Roy Exum
There is a great story coming out of England after 24-year-old Jess Portelli went into a women’s clothing store to buy a summertime bikini. The chippy sales clerk told the plus-sized Portelli “girls like you shouldn’t wear bikinis.”
Jess immediately jumped on Facebook, showing a selfie wearing the bikini top and, as everybody could see, she’s much more darling than big. Underneath the picture she wrote, “Well, girl let me tell you something, I'm happy with myself and my biiiigggg tummy with tiger stripes, but you could have said the same thing to the girl who finally got out there and had the courage to wear a bikini and you just killed her confidence with one stupid comment.
"You can be any size and look good! Confidence is what makes you sexy and not just being a size 6!” which endeared her to viewers everywhere as the picture went viral on the Internet.
Especially intrigued were the store’s owners. Jess added, “Thank you for fat shaming me, thanks to you I got an awesome discount on my bikini. Much love, #fat, #confident girl!”
THE MORAL: It’s like Nora Ephron said, “Be the heroine in your life – not the victim.” Also, never forget one of life’s greatest truisms – “Whoever is trying to pull you down can only attempt it if they are already below you.”
That said, here are some other notes and news scraps I find in my pocket …
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Comedian H.L Hughley was on live radio the other day, the “Opie and Jim Norton” show on Sirius, and wasted no words about his feelings on the transgender restroom dust-up.
“With trans issues, what’s the difference between somebody who’s legitimately, this is who they are, and someone who’s just self-identifying?” Norton asked. “We don’t put any line on it anymore. If you say you are, you are, and that’s what’s kinda nuts.”
“And you know what’s crazy to me? I can just respect you, you can self-identify and tell me who you are. But like Caitlyn Jenner, you can tell me … I’ll call you Caitlyn, but your body thinks you’re a 67-year-old white man, and your neurologist is gonna tell you that you need a prostate exam,” Hughley said.
Mercy, if like was only as easy – and as funny!
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In Washington state they caught the guy who allegedly raped, tortured, and then hanged a 3-year-old dog after a relative called in a tip. James Leroy Evans, purportedly a 33-year-old biker with “some real anger issues,” told the police straight up, “I did it! I hung her!” he said. Asked why, he said the dog had eaten his pet iguana. He was released on $50,000 bond and must appear in court on April 26. Comments from readers include many who want the punishment to match exactly what happened to the dog.
Needless to add, Evans is receiving numerous death threats.
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The 2016 Camaro SS just got some fabulous publicity in Minnesota after police stopped 36-year-old male who was clocked by radar – hold on -- at 171 miles an hour. “You get used to seeing 65 or 70 and know what that looks like, but I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s like a rocket-on-wheels,” said Hermantown Deputy Chief Shawn Padden.
For the record, Padden’s patrol cruiser tops out about 135 mph but when the Camaro driver spotted the emergency lights that were fading in his rear-view mirror, the unidentified speeder pulled over. He was issued a misdemeanor careless driving citation, which could mean a fine up to $1,000, 90 days in jail and license revocation, all at the discretion of the judge. Needless to add, Chevrolet is thrilled over the speeding ticket, because the news of the car’s enormous athleticism is traveling almost as fast.
For the record, the driver claimed he had not altered the car in any way. A Camaro SS comes with a fuel-injected 455-horsepower engine and can go from 0 to 60 mph in 4 seconds flat. Chattanooga’s Chevrolet dealers, Mountain View Chevrolet and Integrity Chevrolet, both have several SS models in stock, starting just north of $40,000 to a “maxed out” models for about $10,000 more. Comparatively, a new 2016 Corvette with the same engine starts around $60-grand and goes up to a super-charged version that climbs over $100,000.
But, remember, we have living proof that these scamps with go over 170 mph the very moment one rolls off the showroom linoleum.
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Incidentally, word out of North Carolina is that state troopers will now ticket you if you are so much as one mile over the speed limit. The universal saying was always “Eight over you are fine, nine over you are mine,” but North Carolina now says why have a speed limit if you don’t enforce it.
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Neal Raisman, who has suffered from kidney disease for seven years, got so fed up with waiting he got some thick yellow tape and put the following message in big letters on his car’s rear window: “Got Kidney? I need 1 please. Call or text (his cell number.)”
He got over 100 calls … some were pranks and illegal offers … all due to his back window! An anonymous donor from central Ohio turned out to be a good match and surgery went perfect last Friday at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center. Time from car tape to adhesive tape: five months!
Neal’s wife said it was incredible. “How do you put a price on a second chance at life!”
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Phil Robertson, who has made millions with his “Duck Dynasty” empire, got the country’s liberals in a mighty froth after he gave the prayer at the start of the Duck Commander 500 NASCAR race at the Texas Motor Speedway last Sunday.
Robertson, who could care less what liberals think, took the mic and bellowed to the crowd:
"All right Texas, we got here via Bibles and guns, I’m fixin’ to pray to the one who made that possible. Father thank you for founding our nation. I pray Father that we don’t forget who brought us — you. Our faith in the blood of Jesus and his resurrection. Help us Father to get back to that. Help us dear God to understand that the men and women on my right are the U.S. military. On my right and on my left. Our faith in the U.S. military is the reason we are still here. I pray Father that we put a Jesus-man in the White House. Help us do that and help us all to repent, to do what is right, to love you more and to love each other. In the name of Jesus I pray, amen."
Editors at the website “Deadspin” called Robertson “an unapologetic bigot” and “a duck-call industrialist.” Again, the Duck Commander doesn’t care what “they” say and – while we are at it -- you shouldn’t, either.
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The best description I heard this week about someone who thinks a little too highly of himself: “He acts like somebody who has invented a vaccine for a disease that science doesn’t know about.”
royexum@aol.com