll get that ring for Valentine's Day although they'll be celebrating it in downtown Chicago at the end of the week.

OK, I have to go BACK out in the frigid atmosphere and back to the store. I hate outside.

See ya later.

Meg

Oh...one other thing...I have a jar of pickles and I can't get the fuckers open. I had to gnaw a sandwich dry sans pickle...I had a hankering for a pickle and I have a big ass jar of them BUT I CAN'T OPEN THE STUPID THINGS!!! Why in the hell do they do this to me?

A very nice lady...

...wrote to me with some tips for online dating and they're such good ideas that I decided to put them up here. She has, as I have, met some really great people online. I've made a few true friends that I've remained friends with for years. I certainly have met my share of freaky people, like the nut with the hard on that was supposed to get me to pull my pants off outside. I can't help but wonder what would have happened if I had let him in my house. This lady's hints are wise and I've followed them pretty much as she has written them.

I met Chip online, but through the blog. He was one of the many nice people that I email daily and it turned into something more...we weren't looking for a date or a relationship, at least I wasn't and I doubt that he could have foreseen what eventually happened. He's most assuredly a nice guy and I don't fear him anymore than I would fear a good friend. If he wanted to hurt me, he's had the chance and he was a perfect gentleman.

But, as in my friends case, there are a bunch of nuts out there. They look like regular people and they aren't stupid enough to act all freaky before they get you where they want you so here are some sound tips from a woman who has some experience dating online:

The only other true "heads up" I have had is again, like you said, phones. If a guy asks for your phone number and won't give his. If he gives his number but says NEVER CALL. He gives a number and says only call during certain times. He gives a number that is never answered and only calls you and at weird times. You can call him but only at weird times.
Chat on line
Chat on line some more
Chat onl line at weird times
Exchange Pictures that aren't fuzzy, dated, baby shots
Move to phone
Establish a call (usually cell)
Establish a call more than once
Establish and start to call and/or recieve calls at odd times
MEET
Meet in public in the day time for coffee/tea and a light snack (so you can GET THE HELL OUTTA THERE) and when you meet you tell everyone you know where you are going at what time and when to be worried
next date meet for Lunch or Dinner but let everyone again know
next date meet for a movie and dinner IN PUBLIC
next date (if it even got past the first meeting) you might be pretty safe in doing whatever you like) but always let someone know especially if you haven't introduced him to anyone close to you prior
next date - include a friend or family - so that you can start to establish a relationship


OK. It looks like I'll be moving within a couple of weeks. I haven't mentioned to where I'll be moving for a reason. I wanted to make it a game. I've already said that it was somewhere on the East Coast so that's your first hint. I guess I should come up with another...so this is it...there's a river two blocks away that is a state boundary.

OK, I'll come up with some obscure hints everyday and see if anyone can guess where I'm going. Today I have a doctor's appointment, I need to have my blood drawn to see if the tumors are staying away. That's such fun for me. I don't worry about it anymore. I don't worry about much because everything bad that I feared has happened already. Rick leaving was the worst thing I could have imagined and he did and I'm still here. I feared the cancer coming back and it did. But I'm still here. I feared being broke but I've been broke for a year and a half...but I'm still here. So, I just sit back and wait for the next calamity to occur and I deal with it when it happens.

I've never been a Type A personality anyway but after all I've been through over the past two years, I'm much more relaxed about the bad shit. Whatever. It really is true that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and to paraphrase Socrates, "Death is either eternal sleep or eternity with the Gods". So even death, certainly the worst possible thing, doesn't frighten me anymore.

Over the past 7 years, I've had cancer twice, both times I was given a 50/50 chance of survival. I've had brain surgery which gave me the most painful headache imaginable. They took out my gall bladder...I didn't really need that sucker but it wasn't fun. I have forgotten more health problems than most people ever experience so when someone says, "How are you going to pay the rent?", I just chuckle and think to myself, "One way or another, I always seem to figure something out." Well, maybe I don't actually chuckle, but I do smile.

OK, it's time for me to go to the doctor so I'm outta here but I'll be back later...God willing.

Meg

I just re-read my friends horrifying story...

...and something popped out at me that I pretty much breezed over before. She said that the rapist had told her that he would be "passing through town". A while back I figured that people you meet online who tell you that they are "passing through town" are ALWAYS bad news. Just like scum bags who would prey on others, I have a bit of a radar of my own that I've developed over years and years of experience.

I don't know if radar is the right word, the ability to identify red flags is more like it. Red flags go up for me when a man says he is "passing through town" as well as the time that some guy giving me a ride home wanted me to come inside and "meet his wife". I'm old enough and experienced enough to recognize many of the red flags but there are so many young women out there who are as trusting as I was at one time. I hope that some of them are reading this.

I've decided to list red flags without explaining them...just trust me, if you see one of these, run swiftly in the other direction:

1. The aforementioned person who is "passing through town"
2. Any person who "loves" you within a week of meeting.
3. Any person who constantly whines about their ex.
4. Any man who makes comments such as..."Oh, she deserved what she got, did you see what she was wearing?"
5. Anyone who wants to meet you in anywhere other than a public place. A decent person wouldn't expect you to meet them in private.
6. Anyone who asks you for money.
7. Anyone who hesitates to give out their phone number or says that they don't have one.

That's all I can think of right now but I would appreciate any input from others who have identified red flags that may be of some help to others.

I'd also like to say, trust your gut...it's usually right. How sad that we live in a world where such dreadful things are possible and we must live our lives distrustful of each other. I have met some wonderful people online and obvioulsy I'm very lucky, but I'm also very smart. I never let one come to my home and I always met them at a place where I knew people. Also, I made sure that they knew that my family knew where I was...in some innocuous way.

I would seriously like to hear anymore advice from people who would be kind enough to take the time to write to me at meg.kelso@gmail.com .

