THE BACK BURNER

We got two of these on our stove at home. And personally I don’t see where they are anything special. If I use them it just means I got to reach farther to get to whatever I’m cooking.

But I guess things work differently with the stove in Dr. Hemoglobin’s house. That’s because every once and a while he’ll be talking about some project or whatever and says he had decided to put it on the back burner. Which I take it means that some of the projects he ends up thinking up he does while he’s cooking.

And I suppose it might also mean that the front burners on his stove don’t work. Since I never hear him mention putting anything on the front burners.

All I know is if he mentions putting something on the back burner then he is spending more time cooking than messing with the project because it sure is a lot of time before we do the project again. So I guess that just means he likes eating. Which is alright by me because I do to.

In fact I’m a firm believer in having at least three square meals a day. But even it the meal doesn’t come from something square I still will eat it. And I just make up for it by eating even more in some other shape so it will sort of equal a square. Like if it is round have maybe four so that kind of has four sides and makes a square. At least it works for me that way.

I guess I mainly curious on this back burner thing at Dr. Hemoglobin’s house. Because I did try thinking while using the back burner on our stove and couldn’t tell how it made me think any better or different that with the front burner.

Of course cooking on all the burners was sort of fun. I mean by trying all of them it did give me a chance to whip up plenty of what I brain food. That is the kind that is nice and warm and tasty so you feel good and then your brain is happy too.

I’m talking about stuff like fried potatoes, bacon, eggs and pancakes. Oh you can do burgers I suppose, but they work pretty much as good regardless of the burner.

Well I think the only way I’m going to really figure this out is to simply go over and visit Dr. Hemoglobin when I have a chance. Maybe even have some dinner or something too.

But I have to pick a time when he isn’t sick. Because whenever I make some hint about wanting to perhaps drop by and have a snack he suddenly gets all red faced and has trouble talking right. Plus he tugs at his collar like he’s having trouble breathing or something.

I sure hope I catch him sometime soon when he doesn’t feel sick though. I mean I would really like to solve this back burner thing soon just in case I need to go shopping for a special food in the process.

PIED, FRIED AND CRIED

Man oh man did this idea sure come to me big time this week. You know my buddy Otis is sure one for wanting to always do things different. Well too many times with food he gets weird and wants us to eat healthy. Which always ends up being boring and yucky from my point of view.

However every once and a while he’ll get these moments of what I regard as inspiration. That’s when he wants to create something actually tasty. These are the truly great times for me because he’ll sit down and use that brain of his in for me what is a good way.

In this case what happen was he got on this kick about pie. Oh not like cream pies mind you or one’s filled with fruit. The fruit kinds are okay when you smother them in ice cream, but otherwise I can take them or leave them. Actually I like the cream ones smother in ice cream too, but my buddy generally sort of fusses when I do that. Hey, I don’t see what the big deal is about using the formula of a gallon of ice cream for each slice of pie, but he still squawks some times.

Anyway this week he decide he was going to try and make up some pies filled with good tasting stuff other that fruit or cream. These weren’t my first idea of pies because they weren’t sweet. But what the heck I guess doing something different ain’t always a bad thing.

And the best part was that this time Otis was going to let me help him. A lot of times when he gets in these experiment moods he wants to “surprise” me so he has me sit in the living room while he whips up the stuff. Which given the times he makes weird junk that I don’t like to eat makes the waiting part other than fun.

In this case though he didn’t seem to mind. His big brainstorm was he was going to put a bunch of stuff that fries up good together and then put it in a pie crust and put a pie crust top on it. Then he would bake it up and we would have baked fried goodies.

Now that sounded cool at the time. We were in the kitchen and he was frying up some hamburgers and also some potatoes too. Shoot he even threw in some onions. Man I got to admit it sure smelled good.

As for me he just had me mainly doing stuff like you know chopping up the onions and then slicing up the fries. So for a while everything seemed cool.

Then when it was all fried up he said he decided we ought add some canned mushrooms and olives. And that didn’t sound so bad.

The thing is Otis was getting all sweaty from frying up junk that he wanted to go and take a shower. So when it was done frying he mixed it in the piecrust. Then he told me to add the olives and mushrooms and put the pie crust topping on an shove it in the oven for about thirty minutes.

And that is what I did. Boy let me tell you I was sure looking to trying that greasy mess. My old mouth was watering just at the thought. That was until there was that explosion. You know when Otis said to add the mushrooms and olives he never said a word about taking them out of the can first. Yeah, that mess was sure a pain to clean up, but for me not getting any good pie left me crying. For now I got a feeling my buddy is sort of not going to do any more inspiration cooking. At least tell we get the hole in the oven fixed and maybe the one in the wall too.

TO TELL THE TRUTH

Is there a problem with this that I don’t get? I’m asking only because it sure bugs me when somebody starts out by saying that it makes me wonder, are they really to tell me the truth? And if so then does that mean the rest of the time they are fibbing? A person has a right to know that part I think.

Speaking of telling the truth I guess I’ll also be honest here for a minute myself. I’m kind of in a hurry to write this particular posting. I need to try and get it finished in a hurry. I made the mistake earlier and drank a whole bunch of pop. So now my bladder is trying for a big case of payback. And so it is a question of whether I can get this done before I have to rush to the bathroom.

Now normally I would stop with it being no big deal. But right after I get done here my buddy Otis has some chores for me to finish and I got no idea when I’ll get back to the computer. The big problem is that I might get so busy that I would forget what all I want to say. So in order not to end up missing out on sharing something truly cool or important I’m going to keep writing and hope I finish before I end up leaving a puddle on the floor.

Anyway now that you understand how much I’m sort of rushed I hope you’ll understand why I might end up saying in a way that sounds a little strange or confusing. Hey, no far any of you wise guys out there who gripe I always say that barking in. As far as I’m concern you got other problems that you need to deal with.

Meantime folks here I am back on this subject of telling the truth. And I reckon there is only one thing we all understand. Basically that you ought to tell the truth whenever you can. Is that a tough concept to understand for some people?

Okay I realize I’ve mentioned the times when my buddy Otis sort of takes the truth and kind of bends it when talking to our boss. And I imagine he ought not to do that so much. But you know I can’t help being supportive of my buddy. That’s because our boss can be so darn cranky at times if you tell him the real truth.

Frankly while I don’t really mind seeing him with those veins bulging on his forehead or his face turning different shades of red, my buddy just claims that isn’t always a good thing. So he makes up the facts at times to keep our boss from having the need to look that way.

Plus I guess it helps that when he does that we also don’t end up in getting in trouble with the boss either. Which is sort of a bummer for a super hero when you end up getting stuck with some crummy task just because you made a mistake.

Well I think I’m going to make it here. It was close, but by golly my bladder did apparently behave itself. At least this time. However I know tomorrow it could be different. Ain’t if funny how there are something you can truly depend on in life like having to take a pee even when you don’t want to. And that is one thing you don’t even have to guess to know I’m telling the truth I bet!

THE SO SO LIFE

Time for a yawn! Yep go ahead and enjoy one just for me and I’ll do the same. Don’t worry I’ll wait till you get done. Er, you finished yet? Good, me too.

Okay now that we all got that out of our system or at least for the moment I just wanted to say something. Yawning to me is the response I get when I hear somebody try to make some dull and boring thing sound interesting.

If something sucks and is downright lame why do you have to make it sound cool? After all what is the value in that if when somebody gets involved with it for real they are going to find out it ain’t really so cool.

Personally I got no problem with the times that people have just an okay life. It isn’t like they are doing anything wrong. So what if by somebody’s standard they are a stupid, lazy jerk? Is there some law that says you can’t be a worthless scum of a moron and scum? And if you aren’t hurting anybody in the process then what is the big deal?

Speaking for myself as a trash man and grimefighting super hero type well even my life sucks at times. However, even when my day isn’t that great I still try to enjoy it. True, it isn’t as much fun just being plain old me as when I got some fan wanted to worship me as a hero.

Of course that doesn’t happen very often. In fact about the only time it does is when I sort of pay this one neighbor kid to act that way when I want to impress somebody for some reason. But that is sort of part of what I’m talking about. See the rest of the time my life is sort of so-so. Only that doesn’t keep me from doing what I can to find something fun to keep me smiling.

See I’ve see all those so-called successful types and the ones that are famous too. But you know it just seems to me at times that they don’t really enjoy life that much. Now that might be just my imagination, but it sure seems that way.

