For the Love of All That is Holy, Stop Beaming Me Up Scotty

I will be up front. This post is in no way about knitting. Take it as the latest After School Special by yours truly at the Rubicon.

I am a tolerant person. I am not given to being offended easily. I occasionally appreciate a crass or slightly crude joke or remark. However, lately I have been transported to Manland unwillingly on more than one occasion. These unexpected trips have induced no small amount of Post Traumatic Stress.

For the uninitiated, Manland is a place where many a man has taken his wife, girlfriend, sister and mother against their will. Manland smells of Channel No. 2. Belching long and hard while smacking each other’s butts is the typical greeting. The cable has ESPN, Playboy, Skinemax, Spike, FX, Sci-Fi and only select shows from the other channels. In Manland, the toilets lack seats and flush automatically. Toilet paper is dispensed like magic from the sky. There are no bathroom sinks. A third tap at the kitchen sink dispenses ice-cold beer. In the grocery stores in Manland there are only the meat, chip, beer, pizza, and cheese like food product aisles. Yes, Manland is a strange, disturbing place.

Having taken many trips there, I no longer need to show my passport to get in or out. After 11 years of marriage I have also learned to discern when I am headed there and how long my stay will be.

Imagine my surprise when running errands alone in my car on my lunch break to look up at the light and find myself unexpectedly in Manland. There, on the trunk in front of me, was one of those magnets in the shape of a ribbon. I fully expected when I read it to say something like “Support Our Soldiers” or something similarly benign and thoughtful. Alas, no. This ribbon said, “Support Car Head.” Next to this abomination was a bumper sticker with a woman bound and blind folded with the caption, “You can trust me with your daughter.” OK. Who puts that on their car? What self-respecting car doesn’t auto-destruct when their owner slaps said crap to their trunk? What mother doesn’t smack her son back into the womb so she can start over?

Barely having recovered from that Manland abduction, a few days later on my way home from work I was again beamed up by Man-liens and taken to the Brothership. I like my job and frequently find myself playing my music loud, bouncing my head to the beat and singing on the way home. I was looking out my side window when I saw it. It looked like any other moving truck. I was so very, very wrong.

The truck’s occupants thought it great fun to put a hand drawn sign in the passenger side window: “Show us your Boobs!” Instead of the word Boobs, they had drawn, in their Paleolithic Neanderthal way, a pair of breasts the size of cantaloupes and with nipples the size of Bing cherries. That’s when I felt the transporter beam lock on and the next thing I knew I was in Manland.

I am still recovering. It will take several evenings of watching Lifetime, knitting with the circle, and reading Ms. to restore my equilibrium. If that doesn’t work, there is always the paint gun. I can always claim temporary insanity or self defense.