READY OR NOT, HERE I...

The rest of this for me is AM. That really has become a big deal lately with some of the people I have to deal with. Honestly they can be so darn anti-social.

I don’t think it is my fault either that they aren’t as friendly as they should be. And frankly I’m a little surprised at how they act considering how they act.

What I’m talking about is this group that Otis had us join. I’m still not exactly sure why he thought it was cool for us to be part of this group, but he did.

From the best I can gather they spend most of their time over at this place called a “Country Club.” Otis said joining them would make us more “sophisticated.”

As for myself I have trouble figuring out the difference between sophisticated and boring. Plus it appear you got to fib about who you are in order to impress them. I mean we can tell them we are garbage collectors or even grimefighters.

Otis tells them we are therapists. He claims that we really are because when we find some griminal we give them a some clean therapy.

Anyway he tells me we got to start using the nickname doctor. Which really seems strange to me. Plus I don’t quite get the part where he tells them we have this practice when I never spend any time actually doing any of this therapist stuff.

Plus Otis makes us dress up in a suit whenever he drags me over for one of their dinners as they call it. So far I haven’t been impressed with them though. I haven’t seen one jelly bean in the whole time I’ve been going there.

The other weird thing is that all the people kind of talk funny. I mean once Otis told them we were therapist those folks sure do ask us some dumb questions.

Heck I had this one lady that started telling me all about her childhood. I mean this lady had to be about the same age as Granny Potts. But she wanted to bore me with telling me all about how all these terrible problems she had with somebody named “sibling rivalry.”

I did my best to listen. Then she asked me what I thought she should do about it. I wasn’t sure what to tell her. So I just told her what I heard Otis tell somebody. He told this other person that they ought to try a few sessions of peeing in front of a therapists. Boy did she get upset about that part.

Course later Otis explained that it was therapy, not peeing in front of a therapist. But that’s okay because at least now when I go there nobody seems to anxious to bother me about anything. They do whisper a lot when we come into the room, but that’s okay. I guess if it keeps them busy that is a good thing. Everybody needs a hobby I reckon. and if it works for them that is a good thing.

Thought for the week: "Every vote counts, but it doesn't mean every one is a winner!"

THE SUN WILL COME OUT

Can I get a boo and hiss for foggy days? Well foggy mornings at least. I tell you if there is one thing I’ll never get it is why we need fog?

Did God have some reason in mind and just plain forgot to tell us? I do wonder at times. After all it is real tough for me to see much good that comes from when the fog gets so thick you can’t see and can’t risk driving.

Course being that my other name is “Smog Boy” and I sort of thrive on pollution I can hardly gripe about smog can I? However with smog the nice thing is that most of the time it doesn’t make things so you can’t see at all. Plus we can pretty much make smog anytime we want.

Why shoot there are some business that make so much smog with those factories spewing it out regularly that they must really figure it is cool. Works for me. I know some people might gripe about it, but not me. There is nothing outside of jelly beans that jazzes me more than a nice big blast of smog when I’m feeling kind of down.

Still that doesn’t mean I don’t like sunshine. It is a good thing too. Only I don’t know, with the sun you just sort of can do much, but enjoy it. It isn’t like you can do much to make the sun come out when you want. It is kind of fickle about that.

That is what bugs me about the weather people on television at times. Oh they talk about the sun like they are good buds, but you know how many times those dudes get stuff wrong. I tell you it really sucks when they talk about tomorrow being clear skies and it ain’t. And what’s up with the fair deal? I mean how the heck can they say if you are going to get treated fair tomorrow? Do they own some fair meter thing they can do some predicting with or something?

All I know is that by the time I get through with some days with or with the sun they sure don’t seem fair to me. I’d sure like to have those stupid weather folks get their act together better.

Oh well it is sort of like that famous train writer said I guess. His name was Mark Train I believe. He said something about how everyone complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about spit. Not sure how that figures in except that when you get a day that ain’t fair and you think it should have been it makes you want to spit from getting mad. At least it does for me.

Anyway, I’m still going to work on seeing if there is a way to improve the sun coming out when I want it to. Maybe I’ll get a supply of sun visors or something. Yeah that might help. You never know when have better vision will help you see the sun more. Personally I wouldn’t have thought it would have been that hard to find, but you never know about some people. If it helps them see the sun, which ought to be really hard to miss in the first place then I guess that is fair. So hopefully that will happen on one of those days when those silly weather dudes say it is supposed to be fair too.

BUTTONS AND HOSE

If you wear clothes then you’ll have to deal with buttons at some point in life. Sometimes I do sort of wonder for example why you really need a couple of buttons on some shirt you pull over your head to wear. I figure maybe the button makers are so rich and powerful that they boss the shirt people around in some way. Like they go in with some big ape of a dude who grabs the shirt maker by the throat and says, “Look pal, either put a couple of buttons on those shirts or I’ll pound you into a pile of goo.”

I can’t prove that of course. No do I want to, but it does sort of make sense to me. Just like when they add buttons to the pockets on pants that you don’t need. That just makes me figure those darn button people are somebody you don’t want to piss off.

I kind of wonder if those people aren’t as big and powerful too? Maybe they even know the button dudes. I mean how often do you see there being something you can use for watering that is other than a hose? Just try to figure out a good option? I can’t.

So that is pretty cool. They both sort of got a monopoly on making sure you have some reason in life to get stuck using their product.

Now the one thing I know is I wish you could do that with other stuff. Like say cleanliness. Well I am a grimefighter after all. So I wish we had a way to make it so everyone had no choice, but to keep things clean all the time. It sure would make our jobs a lot easier. Actually I guess it might end that part of our job altogether. In fact come to think of it that might mean there wasn’t a need for garbage man either.

Er perhaps on second thought that isn’t as cool of an idea as I would like. But I’m not giving up though. I think I’m going to see if I can find out who makes those button and hoses and find out what kind of special secret they have for making sure you got to use their product.

Course then maybe they don’t want to share and fess up. That would be sort of the pits. I reckon I might find a way to entice them though.

I know I could like buy a bunch of hose and some boxes of buttons and go waltzing into wherever they have their factories. The tricky part might be finding out where they keep them.

I wonder if the dude that delivers those buttons and hoses would be easy to notice? I mean that is providing they are sneaky in some way and disguise themselves.

Well seeing how this may mean a big break if I can figure a way to get it to work with cleaning stuff perhaps I’ll have to do one of those steak out deals. That is where you sit around waiting for somebody and eat steak at the same time. I better be sure I can get enough steak in case it takes a while. I best head over to some steak place and order like three or four hundred steaks to be save. I bet if I ask them to put it in a doggy bag then I won’t have to explain what it is for. Yeah that ought to work.