And I’m not sure it is a good deal if you want to get all successful at something and are still grumpy. That sort of takes the joy out of it too me.

So what I say is if you are some ordinary dude and perhaps you don’t get a lot of respect then relax. It isn’t a big deal. You’re cool as long as you treat being so-so as okay.

Yep, you just go on enjoying what you do best even if it is eating too much and farting a lot. Just be the best darn overeating farting dude on the planet. You might not get lots of people who get excited about it, but I bet if you enjoy it yourself enough you won’t even notice.

In the meantime being a super hero on all I guess I got to run off and save the world this afternoon. Our boss Dr. Hemoglobin sure keeps us busy doing that all the time. I guess I just never appreciated how running out of toilet paper could end up being an emergency that threatens the rest of mankind the way he claims. But as long as we are able to buy some at the grocery store I suppose the world will survive!

INSPIRED LINT

I can feel the brows wrinkling by the title of this posting. I know lint is a lot of things, but I bet you probably never thought of it as potentially inspirational. And neither did I tell the other day.

There are some times when my buddy Otis gets in these moods he called being inspired. I don’t know, but he kind of like to ramble a lot and starts talking weird, at least to me. Normally I just let him keep talking tell he is enough impressed with himself to finally shut up.

The only problem is if he decides to ask me a question about what he just said. Brother that can be such a pain. I mean I do the best I can to look interested and all, but shoot when he starts using all those big words and talking non-stop for like ten minutes who the heck can remember what he said at the beginning? I know I can’t.

Anyway it was during one of these so-called inspired moments he started blabbing about lint. Up till then to me lint was just a pain in the butt. It was just some loose fabric that you found in a dryer or sticking to your clothes that you needed to get rid of. Beyond that I didn’t see any value in it myself.

Well let me tell you that wasn’t the case with Otis. Man did he suddenly decide that lint was really one of the most important things on earth.

Now he started out by mentioned how lint was in fact the “precious fibrous relic of nostalgia’s proportion.” I bet you can imagine how I reacted to that comment. I looked at him like he was from another planet. Basically that I had no idea what the heck he was talking about. (I did at least write down what he said to put in this posting because I sure couldn’t remember it otherwise.)

That is when Otis really got rolling. At least with his tongue. And by the time he got done I swear I was never going to even want to think of lint as just lint anymore.

The thing was we were standing there finishing up the laundry and taking stuff out of the dryer. And I saw how this one sure had all kinds of lint attached to it. Man I hate when that happens. So I started griping.

Which with Otis was a bad idea. Boy after he made that first comment, which nearly made my head spin, he then started out by saying stuff on how things aren’t always how they seem. That lint was a symbol of change and how seeing it was in reality a form of hope that tomorrow could be different if not better than today. So we ought to be grateful each time we see lint because it is prove that life will continue and not come to an end.

Oh he said a lot more than that, but I didn’t try to remember it all. What I did do was know that when it comes to taking clothes out of the dryer that from now on I’ll know better than complain or ask any questions if Otis is there and that is inspiration enough for me.

WORTH FIGHTING FOR...

This idea sort of leaves me kind of confused. I heard the idea in this movie where a guy was talking about this idea was worth fighting for. I forget what the idea was, but all I know is that at no time during the whole movie did he actually end up doing any of what I would call fighting.

Oh he gave lots of speeches and other kinds of stuff that I guess qualified to him as fighting. But did he raise his fist and say “put them up?” Nope, not once.

I guess in a way that was a good thing. Because from what I could figure the dudes he was fighting with all those speeches turned out to be really old. They looked mean and they did seem to snarl a lot and were definitely bad guys. But they sure didn’t look like they could have taken much of a punch.

You know that was the really strange thing to me. I mean I bet if he had just gone up to those dudes in the suits and belted them once they would have knocked off doing whatever it was that he said was worth fighting for.

I did forget to mention though that the guy giving all the speeches in this movie was a lawyer. And boy if fighting by talking is a good thing then judging by the applause he got after giving those speeches then he did okay.

What was kind of stupid though is that after he got done giving his speeches this other dude who was sitting in a black bathrobe behind this big counter and kept hammering for some reason told a group of people to go a deliberate. Well heck whatever that deliberate involved I bet didn’t include boxing.

But I reckon since they were voting for some reason that it must have meant they were politicians even if they didn’t look like politicians. All I know is that they sure came back from their deliberating and voting acting weird. Because they came up with a decision of not guilty.

Now with all the fighting supposedly going on that you didn’t get to see you would have figured they would know during a boxing match a decision is something that ends up split or with a TKO or a knock out. I never heard anybody in a boxing match being ruled a winner by being told they were not guilty.

However it seemed to work for those folks and everyone end up cheering and basically seemed to enjoy the whole deal. As for me, well I never did quite figuring out what it was they really felt was worth fighting for. Maybe sometime these people will think it is nice to sort of include that if they make another of these weird boxing movies. And who knows perhaps the next time the dude doing the boxing will wear gloves too.

Although I do recall him mentioning how he was planning on taking the gloves off. Guess that happen while he was in the bathroom or something. All I know is that I never saw them. Oh well, when you talk about fighting and there ain’t no real fighting I reckon you don’t worry about such things.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: "Experience may be the best teacher, but the homework can last a life time!"

SANDWICH, SAND AND POTATOES

The other day my buddy Otis got into this mood to go on a picnic. He was watching some movie where they had a great picnic and claimed that was the reason. But I don’t think it was the real reason myself.

Now buddy won’t admit to it, but he gets these occasional cravings for potato salad. I’m talking like being able to eat a whole bucket of it by himself and still being hungry.

And in order to make it seem like he doesn’t want potato salad alone what he does is make sure we have sandwiches with it. (Now don’t tell him, but I actually saw my buddy take his sandwich and put some potato salad on it too when he thought I wasn’t watching. However I guess I won’t say to much more on that thing.)

Anyway I went along with his insistence that we go on this picnic thing. The only problem was that the park was full. They were having some kind of big company activity on that Saturday. So we finally ended up down this river and setting on the sand next to it. That worked for Otis I guess. Me, I don’t know, but it sure was tough to keep our food from getting some kind of sand or dirt in it. I just did what I could to pretend it was no big deal. At least my buddy doesn’t get into these potato salad moods that often.

However that ain’t the only way he likes potatoes. He likes French fries, which I do too. And he also likes baked potatoes. Well I think it is a baked potato. It is kind of hard to be sure when he buries it under a mountain of sour cream, butter and that green stuff called jives or chives or whatever.

What really bugged me though was the other day. He was mentioning about going on another picnic and how we should try the river again. So I ended up being a little surprise you know that he wanted to go on a picnic so soon after the last one, but I decided it was better to at least humor him.

Man that would have been okay, but when we got there and he got out the food I discovered that he had managed to forget the sandwiches. Plus he went really crazy and had not only potato salad, but also French fries and also baked potatoes. Boy that was not my idea of a great picnic, but he sure seemed to love it.

And then what totally got to me was that when we came home and got ready for dinner to my shock he decided to have potato pancakes with potato bread for toast. I’m telling you when that guy gets in the mood for potatoes you better watch out.

So at this point I think I’ve seen all the potatoes I want to see for a while. I also hope that Otis has had enough of going on picnic at the river. Because it has been a long time since I used to enjoy eating dirt like when I was a kid.

Meanwhile, I guess I have to confess I am a little worried. I noticed that Otis came home from the grocery store with a couple of bags of potatoes. But I think I’ll keep from worrying too much unless he puts the picnic basket on the kitchen table.

UNDER THE UNDERWEAR

To me when I put my underwear in my dresser drawer after washing it that is the last I think about it. I mean I don’t feel it needs much other thought.

At least I used to think that way. But I’m not so sure any longer. I’m sure grateful sometimes that I got a radio and can get to listen to some really interesting programs from time to time late at night. Sometimes I sort of nod off and kind of miss a little bit of some talk show, but I do get to hear enough to figure out what they are talking about.

Now the other day they had this guy on it talking about how some people have lot of skeletons in their closets they don’t want anybody to know about. Well I don’t personally know anybody that has anybody with a real skeleton in his closet. So I guess that he just knows a lot of people I haven’t met yet.

And I can definitely say that I don’t myself own a single skeleton. Well since we live in an apartment I don’t own closet either I guess. So even if I did figure a place to buy a skeleton I wouldn’t have a closet that I owned to put it in.

