Through My Looking Glass: A View from the Beach

Through My Looking Glass

The View from the Beach

by Jan Bono

Copyright 2012 Jan Bono

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Sandridge Publications

P.O. Box 278

Long Beach, WA 98631-0278

http://www.JanBonoBooks.com

DEDICATION

To Mom

with a capital M

...who insists that to keep the family peace, I must disclaim any and all events suggesting the inclusion of family members or relatives, living or dead, and have used liberal poetic license, stretched the truth, fictionalized all historical references and generally made up many of the stories about anyone past, present or future, whom I mayor may not be related to, therefore logically bringing the reader to the conclusion that I was found in a cave and raised by wolves.

PROLOGUE

A Relative’s Rebuttal

A View from Richmond Beach

by Aunt Jo

She stretched the truth

Like a rubber band

She beat it to a pulp.

Her poetic license

Has expired

Oh golly, gasp and gulp.

Flights of fancy

Imagination

It’s writing with a flair!

Fact and fiction

Interchange

And freely mingle there.

Her writing is

So colorful

Like a patchwork quilt.

The mangled truth is

Camouflaged

Embellished to the hilt.

I have to think

It may be true

That she’s an only child.

Raised without a family

By wolves

Out in the wild!

INTRODUCTION

If you’re going to publish a book, said my friend Anna Marie, you’re going to have to change your name. Otherwise everybody who picks it up will think you’re related to Sonny and Cher.

Not everybody, I told her. Not Sonny, and not Cher.

In real life, I moved to the extreme southwest comer of the great state of Washington in 1977 to pursue a career in intermediate elementary teaching. (If you go any farther south or west you’ll get your feet wet.) I began writing a column for the Chinook Observer, the weekly newspaper of the Long Beach Peninsula, in 1992.

Since then, I have often thought about changing my name. Perhaps, I reasoned, I could write funnier and get a wider audience if I called myself Judith Bombeck or Erma Viorst. Maybe I’d have more male readers if the column was written by Garrison Barry.

Yet the real reason I’ve thought about using a pseudonym was for anonymity, plain and simple. A former columnist once told me, Writing a column in a small town is like walking naked through the streets.

My life is an open newspaper, I boldly proclaimed. Besides, I’m not writing the political or controversial stuff. I get to write a little slice of life, a little humor, a little ‘fluff.’ Why would anybody ever take issue with that? I had a lot to learn.

Over the course of the past few years I’ve gotten hate mail from bat-lovers, been sent dead flowers and black balloons, had litters of kittens dropped on my doorstep, suffered humiliatingly unflattering letters to the editor, been accused of twisting the truth to make a better story (well, maybe once...), and unwittingly managed to alienate my entire family with quite some regularity.

Fortunately, most of the perceived maligned have forgiven me, and occasionally I can muster up a chagrined smile when I think back on my klutziest columns.

But the advantages of being a columnist for a small town newspaper far outweigh the occasional discomforts. Why, if I had a five-dollar bill for every positive phone call letter, postcard, and comment made to me in the grocery store, post office and coffee shop about my writing, I could probably afford to take a couple friends out for a very nice dinner. (I’m talking lobster here.)

And it’s for the owners of all those warm and fuzzy words about my stories that I’ve put together this book—a collection of favorite columns, according to popular opinion. Some, I must admit, have undergone minor revisions since first appearing in the Observer, but the integrity of each piece remains intact.

It is my hope that readers will rediscover a personal favorite among them, or unearth a gem or two that he or she somehow missed along the way.

Jan Bono

November, 1995

CONTENTS

I. SWEET MYSTERIES OF LIFE

I See Chocolate in Your Future

Sylvia, the Psychic From Seattle

If it’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium

Who Shot Roger Thorp?

A Bingo Primer

How Lucky Can I Get?

