BOOMERANGS AND TREE SAP

You ever have a chance to use a boomerang? I did once, but I would mind trying one again. Only I figured for the benefit of those who haven’t had a chance to used one, I’d share a couple of pointers.

Now in my case what happened was that I got to go on this nature walk. Actually I sort invited myself. I had stopped by the library one day and heard some lady talking about getting in touch with nature. She mentioned how she would be hosting this walk to help folks learn more about nature.

After hearing her talk about it I just went in and asked if I could join. At the time I was thinking when she said nature she was talking about natural as in all natural foods. Well I’m not a big fan of stuff like that weird health food, but I thought shoot if they were going to walk to some place that had natural food maybe you might end up being able to find some decent food along the way. Heck she had at least ten people signed up so I figured with that many surely there would have to be at least one darn decent bite to eat along the way.

So I showed up at the library at the time she said to be there. What I thought was kind of funny was that they had a bus there. I mean it sure seemed like a strange thing to have to take a bus to go for a walk. That sounded like my buddy, Otis,’ idea of a walk.

But I did get on the bus along with the other folks. And the trip was okay. The lady got up and talked about things like trees and flowers and animals. Only she didn’t necessarily call them by regular names. She would give them some weird name in a language known as Latin. I mean to me a squirrel is a squirrel, so why confuse it by calling it something else?

We never did go by any health food store or any other cool place to eat. Instead we went to the mountains. And she took us walking through a bunch of trees and was talking about all kinds of stuff on how Mother Nature works. I never thought of Mother Nature as needy a job? I wonder if she gets stuck paying income tax like the rest of us?

Anyway I was checking out this one big tree because she made a big deal about that being important. What I know was important was if you do that you got to make sure you don’t end up with your hand covered in tree sap because that stuff is so darn messy.

After we walked for a while, we stopped and that’s when she took this boomerang out her backpack. She said she was going to teach us how to use it as the entertainment part of the walk. I would have preferred some snacks myself, but she didn’t offer any.

Well the thing was she let me try it first. And I had all this tree sap on my hands. Oh I didn’t manage to throw it and it did come back like she said. But when the next person tried it the sap I got on it ended up in it getting stuck to her hand, which was sort of funny later, but she wasn’t laughing later.

So here’s my boomerang tip. Always make sure you check for tree sap on a boomerang anytime you get a chance to throw one while on some nature hike that doesn’t really take you anywhere that has any good food.

YOUR PLACE OR A FINE

I’m continuing my whole reflection series on stuff like “by invitation only” and “RSVP” with this posting. Now in addition to this whole deal of inviting only certain people to some big event there is the fact that got to be member of some stupid secret club, which qualifies you as a RSVP dude.

If that was enough of a pain then you got the added problem that even if you wade through all that crap you have to put up with knowing you can participate unless you go to THEIR place. Which is okay if the by invitation thing is somewhere cool. But what if it is somewhere that really sucks?

So if you do manage to get to go then you end up getting stuck being bored to death by showing up somewhere that you will probably have to wear a suit or worse. That is something I did discover. None of these by invitation things ever seem to include wearing fun clothes. And you sure can forget about the chance to show off a special thing like a beanie. Man they sure won’t give you a break on that.

Will somebody please tell me why penguins are considered as cool in terms of fashion? They sure must be because most of these by invitation deals seem to expect you to wear one of those stupid tuxedoes. Where is the fun in that? I feel so stupid wearing one of those outfits. Like I’m afraid I might fall asleep and wake up in some coffin or worse because somebody thought I croaked and was ready for being six feet under.

I guess I could even tolerate all of that if once you got into this by invitation thing they had something decent to eat. But that doesn’t happen either. The whole point seems to make this thing as boring as possible. Apparently that is something special enough that you have to let only certain people show up. Those might be the ones you actually hate.

How come they can’t just let you attend the thing if it is going to be that boring, but at least doing it in your own living room. At least that way you could depend upon getting a decent meal out of the deal. Heck I would even be willing to promise to put on socks and underwear underneath my pajamas if that would help.

If they needed like some proof that I actually did whatever they were doing at their by invitation deal I could work something out. Maybe take a picture of myself holding my nose while having a plate of that yucky chicken they seem to serve at those places.

Well I imagine there will be a way to figure it out when and if I get invited to one of those deals. I came close the other day. Over at STINK they were talking about having a by invitation deal and mentioned they might invite me. But I’m not really sure I was that interested though. This one seemed kind of weird. Old Rat Boy, Junior Hemoglobin was saying how he was going to invite me to a party where I got to leap out of an airplane without a parachute. Man I had a hard time figuring how you could do much eating in that kind of a situation. All I know is that he seemed to get such a thrill out of telling me how much fun he would have thinking of what it would be like when I hit the ground. Guess it worked for him.

RSVP

I’m still bugged by the invitation thing and this RSVP deal. I already figured out it means Really Special Value Person. Well that part I did figure out all by myself. And I sort of figured that perhaps the big problem is that while you might no you are an RSVP it doesn’t mean everyone else will know it or appreciate it for that matter.

So I’ve been giving thought to how to correct that problem. It might not be easy, but I just know you can find a way to change who ends up in the RSVP category.

I’m still convinced that this there is some secret club you got to join in order to enjoy this RSVP thing. I must admit that it is obviously so secret I have yet to figure out where you join.

Oh I did think I had it partially thought out when I checked out that country club that is always having these “by invitation only” events. Only if they do know they sure are making it something they can keep as the kind of secret you just plain can’t figure out.

So I’m going to have to figure a different way to check out the secret group who does all the RSVP stuff. And I decided that the best way to do that was to start with what is called the obvious. That is the part that is supposed to be easy to figure out.

In this case I figured it would have to include the printing people who print up all the invitation things. I mean they sure don’t do that for free. So somebody has to be giving them the bucks to print those things.

Well that seemed pretty darn obvious to me. Shoot it was as plain as the rose on your mace. Er, maybe that is hose on your case or goes in your place. Heck it is obvious that is what I know!

What I did was to head on down to that printer’s office. It was kind of tough to figure which one to visit for sure. I mean they did have several listed in the phone book.

But one had this ad where they mentioned making invitations. Now if they are going to boast about it then that means to me they must have the inside info on what secret club is doing all the RSVP stuff.

I went over to the place and visited what they call their show room. Man they had all kinds of stuff you could buy. That was the problem, they would let you buy it, but they sure wouldn’t tell me a darn thing about this secret club.

Oh I did ask you understand. I explained all how I know what the RSVP stood for and those by invitations only. Then to show the dude behind the counter I was smart too I told him what made me a Real Special Valuable Person by telling him all about being a garbage man and grimefighter and super hero. I want to tell you boy did that guy was so impressed if you could have seen the look in his eyes, wow was he definitely affected. Only right after that he called some security people who wanted to give me wrestling lessons like the ones over at the country club. I guess next I’ll have to check to see what wrestling has to do with the RSVP thing.

BY INVITATION ONLY

I hate seeing this stuff on things like little pieces of paper telling you that you get to attend some big fancy shin-dig. And if you don’t get one it means, sorry pal, but we think you are a creep and don’t deserve to join our party. Is that insulting or what?

It is as if this invitation thing means you are special by the person’s opinion even if you are a jerk. I suppose that is a good thing for some people. I just think it is acting like a snob and that sucks.

Plus these invitations always have that thing at the bottom about please “RSVP.” Well I’m not sure what that all is suppose to me, but I reckon it is some kind of important code. Like an invitation club you belong too. I figure it must be a club since it is on all those invitation only things. Which to me suggest there is a secret organization you can join and the RSVP probably stands for something such as “Real Special Valuable Person.” Aren’t you proud that I figured that out all by myself.

Heck the thing is to me I figure who is more real special and valuable than a super hero? So I’m a little pissed that so far I haven’t been given a chance to joined one of those clubs.

