TELL ALL BOOKS

Okay what is the gag with these things? Who in the world doesn’t know that books can talk? So how can they tell you anything?

See I figured this part out, but apparently some people haven’t. And shoot is they are silly enough to think you are going to buy some talking book, other than those kids books, then I guess they can waste their money on them. However I ain’t going to waste mine even if I did have some money to spend, which normally I don’t.

But this did get me to thinking. If tell all books are all that popular then perhaps I would give a shot and making one myself. Heck I’m a writer and I’m always making up junk so what would be the problem with making up some really tell all junk?

I mean from what I can figure on these tell all things it is generally boring junk anyway. The one’s I have seen have been some famous person or somebody who claims to know famous people telling whatever they claim is to tell all.

However you know when I saw a stack of those books in a bookstore and decided to check it out, well shoot I guess all the ones I picked up were broken since when I opened them not a single one made a sound. Sort of proved what I said in the first place that this was some kind of gag.

What really shocked me was overhearing these two ladies talking and the one was saying how she had bought a copy of the book and it was really interesting. All I can say is that if she found not hearing anything all that interesting then she sure had some pretty low standards for entertainment.

I suppose though it don’t matter from my point of view since I at least am being smart enough to fall for that stuff. And you know it does sort of worry me though. Heck are all people who go and buy books at some book store that strange?

If so then I guess when I work on my tell all book I’ll just have too make sure it is extra weird. Only problem right now is I want mine to be a real tell all type of speaking book.

And so before I worry about what I write I got to figure out how to make it talk. Oh I figure I can use a DVD portable player. The big hang up is with the darn speakers. I don’t think too many people are going to buy a book with a couple of speakers dangling out of it.

Well while I work on figuring out how to solve that problem I going to start practicing my speaking voice. After all it won’t be much of a tell all book if I don’t do any saying.

I’m sort of wondering if I can even toss in a song or two. Shoot then it would be a tell all and sign all book. Now that would be a real bargain if you ask me.

KNOCK, KNOCK, WHACK

The other morning we got a knock on our door at like eight am. It was a Saturday and both Otis and I were really tired from a long week. So we were hardly awake when the knock came.

Well I got up and went and answer the door. It turned out to be a stupid salesman. Let me tell you that buying frozen meat from some door to door salesman at that time on a Saturday was not my idea of fun.

I told the guy I wasn’t interest, but let me tell you this guy just didn’t want to leave. He kept trying to bug me with more questions like how come I don’t like to save money, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah.

Finally I told the guy to leave. I wish he had taken my advice because he just kept blabbing away like I would buy his stuff if he kept talking long enough.

My solution was simple enough. I sort of persuaded him to leave and shut up with the use of my trusting wooden buddy. Oh I didn’t actually have to use it on him. Just show him it and give it a couple of practice swings. That sort of was enough.

Or so I thought. About an hour later when Otis was up the dude came back. Only Otis didn’t know I had already talked to him.

I was in the kitchen at the time so I didn’t find out till a few minutes later that the guy had come back. And boy was I pissed to have him come back by after I told him no.

The thing was I forgot to tell Otis about the guy having been there before. And without thinking I just grabbed my old trusty wooden buddy, figuring I’d be darn sure I got my message across to the guy.

It might have easier if Otis hadn’t gotten in the way. He sort of accidentally got hit by the swing I intended for that sales dude.

At least the dude did finally leave, which was a good thing I guess. As for Otis, well when he woke up he was sort of confused and couldn’t remember what happen.

Oh he had a headache, which is to be expected I reckon. However I sort of try to fake it and mentioned that it looked like he might have fallen. Which was sort of true since he did fall after I accidentally hit him with the bat.

It was a good thing that it was Saturday. That way he did have all day to rest. About the only minor point of frustration was that in order to help Otis feel better I ended up fixing dinner. I didn’t mind that much, only what Otis wanted was, you guessed it, STEAK!

So I guess the lesson I learned in this situation was not to bash my buddy if a steak salesman comes to the door! Er, close enough.

NOBODY'S HOME

You know this is one of those things that can be so darn frustrating. You decide to go visit somebody and fight the traffic and all the hassles just to get to their place and then when you get there they aren’t home!

And I don’t want anybody wise guy saying you could have checked first! I already thought of that. But sometimes you can’t reach them because they got an answer machine or you talked to them first and they said they wouldn’t be home till a given time. However when you show up when they say they will be home they still aren’t there.

The thing is while this might be no big deal to some folks, to me it still is. Mainly that is because I always like to plan these things out. I set up the time to be there and then plan a whole day around the event. That includes time for errands and chores.

Otis considers that part the most important. It is that he doesn’t care about visiting folks. He just knows when we are going to get to borrow the diaper service van and so tries to get everything we need done in the time we got it available.

Which is why visiting for us is a big deal. With my buddy Otis you can be darn sure that if something don’t figure into his “schedule” in that regard then we are going to be in big trouble. Sometimes I sort of wonder too how he manages to figure in the amount of time we are going to spend visiting with someone. Doesn’t seem like a conversation can be figured out that way, but he manages.

He does it in a pretty cool way too. Otis will sit there and just casually glance at his wristwatch and then without looking more worried, he manage to change the subject and before I know it we are saying good bye and on the road.

Anyway, like I said the one thing that sort of messes up the whole routine is when somebody isn’t home when we go to visit. Especially when they were told we were coming. It is almost like they intentionally didn’t want to see us. But I don’t think that is the case though. At least they never admit to it later when we do finally see them. It is always some emergency that came up at the last minute. Personally I never knew that one person’s cat could have that many emergencies, but I guess some cats getting sicker more often than others. I didn’t know though they had that much trouble with their claws. But according to the one person we went to see he had to take his cat to the vet for a claw emergency. He never did actually explain what it was, but all I know is he never was home plenty of times after we would call.

Now one other thing that bugs me on this is when the stupid guys at STINK say that I never stay home. Why I heard them talking the other day when they didn’t know I was listening. One of them mentioned about how when it came to understanding things that with me nobody was home. Man was that guy sure full of it. Heck if I know somebody is going to visit, I’m always sure that I stay home.

But then I’m not sure how that has much to do with understanding stuff. Guess it takes all kinds huh?

HERE NO EVIL

You know I love it when Dr. Hemoglobin gets so darn philosophical and declares some site as “grime” free. It just sounds so unbelievably impressive.

I only wish when he did this that it turned out to actually be that way. But a lot of times it seems like somebody forgot to tell the griminals that some place was grime free.

And to me that is kind of important if you are going to assume they aren’t around to mess the place up. Because let me tell you there is nothing more embarrassing for us as grimefighters than to look like complete idiots about grime by thinking we already cleaned up some place and it still is filthy.

Heck we sure don’t need any help in terms of looking like morons. Sometimes we manage that without any effort. And to think we never even had any special training in that regard either. It just sort of comes naturally, which I suppose is a good thing in some way. Not sure quite what, but I reckon good somehow.

Now what Otis does to try and solve the problem in terms of this grime free business is to use a camera. He takes a picture of the place, but tries to do it in a way that doesn’t show the grime spots.

Plus when he can’t do that he knows somebody who can take pictures and make them look perfect. Otis has used the guy when he needed pictures of himself for that dating service and wanted them to make him look a lot thinner than he really is.

But in any case, my buddy is real good at times with the camera thing. When he shows the picture to Dr. Hemoglobin it seems to make him happy enough that he doesn’t even check out the place in person.

Well at least not right away. That normally gives us a chance to honestly try and fix some messed up place before he does show up.

I suppose in a way that is kind of silly. But my buddy figures that clean is like the one thing in life that Dr. Hemoglobin really gets excited about. So he hates to do anything that would ruin his chance to smile.

Which I can hardly blame my buddy for thinking that is a good idea. After all when Dr. Hemoglobin is in a good mood thinks at STINK just seem to work so much easier and better.

Let me tell you folks for us grimefigthers having our boss in a good mood can make the difference between us getting a garbage truck or diaper service van to use that had all its wheels and a full tank of gas. Believe me when you are out on some assignment or picking up trash having the vehicle run out of gas is not a way to enjoy the day.

So if that means we got to show our boss a place that can be said that hear there is no evil as in grime it works for us. At least a whole lot better than having truck with gas gauges on empty!

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: "If you aren't happy and want to show it, slap what you can."

BEST OF THE LEAST

There are some people who talk about being the best of the best. And that’s cool. Being the best at something is great.

I just wish that the people who thought they were the best were really as great as they thought. When they aren’t let me tell you those people can be such a pain to deal with.