DIMES AND GRAPES

Well the way I figure if somebody can go around saying stuff like “dollars to donuts” then we ought to have a cheaper option for when we are broke. I mean if you ain’t got a buck and only ten cents you sure aren’t going to get any donuts. So this saying is for the broke folks who can’t afford to bet dollars to donuts.

Of course the thing is when I’ve ever heard somebody say that anyway I haven’t notice them with dollars either. Come to think of it I haven’t noticed them ending up with donuts too.

So maybe there are more people who would be better off concentrating on dimes and grapes that they could afford. Maybe inflation has something to do with it? Could be. I mean if you get a swell head like from having too much water go up your nose till your brain swells then you can get one of those inflated egos.

Not sure how that works exactly, but I think it has something to do with making people go crazy and start messing with prices. Because apparently from the way I hear it you know when a person gets that kind of problem they start doing weird junk. And let me tell you there is nothing weirder than messing around with increasing prices.

Somehow I know that involves using some kind of pump too. That’s because I always here them talking about the price at the pumps going up.

What I don’t get is if these people only have a dime to start with where did the get the money to buy a pump? You got to wonder how that works.

I know perhaps they swapped the grapes they bought with the dimes for a pump. Although I would sort of think anybody who would trade a cool pump from some grapes definitely needs some kind of help.

Well as my buddy Otis might say it will all come out in the wash. I reckon that is a coin operated Laundromat somewhere that uses the dimes when people are broke. He never gets around though to mentioning where you find the Laundromat.

Still I reckon it might be near a donut shop. You know in case you luck out while doing the wash and find some loose change in the washer. It hasn’t happen to me, but there is always a first time.

Meanwhile I guess I’ll give grapes and dimes a lot more thought as time goes. Probably I’ll do it when I have the dollar to buy some donuts. No sense betting though. I always think better on full stomach.

Not sure if it works that way for everyone though. I might have to ask the person buying grapes with dimes to see if that works for them too. Until then I reckon it will be business or donuts as usual. That is unless you have a machine that changes dollars into coins. Then who knows.

LET A SMILE BE YOUR UMBRELLA

The person that said this probably never got stuck in a rain storm. Because a smile won’t in anyway keep you dry. And if you have a smile in a rain storm, I kind of think the rain isn’t what is making you all wet.

Now I do know a few dudes who might think a smile and umbrella are the same thing or just as good. Yep I definitely know some unusual types of folks. Which is cool to me. I mean same is kind of boring at times. I find talking to guy who thinks cactus are plotting to eat his underwear as pretty darn interesting.

So for those guys they would use a smile for an umbrella. Well they would probably use a smile for toilet paper too. I don’t want to talk about that part.

Which I guess is the whole joy I have at times. I get to look forward to knowing that no matter how dumb a saying is there is somebody out there that thinks it is cool.

About the only place it real makes a difference for me that is more than just something you hear and don’t care about is with grimefighting. I mean a griminal probably doesn’t even use an umbrella and about the only time he smiles is when he messes something up.

That’s when I use my bat as an umbrella to sort of whack smile off his face. Which makes me smile and that is one time I can stay like that in any storm. Only one little clue is that if you decide to whack a griminal for a smile just be sure he really is a griminal. Because some people are just messy by nature. And if you whack every messy person just for being messy the cops have a tendency to give you some place to stay for a very long time where you won’t even need an umbrella.

THE THRILL OF IT ALL

Doing anything just for fun is a great thing in my book. You don’t even have to explain what you are doing to somebody else if you tell them it is for the thrill of it all. Like the word thrill is okay in terms of you acting like a moron.

I wish other stuff were okay to do like that. Imagine if you could act stupid and people would just shrug their shoulders for stuff like driving down the wrong side of the road? I’m not saying that is a good thing. I’m just saying when the cop pulled you over for acting like an idiot think how cool it would be to say, “But officer I was just doing it for the thrill of it all.” Then he might say, “No problem then. Shoot that sounds so great maybe I’ll join you. In fact I’ll in my car, put on the flashing lights so we can roar down the road without being interrupted.”

Now that would be my kind of idea of the thrill of it all. But nobody seems to agree. Oh they don’t mind acting on impressed with themselves it if is THEIR idea of a thrill, but everyone else.

I think it is a case of jealously. After all not everyone is a creative as I am. So I think when they see me do something that is for the thrill of it all like, er, my buddy said I can’t mention that one thing till the court case is settled. Then there was that other time, darn I was told I couldn’t talk about it either. Any way, trust me they sure were for the thrills, which I thought was pretty darn smart no matter who stupid that judge said it — never mind that part.

Anyway here is hoping your thrill of it all is one you can enjoy and especially if you have to put up with some cop with no sense of humor that thinks otherwise.

SPILL AND CHILL

Okay the rule I’ve learned is that if you spill something no matter if it is hot or cold, you’ll probably get chilled by the response of others. That is extra true if you spill on them.

Hey if it was an accident it doesn’t mean you are a ogre or monster. Maybe accident prone, but that doesn’t make you an evil dude.

Like the other day, I was holding this cup and my hands were kind of slippery. Well I ended up losing control and dropping it. As luck would have it there was a guy who happened to be sitting where the cup fell and it spilled on him. Boy did he get mad and chilled towards like me.

I didn’t do it on purpose, but he sure acted like I did. Got all pissed off and in my face and wanted to beat me to a pulp I reckon. He might even have tried if what I spilled hadn’t been on his head. It got into his eyes so he couldn’t see when he got up and started yelling and screaming. Swinging at the air was probably good practice for him.

Anyway I didn’t hang around to hear what else he said. I figured he wasn’t going to get calmed down that soon.

I’m sure he was a decent enough guy normally. I reckon spilled a glass of drain cleaner on him was reason enough for him to get a little crazy.

The good news was that at least with him not being able to see he didn’t have a chance to notice how that green cleaner had sort of stained his white shirt. I hope it will come clean eventually.

I try to learn from these moments. First I learned that if I plug up a toilet at a fast food restaurant it probably isn’t a good idea to try and fix it myself. Even if I did keep some drain cleaner in my moped just for occasions. The second thing I learned was to never try to carry it in some slippery cup, especially if I’m anywhere near where there is a big ugly mean dude sitting having lunch.