Anyway all that skeleton and closet stuff got me to thinking. If people hide something like skeletons in their closet then perhaps they hide other stuff in other places. So who knows perhaps underneath their underwear they hide something they don’t want anybody to know about.

Gosh it does sort of concern me that people might be hiding weird junk with their underwear then later put on the underwear. Of course I suppose in a way you know it has to be something really disgusting otherwise they might not be hiding it in the first place because if it was good they would end up wanting to show it off.

That is unless of course it is something really valuable and they just figure hiding it under their underwear keeps it safe so nobody would have a reason to check for it. Man some people can sure be sneaky huh? And the dudes are smart too. Here they are keeping super important stuff in some underwear drawer and able to keep it a secret the whole time.

Well I’m not sure whether I really want to know the details I guess. Because it would be my luck that the person would be some nut and if I asked he would end up showing me something really dumb and stupid. Yeah that would probably happen to me.

I know one thing though. After having thought this through I think from now on when I see other people I’ll be thinking to myself what other than underwear is hiding in their dresser?

Of course I’ll know better than to ask. I’m not going to risk them telling me or perhaps showing me. I guess there are just some things in this world we are better off just wondering about. (And in case your curiosity gets the best of you and you decide to sneak into somebody’s bedroom and look in that drawer, just be sure you don’t tell them it was my idea if you get caught!)

TALK IS CHEAP

Boy is this ever true. Well at least at STINK it is. Because the one thing I can count on is that my boss Dr. Hemoglobin will never say words such as “raise” or “bonus.” That isn’t to say he doesn’t ever give us raises, he just doesn’t like to actually use the word.

I get the impression that he feels the longer he avoids talking about it the less chance there is he’ll have to actually give us a raise. Plus he often changes the subject to try and use a guilt trip to get us to forget about things like raises. You know by mentioning junk like how being a grimefighter is a noble calling and that you can’t truly put a price tag on the role of being a super hero. Er, pardon me if I yawn here for second. I guess I’ve heard that speech too many times with an empty wallet.

Now when it comes to talk really being cheap you can be darn sure that my boss love words that inspire cheap. Words like “frugal,” “thrifty,” and “austere.” Man if he can work any of those words in a conversation he does, plus a whole lot more that all come down to the idea that we are going to get shafted in terms of bucks.

Of course I do not want to actually complain about pay. Otis and I get by okay. We got all the usual stuff that most people have. Plus our share of junk and crap you buy because it is on sale, but you honestly don’t need.

Which is probably why I suppose we don’t like to make a real big deal about when our boss gets in one of his “cheap” talk moods. And I do suppose I have to confess that normally he gets in those moods most often after one of us grimefighters has an “oops.” That’s what I call accidents. The kind where we accidentally manage to change the appearance of a garbage truck or diaper service van.

And it normally gets really anxious to talk that way when that accident was our fault. Only he often doesn’t just talk about things like “affordable.” He’ll add other words that sort of express how the help itself is “cheap” in terms of quality, along with mentioning stuff like calling up an employment agency.

The one time when an “oops” happens that he doesn’t say that is when the accident wasn’t our fault. Then the cheap talk sort of doesn’t come up as a rule. Instead he sort gets this look in his eyes as if he just won the lottery or something. And he often starts spending a lot of time talking on the phone checking on prices of stuff he decides he suddenly can’t live without.

In the meantime we just go back to fighting grime and doing the other stuff we are suppose to do as grimefighting, super hero trash men. And that ain’t all bad. The best part is while Dr. Hemoglobin spends his time shopping it keeps him from any kind of cheap talk with us.

Which is definitely a good thing for us. The hard part is trying to have an “oops” on purpose that isn’t our fault so we can keep him from any cheap talk. We’re still working on that part. And most of us haven’t taken rat boy Junior’s suggestion we try letting a car run over us!

TASTY AND HASTY

I love fast food and even more when it don’t reek of grease, especially really bad grease that is way too old. There is nothing that turns me off on biting into a nice big burger that I got for a discount that if when I pick it up the grease starts raining out of the bottom and it also smells bad. That sort of takes the fun out of it for me.

My buddy Otis has his own version of what is smart eating. Only in his case it doesn’t have anything to do with going to a fast food place. He gets really weird at times about things like nutrition. For him that somehow comes down to going to a place that sells more important stuff like salads. Course by the time he smothers that green stuff with all that salad dressing you can even see the darn lettuce so how can you even know it is good for you at that point?

However he doesn’t seem to worry about such details. For him ordering a salad is what counts. And the fact that he has it with like practically a loaf of bread and some appetizer thing which looks like fast food stuff too me and then has dessert afterwards doesn’t seem to matter either. Just as long as somewhere in between all that other junk he has a salad then that is what matters from as best as I can figure.

Now I don’t even mind us taking time to go over to that fancy restaurant. But what I do mind is that they are so dang slow at bringing you any food. It might be tasty at least to Otis, but they sure aren’t hasty and making sure you get a chance to eat it.

Which is why I do prefer those fast food places. Of course if you go there and they are real, real busy then you may not end up getting your food all that fast. But it is still a lot faster than that restaurant Otis takes me too.

Now what I’ve decided to do in this situation is come up with some kind of compromise where I can get tasty and also have it be hasty. And for my buddy I know that means letting him keep enjoying his salad thing when he is in one of those green moods.

Right now I’m searching for a place that sells food fast, but has all the good stuff to eat, including some of those salads my buddy wants. Oh I’ve even found a few fast food places that have salads. But since my buddy gets hung up on having a bunch of bread with it and dessert that is hard to find with some of them. I’ve found a couple that will give you crackers with the salad or those crouton things, but actually real bread like in a slice form, nope.

My current hope remains with this one take out place I’m going to go visit later. They sell pizza and also salads. No dessert though. But they are located next to a donut shop so that might work.

I still have to check out if they sell salad dressing by the gallon with the salad. Not sure my buddy will be excited by the choice if he can’t drown the green stuff in dressing. Gosh it is funny how you got to work so hard just to get a decent meal at times. But the nice thing is when you do find tasty and hasty it makes more than your tummy smile.

THIS WAY AND THAT PAY

Do you enjoy having to always ask for directions? I don’t. Call it being stupid I guess or having too much pride, but I just figure if you got a map that ought to be enough. Why embarrass yourself by letting somebody know you are lost?

Course I guess it does help if the map is actually to the place where you are going. That is a little detail that my buddy Otis pointed out once when we were going to some address and I was ready the map. And I was sort of too embarrassed to admit to him that I picked up the wrong map when we left home. But he figured it out after I told him to turn left enough times and we ended up just going in a circle.

The big clue to him that I had the wrong map was when I told him the place we were going was next door to the record store. That’s when he grabbed the map out of my hands and shook his head. Hey, is it my fault that I honestly didn’t pay more attention to the fact that I had a map to the mall instead of city streets? It was an accident you know. I just kept hoping that if I faked it long enough by telling him to keep turning left we would luck out and get there.

But it didn’t work out that way unfortunately. And so Otis had to stop and call the place for directions. Which he didn’t enjoy doing because he’s not too crazy about asking for directions any more than I am.

Well the thing was Otis didn’t bother to ask about parking when we got to the place. So he’s not necessarily more perfect and asking about details either.

When we got there is turned out the only parking we could find was this parking lot where they charge you to park. And I just knew from the look in his face that Otis wasn’t about to ask anybody at the place where to park. So he paid the parking people and we went inside the store.

The nice thing, well nice to me is that once we were inside we overhead these two ladies talking about the free parking behind the place. I did look at Otis, but you can better believe I didn’t bother to say a word. And he sure didn’t make any effort to say anything too me either.

Well we left the place after taking care of the junk we needed to take care of. And afterwards didn’t spend any time talking about parking, directions or maps.

The good that came out of all of this I suppose is that now Otis has gotten us a really good map book for all the streets in our city. And he even made sure it looks enough different than the map to the mall so I don’t pick it up by mistake again.

He’s still working out the issue of knowing how to get free parking wherever we go. And doing it without asking anyone. I think his current plan is to call the place and ask some other question before checking on parking so it doesn’t sound like he’s stupid about parking or anything. Funny the things you got to do as a Super Hero to keep from looking stupid. I just wish I noticed when some of those other Super Hero types did the same? Maybe they just have better maps.

SCUM, SUM AND NUMB

Boy when it comes to griminals the one thing I know is you can never expect them to clean up their act. People who love filth and grime might achieve some level of not being totally devoted to those things, but clean — forget it!

