Minutes from the Red Hat Society Meeting, August 8

I was at our local coffee shop writing a sermon, when a group of 80 year old women stopped by and had a meeting. They were all wearing red hats, so they might be part of that Red Hat Society thing. Either way it was hilarious. Here's the notes (verbatim) that I took from across the room, with my own topical headings:

Race Relations
My granddaughter is married to a black man. Do they have troubles? No, its a good marriage, but everyone has troubles. Her kids are the cutest things. Mulatto, I guess you would call them. When they have birthday parties, they can only invite two friends, and they never invite white kids. Why can't more people be like that? Her daughter can't get a boyfriend. The two boys both have girlfriends, but nobody will date the girl. When she was younger, the school wouldn't believe she was bi-racial because she looks so white, but she has nappies in her hair. One time, her teacher told her to prove she was bi-racial, so she said, look at the nappies in my hair! Have you heard about that Klu-Klux-Clan in Indiana? Yeah, I've heard about that. That's terrible, people shouldn't discriminate.

Politics
I think Barack Obama would make a great president. Have you read his book? No. You should, its fantastic. I don't think Hillary would make a very good president. No, I don't think so either.
All I know is that either would be better than President Bush. I don't blame him, I blame his cabinet: they run him. They have no clue what they're doing.

Air Travel
I found out the hard way that you can't fit two people in an airplane bathroom. Did you drop something heavy in there? (Laughter) Well, my friend is married and her husband lives in Arizona and she lives in Grand Rapids: that's one way to keep a marriage working. Pilots aren't allowed to fly as much as they want. If you think you have to run from flight to flight, you should see pilots. They get off one flight and have to run to the next. Did you see NASA pilots were flying drunk? Its their own lives they're taking in their hands. Its just like people who get in cars and drive drunk. You have to be down to Grand Rapids two hours before a flight, then they put cancels on, and then you run around for a day and a half looking for a flight. My son had that. He yelled at the airport attendant because he needed to be at a wedding in Grand Rapids from La Guardia. He got on the flight, but they lost all of his luggage. He'll never find it back. My daughter says I need all my flight things in black and white. She bosses me around when I fly. I don't even know why I get the ticket. She bosses right up the counter and bla bla bla bla, and somehow we take off 10 minutes earlier on some other airline. All I get is a wad of paper and get on the plane. I don't even know why she lets me have any say in it. We never went anywhere that was actually on my tickets. Instead of driving, I fly to Milwaukee now. They shoot you across on a rubber band, I think. Its a World War II plane. Never do they get my luggage to my airport. One time we got all our luggage lost, so the pilot drove us to Wal-Mart to buy underwear. One time my grandson, who is a musician, lost all his luggage and someone drove him to Wal-Mart to get underwear, but his rental car broke down.

Auto Industry
There are so many recalls these days. What do you drive? Horse & buggy? (Laughter). I took my car in to get the oil changed, and the mechanic yelled at me. He said if I wait 3,000 miles to get my oil changed, I'd be dead before then. He said to change your oil according to the weather. If I let it keep going, all the oil would be on the floor and fill up my garage.

Air Conditioning
I very seldom turn my air conditioner on unless someone is with me. There are some places I can't go because its too cold. I was in Wal-Mart yesterday and it was way too cold. Marylou turns the air way up, but I can't handle it. I got pneumonia from the fourth car I had from the air conditioner. I tried sitting in the backseat and it didn't matter. Marylou liked it.

Animal Rights
What's that? An ant farm. Did you know they're illegal? They're illegal because they can carry things. My kids had those. Those are coffee beans! You can't watch ants doing their thing now. The humane society put a stop to ant farms. We used to sit their mesmorized watching them. My son wouldn't be quiet, wouldn't take a nap, until I got him an ant farm.

Submitted respectfully.