Then I thought that well maybe the reason I hadn’t been contacted is because I might be gone from my apartment when the dude showed up to tell me I could become a member. You know being a garbage man I am generally gone in the mornings so they might have stopped by without me knowing.

So I thought well shoot perhaps to save them some trouble of wondering if I would be willing to join what I would do is try and let them know I was cool about becoming a member. That way it would encourage them to sort of hurry about making me a member.

What I did was to wait till I found a place that was having one of those “by invitation only deals.” Then I could maybe you know drop by and just show them I was wise to the joining the secret group thing. That way it would make it easy for them to cut through the crap and give me a chance to get started with the RSVP thing and then get some invitations.

Anyway they were having one of those by invitation things over at this place called a country club. Not sure why it is called that since it isn’t in the country and I didn’t see any clubs lying around.

But I didn’t let that stop me. I showed up when they were having that big event just to let them know I was cool about waiting to hear on the RSVP thing. And I’m happy to report that I was able to get their attention. Next time I might want to consider renting one of those tuxes I guess. Because they sure didn’t appreciate my being dressed in my garbage man outfit, especially the one I was wearing from picking up trash all day and hadn’t had a chance to change. I keep forgetting not everyone gets a chance to wear such cool outfits. So all I’m doing now is waiting to hear from them. I imagine it shouldn’t be too long either since they were kind of enough to have those two guys in security guards give me wrestling lessons during that by invitation only deal.

BELIEVE IT OR ELSE

Do you know somebody that no matter what they say you don’t believe it? I mean they could be totally honest and sincere and all, but you just can buy whatever it is they are saying?

In my case I guess I sort of have this problem. The people I end up thinking I can believe end up telling me junk when I tell it to somebody else they think I’m nuts. And that sure don’t make it fun to share that kind of really interesting stuff. It just ends up making me pissed off.

My buddy Otis is pretty good and saying junk that isn’t always true. Only most of the time I can sort of know when he’s fibbing and when he is not.

So I’m okay with talking to him and the times he says some pretty weird stuff. I just learned to accept there are times he’ll say junk I can use and other times he says junk I wouldn’t belief no matter what.

It was like the time he was trying to get me to believe that diamonds came from coal. Man he almost had me convinced. But I’ve seen coal and I’ve seen diamonds and there ain’t just any way that some shiny cool looking diamond was made from any hunk of coal. I wish Otis wasn’t so stubborn on that subject, but I never could get him to admit he was making that part up.

Then there was the time when we was telling me about how they get egg plant from feeding chickens roses and stuff like that. I knew he was telling me the truth. Because it sure just made so much sense.

I did get kind of upset when he later told me that he made that part up. Gee I wish he would fib about fibbing like he does in some situations like that.

In any case at least with my buddy he don’t make a federal case out of expecting to either believe or not believe something. If it don’t make sense then that’s sort of okay given how much we talk about.

However over at STINK boy let me tell you old rat boy, Junior Hemoglobin sure don’t cut me any slack on this believing thing. I mean it don’t really matter if he’s fibbing or not, he expects you to belief it just the same.

I tell you some of the junk he comes up with in order to try and get us to accept why all the cheese in the world belongs to him is pretty crazy. But seeing how he is sort of Assistant Boss and all we end up just tolerating what he says.

Course we have gotten smart enough to not let him know when we do have any cheese. That business about him claiming there is a “just because it is cheese tax” don’t cut it with us. But at least we managed to avoid that other lame “farting fine you have to pay in cheese,” deal he try pawning off on us.

Thought for the week: “People are dumber than cows. They may poop where they eat, but we drink what is produced from what they eat!”

THE OLD GRAY MARE

This posting is another of my ponderings about the injustice of stuff we are supposed to remember for reasons that don’t make sense to me. In this case we are talking about a silly song dealing with someone called the old gray mare. And the song is all about here not being what she used to be.

The last I heard everybody gets old. At least that is the theory I keep hearing from old folks. Although I can’t help wondering if they didn’t talk about getting old maybe it wouldn’t happen. I know I’m working on a theory here, but I still kind of think that old is something you experience because everybody thinks you are suppose to. Make me wonder if there isn’t some kind of old people’s conspiracy done by gee, I don’t know, maybe somebody who sells junk that old people need and is looking for new customers.

There was this other saying about you are as old as you think you are. Now I can accept that. Oh it might not always look like it with some, but I do wonder for myself if this couldn’t really work. You know just stay as they say young at heart and then you won’t end up some old crabby prune of a person who doesn’t like doing cool stuff any longer.

Now how do you accomplish this? Well I’ve been thinking about that. And it seems to me that place to start is with a second childhood. Heck if there wasn’t such a thing then I reckon nobody would have mentioned it right?

That would me mean you should learn to enjoy junk you did when you were a kid. Perhaps like using toys. (Only to keep from the risk of having to beat somebody to a pulp for making fun of you for doing this, I recommend you do it when nobody is looking.)

But I think the whole second childhood could even be a time when you get to try and do something you messed up on the first time. Well except for school. There is no way I want to go through that again!

However I’m sure with a little practice everyone can figure how to make that best work for them. Then afterwards everyone can be so dang happy that they will be just doing nothing except feeling cool and young.

At which point who knows we could even retire this old gray mare thing unless we can find this mare and help her to stop feeling so old a gray. That might be nice too.

I know while we are trying to work this part out I intended to do what I can to do the second childhood thing for myself. And I’m very happy to say I’m well on my way to getting the hang of it.

In fact I just came from the candy store where I stocked up on plenty of jelly beans. Yeah regardless of my age I’ll never be too old for them. Gee I wonder if they would help the old gray mare in that song? Guess if I find her I’ll ask.

PETER PIPER

How come this guy is remembered? I just was curious because it don’t seem to me like he didn’t anything really all that cool. The story is that he picked a peck of pickled peppers. Is that supposed to be a good thing?

I mean what are going to do with a peck, whatever that is, of pickled peppers? I don’t even like regular peppers, let alone some that have been soaking in a jar full of pickles. It sure sounds yucky to me.

Besides even if those pickled peppers are the best tasting think on the planet does that mean he deserves to be famous for picking them? Plus I do wonder about the dude’s name. Peter makes sense, but piper? Does that mean he did something weird with a pipe? I don’t think I honestly want to know.

What I also would like to know is why can if we are going up with catchy junk to say about people we don’t pick one’s that really deserve it? Yeah, doesn’t that seem really fair?

I’m talking about people who truly do important junk, not weird crap. Like, well heroes. Oh I don’t want to forget about people who are doctors or policeman or fireman. They are all cool and important in terms of doing really special things that deserve attention. I guess I can’t forget people who are teacher either. And I say that even if I did have that one darn English teacher who was such a pain in the butt about my essays I would turn it. Hey to me as long as I write the word so you can figure out what it is then get off my case about the spelling! Some people just have no appreciate for creativity I reckon.

While I’m on the subject I suppose it wouldn’t be good to forget those minister dudes either. I mean anybody personally talks to God is somebody I would say was important. At least you know with them if you gripe about what they do you might end up getting zapped by a thunderbolt and that is definitely something I want to avoid.

Like I said those are all important things. But you don’t hear a whole lot of sayings like about this Peter Piper dude. Maybe he just had a better what they call publicists or something. So perhaps we just have to work on the advertising a little to take care of this problem.

I sure would feel better if we could. Because even though I didn’t mention it, the job of a Super Hero like say, er my buddy Otis and myself sort of is important too. After all when you spend you time saving the world from filth and grime it deserves as least the kindness of something like say, “Good job guys.”

Heck I ain’t even asking for a whole sentence either like that darn glory hogging Peter Piper. And I think that with us fighting grime we do stuff that is a lot better than picking any stupid pickled peppers.

But as they say you can’t fight city hall. That is kind of stupid to try anyway given the fact that city hall is a building and if you hit it with your fist all that is going to happen is you are going break your fist.

