Baby Jessica

It was what...sixteen, seventeen years ago that Baby Jessica fell down the well? The anniversary is coming up later this week.

For those of you who spent the late eighties in a fog of pot smoke and Dance Party U.S.A. reruns: a baby, like, two years old or something, fell down a well in Texas. It took them days to get her out, and apparently the whole nation was riveted by the story.

I say apparently because guess what? At the time, I had no idea it was going on. None. I was at a football game the night they pulled Baby Jessica out of the well. They announced it on the loudspeaker system. The crowd cheered and everyone seemed very happy.

"What?" I said, all mullet and Whitesnake t-shirt, "huh? What?"

"Baby Jessica," my friends explained, "they got her out of the well."

"Who?"

"Baby Jessica."

"From the what now?"

"The well."

"And who is this kid?"

"Baby Jessica. She was in the well."

"What well?"

"In Texas. The baby. The one that fell down the well."

[I study the buttons on my denim jacket. Then...]

"Texas? A baby? In a well?"

"Yeah, Harold."

"You'd think that would be on the news."

And then everyone wandered away. I'm still not sure why. Why didn't Baby Jessica receive more coverage? Why wasn't I informed?

---

Let's see, what happened this weekend...Friday night we went to Best Buy to get a birthday present. On the way home we were listening to the presidential debate on the radio. After one of Kerry's answers Bush had a chance to respond. He took a second, then said something, then paused.

And the pause stretched...and stretched...

Sonya and I are dumbfounded that the President of the United States is sitting there, slack-jawed, probably staring at the camera and fumbling for words. Ten seconds! Twenty! Thirty!

And then I realize that the XM has turned itself off. Oops.Sorry there, Mr. President, thought you'd gone all retard on us there for a minute.

Torrential rains Saturday as Tropical Storm Matthew thoroughly douched the Louisiana coast. We went to the birthday party - beer, barbecue, good - and then went to the mall.

Funny! Going into the mall Sonya held the umbrella over John's stroller while I kind of squatted under one corner of the umbrella and pushed the stroller. This was a very efficient way to channel the pouring rainwater onto my back, into my jeans and straight down the crack of my ass.

We got in the mall and my back was not spattered with rain, not damp, but soaked, as if I'd stepped into a running shower with my back to the nozzle.

No problem, though; Old Navy is right by the door we went in. I walked in, purchased a shirt and put it on. They even gave me a bag to put the soaked shirt in. Price: $2.99.

"You probably could have gotten a bigger size," Sonya observed.

"Ah, whatever. I like it. And for the price I'm lucky it's not made out of paper."

Last night we met Siobhan and C-Diggity and Siobhan's sisters at Deanie's in the Quarter. We had a feast. Then beignets and coffee for dessert. On our way back to the car we heard music and sirens coming down Decatur. We stopped. It was a little gay something-or-other parade with lots of rainbows and pink triangles and shirtless young gentlemen dancing on floats. A crowd formed as the parade went past. John got some beads. In general, John seemed pleased to be riding around in his stroller in the French Quarter after bedtime and not being, say, down a well in Texas.