Woody & My IBF

I hereby promise to quit the diary posts that I didn't realize were so much teenage diary post-y. No more he called me, he didn't call me.  No more heartache (well, maybe a little).

From now on, we shall be festive.

I wanted to dance around the house to old Motown. So I did. I'm not very good. I used to be, so I'm not sure what happened. I figured I'd have a drink or two and see what happens. I think a little better, but them I have had a drink and maybe I only think I'm better.

 I have been reading too much.  The UPS man drops boxes and boxes on my doorstep. Jeff Bezos is sending me a thank you note with a large box of chocolates.

Now that I have an idea that I want to hit the deep south, I feel it necessary to hit all the "undiscovered" places covered by guide books.
They have GPS downloads.

I may take the river road, through Natchez and south.  I visualize myself hanging out with the hamlet's best black cook on a 55 -gallon drum.  If I'm not careful, I'll end up at ChiChi's.  That's the problem with overthinking.  I need Woody, and I need him now.

Here are some books that show promise:

Him:

Oh, imaginary boyfriend save me.

Dropped four 40 pound lead plates (on the skinny edge) on my feet.  If I hadn't been wearing my heavy work clogs, I think I would have mashed my feet. It was so horrendous that I didn't scream, cry or curse.  I couldn't look.  I left my shoes on all day.  When I finally had to disrobe to hit the bath, I peeked. Oh, my. Slices into the tops of my feet, swelling, and I expect some black toenails under my polish.  Shoulda known that didn't bode well for the day.

The woody is in the hospital for elective surgery and my imaginary boyfriend is nowhere to be found.  I had called down to the autobarn to make sure the battery was charged and there was air in the tires, as I was beginning my voyage in a matter of days.  Bad news, I was told.  The doors were off and being fitted for new wood.  What the? I didn't order this, but it looks like mischievous Woody has been angling for this facelift behind my back. I'll have to get my American Express card back.

I begged the wagon doctors to do it swiftly and prayed for a speedy recovery.  Six coats of varnish need to be put on after the fitting.  That's a minimum of six days.  I'm now pushing for next Friday, though I doubt that will happen.  On the positive side, I have more time to prepare my stuff.  On the negative side, having one's enthusiasm dashed too many times rather takes the fun out of it (see almost-real imaginary boyfriend).

I was offered one of many fine rides, but I just cannot do this in anything else but Woody. Not in our favorite Leroy.  Not in the neon green hot rod pickup with the moonshining graphics.  Not even the candy-apple red Roadmaster.  Will not do.
So I sit here thumbing through the road food guides and Weird Alabama, pining for the languid hot nights in the South.

Why are text relationships so mystifying?

I was attempting to ferret out some information/advice about the attachment one can feel even if actual face time is limited (how on earth do you Google that?) when I stumbled on a site that gave tips for men about creating interest through text.  And you know what? One of the pieces of advice was...well, I don't even remember.  I just saw a list of suggested messages.  One of them is "Cupcake, my dog did the funniest thing."

Bells, alarms, whistles, amusement.  My almost-real imaginary boyfriend sent me a text early on in our flirtation to the effect of "Cupcake, my dog is a ninja." Ah-ha. I am understanding more and more that he is no more knowledgable about what to do in our situation than I am.  It's almost comical, but I am losing patience with the indefinite elapsed time until we actually talk, actually touch, actually... well, you know.

I have developed a knee-jerk reaction to hearing from him (even, or especially, by text).  Even thinking of him.  I am dumbfounded by the physical manifestation of my desire.

I send him a text that I think I've found a car.  He texts back right away.  I can't get him to reply to any other subject.  He texts back that he'll put a list together for me when he gets home.

Me:    You're too sweet

Him:  You should have a taste

Me:    Don't go there
          I have been having a difficult time all day
          I'm like a frickin Pavlov's dog

He's engaging with me for the first time and I tell him not to go there.  Or maybe not the first time.  After the birthday incident, we inched around the subject.  On Thanksgiving, we had the naughty chef.  I told him it would be a quicky.  When he inserted his thoughts, I broke it off, saying that's for dessert.

Usually I provide the details and he reads.  I'm getting really good at sexual imagery.  I can be a real whore by text.  Funny, they are my fantasies, and I find that he is pleased with the story regardless.

I once read that women shouldn't worry about how they look because men are happy just to see them naked.  Maybe he's just happy to think I'm naked.  I think about him naked.  I wonder what he'll be like naked.  Will it be anything like the guy in my mind? Not like, size or anything.  That doesn't matter.  It's the intimacy that I get visually.