FUN, SUN AND IN A BUN

I got to go to the beach the other day. And I must say I did have fun. Although two things sort of kept me from having quite as much fun as I might have otherwise.

The first was the sun. Now some people who think looking like a beet is a good thing might not might some hot sun burning them to a crisp, but not me. I mean if God intended us to look like strawberry he wouldn’t have invented beanies. So why mess with a good thing?

The other thing that bugs me is the stupid ocean. What’s the deal with getting all wet in water that you can even drink? Does the salt help in some way I don’t know about?

Plus in case those morons who are paddling around don’t know the ocean is home to some pretty scary monsters. There are sharks like that Great Wipe Shark. It’s the one when it catches you it really wipes you out. Who thinks this is fun?

If that wasn’t enough to worry about there are also those darn dudes on that submarine I saw in the movies called 20000 Leaps Under the Sea. Man that head dude named Captian Knee-dough (makes me wonder if he got’s a brother who makes that Play-dough stuff?) Anyway he went tooling around under water in that submarine he called the Naughty-ellis. You know I watched that whole movie and never once saw that jerk ellis. So I don’t know what made him so naughty or why you would name a boat after him.

Oh well like I said beside them sharks you got to worry about that nut floating around in his submarine and waiting to sneak up and attack you when you aren’t looking. He sounds like the kind of jerk who would love to come up behind you and pull you swimming trunks off so it would embarrass the heck out you.

There are other things in the sea like icebergs and whales and stuff that you never know what it will do. Only that if you go in the water it is like painting a bull’s eye on your butt and saying come and get me. And let me tell you any whale who is out there paddling around and pushing some ice berg so it can make a snow ball and smack you in the head when you aren’t looking isn’t going to get a chance with me.

Nope for me the beach is the safe place. And sitting there under some big umbrella munching on a bunch of hot dogs and buns works for me. Well sort of. It does get kind of tricky trying to hold that umbrella with one hand and eat the hot dogs with the other. I did try holding it with my teeth and that freed up both hands, but it sure didn’t give me a chance to eat much.

In any case here’s hoping whether you decide to go splashing around or just sit on the beach and gobble down hot dogs that you have a good time at time. I know I did. And next time I will definitely know better than to think some Styrofoam ice chest is really a giant marshmallow. That is definitely important to remember when trying to roast marshmallows. And also when making Smores. I just that I would throw that in for free in case you were interested.

TOUGH ENOUGH

Who gets to decide this definition? And I sure hope they make as part of that definition exactly what it applies to.

I mean think about it. Tough enough for say shopping probably means you need a good part of shoes. Whereas if say you want to stop a bullet then you got to be Superman tough enough.

All of that should be obvious I suppose, but I don’t think it really is. See the reason I say that is because sometimes I think my boss’s idea of tough enough is that us grimefighters are sort of almost Superman tough enough. Oh I didn’t say he is getting ready to issue us some blue tights with a big red S on it, but heck man some of the junk he thinks we can do would make you think he was leaning that way.

Now I ask you is it realistic of him to expect us to say lift a garbage truck with our bare hands. He apparently thinks so since there are times when we have a flat tire and when we go to try and change it there ain’t any jack. So I reckon he figures one of us can lift the stupid truck while the other one changes the tire.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m sure nowhere near that kind of tough enough. And as for my buddy Otis, heck he’s a great guy, but he does have a figure like an egg. The last time I checked Superman was hardly shaped like that. So I have a feeling that Otis would sort of qualify for tough enough if Humpty Dumpty was the tough enough you were talking about. Otherwise forget it.

What really bugs me is if we have a flat tire and call in Dr. Hemoglobin really gets upset when we say we can’t change the tire. And if we tell him it is because we don’t have a jack he sort of grumbles a lot and then kind of stalls for a bit before agreeing to send out a tow truck.

I reckon I ought to be grateful that he does that much though. And I suppose I ought to be grateful he hasn’t tried to make us Popeye tough enough. Frankly I ain’t partial in any way to spinach. Plus it would be such a pain to have to carry those spinach cans around. I mean you would need a can opener and all. You try figuring out how you would come up with enough extension cord to use with an electric can opener when you were miles away on a trash route.

So I suppose I’m grateful that with Dr. Hemoglobin he hasn’t gotten that idea in his head. I’m also glad that he doesn’t follow Junior’s idea of tough enough. There is no way I’m going to gobble down a bunch of Limburger cheese for anybody. Besides nobody is going to persuade me that any kind of tough enough would mean I got to have nostrils that were extra strong. I don’t even think Superman has to worry about that. However I have no idea if that Kryptonite junk that bothers him maybe stinks really bad. Guess it would explain why it bugs him. And since my buddy and I have to handle lots of stuff that stinks maybe in that regard we are just as tough as any other super hero. If I ever get a chance to meet one of the other super heroes I’ve have to remember to ask them how good they smell.

REPEAT IT TO ME

Yeah some things are definitely worth saying again. And I do enjoy when I hear the same thing a second or third time that is something I really want to hear about. Like say when they are having the jelly bean sale at the candy store. I never get bored hearing about those.

I just wish everybody agreed on what was worth saying more than once. Let me tell you I do not want or need to hear more than once when somebody had diarrhea. In fact I don’t even need to hear about it the first time.

But try and tell that to some people. It just doesn’t work. You can do your best to ignore them, hide from them and even in some case run over them with a garbage — um, maybe I shouldn’t talk about that one seeing how there were no witnesses and — never mind.

What is really annoying is when you get stuck talking to some clown who doesn’t take any kind of hint like when you try to excuse yourself after rolling your eyes. Then the same joker if you try to leave will actually follow you so he can keep talking!

Hey, that kind of dude doesn’t even respond to something like being flat told to shut up! That is because he’s too busy talking to even hear you say shut up. Man does that get really frustrating.

In any case the once solution I’ve come up with on this is food. Yep food. All you have to do is order a couple of dozen pizza and then you can keep the person eating so they don’t have an opportunity to speak. If there is one thing I have learned to appreciate it is that with some people stuffing their face is just a cool option to talking constantly.

Of course there are the problem times when I’m a little short on money so I can’t afford to buy the pizzas. Then if I get desperate enough I have Truly Grimy make the pizza. Only I don’t tell them that I got the pizza from Truly. What I do is dig through the trash and find some old discarded box. If I’m lucky there will even be some leftover pizza in it. That is a nice plus since I had sort of figure a way to add it into the pizza Truly makes and so they guy actually thinks it is a normal pizza.

The real beauty of this whole thing is after the pizza eats enough of Truly’s pizza they always end up with a stomachache big time. Which ends up with them having to run off to the bathroom.

That always ends the conversation and any risk of hearing the person repeat crap I don’t want to hear in the first place.

I’m sure hoping passing on these little tips will help some other people. And perhaps spare you the pain of dealing with somebody that constantly says the same thing over and over. Meanwhile I have to get over to STINK’s lunchroom. I tried to tell the guys about the latest jelly bean sale, but somebody sent out for pizza and I got so busy eating to finish talking about them. I tell you I have no idea where they got those lame pizzas, but they sure made me sick. That’s um something I hope to avoid next time. But for some reason it seems lately every time I try to talk about jelly beans somebody sends out for pizza.

BEEN THERE, DONE NOTHING

I bet you’ve heard that saying, “been there, done that.” Well as good as that sounds I always get bored with that saying. Mainly because it seems like the person saying it is implying that they did whatever and it was boring so if you don’t believe them you are stupid. That is my interpretation of course. You understanding my be different.

What occurred to me the most is that I honestly don’t even know if the person actually has been there, wherever there is suppose to be. Oh they can claim it all they want, but I doubt they will try to prove it. That is the part that worries me a little. I mean what if the there they are talking about isn’t really the there you are talking about? Yeah there are a lot of things where you get stuff like that and a there can be more than one place.