That’s why Otis and I like to do what we can as Super Hero grimefighting types to encourage little kids to do the best they can. We sort of like to try and help them become the best they can be. And if we find some poor little guy who is kind of shy and backwards we figure trying to make him feel good about himself is even more important.

See that is the part, which really bugs me at times. I mean how is the poor dude who ain’t great going to become at least as best as he can be if everyone is always on his case? From the way I see it complaining at him all the time only makes things worse.

Course you know the tough part at times is finding kids willing to let us inspire them. Oh we try, but I don’t know it is hard at times to find al that many kids who get real excited about the idea of fighting grime.

One thing I did learn though. If we do go out on one of our efforts to encourage we never do it right after we finish our garbage route. Well not at least if we can’t stand down wind.

However outside of remember that little rule everything else is no problem. And let me tell you on those occasions when we get somebody to listen, man it sure must be entertaining because so often they end up laughing the whole time.

Now as for me, I don’t know, but I find it real cool that I can make people smile. But Otis seems to get a little annoyed by it all.

Like the other day when he and I had just finished our trash route and stopped to get something to drink. There were these kids at the convenience store sitting on bikes. And we went up to talk to them.

But they just seemed to want to ask us silly questions and snicker a lot. So eventually I gave up on them and went inside to get a drink for Otis and myself.

As for the kids, well they went inside to get some snacks. I came back and gave Otis his drink. But I guess he was so distracted by being annoyed over those kids laughing that when he got behind the wheel of the garbage truck he ended up not watching where he was going and ran over those kids' bikes.

And then funny thing was that after that I noticed in the side mirror those kids must have thought about what we said and look real serious while looking at their squished bikes. As for Otis he sure looked so darn happy after that. Guess he new he had impressed thse kids after all.

WAITING FOR THE PAINT TO DRY

The other day we were over at this friend of my buddy Otis’ where the guy lives in this house. I never quite understood why he and Otis are even friends since the guy doesn’t work as a grimefighter so he isn’t a super hero or even a garbage man.

I guess the main reason they are friends is because the guy loves Spam as much as Otis does. And that’s okay I guess. But let me tell you sitting around and listening to them getting all excited talking about canned meat doesn’t excite me that much.

However since Otis normally likes me to tag along I go with him. Not sure why exactly, but I sort of get the idea that my being there gives Otis an excuse when he gets bored and wants to leave since he always mention having to run errands that I asked him to do. Which would be fine if I had asked him to do any errands, but normally I haven’t.

Anyway the other day we were over there and let me tell you when it comes to rambling over weird junk this dude is a whiz. He’s always saying strange stuff that just don’t make any sense to me.

Sometimes I just ignore it, but this one case I really couldn’t. He and Otis were talking about politics. Not my idea of a good time, but they were enjoying themselves.

They were discussing how the government was going to fix Social Security. Personally I’m not all that clear on what Social Security is, but I got the impression it has to do with old retired folks that are constipated. They were talking about budget problems and seniors so I reckoned that meant this Social Security problem that need fixing had something to do with old folks having trouble going to the bathroom.

I would have figured that you know a good laxative would have taken care of that problem. But that didn’t seem to be the case from the way Otis and his pal were talking.

That’s when they started discussing deficits and ways that might help fix this Social Security and it was going to take help from congress. It was then that Otis’s pal mentioned that what ever they did you would have to wait for the paint to dry to find out if it really did any good.

Well I’m never quite heard what it was that they expected Congress to paint, but I’m assuming since this has to do with old folks it meant they needed to put a coat of paint on some retirement home. I got no idea how painting it would take care of fixing the Social Security problem for sure. What I’m guessing is that they thought a fresh coat of paint would maybe make the old folks feel mellower. And I guess that would relax them and perhaps help solve their constipation problem.

Gee funny, but I never imagined watching paint dry would be a possible cure for constipation. But I guess you can learn something new from time to time. And maybe next time when they are talking they might even getting around to mentioning what color paint too.

WATCHING THE GRASS GROW

Do any of you think this is a good form of entertainment? I mean I tried it once after hearing some guys over at STINK talk about it, but I just couldn’t see the fun in it. So there must be some kind of mystery to seeing the excitement that I don’t quite get.

Course I realize that there are plenty of things like that out there that somebody things is fun and don’t seem like it to somebody else. I know a while ago I was over at this place where the sell home improvement stuff. Things like shovels, grass, heck just about anything you could want for a house I suppose to improve it.

Now to me living in an apartment most of that kind of stuff doesn’t appeal to me very much. Oh I guess that’s cool if the house thing is a big deal in your life, but for me I don’t know I don’t get all that excited over paint and wallpaper.

Anyway there I was checking out the grass junk. Thinking to myself if I looked hard enough I’d find something there to make me understand why somebody would get all jazzed about watching grass growing.

That’s when I saw this dude talking to this guy that worked at the store. And this dude was asking all kinds of questions about different kinds of grass and lawn mowers and a whole lot of other stuff that I had no idea about or cared to think of in terms of grass.

But let me tell you to this dude you would have figured there was nothing more important in the world than grass. I would have sworn if you could eat the stuff he would be the kind that would. In fact he even some pictures in his wallet of his lawn that he was showing them to the guy that worked there.

Well let me tell you I was impressed with somebody so fond of his lawn he kept pictures of it in his wallet. Now that is a hobby somebody sure takes serious.

Still as much as I listened and tried to understand, in the end a lawn to me was just a lawn. Oh I did take the time to listen enough to hear where the guy lived.

I figured I would drop by and check out his lawn for myself. I thought maybe if I saw it I might see something about it that made it look extra cool. But when I saw it I couldn’t tell how it was better than anyone else’s lawn as I could tell.

In fact I sort of felt sorry for the dude since here he was so darn proud of this lawn and honestly it wasn’t that special. So I figured you know, perhaps I would do something to sort of help him improve it and make it special.

And the only thing I could think of that might make it better was to say make it look more green. I went over and bought myself a bunch of bright green paint. Then late on night went by and painted his grass a real pretty color of bright green.

Course I didn’t want to you know take any credit for the improvement so I never told him. Then I got busy and sort of forgot about the lawn thing.

That was until I had to go to that home improvement place again. And that same fella was there. Only this time he didn’t seem to be bragging about his lawn being so cool. Not sure what happen, but he was talking about having to plant a new lawn and was checking out fertilizer. Guess sometimes if you spread it too thick then you end up having to spread a new layer when the old one don’t work any longer. As for me, well I’ll just let that dude worry about having all the fun of watching the grass grow, I’d rather watch a movie.

POUNDS GOOD

Oh yeah, nothing to me is better than some nice big hunk of steak that has been made nice and easy to chew because it got pounded into being that way. Personally I’m a big fan of meat. I love all the good stuff that you can have that involves meat in one form or another. Like burgers, steaks, ribs and any other cool way you want to charbroil a dead cow’s tasty parts.

However I think my love of steak ain’t quite the same as some people. In fact there are some people who I guess think of steak and meat in general in a whole lot different way that makes sense to me.

Take for example the other day. I was watching this spy movie and they were talking about how the fate of the world was a steak. Well I mean I’ll agree having a nice barbecue is great, but I hardly plan on inviting the whole world. I ain’t got that much room on the grill. So I guess the fate part had to do with the lucky ones that got invited to the cook out.

But you know I sat through that whole dumb movie and they never did eat a single piece of meat. Not even a burger. So they might have been kind of sharp for spies, but they sure didn’t know a darn thing that counted in terms of beef that’s for sure.

It is like when I was watching this other movie about these two Army dudes who were out doing what Army dudes normally do I guess. And they mentioned that what they were doing was important because National Defense was at steak. Again just like that darn spy movie I never saw them bite into a single ounce of steak or even a burger. Now I ask you what the heck is wrong with these people if they equate beef with something like National Defense and never bother to eat one single ounce of steak?

I’m telling you somebody should at least point them in the direction of the nearest grocery store. And if that wasn’t enough help I suppose you could take them back to the meat department. Gee that sure seems like a lot of trouble to mess with guys that spend a whole movie shooting people and getting beat up a lot and never once find a steak in the process. Not sure if they are that confused on the subject of beef that it would help do you?

Of course spies and Army guys aren’t the only ones that seem to have this problem. Apparently some pretty darn famous folks get confused on the subject too.

The other day I turned into this program that was suppose to be a roast of somebody. So I figured you know they had made a roast to look like some famous person. Seemed like a cool idea. I got no idea why you would bother to do that with some roast you were just going to gobble down, but hey they seemed to think it was a good idea.

