LET'S HEAR IT FOR

Oh yeah now aren’t salutes to cool things just well, cool? I don’t know, I guess some folks like when you criticize a lot. At least it seems that way when you notice how there seems to be so much more complaining going on in life instead of saying nice things.

I heard about that old saying where it says if you can’t say something nice then don’t say anything that will make me bawl. Er it has something for sure about the nice part.

Anyway the whole idea is that you ought to mainly try saying good junk about things and especially people. It can be tough to always say nice stuff about things though. Like if you are talking for example about garbage. I work with it every day and I got to be honest there just isn’t much good I can say about it. Except perhaps that when you collect it the empty trash cans look so much better than when they had junk in them.

But still I’ve decided that I’m definitely going to work more on doing this from now on. I got to admit there are some things I might have to find it harder to do this with than others, but I’m going to try.

Just don’t expect me to start with the impossible. I mean the one thing that is going to take a whole lot of imagination to find something good to talk about is anything that Truly Grimy has fixed to eat. I guess the only thing I can even think off the top of my head that I might say is that at least you never worry about something she fixes ending up being spoiled. You can’t have it spoil when it already is spoiled to start with. I’ll just be sure I don’t mention that part.

Gosh I feel better just having come up with that option. So that’s one thing out of the way, sort of. Now all I got to do in terms of Truly is make sure I don’t run into her till I’ve practiced saying that part till I can do it with a straight face. Unless I can make it appear like I’m happy. Um that could be risky though. That’s because she might ask if her cooking was making me laugh. Nope there just ain’t anyway I could manage to get away trying to come up with a big enough fib to make that sound believable.

Anyway I got a start on that problem. I guess enough so I can stop thinking on that one. Which leaves me with perhaps an even bigger problem. Namely in terms of rat boy, Junior Hemoglobin. Now how am I going to come up with something good to say that sniveling, back stabber, cheese hording creep? Um I suppose I ought to start by not calling him rat boy. Oh I know I could call him rat dude. Er, nope that won’t work, it might remind me of rat turd.

Darn I guess that means I would have to learn not to call him rat boy at all. Okay, let me practice. Now I’m going to talk about, about, about — I CAN’T DO IT! He’s rat boy! I, ah, ah, ah — shoot. It just ain’t going to work.

So I guess that means I’ll just have to avoid him altogether till I can get over doing that. I just don’t know if I can manage that. Um I wonder if there is away to avoid him for the rest of my life? Well I suppose that is kind of hard to hope for though. Maybe I’ll just have to settle for stuffing my face with jelly beans whenever I see him in order to avoid saying something bad.

TAKING IT TO THE LIMIT

Boy there sure are a lot of things out there where somebody wants to tell you no if you do more than they decide is enough. You can drive for example without those guys who own the traffic signs yelling at you that there is a speed limit. Or perhaps you have been in some store where they were having a cool sale and it says something about a limit on the number of whatever you can buy that is on sale. Now I ask you is that fair?

I guess some types of limits are good things. Well at least to whoever is telling you there is a limit on it.

What I want to know is where do you go to sign up to be the person who gets to do all the deciding on this limit thing? I mean is this a job that one person alone has or does it get to be shared by a whole lot of people?

Plus do you got a boss who is like my boss and no matter what you say he wants it done differently just because he’s the boss and can tell you to do it that way? Seems like a fair question to me.

I was looking through the phone book to see if I could find somewhere that they had a company that specialized in hiring limit people. Then I figured maybe each company just has its own limit person. You know how you got things like accountants and junk at lots of places so I thought gosh maybe limits work that way too.

So I figured I would call around a few places and find out how you got a job working for them in terms of making limits. I reckoned the person had to be one that was real smart in terms of knowing the best kind of limits to set. The kind that they probably call a person with a limited intelligence.

Thus what I did was you know start calling around and asking how does a person of limited intelligence get a job with that company. Gosh you know I didn’t realize that would get some really weird remarks.

I mean I tried to make the person feel important by asking them if they happened to be a person of limited intelligence. Man that sure didn’t get any nice comments. Mainly a bunch of no’s.

That made me feel all the more like there is definitely some special super secret thing about this limit job. I bet it is so much dang fun being able to sit there and tell people how much of whatever they can or can not do.

And I can just imagine that they love doing this so much that they just don’t want to share it with anybody else the selfish rats. Well personally I’m thinking that maybe I’ll just start practicing making up signs and putting them places telling people what limit they have. Then perhaps all the limit dudes will find out how cool I am at it and give me a chance to have some fun too.

I’m thinking of starting some place public where lots of people will see it. Like perhaps the toilet. And since you always see signs with a limit one to a customer I think I’ll try posting a sign that says, “limit, only one fart per customer.” Pretty cool huh? I’ll just have to wait and see how they like it providing the take the time to check them out.

I CAME, I SAW, I BLUNDERED

I heard about this was this dude named Julius Caesar. He’s from that place where there are a lot of folks who mainly speak Italian. I think they call it Rome.

Anyway I guess this guy was real big into stuff you can either drink or eat. Like the Orange Julius, which is a cool tasting drink. And then he also came up with a salad named after him. They’re okay I suppose. Only I’m not a big fan of salads as I’m sure you know.

Well from what I hear he got real well known for this saying, which is I came, I saw, I blundered. Um, I’m not totally sure on the last part. But I know after he came to where he was going he saw whatever it was he wanted to see and then did something about it whether is was blundering or meandering or conquering. In any case whatever it was came after the seeing part that much I do know.

Apparently he didn’t exactly make too many buds in the process. He had this one names Buffus or Brut something or other than got together with a bunch of other dudes over at this place I hear they had there in Rome called the Call-a-see-em. Must have been one heck of a big phone booth that’s all I can say.

Well they all apparently figured out they wanted to shut old Julius up for one reason or another and they did managed it. Since he had proven himself with all that bragging and food fixing to be sort of a pain in the butt they decided to give him a pain in the process.

Or so the story goes. At least the way I heard it. Then afterwards everybody sent out for pizza and somebody didn’t have enough money to pay the take out guy so he said friends, Romans and countrymen lend me your cheers. You know how money makes some people so darn happy.

I guess it all worked out okay for everyone, but Julius. I never heard if afterwards whether he went back to cooking or what he did once that Brut whoever dude and the others decided to be so dang rude to him.

You know it is though. Sometimes a person does just one thing or says one thing and nobody lets you forget it.

Perhaps for old Julius that is the big deal on the blundering part. Who knows eventually he found a better way of saying cool stuff that didn’t include lots of the kinds of bragging that pisses some people off.

One of these days when I have the time I think I’ll see if I can go visit over there in Rome and find out if I can look him up at wherever he’s serving those Orange Julius. Hopefully he may have even learned his lesson about shooting his mouth off. One can hope. Course it might be a while before I try to visit. After all I’m not sure when Dr. Hemoglobin would mind letting us borrow a diaper service van for the trip. I wonder which freeway you have to take to get to Rome from the city of Mediocrity anyway? Oh I reckon my buddy Otis will be able to follow it on a map when we get one.

HAVING YOUR MIND IN THE GUTTER

Is this a problem or what? I heard some kind complaining about people having their minds in the gutter. What happens with the rest of their bodies? Makes me wonder.

For a while I was kind of thinking perhaps this was some really weird twist on that whole brainwashing thing. But boy you sure would have to be really stupid to want to wash you brain in water that is a dirty as some water in the gutter.

Still I just can’t help wondering what the appeal to this whole gutter thing is? There has to be some secret I don’t know about.

So I went out to see if I could find somebody who could give me the first hand real, honest to goodness info on this mind in the gutter thing. And there was only one person I could think to ask.

Actually there were two. The first would have been my buddy Otis, but he was tied up working on some project for our boss Dr. Hemoglobin. Now I ask you does anyone by the guy who runs the company we work for called STINK honestly worry about lint multiplying by itself? Well our boss appears too. And he asked my buddy to study on it.

I got no idea what all that involved. However the last I saw my buddy Otis he was rummaging through the dryer checking the lint tray. Then he said something about heading over to the grocery store to check under the Spam cans to make sure they were lint free. Like lint has some brain that thinks hanging out there is fun.

Anyway somehow I know he’s going to get some free Spam out of this in one form or another so I reckon that is okay. Only it doesn’t help me with the mind in the gutter thing.

I ended up dropping by and talking to somebody who always seems to be an expert on stuff that has to do with what is disgusting and not a good thing. Namely I’m speaking of the Reverend Analbe. I just was sure he would know why some people are crazy enough to want to even figure a way to stick their brains in the gutter.