I need to be so gentle with him, so considered. I need the physical, the real life physical. I want him to read what I write here, but I don't.  It's so raw, so tenuous that I would be afraid that he would disappear.

I have never phoned my almost-real imaginary boyfriend.  I think it was that let him be the cat mentality. I'm wondering if the mouse thing makes him feel that I'm uninterested and it bugs him. Maybe the quality of the phone conversation would be better if I let up on this. Getting more comfortable.

Me:
Is it ok if I call you on occasion?
I hate to catch you in the middle of things ad just thought it better to work around your schedule

Him:
Of course! If I miss a call I call back!

Me:
Happy

I have found that he uses exclamation points both for excited and agreement, but also when he likes something. I live for exclamation points.

I haven't call him. Yet.

Me:

I thought I have two boyfriends: my imaginary boyfriend, and my almost-real imaginary boyfriend. Upon further reflection, I have three. My imaginary boyfriend is perfect in every way. My almost-real IBF is really two: the text ARIBF, and the phone ARIBF.  Maybe there there's a third in there, the in-person ARIBF (we're getting very Sybil here, aren't we?).


For now, let's address the text and phone versions.


One day, I texted him that texting is very elegant, but very dangerous. Meeting would be either a wonderful surprise or a terrible letdown. He made one of his infrequent calls to me. What are your expectations, he asked. I was at a loss for words. I assumed he meant for the relationship, but later I knew that he just meant for the meeting. Then later it seemed as if he really meant the relationship. In any case, I found myself half cooing and half lamenting that I just didn't know. I don't know, I repeated softly. I knew.


I was sitting on the only stool I have, pulled up to my wooden kitchen counters. I like my horizontal surfaces bare. The kitchen is almost always tidy, with a pile of things to go up to the office, and another pile to be taken care of, things like the dry cleaning, the bank deposits, the new insurance card, the fabric grocery bags. They are on the side counter by the door. But the island and the stool are always empty, save for the pottery spoon holder I bought in France three years ago.


The stool is really bar height and almost knocks the bottom of the counter. The last owner of my house was 6'7", and he left it behind. I guess his knees would jam against his chin if used a regular counter-height stool.


I plunked myself on top of the pine-topped stool and nearly put my shoulders on the surface. The phone was on speaker in front of me. I hate the iPhone 4 because I always lean on it the wrong way and cut off my calls. Also, I end up on the video thing upside down and sideways until I can figure out how to turn it off.


In such a position, in such a place, I was forced to pay full attention to the call. I often empty the dishwasher, play computer games and even read the paper or a magazine while on the phone. There was nothing to touch on that counter.


As we talked, I told him that there would be no video, and no photos.  I meant compromising ones, but who knows how it came out. Why?, he asked. Because someday I will be someone's wife, I said. I thought that I was hoping his.  


My imagination has gotten way out of control.  Because there is nobody there, I can make whatever I want be there.  In my fantasy, I am given a huge diamond and live in luxury in both his and my houses. He would love me unconditionally, and we would have wild sex frequently. We'd also travel on exotic car trips, like through the unpaved roads of South America, or across Mongolia. We would both be deliriously happy.  


Mostly, though, our phone conversations are dull and business-like.  I yearn to have real connection this way.  Am I an on-line relationship? Aren't those for fat, ugly girls that don't want anybody to see past their great personalities? And yet I am. And I am going insane. 


But our texting is sublime.  Witty, funny, tantalizing, and smart. I honestly think this is me, maybe attenuated a bit, but the phone and face time are dreadful. It is almost too late. It either gets real or it doesn't.  If I'm honest, it probably won't, but I can let go of the fantasy.


This is about my two almost-real imaginary boyfriends, best addressed by Mary Wells:


Well, I've got two lovers,
and I ain't ashamed.
Two lovers, and I love them both the same.
Two lovers, and I ain't ashamed, two
lovers and I love them both the same.

Let me tell you bout, my first lover.
Well, he's sweet and kind.
Treats me good like a lover should.
And makes me love him.
I really love him, oh, oh, I love him so.
And I'll do everything I can to let him know.

But, I've got two lovers, and I ain't ashamed.
Two lovers, and I love them both the same.
Let me tell you bout my other lover.

Well, you see he treats me bad.
Makes me sad.
Makes me cry, but still I can't deny.
I love him, I really love him. oh, oh, I 
love him so. And I'll do everything I can to let him know.