Anyway I spent the whole time watching them and not one did they ever bring out that roast. All they did was stand around all night and make jokes. Sounded to me like they forgot how long it took to cook the roast and were stalling to keep from boring people.

Oh well I’ll let all those guys knock themselves out with their steaks that aren’t there or roast they never get around to eating. As for me I’m headed over to the steak house where the only thing at steak will be my shirt after I spill steak sauce on it while munching on a nice top sirloin.

NO REGRETS

I’m still working on this thing. My buddy Otis is always talking about how we should have no regrets when we make a decision to do something. But let me if things don’t work out boy having no regrets isn’t the way I feel.

What I feel is dumb and stupid if it turns out we made a decision and forgot something that ended up in the thing being a big mistake. Otis will sit there with that “it could be worse” type of speech.

Which seems to be okay if I end up being the one who gets messed up because of the no regret goof up. But man if he is the one who gets mess up, well he still gives the no regrets speech, only he sort of doesn’t give it with quite as much enthusiasm.

The thing is as Super Hero grimefighters there are a lot of situations that come up when we got to decide to act on what we think is a problem. I mean part of being a grimefighter is doing what is called prevention. That is where you try to stop a grime before it happens.

What complicates this whole thing though is that people commit grimes. If you were just talking about something simple like rain or a thing where it happen without involving people then the prevention thing would be easier to deal with. Like you know if you see a can of gas with the cap off you just put the cap back on, no big deal.

But with grimefighting it is all about guessing when it comes to prevention. We got to look at some situation and if we see somebody that looks like he or she might litter or be planning some other grime then we got to try and stop him before hand.

The cops shows always talk about stuff like a person being innocent till they are proven guilty. Well I’m sorry, but that in my book is just plain stupid. I mean by the time the person does do whatever it is too late to stop them. Just letting them do it first and not trying to keep them from it is sort of backwards in my thinking. You are just letting them get into the habit of thinking they MIGHT get away with something. It is sort of like that saying “better a safe than a car fee.” Um at least I think it goes that way. Anyway I know it has to do with safes and not getting pissed if you don’t have one. Well something like that.

Anyway that is why it is my rule to whack first and ask questions whenever. If I think some creep is out there thinking that littering is cool and I can stop him before he tries it I think that is down right smart.

I do got to admit though that at times I make a mistake or two in that regard. Like the other day when I saw this dude holding what looked like some scraps of paper. And I just had this gut feeling he was going to toss them on the ground.

Well I couldn’t just stand back and let that happen. So I walked right up to him and used my little wooden buddy to sort of inspire him to forget that idea. Boy was I a big embarrassed when it turned out he was just this guy trying to hand out gospel tracts. But by my whacking him I did get him to say “oh god help me,” a few times. Which makes me feel that perhaps I did help him in terms of the god thing a little. Guess I’ll have to wait to see what the judge says about that one.

HIRED, SIRED AND FIRED

Over at STINK we never use the “F” word. Dr. Hemoglobin thinks it carries what he calls a bad “connotation.” Personally since getting rid of help hardly ever happens, I think he says that in order to create the impression it could happen even if it never does.

Does that mean nobody ever does anything to deserve to be treated with the “F” word at STINK? Not hardly. Shoot I don’t want to complain about my fellow grimefighters, but we really got some winners if you know what I mean.

It is just well, as a rule when somebody is really, really lousy at being a grimefighter Dr. Hemoglobin tries to encourage the person to leave by choice. Normally he makes the person work with somebody who is so annoying and a generally a pain in the butt to be with that the person just quits to keep their sanity.

Course I can only talk about that from just listening to some of the comments people make over at STINK when the person finally quit. Since I’ve been partners with Otis for years they never ask us to take on an extra helper.

But I guess from what I gather though just to give the person an example of what having a partner should be like they normally tell the person he’s a lot like me, Smog Boy. (In case you don’t know, that’s my Super Hero grimefighter’s name.)

And I guess just being told the person reminds them of me in terms of being good makes that person feel like they can’t be as good as I am because I heard one grimefighter talk about how he would rather eat ground glass than be compare to me. It sure is hard to be so dang special, but I manage.

Anyway like I said the “F” word sort of never gets mention, but we all know when some body quits after being told they are like me or something it is about the same as being fired. So we understand what that means.

What is cool is when they hire somebody. Boy old Dr. Hemoglobin shows them around and then brags how they were born to be a grimefighter. Only since he tells everyone that even the ones that he later wants to quit it sort of loses the meaning if you ask me.

Meanwhile I do my best to not let the fact that they use me to compare the rest of the grimefighters with as a big deal. I’m just happy to be a model if that is what you want ot call it. I’ve heard a few of them use other terms including saying don’t let this happen to you when training some new guy and talking about me. Guess they don’t want to make anyone else end up with the burden of hero worship.

Oh well that’s how it goes over at STINK and that is okay by me. I love doing what I can to encourage all the new guys. I just wish the ones I would talk to on their first day would stick around long enough so I could find out how much help I was to them.

IT'LL DO

Is this ever truly a good thing? I always here it when I ended being stuck with something I don’t really want, but can’t get what I would prefer.

My buddy tries to help by saying “it’ll do.” Only thing is he never says that when it is something he really wants. Then the “it’ll do” sort of becomes some long speech about something sucking big time.

I don’t know, but for me there are some times when “it’ll do” just doesn’t work for me. And I sure don’t mind not being willing to sit down and be happy with something just because it is good enough.

Otis says I’m getting too picky when I do that. He tells me that I need to be more realistic. Only like I said his idea of being realistic seems to only apply to the junk I’m wanting.

I used to take the time to try and tell him I didn’t think that “it’ll do” didn’t work for me. But it never seemed to help in the long run.

So these days what I do is try to figure a way to make sure what I’m wanting isn’t something he’ll say that about. That takes work though, but in the end I think I’m better off.

Now take the other day. We were out shopping for snacks. And naturally the first thing we had to shop for was Spam for my buddy. That’s cool. He is such a Spam addict that I know if I go along with letting him get what he wants first then he is more relaxed and more inclined not to be inclined to get bored when I am talking about needing jelly beans.

The thing is after we got done with all of that stuff he wanted we finally dropped by the candy store. And just my luck they were out of jelly beans. Normally they are never out, but they had this bunch of kids on some school outing stop by and they all cleaned out the candy store.

Well I could tell that my buddy was going to try and give me an “it’ll do” speech and tell me to settle for something else. So I surprised him by pretending I was cool with buying some chocolate covered peanuts instead of jelly beans. I wasn’t, but I wanted him to think so.

Man did that confuse him. He looked at me and said “are you sure?” That’s when I gave him the zinger “it’ll do.”

Boy did he give me a funny look. And for a second he almost ended up sticking me with the chocolate covered peanuts.

Then I don’t know something must have cracked in his brain because he said, maybe we ought to try this other candy store. And the great thing was I ended up with jelly beans. So I consider this one time when the “it’ll do” ended up in the plus side for me.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: "Some people have incredibly long tongues. So long they can use them to stab you in the back."

THIS ONE'S FOR...

I saw this on some commercial a while ago. It had to do with giving somebody a drink I think and saying this particular one is for you. And that’s cool that somebody would say I whipped up this one just for you.

I like the idea of that kind of attention. Now if I could just get the dudes that work over at the candy store to get the hang of setting aside the jelly beans with that philosophy I’d be in great shape.

But no matter how often I go in there I just can’t get them to appreciate that doing a little extra to keep me coming back is a good idea. Shoot I bet on a per jelly bean purchase I got to be their biggest customer too.

Only I don’t get the impression that seems to count with them very much. Oh believe me I’ve given them plenty of hints. You know I’ve gone in there and sort of mentioned how I really enjoy their place and wouldn’t mind coming more often, but that they just don’t seem to add to their options enough that it does any good for me to come more often.

At least I figured that would get them inspired to try and be a little more creative in terms of what kinds of jelly beans they offer. Shoot I even took in this pamphlet I found on the variety of kinds of jelly beans you can get from this mail order place that included a whole bunch of types they didn’t have.

You would think that would have gotten them to get the idea that if they improved their selection they would have more sales. But it didn’t. After that when I went inside all they had was the usual options.

However I’m not going to give up on this idea. I’m thinking of maybe calling them up a bunch of times and disguising my voice and pretending to be all kinds of different people looking for jelly beans. And then when I ask about the kinds they don’t have hopefully ti will get them motivated to rethink their selection.