Like if you say mall you could me a lot of malls and it don’t mean they are all the same. At least from what I can tell some are different from others.

So to me the real important thing to start with is making sure they are really talking about the right there. Funny thing though if you ask the wrong way then the person gets sort of bent out of shape and figures you are saying they are dumb or something. That sure don’t work for me.

That is the one thing that makes this whole deal a real pain in the butt. I mean most of the time I’m just sitting in the lunchroom at STINK and minding my own business. Then my buddy Otis will come in and casually mention something we have to do once we have finished saving the world from filth and grime for the day.

You can be pretty sure than whatever it is we have to do that some other grimefighter is going to speak up and say “been there and done that.” And I know it just ain’t possible that they could have all done everything.

One of these times I’m thinking of doing something really silly in that regards. Like saying I got an appointment to have them drill a hole in my head. Boy let one of those guys say “been there, done that” and the first thing I’m going to say is “show me the hole!”

I admit if they do I’ll probably feel kind of foolish, but I have an idea that won’t happen. Although I know that there are plenty of times when my buddy Otis is talking about some grimefighter and says how they need to have their heads examined. Otis never says the “been there, done that” thing too often thank goodness.

But I reckon if he thinks some of the grimefighters spend a lot of time getting their heads looked at perhaps a few do have a hole I don’t know about. Still it will be fun to just see what they say.

Course knowing my luck one of those guys would run into the kitchen to find a drill just to put a hole long enough to say, “been there, done that.” Yeah they are that wacky about junk like that. Oh well that is a problem for another time.

THE SAME, BUT DIFFERENT

How come people always look at me funny when I say this about something. It is like I’m speaking some foreign language. Okay I have been known and times to say junk that I heard from somebody and it was well, weird. But I was still talking the same language, just saying it, er different.

Now see that is exactly what I’m talking about. It is the same in terms of words, but different in meaning. Why can’t more people understand this? It sure doesn’t seem to be that hard to me.

The big pain of all of this is when I have to sit down and explain it. Like they never get it without that explanation. Shoot sometimes they don’t even figure it out with the explanation. I tell you it sure is frustrating.

Where did this idea come that in order for something to be understood it had to make sense? That is so dang annoying. I mean I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know everything. Oh I try as hard as I can to learn, but sometimes I guess I sort of get the facts kind of confused.

But that don’t mean I don’t try like heck to explain it right. And that is why to me this whole same, but different is no big deal.

In fact to me a whole lot of stuff is the same, but different. People are the same in terms of all being people, but we are all different too. Which is probably good because if we were all exactly the same it could get real confusing. Man that sure would make for long lines at the candy store when trying to buy jelly beans.

So from my point of view this same, but different is a pretty darn good thing. You can depend on knowing some things are the same enough to know what to expect from them, but that they are also different so that it doesn’t get boring.

For me though I suppose the one thing I do wish was always the same was griminals. Oh they are all griminals, but they just keep figuring out different ways of committing grimes. It would just be so much easier if they always did the same junk. Even better if it was at the same place. That would make it so cool since I could go to the same place time and beat up the same people without having to figure out who was at fault. It sure would cut down on all those OOPS where I mistook somebody who looked guilty for somebody who really was. Er, I don’t reckon I need to say much more on that. At least till the court case is over.

Anyway, I suppose hoping that those griminals will start acting that way is probably not very likely. I imagine the cops have the same problem when dealing with their bad guys. Ah now wouldn’t it be cool if say my buddy Otis and I could say do some stuff in terms of helping the cops. I wonder if they would give us guns? I don’t need one of those night sticks though. My bat works good enough for me. Next time I see a cop I think I’ll ask him if he needs help in terms of cleaning up the bad guys. It might be a great way for something to be the same, but different.

Thought for the week: “April First is April Fool’s Day. April Fifteenth is the deadline for taxes. Does that mean we use April to celebrate being stupid about taxes?”

TEST, ZEST AND BEST

How come a test is assumed the way you always decide who is best at something? Ain’t that sort of presuming the test is a fair one?

Over at STINK we have all kinds of tests. Only our boss, Dr. Hemoglobin calls them contests. And the winner is someone who he calls the best at whatever the contest was about.

All of that is okay of course. And once and a while Otis or I actually win some contest. But not as often as either of us would like.

The reason we have trouble winning more often is because of a little thing called the “rules.” Yeah it is sure funny how you can change the rules so just about anyone can win.

Actually I guess the big thing isn’t so much the rules, but the judging of them. That isn’t always bad if the judging makes sense, but let me tell you sometimes at STINK it just gets plain silly from my point of view.

I don’t want to bore you with the many ways this happens, but you can sure tell when our boss sort of has the winner picked out before we even have the test. It is sort of easy to see when he goes up to one person and asks them their hat size for a crown. Is that obvious or what.

Then we have the contest, whatever it happens to be. And if the person he wants to win didn’t win then we end up with what he calls overtime. After that he’ll change the contest someway so low and behold the person he wants to have win will end up winning.

The funny thing about all this stuff is that he seems to think we don’t recognize how it works. I guess in part we all never complain because from time to time we get our chance to win something.

So I suppose that is the good part. Well sort of. The big problem with that is normally whenever there is a really cool prize he makes sure that old rat boy, Junior Hemoglobin wins.

Unfortunately there are too many times we don’t find out that Junior is going to actually compete till the competition starts. We’ll be standing there and dreaming about winning that contest and getting that prize when Junior will show up.

When that happens you can be darn sure that zest for the contest sort of ends. At least for the grimefighters. As for Junior, well when you know you are going to win you can be sure he doesn’t lack any zest. In those cases the only time we get any zest is when we find out that cool prize we thought was made of something else turns out to be made of cheese. Kind of brings a zest of relief to our faces.

SAVING FOR A RAINY DAY

Alright now this saying really bugs me. First of all nowhere does it say WHAT you are supposed to save. Oh I know generally some people would claim it was talking about money, but again it doesn’t say that as part of the saying. It just says IT!

Plus who says saving money for a rainy day is really going to help? I mean when it rains where I live the thing I need most is an umbrella not more money. I sure would hate to imagine that somebody was using money for a hat or something. It is hard to believe somebody would be that crazy.

Unless you are talking about Mr. Mammongrabber. With him man from what I’ve noticed there just ain’t much he doesn’t figure you can’t do better with money. Plus I know he is a big one for saving money whether it is going to rain or not. In fact as best as I can tell he wouldn’t spend money if he didn’t have to anyway.

Outside of him though, I reckon most people just prefer saving money for some kind of emergency. Like retirement. I never really thought of retiring myself because the people I know that are retired never seem to enjoy it. They seem to spend most of their time going to the doctor or getting some prescription filled. I don’t see how either of those would be all that exciting. But the way I figure they must have taken up the retirement because they had no choice. And normally junk you do because you have no choice is some kind of emergency.

Meanwhile getting back to this whole idea of saving it for a rainy day I was trying to think of all the important stuff you would want to save for a rainy day. Now first on my mind would be dirty clothes.

See you could hang them outside and let the rain wash them. Getting the soap to mix with the rain might be tricky, but I figure we could work it out some way.

Beyond dirty clothes another good think to save would be heat. When it rains it is normally cold so I imagine saving heat would help.

I heard about this think called solar heating. I know solar has to do with the sun. I’m not sure quiet how you get heat from the sun without all that light too, but those science types are amazing at figuring out all kinds of junk so they must have done it.

Only apparently they don’t want to share how they do it. But from what I hear it has to do with houses. So I guess they have some homes where they keep all this heat they been saving from the sun.

I just don’t know why they don’t want to share it more. So until I find out I reckon I’ll just have to work on it another way.

Right now I’m experimenting with saving heat by running the heater back at our apartment. I put a box by the heater to catch all the heat. Later I’ll put it away till a rainy day. I sure hope it saves enough too. I mean that way Otis won’t have to complain as much when I turn the heater on to try and save the heat when it is the middle of summer.

