So after all the insanity of the Seder all I wanted to do was relax.  But my wife and her best friend had decided to throw a Tupperware party – yes Tupperware.  Of course the day they planned it for was the day after the Seder.  I figured o.k., no big deal.  I’d actually been to one years ago because a friend of mine needed a minimum of people to show to be allowed to host one.  I bought some and got a few thing for free and we got drunk.  Sounds good right?  Not so fast my friend….

This party was going to be hosted by a special consultant.  We were getting a visit from Aunt Barbara.  This is not a euphemism for something else like “A visit from Aunt Flo”.  This is a person.   This is not actually my Aunt.  This is also not my wife’s Aunt.  In fact Aunt Barbara is an “Aunt” about as much as Mrs. Doubtfire was a “Mrs.”.  She showed me one of “her” videos on Youtube:
/>

Well, much like most guys can’t get enough of hot lesbians, most girls can’t get enough of  campy drag queens. Especially ones who impersonate early 1970’s Long Island housewives. Don’t believe me?  Explain the success of Ru Paul, Dame Edna, Lucky Chang’s, Harvey Fierstein and the movie To Wong Foo…

It turns out Aunt Barbara is one of the most successful Tupperware party consultants in the country.  We were about to find out why.

We don’t own a mansion, we have a nice 4 bedroom colonial with an oversized den and fairly large backyard.  They invited about 40 people expecting about 30 to show.  Well they found the videos of Aunt Barbara and not only did just about everyone say they were coming, they all wanted to bring someone! (I told you girls love drag queens).  We’ve had as many as 60 people in the house for the annual Superbowl chili party but that’s spread out across two rooms.  The Tupperware show was going to be in one room.  It was going to be tight.

                          
                  [A party guest greets Aunt Barbara - Girls love the drag queens!]
 

Well I did the only thing a normal red blooded American male could do, I got the hell out of there!  Since it rained golf was out.  Luckily my father-in-law was planning on watching the Rangers game so since all this was his daughter’s fault I invited myself over.  The rest of this is complete hearsay as told to me by some of the 40 or so women who witnessed it.  I was happily eating pizza and watching hockey miles away.

Aunt Barbara begins demonstrating all the wonderful Tupperware and breaks the ice with some contests.  Things like “Who’s known my wife the longest?”  “Who’s traveled the farthest to get there?”  Basically various trivia about my wife and her friend.  Now at the party I went to years ago we won, as Aunt Barbara puts it, “free plastic crap”.  The prizes this time were more of the dollar store variety including:

U-Check Pregnancy Test
Twin Pack of generic douche (My wife won this!)
bra and panties (yes, dollar store “brand”)
canned luncheon meat (a generic brand of Spam, if you can imagine that.  In fact don't imagine it!  Watch this:)
/>

She demonstrated various products like the spill-proof shaker cup in which one mixes up a lovely breakfast shake of vodka, half and half and Alba 77 drink mix.  Do you know Alba 77?  I do.  My mother used to buy it.  It was the first diet “milk shake” mix.  I believe the name comes from the fact that with milk it was 77 calories.  It was basically bad chocolate powder and sweet and low.  It tasted as good as that sounds.  With enough vodka though….

There was the insulated drink cup for the car where you could mix your martini, stick in a straw and if you got pulled over just pull the straw out and turn the cup upside down – see officer?  No open container here!

There was the “rock ‘n serve” line which involved a microwave lid with a steam vent so you can cook in it, serve in it, and use the steam outlet to secretly open your husband’s mail. 

This went on for about an hour and then they all bought tons of plastic crap.   They had a great time. When I returned I was greeted by one of the ladies wearing the dollar store panties outside of her jeans, a sink full of empties and a houseful of half-drunk women still coming down from all the fun.  I’m starting to think I should’ve stuck around as it was sort of like a bachelorette party after the male strippers leave. They’re doing it again on Labor day weekend.   Wanna come?

So I was all set to write a nice journal entry on the NFL draft which I promise I will do in the next day or two but over the last few days I became so disgusted with two of our three possible presidential candidates that I had to write something quick on the subject.

Now just so you know a little about me, I'm a peculiar political animal.  I have never joined a political party.  I have voted for Republicans and Democrats over the years for various offices.  I even voted for Bernie Sanders once when I lived in Vermont (he's a commun... errr   I mean Socialist).  I am fiscally conservative.  I am socially liberal (as long as you don't bother me).  In fact to borrow a little from our current president, I would call myself a "Compassionate Libertarian".  In other words, stay out of my private life and I'll pay my taxes and you take care of the things that need to be done by a central government and we'll all get along just fine.

I tell you this because it helps you understand why I am still on the fence about which of the three candidates still standing might get my vote.  Well my position got a big shove when over the past week Hillary and McCain went and trashed Obama for not supporting a "Gas Tax Suspension". 

I applaud Obama.  He's ABSOLUTELY 100% RIGHT to not support this.  Hillary and John McCain are engaged in the worst sort of political pandering with their attacks on him.  This "gas tax holiday" is similar to the ridiculous tax rebate that Bush and Congress just passed out as if $600 is really going to help anyone in an economy that hits the wall (only at least that might really help people on the lowest end of the economic spectrum).  The gas tax thing won't help anyone.  Let's do some math:

I'm going to estimate high on the following things:

Average gas tank for an American car - 16 Gallons
Average fill-ups per month - 3 (that's once every 10 days)

The tax that they are actually suspending is the Federal portion which is a whopping 18 cents per gallon!  You would save $2.88 per tank.  You save $8.64 per month.  If it's suspended from May to September, 5 months, that's a whopping $43 in your pocket!  Woo Hoo!  Does that have any impact on your budget over 5 months? Of course not.  Even if commercial vehicles fill up three times as much does and extra $150 add anything to the cost of a truck load of bread being delivered to the supermarket?  Is it even penny a loaf?

But look at the real cost on the other side.  There's an estimated 230 million passenger cars in America.  Multiply that by $43 dollars.  That's 9.89 billion dollars, that's BILLION, that the Federal Government doesn't get in tax revenue.  Guess where the gas tax goes?  Fixing roads.  I don't know about you but 40 bucks a Summer to make sure we don't have another Minnesota bridge collapse doesn't sound bad to me. 

When Hillary and McCain come up with an answer for how they'll manage that, I'm all ears.  Until then, don't buy it.  Gas prices are crazy.  This idea is crazier.