That is history. It’s BNA history. And we can’t just erase it.

Believe me, I love Dolly Parton. She helped put Nashville on the map. She invested millions to improve life for Tennesseans. It makes sense to name our airport after her.

But here’s what gets me: the majority of people don’t know anything about BNA, the original namesake of our airport. BNA has become one of the most important figures in airport code history, but barely anyone knows it. Is BNA's life not worth commemorating?

So, before we move forward with Dolly Parton Airport, I urge you all to better understand the life and impact of a scrappy little dreamer named BNA.

Let’s review the facts before erasing history:

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Dolly Parton had a razor-sharp wit. In a 1982 interview, she famously said: “It takes a lot of money to look this cheap!”

BNA also had a way with words. Onstage at the 1989 Air Transport Association Glamour Awards, BNA quipped, “Tonight’s champagne is so cheap, I asked myself, ‘Who’s paying? Eastern Airlines?!?!’” (At the time, beleaguered Eastern Airlines had just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The filing had a devastating impact on MIA and ATL, who were in the audience that night. The joke was poorly received. BNA was banned from subsequent ATAGAs.)

Dolly Parton was a champion for literacy. The Imagination Library, one of her many charitable foundations, has distributed over 330 million free books to children.

BNA’s scathing tell-all memoir, BNA: The ‘NA’ is for ‘NAshville’ and The ‘B’ is for ‘Bitch’, sold over 50,000 copies and is banned in 17 countries.

Known as the “Queen of Country,” Dolly Parton was one of the most honored performers in country music history.

Along with HOT, BOI, DZA, and LIL, BNA was a member of “CODE HOEZ,” a short-lived musical act that Lou Pearlman described as his “biggest regret.”

Dolly Parton used royalties from Whitney Houston’s cover of “I Will Always Love You” to revitalize a low-income neighborhood in Nashville.

BNA used the proceeds from The ‘B’ is for ‘Bitch’ to launch a smear campaign against the Air Transport Association Glamour Awards. Over a dozen domestic airports cited “severe emotional damage” after an ad calling for the “complete destruction of all airports that aren’t BNA” ran during the 1990 Super Bowl. BNA’s counter suit went to the Supreme Court, which ruled in its favor on the grounds of free speech, thus solidifying BNA’s legacy in legal history.

Dolly’s philosophy: “If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”

BNA’s philosophy: “If you don’t like my mess, move to TYS*!!”

(*Knoxville Airport)

Legacies are complicated. Let’s not be so quick to judge!

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EXHIBIT A

7-year-old requests to call his grandmother, who lives up the street. He wants to know if she’s free to play CandyLand. I place the call, then hand him my iPhone.

He holds it in his palm at waist-level. I whisper that he needs to put the phone to his ear. He raises it to his nose. I flinch. We taught him body parts, right?

A quiet, distant voice comes out of the device:

GRANDMOTHER: Hello?

Child stares at phone.

GRANDMOTHER: Julia?

CHILD: No.

GRANDMOTHER: Ok. Who’s this?

:: Heavy breathing::

CHILD: Me.

GRANDMOTHER: Hi, honey! How are…

**CALL ENDS**

EXHIBIT B

I am driving with both kids. My phone rings, it’s my dentist’s office. I pick up using hands-free Bluetooth.

ME: Hello?

CHILD #1: ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?

I shake my head and put my finger to my mouth.

DENTIST: Hi! Is this Julia?

CHILD #1: WHO IS THAT?

ME: Yes.

CHILD #2: WHO IS THAT?

DENTIST: Just calling to confirm your appointment tomorrow at…

CHILD #1: IS THAT GRAMMIE?

CHILD #2: THAT’S NOT GRAMMIE!!!! GRAMMIE DOESN’T EVEN SOUND LIKE THAT.

CHILD #1: YES SHE DOES.

CHILD #2: NO SHE DOESN’T.

::Hysterical crying::

DENTIST: … 2pm.

ME: I’ll be there!

DENTIST: Great! Have a nice day.

ME: You, too. Goodbye.

DENTIST: Bye!

**CALL ENDS**

Both kids are asleep.

