Daily Bread

Yesterday, in another act to be filed under “Royal Waste of My Time,” I had lunch with someone who I thought could be my one and only in the flesh friend here in the gilded penal colony.

When I first laid eyes on this woman a few months ago I thought, "Wow, she is neither tall nor blonde." Later I found out that she had a bona fide job and actually read books. She was an artist, liked a good glass of wife and didn’t cook. She was Bobbie Markowe (Paula Prentiss) to my Joanna Eberhart (Katharine Ross) from the 1975 original The Stepford Wives.

And just like the movie they got her.

I should have known something was wrong from the outset because she seemed too giddy, but I thought maybe she was high or something. Nothing wrong with that, the woman does have four kids after all. But then she randomly threw out the word “scripture” as in, “I’ll have the cob salad. With a side of scripture.”

Okay, scripture in and of itself is not a bad thing—in fact, it should be known that I have a few of my own favorite scriptures, like Leviticus 18-23: “Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion.” Righteous.

Anyway after that painful lunch and public prayer, I went home to my sometimes-annoying babysitter who informed me that my kids shouldn’t celebrate Halloween because it glorifies Satan. And that is when I knew that I had taken a wrong turn somewhere.

I mean, Stepford Connecticut seemed scary enough, with the threat of becoming a complacent robo vixen housewife but in reality, it is not a stretch.

But to have to live on a small island with people who actually believe that Halloween--the only time of year when parents can openly send their children out to rustle up the year’s supply of candy—is wrong, well then they are just plum fucking nuts.