Thirdly and probably most important I learned that even if you say I’m sorry, it probably won’t do much good while the person is yelling and screaming. So at least I hope I learned from that little experience. Next time I’ll use a plunger instead. I guess I better fix the handle part though first. The section that got broke off and left is with a real sharp point. I can imagine OOPS wouldn’t cover if I slipped and stabbed some guy through the heart with it huh?

LAST CHANCES

This is terrible. I didn’t even know there was an emergency. You would have figured somebody would have mentioned it on the news? But darn it all they didn’t.

I’m talking about cookies. I’m going to miss eating them and I’m still confused on how come they won’t be around any longer, but I guess I’ll survive.

I was listening to the radio the other day and they had this commercial about a sale over at this one store. They said something about that day being the last chance to you could take advantage of their sale.

I sort of listened to some of the stuff they had on sale. There were socks, soap and this one type of cookie.

Shoot, I didn’t want to miss out on my last chance to ever by a cookie. That was one thing I didn’t want to have happen. So I got up and rushed right over there. The nerve of those people to be closed at midnight if it was a person’s last chance to buy cookies.

So I missed it. And man I was sure sad about it. I got to admit that I sort of going to miss socks and soap too. I can’t figure how they expect us to never use them again.

But for the moment I lucked out. I went into the grocery store and found out that apparently the last chance thing hadn’t gone into effect there just yet. Well I wasn’t going to take any chance of missing that last chance. So I went ahead and bought up all the cookies they had. Heck they must have had at least about a bazillion packs of cookies. I figure that ought to keep me going till the weekend at least.

Then I charged them to STINK since I saw Otis do that once. I’m sure that Dr. Hemoglobin won’t mind that two thousand dollar grocery bill once I explain how you wil never get another chance at cookies any longer.

It was kind of hard to get them home. But then I went out and borrow one of STINK’s garbage trucks to put them in. The guy at the grocery store was kind of enough to watch the cookies for me while I went to get the garbage truck. And he only charged me a thousand smackers to do it. I got no idea why he wanted me to smack him a thousand times, but after I used my bat once on him when I got back with the truck he decided to take a nap.

Anyway at least for the moment I think I’m okay in terms of the last chance thing with cookies. I bet Otis will be proud too when he gets home. He left me a note about having to go to the grocery store and talk to them about some deranged person who assaulted one of their clerks with a bat and then stole a whole bunch of cookies by claiming to charge them to some account. Gee I don’t know who that nut was, but he sure sounds dangerous to me. And stupid too, considering I already took all the cookies anyway. Guess it does take all kinds to make the world go frown or round or drown or whatever. I got plenty o time to think it through while I’m sitting and enjoying that mountain of cookies in our living room. I wonder if I should have left them in their packages?

Thought for the week: "I've seen a lot of trees and all I can say it what I've seen under them wouldn't be what I would call tasty like that saying under the Yum Yum tree. Must be some tree!"

SECOND HELPINGS

Now I’m going to say something unbelievably shocking. There are times when second helpings aren’t a good thing.

Normally when I think of second helpings the first thing I think of is food. Yep to me helpings and food just sort of go together. I just can’t imagine talking about a big meal without thinking in terms of helpings and how many.

However I got to admit that too many weird people think of helpings other than in terms of food. Can you believe it?

Why it happen to me just the other day. Actually I should say I was there when it happened so that kind of counts as the same thing.

The other day I was running some errands with this other grimefighter Agent Double O Snotty. I generally don’t hang with Snotty that much, but in this case my buddy Otis was busy doing some special stuff for our boss. So Snotty and I went out to take care of these chores. In part it was a way for me to keep busy while Otis finished that other stuff. Snotty was the one who really had the errands to do.

Anyway there we were in this home improvement center so Snotty could check on nails. Well I was getting kind of bored so I went over and was looking at tools. Then I saw the aisle with glue and got curious. You know it ain’t a good idea to check out glue by taking off the cap. I found out the hard way when I got some on my hand.

I couldn’t find the bathroom to wash my hands and then got distracted by the tool aisle. As they say, one thing bread to another and before I knew it I had this darn hammer stuck in my hand.

So I went over to see if I could get Snotty to help me remove it. And I shaking my hand so hard that the hammerhead came off. I’m got distracted and didn’t see where it went as first, but when I looked up there was this big guy lying on the ground and the hammer head was lying next to him.

Snotty bent down and picked up the hammerhead just about when that guy woke up form his nap. Then before I knew it the big guy got up and started shaking his fist at Snotty and then said something about wanting to know if Snotty wanted a helping of a sandwich. I didn’t quite understand what kind of sandwich it was.

But I figured if they were planning on eating I better go and wash my hands and I did. When I got back the big guy was gone and Snotty was taking a nap. I helped him up and asked him what happened.

He mumbled something about helpings, sandwiches and knuckles. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

After that, we ended up leaving and I never did get to try one of their sandwiches. But let me tell you if a helping ends up rendering you unconscious the way it did Snotty, I think I’ll pass.

TALL TALES, SMALL FRIES

If there is one thing that I can’t resist when my buddy Otis and I go out to a fast food place it is talking while eating French Fries. When you are gobbling down a burger it sort of fills up your mouth, so you can necessarily do a lot of talking.

But with fries they are just small enough to fit into your mouth and leave room for your tongue to keep moving. So I enjoy saving a few of them after I eat my first, second or even third burger. Of course to do that right, I have to often order more than one order of fries. Otis is cool about it though. He likes talking then too.

I will admit that figuring out just the right amount of fries to order with our burgers does get a little tricky. Sometimes we just manage to guess at it. The main rule is when it doubt order even more than the last time.

It does get us some weird stare at the burger place though. I mean nowhere on their menu does it have as an option, “blabbing size.” Try asking for that on your next trip and see how far it gets you!

I mainly let Otis work out that part most of the time. He’s pretty good at getting the order to work out okay.

Now don’t tell anyone though. I do admit that last time have we sort of cheated. Otis didn’t figure the order right. And we ran out of fries. So when the person at the next table left to get a refill at the soda bar we sort of borrowed a few of his fries. I know we do plan on paying them back eventually. Not sure when we will see them again. But we will if and when.

Until then though we have to just do a better job on the fry ordering part. Right now I’m working on a system to make it easier. I got this plastic bucket and I’m going to fill it with fries. Then I’ll eat a couple of burgers and munch on the fries and then see how many I end up having left. If it is enough I’ll just take the bucket to the burger joint when next time.