JUST GLUE IT

Yeah I love this. Even when something ain’t broken it is just so cool how a little glue works wonders. It leaves me with a real good feeling inside like things are perfect and secure.

I know you’re probably thinking that I’m going overboard about a little glue. And maybe you are right to a degree. However all I can say is that there sure have been plenty of cases in my situation when some glue sure made a whole lot of difference.

It is like over at STINK. Being a garbage man super hero type my eyes get to see so much stuff that has been tossed away, but might still be worth something if you used a little glue to repair it. Heck it is amazing how many times I’ll find something like a broken dish or even a chair and all you need is some glue to fix it. Ah that is providing you got something to glue to what is broke to replace what is missing.

Personally to me a whole plate is what is important and not whether the part you glued on matched the rest the broken plate. Some people can be so darn picky about junk like that. I just figure they lack what Otis calls “vision.” That is where you got something in your eye that won’t let you see possibility. I’m not quite clear what it is, but in any case you just can’t plain see decent for one reason or another.

For those people I just kind of feel sorry for them I guess. I mean they would refuse to eat of some plate that I fixed by gluing on an extra piece just because it don’t fit with the rest of the plate. And what is really annoying is when they freak out because I didn’t use some piece of porcelain. To me it ain’t a big deal if the part I added was made out of used chewing gum. At least it sticks to the rest of the plate decently and you don’t even need that much glue.

But I reckon there are some people you never will make happy no matter what you do. I got to admit that there are times when I have nearly given into the impulse to use my glue gun to glue their lips together.

I probably would too if it wasn’t for my buddy Otis. He always finds some reason to say why that isn’t a good idea.

Course that doesn’t mean I can’t still do it when he doesn’t know about it. I just say that for the benefit of anyone who might be reading this and I happen to meet someday. If you decide to make some stupid comment about my repaired dinner plates then expect me to deal with that by showing you my glue gun.

Ah that is the best part of all of this. I pretty much know how most people will just plain forget all about this. At least until they end up meeting me and making the wrong comment.

Then, well normally by the time they see my glue gun it is generally too late to do much, but keep your mouth shut. And if you don’t you can be sure when I get done you will have to keep it shut!

IN DEEP

You can take my word for this one. If somebody starts out a sentence with “in deep” it ain’t going to get better when they finish the sentence.

Deep just ain’t the kind of word that seems to go with good things as far as I can tell. It almost always comes with something not so good. At least from what I have noticed.

Basically in too many ways it gets around to being connected with something like trouble. Because if it is something good it seems to end up with some other kind of word like a heap you get to stand on top of as oppose to a mess you get buried underneath.

As a grimefighter I naturally have to be concerned with deep in terms of messiness. Oh I do enjoy when I can get some stupid griminal to clean up his or her own mess, but sometimes after you bash them unconscious they aren’t able to do a whole lot of cleaning.

In a way that really gripes me too. Here I am the good guy, super hero type and I’m out saving the world from filth and grime. And if I’ve done a good job then I stop some jerk from doing something really dirty.

That to me deserves a reward. I just don’t think being handed some broom and dustpan after doing some super hero deed and having to clean up that jerk’s mess as a good option. It sure doesn’t feel like much of a reward to me.

The big problem is that if I don’t clean the crap up and leave it then people complain. Do they appear grateful I kept the mess from getting worse? Nope? Do they even care that I prevented the same thing from happening again by catching the bad guy? Not at all.

All I end up with is some whining on their part about the mess that is still hanging around. So I get stuck thanks to my boss Dr. Hemoglobin with having to do the cleaning part.

He insists I got to do it in order to promote good public relations. Of course I have noticed the promoting part is always the kind where I have to do the cleaning part. He loves to do promoting too, but with him it ends up amounting to him basically giving a lot of speeches and me still doing the cleaning part.

So when I get stuck there doing some clean up I just keep asking myself how come being in deep can be something good just once. Like say being in deep in terms of say a huge pile of jelly beans? Heck I wouldn’t even need a dust pan or broom for that type of mess. I could gladly eat my way through that chore.

However that would be my first choice. So far I haven’t found any griminals who like to make messes with jelly beans. Some people can be so darn unreasonable in that sense.

I keep hoping though. You never know when one can luck out and in deep with be cause for a smile. At least I’ll continue to hope that there are jelly beans out there waiting in some deep pile to be cleaned up. Hey we all can dream!

KEEPING THE NOSE TO THE RHINESTONE

They got this stuff that is real popular with some people called “costume jewelry.” It sort of is like the real stuff only not real. That makes it more affordable, which basically means it is cheap.

Normally I don’t give any kind of jewelry much thought. Unless you count a watch. I do wear one of those. But stuff like rings and junk forget it. I don’t have any need to mess up my hands with shiny stuff.

In my case it is a matter of self-defense I guess. See if I was wearing a ring or something then it might flash and get a jerk’s attention that I was about to bash with my bat. Then they would have a chance to duck. And that hardly is a good thing for me.

So that is why I don’t have much need for jewelry whether it is the costume stuff or the real thing. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have to be involved with it in some way.

Mainly that is because of where I work. This is one situation where thank goodness Dr. Hemoglobin ain’t a big one for worrying about jewelry. Oh he does wear a watch and even glasses, but none of that other ring or necklace stuff.

Even old rat boy isn’t one to make a big deal about costume jewelry. Of course with him if it doesn’t involve cheese he probably wouldn’t care in the first place.

Nope, if all we had to worry about was Dr. Hemoglobin or rat boy then I doubt jewelry wouldn’t even be an issue at STINK. But see beside a boss we also got the secretary types. And also Truly Grimy who although she does secretary stuff too she is more of a pain to the stomach that anything else with that cooking of hers.

Anyway the thing is from time to time Dr. Hemoglobin decides for one reason or another that it is important for us to show the ladies that they are appreciated. That eventually comes down to figuring a way to say it with jewelry. And that is the long way I suppose of getting to the subject of how I ended up having to know the difference between costume jewelry and the other stuff.

Actually it isn’t that tough when you get to the store. Sometimes with the jewelry stuff they will have it on some rack in the store. It is sort of like they are saying, “shoot this stuff is so dang cheap we don’t worry if somebody steals it.”

Not so with the real stuff. It is kept locked up and in some places they even have guards to watch over it. Buddy let me tell you they sure don’t do that with stuff that isn’t worth a lot of bucks.

Of course the hard part when somebody on my salary tries to shop for this stuff as a gift for the secretaries is to find something that looks like it is real, but costs cheap. Only I ain’t about to tell the secretary that I bought the cheap thing. No sense ruining a perfectly good fib.

About the only thing I get confused about on this whole thing is that I never see anyone who wears this costume jewelry dress in a costume. You would think I would see at least one decent clown outfit in the process. Guess we all have our own idea of a costume I suppose.

ONCE UPON A GRIND

Boring! Yeah I could use that word on way to many of those “you got to do this because I say so” kind of things I have to do over at STINK. What can I say, fun it ain’t.

Still somebody has to do it. At least that is what they tell me. Why it always seems to be me I’m not sure, but it sure ends up being me a whole lot. That is to me it seems that way.

Normally my buddy Otis calls getting stuck with those lame chores and opportunities for rising above the ordinary and mundane. It to me amounts to still getting forced into doing junk that is to me about as exciting as going to see something like an opera. Now I realize to folks who are opera lovers that is exciting. But that is a different story. To me it ain’t exciting. Um not in a way I look forward to I should say.

In any case all it amounts to is us getting stuck doing way too much junk that you have to practically slap yourself in the face to keep from nodding off about. You can also be sure that there is no way when our boss Dr. Hemoglobin talks about being a grimefighter he ever mentions that lame chores we do beside busting the bad guys. It sort of gets ignored a whole lot. Maybe that ain’t no accident either.