II. RISKY BUSINESS

The Great Pumpkin Heist

Born to be Mild

Driving Miss Louise

The Kamikaze Clamor

Not Quite Ready for Prime-Time

III. TRAVEL BUGS

There’s Always ‘Plan W

On Two Wings and Several Prayers

Roadside Attractions

Return of the River Rat

The Wind Beneath My Wings

There’s No Place Like Home

IV. HEARTH AND HOME

A Short Parable from the Fabled Peninsula

‘Cook’ is a Four-Letter Word

Cabin Fever

Getting Organized

Saturday Only: 9 to 4

In the Doghouse

V. LET US GIVE THANKS

Scents of November

A Rib-Sticking Feast

A Holiday for the Birds

Home is Where the Nose is

VI. HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Kids, Cars, Kittens and Christmas

All I Want for Christmas

Out of the Mouths of Babes

A Divine Christmas Tradition

The Last (Christmas) Supper

God Bless Us, Every One

VII. O CHRISTMAS TREE

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like...Trouble

Welcome to Tinsel Town

Tinseling in the Nude

What Goes Up, Must Come Down... Eventually

VIII. RELATIONSHIPS

I could have been Mrs. Bill Gates

Girls’ Night Out

Commitment With a Capital ‘B’

Love Me, Love My Cat

1-900 Dial-a-Date

Time-Sharing in the ‘90s

A Valentine Verse for Modern Times

IX. POLITICALLY CORRECT

Two Things Better on a Waterbed

Peacekeeping in the New World Order

All in Favor, Say ‘Aye’

In Search of the Perfect Presidential Candidate

Let Me Call You ‘Sweetheart’

The Non-Selective Service

X. TECHNOLOGICALLY SPEAKING

Waiting for Little Mac

It’s About Time

Further Adventures of Little Mac

New Dance for ‘95: The 360 Run-Around

Searching for the On-Ramp

XI. GAINING PERSPECTIVE

Redefining Success

Blowing Out the Candles

Little Miss Muffet

The Great Barbie Debate

A Deeper Kind of Pain

Yet Another Milestone

History Lessons Worth Repeating

XII. WILDLIFE

Who You Gonna Call?

When You Care Enough to Send the Very Beast

Happy N.Q.R.K. Day

Ix-Nay on the Ams-Clay

Fish On!

Of Mice and Men and Practical Jokes

Connect with Jan

I. SWEET MYSTERIES OF LIFE

I See Chocolate in Your Future

Is this some kind of crazy mid-life crisis? asked my friend Anna Marie, surveying the contents of my shopping cart.

No chance, I told her, I’m nowhere near the middle of my life yet. I’ve decided to explore other career opportunities, that’s all.

Career opportunities? She looked at me in disbelief. I don’t understand how career opportunities can have anything to do with buying 52 bags of chocolate-covered peanuts.

She almost had me there. It’s a long shot, I admitted, but I think I’ve discovered a revolutionary fortune telling gimmick that will reap millions.

Anna Marie remained silent.

I need a bag of these candies every week for a year, I hurriedly continued, uncomfortable with her raised-eyebrows expression.

So why can’t you buy a bag each week?

Uh...well...I need to be able to fill out my whole legume forecast at one time so I can adjust my summer travel plans-I want to be able to capitalize on peak work periods.

Anna Marie shook her head and clucked her tongue. The lengths you’ll go to in order to hide your chocolate obsession.

Okay, so she might be on to me.

But in January when the tabloid headlines advertised 100 Hot Predictions for the New Year, I’d begun thinking about fortune telling as a source of supplemental income. It couldn’t be all that hard; what I needed was a fresh angle. Some prognosticators use the rotation of the stars, others use tea leaves, crystal balls, or palms. It was a stroke of genius that led me straight to M&Ms®.

M&M Peanuts® come in only five colors. That made the determining factors easy enough: green, being the color of money, naturally means a focus on finances; red is love; yellow is sunshine and optimism; brown indicates domestic adjustments; and orange, never my favorite color, spells trouble—especially at work.

At first I thought the week might be predicted solely on the color of the first nut out of the bag. But what if it was a negative indicator? The only thing left to do would be to crawl back into bed and finish eating the candy.

Tasty, but too limiting.

Then I thought about counting the number of times per bag each color made an appearance. Bingo! A viable option.

In the first bag I opened there were no yellows; not a good sign. But there were 8 oranges, 18 greens, 7 browns, and 5 reds. Based on that information I chose this week to call in sick at work, fill out my tax forms, hire someone to clean the carpets, and forget about having a date on Friday.