Whether that will help I don’t know yet. But I sure hope so. I’m really interested in finding out what those type in the catalogue that they say are liverwurst and garlic flavor taste like.

Never had any liverwurst stuff before. But it sounds kind of interesting. I figure it if makes you see liver as worse that whatever it must be some kind of special jelly bean.

It is just a question of how long it will take me to get those guys to get off their butts and actually order a few of these new kinds. Hopefully not long though. I don’t mind waiting as long as it doesn’t take too long.

And when it comes to jelly beans I really hate to tell my tummy to be patient since waiting ain’t something it enjoys without grumbling!

COMING ALONG QUIETLY

Man there sure are plenty of people where I work that could benefit from learning to do this. Every once and a while we have some group outing at STINK. Not that often thank goodness, but it still does happen.

And let me tell you if there is one thing some of those dudes are not capable of doing it is keeping quiet. Let me tell you it can be downright embarrassing to be somewhere with these guys when they decide to start acting goofy.

Well I want to tell you that is what I call it when you think you got to bore the whole world doing imitations of barnyard animals because you are some kind of comedian. That wouldn’t be so bad if the person was really funny, but he ain’t. In fact his idea of funny is something that is down right boring and stupid.

I only wish our boss Dr. Hemoglobin would remember that when he takes us somewhere. Because he always picks some restaurant for us to have lunch that ends up being packed. And you can be darn sure that at least a couple of the guys are going to say something dumb and act like jerks.

If that ain’t bad enough when it comes to ordering foods, man they should really learn to not talk. Who in the heck needs to ask if the dinner comes with napkins and underwear? Don’t ask about the underwear. I would rather not talk about it.

Anyway I guess those two guys thought that was a way to impress and make it sound like they were being cool. I tell you the waitress wasn’t impressed.

But I’m kind of inclined to think those two guys may keep silent for at least one or two outings after the last time. Having some cook smack you around for asking something from the waitress like what did the rat look like before he ground it up for the burger may have affected their wanting to talk as much.

Only I’m not going to count on them keeping quiet though. I’ve seen them do that kind of stupid stuff before and by the time the next outing came around they were back at being dumb.

Personally I got my only solution to that problem. I just make sure we get lots of rolls before any other food comes. Then I just shove a roll in their mouths every time they try to say something.

And it might work if Otis didn’t tell me I couldn’t do that again. Hey can I help it if those two guys got so busy trying to talk that I didn’t realize I had used up all the rolls and accidentally used a vase of flowers instead. It didn’t keep them from saying much for a while though. Plus seeing them spend the next few minutes spitting out flower petals was pretty cool too.

Oh well, guess next time I’ll practice ordering extra rolls. Either that or make sure I don’t have any flowers close by. (Besides I think a salt and pepper shaker fits in their mouth better. Only I can tell Otis when I use those for that reason as being accidentally on purpose.)

CHILI, WILLIE AND SILLY

Do you like chili? With or without beans? Personally I enjoy it and with beans. Well I say I enjoy it, but I’m not sure other people appreciate it after the beans do a job on my insides and I end up passing gas!

Hey, what is that old saying about no pain, no gain? So the way I figure how will you know what I gained from eating chili if you don’t end up knowing the pain from the gas? Shoot give me a break here, making up this stuff every day I got to use what they call a literary license. That’s where you get to say dumb and stupid stuff for the sake of putting in writing, but don’t have to necessarily explain it right or have it always make sense.

Well shoot folks just give me a break here, inspiration is you know for the most par perspiration. And we all know that is sweat and it stinks. As far as I’m concerned I can write stuff that stinks as good as anyone!

Anyway I think I pretty much took care of the chili part of this title. As for the silly part, well heck if I didn’t explain it in a way that somebody ended up thinking was silly then that ain’t my fault because I sure tried.

Now you might be asking about what some dude named Willie has to do with this. Ah, far question and darn you for bothering to even noticing that I included his name.

But since you did notice I guess I got to talk about him. Basically I’m speaking of Willie Bendover the assistant to Mayor Rash Limburger. Every once and a while I end up spending time with him. See he gets involved in garbage at times and since I am a garbage man it does figure we would have something to talk about at times.

The thing is that Willie is a big fan of chili. So we always end up having some together when I do see him.

Now I have to say one big difference between us eating chili is that I have milk with mine and he has beer. Plus he gets kind of creative at times and decides to put weird junk in his bowl of chili like, well, not to gross you out, but I’ve seen him toss in leaves. He keeps them in this little plastic bag and calls them “mary” something.

Personally I would rather just stick with stuff like ketchup and cheese in my chili. Okay I have tried stuff like cheese crackers, even crushed up Oreos, but never some stupid leaves.

As for Willie, well I think he should avoid them too. Or perhaps give up drinking beer. Because when he eats his chili with both let me tell you he sure gets silly.

I’m talking about downright weird. Like talking to bowl as if it was a person and claiming there are green hippos flying around the room.

But that is Willie’s choice I guess. And hopefully with or without those leaves he’ll not see them hippos other times. Plus he also mentioned going a little wacky and trying to smoke bugs. He talked about smoking some roach the other day. Guess for a guy who likes leaves in his chili that might not be silly. However I don’t recommend it.

ONWARDS AND SIDEWAYS

Man how come when my boss gets up to give us one of those motivational speeches things never quite go as he claims? I mean we all get excited and jazzed about how we are going to finally reach the “finest hour in the history of clean.”

Only we’ve been supposedly going to reach that hour about three or four times a month at times. But somehow things never seem to actually come to that point. Oh it sounds so darn cool when he first mentions it. We just never experience it.

Take the other day for example. Our boss, Dr. Hemoglobin, got us all excited because of what he said was “the latest innovation in grimefighter enhancement in the war against grime.” That sure did sound fantastic.

Only what he said was the big deal enhancement turned out to be a booklet telling us about ways to spy on griminals. Yeah that was some help.

I don’t know what made him think it was such a good thing. And I think it might have helped if he had actually read the thing first. It turned out that he took his son, rat boy, Junior Hemoglobin’s word for it being extra cool.

However nobody told us that. So when Dr. Hemoglobin had this meeting and started explaining how this booklet was going to solve all our problems in terms of finding griminals, boy did it get us thinking we were moving onwards to greatness.

Instead we took a detour to frustration after we read it. And it only took ready a couple of pages to figure out Junior had something to do with it. Only he would suggest that eating more cheese improves your eyesight to search for the bad guys.

And those stupid illustrations. He made one of a griminal with a head that looked like a slice of Swiss cheese. Does that sound like it would be helpful to you?

Later we found out that Junior had gotten a deal through this cheese manufacturer, which for some reason included a discount with some publishing place. Don’t ask me how that worked because I have no idea.

But I guess Junior thought it would be a good idea if he wrote some handbook and then didn’t bother to tell any of us who wrote it. He used the same Junior Cheddar for the author. Real creative huh? We thought so to.

The problem was that we didn’t notice who wrote it till after we read it. And at least we did read it through completely before trying to do anything it said.

At least for now, Dr. Hemoglobin hasn’t been bugging us about this pamphlet any more. I’m glad for that.

Plus the last I knew he had taken away Junior’s typewriter. I heard Dr. Hemoglobin claim it was going out for repair. But I think we all know the real reason!

BIG JOYS, LITTLE SMILES

Ever win at something and just be so darn happy you won you didn’t feel a need to boast about it? That sure is a weird feeling to me. I guess when I do something that turns out right it is just natural to want to tell somebody.

But every once and a while it just doesn’t seem all that important. Mainly like when my buddy Otis and I are out doing our grimefighter thing and end up having some really touch assignment that we finish in a good way. Like catching the slime of a griminal who has been guilty of making a big mess.

If it has been a really tough effort to catch the dude, then sometimes just being able to put the cuffs on him and knowing he’ll get what he deserves is enough satisfaction. I’m just so darn tired and relieved it is all over to need to tell anyone.

Now what is really strange is when we do something not that big, but do actually do it correctly. I don’t know, but maybe it is because it was too easy, but I just feel like we need to tell somebody in order to make that event sound more important.

I guess I figured it would be the other way around. Because let me tell you there ain’t no way to talk about busting some litter bug and make it sound real dramatic. It just ends up sounding boring. At least it must to the people we try to tell who spend the time just staring at their watches or yawning.

The one big exception is when my buddy gets in one of his moods to make something sound like a big deal. Let me tell you if my buddy is in one of those moods then he can make the most boring thing in the world sound incredible and fantastic.