That way I can be sure I order enough fries to fill it up and we’ll know it won’t be the amount so we will end up running out. Oh shoot I just remember if I do this with just it being for me the bucket won’t work with Otis eating them too.

Looks like I will need to come up with something bigger to use. I wonder if I could take a plastic trash can? Yeah I reckon a fifty gallon one should do fine. Course I will have to make sure it is a new one that is clean and all. So that means I can’t borrow one off our trash route. I doubt Otis would let me try to save money doing it that way.

So looks like I’m going to have to go shopping for a trash can. Only I’m not going over to the one discount store. That clerk that works there always gets nosy about why I buy stuff ever since I explained once how I was buying a toilet bowl brush to use as a toothbrush. It was just an experiment!

GONE WITH THE BIN

There are times when I have to say good-bye and it really tough. But my buddy, Otis, never ends up giving me an option. So off to the old trash bin go things like my old sneakers that he says I need to get rid of.

If it were up to me I’d keep them. Just because they got holes in the bottoms doesn’t mean they aren’t comfortable. I treat the holes as a form of air conditioning. As long as I don’t wear them on a rainy day or step in any puddle they do me find.

However, every once and awhile my buddy gets into this out with the old and in with the new attitude. That always ends up meaning some pair of sneakers or underwear will end up in the trash bin.

About the only good part is knowing it means we will end up going shopping for new stuff. Which can be okay providing I can steer my buddy towards the candy store in the process.

I generally try that by acting real depressed over having to part with my old stuff. Then I always make sure I look extra sad when I am shopping. If I do it right then I manage to get him to take me to the candy store for a jelly bean feast.

Yeah I know it is kind of silly I guess. But hey, nobody said life was silly at times. So that is how I cope. And the jelly beans don’t hurt either.

My main gripe I suppose is that Otis always ends up making my closet and drawers the big deal in terms of tossing things out. I don’t notice him going into his room and doing the same.

I will admit he doesn’t seem to have as much interest in holding onto old stuff like I do. To me it just never hurts to save some stuff when you might need it down the road. Who can really say when some empty candy wrapper could come in handy for something like putting out a fire. You say you don’t buy that one. Yeah, Otis didn’t either.

Still I do what I can to hope that the next time he is in one of these “gone with the bin” moods he’ll forget the last time and cut me some slack on the candy wrapper thing. Perhaps if I managed to say be sure that the candy was still in the wrapper that would help? Hmmm, it might be worth a try. At least with candy it don’t spoil. So maybe I’ll go to the candy store and stock up on a few Otis’ bribes.

I bet that will work a lot better than when it tried it with fruit. There is just something less than helpful about handing him some black, mushy banana. It just doesn’t quite do it.

Neither does trying it with bread that has gotten all hairy and green in color. My buddy likes color, but not on his bread.

That is a problem for later though. We already had our gone with the bin mood for this month.

GLOWING IN THE WIND

Now this can be so cool if you are talking about something that is suppose to glow in the first place. I don’t think people are supposed to actually glow like a light at least. I’ve heard that expecting mothers glow so I reckon it might have something to do with the expecting part. Since I know I’m never going to be one of those I have tried to ask what makes them glow so much.

About the only other time I figure a person might glow would be if they were struck by lightning or stuck your finger in a light bulb socket. I don’t recommend it though. I don’t imagine it makes things look better if that does happen.

Anyway the big deal to me about glowing in the wind is that if you can figure out a way to be glowing without electricity and also not from being on fire while in some big wind that is to me a pretty darn good trick. I got no idea how you manage it.

There was once, in the middle of a night when Otis and I was on night grime patrol. And it was a really windy night too. Well we were looking for this one jerk of a griminal and pretty much figured where he liked to hang out. It was over in the industrial part of town. And so we headed over there. It took a while, but we did finally catch up with the person we thought was the guy.

I can’t say for sure we were successful because the guy we were chasing ended up not being really guilty of doing much we figured was wrong though. He didn’t really do much talking either. He just sort of stood there, but he did glow. That much I know. Dressed kind of funny too, mainly wore this bed sheet. Plus you know it was kind of strange how to me he managed to glow with a green light.

Otis sort of didn’t say much and since the guy didn’t do any talking we had to let him go. But I think he used to work for Mr. Mammongrabber. At least from what Otis said. Because he is the only one who has a factory that makes stuff they call “supplements” or something like that, only it ends up glowing in the dark too. So do the dudes who work there at times. We just assume that one dude worked there.

Still it was kind of cool to see him hovering there in the wind and I couldn’t see any wires to keep him dangling off the ground about two feet. I wish I could have asked him more but he disappear by going inside this factory. He must have found a secret entrance because he went right through the wall and I couldn’t see any door. That was a pretty neat trick I thought.

So anytime I’m out on a windy night I think of that guy. In fact I saw him just the other night. I guess he went to work for the cemetery because that was where he was hanging out when I saw him. He still isn’t very social though. Didn’t even seem to know I was there. He just floated across the ground, glowing and wearing that green sheet like before. I got to admit he must not have been feeling well since he did moan a lot. Maybe it was something he ate. If I see him again I’ll try to ask him. Only I’ll have to wait till I can find him by myself. Otis acted really antisocial when we saw that dude. He got pale and every time since then that I’ve tried to ask him about going over at night on a windy evening to visit the dude he just always makes up an excuse.

ONIONS, PEARLS AND BANANAS

Okay here is the rule. Onions make you cry. Pearls given to some girl as a present can make her cry. And bananas are cool because they never make anyone cry.

So this is about what makes you cry and you know it and what you can depend on to never make you cry. Oh I guess you could say that a banana might make you sigh if it is say part of a banana split and in eating it too fast you get an ice cream headache.

Now I for one am not crazy about crying. That’s why I don’t go to those mushy movies that make a person cry. It just ain’t my thing. You can enjoy it if you want, but it is not for me.

What I propose then is a way to like avoid crying if you don’t want to in the first place. With onions for example one way to avoid crying is to use them as onion rings. I don’t recall anyone ever getting stuck crying over onions rings even if you spill them.

As for pearls, well you can eat them and you can certainly avoid them for any other reason so I say forget about them. Or just concentrate on the oyster part as something to eat then you won’t have a reason to cry over them.

The other good suggestion to me is that you spend time thinking more about bananas than the first two. Like think of all the cool ways you can eat bananas. You can have them in a pie or as pudding. A banana spilt or even frozen and dipped in chocolate with nuts. Now that’s eating folks!