Darlin, don't you know I can tell. 
That whenever I look at you, that you think
that I'm untrue, cause I say that I love two.
But, I really, really do.
Cause, you're a split personality.
And in reality, both of them are you.
(they both are you)

Well, I've got two lovers... 


My third boyfriend, of course, the imaginary one, is perfect.

One of my best buddies in college was a jolly, portly fraternity brother.  It was the disco era, and another one of the brothers decorated his party hat with YSL, a nod to the beginning of "designer" fever.  Nothing was coming between Brooke Shields and her Calvins.

It leaves a cyber trail.  Forever.
It can be very physically frustrating to wait to hear what's next
It may be better than the real thing

You can ask for what you want that you wouldn't ask for in person
You get what you want
The tension of waiting for a response is exquisitely stimulating
He comes up with stuff that he thinks you wouldn't be interested in in person (your are!)
You don't need a condom
There's no walk of shame

My town has a post office, a hardware store, and a Turkey Hill.  Turkey Hill is like a 7-11 with gas pumps.  It has clean restrooms that you can use even if you don't buy any thing.  There used to be four gas stations but they're shuttered.  On the corner there is also a veteran selling tie-died t-shirts.  They wave like flags in front of his van.

There is a farm down the street that I particularly love.  One day, the black bird migration went right through the road in front of it.  I stopped my truck and let them fly right down my windshield.  It was magic.

I caint quit you, Mummers.

Fancies.  Fat ladies, too.  "What a great smile."  These guys drag along these amazingly large and elaborate sort of mini-floats.  The captains wear 200 pounds (I think, could be more) of feathers attached to their backs like Vegas showgirls on steroids (testosterone I hope, these guys need all the help they can get in the pansy department). You can see their grimaced game faces when they pass the judges.  "Gootch" is one of them.

Huge revolving peacock, 20 feet wide.  The flight of the monarch, made of chiffon, sequins and feathers. 18 feet tall.  Pagoda. "Can you imagine the hours it takes...no I can't, Steve." "Uh-oh, we lost something, but the parade must go on."

Mardi Gras.  Why can't they leave Mardi Gras in New Orleans where it belongs?

String bands.  Quaker City is always a crowd favorite.  Rules change this year emphasizes "effect".  Color, combinations, unified appearance.  Dancing and playing at the same time.  Use of props. One of the judges is a judge.  I wonder if he can pass sentences on the ones that are really a public nuisance.  How about indecent exposure? Judges get "up close and personal," speaking into recorders to note their impressions, so they can be more efficient stalkers.

"Travis, how many of these Turkey Hill iced teas can you pound down at one time?"
"A toast to Turkey Hill, with us for three years now!"

Finally, Fralinger!  Through The Golden Gate of Kiev.  "Majestic, awesome, awesome." Dancing Cossacks! Eight-time winners looking for number nine.  They're in a different class from the guys with the ebay band costumes Mummified.  Fralinger just dominates.

In the Bayou. Guys, just leave Louisiana out of it already. "Wow, got her done." Accordion-playing crawdads.

Mayor Nutter. "Can't be more excited."  He looks like he's going to a funeral with a hangover. It's painful.

Different Strokes for Different Folks by the Peter A. Broomall String Band.  Now we're getting more realistic.  Oh, I get it.  Painters: Strokes.  Their costumes are really awful.  No sequins! Mellow Yellow playing.  Kick line of fat ladies.  Ewwwww. That ribbon stuff that's unbelievably an Olympic event.

Cut to booth.  I don't know who the guy on the right is, but his head keeps snapping back and forth like a chicken scratching for corn.

No Boat Like Show Boat.  Double reveal expected.  They're dancing with those half dolls that you hold onto.  Kinda creepy if you ask me.  They took them out of suitcases.  Is that where the missing girl was?Did they keep her in the basement, chained to the water pipes? Hello My Ragtime Doll playing. They're actually quite good.  South Philadelphia String Band.  Well, no wonder, they drink the same water as Fralinger. Could be a gang war. When the captain poses at the end, he's in a sort of Elvis position, breathing hard.  I swear he is breathing with his junk.