Why shoot I can be there with him during the whole thing and still end up thinking it was fantastic when it was something dull and routine. I just wish he felt that way all the time. Because that way we could make all the boring junk look extra cool.

However I imagine that my buddy would sort of get too burnt out lying that much. So I never push it when he doesn’t do that at times when I wish he would.

What I enjoy is looking for that dazzle in his eyes. He gets the coolest expression on his face. Sort of like the same one I get when I am in the candy store looking at the jelly beans or old rat boy, Junior Hemoglobin looks that way when he is talking about cheese.

But when none of that happens. Well I survive. Maybe not feeling quite as cool though. The only nice thing though is knowing there is another day. That is how my buddy describes it when what he means is sooner or later he’ll get in that mood again to spread the old manure as good as any politician.

All I can say is when he does I just hope you aren’t standing down wind. Because the last place you want to be is somewhere the you get the scent and not the joy!

APPLES AND ORANGES

Why is it with some things it always comes down sooner or later to food? I mean like that saying “dollars to donuts.” It ends with donuts as part of when you are betting so that means food counts in that regards.

And it seems like a lot of stuff is like that. Somewhere in the saying it will involved food. Which is sure okay with me.

Now with this apples and oranges thing it seems from the way my buddy was talking that when you are talking about them you are doing something like comparing only using two things you can’t really compare. Well that is what I got from his comment the other day at least.

He was mentioning how this reporter on television who was talking about the environment and problems keeping it clean and Otis said the guy was talking apples and oranges. Personally I didn’t hear him mention a single word about either fruit so I guess my buddy heard something I didn’t. However from best as I could figure it seems that what was going on was that you ain’t suppose to compare junk if it has nothing in common with whatever else you want to compare it with.

Which sort of makes sense to me I suppose. Because it sure don’t work very well if you are trying to say how one thing is like another if they really aren’t alike at all.

But you know the funny thing is to me that the more I thought about it the more it seemed like there are a lot of people, especially if they are famous who do that. And it mainly seems like if they are famous they feel that they are experts on all kinds of junk even if they don’t really know anything about something.

However just because they are famous somebody listens. So they can go on rambling like they are so darn smart even if they are an idiot on some subject.

What I want to know is how come it is a bad thing to admit when you don’t know something? It sure seems to be a bad idea. Because from what I can tell nobody gets up on television and says, “you know I got no idea on that subject.”

Man wouldn’t it be cool if somebody did to that? Shoot that would be so different to find somebody who admitted they were smart on everything.

But I guess instead we will always end up looking forward to having a bunch of people hanging around and acting all smart and trying to tell us, this is red and that is orange, but they are both round and taste sweet. So one is as good as the other.

And that folks is one thing I suppose we just have to smile and say “whatever” about since people who talk apples and oranges are probably too full of something other than fruit anyway.

In the meantime if you end up hearing anyone else talking apple and oranges maybe you could toss in a banana and make a fruit salad. Then like so many things you would end up with at least something to eat!

FIGHT ON FOR...

I got to tell you the other day was the closest I ever came to seriously thinking about quitting my job as a grimefighter for STINK. It wasn’t that I had suddenly dislike the job or that there were big problems, it was just because of this so-called big improvement our boss, Dr. Hemoglobin wanted to make.

This was an idea he had for how he was going to improve morale. I just wish he had asked somebody before he actually picked out the method he wanted to us.

His idea was to form a cheerleader squad. And the big problem with that was because he had decided to have Ms. Truly Grimey be the head cheerleader. Truly is a lot of things, including the worst cook in the world, but if there is one thing she shouldn’t be in charge of it is trying to cheer people up.

Okay I can handle her orange hair and mustache. Plus her problem with being cross-eyed and how she often gets confused and bumps into walls or thinks things like a water fountain is a person. Like I said those are things I can deal with. As for her cooking, well, the nice thing is she is easily distracted so you always have chance to throw the junk in the trash when she isn’t looking.

But with being cheerleading, man what can I say, happy ain’t the way I felt when she wanted to cheer us grimefigthers before we went on assignment. It was more like, quick hide before she tries to cheer us again.

The first big problem for me was with the name she picked out for her cheerleading squad. I’m sorry, but to me calling the STINK cheerleaders the “Slimettes” just didn’t work very well. In addition she insisted upon trying to inspire us by making her pom poms from garbage. Hey, I don’t care how good you are at trying to cheer, if you wave some smelly thing in my face that brings tears to my eyes, I ain’t going to be cheered up.

I suppose if she had bothered to pick cheerleaders for her squad that didn’t make her look like a beauty queen it might have helped a little. Bag ladies are okay I guess, but I think if she could have gotten them to stop talking to the wall and claiming it was some dead relative or pet skunk I could have been more inclined to want feel they were going to help.

As for the actually cheering part. Man Truly is about as good at coming up with cheers as she is cooking. Like that one cheer, “Two, Four, Six, Eight, let’s go and make them puke right out the gate!” Oh yeah that really helps when the them that ended up puking was us since she was testing a new perfume made from fruit that was way past being what anyone would call fresh.

I suppose it might have helped if she hadn’t had a cold at the time and could have smelled like we could. But I have a feeling at least that Dr. Hemoglobin won’t be in any rush to have them do anymore cheering anyway. Especially after they decided to bless him with a special cheer in his office. One that went something like “Give a wink, hurray for STINK, we’re gonna win with lots of pink.” Ending that cheer by splashing him with Pepto Bismal sort of helped to motivate changing his mind. And I’m sure you all know once we found out that part was when we did our form of cheering.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: "They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away. I say let the dude get his own fruit no matter what happens!"

WHEN MORE ISN'T A CUFF

I hate wearing suits. And most of the time I manage to avoid them. To me I guess I figure if we were meant to wear suits then God would have created us with holes in our wrists for cuff links.

Well my buddy Otis is always talking about what God would have do differently if he meant us to do something so I figured I would through that in for the heck of it. But the main thing I guess is that I make it clear that wearing suits ain’t my idea of a good time.

Fortunately the only two times I normally get stuck wearing a suit is when we go to Reverend Analbe’s church on Sunday and then to a funeral. I’ve never been quite sure if God sees us all the time why you got to go to his place wearing a suit when he don’t see you wear one the rest of the time?

But that is just me I guess. Otis never answers that question when I ask him. He just grunts and hands me my tie and says to hurry up and get dressed.

Anyway the think is what I do enjoy is when we get to do something fancy and it don’t involve cuff links. That is really cool. It doesn’t happen very often, but sometimes I luck out.

Then there are the “close” calls. Those are the one’s where Otis gets a call and tells me we have to go somewhere special and then he all of sudden asks when the last time was that I had my suit dry cleaned?

Boy do I hate when he asks that question because it almost always means it is going to get cleaned and also that I’m going to have to wear it. So I generally try to tell him that it wasn’t that long ago and try to think of some lame excuse why I can’t wear it. The last one about being worried about catching thread warts didn’t even work for me, but it was the best I could come up with being so panicked and all.

The good news was that the last time Otis asked me about the dry cleaner thing it turned out he wasn’t asking so I would end up wearing the suit. It was because he had a discount coupon for the dry cleaners.

Did you happen to hear my say “whew” when he mentioned that? If so I wouldn’t be surprised since I sure said it loud enough.

As for Otis, well he just looked at me and smiled. Then he mentioned that there was this new restaurant we were going to that night. Man was I excited. That was until he mentioned you had to wear a suit to eat there.

I guess it was a good thing you didn’t hear me after he said that because it wasn’t exactly and “oh boy” I mentioned. Well my buddy let me stew over that for a few minutes before breaking into one of his just kidding grins. I got to tell you sometimes his idea of humor hardly leaves me laughing. But not having to wear a suit did. And I guess that was more important huh?

NUT CASE SAPPY

To me there are being happy and there is being way too happy. I enjoy being happy, but I also know when you are like over the top in being happy. It is sort of like being more than a tad off in your thinking so you see everything even unhappy stuff as a reason to laugh.

We got one of those kinds of people working at STINK. This dude can really get on my nerves at times. He calls being that happy, being positive. I call it being sick.

I know what being positive means. It is looking on the bright side of life. And that is cool.

Although with me I got to admit there are plenty of times I find it kind of tough to look on the positive side of stuff if I don’t see anything positive about it. But with this guy man, he tries to think of something good that can happen with anything. And sometimes that just isn’t realistic no matter how are you look.

Most of the time I’m lucky enough to avoid this guy. You can be I don’t complain either. Unfortunately there are times when I am not so lucky.