Well the good thing is that the Reverend Analbe was kind enough to answer my question. The bad part is that I had no idea what he was talking about.

As best as I could figure not having your mind in the gutter was the most important thing since the Reverend said that the devil makes people put their minds in the gutter. And to be honest I looked all over the place and I never saw anybody that looked like the Reverend said the devil looks like who was grabbing people and shoving their heads in the gutter against their will.

The closest I came was this dog who seemed to enjoy snooping around the gutter a lot. I suppose he might have been the devil in some dog costume. Only before I could ask the dog trotted off to do his thing with his hind leg raise on a nearby tree.

I best suggestion I can make is that if by chance you seem some weird dude hanging around a gutter that is toting a pitch fork and has horns and a cape I wouldn’t listen to him. And especially if he is trying to get you to believe a gutter is a fun place to stick your head.

TAKE IF FROM SOMEBODY ELSE

Advice is a great thing. Well sometimes at least. But why is it that the people who love giving the most advice are generally the ones that don’t know what they are talking about?

I say that because it seems to be that way in my case. Mainly it appears that way when I’m at work. Frankly we just have too many experts at STINK. I should say they aren’t really experts, but they like to think they are.

Personally after some other grimefighter runs off at the mouth on some subject I only listen once. Then if it ends up he’s totally wrong the next time I just offer to bash him with my bat if what he wants to offer me advice that turns out to be bogus.

So pretty much most of the time the other grimefighters have sort of gotten away from the advice department when I see them. Oh once and awhile they forget. Then I just go and get my bat and that normally ends the conversation.

The problem is with my buddy Otis. He not only listens to all the junk that is getting peddled, but even when it turns out not to be true he’ll listen again. What he does is get extra thrilled by the times he can point out when their advice is wrong.

At least that is the explanation he gives me. And I sort of see his point. I mean it is sort of funny to see these dudes sitting there and try to explain how come the advice they gave was completely wrong.

Now don’t tell any of the guys, but at our apartment Otis has this little board up on the wall of the bedroom. He puts down every amount of advice the guys gave and then if it turned out to be wrong. Otis even goes so far as to come up with some kind of figures for how often they are right.

Personally I consider that a lot of work without it being much help. But then unlike Otis I don’t get in the mood to try and give lots of my own advice to the dudes at STINK.

I should say I do feel a need to pass on junk I learn. But that isn’t my advice, it is from somebody else.

With my buddy though he just loves giving advice too. And unlike most of the grimefighters he seems to be right most of the time. Although, I do sort of take his word for that part. Because when he tells me something and it ends up not seeming to be true he always has a reason why it is that way.

But I guess none of this is going to change any time soon. I mean my buddy will always be giving advice and so will the other guys. Once and while it might even end up true. I just wish I had a way to know of sure. It just gets plain boring when I have to guess if some info really is going to help. Oh well I reckon some people might call that living life in the fast lane. I call it living in the fast pain, but that is just me.

Thought for the week: "How come civil service is only for people who don't know how to act civil?"

THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE DISGUSTING

Being a grimefighting I’m an expert on the different quality of trash. Okay I cheat since I’m also a garbage collector. But I still spend a fair amount of time handle all kinds of trash and have learned it isn’t all trash.

Sometimes it is a broken whatever that somebody was too lazy to repair. And my buddy Otis is so cool about helping me save that stuff from total extinction. Yep you would be amazed how you can add a little paint, maybe some batteries and the next thing you know you got a perfectly good birthday or Christmas present.

One word of advice though, be sure you check so you know if it smells. Like if you dug it out of a trash bag full of rotting garbage a paint job might not be enough. You might have to clean it till it don’t stink. People can be so darn picky about stuff like that when they open a package and whatever you gave them smells funny.

Of course when my buddy Otis goofs up on something like that he normally claims the smell comes from the packing materials. See while we are going through the garbage we also look for empty boxes. That is when we put the repaired thing in the box so it will look more like new. Hey we might be super heroes, but we do live on a budget like most folks.

Not like I said there is a difference between good and bad in that regard. Good is repairable, bad is sort of beyond help. It is something so broke it costs more to fix it than buy something new.

Bad doesn’t mean it is disgusting though. You see bad you can still sometimes use as a gift. You just have to be more creative about explaining how come it don’t work. Like saying some radio that is missing any knobs is a knickknack. That is what Otis calls it. And let me tell you we sure have found our share of knickknacks. Not sure the folks we give them to always appreciate them as such, but we do try.

Beyond the bad is the disgusting. That is normally pure garbage. And let me tell you that is one thing you can’t hardly give away as a present no matter how much air freshener you use on it.

Well I hope this little instruction was inspirational to those of you who are rookies at messing with turning trash into presents. Just remember the first rule and you’ll be okay. If it truly stinks, has mold or rotting in anyway, then you are best to just forget about it.

That is the good thing about trash. There is never an end to possible gifts if you look long enough. So don’t give up because you never know when that next trash bag will have the kind of surprise you’ve been looking for.

If not, well hang in there just the same. Tomorrow is another day and trash will always be there no matter whether we look for it or not.

YEP

I love when my buddy Otis tells me this. That is because when he says it I know he won’t bore me with a whole lot of other junk at the same time.

Now if he says “yes” then look out. Because yes with him means he’s going to give some speech to go along with it as if the word yes needs some kind of explanation.

However with plain old yep, man it just comes out by itself and that is so cool. The best part of course is that it means he agrees with something I say.

That don’t happen too often so that is another reason I really get jazzed when he says “yep.” It really just makes whatever I said or are thinking about sound so much better.

In either case the one thing I do know is that even yes is better than no. And you know the funny thing with my buddy Otis is that when he says no or nope it always comes with a lecture. I haven’t got that part quite figured out, but all I know is that anytime he says something that requires either a yes or no, only the word yep comes without a lecture.

All I wish was that I could figure a better way of making sure he said just yep more often. I do try, but sometimes he really does surprise me a lot. I’ll be sitting there thinking, this time I know he’ll see it the same way I do and whammo he’ll end up saying something that needs a lecture.

Of course I know the smart thing would be if I didn’t ever ask him any questions in the first place. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about it.

Only that is tough to do. The main reason is because we do spend a lot of time together as buds and also since we work together. So I can hardly avoid it completely. I might want to, but it just don’t happen.

See the toughest part is that since we do work together then there are times well when thinks don’t quite work out as I would hope. Oh shoot, what can I say, I screw up?

That’s when Otis will always ask me junk like how come I did something. So when he asks I sort of feel a need even if there ain’t any good reason to give him one. And in the process darn it all there are times when I have to ask him a question that requires him to either say yes or no. I just can’t avoid that possibility no matter how hard I try.

But I keep hoping I’ll work out that part eventually. For now I’m just trying to learn enough cool ways to change the subject when he asks me a question that might result in me having a reason to ask him a question that he has to answer with a yes or no.

Until then the one thing I’m definitely working on is not screwing up as much. That is I’m working on ways to make sure if I do that he doesn’t find out about it. And let me tell you that can sure be tough when he’s standing next to me when I goof up.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER HOLLER

Yep there really are times when the only way you can talk about a day is by mentioning how crummy it is. I don’t like to get off on always thinking bad things about something, but how can you avoid it when you got to deal with certain people.

It really gets to be a pain when part of your day is spent being a super hero type who has to always spend time saving the world from crap like well, crap. Here I am out there doing my best to put my butt on the line to see that grime doesn’t take over and do you think I get any thanks, forget it?

You sure can’t count on those griminal types to give you any applause. Hit you with a shovel yes, but never applause.

Actually I guess I don’t know I would react if I ran into some griminal who thanked me for busting them. I might think the person was crazy. Oh there is no doubt to me that griminals are crazy anyway, but one that was totally nuts would really concern me.

Somehow I just don’t imagine that is going to happen. Instead I reckon the same thing will take place that always takes place. You wake up each day and never know if you’ll end up with a reason to shout, smile, scream or frown. Er that doesn’t necessarily mean that shouting and smiling go together while screaming and frowning are meant to go together either. I guess it is just a matter of how you choose to look at it.

Right now I feel like I’m in the mood to be a crouch. I can’t say that is a great thing, but the only thing great is knowing it won’t last. That is the part that makes me kind of happy.

True there are times when all you can do is holler. Then are the other times when you got plenty of reason to feel pretty darn good about things.

What I do wish it there were more ways to get the reasons to holler to go away and the reasons to smile get increased. I am working on it, I just haven’t got a clue how I’m going to do that completely.

Not that I’m worried about it. I heard this saying about if you play your cards right then something is bound to work out.