Thanks

I received an email from a friend of mine today...

...one that took amazing strength to write. I don't know how to introduce it so I'm just gonna put it out there as she wrote it, deleting any identifying information:

Meg,
I wasn't sure if I should write this or not, but decided that this story needed to be told, and that maybe if you posted it, it would help others.
My fiance is in the Army...I haven't made many friends since moving to where I live, so when he left, he told me to try and make friends, so I didn't become a crazy cat lady who never left the house. ;) I started talking to some people online from my area. My roommate, his girlfriend and I were going to go out last Monday and play some pool, so I invited a guy I'd been talking to. I gave him my cell number and told him to call me if he needed directions or couldn't make it. He called and said he was hung up at a friend's house. No big deal. Wednesday, he called and said he'd be passing through my town and if I wanted, he'd stop by and we could watch a movie. Well, I told him that was fine. He got here and we put the movie on. He tried to kiss me, and I pushed him away, saying "What the fuck is wrong with you? I have a boyfriend." He slapped me in the face and then pinned me down and choked me until I passed out. I woke up 2 hours later, naked from the waist down, covered in blood and bruises. I called my fiance, my mom, and the police. I was taken to the hospital, and 7 hours later, finally allowed to leave. It took them 2 hours just to photograph the wounds. The police are trying to find this guy now. I have learned the hard way that meeting people online is rarely safe, and never the best idea.. I'm just hoping my experience will help others. The bruises are fading, but i'll never be the same. I still can't sleep, eat... My fiance may have destroyed his military career by rushing home to make sure I was ok... There are good people in this world.. Some of us just have a homing device that attracts the scumbags.

Yep, we surely do. People can easily pick out the more trusting folk in the world...that's one of the reasons that I worried so much about my kid sister.

This lady's courage has given me the strength to tell a story that I haven't discussed in decades. It's the sexual assault that I mentioned in an earlier post.

When I was 16 years old, and a virgin, I was visiting my next door neighbor. Her brother was visiting from Wisconsin. His name is Michael Jarding and in 1974, he was 29 years old. We were all sitting at her kitchen table talking when he began playing footsies with me. I was quite taken in by this older man who seemed to like me and later on, when he asked if I wanted to go for a ride, I went quite willingly. He brought a bottle of Mad Dog and I drank some. It got me far too messed up to defend myself because it was the first alcohol that I had ever had.

I don't remember everything, but I do remember being in his back seat crying and saying "No!" over and over again. I was being raped and there wasn't a damn thing that I could do to stop it. He dropped me off at my house and I immediately went to Youth Group so I know this was a Sunday. As I sobered up and realized what had happened, I became afraid that my parents would be angry with me.

That night the youth group was cleaning the church and I was on kitchen duty. I tried to kill myself in a relatively stupid way...I poured ammonia and bleach in the sink and inhaled the fumes. The next thing I remember I was in the hospital and someone was saying, "Look at her neck." I had been choked as well. The doctors confirmed the presence of semen inside of me and told my parents that it was obvious that I had been raped. This was back in the day that rape victims were nailed to the wall and my parents didn't want me to be a victim again, so they didn't press charges.

The "incident" was never discussed again.

Philadelphia Flyer Rick Tocchet...

...has been busted for gambling and I suppose he must have broken some laws or they wouldn't have arrested him. But the popular player will certainly suffer some type of censure by his sport as Pete Rose did in the sport of baseball. Obviously, the two of them committed some serious breaches of ethics. I find it odd that sports hold their ethics in an extremely stringent manner but other professions stoop to new and improved lows as time goes by.

When my father went to law school, it was considered a breach of ethics to advertise. Nowadays, they do so at will everyday. One attorney calls himself "The Accident Lawyer", essentially making him proud to be an ambulance chaser. There's a commercial that's currently running that asks people who have had body parts implanted to call for a meeting to see if they have a lawsuit. They didn't ask the people to call if they had any problems, apparently that doesn't matter. As long as some doctor somewhere put a body part in them, they have a lawsuit.

So, why is it that we demand so much of a bunch of sportsmen but so little of attorneys? How has it happened that legal ethics have been allowed to go downhill yet an ex-hockey player must hold faithful to some code of ethics that hasn't changed in decades? I don't get it.

I'm not saying that Tocchet shouldn't be punished, I don't know enough about the situation to make that decision. But it seems to me that someone, somewhere needs to reign these attorneys in a bit before we all start paying even higher medical costs and doctors stop performing life saving procedures.

I saw one commercial for a legal group that will give you cash immediately and if they don't win your lawsuit, you don't have to give it back. How insane is that? People are being paid to ASK if they have a potential suit.

I can't seem to get hurt enough to sue anyone. Whenever I start to fall, I catch myself before it occurs to me that I could sue the grocery store if I did fall. That's so fricking irritating...I keep doing it out of self preservation. One of these days, I'm going to really fall down and I'll have one helluva lawsuit against someone. In the meantime, I guess I'll just have to muddle through life hoping that I hit the real lottery because the lawsuit lottery isn't working any better for me.

I suppose that I could do what Tocchet did, I could become a bookie. How tough can that be? I had a girlfriend who was married to one but he died before I could ask him how a person starts up a bookie business. I've heard that the house always wins so it seems like a pretty damned good idea.

The more I think about it, the more I like that idea. I'll be a bookie. If anyone wants to place bets, just let me know.

You know, it just occurred to me that this is a sure way to get the Cubs to win a World Series. If I took a bunch of bets on them to win (which should be a pretty safe thing for a bookie) they will most certainly take the Series in 4 games. I'd be broke and some Italian guy named Guido would be after me. OK, so maybe I won't be a bookie. I could start a pyramid scheme but I don't seem to meet too many people stupid enough to enter into such things.