Some people even have the crazy idea of eating a banana all by itself. That’s okay I guess, but when I see a naked banana and I’m not partial to seeing much that is naked I sort of think it is just begging to be put in a peanut sandwich. Like it is embarrassed by being naked.

In any case I just hope the banana option will somehow help those of you that might be worried about the crying thing. Life has enough problems I figure so we don’t need any extra to worry about and certainly none to cause us to cry.

Gosh all this talk about bananas has sort of made me a tad hungry for them. Now perhaps I’ll just go out and have some onion rings first to you know remind myself about why I wanted a banana.

Then I can reward myself perhaps with a double helping of bananas. I’ll start with a peanut butter, jam, banana and jelly bean sandwich. That way I have taken care of the nutrition part I guess since Otis is also talking about vitamins. I pack enough stuff into a sandwich there just have to be some in there somewhere.

Afterwards I’ll go out and celebrate with a nice big banana split. Shoot for this kind of celebration maybe I’ll do it up right and even go so far as have a banana split served on a banana cream pie! All I can hope is that I avoid any ice cream headache that might make me cry. That would sort of defeat the whole point.

A BASKET, ONLY DON'T ASK

The other day we had a special lunch day where Dr. Hemoglobin decided it would be a good idea if we pretended it was a picnic. So we each ended up with our own basket and that sounded pretty cool.

That was until I opened the basket. Man talk about disappointment. Here I was thinking a basket was supposed to be something filled with tasty stuff. Wrong!

Oh it might have been a great surprise, but our boss didn’t bother to tell us that he was on this symbolism kick. It got all involved some stuff called metaphors and other junk that came down to anything, except food.

After we opened the basket where we figured food was suppose to be there was things like pictures of stuff like flowers and books and tapes and a bunch of junk that was suppose to feed our souls. Hey, my tummy knows when it is hungry, but I don’t got the slightest idea how that works with a soul. How do you even get hunger pains and know it?

Well while I and the other guys were pondering that mystery and let me tell you pondering will never be as tasty and eating, Dr. Hemoglobin really added to our unhappiness. He let old rat boy, Junior “cheese hording creep” Hemoglobin get up and give a speech. I’d rather be run over by a truck and then have to spend time wearing somebody else’s dirty underwear than have to put up with listening to Junior.

I know the other grimefighter’s pretty much felt that way too. But we coped. Which is sort of saying we kept our mouth’s shut till after we left and then did all our complaining when Dr. Hemoglobin wasn’t around.

About the only good thing that came out of getting that basket came later when we dumped out all that other stuff that was suppose to feed our souls and filled it with stuff for our stomachs. So I guess it wasn’t a complete waste to that degree. The waste part was the mess left in the trash can where we toss that other crap.

Meanwhile in Dr. Hemoglobin’s opinion, which he put in this memo, the basket deal was a big success. So I guess we will get stuck getting them again.

Only this time we all know how to cope in a lot smarter way, well either eat before he gives out the baskets and make sure we hide some good stuff somewhere to stick it in while he’s talking. Life can sure be strange at times. And over at STINK it gets down right crazy when we got a boss who decides to “enlightened” us. I keep hoping he’ll figure out someday that “en-feeding” us would get better results.

Till that happens, I and the other grimefighters are making sure we got an emergency snack stash to have ready for us on basket days. It sure saves the heart ache of looking inside and the even bigger pain of having to hear Junior ramble with every other word having to do with cheese. Too bad there ain’t a decent substitute for his talking, but Otis won’t let me use my bat to shut him up.

FROM POOP TO RUTS

Um, what can I say? When you are talking poop and I really don’t like to use bad four letter words, but we are talking crap.

Frankly I didn’t even use to give much thought to how many letters were in a given word till I had a talk with Reverend Analbe. And let me tell you man I didn’t realize you could go to that place, which is other than Heaven just for using certain four letter words. Course with the Reverend there ain’t much that you do that if you enjoy it won’t end up causing the Lord to kick you behind when you die so you end up landing on that other place.

How he keeps all that straight I have no idea. I just know that the one thing you don’t want to do is have any donuts around when he visits, but even though they aren’t a four letter word he’ll end up gobbling them all down while telling you not to do it. Apparently when you personally talk to God and you and he are buddies then eating donuts is okay for you, but no one else.

As far as the four letter word thing he never gave me a list, but I figure crap and even maybe poop are on there. I’m just hoping in this case since it is important so God won’t zap me while I’m talking about this.

Actually my posting really ain’t about poop so much. Oh it is part of it, but it is more about watching out for what happens if you have to cope with it too much. Well I guess the thing is that if you have to do something so often it gets boring then you end up in some rut. I think that is the one you find if you are so bored you fall asleep while driving and your car ends up in some ditch or canal. That ain’t a good thing is all I know.

So for me once I’ve been on sewer patrol too often then I have to like take a break so I don’t drive my moped by accident into some ditch. It just is too tough to lug it out afterwards and have to hold onto my beanie so it don’t fall off my head. I mean if my beanie falls off while I’m working at something I could risk going insane.

I say that because anytime I have taken it off and was at work, Otis always says I’m crazy while we are talking. Well I guess he does that when I’m wearing my beanie at times too. But it just seems to happen more often when I have my beanie off.

In any case I guess you get the idea that I sort of don’t like ruts. Well at least not if they try to eat my moped. And for me the key or whatever you want to call it comes from just watching out to be sure I don’t get too pooped while I’m having to wade in it during sewer patrol.

I just hope by saying this I can spare some other person who might have to go on sewer patrol from ending up letting the poop cause them to drive into some rut. Take it from me and be sure you take a nice rest after sewer patrol. And a few jelly beans too. Oh of course you best take a shower or at least wash your hands first. Jelly beans are a four letter word, but if you try to eating them smelling like a sewer you’ll think they taste like one.

NEVER AGAIN TILL TOMORROW

I love no when it involves swearing how I will not do something stupid again. And I really mean it at the time. I just wish I still felt that way the next day.

I just wish that the junk I said I would never do again that was stuff I should stop doing was as easy not to do again as I wanted. What happens is that I generally end up with the crap I really don’t want to do again happening while the stuff I should do not happening. That is to say the no for bad junk don’t work and the no for good junk does.

Like cleaning. Heck if we got busy cleaning and I ended up with my back hurting from all the lifting, I can say I’ll never do it again and odds are I would have no problem keep that vow. Otis wouldn’t let me though. He never figures we will ever be done with cleaning so I’m sort of out of luck in terms of keeping that vow.