So I figure all I have to do is fine out where they are hiding this deck and then everything will be okay. I’m thinking of checking in Dr. Hemoglobin’s desk drawer. He seems to keep all kinds of cool junk in there. You never know what all he might keep in it.

And if that don’t work, I’ll keep thinking about it. Because the way I figure if there is even a chance I can eliminate my hollering days then it will all be worth it.

That could be really a wonderful day when I get to it. Whenever that happens to be. Like a lot of things, tomorrow will be another day. Hopefully one without any hollering.

READ THIS

How come there are so many writers out there that decide they have to do your thinking for you? Take this business of putting up some sign and with big letters at the top that says, “read this” or the also popular “do not read this.” Now the second one really bugs me. I mean shoot why does somebody put up a sign that they don’t want read?

At least you don’t see that one every day! But when it comes to signs, let me tell you as I said there are sure some crazy writers out there. Such as the dude with the obsession about hanging up no trespassing signs. Or what about the “private property” signs? I mean isn’t that obvious when you see some house with a big electric fence around it that they aren’t exactly saying come in and be friends?

I don’t know, but it just seems like there are way too many of the wrong kinds of signs out there and too few of the ones you ought to have. Like with bathrooms. There are the ones where they put the word men or women on it and then also an image of either a man or a woman? What up with that? Are they figuring I’m too stupid to understand the difference between the two signs or something?

I guess the thing that got me started on this was going to the mall. They have all those stupid signs like the one that says elevator. Now I ask you who in their right mind can look at some elevator going up and down and NOT know it is an elevator? I just find that a little annoying if you know what I mean?

Then you go by the jewelry store and they will have a big sign up saying jewelry sale. I come on folks what in the world would you expect them to have in a jewelry store, socks and underwear?

Of course what bugs me is when you go into some store and they will have what they call a “buy one and get one free” sale. Only they don’t bother to explain what it is that it is you have to buy one of in order to get the second one free.

Boy I think I sure taught that dumb department store a lesson. I saw that sign so I went inside since they didn’t say what was on sale and asked where to find the jelly beans. I mean that sounded like a good deal if you could buy one jelly bean and get he second one free.

Well let me tell you that lady clerk in the store sure wasn’t much help. She gave me this look like I was some kind of moron when I asked for jelly beans. Hey that had clothes and blankets and crap so the least they could do is carry some good stuff too? It is a department store so how come they don’t have a decent sugar department?

I never did get a decent answer out of her. I might have if this darn security guard she called didn’t insist upon wrestling with me at the time. Plus he cheated since he had a nightstick, stun gun, mace and handcuffs. That was okay though because I borrow a bat from the sporting goods department to sort of even things out. It might have worked too if those three other security guards hadn’t showed up and wanted to wrestle too. I don’t remember too much about what happen after then what with them using those nightsticks and all. Wish they would put that on a sign sometime!

WHO GOES DARE?

They seem to say this a lot in spooky movies. Somebody will hear a scary sound in the darkness and it always has to be dark you understand and then the person will ask, “who goes dare?”

Shoot I can’t blame them for asking it. That is sort of saying, “okay there is probably some big ugly monster lurking how there in the darkness who made that sound. And he’s just waiting to eat my face. So whose got the guts to go and check it out because it sure ain’t going to be me.”

Now the one thing you can count on in the movies is the dude who gets to go and check it out will be some sidekick. You never see the hero doing it even if he is the big hero type. Oh he’ll fight off the bad guys, but when it comes to getting your face eaten that is reserved for the nobody side kicks. They are kind expendable I guess.

I suppose that is okay if you are a hero type and happen to have a bunch of side kicks hanging around to send out to get eaten. But what if you are out of them?

See they don’t ever bother to mention that part in the movies. And let me tell you to a super hero like my buddy Otis or myself that is kind of important. Because when we got to worry about who goes dare we ain’t got any sidekicks to risk having their faces eaten. There is just us.

What is the real pits about that is when we do run into some situation where they is a griminal who might put our butts at risk we just can’t call us rent a side kick for a delivery. That might be a cool business to consider starting though. I guess you would have to be sure you provided medical insurance consider a person would probably need it a lot if you spend a great deal of time getting your face eaten.

Then it might also be tough to figure out the decent wage they should be paid. And do they get any tax breaks for ending up with their faces eaten?

That’s another pain of the movies. They don’t explain any of that junk either. See that is the sad part, they should. I mean if they did I wouldn’t have to waste time on this posting having to talk about it and could spend more time on other important issues like which way a roll of toilet paper should go on a dispenser. Yeah those are the kinds of issues that are real critical in our society I think.

But since those darn movie types don’t want to spend the time doing their jobs right then it is up to thinkers like me to do it for them. And that is what I plan on keep doing so that you folks who are kind of enough to read it will know somebody gave the subject the respect it deserved.

In the meantime I guess the main thing is with Otis and I is whenever we get into one of those situations we just toss a coin to decide who gets to be stuck being the sidekick. Well I should say Otis does all the flipping of the coin and then looks at it without showing it to me and lets me know who won. I’m still hoping one of the days I’ll have better luck because man so far he has won ever coin toss.

AMERICA, GLOVE IT OR SLEEVE IT

I heard about this on the radio. Some dude was ranting about patriotism and they way I heard him say it was that when it comes to this country you ought to glove it or sleeve it.

Well let me tell you something. That was sure a surprise to me. I mean I don’t even own a pair of gloves so I had no idea how I was going to figure if I didn’t it meant I wasn’t patriotic. Heck then it got me to thinking. What if you didn’t even have any hands? Some people have that problem sadly. It would hardly seem fair to them.

As for the sleeve thing is that really the only other choice here? I mainly was wondering because it seems to me that is sort of unfair to folks who only have short sleeve shirts. Heck we can’t all have big expensive outfits that include sleeves.

Plus does this only apply to days like the Fourth of July? Shoot it is generally so hot that time of year. The last thing I would want to do is have to wear gloves or a long sleeve shirt in hot weather.

I’m thinking that maybe this has more to do with way back when General Washington, you know the dude who discovered the state of Washington? Anywhere he was at that place called Valley Gorge. Now why anyone would want to hang out in a gorge I have no idea, but I do know it was in the middle and awful cold. So I can appreciate how in that kind of situation you sure would expect to have gloves and long sleeves.

Maybe that was a saying credit to him before he crossed somebody named Delta’s in underwear. I’m assuming that was probably a clothesline or something. Guess he might have been out at night and didn’t see it or something.

In any case I sure don’t want to be accused of not being patriotic enough. I’m going to go out and buy me a pair of gloves. Not have lots of money I’ll probably have to buy the cheap type like some rubber ones. As for the sleeves, well I reckon I can manage to get an old shirt somewhere that was used for a paint rag and cut off the sleeves. In fact we do have this one old red and black plaid shirt out in out garage that I’m sure Otis won’t mind if I cut off the sleeves.

So that means next Fourth of July I’m going to be sure I dressed appropriately. I’ll be the one wearing those yellow overalls with my blue short sleeve tee shirt and silver beanie. But to show I’m a good glove it and also sleeve it kind of patriot I’ll also wear those cut off red and black plaid shirt sleeves and a pair of pink rubber gloves.

I sure hope that will be something that will help everyone know just how patriotic I am and satisfy that dude on the radio. He seems to be so darn upset about so many things. Gee I wish I had a way to talk to him too. I think it would be cool to find out where he buys all the sleeves and gloves he says are so important. Guess it doesn’t matter as long as I get it right. It does make me kind of proud to know when I can do things where I prove I fit in.

SEEING AND SEEING

There is kinds of seeing you can have. There is the type where your eyes see what is really there. Then there is that type where you see as in understanding junk. Some call it wisdom. Like what a person called a sage knows.

I’ve always been bugged though about that terms sage. I mean I’ve heard of sage brush. It some stuff that grows out on hills and land. I’ve seen it and it sure don’t look very wise to me. Maybe that is where the sage hides to find what he calls wisdom. That’s okay to me. But I know with my luck I’d end up running into some skunk or something and that would hardly be what would make me feel wise.

Now to me the most interesting kind of seeing is where you see something that everyone else doesn’t see. Yep now that is real cool.

The big problem I have is how people get so darn picky about thinking that people who see stuff nobody else sees are crazy. How do we know that they just don’t have extra special vision?

I reckon it would be hard to get some folks to appreciate that part though. Sort of like if you are one of these people who looks at something and sees where it can be something else. Some call that kind of person a visionary. Unless you are the religious type and see churches everywhere then they call you a missionary I guess.

I just thought I would throw that in for the heck of it in case the Reverend Analbe happens to read this posting. He gets kind of grumpy if he thinks I’m writing junk and I don’t mention in every sentence somewhere about how sinning is a bad thing.