OK, if you can come up with any ways for me to pay my bills without working, please let me know. I could become an official at the Super Bowl and then I would be the one handing the game over to the team who would pay the most. Ya think?

Meg

Good morning!

I wanted to update you guys about my sister. I finally spoke to her and it seems as though, when she went out to watch the Super Bowl at a sports bar that she had never been to, someone slipped something into her drink. It didn't affect her until she left with some friends to go to someone's house to watch the second half of the game. Apparently, after consuming two drinks, she passed out for two days. Personally, I've never heard of a drug that would do that, but someone told me that the "date rape" drug would. Anyway, her friends kept her safe until she woke up. Her boyfriend was out of town and couldn't be reached and the friends didn't know any other number to call so they just took care of her until she was awake enough to drive home. I'd say that someone was watching over her Sunday.

So, I guess the moral to that story is to keep your drink well within eye shot...you just never know. It only takes a second to drop something into your drink...someone could tap you on your right shoulder and drop something into your drink in the second that you turn to see who just tapped you. Scary...isn't it?

Abby had another brain fart today. Some chick wrote in to say that she eloped to Vegas in 2001 and her husband STILL hasn't told his family that he is married and won't let the woman wear her rings when they visit the family. Abby said that they needed marriage couseling. DUH! I think she needs to find the wife from whom the man hasn't yet obtained a divorce. Obviously he is still married to someone else if he won't tell his family that he has become engaged, much less married, 5 years after the elopement.

They don't mention their ages, but I would think that a woman would have to be really young or really stupid to think that a man who has such little backbone is great husband material. I married one of those once. We actually eloped to Reno and then we went to his mother's house to tell her. We were standing on her doorstep and when she came to the door, my new groom said, "We just got married in Reno." Then he proceeded to run away, leaving me standing on the doorstep like a jack ass. The mother shouted to him, "At least she has the nerve to stand here and speak to me!"

The woman was perfectly reasonable and the two of us were both old enough to get married so why he felt the need to abscond was beyond me...but he did. He was another one of my "quiet and therefore mysterious" men who turned out to be too stupid to speak. For the life of me, I couldn't get him to comprehend why one doesn't play the king of spades until the ace has been played. He just didn't get it.

What a hoot that one was. He cheated too, but he wasn't smart enough to hide it for any length of time. He sent me on a wild goose chase one night while he supposedly stayed home with the baby. I came home before he expected me to and the baby was alone in the apartment. I took the baby to the neighbors house and went down the street to wait for him to come home. When he did, I walked in and acted like nothing was wrong. I asked him to check the baby, who should have been sleeping the entire time. When he came out of the nursery, his face was white. He said, "The baby is gone."

I laughed and said, "He couldn't have left alone, he's only 3 months old." Surely he didn't climb out the second story window and since the jack ass "hadn't left the apartment", the baby HAD to be there. So, I just acted like I didn't believe him. He began to freak out and I let him, for a little while anyway. That was fun for me.

I left him within a few weeks of that night and I've never seen him since. He was my first huge mistake but of course, I got a great son out of the marriage so I can't complain.

Well, my dog ate the trash and made one helluva mess outside so I have to go play trash lady AGAIN before the neighbors call the Health Department on me so I should go. I'll be back later.

Have a good day...and be careful!

Meg

Dear Meg,

...By the way ... I think anyone has the capability of throwing information backin your face to hurt you. I have had women do it to me, as well...

Of course this guy is right, I've certainly heard women be as mean, if not meaner than any man can be. I'm not sure why we have that ability...it must be something about the side of the brain we use or something like that. I've read that women are better at verbal chores than men are and that may have something to do with it. One way or another, there's no reason to be mean to anyone.

I got a phone call this afternoon from my daughter who called to tell me that one of my sisters had been missing since Sunday. The entire family was notified within minutes...we have a big, sprawling family and the phone calls were flying. I called my sister at her house, thinking I would leave a message for her boyfriend to call me. I said that I was going to call the cops (no one else had!) and that apparently prompted her to call my other sister who called me to tell me that the missing sister was at home. Damn...I don't ever want to go through another half hour like that one.

I know that there are many people out there who are missing and I honestly don't know how the families deal with it, day after day, week after week...I was about to run to Florida to search the Everglades within 10 minutes of hearing the news. It was a terrifying hunk of my life that I never want to experience again.

While I thought she was missing, I just kept thinking about how naive my little sister is. I know that she would trust just about anyone and that's not such a good thing. I guess she got that from my mother and it's a lovely notion, but not the smartest way to think nowadays. I thought about when she was a baby and I had to change her crappy diapers. I hated doing that and she knew it. I would be totally disgusted with my mother for asking me to do it and my baby sister knew I didn't want to do it. At her young age, she sensed I wasn't happy about the diaper changing thing. But, while I changed her diapers, I would look her in her beautiful brown eyes and she would make me smile...every single time. I always ended the diaper changing with a hug. I don't see her very often since my mother died, Mom pretty much held the family together. But I love her as much as I ever did and I was so totally freaked that something could have happened to her that I need to see her soon. I don't know how I will, but somehow, I need to see both of my sisters.

It really makes you think. Somewhere in this country, there is someone who really DID go missing last weekend and that's a sad, sad thought. It means that a family is aching the way I ached while I thought that my sister was missing. I've often thought about the fact that you could wake up any day of your life and something dreadful could happen that very day. When I hear about car accidents, I consider the fact that the people in them woke up thinking it was just another day in their lives and it ended up being something much, much worse.

Whenever one of my kids leaves the house, I always tell them to "Be careful". Sometimes I wonder if I don't say it so much that they just ignore me but I say it anyway, hoping that they WILL be VERY careful. One very tough day in the life of a parent is the day that their kids get their license to drive. Oh my God, I became so close to the Lord when mine started! We were never closer than we were when my kids were first driving alone. I visited Him again this afternoon when I thought that my sister was missing...He remembered me.