So I just sit there when I get some duty like trash bag counting and keep telling myself at least it isn’t sewer patrol duty. That is one chore that believe me there ain’t any thing that isn’t better to do.

What I mainly do to survive not going crazy is to sit down and think about the cool times. You know when we can remember something like running through a crowd after some griminal and actually catching the jerk. That is the good times. They just don’t happen as often as I wish.

One of these days I think I’m going to try and write a book about my adventures. I think people could find that interesting. I would call it my mem-wores. I think that is how they call it, which makes sense since it is something you wore. Well sort of.

Yep I think a whole lot of people would love to know all the good stuff I do as a super hero. And the best part is when you write about it you can use what they call a literary license. That is what you have to put something in a story that ain’t always true.

I’m not sure where you go to get one of those licenses though. I sure hope it doesn’t involve any test. But I reckon I can find out somewhere.

I suppose I might start by going over to the museum and ask them. They always seem to have lots of good stuff to show off. So I reckon they got a good example of what literary license looks like.

The only thing I not really clear on is do you have to show it to somebody special before you use it? Guess I can ask huh? And once I get one then everyone can look forward to the day when I got those mem-wores all wore out.

CROPS, MOPS AND HOPS

Man I wish my boss Dr. Hemoglobin would stop reading books sometimes. Every once and a while he’ll get to reading about something and then even if it doesn’t apply to us he’ll figure a way to make it sound like it does.

He got interested in gardening the other day. So he read up on all the important junk I guess. Then to impress us I suppose he started talking about everything like it was a garden.

And before you know it we were know longer just grimefighters. We were clean farmers plowing the world of filth in hopes of sowing a few seeds of cleanliness. It all came down to us using a mop more. Which sure didn’t seem to me to be any kind of gardening that I ever heard of.

Anyway there we were toting around these mops and pails and trying to understand how they were suppose to be like a hoe and rake. That was how he explained it.

Then we would go out on assignment and when we got back he would be standing there with his new overall duds and straw hat and start talking funny. He says stuff like “how’s the field today?”

I was tempted to say it was empty or full of weeds, but Otis talked me out of it. So I just shrugged and moved on. Which I wished meant that Dr. Hemoglobin simply went back to his own garden and stopped trying to turn STINK into one.

Instead it got worse. He decided that in order for the garden idea to honestly work meant we need to really get excited about it. That meant he wanted us to start moving quicker and pretending we were really happy about the whole thing.

Now I ask you is it really something that makes sense when you get stuck holding some mop and pail and have to hop around while the whole time talking like you are growing flowers? I tell you about the only thing that what we had in common with a garden was how much fertilizer was being spread.

Only thing was we didn’t end up with any pretty flowers blooming. That didn’t keep our boss from seeing them. He keeps claiming that the air was full with the scent of toil blossoms from our seeds of sincerity. I know anytime he starts rambling like that whatever we are doing is something other than whatever he is talking about.

The good news I guess is that eventually Dr. Hemoglobin got over his interest in gardening. Which meant we also were able to stop messing with the mops and pales as much. And I was grateful for that.

My biggest fear right now is that I noticed he had this book on his desk about this big whale called Moby Dick. Otis says that in the story the guys chasing whale mostly got drowned. And I just hope he don’t want us to call a mop a harpoon!

Thought for the week: I never wish upon a falling star. Who expects a wish to come true by trusting your luck in some accident prone actor?”

I NEED, WE FEED, THEY BLEED

On a good day at STINK this pretty much describes how things go for me. It starts with the need part. As in having an empty stomach. The kind that you feel like you could eat a whole cow and still have room for a couple of million donuts for dessert. Yeah that kind of hungry.

So we only deal with that challenge by heading over to STINK’s lunchroom. And I guess Dr. Hemoglobin also has a sense of when that is important too. Because on days when we got a real extra special assignment coming up he makes sure there is plenty to eat in the lunchroom.

Okay it is true that it often includes a whole lot of casseroles that generally has stuff in it we didn’t eat on other days, but there is sure a lot of it. One word of advice though, if you ever have a chance to visit STINK on one of those days, avoid the spinach and fish stick casserole. Sometimes that green stuff they claim is spinach is er, well something else. I haven’t asked and they sure are about to volunteer to tell me either.

Anyway it still can be a cool feast. One I sure don’t mind gobbling down and going back for a couple of dozen times till I feel I’m not hungry any longer.

The one thing you do have to be careful about during these feasts is getting so full that you can’t move or need to take a nap. Feeling that sluggish just don’t cut it in terms of going on assignment.

I tell you my boss Dr. Hemoglobin sure don’t consider it our finest hour if he happens to wander out to the parking area and finds us napping instead of moving. It gets real tough too convincing him that we were doing what Otis claims is meditating if we are snoring.

So we try to strike a balance in eating enough, but not too much. Otis calls it a balance. I call it knowing when to stop eating so you don’t feel like you stomach is going to explode.

Afterwards when all the feasting is done and we are out there going after the bad guys that is hopefully when the bleeding part happens. At least we hope it happens to the bad guys and not us.

Sometimes though accidents do happen as they say. Like if us grimefighters end up getting confused over our assignments. I tell you when you enter some dark abandoned warehouse where you are told a griminal is lurking you just love the idea of greeting them with a bat. And I’ll tell you there is no better feeling than whacking a dude who is a griminal till he begs you to stop. Course my rule is as long as he’s still begging I keep whacking. Just to be safe you understand.

However I’m sure you can appreciate my having mixed emotions when I finally get to turn on the lights and find out that instead of it being a griminal it was another grimefighter would got lost by accident. Guess it is lucky for me that being unconscious sort of keeps them from finding out it was my bat that made them that way. (It also helps when it gives me enough time to think up a lie to blame it on somebody else.)

GIMMIE, GIMMIE, GIMMIE

Wanting junk to me is about as usual and natural as breathing. Except for the fact that air ain’t as hard to get most of the time as other stuff you want.

I think that is why birthdays and Christmas were invented by whoever invented them. That way at least once and a while you had a reasonable chance of having the gimmies come true.

I got no idea who was the smart dude that figured that was a cool way to get the stuff you wanted, but I wouldn’t mind thanking him or her if I ever met them. However since I don’t know who the person is, I’ll just have to give them credit in this posting for being so dang thoughtful.

Now since getting presents is so much fun providing they are decent presents I thought maybe ought to think of how we could give more people cool stuff that would make them happy. Only I guess it might be kind of tough to do it for free. I mean unless we had some kind of “scouts honor” deal with everyone agree up front to give something when they got something.

What I figured that in the giving and getting department I would check with somebody who I reckoned was an expert to see if they had any good ideas to make this thing extra popular. So I went over and checked with the Reverend Analbe.

He was sure big on the giving part. Well as long as it seems to involve giving to his group. But he was sort of vague on the giving to others part. Not sure, but with him I think it had something to do with farming. He kept talking about stuff like reaping and sowing. Um I suppose the sowing means that if you spend all the time farming and doing a bunch of reaping that you’ll probably wear out your socks and pants and need to sew them.

I didn’t get for sure how it had to help with the gimmie part of my idea. But he seemed to think that if you did a lot of giving to his group then God would take care of your getting part.

I suppose that would be okay. Although since as far as I know the Lord mainly has a bunch of churches he runs and no stores it is kind of hard to figure where he is keeping all this stuff the Reverend says he’ll give you when you give to the Reverend. Maybe he’s got a catalogue you can check.

Looks like I’ll have to give this some more thought by myself though. After I suggested to the Reverend Analbe that perhaps it might be a good idea if her tried to inspire some others by starting the giving part first he suddenly got busy. I think he had something stuck in this throat since the moment I said that he got all red faced and started coughing.

Oh well, seeing how he does speak to God and all, I reckon I can appreciate how he would be extra busy at times. Maybe one of these times though I can get him to show me that catalogue with all the reaping stuff you get abundantly from the Lord after you finish sewing up whatever you need to sew from the farming stuff.