EXHIBIT C

My husband, who is running errands with our daughter, calls me.

Me: Hey!

::heavy breathing::

Me: Hello?

Distant, quiet voice of my husband; whispering something about ears.

Child: MOMMY?

The noise is so loud that, for a moment, I think I’ve been shot.

Me: Hi, Sweetie. Are you and Daddy…

**CALL ENDS**

EXHIBIT D

We are staying at a hotel with a bunch of other families. The kids discover the hotel phone. Apparently, you can call other rooms with it. My husband and I are alone in our room while our kids visit friends across the hall. Our room phone rings.

ME: Hello?

::Heavy breathing::

::Heavy breathing from another person::

::A third heavy-breather detected::

I wonder if we’ve all been living near an environmental hazard that causes asthma.

ME: Hellooo?

CHILD: Is Poop there?

:: hysterical laughter/wheezing in background::

ME: Yes, and who is calling?

::The phone reciever on the other end seems to be shooting through a wind tunnel at terminal velocity::

:: one minute passes::

CHILD: IT’S POOP!!!!

**CALL ENDS**

My eardrum explodes, but I’m proud of the kids’ phone etiquette. This phone call had a purpose (a request to speak to Poop) and an identified caller (also Poop). Perhaps the kids will be OK, afterall.

::blood pools in ears::

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My kid…

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Speaking of inbox, you can subscribe to The Dummiss here:

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In 2025, I placed a total of nine Amazon orders for my family of four. It would’ve been less, but an out-of-state family member had a health crisis. I panic-Amazon’d them a bunch of supplies. Once healed, they were all “this stuff sucks” and promptly returned it. So grateful for their recovery every single day.

In 2026, I’m pushing for zero orders on Amazon.*

Imagine if we all got down to Zero Amazon. I am not special. I am not less busy than you (eh, debatable). Mostly, I am not better than you. I chose my villain: Jeff Bezos. I believe that overconsumption masked as Amazon “convenience” has created an irreparable humanitarian and environmental crisis. His bootstrap business story is boring and his yacht is ugly.

But also! I love the Kardashians (literally no notes). Elon Musk’s biography is one of my favorite books. I use one full roll of paper towels every single day (“Bounty: from my cold. dead. hands.”). I can be wasteful and an Asshole Apologist, I just don’t use Amazon for the personal needs of my family.

If I —a type B creature of comfort—can do it, so can you. Here’s how. (Skip ahead for tips, or keep reading for an important story about me defending my domicile without pants on.)

*A hard truth: I made one Amazon order in 2026.

It was a beginner piano songbook. I tried to buy it anywhere else, but came up empty. So, I gave up. Just like my kid wants to give up piano.

At 3:59 am, I woke up to a person shining a flashlight through my front door. The last time I woke up this way, two dudes were chainsawing the catalytic converter out of my Prius. Not this time. This was an Amazon person, trying to navigate my pitch-black porch without breaking her ankle and/or getting shot. With a surge of adrenaline, I ripped open the package, and there it was: Stupid Piano Songs for Little Turds: A Beginner’s Journey Through Bezos’s Dystopian Hell.

There are a million angles for debate here. Nobody lives the same life. Amazon is the lifeblood for small businesses. Charities/teachers/advocates depend on Amazon Wishlists to fill critical gaps that are actively ignored by billionaires. In fact, billionaires MAKE money every time a poor person buys a poor teacher a glue stick for a poor student.

Writers can self-publish their books on Amazon and make decent money. If I decide to self-publish my book on Amazon, I will probably ask all of you to buy it. If someone says “I thought you hated Amazon?” I would look that person in the eyes and say “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you feeling ok?” and then I’d have that person destroyed. (see: trash person).

Anyway, if you’re interested in taking an Amazon break in whatever capacity you find realistic, here are some things I’ve learned along the way:

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Tips to De-Amazon Your Life.

1. Stop buying stuff, period. It’s all trash.

2. Fine. I’ll elaborate.

3. Make your bathroom cabinets your new Amazon. Don’t buy anything new until you’ve used every weird product you’ve ever shoved under there. (Tip courtesy of Ann Patchett’s My Year of No Shopping, canon for anyone looking to declutter or boycott billionaires).