It wasn’t so bad when he didn’t know that I write this blog. But now man, he’ll get in these moods and read what I write and tell me how I left something out about God that I should have mentioned.

Talk about seeing stuff that isn’t there. Boy can he sure see stuff in what I say that I never imagined. Thank goodness that he doesn’t have time to read it every day so I don’t get a call from him constantly.

It’s too bad they don’t make better glasses for people who see stuff that isn’t there. Maybe it would help. I did try ordering a pair of those X-ray glasses once. But all that happen when I wore them was that I got a headache.

In any event I guess the one good thing in all of this is that we each are allowed to see what we want. And hopefully once and a while we honestly see what is there. Or at least are happy to see what we think are there whether anybody else likes it or not.

So good luck if you are one of those sages and especially if you hang around that sage brush a lot. For those who are visionaries, well if you happen to see some jelly beans that others don’t see let me know.

Thought for the week: "If might not be able to take it with you, but you can be darn sure nobody else gets it after you're gone!"

BAGS WITHOUT ANY SNACKS

Will somebody please tell me who a nut you can’t eat is really good for anything? Now with that darn plastic fruit I haven’t got a problem. I seldom eat fruit anyway so having it lying around as a fake decoration is no big deal.

But when it comes to nuts if you make me see some and I can’t eat them then happy or understanding is not going to describe my feelings. And of all the people in the whole wide world that should know that you would figure my buddy Otis would be at top of the list.

At least I thought so. That was until the other day. He really messed me up with this talk about getting a bag of nuts. Man the more he talked the more my mouth started watering about the idea of having a chance to snack on some nice tasty nuts.

There we were tooling down the road and Otis doing all this talk about how he planned on buying a really big bag of nuts and getting different sizes and types. You can be darn sure that the longer we traveled and the more he talked the more my tummy was screaming feed me.

The funny thing was I asked him if these would come with any shells or salted. And he told me these kinds of nuts didn’t have either. So I figured that these must sure be some extra cool and great nuts if they didn’t have any shells.

We kept cruising along and eventually came to a grocery store. I got out with my brain really full of all kinds of images of nuts and ready to help get as many bags of them as Otis said we were going to get.

Well I hope you can imagine my confusion when I started over to the aisle that is where the nuts were located and Otis told me not to bother. Oh we went shopping, but didn’t by a single darn nut.

I was really confused, but then Otis said we were going to get the nuts at a different store. So I figured man that must mean going to the mall. I didn’t know they had a store that just sold nuts, but I figured if they had opened one I would be ready to visit.

Then Otis really drove me nuts, er sorry for the pun, but I couldn’t believe it when we came to the mall and he kept driving! By now I’m starting to freak out and figured that he must have forgotten all about the nuts.

He pulled into this home improvement place and I decided to stay in the van. There didn’t seem to be any point going into that store. I knew they didn’t sell any decent nuts.

Otis came back a few minutes later with a small bag. And to my surprise after that we went home. Well I sure was shocked and asked him what about the nuts? He told me he got them at the home improvement store.

That sure didn’t make sense, but he was in a hurry and I figured I’d look in the bag after we got home. Let me tell you those were the dumbest looking nuts I ever saw. They were made out of metal I guess and kind of octagon shaped. I tried to eat one, but nearly broke a tooth on it. Just a word to the wise then, if you have a buddy who says he’s going shopping for nuts make sure they are the kind you can eat. Your teeth will thank you.

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE A TOILET

If there is one place I really feel safe it is in the bathroom. You can lock the door and not worry about somebody sneaking up behind you to do something crazy.

Plus I don’t know, when I’m in the bathroom I just feel like I can really be myself. Like I don’t have to worry about any complaints when I pass gas. People kind of expect it when you are in there.

There are other times too when the bathroom and especially the toilet can be a person’s best friend. Such as when you feel like your stomach is about to vomit. You can barf on anyone without them being pissed, but the good old toilet just never says a word. In addition when you are done you can flush it and the toilet won’t embarrass you by telling the whole world what you did.

Also the think I like is that you can drop your pants and plop your naked butt down on it without fear of getting bitten. Try doing that somewhere else? Heck you do that in public and they might arrest you for in-dee-recent ex-over-use. Um that means you done showed your naked butt to others without a license or without a mooning permit or something. In any case it isn’t a good thing.

Meanwhile, I do have a few other reasons for enjoying the bathroom. You can get all cleaned up and do it at your own pace. That is providing my buddy Otis doesn’t start griping about how long I’m in the bathroom. Shoot it don’t seem that long too me. He says forty-five minutes is too long, but it passes so quickly and I don’t have a watch with me so how am I suppose to tell.

Normally I use the hot water rule for figuring when I’ve been there too long. That is when you are in the shower and you run out of hot water. It is the time you know it is time to stop using the bathroom.

To me that is a good way to tell time. I suppose I ought to come up with a better way to figure keeping track of time when I’m in the bathroom and not taking a shower. I mean it is such a pain sitting there on the toilet with my hand under the shower and waiting for the water to get cold.

Oh well I’ll figure that part out eventually I reckon. In the meantime I still enjoy doing all that fun stuff in the bathroom.

I just wish there was a way to feel the same about the bathroom over at STINK. Those guys over there get a tad grumpy when it comes to thinks like passing gas when they are in there too.

But that isn’t as rude as when they start snickering when I go into the stall and start talking to the toilet like it is an old friend. Hey just because they don’t appreciate the cool way a toilet is your pal doesn’t mean I have to be rude too. Perhaps one of these days I’ll even figure a way to cure them of being rude besides stuffing their heads in the toilet. I’ll work on it.

EXCEPT FOR THE GRACE OF...

Yep you sure don’t have a very good meal without the saying grace first part. Well that is if you decide to go over to Granny Potts for dinner. She a real big one for making sure you always thank the lord and ask him to bless whatever you are eating.

The only thing you have to watch out is when Granny Potts says grace that she doesn’t nod off in the process. Although I can sort of tell because she’ll stop talking and start snoring. However the big problem is waking her up. If you do it wrong she forgets what happens and starts saying grace all over again, which can be real confusing.

Of course that ain’t half as bad as when she invites some of the friends from her bridge club to join us. Man there is this one lady who I wish would fall asleep, but instead she just end up rambling.

There was this one time that she asked her friend to say grace and jeez, I didn’t think she was ever going to finish. First she started out with all the usual thank you business. But afterwards she started talking about stuff like darning socks, sewing and whether coloring Easter eggs is addictive. I don’t know it didn’t make much sense, but at least she eventually got to saying Amen.

Course by then dinner was unbelievably cold. However I did eat it. Even though I found biting into a biscuit that was practically as hard as a rock kind of hard to chew.

Still I don’t mind putting up with that stuff some times. About the only time I have trouble is when she invites the Reverend Analbe over to dinner. I mean the one thing you don’t want to do is ask him to say grace.

Seeing how he’s on personal speaking terms with God and all I hate to do any complaining, but he sure gets way to long winded in his grace stuff. Don’t get me wrong I don’t mind giving thanks or anything. But I’m not sure you have to thank God for literally everything he ever created in that one moment.

Now I also don’t want to accuse the Reverend of sort of cheating on this grace thing either, but I did notice the last time he was saying grace and we all had our eyes closed there was a few minutes there when he talked like he had food in his mouth. Then when we opened our eyes I could have sworn he had biscuit crumbs on his chin. Plus I noticed there were spoon marks on the mashed potatoes.

I just wished Granny Potts would sort of warn me when she decides to invite him over so I could maybe prepare myself for him joining us. Maybe if he showed up on time that would be different, but that doesn’t happen either. The only way I happened to even know he’s going to be there is when I hear him step on the porch talking really loud with God and saying praise the Lord and what’s that God a lot.

If Granny Potts wasn’t such a good cook I probably wouldn’t keep joining her from time to time. I suppose seeing how she can’t see that well and thinks I’m really her grandson I ought to admit that I’m really me and not him. But then every time I do get around to deciding to do that she sets out that pie and I tell myself next time.

HAPPY TUPPERWARE TO ME

Do you ever use Tupperware to store stuff? In case you don’t know what Tupperware is let me explain. That is the name of this really cool type of plastic containers they make that you can store all kinds of junk in. More for fun those, but you can get creative and use it for other things too.

My buddy Otis is treats using Tupperware like some kind of religious act. I swear if he can find any excuse to put something in a little plastic container and stick it in the icebox he’ll do it. Now I can’t prove it, but there are times when I honestly think he goes out to the neighbors and borrows leftovers just to have the fun to sticking it in the ice box in those cool plastic containers.

