The Fertile Myrtle Experience

The summer vacation is one of the quintessential American experiences. The beach. The salt water swelling and coating your skin like some piece of sausage being preserved on the Oregon Trail. Noticing that you’re on the fourteenth floor, then realizing that there is no thirteenth floor, which means you’re on the thirteenth floor. So, because I’m a lazy American and like things boiled down to their most basic structure, here is a list of things I encountered on my South Carolina Odyssey.

1. Large men screaming on elevators are scary. A tall man tried to break the awkward silence of the elevator by shouting at the top of his lungs, then saying with a wry grin, “gotcha.” My gut instinct was to shove him through the glass window and watch with self-satisfaction as he plunged to his shocking, well-deserved death. Instead we all enjoyed an exhausted laugh. There hadn’t been that much relief in a confined space since Magic Johnson’s doctor informed that rich people can’t die of A.I.D.S. (Don' be so sensitive. Why do you think he's always smiling?)

2. Alcohol buzzes don’t last when battling six foot waves. After you’ve been drinking, most any idea sounds like a great one. Here are some responses that you might normally hear from people who are a bit inebriated:
“I don’t know, I think he/she is pretty hot.”
“What could one more hurt?”
“As long as it doesn’t explode, we’ll be fine.”
“You’re right, I am tired of living in Texas. I think I’ll run for president.”

This beach trip, I christened a new one:
“Undertow? I don’t believe in undertow.”

Needless to say, after a few mai-tais, and half an hour of battling for my life in the Atlantic, I kind of felt like a cross between Lindsey Lohan and Mark Walberg when he was staring up at the sun in The Perfect Storm. You know, when he was trapped in the eye of the hurricane...just before he drowned.

3. Putt-putt is taken way too seriously by my family. While I like to take my time working out a shot, I do realize that this is still a game where the only necessary skill required is the ability to smack a little white ball into the mouth a mountain lion or clown, and hope that fate spits the ball out somewhere near the cup and not into the tiny stream of dyed-blue water.

My mother and father, however, view this as the U.S. Open. Between my father’s painstakingly intense analyzation of every hole, to my mother’s Tiger Woods like ability to finish off every cup in two strokes, I was too intimidated to compete for even second place.

4. My brother, who for some reason was driving faster than Ted Kennedy after a date, genuinely believes he can defeat a wild bear in hand to hand combat.

As we were careening through the mountains of Ashville, North Carolina, the following conversation occurred:
Wrangler: “If Al Cowlings had driven this speed, O.J. would have made it to Mexico. You’re missing all the pretty scenery. Like those mountains up there.”
Kyle (deadly serious, glaring from the corner of his right eye): You think there are bears up there?
W: I imagine so.
K (still Tom Cruise intense): I could take one.
W: Take what?
K: A bear. Like a grizzly bear.
W: You mean like in a fight? If you had a gun, or maybe a giant sword?
K: No. With my hands. (Slowly lifts BOTH hands off steering wheel.)
W: Put your damn hands back on the wheel! And that bear’s claws would rip off your lower jaw and eat it in one gulp. With your freakin’ hands. You’re out of your gourd.
K: (shakes head in disagreement) No. I could take him.

5. Toilets may also double as bidets. Emergency bathroom visits can be categorized into levels. One day, when I don’t have a manuscript, or manny in Wrangler speak, to revise, I’ll blog that one out for both of my readers. On the way to a putt-putting destination, I was hit with a level 8—The Sickness.

The Sickness is when your stomach writhes, and it feels that everything below your waist is in imminent danger of spontaneously combusting. I imagine this is what it feels like to swallow a helium balloon. As I have made it a personal goal to frequent every toilet in the southeast, I chose the Food Lion. And my time on the porcelain throne went well. Until I depressed the shiny metal lever.

To say that the toilet erupted would be an understatement. Like saying that John McCain’s oratory style reminds me of the Crypt Keeper bin Tales from the Crypt. It didn’t erupt, it detonated. As my bare behind was drenched in toilet bowl water (yes, you should feel nauseous right now), I tried the retreat and hover technique. But the geyser’s strength knew no limits and followed me the six inches into the air.

Needless to say, I did not enjoy my Food Lion enema.

But I did enjoy the game of cutthroat putt-putt afterwards.

The Great Plague of Washington D.C.

Politics is my second passion, just behind stealing toilet paper from upscale restaurants. And while you won’t see me on Hardball being covered in Chris Matthews shout-slobber, or doing interviews with CNN’s very own Duke of Dull, Anderson Cooper, you are privileged to have me reporting live from the wrangler’s den.

Briefly, I’d like to discuss a frightening new disease that’s sweeping through D.C. and infecting politicians on both sides of the isle. I’m talking, of course, about Lasting Inability to Accept Reality, or LIAR’s.

First Case Study: George W. Bush, President (R), United States

On May 1st 2003, aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, the great dumbass cowboy of our time said: “In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.”

However, insurgents from Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and every other Middle Eastern country that ends in the two letters –AN did not agree with this assessment. They also forgot to mention this to the Sunni and the Shiite, who seem to get along slightly less well than FEMA and coastal cities.

Reality: Nearly 4,000 troops killed as of May 1st 2008.

Dubya Reality: This is an interesting case because his divergent reality is two-fold. First, he...ahem...his spokespeople say that he only meant combat operations were over for that particular ship. I know, I know, you think I’m making this up.

Well then here’s this little tidbit from White House press secretary Dana Perino:

“President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said 'mission accomplished' for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission.” “And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner.”

