This and That
Jennifer Flaten

Here let me take off my three-foot hat. Ah, now I can see the computer screen so much better. No, it isn’t a leftover from the royal wedding. I just like big hats.

I didn’t watch the royal wedding. Unlike some people, I didn’t decline to watch because I have something against the royals or even monarchies, in general. In fact, I am actually quite fine with monarchies.

Our house, a very fine house, is a monarchy. Do you even have to ask? Yes, it is reigned over by Queen me.

In case you are wondering, I am a wonderfully benign ruler, unless you eat the last cupcake. If you should dare filch the last royal cupcake, especially if it has sprinkles, I dispatched you, immediately, to the dungeon. That is, the laundry room.

Hey, it’s my least favourite place in the house. Many horrors have occurred there, including the shrinking of my most favored sweater. Who would have thought that, “dry clean only,” wasn’t merely a suggestion? 

No, I didn‘t watch the wedding because I didn’t get up at 4 am for my own wedding. There is no way in hell that I was getting up that early for the weeding of strangers, a continent away. Of course, if someone had made me fresh scones, I would have put on my best hat and tuned in.

I figure most people watched the wedding as an escape. We have incredibly escalating prices and the impending zombie apocalypse. Who doesn’t spend a little time in fantasyland? 

With gas prices over four dollars a gallon, it’s a lot cheaper to stay home and mock Victoria Beckham’s choice of footwear or that damn hat that Princess Beatrice wore. I think the hat was three feet high and involved letters of the alphabet. Did you see her inane waving?

Remember when everyone was worried that the Internet would mean that everyone stayed holed up at home. There's no longer any need to stroll. Life's on the screen. Yeah, that didn’t happen. By now, everyone realizes the Internet isn’t the axis of evil, a subdivision, of evil, but not an axis. He ended earlier, today.

Since the Internet is useful, in addition to gigantic time suck, come on show of hands, who hasn’t lost hours looking at funny cat pictures? Oh, so it’s only me and other cats. Kitty porn, I might guess.

We can stay home. We can use our 4G phones to participate in live. In my case, no G phone so I can attend the wedding of strangers half a world away, without leaving home. I must do everything, including shopping for food.

Speaking of food, what is it about spring that makes a person want to go outside light a giant fire and toss meat into it? Some people are grill masters. Alas after this weekend, I realize I am not even a grill apprentice.

I can’t even get the fire going long enough to toast a marshmallow let alone properly cook a hunk of meat. Keep in mind this is after several judicious applications of accelerant and using a lighting instrument similar to a flamethrower, a wee little flame thrower, mind you, but a flamethrower, nonetheless.

I am throwing in the towel. I’m getting a gas grill. Although, I am sure I will somehow mess that up too.