4. Do library stuff. It’s literally all free and won’t clutter your house.

5. Do online library stuff. Your library card gets you free NYT access. I do not pay for any online news subscriptions. I read two print New Yorker articles a week because I value deep reporting. I scroll through The New York Post and TMZ every hour of every day because I am a garbage monster who fuels herself with conservative-leaning accounts of the Gilgo Beach serial killer and freak decapitations on roller coasters.

6. Cancel Amazon Video (and Disney, too, why not). Do the kids miss certain shows? I don’t know. I don’t care. As long as I can watch the Boardwalk Empire cast in Vuori joggers, I’m good.

7. Join your neighborhood Buy Nothing Facebook group. Yea, I’m on Facebook. Do I think Zuck is evil? Yes. But I told you, I only have one villain. My fist can only do so much shaking.

8. Try to only buy things that are available at the grocery store. This is one of Ann Patchett’s rules. There are lots of things that we regularly ordered from Amazon available at our Kroger. (What if I had said Whole Foods? Can you imagine?)

9. If you’re using a Ring Camera to protect against porch pirates, stop ordering so much stuff to your porch. Do you see what is happening here??

10. Burn your Ring camera.

11. Burn your Alexa.

12. Generally, as a rule, I do not buy any new clothing. At this point 85% of my closet is secondhand OR clothes I’ve had for more than 10 years. I don’t store off-season clothes. Every single item I own —winter and summer— are front and center where I can see them every day and think “this is what I have” and be ok with that (except if I’m bloated).

13. I do not buy new clothing for my children. We go to Goodwill, vintage stores, or ThredUp.com. Enter the brands you like (even the bad ones: Zara! Lululemon! Cat & Jack! H&M!) enter their sizes, and there you go, thousands of options for 1/4 the price.

14. I do buy new underwear, in person at a department store, or if I must, Target. I own two bras, including a sports bra I had in college.

15. Work to create a world where “busy, working moms” don’t feel like they have to order everything to their doorstep just to make life happen. Let’s make it easier to carve time for mindful shopping and decision-making.

16. Stop buying stuff, period. It’s all trash.

In this report, I will be discussing the theme of wealth. In 2025, we learned th…

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• Chronic illness is killing the American population. Our only hope is to #MAHA.

• I was born 10-ish months ago, but I didn’t “wake up” until today when I found an open jar of beef tallow on the kitchen table. #MAHA

• To heal our sick culture we must treat root causes, not symptoms. #MAHA

• Our country has lost the skill of critical thinking. Some folks are happy to obey their master’s every command. Not me. I like to jump up on the table and really dig into that jar of beef tallow for some answers, you know? #MAHA

• I may have a soft, curly white coat, beady black eyes, and a compulsion to eat grass until I barf… but I 👏 am 👏 not 👏a 👏 sheep. #MAHA

• Let’s face it: 70% of American children are overweight. What if the solution has been all over our noses this entire time? Instead of pumping them up with pills and vaccines, let’s smear some healthy beef tallow all over the children’s plump arms and legs. Just a thought for the #freethinkers. #MAHA

• We don’t even have to bake the children. We can just nibble the beef tallow off of their juicy fingers and bellies and wrestle them and swat their faces until they get all #MAHA

• …Or, we can just let them keep eating and drinking poison that’s packed with seed oils, red dyes, and other toxins that aren’t at all beefy and delicious. Your choice, America! #MAHA

• Listen, before I knocked this jar of beef tallow onto the floor and dragged it into my master’s bed, I thought that medication was the answer for everything. Separation anxiety? Here’s some Prozac in cheese. Leaf blower anxiety? Here’s some Trazodone in cheese. Eat a dirty diaper in a playground sandbox? Here’s some emergency abdominal surgery. #MAHA

• Anything to enrich Big Pharma and greedy Dr. Greeley of Sunny Side Nonprofit Rescue Vets and Shelter. #MAHA

• My vet is a sheep. #MAHA

• Get this: After eating the entire jar of beef tallow and getting the empty jar stuck on my snout, my anxiety is GONE. I haven’t even thought about thunderstorms or That Bird I saw out the window That One Time. Oh wow. What a coincidence. #MAHA

• People are going to say I’m a “menace.” That I “like to bite children.” Or that I “diarrhea all over the house because I ate too much beef tallow.” But I don’t really care what people say. Most of history’s radicals didn’t either. #MAHA.