I don’t really mind using them. However the thing is that Otis and I have a different philosophy and leftovers. With him, if you don’t eat it all, you save it and eat it later. No be deal I guess, but the big problem is that sometimes a container will accidentally get shoved to the back of the icebox and you miss it completely. That is until you discover it a long time later and by then the stuff inside is no longer something you can eat. Unless you are fond of trying to eat something that looks like an alien creature just barfed it up and it also smells real bad. That doesn’t work for me.

So my approach to this thing is to not have any leftovers in the first place. Just eat them all up when you have them for a meal. I mean when Otis fixes something like macaroni and cheese I do what I can to eat it all. I got to admit it gets a little tough after five big bowlfuls to be willing to finish off three or four more. But sometimes I still manage if I have enough time.

That is only a problem if Otis is in a hurry to go somewhere after dinner. Then he’ll stand over me like some bird of prey waiting to jump on me and won’t leave me alone till I stop eating.

Outside of those situations what I do is gobble down as much as I can. Then I reach for the pop or milk and see if that will sort of help me get more room to keep eating.

There are moments though we what I do is get up and jump up and down for a bit in hopes of say causing the food to settle more and make more room to help me avoid having to worry about leftovers. I just Otis was cool about that option, but he ain’t.

If I don’t get a chance to do that then I normally end up appreciate that it will no doubt end with Tupperware time one way or another. Which isn’t the worse option. Maybe one of these days will even figure out some system so we don’t screw up and let some small container get stuck at the back of the ice box.

Until then I guess we’ll have to follow Otis’ solution to getting rid of those containers. I don’t really like sneaking into somebody else’s house when they aren’t home and leaving the container in their ice box, but it is a way to keep from having to through it away, Like my buddy says maybe they have more of use for some green hairy crud that makes you faint when you smell it than we do. Although it is hard to say since we always make sure we never ask them anyway.

BEG, BAWL OR BRAWL

I sure hate when I ask for help on something and the person gets some snooty attitude that tells me they aren’t willing to help unless I do a big job of sucking up. Normally that doesn’t happen to me a lot, but there are times like if I haven’t had jelly beans for a long time like two hours that I can get desperate.

It is just my luck too that the jerk at the candy store can tell when I’m really, really anxious and maybe a little short on cash. Since I a regular there he’ll work with me on the cost to a degree. Well eventually, but a lot of times he seems to want to get his jollies by doing something to make sure I work extra hard for his help.

This is all a stupid game he plays and I know it as well as he does, but he still likes to play it. And if there are any customers in the place, man does he get extra nasty about helping. It is like he wants me to act as if I’m his stupid dog who does tricks. Man I can only handle so much of that kind of abuse.

So depending upon how hungry and broke I am, I’ll go along with his nonsense for a while. If he gets too insulting though then watch out. Because he also knows that if he bugs me too much I’ll go and fetch my little wooden buddy to express my appreciate for his behavior.

Course I can’t choose that option too much. People kind of have a habit of being real grumpy and uncooperative if you end up brawling them into a state of unconscious so they end up in extreme pain when they wake up. And I know that if they start bawling that ain’t a good thing in terms of asking for help.

I have to keep all that stuff in mind of course when my tummy is on empty in terms of jelly beans. That is really the main time when I give all this stuff the most thought.

After all as a super hero grimefighter I do have to be concerned over keeping up a good hero image. Begging just don’t fit in with that very good for the most part.

I wish there was a way for me to get a better deal on thinks like jelly beans at times. I know as a super hero I’m not suppose to expect any reward from my helping to save the world. I’m not sure who came up with that rule. Probably the cheapskates who were always needing help and were too cheap to pay for it.

In any case, I’m cool with the idea as long as sometimes somebody cuts me some slack on my jelly beans. That just means that I don’t get into this position everyday, which is the best part for me.

Now I just hope that me sharing this in a way helps some of you who might have a similar problem. I mean if you know a super hero has the same problem then you might not feel so bad when it happens to you. And if that is the service I perform by admitting to being human then that is cool. So here’s hoping you don’t have to do much brawling or bawling if and when you have to consider any begging.

DON'T WORRY, JUST SCREAM

Yeah, now that is the best advice I can think of. Worry is a pain in the butt and the worst thing is when you try to share it with somebody else they normally don’t end up carrying.

But you start screaming and people pay attention. They may even show they care and that is good.

All I have to do is figure out a way to completely stop worrying and just scream like my posting title and I’ll be in good shape. So far I have succeeded.

About the best I have accomplished is to try and find some sap to get worried and then hope it will allow me to stop. That really isn’t as easy I had hoped at times, but I’m still working on it.

I know one thing, I don’t try it with my buddy Otis. He’s too good at turning things around. So instead of me dumping my worry off on him he ends up making me think of something else to worry about and that isn’t helpful.

Course from what I can tell I’m not the only person who worries and also loves to scream. Shoot if you run out of stuff to worry about you can always turn on the news or read the paper. They seem to spend extra time just thinking of incredible stuff to worry about I would have never thought of.

I thought one time I would try the screaming option with them. You know call up the local paper and start screaming at them in hopes of getting them to come out and do a report on my screaming so they wouldn’t spend as much time worrying.

They didn’t send a reporter by darn it. They did send a photographer by to take my picture. He said they might us it in their living section when they were showing pictures of what he called social oddities. Guess some fame is better than none huh?

Anyway I’m not giving up on the screaming option I suppose. I’m just going to have to see if I can get more attention from folks in terms of trying to scream louder perhaps. Maybe I’ll get some kind of loud speaker system.

But then I guess in part it is going to matter what I do scream about. I know I could scream about something everyone worries about. Yeah that ought to help. Well I reckon that sort of gums up the idea of not worrying. Unless I scream about junk that others worry about and I don’t.

Well I suppose I’ll have to keep working on figuring this part out for a while yet. Gosh that gives me something else to worry about I suppose.

I know I’ll run out after I’m done and start screaming at somebody. Yep that ought to take care of the problem. Till the next worry.

RED SKY, SAILOR TAKE...

This is some kind of big deal with sailors I guess. Something to do with “Red Sky in the mooring, sailor take boring.” Er maybe it is mourning or morning and the choring. I don’t know for sure. All I know is if you are a sailor and you see a red sky then you better start sweating.

However seeing how I ain’t a sailor and can’t even recall seeing a red sky unless I was up all night, I don’t know that I need to worry about it very much. Still you never know when it might come up.

After all what if the sailor who sees that red sky happens to live in your neighborhood? Then there is a chance that whatever is bad or important about a red sky might affect you to.

I wish I knew a sailor somewhere to ask them for sure. There was this Navy guy that lived a block away as I recall. Only I’m not sure what Navy he was involved with. Not sure it was one that had big boats or anything since he never seemed to go anywhere. I think the only experience he had with boats and junk was the plastic toy submarine that he put in his bath tub when he took a bath.

Besides he moved anyway. I wonder if he went very close to the ocean? I’ll have to check with Otis, because I can’t recall for sure.

Maybe Otis had his address where I can write him to have him explain about this red sky thing. Plus I wonder if you have to worry if say you see just a little red and the rest of the sky is some other color? Whoever comes up with these sayings apparently didn’t bother to explain that part. Like if it were say real foggy out and you can even see the sky, but it is red anyway does that count? See those are the kinds of stuff they ought to try and explain better.

Meanwhile if you do happen to see a red sky, you might start worrying. I can’t say what you should worry about, but it probably wouldn’t hurt to think about it.

I just thought I would pass that on in case you know you saw one of those red skies and weren’t sure what to do. And if by chance you know any sailors you could check with them huh?

If not then do like Dr. Hemoglobin is always telling Otis and myself when he doesn’t have an answer to a question. He tells us to use our own judgment.

I reckon in this situation that might mean it was a good idea to simply close the curtains so you didn’t see the red sky. That way whatever trouble the red sky is thinking about causing it will think twice about and maybe even find somebody else to pester.

Hope that helps you folks with this problem. You know you can always depend upon me to help explain the real important things about life.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: "Working smarter and not harder only works when you are the boss and make somebody do the sweating part."

A TOUCH OF...

You ever been in one of those stores full of the kind of junk that is called Knick Crap? Or maybe it is Knick Knock? I’m not sure, but in either case it is stuff that breaks easy and normally is real expensive and you can’t do much with it, but look at it.

Want bugs me is to go into one of those places and see the sign that says, “Please don’t touch.” Like I want to touch the stuff in the first place. I mean I can’t do anything fun with it anyway so why bother to pick it up.