Geez.  More Christmas. Where do these guys get their calendars?  Maybe they're just behind on their rehearsals. But the tailpieces are four-leaf clovers.  Huh? More fat girls with tiaras.  They must be the ones who were twirlers in high school-- you know, the ones that were so, um, unsuitable that they couldn't make cheerleader. Or maybe they just saved the crowns from Little Miss Grand Supreme Arkansas when their (generally fat) mothers made them up like Jon Benet Ramsey. "They did a great job merging Irish and Christmas." Oh, that was planned. "Sometimes ya just hafta take a risk."

"It's a great day for mummery!"

Hmmm.  Zebra heads.  Dancing with Toucan dolls (I see a serial killer pattern here). Hippo heads. How do they play those saxophones?  Charleston playing.  Oh, wait. Is it another bayou with African accents? Wrong.  "If all speakeasies were like that, no one would want to end prohibition." That's because you need all the bathtub gin you can drink.

They're making pretty young ladies do the mummer's strut.  How embarrassing.

Could it be fruit flies?  I see banana heads.  Okay, Chiquita Banana playing. Gross, animated worm coming out of an apple.  Heard It On The Grapevine playing.  The worst rendition of Strawberry Fields ever. Fruity it is, but consistent. "Wow, that band can really "produce," yuk-yuk."

Pirates playing "Blow The Man Down." Do I see a hint of the rainbow colors? Oh God, more dummies.    A sign in the crowd reads "Hi Thelma!"

Rolling Out The Barrel.  Fat girls with Bavarian breasts hanging out.  Beer theme. Oh, I could use one.  "...duck dance...." I missed that.

Got. To. Escape
The mummer quicksand has my feet.

My best friend lives in the renovated Meeting House just down the street (a couple of hundred acres away).  We call her our Julie McCoy, because nothing social would actually get done without her.  Her house was a declared no testosterone zone.  She absolutely, positively would not let a man live there, or even want to live there.  In fact, she didn't want a man under any circumstances.  The rest of us were single but were open to the off possibility, while this woman was making plans for us all to live together with a driver, and be the wise old women of the tribe.

One day, one of her friends, let us say more established, and my friend and I were having lunch in the ersatz English pub that replaced the scary deli with motorcycles. Her friend wanted to set her up with someone, someone I knew very well.  She backed up and said, as long as you're not interested in him.  Interested?  It was like dating my brother or more like seeing the help, sort of (and I don't mean it to sound that way).  She was interested.  That was the end of our life as we knew it.

Suddenly, where there had been jovial nightly dinners, there were now couples only parties.  She'd let us know, she said, when she might have one with singles. She had a boyfriend.

Now, this man was one of my dear friends.  I've known him for at least 25 years, and he likes to talk.  They talked on the phone a LOT.  He also talked to me. He did a lot of hanging out with our local sports celebrity.  Said celebrity has no use for women.  None whatsoever.  He discovered my guy when he was working on his sprint car.  Well, as always, his wife was without company.  My best friend was the perfect fourth.  It occurred to me that the only time my BFF and my guy friend saw each other was with the big guy and his wife.  She was the fourth.  Always.  I couldn't stand it.  I told her in the beginning that she deserved better, but she put on her Chesshire cat grin.  Another girl who thinks she's going to change a guy. I'm guessing the relationship was never consummated, even after more than a year.

She then found another boyfriend, more suitable, and in love with her since they were both married.  She said "all the parts still work."

My imaginary boyfriend won't change.  That's because he's perfect just the way he is.

My mother never made hoppin' john.  In fact, my mother never made anything.  My grandmother was the cook in our house.  She had a very simple system. Put everything in pots of boiling water at 4 o'clock and cook until dinner.  Whatever time that may be.  Can you say grey meat and algae-colored broccoli? My sister and I learned to cook out of necessity.  I used to read cookbooks at the dinner table, maybe for inspiration, maybe to imagine this was actually on the table.

We had a few regular dinners, and rarely strayed from those.  Baked chicken (a small one for five of us) came with carrots with a pat of butter added in the serving dish, and rice fried with onions and butter.  We also had a "roast" which was usually very chewy beef, but could have been pork sometimes.  In either case, there was no crust, just more grey meat.  I wonder how they could tell if it was done.  Probably didn't care. Baked potato, string beans with pat of butter in the serving dish. Scalloped potatoes from the box.  Mashed potatoes from the box. Breaded pork chops in the frying pan.  Breaded eggplant in the harvest gold electric frying pan. I'm not sure we had any herbs or spices.  Oh, and meatloaf with milk-soaked saltines and eggs.  We occasionally had very small bowls of cu-CUM-bers (that's the way my grandmother pronounced it) in sour cream and onions. Salad with one tomato for the five of us.