The other day old rat boy, Junior Hemoglobin came up with what he thought was a genius idea. He decided that perhaps we could work out a way to pay people not to be griminals. Now admittedly there ain’t a lot of money in committing a grime. The plain fact is that the people who do it are mainly doing it because they love being dirty and all that other crude.

So my buddy Otis and I figured it was kind of pointless to go out and find some griminal and instead of arresting him or beating the snot out of him we would pay him or reward him for stopping. We just thought it was a dumb and stupid idea.

However regardless of what we thought the one thing you can be sure of at STINK is that since Dr. Hemoglobin is Junior’s dad that whatever rat boy thinks is cool is going to end up being something we get stuck doing. Reason may be a good thing as is common sense, but it just don’t seem to matter when you are talking about a son getting his way with his dad.

Anyway there we were with these special coupons for getting stuff for free from these stores that Dr. Hemoglobin had gotten somewhere. Oh there wasn’t anything he was giving away that was like super expensive, but they weren’t all bad either.

Well the thing was we did try to see if we could pass them out. All except the ones for the 99 cent store. Otis found out they just got a big shipment of dented Spam cans in and there was no way he was going to miss out on that.

However with the other ones for various stuff we didn’t care about anyway I can say that we did honestly try to find griminals to give them too under the promise they would stop being so darn filthy. Which might have been one of those ideas what was good in theory, but it sure didn’t work out that way in reality.

I guess one of the big problems is that the only griminals we ran into were ones we had previously busted for one reason or another. And it was sure hard to get them to stop getting down on their knees and begging for me to not clobber them with my bat so we could give them the coupons.

But after I threatened to beat them senseless if they didn’t shut up most did actually listen. I just wish by listening that meant they cooperated. You know I mean that they did agree to take the coupons and stop trying to commit any grimes.

Oh they did take the coupons, but they didn’t want to promise to give up committing any grimes. Which to me sort of defeated the purpose. Well my buddy Otis wants to give this a shot again some other time. As for the dudes we meant he thought maybe after they recovered from being so numb from me using my bat on them they might reconsider. That is one of those wait and see deals to me. However you can be sure my bat isn’t going to be left in the closet when we try this again!

THE TORTOISE AND THE WOLF

Okay don’t anybody start up with saying that this ought to be title the tortoise and the hare. My buddy Otis already mentioned that and I’ll tell you the same thing I told him, when you write your own posting you can call it whatever you want, but for me there is a principal I’m thinking of in this case.

And that is that I think the tortoise was a dirty rotten cheater who just happen to have a great publicists. Yeah, I’m telling you I got it all figured out. Well I did have a little help from this guy I know, Iggy. He always has so many really great things he knows that after you get through talking with him you find out life is a whole lot different than you first thought.

Iggy is sort of shy type of guy and doesn’t like to brag so I won’t tell him I mentioned him in this posting, but I know when he tells me something it is really special. And I have no doubt those little pills they give him over at that place where he is kind of staying permanently to get lots of rest probably helped to some degree. It’s just too bad that darn jacket they make him wear most of the time has sleeves that tie in the back so he can use an ink pen. I think they call them a straight jacket, but I don’t know why since I don’t see any thing straight about them.

Anyway after I first met Iggy when I dialed a wrong number and he answered it and then we started talking I sure felt I learned a lot. I mean I had to be impressed with a guy who could answer the phone using his feet, which I discovered after I met him in person. Or I should say after I got to kind of wave to him through the bars on the window. But at least now I know when he is close enough to the phone to answer when I can call and that way I don’t miss out on all his good ideas.

Which is what I’m coming to with this tortoise and wolf thing. Like I said from what Iggy was explaining, this whole original story about the tortoise and hare thing was one big con job. See in reality we all know a hare is a lot faster than a tortoise. But them darn may look goofy, but they are smart.

So like Iggy says, he figures the tortoise probably started this whole story about beating that hare in a race so he could make it look like a slower dude was better than a faster dude. Why those darn tortoise are so sneaky he probably used some short cut or another dirty trick to just make it appear he really one.

Man after Iggy explain how truly much of a rat these darn tortoise can be that’s when it thought we needed to revise this story and use a wolf instead of a hare. That way when that darn tortoise tried to pull some sneaky crap the wolf could just end up eating him. Then the story would be over with a cool burp!

Plus it might teach those darn tortoises to not try and be such crummy cheaters. And it would be so much better of an ending. The fast dude not only won, but had lunch in the process. Kind makes you feel real good inside huh just to think of how much better the story comes out that way? I think I’ll use Iggy’s help to rewrite a few of those fairy tales tell they make sense too. I’ll keep you posted on that part.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: "Love may make the world go round, but hate sure keeps it from spinning the right way."

AT A SNAIL'S PACE

Okay when is this a good thing? Have you ever watched a snail? Speed ain’t its specialty. Living a slimy trail might be something it could brag about, but it sure won’t win any prizes for speeding.

So if we know all that then why mention some stupid snail when talking about making progress? Is that a good thing?

It sure seems to be over at STINK where I work. Let me tell you my boss Dr. Hemoglobin has a solution for all problems. And when I say all I mean all like no exceptions. Shoot he is always making comments and speeches to us that are suppose to tell us how there are no problems than can’t be fixed with the right effort.

And with him that always seems in some way to involve not ending up moving at a snail’s pace in terms of acting on the solution. Now he might move at a snail’s pace when talking about thinking at times, but I guess in his mind that’s okay. We just can’t do it in terms of acting on whatever he decides is suppose to be a solution.

The other day I sort of got kind of tired of the snail’s pace talk so I went out into this garden and found a snail to take over to STINK and show it to my boss. I figured that maybe if he really saw a snail being slimy as well as slow he might stop boring me with the snail talk and come up with some other way to talk about it.

Good luck on that part is all I can say. I mean lucky me. I found out how easy a snail gets squished.

I put the little guy on the floor and then was going to wait for our boss to come walking down the hall so I could point it out to him when he came by. But I got sort of sidetracked and before I knew it the poor little guy was just one smear on the tile.

And one thing you can be darn sure of it is that no squish snail is going to move at any pace. Unless it happens to stick to the bottom of a shoe that is moving real fast.

Well so much for that experience I guess. I still think it was a good idea, but I haven’t found anymore snails so far.

I did try a different approach sort of. I found this concrete statue of a snail in the garden shop of this retail store. It was a little different than a real snail since it has a big sharp spike on top of its shell for decoration, but I didn’t think that was a big deal. So I picked it up and figured I would take it over to STINK as sort of reminder to our boss what a real snail was like. That way perhaps he would see how silly it was to kind of lecture us about not doing things at a snail pace. I mean even he could be able to tell that people don’t look anything like a snail. Plus see that it was made out of concrete and all I wouldn’t have to worry about it being squished.

So when I got to STINK I just couldn’t wait to show it to him. And the good news is I guess that since I did that Dr. Hemoglobin hasn’t mentioned snails. But I haven’t bothered to ask him if that concrete snail was the reason. Right now I just need to let him cool down after he sat on it when I got busy and accidentally left it in his chair. Oh well that is one time when a snail’s pace probably won’t be so bad in terms of me talking to him.

YOU CAN TAKE THAT TO THE BANK

Now I just got one question on this saying. And that is “which bank?” I think that is kid of an important thing to know.

But I never hear anybody answer that one. Which seems to me a kind of big thing to not tell anyone.

The way I figure it if taking whatever to a special bank is such a big deal how come they can’t bother to tell you, which one. Seems like it would be the decent thing to do.

So since nobody was going to volunteer the name of the stupid bank I figured it was a good idea if I went directly to the bank and check it out for myself. But I was prepared in case they didn’t want to tell me right off. You know should this be some type of secret that is so secret they don’t tell you willingly.

I wasn’t sure, which one to start with though. I had to take some time to give that some respectable thought.

When I got done I know I had done enough thinking because I had one big headache. And I know it was from all the thinking even if Otis claims when I try to use enough brain food to help that is the cause. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why he would think eating a whole seven layer chocolate cake with German Chocolate frosting, plus a gallon of Rocky Road ice cream, six brownies and two gallons of Root Beer would give me a headache. I just try to ignore him when he comes up with such silly ideas.

Anyway once I got done with my brain food and the nap I ended up needing to take afterwards I think I came to some real insight. Er an insight is one as I get it you have from sight while inside the house compare to outside, which is out of sight. But I just mention that in case you needed any help with understanding that part.