It is kind of like they tell you that just to sort of bug you. As if they are saying, “Hey I got this totally cute, but otherwise worthless over priced item here and don’t you dare touch it.”

Where is the fun in that is what I want to know? I prefer places that don’t care if you touch stuff. But normally if they don’t mind if you touch it then it generally means it ain’t breakable either. Which is a good thing in some ways too.

If it were up to me I would never even go near one of those stupid don’t touch places. They never have any cool stuff anyway.

But for some reason my buddy Otis gets in these moods where he thinks it is fun to go to some place that sells antiques and junk and do some of what he calls browsing. Personally that to me is sort of the same thing as brown nosing only you are sucking up to somebody who isn’t going to do anything for you in the process.

About the only good that I see in any of it is if we go some place that has refreshments like cookies or hot chocolate. Then at least my tummy gets something decent.

As for Otis, well he’ll hang around and look at all the stuff and ask questions like he is really going to buy something. Heck some of that stuff even if we could afford it I wouldn’t want it. I wouldn’t have any idea what to do with it.

Will somebody explain to me what good it is to have something called a bed pan? It is too small to put a bed in it if you are supposed to wash the bed with it. Just not something I figure is of much value.

Then there is that thing called a soup tureen. I’ve not a big fan of soup, but I know what thing whatever kind of animal a tureen is doesn’t sound like one I want in any soup. I bet it is some kind of turtle. Yuck! I don’t want to eat any turtle. Besides how long would you have to cook it before that darn shell would get soft enough to eat. And I can imagine it would taste that good in the first place.

So as for me I can’t imagine ever needing a thing called a soup tureen since I don’t plan on even trying to find out where you get a tureen to cook in the first place.

But I reckon that won’t keep my buddy from asking about then. All I know if I ever come home and he’s fixing dinner and hands me a bowl of soup with some tureen shell in it, I’m passing on eating it.

THEM, THEN AND WHEN?

You ever hear of these “they” people? I have. A lot. And I guess the “them” people sort of hang out with them. So how come we don’t read more about them in the newspapers? Guess they are kind of on the shy side in that regards.

But I sure get tired of them messing up my life. Boy those they people can figure all kinds of ways to change stuff to make you life miserable.

Which is the worse part to me. That’s because they don’t even have the decency to give you warning. If the they folk and them folk would get into the when mode that would really help. At least from my way of looking at it.

What I’ve been thinking is that we need to perhaps have a party for these dudes. Well dudettes if some of them are ladies.

Anyway we could like have a really big event with plenty of good things to eat and maybe some entertainment. Then perhaps we they say just fun we were they would stop being so unhappy and not trying to mess up our lives as much.

I just am not sure where you get in touch with these folks. I tried the phone book and dialing information, but I couldn’t find a phone number. And if they use the Internet they don’t have a web site either.

Makes me wonder how come they are so good and controlling junk if nobody knows where to find them. I wonder if perhaps they are like aliens or something.

If so I wish somebody would explain to them how rude it is to be such jerks. I don’t care if they like to show off with some cool flying saucer and buzz places to impress people. When they are through fooling around they should just relax and drop by a donut shop or some other friendly place and maybe chill out a little.

Now if any of you happen to know where to get in touch with these folks I sure would appreciate you passing that info on to them. If nothing else perhaps you could get them to work on the thing about when.

I mean a calendar would be nice. Maybe with some cool photos in it. And of course any special dates when they know in advance that they have plans and being an extra big pain in the butt.

Oh well, hopefully somehow that will happen. I reckon that just like anybody sometimes they simply don’t know that they are doing junk that is upsetting others. Which makes me also wonder if they are politicians too. My buddy Otis says he does wonder at times if some politicians honestly know what planet they live on.

Makes me think. It sure does give some value to the alien thing. The next time you run into a politician you might ask them to show you their flying saucer. You never know they might be in a good mood and take you for a test spin.

WHO SAYS?

I’m really learning to hate this question. My buddy Otis asks it of me way too often. We’ll be in the middle of doing something important and some problem will occur. So I’ll mention something I heard somewhere that I figure fits the situation.

And that is when he will ask me “who says?” Man that can be such a pain. I mean my mind is just chalk full of information and junk. How am I supposed to remember where I heard everything that I hear? That is just so unfair.

I figure it is enough that I remember the thing in the first place. That ought to be enough. After all it isn’t like I’m saying that I personally came up with the fact that I’m repeating. I always let him know it was something I heard or read somewhere.

But that is never good enough for my buddy. He insists on me telling him who told me whatever. It is as if he doesn’t trust me or something. Or he will have a reason at least in his thinking to question some of the sources that I pay attention to.

So feeling the pressure a lot I’ll do what I can to honestly remember where I heard whatever. Then I’ll tell him and figure that should be enough. Only that doesn’t work either. He’ll ask for more info like when the person said it or where he can find in written down somewhere that they honestly said it.

Talk about getting way too picky. I tell you that can be such a pain. It isn’t like everything I say doesn’t make sense or impossible to believe. So okay every once and while I’ll hear what somebody said and sort of confuse it. But that doesn’t mean it happens every time.

You would think after all this time that my best bud would be a lot more cooperative on this thing, but he isn’t. Sometimes I really wonder if it is even worth taking the time to share all that good stuff I learn.

Still I do keep in mind that he is my bud. And a dude who don’t try to help is bud is really not much of a bud. So I guess I’ll keep trying even Otis can be a pain in the butt about me telling him where I heard whatever.

Which reminds me, I can’t wait to see him later. I just hear this cool story about a guy who went hunting for green elephants and captured a whole pack of them using onion flavored marshmallows as bait. I sure hope he’ll listen because I think it would be so cool if we could maybe capture ourselves an elephant or two.

Course we might have to figure a way to shrink them down a bit to keep them in our apartment. But then I also heard that elephants are full of a lot of air and if you squeeze them right they will get real small.

Well I reckon I should be sure I have Otis help me find them first and then we can work out those details later. I just hope he doesn’t ask me who says again. I don’t honestly remember, but I bet it was somebody pretty darn smart. I just hope he agrees.

EXPERIENCE IS A PAIN AS A TEACHER

I’ve heard people talk about how experience is such a great teacher. Personally I’m not so convinced that is always true. I mean if doing something once was enough so you didn’t have to do it again then perhaps it would be a good thing.

But for example you look at something like passing gas. Well no matter how many times you do it does it ever mean you won’t have to do it again? And does it improve with practice? I mean do you like learn how to make it stop smelling? Not from where my nose is attached to my face?

Plus do we really learn all that much from when we do things right, even by accident? It is like stuffing it away in our bragging closet and then forgetting about it.

I reckon the best lesson we learn in terms of experience is when we screw up. Most of the time a big mistake seems to be best way to teach us how not to make the same stupid mistake a second time. For me I know it works that way.

I’m not saying it wouldn’t be great if it were otherwise. Because man feeling dumb and stupid is something that inspires a person to try and avoid the same mistake again, but it don’t mean you enjoy it.

So this whole experience thing to me is sort of overrated in some ways. Plus it does nothing to keep people like my boss from giving these “inspirational” speeches. That is what he calls getting up and sharing some vision he has for how some plan is going to work out.

The only problem is that most of the time since we haven’t done that thing before it ends up turning out nothing like what he talked about. And does the fact that it turns out to be a mess keep him from giving more speeches? Nope. That part of experience sure don’t change much.

Worse of all to me is the fact that even when something don’t work out he’ll still come up with some other speech on the same subject next time. And he’ll give another bunch of talking using big words and lots of vision junk that ends up being no more true than the first one.

I guess I sort of look at it that I know how things are going to turn out by how long a speech our boss gives on the subject. The longer the speech the more I know he really has no actual experience with the subject. That means being prepared to have a real huge screw up at some point.

But that is all the joy of being a grimefighter. All that isn’t necessarily fun, but it is a living I guess.

Meanwhile, I’ll still cringe when it comes to knowing as long as we are doing something following a speech then experience will probably end up a pain in the butt. That’s one pain you just never get over or heal.

THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS

I’m sure glad that I didn’t go to this school when I grew up. It just doesn’t sound all that appealing. At least from the way some people describe it. And I wouldn’t want to see the homework either! I wonder what kind of grade you get too?

Back when I was in school it was just called an elementary and high school. Any knocking that got done was accidentally. Well okay there were times once I discovered the joys of my little wooden buddy that the knocks weren’t always accidental, but other than that most of the time they weren’t on purpose.

I’ve got a feeling that the school of hard knocks was probably a lot more popular than I might have imagined. In fact when you think about it perhaps it is the reason they expect you to wear those stupid cap and gowns at a graduation. It might be a good way to cover up any bruise you get from all those hard knocks.