And when Gramma was ready to watch Lawrence Welk, we were all finished.  The plates were whisked from the table, our forks still in the air.  Best diet ever.

So today I am making hoppin' john.  I need all the New Year's luck I can get.  I had planned to make an orange pound cake (good luck in some culture or another), but I forgot to buy almond paste. Like poppy seed filling, almond paste is one of those things I don't normally keep in my pantry.

"Super Saints meet Slumdog Millionaire."  Sorry, it's like a car wreck, you just can't stop watching the Mummers. "There's a lot of green here, Carol.  Must be the environmental thing."

I chop the red pepper and the onions.  I don't wash my vegetables, although I probably should given my predilection for hand sanitizer and paper towels on the doors at the movies.  I usually grow my own and have no problem with a little dirt as I know where my microbes come from.  Ditto the produce I get from  my local farmers.

An aside.  I was at the Pebble Beach Concours D'Elegance this summer.  As the crowd is pretty upscale they have those port-a-potties that are in trailers with real sinks and some form of flush light.  I absolutely will not touch those sinks.  There is a set of metal steps that go up to the potties.  The steps have no risers, making them aluminum grates.  My Chanel ballet flats did not come with Vibram soles.  I had my hand sanitizer in one hand and my fancy hat on, and I went face first down the stairs, hooking one of my feet, and tearing a chunk out of my ankle and shin.

I was basically okay, but needed to see the fancy first aid crew.  I went into one of the hotel suites and waited while they cleaned and bandaged my swelling shin. They said they didn't want to scare me but I should look for swelling as flesh-eating bacteria may appear.  For a germ-sensitive person like me, could there be a worse place to get injured than a mobile toilet?  I did make a fetching tableau, though.  I had this huge hat on, with my one shoe off, ice on my foot, all supported by the running board of a multi-million dollar Bugatti.  They asked to take my picture.  I summed up the event.

Back to the hoppin' john.  I rarely do a mise en place, strategizing instead as to what things I could do while other things happen.  For example, if I set the rice on first, I could be chopping vegetables while checking on the bacon in the oven.  I always let the rice boil over, and the white liquid burns into my stove top.  Luckily I have the kind of stove where you can take the grate off and just wipe up the stuff with a paper towel.  This always happens the day after the housekeeper has been here.  The other issue in my house is that I have a soapstone sink and a septic system.  Thus, no sloped sides and no garbage disposal.  I clean as I go.  I hate to have a bunch of icky stuff hanging around.  I can't enjoy the meal unless everything but the food is cleaned up.  So, I have to scrub the stuff in the sink into the perforated sink dish (I forget what you call that; the drain basket?).  Then I bang the stuff into the garbage pail.  I don't know why people are grossed out by this.  It's the same stuff you put in your mouth.

The recipe I am using is veg, but I just can't do it without bacon grease.  Yikes!  I may not have any hot sauce.  A few weeks ago, the refrigerator with the 12 year warranty quit.  Out of warranty. They had to take the whole inside out.  I took the opportunity to throw out the hosin sauce, half jars of capers, anchovies in a tube and whatever else had probably been there since I moved in five years ago.  Maybe my hot sauce.  Panic. Nothing is open today.  Gotta find another bottle somewhere.  I'm hoping to go to to New Iberia, home of Tabasco, on my road trip with my imaginary boyfriend.

This is hoppin' john.  Not the one I made.


I found the hot sauce.

"And they're talking about the noodles, not the poodles."  Mummers.

A bit foggy, but after two cans of Coke, I woke up very well.  In fact, I woke up early.  I used to wake up early every day.  5:30.  But of course I also went to sleep at 9:30 and missed all the fun.

I bet you don't have Mummers.  I think you might not even know what Mummers are. In Philly, they've been doing this kind of stuff since the 1700's.  Remember that firearms were just part of life then.  On New Year's Day, people made a general ruckus with music and gunshot. By the 1870's things got sorta organized.  Of course we have better feathers and TV now.

Mummers are grown white men in huge, expensive sequined costumes.  The Golden Slippers group (and most of the rest) spray paint their sneakers gold.  The captains' getups are about $10,000 apiece.  The men (no women, or maybe some these days, but I can't remember any so they can't be that good) work all year so they can do the Mummer's Strut down Broad Street for a few hours.