What I wish at times although not all the time is that I would be able to keep a vow like after I ate too much at the all you can eat buffet place. Man, when I leave there so stuffed I can hardly breathe you can be sure I want to nearly die. So I swear to myself that I will never to that again.

And believe me at the time I mean it too. There is nothing worse that feeling so good and so bad at the same time. My stomach is so full I can hardly use my belt and I think I’ll explode at any second. I will sit there on the curb with my buddy Otis who is feeling the same way and we both keep saying this was the last time we would try that.

But then you know the next day we always feel better. Oh we might talk about how we will be smart this time and not do that again. Then later we will say something stupid like, “we need to go there again just to prove to ourselves that we don’t have to be pigs.”

Naturally the next thing we do is show up at that buffet again. And I don’t know, we start out by maybe just a small amount on our plates. I just vow to myself, this time I’ll be good and just eat that amount. Oh it sure sounds so great.

That lasts till we finish that plate. Then we tell ourselves we will just get some rolls and that will be enough. After the rolls to prove we are in control we go and get dessert because everyone knows once you have eaten dessert you are not going to eat anything else. I think it is some kind of law.

Just don’t tell anyone though because after eating dessert we end up going back for another plate full and then another and well, by the end we are back on the curb groaning to ourselves and vowing not to do it again. Ain’t that stupid?

At least we only do that once and a while. No more than five times a week on a slow week. So I can’t say it is a habit or anything.

In the meantime I’m going to try and do better. But it will have to be later. All this talk about going to the buffet is making my hungry. Guess that vow can wait one more day.

Thought for the week: "What's up with the woodchuck? I mean can't he eat junk food like any sane person?"

HANGING IN THERE

I’m cool with this. Well the in there part. And the hanging part to as long as it ain’t like the old west kind of hanging in there. That kind can sort of ruin your day to say the least.

However for regular hanging in there, which is where you don’t quit, that is the best. That is unless you are talking about quitting work at the end of your shift. It is one type quitting I like and also down right enjoy.

As for the rest of the quitting kind where you are doing something good and then just get to discourage or whatever and give up, I don’t know I just never enjoyed it. Mainly because I never end up feeling good when I do that.

Now maybe if I could not feel so crummy when I just quit something it would be different. It must work for some people though because they sure don’t seem to get too upset with themselves when they just up and stop doing something they said they would finish. Perhaps there is a pill they take that I don’t know about.

When I have time I think I’ll call some pharmacy and see if they can tell me the name of the pill. I’m not saying I necessarily want to get some, just curious. I hate not knowing junk that everyone else knows.

On the other hand when you do hang in with something that don’t always mean you end up smiling. Like the time my buddy Otis and I were on this assignment and tracking down this real jerk of a griminal. This dude was like the filthiest creep imaginable.

It took a while to finally catch up with him. And there were a few occasions where my tummy was growling and I was getting tired that I felt like quitting, at least long enough to get something to eat and take a nap.

But my buddy said no. He can be so darn annoying at times about stuff like that. When he gets in this “do or die” mood you can be we won’t be doing any quitting any time soon.

Actually the doing part ain’t so bad, it is the dying part that I hate. When you are dying from hunger because you haven’t eaten in two hours believe me that quitting begins to look real good!

Anyway I guess the good news was that we did finally catch up with that guy. Well I should admit that we had a couple of almost caught him situations first. Hey, can I help if it I got too dang hungry and ended up using my bat on two people that weren’t grimainls? They looked exactly like him when I closed my eyes. What do you want when I’m thinking of nothing, but food.

In any case, we did finally catch the guy. He didn’t go quietly and put up quite a resistance, but we managed to bust him just the same.

I was glad we didn’t quit though. I was just stiff and sort. I get that way when I use my bat too much. Otis said one or two whacks would have been enough. Heck I didn’t think fifty was unreasonable. It took five just to get the guy to stop using his arms to try and keep from being hit. The rest were what I call an attitude adjustment to try and make sure he saw the merits of giving up in a good way. And when he comes out of that coma I’m sure he’ll thank me for the lesson.

THE SHOW ME STATE

I understand this is supposed to be a big deal in a place called Missouri. Not sure why stuff don’t count there unless you can show it, but I was figuring that maybe they have a problem of some kind like not enough libraries or DVD rental places so you have to actually show them whatever it is you have to show them.

I was wondering though if they are the show me state does that mean you don’t have to worry about it anywhere else? Or are the other states some kind of “it’s okay if you just tell me, but you if want to show me that is cool too.”

Personally I’ve never had a chance to visit this place so I can say if they got a problem with seeing or something that makes showing extra important. I also understand that one of our Presidents came from there. He was famous saying, “the buck stops here.”

I got no idea what some deer stopping anywhere would have to do with showing stuff, but whatever they have in common I know a lot of people thought the buck stopping was a good thing. Of course perhaps the showing part is because wherever the deer stopped he pooped so you had to be showed it in order to clean it up. But did they have to do that through the whole state?

It is kind of amazing how some little thing like watching a deer take a leak could end up being popular in a whole state. I wonder if that is where those deer crossings came from? You know maybe the sign is to show you were you could do the show me thing in terms of the deer pissing on some bush or whatever.

All I can say is in that state it must be one heck somebody’s idea of doing something fun. Because if the President thought enough to mention the buck stopping where he was I guess he thought other people would enjoy it too.

As far as I know though if it did become popular it didn’t stay that way since whatever buck that President was stopping didn’t get stopped by the other Presidents. Maybe it was his pet or something.

Then too I suppose somehow it all fits together with some wet spots that the deer left behind. And it must have been some important thing since I understand later that President was sort of famous for beating some dew thing. I bet it was a wet spot from the deer crossing where the buck stop and somebody just thought it was dew.

It sure is funny at times what some people want us to remember. For myself about the only deer I normally think of are the ones that Santa owns. You think one of them was the buck who the President was going to have stop say on Christmas eve?

I can’t say myself. But then since I don’t plan on hunting around for some deer who is trying to piss on whatever, I imagine I won’t need to have anyone show me it either. Unless I ever make it to that state. I wonder if they show off where deer and those antelope have a say? I suppose I’ll have to let the show me folks figure that out.

RINGS, THINGS AND DINGS

Well all three of these things, er, I guess I should say items so as to not confuse, um, ME. Anyway, it all starts with a ring of the telephone. That is when we get a call at the apartment with a list of things we got to do. Normally my buddy Otis gets in these moods at times to have us do something nice for others, which generally translates into an errand.