Which also kind of bugs me. I mean is there such a thing as a “soft” knock. What is that like being hit with a foam rubber bat or something? So it seems to me that you probably don’t really even need to call it hard knocks since there really ain’t any other kind.

Now personally I do have to wonder in some ways about what kind of dude is willing to keep going to some school where you get bashed a lot. I mean is this like something where the teacher keeps whacking you constantly or does it involve students each taking turns and whacking each other? Plus do you have to bring your own bat or do they provide them? And do they provide lessons or is it a case of practicing till you get it right, whatever that happens to be? I figure those are good questions to ask just in case.

In any case what I want to know is how long would a sane person really want to go to some school where you knew up front somebody was going to whack you constantly. Boy I don’t think I want to see the kind of final exam they give you. I bet it is real painful. At least it sounds like it would be.

The one thing I sort of gather on this subject too is that it sure doesn’t make the students any smarter. Not if you base your opinion on the folks I’ve seen that said they went to such a school. That is because they sure don’t seem real bright too me. At best they are just regular folks.

Of course in all fairness here out smart can you become if you are spending all your time ducking to keep from being clobbering. Oh you might learn how to be quick at ducking if that is a good thing. But in terms of knowledge out of a book if you got hit on the head enough your brains might leak out of your ears and I can’t see where that would help make you any smarter.

I guess there is something to be said for higher education. I reckon that is where they stand on a ladder to beat you in this school of hard knocks or maybe just use a longer bat. I doubt it hurts any different though. Guess I’m glad I don’t have to find out!

GIMMIE A BRAKE

I’ve heard this said before and I’m sure you have too. Only I’ve heard people say it even when they don’t own a car. And while I’m no expert on cars I do know if you don’t have one you problem wouldn’t have that much need for brakes.

Still I suppose there are other things you might want to stop besides a car. So I can appreciate how need to brake something to keep it from happening again is a good thing. Providing you are talking about just stopping and not stopping by “breaking” something.

You know like if you get stuck washing the dirty dishes and don’t really want to wash them so you accidentally on purpose drop them to be sure you don’t have to wash them. Yeah that type of breaking isn’t a good idea, especially if there is a chance somebody is going to catch you dropping a dish. I know because it happen to me a couple of times and believe me there just isn’t anyway to explain it very easily.

But maybe somebody has better luck in that department. All I know is that most of the time breaking junk doesn’t end in you getting to stop doing junk. If it really worked that way them I know over at STINK my boss Dr. Hemoglobin would have no doubt had me stop doing lots of stuff as a grimefighter after I had one of my little OOPS incidents.

Those are the ones where I broke something and it really was an accident, accident instead of a fake accident. However it gets kind of tough at times to get my boss to see it that way.

Like the time that we were in the garbage truck and it was cold outside so Otis left the motor running so I could use the heater while he went into the store to check on some Spam. Well it was so nice and toasty in there and I was tired from emptying trash cans and sort of ended up taking a nap.

I didn’t mean to let my hand fall on the gearshift level and accidentally shifted it in gear. But it happens and all I can say is that the store was thinking of remodeling anyway and that garbage truck did need a paint job anyway. So I sort of thought in that situation everything sort of worked out for the best. And I did get a break in terms of stopping that ended up in stopping the store from putting off that remodeling decision.

That too me meant that what happen even though it was an accident was something that had some good results. Sort of gimmie a brake in terms of stopping that gave a regular kind of break to the store and our truck.

I sure wish Dr. Hemoglobin had appreciated that though. Unfortunately he didn’t enjoy “sponsoring” the remodeling job for the store or putting a new paint job on the garbage truck either.

I reckon the one good thing that out of all of that I didn’t end up with any other kind of break. Like the one I heard from Otis that our boss wish would happened. But I don’t honestly think a broken neck would have been good for stopping me from doing anything I needed to do. So I’m kind of glad he didn’t figure out a way to gimmie that kind of break. Here’s hoping whatever brake comes your way stops only the junk you want it to stop.

QUITTING FINE

To me there isn’t any better feeling that coming to the end of a hard day at work that you got a lot accomplished. It just warms your insides with a sense of pride and accomplishment.

Normally on the way home on the bus my buddy Otis and I will often sit back and talk about when we have a good day. We’ll sit and talk about cool it was to empty all the trash and also when we managed to stop for donuts and nobody wrinkled their nose to make us feel we self conscious about the way we smell.

Course we do have to be careful and make sure we got cleaned up enough before getting on the bus. I’m telling you we get nothing, but weird looks if we managed not to get clean enough.

Otherwise for the most part people don’t seem to pay much attention to our garbage collection chats. We don’t mind anyway since if they weren’t there they probably wouldn’t appreciate it anyway.

Naturally no ride home would be all that complete without spending some time talking about fighting grime. Sometimes I got to admit we really get into technical stuff like using the Squash cell phone or some of the special grimefighter gadgets we have to use as grimefighters.

I remember this one time when Otis and I had a really exciting day. We ended up getting into a battle or sorts with this couple of griminals. It was an extra tough battle too. And seeing how it took place at the sewer treatment plant it was even more memorable.

We got to talking about some of our other adventures and dealing with people like Professor Buford Fits and all his ideas about how chickens were plotting to take over the world. It sure was fun to chat and remember all that stuff.

I don’t know though the other people on the bus sure gave us some strange looks. And they did sort of move kind of as far away from as possible.

At first I was kind of hurt to think they didn’t like us for some reason. But my buddy just pointed out how sometimes other people are inclined to be jealous of how much fun we have battling grime and dealing with some many people who have kind of different understandings about life.

Well that sounded pretty good too me. And I guess when they all clapped like they were celebrating when we got off the bus that was something that came from jealously too if Otis is correct.

I guess one of these days we would maybe even get some of those folks to stop rolling their eyes when we are talking. But if not then I guess that’s okay too because when it is quitting time I really am feeling no pain.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: "The dude that said 'sticks and stones will break one's bones, but words will never hurt me' obviously never heard of when you call up somebody and tell them to beat the snot out of somebody else!"

CHOOSE, BRUISE AND SNOOZE

There’s this one brand of watch out there that has this slogan about taking a licking and keeps on ticking. Course I do wonder if it might keep on ticking better without the licking or is this some kind of thing where it needs that kind of motivation to work right?

At times I guess I feel like one of those watches. Well I suppose any grimefighter does to some degree. Maybe not when you first sign up and are all caught up in fantasies about being a super hero who is rich, famous and has lots of fans.

I sort of miss out on three of those I guess as a grimefighter. Oh I think I’m sort of famous. Okay it might only be in this one grammar school class where I got to speak one time. Otherwise I reckon I’m not famous in too many places. I can recommend a few places that claim to be famous for some fast food they sell because they say they have the world’s best whatever, but that is about the only famous I can speak about.

As for the rich part, guess I missed that one all together. Course I suppose part of the reason is because I never found out from my buddy Otis what the right amount is to charge for saving the world from filth and grime. I just keep forgetting to ask.

But since he ain’t rich either I reckon he’s not sure either. So I’ll probably not worry about it too much.

Still when it comes being a grimefighter I know it is my choice. Which means I got to accept what goes with it. And let me tell you sometimes that means bruises.

Oh I wish it didn’t, but those darn griminals sure don’t like to cooperate when you try to keep them from committing some grime. They sort of prefer to get pissed and defend themselves, by clobbering you. Which is why I rely upon my bat a whole lot. Sometimes it works, sometimes it don’t because they duck to fast.

In any case those kinds of bruises you learn to expect as a grimefighter. What you don’t expect is the times you get bruises due to some lunk head mistake. Those bruises don’t just hurt your body they hurt your pride and seem a lot longer to get over.

However I remind myself I choose the grimefigther game. And if that means I have to put up with a few pains then I’ll learn to cope. That is Otis’ way of explaining what we do when we try and deal with the pain. All I know is that it sure involves a lot of aspirin.

Which brings me to what happens after all of that. Basically at the end of the day whether I did good or bad and whether I end up with bruises or not, I can still look forward to snoozing.

That is cool too. Because the one thing I can look forward to is that at least in my dreams things work right. Maybe someday I’ll figure a way to skip the choosing and bruising and go straight to the snoozing deal.

MIXED AND MESS

There were talking over at this one discount store about the idea of mixed and match. Something about how you could with some products that had different parts you could buy how you could switch and buy different ones and it would work as good. That was the idea as far as I understood. So I figured I would try it and see if it was a real thing that worked.

The thing was they didn’t say exactly what you should mix or match. I had sort of gotten interested in jig saw puzzles and figured that if you get to buy more than one and mixed them some way that would be fun.

