Alternatitles: More like American SLUT! and The Famished Family and the Mystery of the Missing Values.
Earlier today, in the midst of Thanksgiving festivities, my grandfather erupted with a stubbornness so awkward it almost ruined the holiday. We're talking claymation OH NO face, people.
Let me explain. The Cowboys game was on… I live in Texas. At halftime Carrie Underwood performed, dressed in attire that you could potentially describe as modest… if her jeans weren't painted on and her boots didn't extend to mid thigh like landing lights for a rogue 747.*
It was at this point that my Grandfather lashed out at the television and any who did not seem likewise appalled, exclaiming “Now that's just sick.”
Now I feel I must defend my grandfather from you sex-crazed collegians who have perfectly calculated the amount of booze that makes your moral compass point Dumb, but not flaccid.
He is a great man, light-hearted, friendly, thoughtful, and very much unafraid of a little “off-color” humor. He was a sailor at one point. But his reaction to the show would have been surprising even from a youth group leader. It was just that disruptive.
The entire family didn't know how to react. Nobody could truly defend Carrie, who from what I perceived is hailed as an All-American Country Sweetheart. It's true… she was looking “good.” But this was the same man who openly mocks saying Grace at dinner, and taught me all the tallywhacker jokes i know… mainly because he's the only one who calls it that.
Besides the Cowboys cheerleaders were prancing around as usual, thighs and vapid personalities exposed, three weeks into November. What was his problem? We see this kind of sexuality everywhere. Hell, even Deal or No Deal has me wondering (fervently) how well i'd have to do on the show to prompt the man in the booth to say, “Girl number 16 is yours if you just quit now.”
And as much as I wished our house came with a fire alarm at that moment, I was forced to play's devil's advocate with myself… not like that perv. Searching cousins' and aunts' faces for relief and explanation, it dawned on me that maybe we were just THAT jaded.
This is Thanksgiving Holiday, football halftime show, and not to get all Janet and Justin-minded, but what the hell is a “sweetheart” like Carrie doing in thigh-highs. Did Britney and the Pussycat Dolls put her on a dare at the last pop sensation sleepover?
I swallowed hard and saw what my grandfather was upset about. What kind of country sexualizes EVERYTHING, tittering like twelve year olds sketching boobies in the back of the class. Here we are simultaneously wagging fingers at the UNHOLY concept of premarital sex, while fondling ourselves with the other hand… the left one… because it's not wrong if you don't enjoy it 100%.
Our hypocritical puritan obsession with debauchery ensures that we sit in jittery anticipation of the big 21st or the Wedding Night or that moment when your roommate finally goes to sleep.
I guess I saw that my old old man was born in a different era where it was okay to enjoy the “finer” things, but being a gentleman came first. The value in those vices comes from relaxed appreciation, not perverse masochistic want.
On a final Hokey note, I guess all I wanted to say is that I wish I could be more like my grandfather…
and also bone Carrie Underwood… but sweetly.
“Dearest Madam, I am but a gardener, sprinkling the lush foliage that is your bosom. Please close your eyes as I am feeling a bit wanton.”
– from my new book, Verily, Who Is Your Father?
* The 747 is a phallic symbol in this extended metaphor relating the desire to plow through Miss Underwood's pelvic runway with the force and velocity of an aircraft landing… The mention of panic stresses both the urgency of these feelings, and unpredictability of the outcome.