HIDE AND NO PEEK

I normally don’t have much a reason to hide that often. Seeing how I’m a grimefighter and not a griminal then my job is to be out there doing the seeking, not the hiding part.

But even a super hero like myself has those occasions when I got to hide and hope no one is peeking. Mainly it happens for a couple of reasons over at STINK. The first is when Truly Grimy is looking for someone to try out her latest stomach burning experiment. Edible it normally ain’t. I will give her credit for continue to try. Nor for being smart enough to ever improve, but for trying.

I tell you hiding from Truly can be tough to. Because she always remembers the last place you tried to hide and let me tell you even at STINK we only got so many places you can stuff you butt and not be noticed.

The best deal approach seems to distract her in some way. Then while she is off doing whatever you can run the other way and hope you luck out and find somewhere she won’t trying peeking into. Sometimes though panic takes over and I get brain dead. When that happens I get stuck. I just accept my fate, go and fetch about a gallon of antacid and hope whatever she fixed doesn’t make me vomit.

Now outside of having to worry about Truly I also got to contend with old Rat Boy, Junior Hemoglobin. I know I mentioned that he’s a cheese hording jerk and that is probably his good quality. The problem is that as STINK’s Assistant Director he also gets to boss us around at times. And that is definitely a pain.

Of course most of us figure if Junior’s dad wasn’t our real boss, Dr. Hemoglobin then he wouldn’t even have the job. But we get stuck with him and I suppose he sort of figures the same about us.

The main problem with having to put up with Junior as Assistant Director is that he always ends up thinking about stupid junk for us to do. Most of the time it involves cheese in some way. While nobody will gripe about his love of cheese we do gripe that he waists our time making us do crap to help him get more cheese.

I’m talking about stuff that sometimes is just plain dumb and stupid. Like having us go into a store and try to put some fake mold on the cheese so we can claim it is bad and if they let us throw it out we won’t have to tattle to the health department. He claims us doing that is to check to be sure they are not doing anything sneaky. As if that it really part of our job.

So the bottom line is whenever we can that we know Junior is roaming the halls we do what we can to hide. The real bummer is when we are trying to hide from Junior and Truly finds us. Because when that happens we end up not only getting stuck eating her crap, but Junior almost always finds us in the process so we get the added pain of him sticking us with some other crap. Hiding ain’t fun if you can’t keep from somebody peeking and finding you when you work at STINK!

THE STATE OF THE DISUNION

I know that every year the President gives what is called the State of the Union message. Which I guess is a good thing. I’ve never personally visited the State of Union. I’m not even sure where it is located and why it is so important that the President has to give a speech about it once a year, but he does.

In any case over at STINK our boss, Dr. Hemoglobin gets in the mood every year when he hears about this state of the union speech to decide he needs to give us a speech too. I got no idea why, but with our boss it doesn’t take much to inspire him to give us a speech.

So we sit there and he drones on and on about all that happen at STINK in the last year and how this next year is going to be our best year ever. Only during his speech it seems like he sort of forget to mention some junk that happens during the last year. Well at least it does to me since a lot of times when he mentions some “event” as he calls it the way he explains it is just a whole lot different from the way I remember it. You know he will call it a great victory even if it wasn’t quite that great of a victory.

Now even though I don’t know where this so-called State of the Union is located, which I’m thinking it is probably out there between Hawaii and Alaska, the one thing I have figured out is that everybody is happy and loves working together. That sure seems to have a lot to do with things. The Union part meaning they also get along.

Boy I wish at times I did know where this state was located because let me tell you it sure would be a lot different from the places I’ve lived. Oh people where I live do sort of get along. Well they claim to at least. And that sounds pretty darn good even if in reality they gripe a lot.

Which is the part that cracks me up when Dr. Hemoglobin gives his big speech. I mean if you listen to him then we all are a bunch of happy, busy grimefighters who are well paid, constantly having and good time and don’t take any crap off of anyone that don’t end up getting shoved into a trash compactor to shut them up. (Okay I guess I sort of added the last part myself on that deal.)

But from what I can tell this ain’t the kind of harmony and getting along the way he says. Which is why sometimes I think it might be better if he was to maybe talk more about how we ought to stop being some disunion. You know that is more like working better apart than together.

I guess though mentioning things that way would give him much of a reason for a speech. Which is probably true for the President too I imagine. And I can’t imagine that you would want to call any place the State of Disunion. Shoot why would you need to create a State by that name when you can go anywhere there is and find disagreement?

I’m thinking it might be cool to really see if I can find that State of Union on the map sometime. I wonder if they are ready for many visitors? I reckon it is worth checking out as soon as I find it on a map.

BEING DIPLOMATIC

I given thought to how important this is. Only I guess I just am not that crazy about constantly going to school. To me just getting one diploma from high school was enough. Oh I do like having it, but I never saw how getting a whole bunch of them would be all that helpful. So unlike some people who keep chasing after all kinds of diplomas and become diplomatic or addicted to them, I’m just content with the one I do have.

I mean outside of hanging them on some wall what else can you do them? You can eat them and you can spend them either. Still that don’t mean some people get all inspired that getting a bunch of diplomas is cool.

Then after they start collecting these things I guess they pick out a couple of letters off of them to put behind their name. Only they get really weird about it because most of the time they don’t use enough letters to let you figure out what word they are trying to abbreviate with the two letters. I ask you what word starts with a BS? Or I’ve see the ones with MS and then the really strange ones that go PHD.

I figure that must all be connected with some foreign language. So I guess it means you got to learn some foreign language as part of being so a diplomatic. Now I ask you is that a good thing? Apparently these folks think so.

But let it not be said that I am unwilling to give a subject some fair thought. So what I decided to do what see if I could find an easy way to learn more about this thing. And I did decide if I tried to talk to some diplomat and they had to explain the thing by using some foreign language I would be in trouble.

Well what I figured was perhaps if you had an extra diploma or two then I could approach one of these folks and talk to them on their level. As long as they didn’t get carried away with you know blabbing too much on some foreign language then I’d be okay.

Only you know I do work for a living and can go off to some college for years in order to get one of those diplomas or two in order to become a diplomatic like those others. What I needed was some place I could go for a short time and get a diploma or two.

Then I remembered that we had this barber college over in our city. I thought well maybe I could hang out a while, learn a few tips on giving haircuts and then get a diploma.

The only problem was that they expected you to pay to go to that college. Can you imagine that? They wanted me to pay them just to learn how to use a pair of scissors? Boy was that silly or what?

I’m still working on figuring out how to get some diplomas and see a quick and easy way to do it. I got a couple of leads. One is this stationary store. They sell stuff like award certificates. Now all I have to do is see if they can change the word certificate for diploma.

BE KIND AND REFIND

Ever find something you just know somebody else lost? Being a garbage man there are times when this happens to me. I mean I know some people throw out some perfectly good stuff, but every once and a while you can just tell that they tossed something by mistake. (I even when to dump this one trash can once and there was this old guy sitting on it. Now I know there is no way they were tossing away grandpa! Turned out he fell asleep while taking out the trash, but you get the idea.)

Now some of my fellow garbage man, even though they are also grimefighting super heroes have this philosophy that “finders keepers, losers should have beepers.” Not quite sure how having a beeper would help the situation, but that’s what they say if they come into the lunchroom toting something they found in the trash that is real cool.

As for myself, well what I do is try to take it back to the person who accidentally tossed it. I got to be honest though at four in the morning, grateful isn’t necessarily how some people react when you pound on their door. Plus the normally keep nodding off so they often don’t even hear what you say. So a lot of times I just try to wait to give it to them later.

There was a time when I would just leave the thing on their porch if they had one. Only problem with that is sometimes in the dark I would end up going to the wrong house. And believe me if you find something on your that smells even the least like rotting garbage no matter how good it still is you might not be happy. Even more so if the thing didn’t belong to you in the first place.

