Where Are the Ohioans?

(Post copyright 2011, Dawn Weber)
Although I keep trying to forget, it's winter. Still. So lately I've been plopped on the couch like a proper Midwesterner. Watching the boob-tube.

Now that I said "boob," and I have your attention, I ask you: Where are the regular people? Where are the Ohioans?

All this diversity in entertainment, all these faces in all these different skin tones, yet one thing stays the same - everyone is achingly beautiful and disgustingly fit.

I want to punch them.

As a Buckeye, (State Motto: Eat Your Food - There's Nothing Else To Do) I'm feeling, well, under-represented. Where are the wrinkles, the paunches, the bellies, the double chins? Where are the split ends, the receding hairlines, the mutts, the American cars, the crappy jobs. Hell, where are any jobs? Do these people work?

Holy Toledo, where are the old people? What have they done to the old people?

Just look at the “Desperate Housewives.” Why so desperate, skinny bitches ladies? Someone take your botox docs? Gorgeous little minxes, all of you. Chiseled cheeks, perfect hair, long legs, flat tummies, jutting hipbones...

Hipbones. I remember them from such decades as the 80s.

Want to see a Desperate Housewife? Come visit me in January. Add bored, complaining, housebound kids and 11 piles of laundry. Toss in an elderly parent requiring attention, a rag-tag collection of needy pets and a good 20-lb. stress-induced muffintop. For added desperation, drain my last Miller Lite.

But it's not just the nighttime soaps. No, even the reality shows are in on it - "Jersey Shore," "Dancing With the Stars," "Big Brother." For the most part, the participants in these programs look like they stepped out of fashion magazines...or at least out of high-end brothels.

There are a couple exceptions - for one, ABC's "The Middle." Although located in a fictional Indiana, it's pretty accurate in Mid-America interpretation, with freakishly short Frankie, freakishly tall Mike and their wonderfully weird kids. In a messy, badly decorated, Midwestern house, schlumping through life like the rest of us.

And there's TVLand's "Hot In Cleveland," featuring the usual skinny bitches supermodel types poking fun at Ohioans. But we can take a joke. Especially since the sitcom also stars a glorious, riotously funny yay for old people! Betty White. The cast may have a laugh at our expense. But they soon find themselves appreciating Midwestern living, just as the Victoria Chase character said in the pilot episode:

"Cleveland: Where everyone is eating. And no one is ashamed!"

Damn straight, Victoria. We are not ashamed, and we won't be ignored. We are Buckeyes - we have big nuts.

Heartland homeys, it's time to take back the tube and tell Holly-weird: Listen up! We want to see some more "average!" We want hard-working folks living in two-story, mill-worker row-houses, with beat-up Fords and a crabby mom who needs her roots done. Kids with messy hair, glued to electronic boxes! A dad scratching himself in front of the Ohio State game! A dog who pees on the floor! Sometimes!

Now THAT'S my house some quality, reality television.

There's No Place Like Florida

(copyright 2010, Dawn Weber)

Life is too short to live in Ohio.

Oh yes, I did - I went there, I said it. That's my quote, and I'm stickin' to it. You can use it, if you feel the same way. Just please send me some coin each time you do, so that I can save up and eventually move my frozen, landlocked, saggy-senior-citizen-ass out of here.

I love my fellow Buckeyes. Sorry for the cussing. I'm just a little crabby, you see, because God has thrown me down in the wrong state. Also, the other man in my life went and did it again: My husband made me come back from Florida. He always does. I try to run, to hide, to get away - but it's no use. That guy always finds me.

This last time, he spotted me on the rented condo's screened porch under a patio table, crouched amongst the little lizards.

"I don't want to go home...I don't want to go home...you can't make me!" I chanted, rocking myself.

To get me out of there, he used words like "unemployed," "destitute" and "childless." The big meaner. He's just concerned because he knows he's fighting a losing battle with me and my other love, Florida.

"Honey," he says, "I don't worry about losing you to another man. I worry about losing you to another state."

He better worry. Have you seen this place?

The sound of the waves. The smell of flowers. The touch of soft sand. Each evening, while body-surfing, heart-stopping sunsets. Dolphins cresting in the distance. Most nights, a rainbow opposite the setting sun.

It was a freakin' Disney movie. I am pretty sure we found Nemo.

Now. Let's contrast these Pixar visuals with Ohio's scenery, which can be seen any given day on an I-71 drive from Columbus to Cincinnati.

A barn...some cows...a field. And look! Over there! A field...a barn...some cows. Repeat. Ad infinitum.

(You know, statistics rank Ohio as the ninth most populated state. I have no idea why. They must be  counting the cows.)

But wait! There's much more to us than barns and bovines. For at least six months, we also have either clouds, or snow, or both! Accompanying those, we have ice! Slush! Sleet! Freezing rain, hail, bone-chilling winds and blizzards!

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Miami!

Okay, I know. I'm not fooling anyone. You can see what this all boils down to - I am done with Ohio's winters. Done. After 41 years here, I'm absolutely finished with snow.

I've also had it with snow scrapers, snow shovels, snow days, snowballs, snow squalls, snow tires, snow plows, snow drifts, snow emergencies...

For all I care, even the snowmen can melt in hell.

Yes, I can imagine what all my dear, much-loved, soon-to-be freezing fellow Buckeyes are probably thinking right about now:

"If you don't like it, Weber, then get the EFF outta here!"

I am working on it. There's a few things stopping me. Like pension plans. The kids' school. Affordable healthcare. Also reality, in conjunction with that meddling husband.

Someday, though, our youngest child will graduate, and we'll both retire. Pack up our Buick and head to the Sunshine State like the rest of the Blue Hairs.

Because after all, blue hair? Not so bad. Much better than blue lips.