Second, Bush has an alternate reality facilitator. An evil wizard that keeps him submerged in a dastardly spell, a spell that convinces him that his poop smells like cotton candy, global warming is great because we can have orange groves in Alaska, and the war is going swimmingly.

It’s the man who even tells his own mother to go f*** herself—Darth Cheney.

What lies could he possibly be whispering into Dubya’s ear? What could he say to make Bush think he’s Tom Cruise in Risky Business, making all the right moves while the serious adults are out of the White House?

We’ll let shotgun Cheney speak for himself:

“Think about what would have happened if Abraham Lincoln had paid attention to polls, if they had had polls during the Civil War. He never would have succeeded if he hadn't had a clear objective, a vision for where he wanted to go, and he was willing to withstand the slings and arrows of the political wars in order to get there.”

Diagnosis: A person free of LIAR’s, that actually lives in this realm, must tell Dubya that he’s not Abraham Lincoln and I.E.D.’s are not the Iraqi equivalent of flowers and candy.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

Second Case Study: Larry Craig, Senator (R), Idaho.

The good senator from Idaho once said of Bill Clinton, “I will tell you that the Senate certainly can bring about a censure resolution and it's a slap on the wrist. It's a, ‘Bad boy, Bill Clinton. You're a naughty boy.’”

As it turns out, old Craiggers decided to engage in some naughtiness of the more freaky variety himself. And he didn’t even need an intern.

According to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport police Sgt. Dave Karsnia, the Craig Mac Daddy tapped his right foot, “a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct.” Craig then ran his left hand several times underneath the partition dividing the stalls.

Karsnia explained that Craig's blue eyes were clearly visible through the crack in the door.

"Craig would look down at his hands, 'fidget' with his fingers, and then look through the crack into my stall again,” Karsnia wrote in documents accompanying the arrest report.

“The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot, which was within my stall area.”

After Craig ran his hand underneath the partition wall three times, Karsnia held his police identification down by the floor so the senator could see it, the report said.

“With my left hand near the floor, I pointed towards the exit.

(Here comes this wrangler’s favorite part!!!)

“Craig responded, 'No!'

“I again pointed towards the exit. Craig exited the stall with his roller bags without flushing the toilet.”

Reality: Craiggers wanted to get his horndog on with another man in a bathroom stall and signaled this by using a method common to all other horndogs who find airport bathroom stalls hot. (Paris Hilton, George Michael, and Pee Wee Herman are names that immediately come to mind.)

And Craig, while turned on by white ceramic tile and strange, sweaty palms, is still clearly a rude male as he neglected to flush the toilet.

Craig plead guilty to disorderly conduct

Craig’s Reality (as of 2 months later when his fellow homophobes turned on him and wanted his resignation):

“Let me be clear: I am not gay and never have been," said Craig, who has aligned himself with conservative groups who oppose gay rights.

With his wife by his side, Craig said he is the victim of a "witch hunt" conducted by the Idaho Statesman newspaper.

“In pleading guilty, I overreacted in Minneapolis, because of the stress of the Idaho Statesman's investigation and the rumors it has fueled around Idaho,” he said. “Again, that overreaction was a mistake, and I apologize for my misjudgment.”

Diagnosis: A “hands down” case of LIAR’s. Let us hope that Craig seeks treatment so that he can once again join us in reality.

(CNN's Dana Bash and Jessica Yellin contributed to this report.)

Third Case Study: Hillary Clinton, Senator (D), New York

“I’ll be making no decisions tonight.”

Most people would assume that, with those words, Hillary Clinton effectively shot Barack Obama the middle finger. That she is the worst sore loser in the history of U.S. politics, or at least of this century.

(Let us not forget Chester A. Arthur, our 21st president (1881-1885). He tied his victorious primary opponent to a horse and dragged him through a cactus field until the man bled to death and he was named the nominee. Okay, so I made that up.)

Some people might think she is being tyrannically stubborn by not acknowledging the race is over, especially considering that Obama has clinched the official number of delegates to make him the democratic nominee (not the “presumptive” nominee, THE democratic nominee for president.)

But it’s not true. Hillary simply has a severe case of LIAR’s and has chose to substitute her reality for the actual one.

Reality: The race is over. There are no more delegates to be had. Florida and Michigan made a power play to be moved up in the primary schedule and lost. Their votes have been rationed out to Obama and Clinton.

Hill-Nasty’s Reality: The race will be over when she wins it. She’s put up with too much (Bill, I’m looking in your specific direction) over the years to stop now. She had this race wrapped up two years ago. She had every democrat vote. Black, white, guy and gal. SHE HAD IT. All until some political neophyte with a funny name started making speeches and making her appear to be the “establishment” candidate. Even the sleeper cell evil radicalist Muslim card didn’t stop him.

Now her surrogates must go out and tell all that mean old media (the same mean old media that made Bill Clinton’s perjury look like jaywalking and broadcast her “evil, rightwing conspiracy” message everyday during her boy’s impeachment proceedings) that they are the reason she lost.

Her people are even saying that she’s now considering her options and how best to proceed. And no, that doesn’t sound like the captain of the Titanic deciding on the best route to sail after the ship was hit by an iceberg.

The path to victory is simple for her now. Hill-dog can win more primaries and overtake him.

She just has to find a way to add some more states to the union.

Diagnosis: If Hillary is not made President, she will tear a hole in the space-time continuum and kill us all. She may be afflicted with severe LIAR’s, but please, think of you children. Just give it to her already.

(click http://youtube.com/watch?v=kN9vm95SocU for Hillary's official themse song, her love song to the Oval Office. She keeps losing the nomination. But then that political power bug bites her...and she's back!)