So the thing is what occurred to me was that I would mosey into a bank and pretend to be a customer. Hey what better way to find out what is best to take to a bank than pretend to be one of their customers?

Which is what I did. I walked into the nearest bank to where I lived and the first think I did was to do like I saw in this movie about some dudes who spent a lot of time in bank. I walked around and checked the place out.

And when this nice security guard came up to ask what I was doing I didn’t want to seem dumb about banks so I told him I was casing the place like the said they did in the movie. Well he sure didn’t seem to like that answer. He got so upset he told me to leave.

That told me that I reckoned this must be the bank they were talking about if the guard expected me to leave just for talking to him. That’s when I said that I would leave, but that I would be back before making a fast get away. Which was another thing I heard them say in that movie.

Boy did that sure get him excited. He started shaking and getting nervous and I was kind of worried he was going to get sick. And I didn’t want to get blamed for it so I figured I would just leave and come back later. But before I did I told him I’d be back to take care of him and the tellers too. You know just in case whatever he had was catching.

I never did get back to the bank though. I heard these sirens coming towards the bank and figured that the guard was sicker than I imagined. Sure didn’t want to risk getting whatever he had. So I guess taking it to the bank will just have to wait to find out more later.

HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?

This question probably has more than one answer. I guess it depends upon who is asking the question huh?

Now being that I work with garbage and think about fighting filth and grime a lot for me the low part has to do with a sewer. That is about as low as you can get where I live. Oh perhaps you might go over to the dump. However it would be a toss up to me if that was all that much lower than the sewer.

What I guess I got a little confused about on this matter was hearing these two guys talking and they mentioned the low part. Only it sure didn’t seem to have to do with sewers or the dump. It seemed to have more with keeping promises. Or that is making promises and not keeping them.

I know for myself that the one thing I would never do is make a promise if it had anything to do with the sewer. Because that is one place I prefer not to visit when I don’t have to. So for me the low as I want to go is probably some street.

Unless I’m in the candy store. There the low is the low bin where they keep the jelly beans. Now that is one low I really don’t mind going for.

Anyway those two dudes were rambling on about some promise the one guy said he made and didn’t plan on keeping. It was to some girl I guess. And had to so with a ring and something called nuptials. Not sure what all that was, but it apparently is something to do with a bed since the fella mentioned how he needed to promise those things before he and that girl to use a bed.

Boy I got no idea what kind of bed he had that needed some ring. Perhaps it came with a phone. Maybe that nuptial thing was some new kind of phone.

I don’t know for sure, but I reckon the bed must have been real low to the ground because the other dude mention that having the bed for that girl without really having those things, but claiming you did was really low.

Well a while later I guess the girl showed up that the first guy was talking about. And then the guy went off to the bathroom and the other fella left. So I got kind of curious and went up and asked the lady about this bed thing like the guy mentioned and it being low and all.

Gee you know she sure got red faced when I asked her. I assumed she got sick for some reason. And then she just stood there and couldn’t even talk. So I figured I best leave her to feel better.

Which I reckon she did feel better when the guy came back because she decided to show him how good she was at boxing. And then she left while the guy was resting unconscious on the ground. Guess that is a different kind of low. I’ve known that kind when I slipped and fell and frankly don’t recommend it. Just thought I would pass that on.

JUMPING FOR JOY

Okay I’m not personally much for exercise so I seldom would plan on jumping for any reason. But if I did have a reason to want to jump I suppose jumping for joy would be as good as the next reason.

Now for me though I don’t need to do any jumping to feel full of joy. I can do it sitting down with a big smile. And frankly since jelly beans are what makes me have the most joy it would be kind of hard to have joy eating them while hopping around.

I was trying to figure out what exactly would be all that great about jumping in order to have joy. And I guess I couldn’t really think of a whole lot you would want to do where you would need to jump in order to have joy.

But then that is me. I know over at STINK where I work man, there is this one girl that I’ve mentioned before named Truly Grimey. Outside of being the worlds’ worst cook she is also probably the most happiest and sappiest person I know. That girl can get excited about just nearly anything. She is so happy that it practically makes me sick at my stomach from all that sugary junk.

Not that I’m complaining about being happy. Don’t get me wrong I do enjoy being happy too. It is just I like it to be a little genuine and sane and let me tell you just acting goofy don’t cut it.

And you see Truly is one of these jump around for joy types. Which is why I ain’t too crazy about it. See I know that if I have to be that full of joy that I act like I got ants in my pants or something I would rather pass.

It sure seems to work for Truly though. And that’s okay I guess. Heck STINK needs its cheerleaders too I suppose.

I just would rather smile and suck on a few jelly beans to show my joy. And I guess that is because I prefer real sugar to the emotional kind. That might feel good, but it sure don’t do a thing for my tummy.

Anyway right now I’m not planning on joining the jumping for joy set. Truly is trying to get a bunch of us guys to start acting that way. She keeps harping on having a good spirit of enthusiasm.

Heck I figure I got plenty of enthusiasm. I just don’t need to act weird to show it. But then I guess if jumping up and down is the only way you can show you joy then that is okay too.

Meanwhile, I’m going to reserve my jumping for jumping to conclusions. At least I don’t sweat when I do that kind of jumping. Otis might if I talk about it too much. He worries about what others like our boss thinks when you jump to the wrong conclusions too often. But I don’t personally mind. Heck that to me is a joy in itself when it ends up in him giving me jelly beans not to talk.

TESTING THE WATERS

Okay when did it happen? Come on you can tell me. I think I have a right to know. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself here. What I’m rambling about is this business of testing the waters. My boss Dr. Hemoglobin was talking about it the other day.

With him like everything it applied to STINK somehow. Now we do us water at STINK. You can hardly do much decent cleaning without water. But you know I never worried about having to test the water before.

Besides it hardly seemed like that big of a problem from my point of view. I mean shoot if you go to get some water out of a faucet and it were brown and not clear you better be smart enough to not drink it. So an eye test ought to be enough in that situation I reckon.

However it sure sounded to me like my boss was talking about more than that. Because he was talking about how we were going to use the garbage trucks differently to test the waters. I may not know everything, but I sure know you can stuff some big old garbage truck into a water hose. Even I got that part figured out.

So I’m thinking he’s talking about somehow getting the truck into something like one of those reservoirs or maybe a lake or even the ocean. But shoot if you stick a big old garbage truck in any of them all that is going to happen is that they will get polluted by the garbage, oil and er well, the rust too I suppose.

After we all sat around and our boss shared this water testing business I went and asked my buddy Otis why anybody in their right mind would think putting a garbage truck in water would help to test it for something you didn’t already know. Boy was that a mistake.

He rambled on about symbolism, imagery and what he called a “meta-for.” I don’t know who this met dude is that this testing the water would be for, but all I know is after Otis got done explaining I honestly didn’t know anymore than before he started talking. Honestly one of these days I swear I’m going to get out a dictionary and fix that problem. Oh I’m not going to read it, I’m going to hit him on the head with it in hopes it makes he stop using all those dang big words he loves to use a times.

Well after all of that nonsense we never did actually get around to driving any garbage truck into any lake or reservoir. Personally I was sort of disappointed. I mean I was curious if you know the garbage would make the truck light enough to float. But I guess I’ll have to wait to find out.

In the meantime all our garbage trucks got a new coat of paint on them. And we’ve added some cool images of trash collection on the side. Gee you know you would have thought instead of testing the waters that Dr. Hemoglobin would have been smarter to tell us to see how people reacted to the new look. But then I guess when your hung up on water as important you sort of forget that kind of stuff.

NOBODY'S FOOL

I get kind of hung up on the funniest types of phrases I guess. And this is one of those situations. I mean if your are “nobody’s” fool then I guess that means that nobody knows you are a fool. Now if everybody is the opposite of nobody then that means to me that you are everybody’s fool.

And being nobody’s fool would be cool if it meant that nobody knew you were a fool. But if it means everyone things you are a fool then that ain’t cool.

Or perhaps it means that if you are nobody’s fool you are everybody’s smart dude. Now that would be a good deal to me I guess.

The only problem that bugs me is that the times I’ve heard somebody talk about being nobody’s fool they honestly didn’t seem that smart. I guess their idea of nobody wasn’t quite the same as mine.

I suppose that is okay if you are comfortable with just presuming that everyone thinks your are some kind of genius when in fact you aren’t. That might be fine as long as you don’t ask anyone.