You know the funny thing is that when I see the comic books stories about super heroes and see them in the movies, they are always good guys, but I never seem THEM being asked to run errands for somebody. Somehow I think my buddy needs to spend a little more time studying up on what a super hero really does. Because as far as I’m concerned as super heroes we are the only ones that have to do stuff like take out somebody’s trash or go shopping for them.

I guess I ought to be grateful that we don’t have this fancy costumes with capes like some super heroes. I tell you if we had to dress like that on some errands it sure would end in us doing something other than impressing people. It might end up in a fight that’s for sure and that is hardly a way to build a positive rep as a super hero.

The other thing that kind of bugs me is I wish we had some different kind of super powers other than having what Otis calls a super appetite. Oh that is great and helpful when you go over to the buffet even if they guys that work there aren’t impressed, but it just isn’t quite the same as say being able to leap some building in a single pound or hound or whatever that is.

But no matter how many times I fill out the request and turn it in at STINK so far they haven’t bothered to offer me in any extra super powers. I keep hoping, but so far it hasn’t happened.

And that is what helps to lead to the dings part of this whole deal. See I figure if we had more stuff like say super strength, well even perhaps more than a little strength like we do now then when we picked junk up we wouldn’t accidentally drop the heavy stuff and get so many dings in stuff.

However fair is fair. I mean if somebody is going to send us to the store to buy groceries and they are heavy we might dropped them. I tell you a real frozen half-gallon of ice cream can sure get heavy lugging it from the store to our moped!

Now you try to get some people to appreciate that fact. Do they ever appreciate how we are doing them a favor? Do they say thank you Mr. Less than Super, Super Hero for doing me a good deed? I wish.

I reckon though as long as we try and help we at least have the satisfaction we did the right thing. Oh the left thing, depending on which side of the street the store happens to be on. In any case, I know as long as my buddy insists, then we will keep up with his version Super Hero stuff. And I also know that will include plenty of more rings, things and dings.

A LITTLE DAB WITH BOO YAH

Some people are never satisfied. Even if you try to do something nice for them, they will still find a reason to complain.

We got this neighbor who is like that. Now for me it is no big deal. When the lady gets crabby too much I just don’t waste time talking to her.

That works for me, but not for my buddy Otis. He gets funny about junk like that. I guess he treats it as sort of a challenge.

So he hit upon this idea that I’ll call, “Let’s be nice to the old crabby neighbor lady and do what we can to make her have a reason to smile and maybe get her to be happy no matter how much she complains.” At least that is the way he seems to approach the whole thing.

Anyway this one day when she was in a really extra grumpy mood Otis decided he would invite her over for lunch. Like Saturday was honestly a good day to try this when we have worked all week and are tired. I wanted to have some fun, watch some cool movies and have something good to eat.

My plan would have been fun. It would have been one to remember. But it wasn’t going to happen with Otis in his let’s be nice to the old crab plan.

What happen first was he made me go over and invite her to lunch while he went shopping. Man was that the pits. She grilled me forever about stuff like what we were going to eat, how much we were going to charge for the meal and what were we selling to get her to come over and give her a free meal.

Well let me tell you it was all I could do just to keep from losing it with her after all those questions. At one point I have to admit despite what I was taught about not hitting girls and stuff, which I still think is a good idea, I did get rather in a temporary mood to shut her up with my bat. But I didn’t do it.

Eventually I did manage to get her to come to lunch. Otis whipped up some nice sandwiches. She complained about the bread tasting funny and the lunch meat seeming a little old.

We survived that little fun and then for dessert Otis served some nice hot apple pie. Well, to make it special he added a nice dab of ice cream. You would have figured that would at least have drawn a smile from the old lady.

It didn’t happen. She said the apple pie was too tart and hot and that the ice cream was too cold. Not exactly my idea of a good time.

At least she didn’t gripe about not being asking to pay anything or us trying to sell her anything. And I was glad when she left and I got to go back to watching movies.

The good part is that Otis hasn’t been too insistent on asking her to come over again. But we still get a dab of ice cream with our pie. It works for us at least.

EASY COME, EASY SAY

Man I want to tell you that the one thing, which never seems to work on is when I hear somebody talking about how something is truly easy. They make it sound so simple and easy to accomplish, but then you find out afterwards it is anything, but easy.

Even worse is how they put it in writing, like if it is in print it has to be true. It sounds great, but when you try to follow the information, disaster follows.

So it ends up being easy to say, but not necessarily as easy to come by no matter how much they claim otherwise. And that folks gets really boring when it happens to often.

This happens a lot over at STINK. Mainly when old rat boy, Junior gets to be in charge of something. Junior thinks he is an expert on everything. So he always rambles on about whatever and you can be sure the one thing he won’t do is admit when he doesn’t know something. Or that he was ever wrong either.

Most of us just listen and nod while he’s running off at the mouth about his latest brain storm. Oh it is a storm alright and you can be if we did what he said it would end in an emergency of some kind.

Then after he is done blabbing about how easy something is we normally go out and do what we know needs to be done. If we are lucky then we get to do what we want and he gets so impressed with himself that he doesn’t even ask if we actually did what he said.

We do the best we can to keep this whole silly thing a type of game. There is no point of pretending it is real because you can be reality doesn’t have much to do with the outcome.

Anyway life goes on and on and on whenever Junior is involved. And that’s because when he is talking he goes on and on and on. That’s the easy say part that is way too easy.

I just wish the easy come was as easy as he liked to claim. It would be cool if even once it was that way. But it never seems to work out that way.

Oh well the fun is knowing you can pretty much expect that the easy say part will always be easy to say than do. So at least we know what to look forward to in that regard.

As for myself I’m still trying to figure out a way to slip some idea to Junior where he ends up having to do some of the crap he makes us do. Now that would be really fun to look forward to if and when it happens.

Meanwhile we will just sit back and keep smiling. Not from the idea of Junior knowing what he is talking about, but from the image of him eventually getting stuck doing something dumb and stupid like he wants us to do.

CRUMMY

Some people might not like this word, but I do. There are just times when for me it is the only word that works.

Like when you are feeling bad. Sometimes you just feel crummy. Not completely blue and not completely yucky, just somewhere in between.

I thought it would be good to sort of give some thought to why I think this is such a cool word. For one thing it is about crumbs. Um I guess you sort of drop off the b part when you make it crummy. Maybe it would sound weird to say crumby.

Anyway for me the best thing about the times you do feel crummy and not something else is the excuse it gives you to eat something that makes crumbs. At least it works that way for me.