The other day was one of those situations. My buddy Otis was sick and had to stay home from our job at STINK. And lucky me, our boss Dr. Hemoglobin decided that I should get stuck with Mr. Happy as my partner.

God was that an awful day. I did my best to cope, but let me tell you spending eight hours with all smiles and no sense Mr. Happy didn’t exactly make my day.

I suppose if we had just stuck to fighting grime it would have been okay. At least on assignment I could have done something like have him stay in one place while I claimed to be checking out griminal activity somewhere else. That would have made it possible for me to get through the experience.
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But Mr. Happy, pain the butt (which was the addition I gave him after ten minutes alone with him) had other ideas. Instead of us going out on assignment and only doing that he insisted we stop first.

It wasn’t till too late that I found out the place he wanted to stop was at a residence where his family was having a family reunion. Have you ever been surrounded by Mr. Happys? If not, I’d suggest you don’t try. Because let me tell you just spending five minutes with this dude was bad enough. Being stuck with his whole darn family for two hours was enough to drive me insane and there are plenty of people who say that for me it is a short trip anyway.

Well I did survive. I probably could have done it better if I had been able to have my bat with me. And even if I almost went blind watching those stupid slides that his one family member showed from her vacation, I can definitely say nothing gave me a real reason to smile than when I got back to headquarters and do my fest forget. That sure was hard too after having seen about a thousand slides of people with smiles standing in front of everything from flowers to waterfalls! Cheers and here’s hoping all your smiles are from being happy without being sappy.

FOR A FIST FULL

There was this really cool western on television that other day that has for a fist full as part of the title. I did enjoy the movie, but sort of forgot the whole title, but I got the general idea though that there are times a fist full of something can be a good thing and others not so good.

Well I only wish when things didn’t go so good I could take care of the bad people the way that dude in the movie did. But shoot I have enough trouble getting my buddy Otis to let me hang onto my bat and sling shot. I doubt he’d give me the same freedom with a gun and bullets.

I did have a squirt gun once, which wasn’t all bad. I might still have it if it hadn’t been for a small mistake I made. I figured I would use it to try and sort of teach people a lesson. Not the kind of lesson I would prefer to make with my bat, but the kind they don’t forget.

So I figured filling it up with something that stained really good would work. Because having some really disgusting stain on your clothes sure is something most people don’t seem to forget, especially on wash day.

The only problem is that I thought I would try grape jelly. I still think it was a good idea, but unfortunately for me the squirt gun didn’t work with jelly.

It is like they say, live and squirm. Er it is live and something, can’t really remember for sure, but it somehow involves squirming. Oh yeah it is life and germ. Um no, it sort can make you sick, but I don’t think it is germ either. Ah that’s right, it is live and learn.

Yeah, I know it had something to do with squirming like I said. And brother did I have to do a lot of squirming when I was in school and in was in between rest room breaks. As for the germ part, well sometimes trying to learn all those facts did kind of make my head hurt, so that was the part I remember too.

Gee ain’t if funny at times how you can get started out talking about one thing and end up thinking of something else. Boy that sure happens to me a lot.

But I don’t know I kind of enjoy that part. Which to me ends up being a fist full of cool memories or thoughts.

See I bet you figured I wouldn’t even get back to the fist full part huh? But I wouldn’t do that to you on purpose. I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it by accident thought. I mean you got to at least give me points for that much.

I sure hope so because man every once and a while I end up running into a dude who happen to come across my blog and thought it somehow had something to do with frosting. And then he ends up reading a bit and sort of gets disappointed. That’s when he meets me and sort of wants to give me a fist full of knuckles. Which is when I have to let my bat do my talking for me. I’m just glad that don’t happen all the time though. But then as long as I don’t forget my bat I reckon those types of fist fulls will be something I’ll only have to watch for rather than eat!

ONE MORE SLIME

Yeah, in my work this is a big deal. Slime is around a lot more than I wish or could ever dream as possible. Wish it were otherwise.

For me the deal with slime is you don’t even have to work to create it. That is something that just happens with stuff like water in ponds or fountains that sits too long with being cleaned. And guess who gets the lousy job of cleaning it up? You got it. Lucky me huh?

Anybody care to give me a break on that task and do it for a while? I don’t mind letting someone else have the joy for a while or always, but I have a feeling that isn’t going to happen.

This is I suppose is part of my whole mood in terms of this posting. I’m speaking of the slime of life or those annoying things you have to do because it is your job and nobody else’s. And you know that better or worse you will end up doing it again tomorrow and the day after that. Essentially it means there is always one more slime to deal with.

Does it ever get depressing to know this? You bet. Do I ever want to just screw it all? All the time. But do I? Nope.

Why? Well I have asked myself that plenty of times, but I guess the bottom line is that I care. I know that might sound corny, but when I think of it I just can’t bring myself to give up.

I suppose a lot of it has to do with my buddy Otis. He kind of keeps reminding me at times about the importance of how being a super hero means you can’t just act like ordinary folks and give up when you want.

So when I’m feeling a little down and bored with the whole thing I just sit down with my buddy and let him remind me of all the reasons I have to keep trying. And frankly I think there are times when he needs to do that for his benefit too.

And after all isn’t that what is really important? Like so many things in life there will always be some kind of slime to make life other than as perfect or clean as we want. It never goes away just because we are feeling bored or lazy.

Which is why I feel like a yo-yo at times. I can get low, but sooner or later I will be up again. Let me tell you too that there is no greater feeling either than when I look at some place that was all slimy and see it clean. I know for at least that few minutes I made a difference in some place that would never be changed without my help.

Well that is a great feeling. Sometimes I forget how it feels when I sit around feeling bored and don’t want to go after the slime. But somehow I manage to and in the end no matter who knows it I end up with a cool smile that last all day. You can’t buy that feeling. You just have to experience. Here’s hoping whatever slime is in your life gets a good cleaning from time to time too.

THE PURPOSE OF...

Yeah that’s what I like to know sometimes. Only I do forget to ask occasionally. I know I should think to ask, but sometimes my mind is stuck in some stupid gear and it just don’t work right.

Unfortunately this seems to happen more at STINK and when my buddy Otis and I are being given an assignment than any other times. Actually my buddy is normally the best at asking this question, only sometimes I get the memo about our assignment when he’s busy or something. And I’ll just plain forget to ask.

Part of it is Otis’ fault. Because when I do get the memo and not him he forgets have the time to ask me what is the purpose for this assignment. If he did then I would know to take time to ask. But when he fails to ask then it seems like we both end up suffering.

And in the end, let me tell you the one thing I really hate and feel like kicking myself over is having neither of us ask this question. Boy the grief we experienced in the process, well it is downright aggravating.

Now don’t get me wrong. I really enjoy working for STINK. Stopping grime, beating up the bad guys and generally fighting for the spirit of clean are all cool things and I love it. I just can’t stand when all of that cool stuff gets sidetracked by some darn stupidity.

By stupidity I mean the shear essence of having people decide to have us do something without really having a good reason. It is like they got to have some reason for us being out there in the field so when they don’t have one they make something up.

Which is why asking the purpose sure does make a difference between doing something worthwhile and ending up having somebody witness you acting weird and thinking you are the prize ass of the century! And that I can assure you is anything, but cool!

But I doubt things will ever change much as STINK. Not as long as Junior is left in charge of crap. That darn rat boy gets so stuffed with cheese at times that I swear it shuts off his brain.

The only problem is that when we get a memo it always has Dr. Hemoglobin’s name on it. And when that happens we got no way of knowing if it is really from him and most likely to make sense and be a good reason for an assignment or if it came from Junior.

When we forget to check, generally what happens is when we are on assignment we find out, normally too late that it is a big stupid mistake. Normally because Junior ends up sending us someplace where there are no griminals and if we go in with our brooms and bat swinging thinking it is a bad place we end up looking like idiots. I tell you there ain;’t nothing more embarrassing than breaking into some old folks home you were told was a griminal hideout and accidentally scaring some poor old person. They don’t generally have much of a sense of humor about it either. At least we can move fast enough to avoid keeping clobbered by their wheel chairs and if we are really lucky before the security guard or cops catch us.

NEVER SAY WHATEVER

Man I am sure trying to learn not to do this as much. When I do it is normally because somebody like my buddy has asked me a question and I just don’t care about the answer that much. So whatever means do whatever you want and don’t bug me about it.

Let me tell you one thing though. I’m learning that is a big mistake. Because I’ve found out that when you tell a person that they treat it as meaning they can do whatever they want in a given situation.

