“Marcy, it’s everywhere....”

The morning-man at the classical-music radio-station out of Rochester we listen to plays short segments that aren’t music; usually short interviews or expository pieces about history, writing, humor, or what qualifies as music in other parts of the world (usually strident screeching).
Mr. Artsy-Craftsy, a man in his 50s or perhaps early 60s, is interviewing a gushy lady about pet-therapy, I guess; that is, therapy for pets as opposed to pets for people.
The person being interviewed usually gushes all over the interviewer, full of themselves that their petty pursuits are being taken so seriously.
Interviewee gushes something about “animal enhancement toys.”
It stopped me in my tracks.
“WHAT?” I said. “They have to be kidding. What, pray tell, is an ‘animal enhancement toy?’”
We have a dog.
I suppose his many stuffed ducks are “animal enhancement toys.”
All I could think of was “Marcy, it’s everywhere.”
Marcy is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well.
She worked next to me at the mighty Mezz, so for whatever reason I started e-mailing her the utter insanity I post to FlagOut, and she loved it.
She started saving everything in a folder on her ‘pyooter hard-drive.
“Grady, how do you see this stuff?” she’d ask.
“Marcy, it’s everywhere,” I’d say.
Here we are, other side of the continent, navigating deepest, darkest La-La-Land, the land of the great governator, Ah-nald Schwarzenegger.
It’s the crack of dawn in Bakersfield, and we are driving east in brilliant sunshine, except the ground is overlaid with a thick layer of pea-soup about 15 feet thick; smog I guess.
I’m going the wrong way, so have to turn around.
I turn into a suburban tract development,
It’s late October and approaching election.
Small lawn-signs are foresting front lawns — e.g. “I support the governator.”
I notice a lawn with a giant billboard out front. It looks like a theater marque.
“I support the governator,” it says.
I swear it’s 10 feet tall and about 30 feet long; the mother of all political lawn signs.
“Marcy, it’s everywhere.”

“Marcy” is my number-one ne’er-do-well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-Do-Wells. Marcy married Bryan Mahoney (ex-reporter from the mighty Mezz), and together they live near Boston.

The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired two years ago. Best job I ever had.

“FlagOut” is our family’s web-site, named that because I had a mentally-retarded kid-brother (Down Syndrome) who lived at home, and loudly insisted the flag be flown every day. “Flag-Out! Sun comes up, the flag goes up! Sun goes down, the flag comes down.” I fly the flag partly in his honor. (He died at 14 in 1968.)

“La-La-Land” is California.

“Grady:” (See at right.)