A Few Questions I'd like to ask

Dear City Council of La Quinta, CA,

Why don't you seem to have restrictions about watering? Surely there in the desert you might want to conserve water a bit? What's with the very green lawns and people watering at noon and much of it running down the street? Seriously, we have tougher restrictions up here on the 'wet coast'.

Dear American Restaurants,

Why so much food? I mean, I have a decent appetite, and I rarely don't clean my plate when I go out for a meal here, but down there--I never managed to finish a meal once. I gained three pounds over those 9 days, and we ate at least half our meals back at the house. Seriously, do you all need to eat that much?

Dear Disability Fakers,

Yes, I know the lineups at Disneyland are long, but really, don't you feel like scumbags jumping in a wheelchair and pretending you are disabled? Here's a clue--when you giggle and screw around like you've never been in a wheelchair before, and you're wearing your basketball camp t-shirt, I'm guessing you're full of shit. See that lady rushing out of the park because there's a crisis with the oxygen tank attached to her kid's wheelchair? There the ones the policy is there for--not for stupid selfish a-holes like yourselves.

Dear Air Canada,

You might want to let us know that your "partner" airline, United, charges 23 bucks a pop for checked bags. We didn't have to pay anything on the way down, but surprise, surprise, we can't check in without getting dinged. Plus, United, your non-existent meal service on that 40 year old 757 sucks.

Dear Disneyland,

Forgetting the troubling racial stereotypes in Small World (which still seems like something you'd only want to ride if you're seriously high), is it necessary for the Pirates of the Carribean to have a "wench auction" as part of the ride? I didn't notice the "ravage and pillage" line in the song this time, but I see the women chained together in a line at the auction of wives and the voiceover telling the one on display to turn around to show her stern side or whatever, and wonder if that's the sort of enlightened 21st century thinking we want to share with the little kids who experience this.

Dear Attendees of the BNP Paribas Open Tennis Tournament at Indian Wells,

Yeah, I saw you all there at Las Casuelas--they warned us even with a reservation, there might be a bit of a wait because of the tennis tournament. Big deal, this tennis tourney--saw it on lots of TVs around in restaurants and even on TSN here at home yesterday. So, seeing you all standing around the bar, being noisy and groping each other, here's my question: Was it father-daughter half-price day at the tourney, or are there really that many trophy wives/girlfriends who accompany their sugar daddies to this sort of event? Seriously, maybe the designer tennis shorts look good on those long legs and the tan sets off that huge rock on your finger, but he's probably closer to your granddad's age than your father's. Yuk.

Poetry by Dythandra

My Nation, Apart

What time did you get in last night?
Was there somebody in the upstairs shower this morning?
Do you even know what the floor of that room looks like?

Questions. I assume they’re all rhetorical.
Strange, I haven’t grown an inch since I was 15
But the house is too tight a fit lately.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way
High school done, college underway
And yet,
Stuck here still, in the prison of my youth.

It’s not that I crave dorm life,
No doubt it would simply prove Sartre’s contention
That hell is other people.

No, a place of my own is the limit of my ambition,
But that too, rendered impossible,
As my part time prep cook wages
Barely pay for cigarettes,
And blond bitches never share their tips.

Rushing home on days I know my grades might arrive,
Thwarting the parentals’ inquisitive steps
To acquire another bludgeon in their ongoing plan
To pummel my spirit
Into acquiescence.

There is a better option, I try to explain
A little financial support
For their only offspring

And we’d all be free from this mundane purgatory.
But deep-down, they feel just the two of them might be even worse
Than reliving out the daily, disdain-driven dialogues
That suck the marrow from my soul.

As always, though, I have a plan
And I am never the lesser of two evils.