So before I start ending up confusing anyone here let me just get to what I think is the most important part. Basically be careful if you are going to brag about not being stupid if anyone you know is likely to disagree. That ought to be a good place to start.

I heard this saying once about how it is better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you are a dummy than to open you mouth and let them find out you are really a dummy. It sounds like pretty good advice to me.

Of course one way to avoid that is to only say junk that other people say first. Like quoting some genius. That way nobody will think you are stupid if you don’t claim it was your idea.

One word of suggestion though, don’t make the mistake of picking the wrong person to quote if you think they are smart, but nobody else agrees. I sort of learn that the hard way. For the longest time I used to enjoy quoting this one guy I knew who sure seem to understand life so darn good. Shoot some of the stuff he said was so smart I didn’t have a clue what he meant. And I figured that meant he was some kind of genius.

However later I found out the times he was saying junk that sounded smart, but really wasn’t. Well shoot can I help it that I didn’t have a way of knowing those funny little blue pills he took weren’t really a form of medication.

And I found out he didn’t get them from a pharmacy either. At least from what my buddy Otis said they apparently didn’t come from any drug store. He bought them from some dealer guy I guess. Must have been a car salesman I suppose.

Anyway I won’t get to hear from him for a while since he is a guest of the state for a while. And unless he behaves himself enough to get what Otis says is time off for good behavior I guess I won’t see him for a long time.

WHEN IT REALLY MATTERS

Oh yeah now this is extra, extra important. Well it is to me. And that is because it is one of those things that gets said to let us know how perhaps in a given situation something won’t happen, but we can count on it when it really matters. Like in an emergency.

So in a way I guess if you believe it about a given something then you can relax and enjoy having a sense of security that in a certain situation things will work out no matter what. It is sort of like having a spare tire for your care. Now it just sits there most of the time. You don’t have to use it, but when it really matters you can depend on it to take care of replacing the flat.

In my life there are some folks that are kind of like that spare tire. You can sort of depend on them when it really matters as in an emergency, but for regular junk they may not even be involved.

My buddy Otis can be like that. There are times like when we buy groceries or have to do chores around the house that he doesn’t always do what he promises. And that can be a real pisser on occasions.

But let me tell you the one thing I do know about my buddy is that when we are out on a grimefighting assignment and our butts get in trouble, he’ll be right by my side. When it really matters in terms of beating the snot out of some griminal he’s going to help and not run away.

And I guess the same can pretty much be said for most of the dudes at STINK. Well with the exception of old rat boy, Junior Hemoglobin. Him you never plan on helping when it really matters. Because you can be darn sure that when it really is important he’ll probably be on some cheese break.

However just knowing the way he is, we know better than to expect him to help. Oh he’ll get in one of those moods at times I guess where he will say he’s going to help, but we all know it is just for talk.

Meanwhile at least the rest of the grimefighters are a decent enough lot. We don’t always get along of course. There are sometimes we don’t agree on junk either.

But when we roll on some grime emergency the dudes are there if needed. And that is what really matters.

And the best thing is even if we don’t always get along perfectly, when we are out there chasing down some creep of a griminal I know they’ll be ready to do their part. That makes life as a grimefighter a lot more tolerable and satisfying at times.

Course I suppose I do have to admit that when it come to junk other than when we are battling grime the dudes can be a little less than reliable. But then that is part of knowing when it really matters to. You got to know what really matters before you can always know how some dude will act when it really matters. Er, got that? I hope so.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: "If life is were a dream would it mean wetting the bed meant you missed the toilet?"

WHY NOW?

I guess I’m sort of stuck in a why mood lately. It is probably because there are just too many things in life to question. Well if you bother to take time to notice when something needs to be question.

I tell you it is amazing how many times I know people that do junk they are told to do and never ask why in any way. So I come along and go huh? Why do I got to do that and why now? Like hoe come it can’t wait till I feel like doing it.

Only problem is that people don’t always like when you ask them why now? It is like because I say so.

And if you bug them enough to get specific and tell you why now a lot of times it seems like you find out that the now part is just because they feel like it. They just don’t admit it.

We got this neighbor where my buddy Otis and I live who is one of these now dudes. I mean whenever he needs something, no matter what it is, it can’t wait. And let me tell you that gets really annoying at times when he decides the now is right in the middle of doing something I think is pretty darn important.

Now I’ll give you two guesses if I’m doing something important and he wants something now, which gets done first. Course let me tell you that hardly makes him very happy.

It was like the other day. I was in a hurry and I parked my moped in his drive way. I wasn’t going to be there very long, but I was in a rush because my kidneys really were bothering me.

So I was just getting off the moped and thinking bathroom before my bladder has an accident. Well our neighbor, Mr. Snooty, me first and now dude came stomping out of his house and wanted me to move my moped right then. He said he had to leave to go to the store. Like I was going to let that be more important to me that making it to a bathroom.

Boy was he sure a pest about it. There he was doing all that whining and going on and on and me the whole time standing there doing the pee-pee dance. Normally I would have just ignored it and run into the house, but he was blocking my way and I didn’t have my bat with me.

So I went ahead and moved my moped. He left and that finally shut him up. I got my revenge I guess by sneaking over when nobody was looking and using his bushes as a bathroom.

The thing is later when he got home I heard him outside stomping around and complaining about how his bushes smelled funny. But you know for some reason I didn’t feel too bad. After all if you are going to be a now dude and it ends up stinking, I don’t reckon you can’t blame anyone else.

WHY FOR?

I don’t care if somebody wants to belly ache that asking this isn’t good English. When my butt in on the line and somebody wants ME to do something to risk it I’m going to expect to know why for? And believe me they better have a good answer and not give me some lame dribble about not asking the question right.

That really bugs me when you meet those English experts who want to always correct what you say, but never actually hear a darn word you actually say. They just pick up on some grammar glitch and then their ears go deaf.

It is like they want to impress you with how smart they are, but they don’t have enough brains to try and hear all that you say. They want to worry about some crummy word and not about the thought you were expressing. Those times are such a pain in the butt to work with or talk to.

Okay I admit that I’m hardly perfect at always use the right words. And I may get a little weird in understanding junk, but darn it all, at least I try to look at junk and figure it out. I don’t spend the whole time just notice that somebody forgot to cross a I or dot a T, er maybe it’s the other way around. Whatever, you get the idea.

It’s like over at STINK. We got this dude that used to teach English. Well at least he claimed he used to teach it. Until he sort of went a little wacky one time. He didn’t really explain that very well, but I gather it had something to do with kids not understanding when he was trying to explain this poem by some dead guy or something.

Well I ask you if you were talking about something like Paradise Lost wouldn’t you want to know how somebody lost it? That seemed kind of important to me too. But I guess who ever this Milton was that lost this Paradise went on and on and never explained where he actually lost it. I mean if you can remember where you put it how come you need to run off at the mouth about it being lost?

From what I gathered there were a couple of students in his class that were trying to ask that type of question and all he did was get pissed. And I guess after that he sort of had a nervous breakdown or something and started chewing on chalk and well, apparently it was decided he would do better taking up a different career.

But that might be good news for the students. However it wasn’t for me. I can hardly talk to the guy that he doesn’t stop me and say what I say was not correct.

And I guess he has done the same thing to a few of the other grimefighters. Our solution is we generally try these days to be sure we only see him in the lunch room. Then we make sure that we give him enough food to keep him busy eating so he can’t make any comments.

Once again food is the perfect solution to some problems. And it will continue to be as long as we got more food that this guy can eat at lunch time!

HOW COME?

One thing I’ve learned from asking this question is that if you have to ask it don’t expect and answer that will make sense. Oh you will probably get an answer, but as far as I’m concerned it will most likely be a bunch of double talk.

And I think figured out the reason is because whoever is flapping their beak while rambling without actually answering your question does so because they don’t want to answer it. Yep and that is because the real answer is one they don’t want to admit to.

It’s like when I go into the lunchroom at STINK and go to get a drink of pop and there is none left. So I stupidly ask how come?

Man the things I get told are so silly. I mean the dude that is trying to give me some stupid explanation about the pop truck getting hijacked shouldn’t do so with two empty cans in front of him! Plus he shouldn’t burp either. That really don’t help.

Let me tell you what really bugs me is that you would figure by now those guys would have wised up and not tried to pull that crap. I got the perfect response when I’m told baloney to my how come question. It is my trusty wooden buddy. And all them guys over at STINK know it too.