Now some people’s idea of whatever is okay. They actually think in terms of what is cool or reasonable. With other people though, watch out! Their idea of whatever can be downright scary.

With my buddy Otis it is sort of a crap shoot. In some situations with him, he gets in some weird mood and his whatever ends up being the type of crap that makes me say “oh shoot” since it always going to be something that gives me a headache.

The only defense with my buddy is I have tried to learn on what subjects to never say whatever. Right now I know not to say whatever when he’s asking about take out food. If I do he’ll get inspired and that means he’ll try someplace new. Hey, new isn’t necessarily bad, but I’m not in the mood ever to try some stupid food I can’t pronounce and looks ugly. But I know whatever with take out will generally end that way.

Another area with him is with snacks. Oh heck basically almost anything to do with food I guess. If I’m busy and Otis goes to the grocery store without me I do not ever want to tell him whatever in terms of snacks. Otherwise he’ll come on with vegetables as part of the snacks. He won’t eat them, but he thinks buying them is somehow going to be a good health wise. And then he’ll try to figure a way to make me eat them like putting them in a peanut butter sandwich.

Anyway I guess you get the idea I’m got plenty of reason to not use whatever in those areas with my buddy. And over at STINK I got to watch it too. If there is one thing you never want to do is tell Dr. Hemoglobin whatever when it comes to assignments. That can end up a darn nightmare. I won’t bore you with the sordid details, but let me tell you after a whatever assignment you pretty much have to stand downwind from everyone for about a week tell the smell wears off.

Well I hope you have better luck with whatever and knowing when not to do it than those types of situations. And oh yeah, a little hint, if you ever run into old rat boy, Junior Hemoglobin make sure under no circumstance to ever use the word whatever no matter the situation.

Because the one thing you don’t want to do is give a guy who thinks the world revolves around cheese and the yuckier the better any opportunity to do what he wants with that opening. And I would tell you more, but I don’t use that kind of language on or off the internet.

BUY NOW, PAY LATER BUT...

I got in a big discussion over this thing at STINK the other day. They guys were arguing over, which was better, to use a credit card and get something right now or put it on lay away and wait till you could really pay for it to buy it.

Gee I don’t know, but for me when I want something I want it now. Giving some money to a store to hold it till later just makes me feel cheated in a way. So I guess that puts me in the group who prefer using a credit card for some stuff.

Now let me say I’m not one of those that things you should buy everything with a credit card. Which is a good thing since I don’t actually have one.

But if I did I know I would sure rather have some junk right away since waiting ain’t that cool in my book. I can’t even say if I will ever honestly get a credit card either.

It all depends on if I can find some credit card place that understands how getting paid mostly in jelly beans is okay. And I don’t even mind sharing part of them if that is what they need to pay for what I get on credit.

However so far I just haven’t had a lot of success when I tried to apply for one of those cards. In fact the last time I tried the fella taking my application got really wacky when I tried to explain what I did for a living and how I got paid.

Oh he was okay when I mentioned about being a garbage man. But when I got to the part about being a grimefighter for STINK he sort of start getting insulting and didn’t seem to believe me, which really sort of pissed me off.

So for the moment, while I would prefer to buy now and pay later, but. Meaning tell I get some credit card company to act other than like a butt there won’t be much of a chance to participate in the debate over at STINK.

However I haven’t given up on this credit thing either. I just know that there has to be somebody out there with a credit card company that will give a dude like me a break. After all they can’t all be jerks can they?

And I don’t care what Otis says about them being leeches with their interest charges. I mean shoot if they want to charge me for being interested in their credit card I guess I won’t mind.

I’m not sure why it bugs him when they charge him for being interested. It ain’t like they are asking him to pay them lots of extra money for using the card. That would be rather cruel if you ask me. And really dumb to have them charge you for when you buy something and want to pay for it later.

But as I said if they want to charge me something for being interested I reckon I could handle that. As long as it ain’t too much. You know maybe like one bag of jelly beans ought to be enough I suppose. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to find out eventually too.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: "Winners may never quit. Yet they sure ought to know when their shift ends!"

THE FUN GROAN

I enjoy these moments when you get to groan for a good reason. Like when we have joke time over at STINK and somebody tells a really stupid joke. That is a fun form of groan.

Most of us grimefighters go have pretty much the same sense of humor and find the same things funny. So when we get together and feel like being silly there is always lots of laughs and plenty of fun groans.

My personal favorite time is when my buddy Otis gets in this mood to do his impression of Dr. Hemoglobin or Junior or even some griminal. Man can he sure do them well and in a way that gets us all full of smiles.

We have to be careful of course. Because we have to make sure that neither Dr. Hemoglobin or Junior find out what we are going.

But that is the coolest thing about Otis. If by accident Junior or Dr. Hemoglobin end up barging into the locker room when my buddy is doing an imitation he quickly starts acting like he’s teaching us about something.

Sometimes I do get worried you know that they will suspect our snickers mean something else. At least up till now though he has managed to get away with it. And I sure hope it never changes because let me tell you I really need those breaks in the fun groan at times.

Anyway, like I said we all manage to have those silly moments and make them pretty cool. And we even succeed on doing it despite the times we get on each other’s nerves. For a while at least we are all pals and brothers of clean and that is a good thing.

Honestly though about the only situation that messes it up is when Junior comes in and decides he wants to hang with us. It doesn’t happen that often thank god, but every once and a while he goes a little whacky and likes to pretend like he is really interested in what we are doing.

Now if there is one thing Junior really sucks at it is knowing what is funny. Man if there is one thing he ought to avoid no matter what it is trying to be funny.

I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t think that the only subject that is really cool is cheese. Oh when it comes to STINK and grimefighting he sort of knows fighting grime is important, but since he never actually does any fighting of grime he can’t exactly join in and tell any good funny stories about griminals.

So when he comes rambling in and sits down, we all end up groaning only it ain’t the fun groan that’s for sure. It is down right boring. We normally just sit there and smile and then keep checking out watches and hoping he’ll leave.

Thank goodness Junior gets too hungry for cheese when he’s talking about it to hang around with us very long. So eventually he just makes up some lame excuse to leave, which is never soon enough for us. Oh well, at least we all have those fun groans moments and it at least makes up for the bad groan ones.

THE MUCK STOPS HERE

Boy at STINK this sure is important. It can be so darn tough at times to help people “see the light” as Otis calls it. I mean when there is too much garbage around and it smells so bad it causes your eyes to water then you know darn well you aren’t going to see much including light.

Course I reckon most people are able to handle that idea, but the big problem is getting them to be willing to change. Sometimes you just have to let them get so sick and tired of being around filth and muck that they will finally decide to clean up their act. (Sometimes they do need a little encouragement though, which is where my bat comes in. Only when I use it the kind of light they end up seeing is in the form of stars!)

What kind of gets me in this whole deal is when our boss, Dr. Hemoglobin gets kind carried away with our war on grime. He talks about drawing a line in the sand and making sure nobody crosses over it.

Well even though that sounds kind of impressive the big problem is that we don’t happen to have any sand at STINK headquarters. And there is no reason you would expect us to given the fact that we could hardly be about fighting for clean and have a bunch of sand at our location.

Dr. Hemoglobin would know this better than any of us though so when he talks about that I just try to not think about it too hard. Although I do spend a far amount giving thought to where exactly all this sand is that he’s talking about.

As close as I can figure he must be talking about that lot that is across the street from STINK headquarters. The only thing is that I don’t get is what the big deal is about drawing a line in that sand. After all even when I do and somebody does step over it I can’t see where it changes anything except maybe the get sand in their shoes.

But I reckon if talking about it somehow makes our boss happy then that is a good thing. And at least it does keep him busy worry about sand so us grimefighters can concentrate and doing what we have to in order to making sure things don’t get more mucked up than necessary.

Sometimes I’m not completely sure when we have always managed to get rid of the muck either. We sure try. Only once we have managed to make some place muck free then it ends up coming around somewhere else.

Which is why I prefer to do what we can to make sure the muck stops here by getting folks to help out once and a while. And I bet I could do an even better job if Otis and Dr. Hemoglobin would take my advice on that subject.

My idea would be to get folks that are stubborn on that subject and stuff some muck down their throat. Not enough to say get them sick at their stomachs. Just enough to give them the hint about how lousy it is.

So far they haven’t bought into that idea. Which means I got to take way too many trips over to that vacant lot to see if anybody has messed with that line I drew in the sand. But I suppose as long as somebody leaves muck alone in the process even if I don’t see it then that is what counts the most huh?