But I think somebody at their end was sort of playing a joke. Because I bought three puzzles and took some pieces out of one puzzle and let me tell you there was no way they worked with another puzzle.

What really griped me was I went to take them back and they really threw a fuss over the pieces being in a different box. Hey can I help it if they like to practice having advertising signs that don’t really mean what they say?

I decide though that maybe I ought to give them a second chance. This time I went over to the candy section. They had a bunch of boxes of chocolate. Only I don’t like certain chocolates.

Well if it was mixed and match then I figured it was no harm to open the boxes and take out the ones I liked and put them in a different box and well, you get the idea I reckon. The big problem was not being able to tell for sure what was on the inside of each chocolate. So I had to try and squeeze them to see what is on the inside.

However that didn’t work so good since I still couldn’t tell the flavor. So I ended up biting into them. That way I would know for sure.

It took a while, but I finally had one box with just the ones I liked. Course with biting into them I had a lot of spots with a half eaten piece put with another half eaten piece. The only thing was kind of messy though, but I was happy when I got it all finished.

I only wished the clerk in the store appreciated my efforts. She didn’t seem too happy with seeing all those open boxes on the floor and candy wrappers everywhere.

Oh I tried to explain about how I was just doing what the sign said, but she didn’t seem to think that was enough. And I guess the security guard she called that came also agreed.

I reckon Otis wasn’t too happy in either case. Because even though I explained it al to him he ended up having to pay the store for all the boxes I opened. Guess it might have not minded as much it if had been Spam instead of chocolate. Or if the one’s that had been left over didn’t have my slobber all over them. Sometimes I suppose I ought not to read signs and not ask questions before I figure them out. At least that is what Otis tells me is the only way he’ll let me go to the store again.

AN ONION OF A TIME

I can’t speak for anybody else on this subject, but I know what this means to me. Okay I appreciate how my buddy claims that I do try to speak for others. But heck anybody has a right at least once to give a shot at being one of those ventriloquist dudes.

I sort of ran into trouble with what I called technical problems. At least it was to me. That’s because I understood a ventriloquist is suppose to be able to do what they call “throwing your voice.” Only I could never get the hang of throwing anybody’s voice. I just got frustrated and tried to throw the person instead.

The one thing I learned from that is people aren’t too happy with the idea of you throwing them instead of their voice if it means you tie them to the bumper of a car. Heck I just couldn’t succeed in tossing anybody very far so when I clobbered them with a bat and then tied them to the bumper of a car I thought it would work. Well their voice did get tossed or perhaps dragged might be a better way of saying it. The point is that it did move, along with all the rest of their bodies. Only I don’t recall anybody thinking it was funny or entertaining.

In any event that subject would probably best to finish explaining in another blog. At least until after the judge makes his decision on whether my idea of ventriloquism was good or bad.

Now basically getting back to the thing about an onion of a time that to me is when something is so cool and so fun that it literally brings tears to your eyes. Yeah that good.

The big problem is you can’t really call it an onion of a time till after you had it. That’s because one person’s idea of an onion might not be the same or smell the same as somebody else. I wish it were different. You know like you can go to a grocery store and when you see an onion you can say, “yep that is an onion alright.”

However a fun kind of onion it is a lot tougher. Oh it might look like the of good time that would bring tears to my eyes, but with some people they just can’t tell an onion no matter how it smells.

Okay so for the benefit of those of you who don’t know what a really cool onion of a time might be like, I’ll just give you a taste. That’s what I’ll give you, but if you want more you’ll have to do get it on your own.

And the top onion of a time on my list would probably be any one that somehow involved jelly beans. Now be fair here. I haven’t been one to make jelly beans the cure for everything in life. Just the most important stuff.

As I see it all you need to do then is just keep the jelly bean thing in mind. Of course if for some reason you’re still a little fuzzy on how jelly beans can be an onion then just eat a few and I’m sure you’ll figure it out. If that don’t work, then send them to me and I’ll do what I can to explain it to you after I eat them.

BETTER OFF

Oh man is this one of those stupid things or what? I mean I hear it all the time over at STINK. Somebody will be talking about whatever and say I would be better off if I was and then they add something like rich.

Well I guess being rich might have its advantages. Course that is sort of hard to say for sure. The only rich dude I know is Mr. Mammongrabber and he sure don’t seem to be better off. Heck he spends all his time whenever I see him griping about money and how much things cost. That just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me considering the fact he has so much money as it is.

Now outside of that thing about being rich there are the dudes that say they would be better off working at some other job. Is there some kind of catalogue or something that says there is a “fun” rating for work? That if you get a certain kind of job that you will end up having more fun than at other jobs? I was just wondering because if there is I don’t mind buying a copy.

Not that I want to give up being a grimefighter or garbage man. I’m cool with both of those. I would just think it might be fun to find out how those jobs were rating in that kind of book. Seems fair.

Well unless I can find it though I guess I’ll be happy to just accept I wouldn’t be better off with some other option. Shoot I’m not even sure what would be a choice I would consider if I wanted to anyway.

Anyway I think the one thing I really scratch my head about are the dudes that say they would be better off dead. Do they know something about life after death that I don’t?

From what the Reverend Analbe says I’m not sure that they are correct. At least that would be the case if you don’t get to go to heaven. That other place sounds so yucky the way he describes it that I just couldn’t imagine how you would be better off there than in this life.

Which is why it makes me wonder if they really know that or even care. Or maybe they just plan on going to heaven. And I suppose that might be better than being here. Only problem is you can’t get any like travel brochures or anything that is full of pictures. And they don’t have a customer service number you could call to ask for one either.

Course if I’m understanding Reverend Analbe anyway it wouldn’t do much good if they did have like a answering machine you could leave a message at in heaven. From what he says they speak only Hebrew or Greek there. So I know even if I called the number providing I could find it I probably wouldn’t understand the message. I wonder if that means they got lots of interpreters to help explain junk when you get there. I sure hope so. And who knows perhaps that is what makes the other place so yucky in part. No interpreters. Just a thought I guess. I suppose I’ll have to ask the Reverend Analbe about that the next time I see him. Which will most likely be some morning when we stop at the donut shop. I sure hope for his sake they got donuts in heaven. I don’t imagine the Reverend will be all jazzed with the idea otherwise. I’ll be he’ll be the only one in a white robe in heaven with donut crumbs on it. Guess that isn’t all bad is it?

FRIED CHICKEN AND SYRUP

Fried chicken can really be tasty and a great treat on some cases. It just is one of those cool things to have when you get bored with burgers and pizza and burritos and jelly beans, er well okay maybe not jelly beans.

Now we normally get our fried chicken from this one little take out place over by the grocery store. They have great fried chicken. And I know it is good because when you get the big paper bucket it is all stained with grease. That tells me they sure did make sure they cooked it a nice long time. So that helps.

Sometimes shoot when you take a piece out of that bucket it is even dripping with grease. I tell you that just isn’t the kind of quality you can find just anywhere.

Although I do admit that sometimes after having say six or eight pieces my stomach feels a little funny. I guess that grease doesn’t always agree with me.

So that is the time I make sure I take out a dozen or two biscuits out of the four or five dozen we get with the three bucket of chickens and eat them to off set the grease. But to me one thing I have to do is make sure I smother them in butter so they don’t taste too dry. Then that normally isn’t enough so I generally use lots of syrup too.
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Otis prefers honey or jam, but me I like syrup. I guess because syrup comes in a bottle and I don’t have to waste time using a knife like Otis does. I mean the fewer things I use that have to be washed after I eat the better it is for me.

What I’m working on is this idea of ways I might be able to have my fried chicken stuffed with biscuits. That would save time of having to eat them separate. Plus if you could add in plenty of syrup that would help too.

Maybe they can figure a way you know to feed chickens lots of biscuits with syrup on them before they turn them into fried chickens? I wonder if that would be tough to do.

Course I don’t know how smart chickens are. Well I guess they can be too smart if they don’ know when the farmer is giving them burgers or pizza to eat or whatever they love to eat that he’s doing it to get them ready to end up fried. So maybe he wouldn’t have to waste time with doing something like explaining when he started shoving a plate of biscuits smothered in syrup under their beaks.

I think next time I’m down at the take out place maybe I’ll ask them about how that works. I also think it could be a plus for them. I mean they wouldn’t need all that extra space to store the biscuits and syrup. That would be a big help don’t you think?

Still I don’t know if asking the dude that works over there at the chicken place will be much help. He’s not then friendliest guy in the world. I’ve tried making other type so cool suggestions like this before. And now days he just seems to always find some reason to not want to chat when I come in. Guess everyone gets busy huh?