Still that doesn’t keep them from being a knucklehead at times and trying that junk as a response to a how come question. At least you know after I’ve used my wooden powers of persuasion they don’t try it for a while. Oh they might ramble a bit when they first wake up, but generally they don’t try it again till the bump on their noggin goes away.

It is too bad I can’t use that same solution when I have to deal with people like at the cable company. I mean asking them how come is like asking some politicians opinion on how come taxes went up. You can just be sure they aren’t going to give you an answer that makes a whole lot of sense.

Now maybe you have had better luck with your cable company if you use one, but not where I live. And from what I can tell they sure must have spent a lot of time practicing answering those how come questions without really answering them.

I say that because when I went to their office the other day to ask a question in person the lady I talked to behaved like this tour guide I had once at this museum. You know they type that is used to giving some speech while smiling, but doesn’t really pay attention to what she is saying sort like she is a robot. Yeah sort of like that.

And that is how the guy at the cable company was when I tried to find out how come they cool movie they said was going to be on the other night never was actually on. Man did he ramble about junk like computer programming, costs and technical difficulties, but not once did she ever actually say a word that explained why the movie wasn’t on.

In the end I just sort of, well, expressed my opinion in a way that made sure they understood I didn’t appreciate her how come answer. And I guess breaking that remote over his head was that big of a deal since I don’t need it now since they have cancelled my cable.

My biggest regret I suppose is that Otis pointed out that I was looking on the wrong day when I was checking the movies. Looks like this is another one of those times when I’m going to have to let Otis come up with another alias or good excuse so we can get cable again. Although I don’t think they’ll buy I have split personalities again.

IT WAS THE BEST OF SPINES

When they talk about having a back bone I know and you know they aren’t talking about back problems. They are talking about plain old courage. And just like with the fact that we all have different spines, we all have different levels of courage. For some naturally it is tougher to find that others, but I think it exists to some degree.

What kind of bugs me though is if you look at the movies it seems like everyone is just brimming over with guts. I mean man they never seem to be afraid of anything.

I wish real life were that simple. But then I also understand in some movie the dude in it doesn’t really have to worry much about consequences. He can go out and do junk and not worry about getting in trouble like you and me.

So it just seems to me that one big deal with this whole courage thing is the worry over getting in trouble from acting brave. At least it seems that way to me.

And there we are, sitting and thinking should I do something or shouldn’t I? The whole time perhaps some image rolls around in our brain that reminds us how if we do something we could end up in big trouble. Which for most people is something you really do have to think about.

Now as a super hero dude and grimefighting kind of guy I got to deal with the problem too. I suppose I ought to claim that I never get afraid. Boy I wish that were the case, but I have those moments of involuntary kidney movements just like anybody. And my buddy Otis has them too.

However what we don’t do is try to pretend about them. We just chalk them up to the times when for whatever reason our spines were just on the fritz. Only we don’t let that keep us from trying the next time.

And you know what? Shoot sometimes things turn out so cool later. We discover a different time where we find our spine again and things turn out totally different.

Those are what I like to call the best of spine moments. Those are the ones where things really work out and we feel so darn good.

Just being able to remember them sure helps during the times we don’t have those moments. It is enough to get us to get up and try again. And that is truly cool.

Plus we like to remember how you never know when the next time you could have another best of spine moment. I wish they were more often admittedly. Like as often as they seem to happen to all those other super heroes you see in the movies.

I think I’m going to check out the Internet to see if I can find the location of the super hero store with those other dudes get all those super powers. They might have some they have for sale that I can use instead of just relying on the rush from jelly beans.

RED LETTER DAYS

Well I reckon there are folks for whom a red letter day is a real cool thing. The only time I encountered them is when my boss, Dr. Hemoglobin, says we had one at STINK.

Personally I can’t tell how they are much different than any other day even though he makes it sound like it was a big deal. All I know is that when he tells us it is a red letter day you know that it doesn’t mean good in my idea of good. By that I mean I don’t end up with extra jelly beans, time off or a raise. Any of those would be a good thing and make any day extra special.

What it all seems to come down to is a red letter day at STINK is when one of us grimefighters fought grime and didn’t screw up. And in some cases we even managed to do something right.

Well it might have been something that to us was no big deal, but by the time Dr. Hemoglobin gets through explaining it in those speeches he loves to give then it ends up sounding like we prevented the end of the world. Which is okay I suppose as long as nobody asks us what really happened.

As far as I can figure though about the only thing that really ends up red through all of this is the bloodshot eyes we get from trying to stay awake listening to our leader’s speech. Of course eyes aren’t a letter or a day, so I imagine that means he probably has some memo stuffed away somewhere that will have plenty of letters on it, most likely in red and it will have a day too. That is as far as I can figure it would apply in some way that might make sense.

For me the worst kind of red letter day is when Dr. Hemoglobin decides to let his son, rat boy, Junior, get up and give he speech. That darn kid has about as much ability to give a decent speech as I do at being a doctor. And let me tell you that is one thing you sure wouldn’t want from me because I’m not even sure of which end of a needle to use on stabbing someone. As for a tongue depressor, well I have given those thoughts too and I figure if you poked a person in the eye with it you would depress them enough to keep their from using their tongues.

Anyway enough on the medicine part, back to old rat boy Junior. Now let me tell you with him if he gives a speech it don’t matter what it is suppose to be about, it will somewhere in it include junk about cheese. That dude couldn’t get through an hour without thinking or eating cheese. So it would be stupid to think he would be able to give a speech without talking about it either.

Normally with this red letter business what that comes down to is him babbling on and on about things that don’t go together like the weather and rotting garbage or some other craziness. Then when he gets close to the end he’ll take a big deep breath and when he exhales you can be darn sure he’ll mention how we need to celebrate this “momentous” occasion. He always tosses in the momentous part just before asking somebody to go out and buy a bunch of cheese to make the thing momentous. Oh well, at least it means he stops talking and that is celebration enough for the rest of us.

MINUTE MEN AND APPLE TURNOVERS

I was trapped in the Library the other day. I say trapped because I went in the place by accident, that is I was about to have a bladder accident unless I made it to the bathroom and they were the closest one. Guess that is what I get for deciding to try and find out if that all you can drink soda fountain at the burger joint really meant it.

Anyway there I was rushing in to use the toilet, but when I came out I didn’t want the librarian to think I just wanted to use the bathroom. You would have to know this lady to appreciate that comment.

Sometimes I don’t care what people think of what I do. But with her, gee I don’t know she just has the way of looking real disappointed and hurt like you were trying cut out her heart if you don’t show you are at the library to actually read something.

Well when she saw me coming out of the bathroom with that “can I help you look,” which in her case is “you better ask for my help or I might have a heart attack from getting my feelings hurt” that is when I went up to talk to her. Only since I didn’t really have anything special I was wanting to look for I had to fake it.

That’s when I saw a book in the stack of books that had just been returned. This one was about the Revolutionary War. And I thought if I just told her I was interested in the Revolutionary War that would do it. She could just hand me that book and I could pretend to look through it for a couple minutes, smile and then leave.

But NOOO, she had to ask me “what subject about the Revolutionary War was I interested it reading about.” Lucky me.

So under the panic of the moment I did remember that they had some dudes called minute men. Only I didn’t remember why they called them minute men. I figured it probably had something to do with things you can do in a minute. Well I know about the only thing you can do that quickly is nuke something in a microwave.

And about the only thing that really nukes that good in just one minute for me is a pastry. Like an apple turnover. I figured that perhaps these guys were just pros and nuking apple turnovers or something.

Then I remembered how there was this other dude named Johnnie Appleseed who had a lot to do with apples for some reason. Well that meant to not show her I was some big dummy on the subject I decided I better figure a way to talk about minute men and apple turnovers.

I told her I wanted to learn about how the minute men learned to make pastries from Johnny Appleseed and then went on to turn them into Yankee Noodles before sticking a feather in some crap and calling it Mac had a pony.

After that I was going to explain how some dude from the Revolutionary War named Paul Refer some underwear had a party in Boston where he used lots of “T’s” which I figured meant he was into turnovers too.

Only I guess I impressed her enough with my comments about minute men because she decide to help some other people after that. I don’t plan on going back to the library soon, but next time I’m going to study on history a little more. This time I think I’ll give a lot of thought to what is called the Louise-sang-a-banana Purchase. I don’t know any girl named Louise though. So I might have to read up on bananas instead.