The second bag yielded plenty of yellows, 9, as well as 10 reds, 4 oranges, 6 browns and 4 greens. The future was clear. Although money was definitely an issue, the time was right to invite a new friend to join me for an early supper. I cagily insisted we save a little money by picnicking on the beach. I had assurance that the sun would be shining, and besides, I didn’t want those domestic browns giving him any ideas about moving in!

By the time I was into my sixth week of research, I wanted to try my hand predicting someone else’s future. I called Anna Marie.

Have you considered the idea that if anyone else hears you talking like this they’ll throw a net over you? she asked. I will not humor you this time, Jan. You’re on your own.

Swell. So now I’m stuck with 46 more bags of candy, and no investors. Well, there’s at least one prediction I can make without anyone’s help.

I can predict, with 100% certainty, that I’ll kick myself clear into the next county if this thing catches on before I have a chance to talk to my broker about buying stock in the M&M/Mars® company.

Move over, Jeane Dixon, I’m on a roll!

Sylvia, the Psychic from Seattle

I was sitting in a pub in Lincoln City, sipping diet Pepsi and scribbling in my notebook when the theater crowd came in.

No, not the crowd who, along with me, had enjoyed the local production earlier that evening, but the crowd who had actually performed the play I’d seen.

Glancing at my feet, I smiled. I had on my ruby-red shoes; the evening had promise.

While some must wear a Halloween costume to don a new persona, and others need stage make-up and specific lines of dialogue to create a fictional character, I need only my ruby-red shoes. I picked up my soda and joined the raucously celebrational group.

Sorry I’m late, I apologized to no one in particular as I slid into a vacant chair. Several nodded to me and continued their conversations.

Hi, said one young man, I’m Keven...

Keven, I interjected, with two ‘e’s.

He looked startled. How did you know?

I smiled my most disarming smile, weighing the advantages of coming clean and admitting I’d nearly memorized the program during the play’s lengthy intermission, or rolling with this, and having some innocent fun.

I shrugged, and tried to look chagrined. I’m psychic.

His female companion returned from the restroom. I’m Jennie, she said, offering her hand. I don’t believe we’ve met.

It was the point of no return. My tourist wanderings had taken me to the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport that afternoon, so what came out of my mouth next didn’t surprise me.

Sylvia, I said. I’m from Seattle. Well, I thought to myself, that’s basically true—I was born in Seattle...

For several hours the group chatted pleasantly, until one man in the company, powered by an inordinate amount of alcohol, decided to investigate my story.

So, he said, Keven says you’re psychic.

It pays the rent.

Well, I don’t believe you! he challenged. If you’re psychic then why aren’t you at the race track or someplace like that? Why don’t you use your ability to pick the right Lotto numbers? His eyes narrowed. "Why aren’t you rich?"

We’re all rich in our own way, I said softly.

I’ll bet you’re nothing but a blooming horoscope writer! he said, motioning to my notebook.

So what day in June were you born? I asked, proud that I remembered this much of his biography from reading the credits.

The first, he said, stumbling directly into my trap.

But he recovered quickly and added, Hey, one day, one measly little day, and you’d have been wrong!

But she wasn’t, said Keven.

Yeah, well, that doesn’t prove a thing, he blustered. You don’t know a single thing about me—not one single thing!

Please, I begged him, "you don’t really want me to do this, do you? We were having such a good time." I looked to his friends for support. I found more curiosity than sympathy.

Look, I do this for a living...1 came here to enjoy myself...1et’s not spoil the fun...

Fraud, he said.

I took a deep and deliberate breath. Okay. But remember, you asked for it.

He nodded. I moved my chair next to his. As I took his left hand, I remembered the way he’d been fidgeting with his bare third finger all evening. I recalled bits and pieces of information I’d overheard as he spoke with the guys at his end of the table. I prayed that later I wouldn’t be burned at the stake.

Your divorce isn’t final yet, is it? I ventured tentatively.

You tell me—you’re the psychic.

But by the looks on his friends’ faces I knew I was on to something. "You feel guilty about not spending more time with your kids, but not guilty enough to pay