Decatur City Manager Ryan McCrady discusses Decatur’s tax levy in this video.

I’ve watched those news clips every years of crazed people camped outside stores in the freezing cold for hours upon end, just to be the first one in for the early bird Black Friday sales.  I thought, craziness to such a degree, only happened in New York or California but nope – it’s right here  in down-homey, corn-shucking, clodhopping, Decatur, Illinois.  I couldn’t believe my eyes when I walked into Wal-Mart a little after 6am.  What possessed me to shop so early in the morning?  I don’t know.  I guess I just had to experience it once in my life and once in my life was enough.

The checkout lines wrapped throughout the entire store.  Customers with heaping loads of merchandise were waiting surprisingly patiently.  But they all had that look on their face like, “Okay, I know this makes me look crazy, and I would really love a paper sack to place over my head right now so no one could recognize me, but I’m here and I’m saving money.  What are you going to do about it?”  Well, I did something.  I left the store.  There was no way I was going to wait in line for three hours to save $20.  I’d rather spend $100 more just to exit the building safely.

And with those types of crowds, who knows what kind of mutant strain of killer influenza was being created between the sharing of air between so many infectious nostrils and lungs.   The pale horse of death from the apocalypse could have been clippity-clopping around that store.

The kids and I decided to mosey on up to McDonalds in Forsyth and have some breakfast.  Then we went to Lowe’s and the Mall.  The Mall was busy but I’ve seen it far worse.  I didn’t manage to purchase anything on my shopping list except for some garland to wrap around my front porch at Lowe’s and a shirt for myself at Christopher & Banks – or as my daughter calls it – the old lady store.  She’s seen all of the outfits there modeled on her elementary school teachers and principal.  That would turn me off too, if I were eleven years old.

I guess I’ll just have to resort to shopping for Christmas gifts the old fashion way, the way I always do it – online from the comfort of my home.  Aahh!

Mammograms are not worth the money for any woman under the age of death so the coverage of mammograms will be eliminated soon from all insurance plans. Furthermore, women need not perform self-exams to catch breast cancer in its earlier stages. It would be cheaper if women just died from cancer while they’re young and left their money and belongings to their husbands – whose prostate screenings and erectile dysfunction prescriptions will still be covered and encouraged.

Pap smears are likewise no longer needed because again women, with all their complicated reproductive parts, are too costly to live. In the near future babies will be grown in artificial wombs thus eliminating the need for women altogether. Woman will only be allowed to live long enough to satisfy men for recreational sexual purposes – possibly to the age of 25. After that, all woman will be declared too costly and ugly to live.

The numbers tell it all.  Stimulus dollars spent by county in Central Illinois thus far:

Macon County $7 million

Sangamon County $21 million

Piatt County $16.4 million

Champaign County $23.1 million

Shelby County $10.8 million

Coles County $47.5 million

Effingham County $13.8 million

Peoria County $133.7 million

Source:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33498869/ns/us_news-the_stimulus_tracker#/all/all/il/all/

Uhm, guess what county has the highest unemployment rate but is receiving the least stimulus dollars?  Aren’t we special!

Today my husband, daughter and I vacuumed leaves out of three yards.  The first two yards were no problem – the third was truly the yard from hell.  The house is on Lake Shore Drive, not far from the hot water ditch and the front yard is a steep hill, a paradise for mountain goats and other four-legged agile creatures, not meant for lowly two-legged critters unless they have wings, while the back yard is terraced into three sections.  I’ve never seen so many leaves in one yard in my life!  The leaves were literally two feet deep in several nooks and crannies and three to four inches thick everywhere else.  The front yard was a broken hip waiting to happen.  I slipped and slid down the hill a few times – though somehow I didn’t go so far as to flip over the concrete retaining wall.  It got me to thinking of the many interesting projects I’ve gotten myself involved with in my husband’s business.

It’s hard to rate the absolute worst job we’ve done – it’s a toss up between heat stroke and hypothermia.  But it’s safe to say that I always pay the bigger price.  My husband will take on just about any job for money.  I’m much more selective and usually just let him find another relative or friend to con into helping him.  I steer clear for the most part but I have had my moments of insanity when I’ve volunteered.

There was the job of clearing out the back lot of a gas station on the corner of Eldorado and Main.  We moved old tires, piles of garbage, vehicle parts, leaves, several feet of composted dirt and other debris.  We also had to pull weeds out of the cracked parking lot and haul several loads of branches in a small trailer pulled by our old orange Chevette to our house.  My husband, and his wonderful business sense, quoted the job at a whole $100!  I made $50 that day for 10 hours of back breaking work and a few months later they tore down that stupid gas station and built a new one!

Then there was the time we pulled weeds from the hill of a lakeside home – on Lake Shore Drive again.  I’m beginning to hate Lake Shore Drive.  It was 95 degrees outside and I don’t know what I was thinking taking on so much work on such a hot day but I did and I paid dearly for it.  We hauled branches up the hill, up a flight of steps and threw them in the back of the truck – at least at that time we had upgraded from the Chevette.  The silliest thing was that the homeowner wanted all of the “weeds” pulled from the hill but I don’t think she realized that those plants were keeping her hill from eroding into the lake but the customer is always right – though I find they’re more crazy than right, more times than not.

I wasn’t exactly sane myself for taking on the work in the first place though I paced myself that day.  I kept myself hydrated but by the evening I was not feeling good at all.  When I got home I couldn’t cool myself down.  I took a cold shower.  It did nothing.  My skin was still hot to the touch.  I put a bag of ice on my head.  It didn’t do any good.  I couldn’t get my body temperature down and I didn’t have the strength to walk to the car to get to the hospital.  The only strength I had was to throw up and go back to bed.  I didn’t move a muscle in that bed for 14 hours.  I woke up in the same position as I had fallen asleep.  It was truly a horrible and frightening experience – near death experiences always are I assume.  Now, I no longer work outside when it’s 95 degrees.

Then there was the time when I mowed Park 101 in the sleet and snow for five hours.  This was early in my husband’s lawn mowing business and we really didn’t have the right equipment to take on so much property and apparently we didn’t have enough brains to know, you don’t mow in the snow.  I did pretty well. The cold doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the heat.  But there did come a point when I realized I was becoming quite delusional.  It no longer felt cold to me.  I no longer felt anything!  I did have the sense to say, enough was enough, and decided my life was worth more than some stupid grass, so I quit before I slipped into a coma.  But that night I remained frozen. Even with four blankets piled on top of me, my thighs were still freezer burnt.  I shivered for three hours but at least I didn’t get sick.  I was just cold.  But now I no longer mow in the snow.

I guess that’s what age does for you.  If you survive all of the stupid things you did when you were younger, you begin to know better.  But then again, here I am sore from head to toe for some stupid leaves.  Another lesson learned.  Pretty soon, I’ll just stick to my front porch, my dog and a good drink and enjoy the sound of blowing leaves – though my neighbors may not appreciate my newly found wisdom.