SOUNDS GOOD

How come all the cool ideas that sound good don’t always end up being good when you try them? Maybe it is different for you, but it sure ain’t that way where I work at STINK.

I don’t think though it is what they plan. I mean Dr. Hemoglobin my boss always seems to get so darn excited about some new idea he wants us to try. And the way he talks about it I honestly figure that I can expect things that sound good to end up being good.

I just wish it always worked out that way. However too often things just don’t quite work out as planned.

My buddy, Otis, says that is the difference between theory and reality. When something we want to do screws up he starts rambling about “The best laid plans of mice and men.” and then some other junk that I never take time to listen to.

Anyway, I’m not sure on that part how mice figure into it. That’s because to the best of my knowledge neither of us has ever spent any time hanging around with any mice. So I’m not clear on how he ever knows what kind of plans they have. Apparently though since it involves some kind of men too then I reckon there are some dudes somewhere that hang with mice and sit around making up plans of some kind.

About the only person I guess I know that might do that would be old rat boy, Junior Hemoglobin. Given his love of cheese I wouldn’t put it pass him to get all hung up spending time with some mice and planning how he was going to score some cheese.

Now maybe there is something “best” in all of that, but I have no idea what. Still if it works for them I suppose that is the important part huh?

As for me, well I’ve sort of figured out that at least at STINK if something sounds good it don’t mean it will end up smelling good when we try it. In fact sometimes it just plain ends up stinking and let me tell you even though our name STINK don’t have anything to do with smelling bad, when we have some of these plans it sure ain’t my idea that is turns out having the sweet smell of success.

Still, I know no matter how many time something at STINK sounds good and turns out isn’t won’t in anyway keep Dr. Hemoglobin from coming up with some winner of a lame idea later. And then we will go through the whole speech thing one more time. (I’ll try not to yawn while he explains it though.)

With my buddy, I don’t know him sometimes. He’ll sit in the same meeting with me and nod and act like whatever sounds good is going to end up good. Then later when it doesn’t, he ramble on forever and never say one thing that makes a whole lot of sense.

And that is called life where I live. I keep hoping it will somehow end up both being good and sounding good. Otis says it will happen someday. Probably about the same time as Junior and those mice manage to corner the cheese market!

THE BEST KEPT KNOWN JUNK

I heard somebody rambling on about the best kept secrets. Only if it was so darn good at being kept a secret how come you end up hearing about it.

That’s the worst thing to me about this whole secret deal. It never really stays a secret. In fact I think the best way to actually keep a secret is to tell everyone. Because when you do that it seems like everyone ends up not caring about it.

And the more bizarre and incredible the known junk is the more it ends up being best kept in that regard. At least to me it works that way.

I hear them for example always talking about things like a government cover up. Well shoot what they ought to do is brag about it. You know like with junk about those darn aliens.

What they really ought to do is instead of not telling anybody sit down and practically shout about it. Hey if there are really aliens then lets have them on television maybe make a few movies and before you know it the whole dang subject will be so boring nobody will care any longer.

At lest it seems like a good plan to me. Because I don’t know anybody that is really cool at actually keeping junk a secret and instead I think we ought to simply not even have secrets, just tell everything to everyone one.

I mean when you think about it if you did that most people would have trouble remembering it anyway. It would cause brain drain and before long you wouldn’t even know on some stuff because you would end up forgetting.

But I reckon you would have a lot of trouble with that part anyway. For one thing people love to gossip. And if they knew all the facts well heck they wouldn’t have anything left to gossip about. Imagine how miserable all those news folks and radio talk show hosts would be if there wasn’t anything to gossip about? Heck they would probably end up going out and invent something to make a secret just so it would end up being known junk.

In the meantime I think I’m going to do my share to help with this problem. I think I’m going to tell everything I ever know about anyone or anything to everyone. And when I run out of junk then I’ll try and borrow some more from somebody else. Hmmm, I wonder if Otis would mind if I used some of his secret junk?

I know I can blab about it first and then tell him. After he sees how much fun it is for everyone to know everything he might even want to make up a few things to tell others himself.

So that’s my plan at the moment. Gee I can’t wait to get started. This could really turn out fun. I just hope Otis thinks so when I get done!

IN THE MORNING

I have to get up early on most mornings as part of my job as garbage man and also even as a grimefighter. I didn’t say I always enjoy it, but at least the nice thing is when I’m done I still have plenty of time to do other stuff.

The one thing that sort of gets to me at times though is when my buddy Otis puts off doing something by saying we can take care of it “in the morning.” Which would be okay if we actually did it in the morning, but a lot of times he just plain forgets. And unfortunately I will too till later and when I bring it up he’ll say don’t worry we’ll take care of it “in the morning.” And you guess it, we don’t.

I’m not saying my buddy does this in all cases to avoid doing some stuff like getting gas or a chore that neither of us likes doing. I’m just saying that it becomes too easy at times for him to use the morning thing as an excuse.

Course I know he’s not alone in doing that. It happens a lot over at STINK. We will finish some really nasty assignment with some griminal chase and then come back to report in. I’ll want to finish the little junk related to that assignment right then, but Dr. Hemoglobin will tell us to do it “in the morning.” So perhaps my buddy picked up that happen from our boss.

In any case I don’t get the impression that griminals take that approach. Shoot they never seem to have decent hours. I wonder if they get paid over time for committing grimes and not putting them off till in the morning? I doubt I will get a chance to find out and I’m not sure I want to.

All I know I that when it comes to STINK and my job there are going to be times and junk that will just end up being put off till in the morning. And I will admit that when I’m sitting there wolfing down oatmeal/raisin cookies and a couple of cups of hot chocolate the problem may not always look as bad as it did the night before. So perhaps in a way that has something to do with why Otis likes to put the stuff off.

I do have admit though that how I feel about it in the morning does sort of depend upon breakfast. With pancakes, cookies, donuts and such, it never looks as bad. But if I get something like cold cereal, eggs and toast or other kinds of stuff that just okay for breakfast then the problem never looks that great.

Gee perhaps I could work up some kind of “in the morning” cookbook that might be of interest to others? Yeah I’m sure there have to be plenty of people out there with this in the morning problem.

I’ll have to work a little on the coming up with the right recipes though. Maybe I’ll get creative even and figure the kinds of stuff I know will really make one smile. Like being sure whatever it is always has plenty of jelly beans. Of course with eggs you need to use mainly red ones to match the huge amounts of ketchup needed to smother the eggs. That’s one of those little cooking hints I’ll be sure to include. I bet that will make in the morning better for a lot of people. Hope so at least.

COOLER THAN CRUEL

You know when something is cool it really is cool. Only it sure is hard at times to always get some people to understand that or even agree on what is cool.

And let me tell you with some people their cool meters seem to be totally broken. At least they appear that way too me.

From my view something is cool when it is good or impressive. It never is cool if it is bad. So doing good things for people is cool, doing bad things isn’t.

The thing is I would have figured that most people would have understood that. But when you look at all the people who seem preoccupied with doing bad junk it makes you wonder.

I’ve decided that the problem with such folks is that they simply don’t have any appreciation for how much better it is for you to be cool than to be cruel. I sure wish they would ask me because I could easily straighten them out on that part.

So my thought is that we need to work on the cool thing with people who get consumed with the need to be cruel. And if that means doing some extra hard effort to get them to see the difference then I don’t mind giving it a shot.

And if all the simple hints don’t work then I sure will be willing to lend my bat as a form of inspiration. Maybe a few whacks would help these people to see the light, even if it is in the form of stars.

Nobody said everyone learns the same way. With some people they need a little extra what is called TLC, which to mean stands for ‘THE LEARNING CLUB!”

It is amazing how many times that form of persuasion helps to take care of problems like arguments. You let the person sit there and make a complete fool out of themselves and then the next thing you know once you introduce them to my wooden buddy that TLC kicks in and bingo they stop having a need to argue.

Okay I admit that normally they are unconscious too. So that doesn’t help at first. But once they wake up generally they are a whole different person. Shoot in some cases they can’t even remember their name if you hit them a little too hard.

Now I imagine there are a few who probably will say that my version of TLC is not all that cool. And that’s okay because I sure don’t mind giving them a nice visit from my buddy if it helps them appreciate it’s real value.

But of course there will always be that dude out that who still don’t get it no matter how many whacks you try. That when I resort to my different version of TLC that I call Truck Learning Crunch. It involves using the garbage truck to run over them. And normally once the person wakes up from that cool is the one thing they sure understand my way!