Snowman Runs A-muck in South Louisiana

One blustery winter day, when the temperatures dipped below 70 degrees, which is cold for South Louisiana, my fifth-grade son came home from school and told me he had gotten into trouble with school administration. Since it was just a few days before Christmas break, the teacher decided it would be appropriate for the class to draw some Christmas scenes. It seems the teacher had taken exception to the scene he had drawn. When she passed by his desk she saw he had drawn a shapeless shape beside a hat.

"What's that?" she wanted to know.

"It's a snowman in the South," he said.

She sent him to the principal who then made him sit in the office until "art time" was over.

Being from the Deep South, living near the Gulf of Mexico, we just don't see snow. But I grew up sending and receiving Christmas cards with all these beautiful scenes of sleigh bells in the snow, houses lit behind a dreamy snow drift, and snowmen. We all learned the song "Frosty, the Snowman," which I would sing riding my Christmas bicycle down the street wearing shorts and a T-shirt.

I'm fifty-seven years old and I can tell you with the show of one hand how many times I have seen snow at my home. If my son's teacher had just thought about it a second she would have had to agree that snowmen in the South, especially, south Louisiana, look just like mud puddles. If one ever does exist, in a matter of minutes to hours it just runs and turns to muck. I don't know which is more ironic, the teacher's reaction, or the fact that I grew up singing "snow songs" at Christmas.

It's not that I have never seen snow. I have. A few times. The last time I remember was about 20 years ago in Hattiesburg, MS. Believe it or not, it was April Fool's Day. That's on record. I suppose it's ironic that I'm writing this piece in the dead middle of summer, too. But that's the way it is down here, we don't know the difference between winter and summer--except for the jingle bells.

I have mused over the irony of snowmen till this day, and, now, as I read the local newspaper, I notice there are two weekly op-ed writers who write about politics. One is a Republican and the other a Democrat. Interestingly, neither of them has much good to say because the Democrat writes only about the Republicans and the Republican, about the Democrats. I honestly can't remember when the last time either wrote about his own party, good or bad.

Then there is Congressman Bobby Jindal's latest platform. He wants to make it hard for people to immigrate to the US, doesn't support amnesty for immigrants, and is sponsoring a bill to make English the official language. None of this is a surprise for a Southern candidate, except, that Bobby's real name is Piyush. You can't even say that in English. His parents gave birth to him when they were both graduate students in Baton Rouge from India. To me, that's just ironic.

After reading the paper I feel an urge to go to the local Wal-Martian colony. There is plenty irony there. Have you ever seen the advertisement for "Tylenol Go Tabs?" "They're portable!" it says. Wow! What were they before? I picture the old tablets as big as a suitcase that you had to keep in the storeroom until you need one. Maybe you chipped off a piece and took it for a headache and the new banged finger you got chipping the pill. But now there only as big as a shoe box and they have handles. Wow! What progress! Before long maybe one will fit in your pocket.

Then there is the baby lotion called, "Baby Days." The precaution on it says, "Keep out of reach of children."

Finally, after reading all the ironic labels I head for check-out where I experience an ironic sort of d�j� vu. I'm standing there looking desperately at the impulse items. I have the impulse to buy something, but nothing strikes my fancy. I'm wondering if that will become the new syndrome. Maybe we could call it the Impulse Repletion Syndrome (IRS?). We get so hyped up to buy things in America that the newest thing has to be more tantalizing than the next. Eventually, there won't be enough zap in the newness to give us a clear decision to buy, so we walk away just feeling the impulse. Madison Avenue could be outpacing the manufacturers. That would be ironic.

After checkout, and still with this unrequited buying impulse, hands full, one carrying a Go Tab (which I'll need for my arthritic shoulder after carrying it to the car) and the other, a bag of things I think I need, or will one day, I drive over to the Murphy Oil gas station. Right there on the pump in the middle of all the 42-point fonted ads for cigarettes is a barely readable small-printed warning about sparks setting off your gas tank if you get out of your car without touching metal. You have to get out of the car to read it.

So while I'm standing there filling up my tank, holding on to every metal part of the car I can find, most of it fiberglass, I read another sign that is so gratifying I almost cry. It says, "Pump First, Then Pay. We trust you!" Wow! It feels so nice to be trusted. And while I'm contemplating that and reading the scrolling ads that cross the pump's instruction display, I glance over to another warning sign, "Video Tape Security Used on this Site!" Eventually, they did take down the sign that says, "We trust you." I wonder why?

So finally, I get home, and, at the end of a tired day of consumption (not TB), I do what I always do. Hit the showers to wash it all away. But I've got this one nagging little problem. I have this little piece of soap left over from the last bar I used. So I look up on the internet to see if anybody has any ideas what to do with it.

I see all kinds of great ideas. There are soap dispenser machines that convert them all to one bar of soap-only a few hundred dollars. There's someone who says you can sew them up into a rag, or put them in an old pantyhose. You can melt 'em. You can shape them into animals for the kids. You can roll them up in balls and make a nice aromatic display. I guess you could even use them for a sort of glue.

After reading all this I try a little experiment. I open the next bar I'm going to use and wet it. I wet the little leftover piece. I put them together. After they dry a bit, they fuse together like they were glued. Now I can use the little piece until it is all dissolved. Hmmm . . .