Still there are those rare moments when I return something and the person really is grateful. On I want to tell you they just look so darn happy. Sometimes it even brings them to tears.

Of course they might be in tears because the thing they lost was mixed in with some onions that were in the garbage, but I think it is the thought that counts. It has to be in some cases when the person keeps claiming they really did intend to throw away that chair that only had three legs left.

Heck my rule is when it doubt, take it back. I just wish that always ended with it being a good thing. However I never give up. There is always the next time when the person will say thank you instead of having their dog try to bite me.

Ah the joys of garbage. Sometimes it does bring tears to your eyes. And sometimes they are actually from happiness rather than pain like from a dog bite.

The way I figure every trash can contains all kinds of stories. Some good, some not so good. Just like life, there are times when you have days that smell great others when it is down right rotten. Hopefully fewer stink though. And that depends though. A lot is based on which way the wind blows and if you took a shower in the morning instead of just wetting the towel.

A LITTLE UNDERSTANDING

Wouldn’t it be so cool if everybody in the world were understanding and cooperative? I mean in terms of accept that what you were doing was a good thing.

What bugs me the most at times is how no matter how good your reason for doing something you can pretty much be sure not every will have a little understanding about it. Wish it were otherwise, but it isn’t. Which I guess is why I have had to use my bat to be sure I made understanding work for some people. True, it is hard when they are lying unconscious for them to have a little understanding, but at least they stop bitching for a while.

I’ve been trying to come up with a good way to improve the problem of having a little understanding. At first I figured it simply required you know being able to explain things good enough.

Then I noticed with some people they end up starting out talking so much that they never give you a chance to try and explain in a way that makes it easy to understand. Of course a lot depends on what you are trying to explain I guess.

Some things are definitely harder to explain than others. For example if Otis goes into the ice box and all the chocolate is gone and I have chocolate smeared all over my face it normally doesn’t listen to good in terms of me trying to explain why so he can have a little understanding. (I have since learned in those situations to make sure I’ve washed off my face right after I eat the candy so I have a better chance of claiming it wasn’t me that ate it all. I tried once to blame it on Granny Potts, but since she is a diabetic and don’t eat candy he didn’t buy that one!)

Then it occurred to me that perhaps the best way to get some understanding was to try and explain as many things to people as possible so they got more used to you explaining junk. And every once and a while I run into somebody who seems to know all kinds of stuff. So I figured if I tell them what I was told by that person it will help even more with understanding.

Which is what I was doing the other day at the park. I ran into some kids who were there with their parents having a picnic. Well before having lunch they decide to play some games and I was sitting on this bench and ended up talking to them between games.

I figured kids haven’t had as much chance to learn stuff as adults so I thought it was best to tell them stuff them might not have had a chance yet to know. Now this pal of mine was telling me about the history of fig trees. It was all very mysterious and amazing at the same time.

According to him fig trees first came about when pigs could fly. That was way back during the time when I guess there were all kinds of different kinds of animals than were have today. At least according to my buddy. Then they had this ice age, which he said was when they had a famine in ice cubes. Well apparently them poor flying pigs just got so exhausted from flying and being thirsty from the lack of ice that they gave up and landed in some trees. In time they got stuff there and well then you had this thing call evo-solution or something like that and the next thing you know the flying pigs were turned into figs.

I guess I impressed the kids because they went back and told their parents. I reckon they must have been late for some appointment they forgot because the next thing I know they all left the park without even having their picnic. Gosh it did make me feel good to share my buddy’s wisdom. And if he even stops having to spend all his time in that bedroom with padded walls I bet he can tell more people himself.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: “No man may be an island, but there sure are some people you wish would end up stranded on a deserted one!”

TOO GOOD TO BE...

Now I don’t care how you want to finish this comment what it amounts to is that whatever you talk about isn’t good. Plain and simple. Only perhaps you thought it was to start out with. So you get your hopes up only to find out later it sucked big time.

I wish I never did this myself, but I’ve done it way to many times. And no matter how many times I would kick myself for it (which is tough since I where I should kick myself I can reach) I still end up falling for it again.

I don’t think I mind the screw up or disappointment as much as having to endure another lecture from my buddy Otis. I told you so just ain’t much fun to hear when you feel stupid in the first place.

But there are two things I know for sure. One is that like too many people I’m going to forget all about how something is too good when I want it to be and Otis is never going to shut up with the I told you so.

So why do I keep falling for the too good to be situations? Because there is always that one time when too good to be turns out to be not too good to be and actually ends up true.

I confess that ain’t happen so far. But I know it will be sooner or later. And let me tell you I sure can’t wait for that one time when I was right and Otis can’t say I told you so.

You know I got no idea what Otis will say instead of I told you so. I got a feeling that it won’t be, “gee old buddy that sure was a good idea. Or gee old buddy, it really wasn’t too good to be true. Sorry I was wrong.”

That’s the best part. Just dreaming of the time when I can hear Otis say, “I’m sorry I was wrong.” I sure can’t wait for that day to come.

But like I said the first thing I have to do is have one of those too good to be situations actually not be too good. I just figure the more I try the bigger the chance it will happen.

That means every chance I get I try to accept some special discount offer in hopes this one will be a real bargain. Only problem is finding enough room in our closet to hide all the bargains that didn’t turn out to be bargains. It sure is getting crowded in there.

Fortunately for me Otis doesn’t use that closet that much so he doesn’t know how much junk is in there. And till I figure out what to do with all that stuff I have had to sort of find a closet at work to hide more junk. So far I’ve been lucky and manage to find a place or two that works. I was sweating there for a bit when one grimefighter took that discount toilet paper I got on sale and nearly bled to death from using it. Well I know better than to try any toilet paper made from used sandpaper from now on. Live and learn as somebody says.

SOUNDS GOOD

Do you ever say this? It happens over at STINK a lot. The guys will be sitting in the break room after a hard day of fighting grime. Then one of them will make a suggestion and somebody else will say, “sounds good.”

The thing I seldom here is somebody saying, “Man that is the worst idea I ever heard in my entire life! Or simply, that sounds bad.” About the only time somebody says something sounds bad is like if you are listening to some engine make a weird sound and just figure it ain’t a good noise.

However what I have noticed is that even though whatever was said really wasn’t good people sort of say it at STINK out of habit. I know that is true because generally when a person decides to act on the suggestion and it turns out to be a disaster you don’t hear the ever admit they thought it was a good idea or that in some way it really was their fault for not thinking it through better in the first place.

It all gets kind of silly at times. That kind of makes me snicker at times. Because it is almost like people talking just to talk even if they really don’t have anything worth saying.

The fun part generally starts though later. That’s when somebody tried whatever was said that sounds good and it failed. Man then you sure better believe the griping part is something everyone listens to completely. If for no other reason that to have something to laugh about.

Probably the toughest part is trying to keep from getting in the habit of saying “sounds good” when someone like Truly Grimy comes around. With here you can be darn sure the only thing she is going to ask about is how something she cooks will taste. And let me tell you good in no way is a word that ever fits with something she has cooked or ruined or whatever you call it.

You just got to be so darn careful that you remember that if she shows up with some kerosene flavored casserole right after you had a long conversation filled with too many ‘sound goods.’ Forget it and she might just stick a spoon full of her latest creation in your mouth without asking. Let me tell you when you stomach is burning and about to vomit saying sounds good just don’t cut it.

In any case that is part of the risk we take when talking over at STINK. We have given thought to doing something like putting a guard on the door when we are talking to warn us when Truly is coming down the hall. What we haven’t yet figured out is how to let a person stand guard that doesn’t faint the moment they smell whatever she is carrying in her arms while coming down the hall.

Oh well I guess that is another one of those things somebody will end up having a suggestion about sooner or later. And we will probably all end up saying, “sounds good.” Yep and paying for it later in Truly’s situation with plenty of antacid!