APRIL'S FOOLS DAY

I know that April is a long way off, but I thought I would start practicing to make sure I didn’t get picked to be “it” for this day. I’m not sure why somebody decided that April was a good time to celebrate being a moron, but we seem to have holidays for so many things I reckon having one for being stupid was a good idea.

I appreciate how that April is when taxes are due. It does make me wonder if the two events are related even though they happen on different days. But then perhaps that is how the whole thing got started.

My buddy Otis is always talking about how he feels that the government is filled with idiots and hates the idea that we have to pay taxes to help fund their stupidity. So that is what made me figure perhaps those government types started this whole April first thing to try and get attention away from them.

And the best way was to have people go around pulling funny stuff and making you feel like a jerk. That way you know we would all get pissed off at each other for being so darn mean that we would have the time to gripe about the government as much.

Well I know that in the past there have been times when I seem to end up ‘it’ in the April Fool’s thing. Seems like everyone I know just gets obsessed with having fun at my expense.

I do take a shot at trying to do the same thing. But so far nobody seems to see the humor in the times when I sneak up behind somebody and whack them with my bat. Gee it sure seemed like fun too me.

Anyway this year I decided to get a head start on this whole April Fool’s thing. I figure I try to start do funny stuff to people by Christmas. That way by the time April comes around I should have the whole thing down to a real good system.

What I haven’t quite figured out is how I’m going to make a Christmas present explode in a way that will surprise somebody without blowing them to smithereens. I’m thinking that maybe using some kind of paint will work. But I will need something that causes the paint to explode.

I know that gasoline will go boom if you put a match to it. Only I don’t know yet how I would get the match to light the gasoline when I wanted it to.

Guess I need to work on this a little before I can get it to work right. But I think once I got the hang of it I bet I will sure make a lot of people have a reason to smile come Christmas. Gee I wonder if that dude who lives next to me still has all those Army hand grenades he said he borrowed from some Armory? Yeah that might work better than a match and gasoline. And I could paint them so when they went boom they would give out a real cool color. So I’ll go over and perhaps borrow a few from that place in his basement where he keeps them in a big metal box labeled first aid. I’ll let you know how I make out.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: "Winning by default is when you manage to find somebody you can say it was der fault!"

NO TRESSPASSING

Have you noticed how this is always on a sign and it is hung on some big huge fence or locked building? Now is that kind of weird or what?

I don’t know about you, but too me it doesn’t take a genius to figure out some fence or lock doesn’t exactly say “welcome.” It just seems kinds of pointless or frankly downright insulting to a person’s thinking to have to tell me, keep out that way.

It is sort of like those darn warnings they put after the words no trespassing about how you could be in big trouble if you trespass. Now I ask you who would expect somebody who puts up a no trespassing sign to not want to get your butt in trouble if you ignored his sign?

The way I see it this no trespassing sign business is sort of like trying to keep a secret. That’s because it doesn’t take a lot of thinking to understand how nobody goes to the trouble of putting up a fence and sign unless they got a real good reason for wanting you to stay out. Like perhaps they got something extra valuable inside and are afraid if you come inside you’ll find out about it.

So by putting up that sign you are too me just basically shouting, “hey I got a cool secret in here and I don’t plan on sharing!” That’s the way I figure it works.

Of course I realize that might not be the way some folks might look at it. They might have some other reason for wanting to keep folks for visiting. Can’t quite imagine what it would be though. Guess since you can’t go inside and ask the person there is no way to find out for sure.

But did try once with this place that had those no trespassing signs. It was this plant that is owned by Mr. Mammongrabber in our city. Man they got all these signs all over the place, but some that say “danger.”

It was the danger signs that really got me curious. And I figured you never know I bet they got something extra cool inside and the danger signs are just another way of trying to keep anybody from finding out.

Well I got to admit that my curiosity got the best of me and I managed to sneak inside that building one time. Boy was it a disappointment though.

I didn’t find one cool thing in there. I did find them making a bunch of smelly liquid. It was in some interesting bright colors too.

Still I didn’t see much that was dangerous. So I never went back either. And I guess it was a good thing I didn’t. It took a couple of weeks for me to stop glowing in the dark after I spilled some of that liquid on my body when I was looking around.

At least that is one place I don’t have to worry about visiting again. One less thing to think about. However that don’t mean I’ve given up on all those no trespassing signs, just the ones on any places owned by Mr. Mammongrabber.

SUPER DELUXE

You’ve heard that phrase “music to my ears?” Well if there are two words besides jelly beans that make my ears hear music it is the words “super deluxe.”

Oh I know just about anyone can use those words and they generally do. And I also know if they do use them and what they claim isn’t really super or deluxe that nobody will buy it for very long.

So I like to try and check to see how long the business has claimed something was super or deluxe before I buy their product. I like to give them at least a week, depending on what the thing is they are selling.

Now what gets my biggest attention is when these words show up at some burger joint I love to visit. It is especially cool if they use those words and it applies to a burger. Because I know they probably did something to make the burger even better.

Only problem is at times like I said some times some people’s idea of super and deluxe isn’t the same as mine. And when it comes to burgers that can mean the difference between one that tastes great and is real juicy and one that is well, yucky.

I have of sort of worked out my own way to test if the burger passes my Buttercream Super Deluxe program. So it think I’ll pass that one for the benefit of anyone who might be interested.

My first test is whether it makes me puke. Because if my stomach ends up needing to barf you can be darn sure that burger failed the super deluxe test.

Now if I don’t puke the second test is whether I end up burping a lot. That is a sign to me that something is happening. It tells me the stuff is good enough to give me gas, but whether that test is a good one will depends on what happens next.

It leads me to the third test. Basically if it gives me the runs. Now if that happens I know the burping wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

So now you know my standards for a Super Deluxe good or bad in terms of burgers. And I hope that passing it on is helpful to any of you.

Oh yeah before I forget, one general rule that I guess I figure you could think of by yourself, but decided to add just in case. Basically if it smells bad, it won’t taste good. And you can be sure it won’t be super deluxe either.

Well at least that is my rules. And so far you know they have worked for me pretty darn good. Oh occasionally you know I do make a mistake, but not enough to be worth making a big deal about. Heck anyone can pass out from eating a burger I suppose. I know because it has happened to me a couple of times. Come to think of it that has happen at the same place each time they advertise they have a new Super Deluxe meal. Hmmm I guess I’ll have to give that some further thought.

FINE AND CANDY

Okay so I know this is suppose to be fine and candy. Now for those know-it-alls out there that say I always mix up or confuse sayings I just wanted to prove that I do get them right at times. Maybe not always if you listen to what my buddy says, but enough to know I can figure junk out pretty darn good at times.

True, I might not see it the way you do or perhaps the way just about anyone who thinks they are sane might, but I do see it just the same. I guess I had to say that on account of sometimes over at work I tell them about what I’m blogging about and those guys make some less than kind remarks.

Well at least I can think good enough to have a blog! Some of those guys would have trouble even figuring out how to turn on a computer, let alone start up some blog. This may seem like a piece of cake to some of you, but thinking up stuff, even weird junk is still a lot of work.

However I just can’t give it up since I know for those folks out there that do want to read it I’m going to keep putting it out for their benefit. And while I’m at it I want to thank those two guys who I know do enjoy reading it. That is when they aren’t busy hunting purple unicorns or tangerine sewer hippos.

Which is why in this case I wanted to talk about how find and dandy is really so much better when it involves something that is fine and candy too. I know being the devout jelly bean lover that I am you are going to assume I’m talking about sugar.

Believe it or not in this situation I’m not talking about that kind. I’m speaking of the kind of sugar that makes you feel happy.

See I know the times when my buddy Otis talks about things being fine and dandy. But a lot of the times he’s sort of saying you are kind of stuck accepting some situation, which you cope with so to keep from being pissed off you just say that’s dandy as in okay.

Only in reality it is one of the things where you just shrug your shoulders because you can do anything about it. And that really is okay I suppose, but honestly it sure isn’t something I look on as a source of smiles.

Which I think is sort of important. So while my buddy likes to get all philosophical and I think it is his way of just pretending it is okay with excuses I prefer to find something good about the whole thing.

That’s not always easy. But I do try. And the thing is a lot of times when I try hard enough you know what? I do find that candy. I tell you that really makes find a whole lot more dandy when it does happen.

Oh well that’s how I find the joy in terms of all those fine moments that really aren’t fine. And I know regardless of who else agrees when my two buddies come back from hunting those unicorns on the planet Snavely-thistle they’ll like it too.