Fumble In The Jungle

Regarding last night's premiere of Survivor: Nicaragua: I hope the "kiddie team" falls flat on its face and self-destructs spectacularly.

Age before beauty, motherfuckers.

"Why Does Grandpa Say 'God Bless You' Even When We Don't Sneeze?"

My grandfather, God bless his soul, had some of the strangest theories I've ever heard in my life. First, there was the one about keeping a rubber band around the top of the opened milk carton to keep the "milk gas" from escaping and turning it sour. Then there was the one where he explained that reaching into the mailbox every time he left the house would make any burglars watching think he was turning on an alarm so they wouldn't rob the place. And the one where he concluded that the reason he had so much hair on his back was because he spent so much time outside without a shirt on and this had somehow caused him to "evolve." God bless him.

But my all-time favorite was laid out during a conversation about walking at Robert Moses beach. My grandfather had been doing this for as long as I could remember, and kept on doing it well into his 70s. He was one tough old son-of-a-gun. He'd go practically every day, from one end all the way to the other and back again. I don't even know how many miles that is. But I do know that smack in the middle of that course is Field 5 — the infamous "clothing-optional" area. Grandpa wasn't particularly fond of Field 5, and he elucidated it thusly:

Grandpa: "I don't like going past the nude beach, see, because mosquitoes could come down from the dunes and bite the gays, and then they could bite me and give me the AIDS."

...

Wow, Grandpa.

There are SO many things wrong with that statement. First: Not all people on the nude beach are gay. Second: Not all gay people have AIDS. And third: Mosquitoes don't even transmit AIDS. There is not a SINGLE POINT of this theory that makes any sense whatsoever.

We tried to explain this to him, but he kept earnestly interrupting, "No, see, the mosquitoes don't have the AIDS, but they could bite the gays and that would give them the AIDS."

"But Grandpa, mosquitoes can't get AIDS."

"No, but see, if they bite the gays..."

Und so weiter. Exasperating.

Years later, on a mostly male-dominated message board, I discovered the Internet meme "teh ghey" and in a strange way, despite it's moronic implications, it delighted me to no end. Crazy memories...

Oh, Grandpa. God bless you. :)