• Now is not the time to be complacent. If we don’t speak up against the healthcare industry now, who knows what could happen in the future? In the next 500 years, we could live in a world where healthcare “professionals” shoot microchips into our neck blubber while we obliviously lick peanut butter off a spoon. Or maybe there’ll be mass forced sterilizations in hospitals and shelters across America but we’ll be too drugged up on pup cups to realize that we no longer have reproductive organs. It could happen. #foodforthought #MAHA

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Since my daughter sits in the front seat and has eyeballs, she took it all in. What does that mean? Why is that funny?

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1. Arsenic (leached from body of toddler with tuberculosis)

2. Arsenic (leached from body of toddler who ate brown rice)

3. Hydrogen

4. SSRIs (leached from decomposed bowels of shipyard prostitute who didn’t have interest or pleasure in doing the things that once brought her joy)

5. Formaldehyde (leached from bodies of clergymen embalmed with formaldehyde)

6. Formaldehyde (leached from hair of ironworker who had Brazilian blowout)

7. Oxygen

8. Mercury (leached from the drawn-and-quartered remains of “Lord Shiny Silverpants,” the quirky clown of North Yorkshire)

9. Arsenic (leached from maggot-infested body of grey wolf that ate the toddler who ate brown rice)

10. Splash of avocado oil (leached from the eye-socket stab wound of syphilitic teenage rat catcher)

11. Fluoride

#3: Fake Dog Poop on Our Deck (Summer 2020)

Background: Nate and I gave our kids fake dog poop for Christmas. At the time, they were 3 and 5 years old, horrible ages for proper pranks. Any time I’d put the fake poop down for a visitor, one of them would scream “THIS IS FAKE POOP” before the potential victim even got out of their car. I learned to not inv…

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I had coffee with my younger self today.

We both arrived 10 minutes early. She wore her hair in a fresh blowout, I had a one-day old blowout. We both had the same weird bruise on our right forearm, mine slightly more yellow.

“Are you actually a younger me or are you, like, me from yesterday?” I ask.

She laughs nervously. “Yea, I’m from Tuesday I think.” It’s Wednesday.

“I never know what day it is,” we say at the same time. We blush.

We stare at each other silently for three minutes.

She wants to see the back of my head. “Lemme see if we have a bald spot.”

Before I know it, she’s standing behind me, tussling and roughing up my head. “Ow!”

She announces that it’s not a bald-bald spot, “but it seems kinda thin back there.” I immediately stand up and tell her to turn around. I follow her back to her seat and push her head forward. “Ow!”

We slowly chase each other around the tiny bistro table, trying to catch a glimpse of the back of our heads. My younger self bumps into a random dude and jostles his coffee. We blush. We sit back down.

“Let’s just lay off the high ponies, ok?” I say. She nods. We’re both out of breath.

We stare at each other some more. This time together is a gift, I think. I can be the person Young Me needed yesterday, and she can force me to reflect on the life I’ve lived thus far.

“I wonder what the back of our head looks like from up above,” we say at the same time.

Without missing a beat, my younger self goes to the lofted second floor of the coffee shop while I lay my head on the table. I loll my head side to side so that she gets all the angles. Some of my hair drapes across the croissant of the woman sitting next to me.

My younger self is taking pictures. I know this because her phone is on high volume and I can hear the snaps.

We’re back at the table, loudly analyzing each picture of my head. We’re sitting side-by-side.

I’m close enough now to get a good look at her right eyelid. She lifts her hand to cover it.

“Do you think insurance would cover an eye lift if we pretend that we can’t see out of our right eye?” We say at the same time. We blush.

“So, what’s the future like for us?” She asks.

I smile softly. She’s younger, I need to be gentle. “You should know that there will be great disappointment.”

She looks concerned, but she’s also looking at my frown lines. “Can you be more specific?”