My sister came home. I'd like to ring her neck, but I'll probably just wrap my arms around her like I did when she was a baby...dumb brat that she is. I hope that another family is as lucky as I was today and their loved one comes home soon.

Meg

I just read...

...something someone sent me about men. There was one line that hit me particularly sharply. It said, “Don’t tell a man everything about yourself, he’ll use it against you later. Damn...that sure is true.

Every man that I’ve ever been with long enough to get into any heated arguments has, without fail, thrown something in my face that they knew would be acutely painful to bring up. My ex husband would actually throw a sexual assault in my face when he wanted to lash out and saying that I was asking for it, and he would toss out some hideous “loose women” aphorism. I never told another soul about that until now.

I always assume that the men who read this are special and very sweet because they must be...right? Why else would they enjoy reading this? I may have been a tad self absorbed when I thought that...guys are guys after all. So, now I’m going to assume that some of them would probably behave that way. My ex could be one helluva nice guy and he did that crap. Why wouldn’t other nice guys? Oh well, that’s all. I just thought I’d point it out...I’m don’t feel like banging that particular drum so I’m gonna just leave it like that and let you think about it.

In the meantime, I tried to e-file myself last night. I finally got to the point where you had to print something, I didn’t know it was an option and I didn’t have the printer hooked up so I had to stop. Damn, that was some tedious work. I actually did it twice, but the first time it just dropped off the computer and asked me to begin again. Yeah, right.

So, I went to another site to do it and that’s when I needed the printer. I could never work with numbers all day, or computers for that matter. I have a sister who works with numbers and computers. I don’t know how those people make it through the day without blowing the computer up. Postal workers seem to run amok but you don’t hear about too many accountants losing their grips. I don’t get that.

When you e-file, you don’t send in your W-2 forms...you just recreate them online. Look at those suckers...there’s a million boxes on each one and every piece of information has to be transferred to the computer and that’s a bitch. The site kept a running tally of my refund. The refund was up to 37 hundred dollars when I added the alimony. That cut it in half. Imagine my disgust.

Oh well. Half of that will come in handy. I have a bunch of bills to pay and things to take care of before I move so it’s nice to have. But, I’m not going to pay bills with all of it, I need a pedicure badly. I’ll treat myself to a couple of prescriptions that I couldn’t afford, pay a few bills and then I’ll be broke again. Life is just so fucking delightful.

I don’t worry about bills as much as most people because I realized years ago that there are times when you just can’t pay them so you get by the best you can and pay them when you can. Apes and gorillas are supposed to be less intelligent than a man but somehow they get by without paying for a three hundred dollar gas bill and I’ve never seen one bitch about it. I hate money arguments...they’re so stupid because you will NEVER turn the argument into cash so there really is no benefit to to bickering in the first place. But everyday, people all over the world argue about money. There have been societies that used salt for legal tender and we use paper. It’s all so arbitrary and there’s never enough of it, whichever currency you’re using. So, I refuse to participate in those arguments. I suppose if a guy had an audience to laugh at my sarcasm and applaud when I said something really clever I would consider it. But, I would have to receive a share of the take.

Now I have to go outside and look at tires. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but the tires are small enough that I can check the whole thing easily. I’m bad with the insides of cars. I can point out a 67 Firebird or a 64 and a half Mustang, but I can’t fix a flat. It looks easy enough to do but men put the metal things on. And, as I mentioned months ago, men apply far too much torque to anything that they screw shut or on that I can’t even open a jar of fricking pickles, there’s no way I’ll get those fuckers off the tires. I change a tire the old fashioned way...I stand at the back of the car with a couple of pieces of the jack and look confused. Works EVERYTIME.

See ya later,

Meg

I’m on the phone with the IRS...

...listening to Mozart (I bet they think that Mozart is a tad calming to people who, like me, are sick to death of waiting on teh phone but after 20 minutes, Mozart is getting old) and getting more and more annoyed with the woman who keeps telling to stay on the line because my call is so fricking “important to them”. I wouldn’t mind the old fashioned busy signals...at least you could walk away and not lose your space in line.

This is beginning to irritate the hell out of me. I called them a little while ago...it took me over and hour wait time and I forgot to ask one of my questions. I was so damned happy that there wasn’t any unpaid taxes that I just thanked the lady and hung up. I immediately realized my blunder and I haven’t been able to get back to a live person yet.

Oh well, it could be worse, I could owe money. Of course, if I did...I wouldn’t be in a hurry to do this now. That’s where Rick screwed up last year when he e-filed jointly without my signature. They sent the signature authorization to me and it said that Rick was e-filing. If I hadn’t noticed that, I would have just merrily signed the tax return and wondered away, secure in the fact that my husband was paying down our non-existent tax debt. I have no idea how many years he was letting me believe that we owed the IRS when we didn’t. I was just one big happy idiot.

This is the time of year when it’s great to be poor, isn’t it? Tax refunds are such nice little surprises...but this phone thing is ridiculous. A man just came on and answered the phone but put me back on hold immediately because he didn’t know the answer to my question. Jeez. Oh well. He’ll probably be back before I decide to go to bed so I’ll just keep listening to Mozart...OMG...I’m being transferred. This just blows.

I’m in serious need of that refund so I hope that nothing messes with it. Those tax anticipation loans are actually based on credit, besides costing 2-3 hundred bucks. As a result of the divorce, my credit is somewhat shaky so I’m probably not going to go that way. OK...I finally got the answer to my question and I’m going to be bold and do this myself. I can type crap in the same as the next person so, as long as I wouldn’t qualify for a rapid refund, I’ll just take care of it myself. I can’t use the 1040 A which I had been working with, but I bet that, with the help of a calculator, I can handle alone. OK...I’m off to do just that. If I never come back, check all the federal prisons for me...see ya.