There are several divisions. Wenches (I don't know why they don't just call it drag).  String Bands (no brass, but lots of banjos and saxophones). Fralinger is usually really good but they just noted that the Polish American String Band is a crowd favorite.  Fancies and Fancy Brigades.  Not sure of the difference but they all dance in intricate patterns.  The brigades must have more people. There are also Comics which are supposed to parody current events.

This is one instance that I just can't write about without illustration. This year there seems to be a preponderance of hot pink and neon green.

See the umbrellas?  Sort of New Orleans meets Ringling Brothers. They just described the members of one of the group as waistline challenged.


If you don't catch it this morning, you can see the Show of Shows in Atlantic City on February 26th.  By that time, they will have chosen next year's theme and ordered more beads and spangles. They take this very seriously.  The strut is taught in nursery school.

Here are some more group names:  The Jokers, The Vikings, Murray Comic Club, Ferco, Nerd-i (a nouveau arty group with diversity, we arch our eyebrows), Mongoose, Merry Makers ("such a great family thing"), Vaudeville, Holy Rollers, Fitzwater, Venetians (the pride of Chestnut Hill), and they're all in some kind of arcane South Philly inbreeding.

Oooh! Here are the Eagles cheerleaders in GTOs and one Shelby (thanks to the Quality Ford store).  We also take our football very seriously.

Check out this guy in the blue sequined overalls.  Looks like he's going to push the plunger on the TNT.  There goes the mine!  This is happening to the theme from Bonanza.  He has the golden nugget.  What's this?  The golden slippers are inside!

The Nerd-i's hazard disaster sucks.  The announcer says it is very unusual and different.  No sequins.  Budget whatever the Parks and Recreation can toss in.

Next group.  Wow, the commentator says, "a mummer from a different mother."

Jesters have 160 men on the street in green leprechaun dresses doing the hand jive.  "Very well choreographed, cute." "They're doing the bugaloo!"

Stewie balloon!  This is about the Marcellus Shale.  Huh? "Environmental mummery." I swear they're doing the Village People lasso move.  The fractur is dancing.

Day of the Dead theme.  Uh, wrong month? "A first, golden UGGs." You just have to hear these guys doing the color commentary.

Taking a break for grapefruit juice. This is hard work.

Oh, man! One of this last group doesn't have his golden slippers on.

Another group with fracturs, this time to Earth, Wind & Fire, and Boogie Wonderland. I can't make this stuff up.  300 CDs on a chicken wire globe: Disk-O.

Philly's Got Talent on a float.  All Xs.  And a gong from "the old Gong Show." Judges Rocky Balboa, Benjamin Franklin, Sally Starr (you have to have grown up here to know her). The worst choreography ever. Santa. The Phillies.  "What a great season it's going to be.  That was great."

Devil With The Blue Dress On playing.  Dude is only guy in blue in a see of guys with red dresses on.  Oh, they have beards painted on.  Bearded Lady?

"Look at the penguins coming up on the left." These guys in dresses have gone with a tasteful powder blue and light pink ruffles. With white face.

Turkey Hill iced tea.  "Boy, this is just the best." The bottles lean piggledy wiggledy on the desk.

"These people are Philly's ambassadors."  Well, that explains it.  Swoop, the Eagles mascot, is in the stands.  "The only thing that interrupts these rehearsals is the Eagles game."

Lady Goo Goo.  Paparazzi with giant cameras and black dresses.  I thought it was a giant hot dog, but it appears to be a red pacifier.

Old Operation game.  "Mummerectomy." "Those pants falling down are all the rage now." The guy's pants really are falling down. "Entrails or whatever they are."

Two Street Strutters.  Super Fit Club to music: Celebrate.  Fat guy as Wonder Woman.  Also Richard Simmons with headset.

No kidding:  Bed bug theme.  "Dedicated to Regina White, Bob White's mother." Fat guy in maid's mini.

It's Raining Men.  Fat guys with "Sexy" "Cute" "Hot" on their bottoms.  And this is all heterosexual? Methinks they're on the down low.

Grinch? Another wrong month.  With Elvis?

Fat guy as Lady Gaga.  Again.  One in meat dress.  Obvious music. And 150 guys as poker chips?  Consistency gentlemen, consistency.

"Where is the Turkey Hill iced tea?" "What are the hot new flavors, er, cool new flavors?" "Travis, can you find us a lite raspberry?"

Oompa Loompas.  "They're now out of Uncle Tommy's Pizzeria."

My head is spinning.  I may tune in again later, but there is a real possibility of screaming night terrors.