O Regular Fritos, Where Art Thou?

Note: I'm trying to get myself to revive this blog. Here is something originally posted on my Facebook page a year or two ago. 

By J. Daniel Ross 

The night was sultry. 

I’m sweating in my discounted JC Penney-purchased, St. John’s Bay-labeled overcoat accompanied by a ‘47 Brand, extra large fitted cap supporting the mediocre major league baseball club now based in Cobb County, Georgia. I am inside the (mad) House of Walton, catching up with my parents on a long-distance portable telephone call the duration of this shopping trip, not really caring a whit about the frenzied stop, start, and middle-of-the-aisle parking of carts and their respective drivers maddeningly searching for the elusive stockpile of wheat products, the nectar of bovines, and unborn chickens. 

Another call tried to push its way into the conversation, but, following the rule and spirit of the Fifth Commandment, I let it go to the so-called smart phone’s voice mailbox.

I drive home with the windows down (the aforementioned coat/sweat situation in great effect). The temperature is listed at 59 degrees, Fahrenheit. 

I recall there was a call that attempted to interrupt my all-too-rare conversation with my parents. It’s the children’s “greater” school system with an automated call from the recipient of a doctorate degree in education (I presume) about a two-hour delay on the final day of the school week. 

It seems there is incoming snow and ice. 

Meanwhile, a ring of sweat has formed around my hairless cranium from spring-like temperatures and an unwillingness to cast aside my sale-priced overcoat because the calendar on my wall reveals the season to be that of winter.

Southern Indiana, you are a cruel land.