Meg

Hi there...

A guy who met his current wife while still married to his first wife asked me what advice that I would give someone who found themselves in a relationship fraught with lies. He wanted to know how a couple, knowing that both of them had lied and cheated to get together, could have faith in each other. What a good question.

I’m going to ignore my urge to say, “Well, you made your bed, lie in it.” and just answer the question because it IS a great question, isn’t it? My advice to them is actually the same that I would give to anyone who wants to be in a relationship...DON’T LIE ANYMORE!

No matter what is going on, tell the truth. No matter how bad is makes you look, tell the truth. If you think that the truth will get you in a big crock pot full of trouble, tell the truth anyway. You may fight over something for a few days, but in the long run, it’s much more emotionally economical to just tell the truth.

I used to tell Rick that if he would just be honest with me, no matter how hard it was, that I would trust him. But, he couldn’t do it. For whatever reason, Rick lied any time he THOUGHT that I might not like the truth. Perhaps I wouldn’t have liked the truth, but I deserved it...and I could have dealt with it. I may have been angry, but I would have gotten over it and dealt with. I deserved the opportunity to be angry...and if he had told the truth, Rick would have deserved my trust. But he couldn't be honest and I couldn't trust him...and that killed a perfectly good marriage.

When a person lies, they get used to it and sooner or later, they seem to believe their own lies just enough to be irate if you don’t believe them. That’s an odd phenomenon, but one that I have found to be quite real.

Another thing, when you lie...it gets easier every time and worse, it gets tougher to tell the truth. That’s why I was happy with Chip, he never lied and I never doubted him. If you’re with a liar who is late coming home, you'll start to wonder who they’re with and what evil thing they’re doing. But, if you are with an honest person, when they’re late, you'll worry that they may have been in an accident because you KNOW they wouldn’t do anything wrong. If you read the post where I discussed men who went to strip bars I said that Chip had told me he liked to do that occasionally and it didn’t bother me because he was telling me the truth. And, I trusted him like I could never have trusted Rick because Rick wouldn’t give me the respect of being honest. So, if you are a couple who, for whatever reason, got together because of lies, it will be extremely difficult to always trust each other and that’s a shame.

But, if there’s one thing that would help, it’s to make a pact that from this moment on, there will be no lying. And, you have to stay loyal to the pact with every fiber of your being. Of course, there are some things that you shouldn’t have to mention, like things that happened before you were married, there’s no purpose in discussing those matters and it's none of the new person's business. If so if you’re with someone who asks questions about things that are none of their business...just say so. At least when they ask about something important, they’ll believe your answer. This guys wife is already calling him a “lying sack of shit” and that’s not a good thing. From what I gathered in the email, he lied about being married but at some point (I don’t know when), she knew that he was a married man. If that’s true and she kept seeing him, she doesn’t have the right to throw rocks in that glass house so I would suggest that she look at herself a bit as well.

None of us are without fault and you can always find fault with another person...that doesn’t mean that you should. So, if this woman can’t get the lies out of her mind, she shouldn’t be in that relationship. But, if she will stop calling her husband a liar and just begin to trust him, he will be cognizant of that trust and it will keep him a bit closer to home and a helluva lot more honest in the future. It’s tougher to lie to a person who has faith in you than it is to lie to someone who thinks you’re a liar. If there was someone who thought that I was a liar, I would certainly be more likely to lie than I would with someone who had faith in me. I wouldn’t want to damage that faith so I would be much less likely to lie to them .

So, even if you don’t have complete faith in a person, act as if you do so that they can see the faith that you have in them and they’ll eventually live up to that. If she continues to call the man a liar...he WILL live up to that as well so just have faith, be honest and don’t ask stupid questions about things that happened in the past. Just start, from this day forward, vowing to be honest to each other, no matter what. That is the absolute ONLY way to remain in a relationship for any length of time with loyalty, trust and fidelity. A person who tells the truth no matter what is going to be trusted completely. As I said, it isn’t always easy, but it most assuredly IS the only way to remain in a relationship with trust all around.

OK, now I’m going to go read the paper and see what annoys me today...I’ll be back soon.

Meg

Dear Meg,

“...I do admit that lots of men see themselves as waaaaaaaaay better than they are, which is a pretty interesting phenomenon. Like the short, fat guy, with moderate income, and an abrasive personality that thinks he deserves the brains of Meg Whitman and the looks of Cindy Crawford. ...”

Well, that explains a lot. Women see themselves as less than they are and apparently, men see themselves as something more. I’m no Cindy Crawford, but I have been amazed at a few of the guys who are full of confidence that I cannot for the life of me justify.

Short, slow witted bald men seem to have the confidence that one would ordinarily associate with a Brad Pitt or Robert Redford. I’ve been downright offended by some of the derelicts who have hit on me. One guy looked like he had just been beaten up by four or five large dudes and yet he was a very persistent masher one evening when I was out with Melissa, a very good friend of mine in Virginia. She and I were trying to speak to each other and the funky dude kept on pushing himself in between us in attempts to gain our attention. All of the pleasant, “No thank you’s” did nothing to dissuade the icky man so I finally just said, “That thing on your face looks awfully contagious, would you mind keeping about 10 feet away from me?”

With men overestimating their own appeal and women underestimating theirs, it’s a wonder that more of us don’t end up with freaks from hell. All last year while I was doing the “date them once” thing, I was stunned at how confident the men were...middle age did nothing to lessen the confidence level, even though the hair was gone and the belly large. That hideous, misplaced confidence must have been what made them think that they could behave like an animal. There were many who tried to get a piece of ass on the first date, but there were two who took it to the extreme. One of them put my hand on “it” while another took “it” out.