“Your selfish decisions at the grocery store affect us all. You didn’t get anything sweet.”

“I got coconut flakes.”

“COCONUT FLAKES ARE SHIT!!” I say way too loudly. A family sitting next to us moves tables.

I take a deep breath, lean in closer. “Besides, spoiler alert: you eat the whole bag before you even leave the parking lot.”

We stare at one another for another four minutes.

I tell her to walk to the front door and back because I want to see how those jeans look from behind. She does, then makes me do the same. Then we switch again. Neither of us notices that we are bumping into patrons, spilling coffee, and blocking the line.

While I’m up, I reach behind the counter and grab some masking tape. I sit back at the table with a piece of tape pulling my right eyelid up above my eyebrow.

“You look amazing,” she says. This warms my heart. I slide the tape dispenser across the table.

A barista approaches the table. “I’m so sorry, but we’re going to have to ask you to leave.”

My younger self has tape across her bald spot, down her neck and behind her ears, pulling everything uncomfortably taught. I have removed my shirt, wearing just a bra and a bunch of tape pulled taught across my cleavage. I look up at the barista with my very dry right eye.

I gasp. The barista is me from 25 years ago, working her first job. She asks us to leave, again. There’s so much I want to share with her: how everything works out, how we have a wonderful family. instead, I say, simply: “OK, BUT FIRST — TURN AROUND REAL QUICK!”

To the couple that wants to get a puppy before having a baby:

Don’t do it.

You’ll convince yourself that a puppy is good training for a baby. That’s not true. “Life with a baby” is not the same as “life with a baby and a demanding young dog that sometimes has diarrhea and needs to go out in the middle of the night.”

You’ll convince yourself that it’s ok be…

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Here are some things that kept me distracted in the waiting room:

Reading his pre-surgery checklist and pretending it was a very misguided prep list for a first date.

• Shower with antibacterial soap

• NO lotions, deodorant, cologne

• Glasses, no contacts

• Big shirt

• No wedding ring

• No money

Only thing missing was “bring wife,” which he did.

Flipping through Awake! magazine, the only reading material in waiting room that wasn’t a Bible.

Just kidding, it WAS a Bible!

Watching the Great American Family Channel and Googling Great American Family Channel

There was a TV in the waiting room that only played the Great American Family Channel. When my husband is under the knife, nothing soothes me more than an episode of “County Rescue,” a show where a group of young (white) EMTs have their faith tested (not in the sexy way) with every 911 call (from another white person). If the programmers thought they could redeem themselves with a “Murder, She Wrote” marathon, they were right!

PRO: Baby has no idea what is happening, who they are, or why they’re staring at the backseat of a Prius.

CON: You have no idea what is happening, who you are, where you’re going, or who’s driving (it’s you).

INTERESTING: 78% of grandparents can’t figure how to strap an infant into its …

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1. “I’m going to need a scarf. A very long scarf.”

2. “Do skiers wear hats?”

3. “A skier would NEVER wear those.” — said to a dear friend as she held up a perfect pair of snow pants at Goodwill. This friend is a mother and wife to snowboarders and has logged more hours on Utah slopes than my son has been alive. She is also a professional stylist. For activewear brands, among others.

4. “Where is your scarf? I need it right now.” — Sept. 5, 2024

5. “This will be my ski.” Holds up homemade shot-ski, a relic from our 2020 neighborhood quarantine cocktail club.

6. “What’s THAT supposed to mean!???” — to his father, who asked if he were ready to “hit the slopes, bro.”

7. “What’s THAT supposed to mean!???” — to his mother, who mentioned “fresh pow-pow.”

8. “What’s THAT supposed to mean!???” — to both his parents, who told him he was holding a shot-ski, not a real ski.

9. “These pants are HUGE! I can’t wear them.” Halloween morning. First time wearing snow pants in his life.

10. “They are broken. They make a SOUND when I walk!!!” First time wearing snow pants in his life.

11. “Everybody in Colorado skis in a scarf.” This one was tricky, but we found the missing piece of the puzzle: an actual puzzle piece from his United States geography puzzle.

Ladies and Gentlemen, everybody in Colorado: