Melissas

Here’s a column from the old days. I’m not sure where else it has appeared, except it was on the critically profaned, Headley and the Rug (and Cral.)

I've known Melissas all my life. There were Melissas older than me when I was little. I went to grade school, high school and college with Melissas but after college something changed.

Since 1980, I haven't met a Melissa my own age.

It's not that I haven't continued to meet Melissas. I meet them all the time. Someone's daughter is named Melissa, the girl at the cash register has a name tag that says "Melissa." The world is full of Melissas… and not a single one over twenty.

Something is going on here. If this doesn't surprise you, then obviously you're in on the conspiracy. I hope you enjoy how this is affecting me.

Oh sure, I hear about Melissas over twenty. Melissa Joan Hart, Melissa Sue Gilbert. Maybe, it’s the “Joan” and the “Sue” that keeps them around. Has either one of them worked since they were twenty? While I’m at it, other than maybe an appearance on Conan O’Brien, what evidence do I have that they’re still around? Do I ever meet Melissa Joan Hart? Maybe Melissa Joan Hart is a completely computer generated image, or perhaps a “Marianne”, digitally altered to be "Melissa."

No, something is going on here.

I don't want to think the worst - mainly because I can't figure out what the worst could be. Is there some psychic connection between the name 'Melissa" and a twenty year time delayed loss of memory? Are the thousands of Jane Does out there, in actuality, displaced and psychically victimized Melissas?

Are all Melissas of an alien species that has perfected human development through the post adolescent stage that must then recall their agents before they revert to their natural form (a combination of say… an otter and Ed Asner)?

Is there some mad pre-list enumerator in the census department who forcibly changes Melisssas into Mildreds, Mabels, and Marlenes (who you never meet younger than twenty) under the threat of … severe under-counting? Would the prospect of her state losing a congressional seat to West Virginia (a state with no actual people living in it) move a Melissa to change her name?

But no! the effect is even more pervasive! I've always known Melissas. I can't think of any time in my life that I didn't know at least one or two. It would be a simple thing for me to go on the net and look up a few of them. Find them, email them, convince them there's no need to file a restraining order and assure myself that they are OK.

But I can't think of a single last name. I check my yearbooks - they seem to be missing.

Something is definitely going on here.

It makes me sad to admit it, but I fear there’s nothing to be done for the Melissas of the past. Gone is the Melissa who used to date Jim in college. Gone also is the Melissa who spilled Elmer’s all over my Batman lunchbox in second grade (maybe I don’t miss her that much) but perhaps we can save the MNYTs (Melissa’s not yet twenty).

Lo-jack has been very effective in recovering lost and stolen cars. I have no idea what a lo-jack looks like (maybe it’s quite fashionable) or how it’s installed (best not to dwell on that too much). Certainly, aliens would know how to disable lojack and besides, once you start with optional equipment in innocent human beings, the next thing you know we’ll be installing multiple CD changers and things just get too involved.

In the wild, forest rangers track the movement of bears by attaching a tracer to them with some sort of pop-rivet device. Some Melissas may be willing. Piercing is quite popular but how do we protect our more timid MNYTs?

I called my representatives, the Democrat suggested a new entitlement program; the Republican assured me a tax cut would do the trick. I have to admit; I don’t have much hope. As we’ve learned with terrorists and tele-marketers, it’s pretty hard to stop a determined conspiracy.

Perhaps it’s best to settle for a Melissa ID card for them to carry. “Hello, my name is Melissa, if I’m calling myself Mabel or Jane Doe, please contact the NMTB (National Melissa Tracking Bureau) and please don’t say a word to any aliens or census takers you might see nearby.”

Speaking of conspiracy - did you know that The Princess Bride wasn't supposed to be a comedy at all?

Bacon - Love It, Eat It, Fear It

I suppose you might think it’s just practical but it amazes me that I’ve never seen unsliced bacon – no bacon steaks, no bacon roasts, no bacon fingers or croquets. How is it in a world which calls two almost completely unrelated foods “clam chowder,” do we have uniformity on the issue of preparing pork belly? We live in a country in which people that voted for Pat Robertson are living next door to people who voted for Jerry Brown, and we consider “thick slice” a radical departure in the area of breakfast meat.

It’s not as if we lack the imagination. I was surprised when someone told me about scallops. What they serve you in a restaurant is rarely a true scallop. Someone just takes some common white fish and cuts it down to little button shapes. (I had always wondered how the little guys swam around) Why no such innovation with bacon? Oh, I hear you! “Bacon bits!” you say. But bacon bits are just slices crumbled up. If you don’t believe me, spend a night at a salad bar matching them up like a jigsaw puzzle (it’s more fun than it sounds and a great conversation starter).

Could it be that there is something THEY’re not telling us? (I’ve always loved the THEY concept. Isn’t it exciting that there maybe a people sufficiently motivated to pull themselves away from Baywatch re-runs in order to create dubious conspiracies of minutia and mind control?) Maybe things just aren’t the way we think they are at the slaughterhouse.

They say that pigs are highly intelligent. I’ll admit that I’ve not been exposed to pigs a great deal. There wasn’t much of an opportunity to see pigs in the neighborhood I was raised (unless you believe what Mrs. Harris said about her ex-husband) but from what little I’ve observed, I’ve seen no sign of brilliance among these illuminati of the barnyard. I’ll buy that dolphins are smart, living in the sea, swallowing shrimp at will, befriending mermaids and bopping sharks on the nose. I can believe that chimpanzees are savvy, making neat tree houses, eating high fiber fruits and leaves, staying out of reach of lions and making fun of Tarzan

but what do we see of the pig? Does sleeping in mud and eating excessive amounts of garbage in order to raise cholesterol and fat content sufficient to invite slaughter sound like an enlightened lifestyle choice?

This is where THEY come in!

THEY don’t want you to know but I’ve figured it all out. Historians, politicians, zoologists, practitioners of animal husbandry (yes, I laugh when I hear that too) and several grocers have successfully (for the most part) hidden the fact that at one time, the pig competed with humankind for mastery of the planet.

At that time, pigs were a slim, clean, warrior species. They wrote poetry and dressed in tasteful linen robes and open toed sandals. Their prowess with the multi-blade sword was admired, feared and copied. For centuries the issue was in doubt. The pig armies would march out for honorable combat as we humans sneaked around behind them, toilet papered their rock gardens and painted rude mustaches on their sculpture. We might be speaking grunt today if it weren’t for the swine traitor Poq Ye Pyhigue who revealed to us the secret word of pig submission, Sooooouuwweeeeee! What, you think a simple word could never have such power? C’mon, what did you think the movie Babe was REALLY about?

A once mighty people, now live in squalor, consume refuse and follow calmly on that last long mile to their extermination. Their only hope, that high cholesterol may take a few of us with them. Reaching the abattoir they are allowed to hold for the only time in their lives the weapon of their people, the multi-blade sword. In a tradition since copied by the samurai class in Japan, the noble pig commits hari-kari leaving his belly in several long even strips.

Perhaps it’s better that people not know the truth. Our breakfast plates are salty enough, without tears of remorse, regret and recrimination. We dare not attempt liberation. The backlash would once again threaten our very existence. There’s an entire wing of the pentagon dedicated to contingencies in case pigs someday develop immunity to the farmer’s call.

Like a red and white flag of defiance, the bacon strip waves and curls at the bottom of my skillet. No steak, roast or kabob could express so well, no scallop could define in such certain terms, the dignity and tragedy that is the porcine karma.

Hey, what would you call a bacon scallop? Would you want to eat a pig belly button?

This was a column I wrote in August of 2001. Since that time, I’ve seen more variety in bacon products. Why might that be?