Apparently, they figured that the mere suggestion of an erect penis would get me to forget that they were icky, icky men who I wouldn’t lay on my most hard up day. I’m pretty sure that those two committed a crime by doing what they did, but I didn’t call the cops...I just booked quickly and thanked the Lord that they didn’t know where I lived.

I may not be the most confident woman on the planet, but I am confident enough to know that I can snag a decent man so I just let the slugs slither away.

I have noticed something that I thought I should point out. Men who were at one time handsome...or at least very appealing for one reason or another, maintain the same standards they had when they were quite fetching even though time has ravaged all of their beautiful traits that attracted women twenty years ago. They still see the cutey pie when they look in the mirror. The rest of the world sees a middle aged bald man and that just doesn’t register with the ego of these guys who are still holding out for a drop dead gorgeous woman. Whatever. The people about whom I am speaking wouldn’t ever see themselves in this post so it’s more of an observation than anything else.

I spoke to one guy on the phone for a while before actually meeting him. He told me things like, “You’ll like what you’ll see.” and “I’m a pretty good looking guy.” When I met him, he turned out to be a toad like creature who I couldn’t imagine EVER being attractive enough to explain his confidence level. He honestly believed that he was handsome and quite the catch...but in reality, he was just another icky dude. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that, and I doubt it would have registered if I did. If you say something like that to an over confident icky dude, he will just call you a lesbian and then tell his friends that he “did” you.

I don’t know how these men become so confident and I guess it really doesn’t matter...it must work for them at some times or they wouldn’t keep doing it. So, that just makes me think that the woman that they meet are, indeed, thinking too less of themselves. I couldn’t imagine what type of woman would deserve that type of behavior on a date, but there must be some for whom it will work. As I’ve always said, if Elvis impersonators can get laid, than anyone can. All you have to do is lower your standards.

Well, it’s Sunday and I’m going to take a bath whether I need one or not so I’ll be back in a little bit.

See ya,

Meg

It’s morning again and I’m cold...

...I hate cold. In 6 months, I’ll be hating hot but for now, I hate cold. I’m so cold my nipples are breaking free of my shirt and that’s an odd little feeling. I think I picked a bad time of the year to move further north.It’s odd moving to new place. I’ve been to the north part of the state but never down south before so the only thing that I recognized when I was there was the Big Dipper. As long as the same stars are up there, I guess I’m close enough to home. The sky is a nice thing, isn’t it? It’s always there and so far, it hasn’t fallen.

I guess the Super Bowl will be on tomorrow but I probably won’t watch it...no fun once the Bears are out of it. It’s time for me to get ready for baseball season and another heartbreak only Cubs fans can suffer. Some things never change. I’m not even sure if I WANT the Cubs to win anymore. It's more special to be the Lovable Losers than a plain old World Series Champ for a year.

It won’t be long until I am the woman that the announcers mention, on the 90th anniversary of her first visit. That seems to be the only way I’ll ever get my face on the big screens, especially since I don’t take offensive signs with me anymore.

I’ll still holler at any player close enough to me. I prefer hollering insults at opponents but I’ll send a hoot out to a hot Cubbie who stands in earshot. Baseball does seem to attract a helluva a lot of pretty boys, doesn’t it? They didn’t used to be pretty, Babe Ruth was a nasty little fat man. I don’t know when it happened, but at some point, they all started getting very cute. I didn’t notice until 1975 when Pete LaCock played first base...badly, for the Cubs. #23 he was...and I loved him.

But there was no way that I would have pursued him, like Donny Osmond, he was far too famous for me to attain. At least that’s what I thought. But the fool was right in front of me and I COULD have snagged his ass, or one like it if I had put forth any effort. I ran across a football player by happenstance and went out with him, I could have gone for that bad first basemen.

But, like so many of us...women, that is...we don’t see ourselves the way others see us. We have our own little picture of what it is we look like and what it is that we’re good at and how clean this or that is and of course, how DOES everyone else see us? We have far too much to worry about and we never feel as though we have completed anything well enough. We worry about our role as much as men worry about theirs’. So, we settle for less than we should because we don’t feel worthy of attaining what we really want and that’s a shame. A lady sent something to me and I was just reading it like I do so many emails that I get and something about it struck me in a way it would only strike a woman...so if I were a man, I probably wouldn’t read it. So, go away and I’ll write something else in a bit....this is for women:


Women have strengths that amaze men.They bear hardships and they carry burdens, but they hold happiness, love and joy. They smile when they want to scream. They sing when they want to cry. They cry when they are happy and laugh when they are nervous. They fight for what they believe in. They stand up to injustice. They don't take "no" for an answer when they believe there is a better solution. They go without so their family can have. They go to the doctor with a frightened friend. They love unconditionally. They cry when their children excel and cheerwhen their friends get awards. They are happy when they hear about a birth or a wedding. Their heartsbreak when a friend dies. They grieve at the loss of a family member, yet they are strong when they think there is no strength left. They know that a hug and a kiss can heal a broken heart. Women come in all shapes, sizes and colors. They'll drive, fly, walk, run or e-mail you to show how much they care about you. The heart of a woman is what makes the world keep turning. They bring joy, hope and love. They have compassion and ideas. They give moral support to their family and friends. Women have vitalthings to say and everything to give.

HOWEVER, IF THERE IS ONE FLAW IN WOMEN, IT IS THAT THEY FORGET THEIRWORTH.

OK...I’m annoyed again...

...this time by the good people of Detroit, or at least the ones that bitched that the Super Bowl should showcase Motown talent instead of the Rolling Stones. I agree that the Stones might not be the best choice, but for totally different reasons. That Detroit is the home of Motown does not mean a football game must honor the music genre. I don’t remember anyone performing Jazz or the Blues when the Bears played in New Orleans.

