Granny Zella Wants to Rant

I had a disturbing incident in Wal-Mart the other day. No, I was not attacked, nor was the item I was looking for out of stock, nor did that crazy woman who works there lead me on a wild goose chase around the store, though she has done that in the past. I just saw something that set off my inner granny. *beats cane against floor*

Allow me to explain with some background information:

I have recently decided that I have been lazy this summer. True, I have only had a couple of weeks off, but I am already getting bored . . . and disgusted with my boredom. I have been reading and blogging regularly--which I am pleased with--and I have been working at the library a couple of days a week, but I feel like I need to do something slightly more constructive with my free time.

To that end, I have vowed to work more on my writing--more on that another day--and resume painting. I used to love to paint. There is just something so soothing about mixing paint, applying that paint with methodical brush strokes, and then seeing what becomes of it. My family has never really quite related to my writing--though, for the most part, they have supported it--but painting and visual art? Now that is something they understand. My grandmother is a talented ceramics artist and we have other artists scattered through out the family, the best being my father. Nicknamed Picasso in high school for militantly refusing to draw what he was assigned--he would draw everything but what he was told to--my dad actually won a full art scholarship for four years when he graduated high school, but he turned it down to join the 82nd Airborne (Yes, my dad jumped out of planes for four years. ) and then the navy. After that, other than some time he worked as a tattoo artist, my father's artwork has mostly been hilarious but decidedly politically incorrect cartoons he drew to amuse my brother and me. (You may have gathered that my father is a somewhat colorful individual. You would be correct.) I never inherited my father's amazing talent for art, but I did inherit his interest--and his ornery defiant streak. :P

It has been awhile--about two years, to be precise--since I last painted. I decided to start small by buying a couple of those paint by number things (Don't laugh! They are harder than they look!) just to get used to painting again before I started painting my own stuff. So I ended up in Wal-Mart last week, wandering around looking for the craft section. I assumed that the craft section would be near the toys, which was incorrect. (They were near the school supplies. Logical, no?)I didn't find paint sets in the toy section, but I did see something that morphed this twenty year old nerd looking for paint into a raving granny brandishing her cane like a weapon--Bratz dolls.

Have you seen these monstrosities? I had heard of them before, and even seen pictures on the commercials, but I had never seen one up close and personal. They look like hookers! Parents are buying their children dolls that look like prostitutes! I don't consider myself a prude, but that just really bothers me. Why would you buy your kid a doll that looks like a streetwalker?! What kind of message does that send! (I kept trying to craft a mock conversation illustrating this point, but it was just not really PG, if you know what I mean.)

And that's when the little gray-headed granny inside of me emerged. If I would have had a walker, I would have thrown it at someone. If I had false teeth, I would have lost them. When I was a kid, we didn't have skanky dolls! All you had were Barbies. And you had to like them! Regardless of the fact that they were all skinny, pale blondes, and you were a stocky, swarthy brunette. (I always wanted a Jewish barbie. They always have those princess dolls. Why not a Jewish American princess doll? Oh, erm, well, maybe not . . . )

If you happened to amputate Barbie's leg--that was not me. I do not know how that happened--you just got more Barbies and strict warnings to not perform surgeries upon them. We didn't have dolls that looked like strollops! And if you were somewhat disappointed in the manliness of her compadre Ken, you just had to live with it and let them have their little pie-in-the-sky perfectly manicured dream world. (Well, actually, if you noticed the overly masculine army dolls that were intended for boys, you could buy Barbie a harem of macho guys in fatigues. I had a couple of these army dolls for my barbies. They were buff and came with assault rifles! Shortly after their arrival, Ken lapsed into a deep depression. He would just sit in the little Barbie convertible all alone while his lady friends were having fun with other guys. One day Ken was found decapitated. No suspect was ever determined. No, honestly! We don't know who did it. I wasn't there! I SAW NOTHING! I WANNA LAWYER! YOU CAN'T PIN THIS ON ME! He didn't die anyway! His head was duct taped back on and he now lives in a plastic tub in my basement! He looked somewhat happy last time I saw him before I closed the grave, erm, container! *dramatically points in direction of basement door* SO, THERE! IT WAS NOT A DOLL HOMICIDE! I PLEAD THE FIFTH!)

Ahem, where was I? Granny Zella is getting old and can't remember what she was complaining about. Platypuses, was it? They are funny creatures. I don't trust them. They have beady eyes. Hmm . . . *scratches head* Granny Zella doesn't remember now. Well, whatever it was set me off and upset me in K-Mart. Or was it McDonalds? Yes, it was their sweet tea. They don't put the sugar in at the right time. They don't know how to make proper tea and that infuriates Granny Zella. She has contemplated fire bombing their tea machine, but her arthritis prevents her from doing it. Granny Zella is getting old and feeble and she wants to take a nap. (And she wants to know why she is being forced to refer to herself in the third person. Granny Zella finds this a little creepy.) *toddles off*

P.S. I have shared this blog link with a couple of you already, but if you have never read Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half, you are missing out! (For my Sparkler blogger friends, she is like a cross between Auntie Sparknotes--without the advice but with the hilarious drawings--and Dan Bergstein.) You must read her work! Try her latest. The part where she says "I would have shanked an infant for juice" was more than I could handle. :P)