Sunday, August 7, 2011

Polka, Anyone?

First, what's a polka? And does it have anything to do with Poland? I mean, change a few letter around and it spells polack, which is sorta close to pollock, and no, I don't mean the Dripper.

Answer is, yes, it kind of does have something to do with Poland, in that there are Polish polkas. Anyway, here's more polka info, for those interested. Meanwhile, I've got to get on with telling my polka story...



We go back in time to last evening. Am I here, there, or everywhere? I'm not sure, but I vaguely remember stopping by to see Mom and Dad.



"Well, Son, how are you?" (actually, mom and dad never call me "Son").

"Oh, fine and dandy, I suppose. How 'bout I cook us up some hamburgers and we watch a little tv?"

"Son, that sounds like a great idea!"



Me and dad eat our burgers in the living room, while mom takes hers back to her own room, the one with the big television that she watches while propped up in her bed. There have been burger times when I've served them up on ordinary sandwich bread, but mom claims "that's not a burger, certainly not how I'd make it". So, this time I was prepared, and brought along a new package of Sara Lee whole wheat hamburger buns. I had new mustard and mayo, tomato and onion, and everything looked perfect, but once again, mom found something wrong. "The plate doesn't look nice. I'd have made it fancy and put some celery and carrot sticks on the side". Celery and carrot sticks? Fancy? It's a damn hamburger! Mom has obviously been watching too many of those cooking show competitions where they give a big consideration to "presentation".



Later, as I sit in the living room watching a movie, Mom comes out and says I have to turn on the show she's watching.

"Just for a minute," she insists, grabbing the remote and changing the channel without asking. "It's a polka dancing show! You should see the women! Younger than me but with old lady haircuts! They look like men!" I should add that mom has been pulling this routine for 25 years or more, comparing her face and long blonde hair with other women her own age or younger. She even occasionally comes up and puts her face up close and says: "Does this look like the face of a fifty (sixty, seventy...) year old?"

I watch Mom as she watches the show, her attention rapt as the older couples on the screen dance in circles. "It's a riot!" she laughs. "Isn't it a kill?"

She continues watching for a few more minutes, finally getting irritated when the camera pans to the band rather than the dancers. "Why do they do that?" she asks. "I don't want to see them playing music! I want to look at the dancers!"



Of course, this can't go on forever, this comparing herself to other women. Mom is getting old, and eventually, I suspect age will catch up with her. But if it doesn't, I fully expect a scene at her funeral. We'll be gathered around at the viewing and she'll suddenly pop up out of the casket and say: "Did you see those other old dead women? Hideous looking! Those faces! How could their husbands stand to look at them?"

I'll have to back away at that point and make a run for it, otherwise she might climb out and try to put her face up close to me and say "Does this look like the face of a dead woman?"




Bohemian Polka - Weird Al Yankovic






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