But, that a bunch of 60 year old men refuse to die does bug me. They don’t have to actually die, but they could just sit back and rest on their amazing musical laurels like most senior citizen musicians do. Rod Stewart had the good sense to remake a bunch of standards in very good taste and Fleetwood Mac pretty much just lets the fat chick take most of the heat. I’m pretty sure that Mick Jagger is still sporting the same black leather pants that he wore when he first whined about not be able to get any Satisfaction.

The NFL caved and Arethra Franklin is singing the national anthem. That’s just fine...as long as we’re going with the oldest human singers on the planet. At least her type of music suits her and her age. But I am afraid of watching a bunch of skinny, saggy old men jumping up and down singing, “I’ll never be your Beast of Burden, my back is broke, my hands are hurtin’”. It’s called arthritis, Mick. You are neither, Rough enough, Tough enough, Rich enough, nor are you in love enough....for me to make love to you. I don’t want to Shatter you, but Suzie Q is a grandmother and won’t be Starting You Up again anytime soon. But don’t worry honey, You Get What You Need.

Time is no longer on Mick’s side and I don’t get the draw. But the Stones will, indeed, be performing at the Super Bowl Halftime Show. And that caused a racial issue. I am getting rather annoyed at all the attention being paid to race and race baiters. And it is NOT racist to say such things. Rather, I think it racist to bring up the issue every single time there’s even the tiniest opening. We all know how to act...we white people, that is. We have to act as though we don’t so much as notice color until it comes time to give someone of color an opportunity based upon color alone. Even the Rolling Stones, I’m sure, will know better than to sing Paint it Black in Detroit. Hell, they didn’t have the balls to sing Let’s Spend the Night Together on Ed Sullivan...and that was back when the entire country (of under 25’ers) was breaking every rule their parents, and society put forth.

Where, oh where is Mr. Mojo risin? We could use someone like him today. I think. It’s always possible that Morrison would have caved Under the Thumb of political correctness...but I bet he would still look good in his black leather pants. What a shame.

When All in the Family came on in reruns after I hadn’t seen the show for 20 years, I asked my son to watch it with me. Within 5 minutes of watching the program, he remarked, “This is the most racist thing I’ve ever seen.” I was astonished. Norman Lear and Rob Reiner racist? That is the furthest thing from reality that I can think of other than the fact that Mick Jagger hopping around on stage makes me require the Shelter of TWO of My Mother’s Little Helpers.

My son was unaware of what most of the nation seems to be unaware of. Racism was on the way out. Nobody gave a shit what the hell color you were. We had a handle on it and All in the Family was funny because we all knew an OLD man like Archie, who still found the “N” word just another name for a minority and used it at will. We knew that we weren’t racist and we were comfortable enough with that knowledge to laugh at the Bunker’s.

But, like the Rolling Stones, racism has become a “commodity” and there was money to be made and advantages to be had. So, in the land of the free and the home of the brave capitalists, racism and the Stones are still marketed quite successfully and I think that’s pretty damn sad.

And, to those who would call me racist for even daring to MENTION the issue, just Get the hell Off of My Cloud.

Meg


meg.kelso@gmail.com

Good morning!

I’m a bit groggy from the xanax that I had to take last night but I didn’t have any Mary Tyler Moore nightmares so I’m fine. It’s not even 9 am and I’ve been annoyed a few times already. Thank goodness there’s still some of that xanax pulsing throughout my veins.There’s an article in this morning’s paper about a girl’s high school basketball game. Murry Bertraum High’s Epiphanny Prince scored a record 113 points against Brandeis High School in a 137-32 romp Wednesday night. There were accusations of poor sportsmanship because Brandeis was losing 74-11 at halftime and according to Brandeis’ coach Vera Springer, Brandeis stopped playing defense in the second half and the other team didn't.

Apparently, she believes that the young Ms. Prince should have given up at the same time. The only poor sportsmanship I can see is that of the losing team. No one told them to stop playing defense. That Ms. Prince chose to play the game is certainly NOT what I would consider poor sportsmanship, not by a half court shot.

What in the hell are they teaching kids nowadays? What happened to “winning one for the Gipper” or when “the going gets tough, the tough get going”? When I played high school track, I excelled as a sprinter. But when I had to run the 440, I ALWAYS ended up strolling over the finish line long after the other girls were reapplying their lipstick. If I had walked off of the track every time I had been passed by some speedy chick who LIKED running long races, I would have been kicked off the team.

This type of behavior reminds me of when I was on a bowling league as a child and lucky enough to be on a team with Sandy Boryzka and Cheryl Volino, the three of us played on the league for years and were, by far, the 3 best bowlers on that Saturday morning league. Every year, the new kids would come in and do what we did in our first year, throw 19 gutter balls every game. When my team would actually knock a few pins down, the parents of the newbies would complain to the head of the bowling league that we shouldn’t be allowed to play on the same team because there was no way to beat us. Well, there was a way, one those parents apparently never considered, they could have played for more than one year. In a bowling league for 6-12 year olds, I think that there are far more important lessons for the kids than simply winning.

As a matter of fact, isn’t there more to EVERY game than winning? Beside the pure fun of playing a sport that you love, there’s the camaraderie, the discipline and the ability to play your best, win or lose, and shake your opponent’s hand afterwards. So, when a team gives up at halftime...with the blessing of the coach...poor sportsmanship is most assuredly at hand. But not by the team that keeps on playing. And certainly not by the young lady who scored 113 points in an hour long game. I couldn’t do that if I were unopposed with Michael Jordan feeding me the ball and pointing to the basket.

Back in the day when the Bears could win a Super Bowl, they were accused of the same thing when Coach Ditka would give the Refridgerator the ball on second down and goal to go and let his fat ass fall into the end zone. I never understood it then and I don’t understand it now.

OK...I’m gonna suck coffee and wake up a bit and I’ll be back in a bit to bitch about something totally different. If you have any ideas, send them to me but if not, rest assured that I have enough estrogen left to be pissed off about something.

Meg

I'm about to go to bed but...

...there's been something eating away at my mind all evening. It started when I watched tonight's episode of That 70's Show. I saw something on it that frightened me. I was particularly traumatized by what I saw because a long time ago, the frightening thing was lovely and I liked it very much. But tonight, a mere caricature of her former self, the beloved Mary Tyler Moore and her plastic surgeries-o-plenty convinced me to do my damndest to grow old gracefully.

I should have seen this coming when she married a plastic surgeon. I have to admit, it seems like a good idea at first glance, but after giving it some thought, I would think that her husband would start giving her plastic surgeries on gift giving occasions like Rick gave me lighthouse welcome mats. I think I prefer the mats.

I couldn't help but wonder if Ms. Moore doesn't stop and imagine what she would look like if she had never had her face demolished. In the few attempts she made to smile on the program, a hideous, PCP'd out Mona Lisa smile appeared briefly...but not briefly enough.

I am an avid fan of the old Dick Van Dyke Show and I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to watch sweet, adorable Laura Petrie in quite the same way. It'll be tough not to conjour up flahsbacks of the way that she freaked me out tonight. It makes the time she died half of her head blonde seem quite attractive by comparison.

I've been trying to come up with any benefit to having your face sliced off in ribbons every year or so. I could come up with only one, morbid advantage...like Keith Richards, she knows exactly what she'll look like in her casket. That would make the truseau a bit easier to shop for. Other than that, I see absolutely no benefit to trying to make your face look young by wrapping the remaining skin around the bones of ones face.

So, with that off my mind, I'm going to attempt, once again, to go to bed. The xanax that I had to take is kicking in and with any luck, I won't have nightmares of a crazed Mary Richards who has mistaken me for Phyllis.

Good night...I hope.

Meg

I received an email from...

....a lady who wanted to know "how you know if a man will always be violent" and "how do you know for sure that you're in love?". She asked me not to print the entire email so I won't but in it, she says that her boyfriend had gotten viloent a "couple" of times and that he promised that it was all from his insecurities and that it will be fine once they're married.

I have got to assume that this was a very young lady...I would hope that no grown woman would be so naive although we all do stupid things in the name of love, no matter how old we grow. But to even entertain such a silly proposition as the one this guy puts forth is about as...I'm looking for a nice word here...stupid as Bush when he was on cocaine?

It's never a good idea to marry someone because of the promises that they make. It would be a tad wiser to see if they are even able to keep a promise before you marry them. There's no end to what a man, or a woman for that matter, would say to a person whom they are trying to reign in. Hell, almost all of them promise fidelity and as we know, that's usually a joke.

But as to violence, in any form, the answer is a resounding "NO!". They do not get less violent as time goes by and as the ties that bind get a bit tighter...they get more so. The apologies get better as well to be sure...but make no mistake...a man who can't walk away from a heated situation without throwing something, putting a fist through the wall or ripping the phone out of the wall will eventually get to you. You didn't describe the type or degree of violence involved, but even if a person is simply violent in affect (when the situation clearly doesn't call for such a jump in anger), you can be sure that he (or she) is a brute in training. None of them start off by knocking a person in the face...they slowly get to that point after years of being allowed to slowly increase the levels of their violence. That's a fact. I could expound more on that fact, but I don't want the message to get mixed up in a bunch of rhetoric...just trust me, I know what I'm talking about.

As to your other question, one way that you know you're in love is that you LIKE the person in front of you, faults and all, and still can think of nothing more fun than being with them. Then, happiness continues on through the years and you two get so damned happy with each other that you do nothing but hang out together eating so you get fat. It's not that fat people are inherently jolly, a lot of them are just so fricking happy with their partner that they have eaten themselves into a spare tire and don't mind one bit. That'll make a person jolly. Even when I was at my sickest and couldn't eat a bite...I still missed food. I like it. I could eat a lot of it. I am fully aware of the amazing comfort of a nice loaf of warm bread and butter...and eating it with impunity must be one jolly-making experience.

If I could tell a person how to recognize love without fail, I would publish it in a book. But I do know what love isn't...it isn't hurting the person that you say you love. When you're in love, you want that person to be free of all pain and even be willing to take it on yourself. So, obviously, if a person is causing you pain, I wouldn't bet the rent on their feelings...much less my life. But that's just me...I'm funny like that.

OK...I thought that Dear Abby screwed up again today. Some husband wrote to her about his wife who spends one or two nights a week baking "huge numbers of cookies". He was "worried" about his wife and the hours she was keeping. Abby suggested a sleep study. Abby is a nitwit.

Sleep studies are for people who try to sleep and can't. If this chick went to the doctor and said, "I was up all night baking cookies, then I went to work and came home and baked more cookies.", the doctor would tell her to go buy a box of Oreo's, get her ass in the bed and close her eyes. Personally, if I were going to go the health route, I would have suggested counseling for the extreme cookie baking behavior, but once again, that's just me.

Rather, though, I would have asked the husband what he does to the poor woman that she would rather be up all night baking cookies than just climbing in bed with her husband. I have had a few husbands and I have always enjoyed sleeping with them. What is this guy doing when she does crawl into bed? Is he waiting under the covers totally ready to play Indians, teepee and all? Maybe she's out there baking the stupid cookies because he's a perv and she doesn't want to have to deal with the freak every single night.

I think that the best answer would be to tell the husband to just go to bed and be happy that his old lady isn't out turning tricks in the red light district of his neighborhood. If the worst thing that you can say about your wife is that she bakes cookies in the middle of the night...count your blessings and quit your bitching.

See ya later,

Meg