I personally find that donuts are about the best for crummy moods. First of all you get to demolish them. I mean you can rip them apart and leave comes all over the place. Then you get to eat them and normally they are soft so that is easy to eat.

Afterwards there comes the best part. You get a tummy full of grease, flour and sugar. So you feel kind of nauseous in a good way from the grease and the sickening sweet flour. Plus if you eat enough of them you feel so darn bloated like you have been eating a bunch of rocks.

The best part is the sugar rush. That always comes when you are feeling real sluggish from having a tummy full of grease and flour and have trouble moving. Then whammo you get this big blast of energy. It really is great and almost makes you forget the full tummy. Just enough to stop swearing to yourself you will never eat six dozen donuts next time! Which is the best part since that is what you remember when you feel crummy again and want some more donuts.

Oh I do have to admit that cookies will sort of work in a pinch. You know they aren’t bad tasting, but the problem is most of them just don’t give you the same feeling to deal with feeling crummy as donuts. At least they don’t do it that way for me.

And the best part is if you luck out and make it to the donut shop at the right time then the donuts are still nice and warm. Boy that really helps with the crummy feeling.

The hard part though is when you aren’t sure what time the donut shop is going to have the warm donuts. I know that if you show up at two am and they aren’t even open yet that it doesn’t help with the crummy feelings.

I tried to solve that problem by finding out where the guy who owns the donut shop lives. He wasn’t as much for smiling though when I knock on his door at two in the morning. Guess he was feeling crummy himself at the time. But perhaps it also comes from all the moving he does. I mean it seems like every time I find out where he lives the next time he has moved somewhere else. Apparently even though he gets to eat donuts when he wants it doesn’t cure his problems with feeling crummy huh?

Thought for the week: "How come one says 'Thank God its Friday' and not for the rest of the week? Does it mean heaven has a bad calendar?"

FICKLE, NICKEL AND PICKEL

Oh man I just hate the word fickle when it happens at STINK. That’s because it is when our boss Dr. Hemoglobin suddenly goes kind of crazy about money. Then when it happens you can be darn sure we are going to get lectured about wasting money and he’ll get all bothered about preaching how important it is to count every single nickel like it was the most important thing in the world.

And that ends up putting the rest of us in a pickle. I’m speaking of making our lives so darn miserable. That’s because he expects us to start filling out all kinds of reports regarding expenses. Which can be a pain since I have no way to figure what the depreciation is on a bat that I use to whack some griminal.

Does that keep Dr. Hemoglobin from being fickle about a nickel? Nope! I mean one minute he is just so happy and talking about being you know nearly generous. Why we can even send out for pizza or something and he just seems to be in such a good mood.

Then I don’t know he’ll get a bill for something and whammo all of a sudden everything is about waste. Afterwards come all the questions and the talking about things like how everything costs too much. But worst of all is the fact he ends up in a bad mood. It is as if talking about money and worrying about it makes him unhappy all the time.

Which of course ends up with all of us in one big pickle and it sure ain’t fun. Just a big pain in the rear end and that sure isn’t a time for smiles.

The one thing I can say for sure is that during these times I’m sure glad to have Otis as my buddy. He just seems to have this great knack for getting our leader out of his fickle mood. Sometimes that isn’t very easy either.

What he seems to do is to start by letting Dr. Hemoglobin do lots of ranting and raving about waste and nickels. Why shoot sometimes our leader gets so dang excited that he just practically babbles incoherently over the subject.

Then Otis does what he calls appeasing him. That is when he lets all those comments Dr. Hemoglobin seems to exaggerate about sound like they are reasonable. Afterwards he offers a plan. Which is his way of adding more words to all the ones our boss is rambling about.

Later our boss seems to calm down. And then he sort of relaxes and before you know it he ain’t griping about waste as much, which is really great for us.

Funny thing to me is the fact that along the way we don’t ever actually end up finding any of those nickels our boss says are being wasted. Which don’t bother me too much as long as we don’t end up in any chore pickles. That is the best part from my point of view and it is enough at times in between when our boss thinks being fickle is the best way to think about a nicke.

A HELPING STAND

Well as they say, only in this case maybe they don’t say this, but there are ladders and then there are ladders. And there are some pretty strange things that a person can say about a ladder as far as I’m concerned.

Like that part about how it is bad luck to walk underneath a ladder. Who made that rule up? Does that mean there is some kind of ladder god that will zap you for offending him if you dare walk under a ladder? Does it matter if the ladder is opened and standing up or say lying against the wall? Nobody ever seems to get around to explaining that part.

Beyond that part there are a few other things we know about ladders. One of them is that if you use ladder and happen to work as a fireman you got to have some kind of hook. Because I hear them talk about the hook and ladder when mentioning ladders in connection to fireman. Perhaps the hook is so the fireman and hook something to hold onto in case he happen to slip while on a ladder. That would be pretty smart.

And I reckon that ladders must be pretty darn important to people who believe in the bible and God. Because I heard the Reverend Analbe talking once about how this fella named Jacob had something to do with a ladder. He called it Jacob’s ladder. Guess that guy was a big fan of ladders because he supposedly dreamt about them. Boy that sure must have been some ladder if it was fancy enough that he dreamt about it. Never heard how talk it was. So I can say whether it was just like a ladder you use to get something off a shelf that is out of reach or one that you use to say climb on the roof of a house. Too bad they never get around to telling about those things.

In any case the other place where ladders are apparently important is with big corporations. You have to like climb them as part of working for some corporation. Makes we wonder how come they don’t figure a way to put stuff on lower shelves so they don’t have to use a ladder as much. Plus they never mention coming down the corporate ladder just climbing it. Now surely those dudes that spend their time climbing some ladder have to be willing to come down off of it sooner or later. Hmmm, I wonder if you get stuck up there when you should have gotten down is where they talk about “overtime” on account of that is when you are over the time you are suppose to be on that ladder?

Now being a grimefighter and super hero type I have to admit that I don’t have the opportunity to spend any time checking out the ladders at any corporation. We got a few of those corporations with big buildings in our city, but I’ve never seen anybody climbing any ladders around them. So that means I guess that they must use them only inside.

I suppose that would make sense if the ladder was something special. However I get the impression that they also are because they have a bunch of short people working there. That’s because my buddy Otis mentioned once how climbing a corporate ladder meant you had to sometimes step on the little people. Sounds kind of stupid and mean to me, but I guess it must work for those same people who thinking you look best wearing a suit. Life to me has enough problems, I sure don’t want to have to wear a stupid old stuffy suit and then get all sweaty climbing some ladder. Some people’s idea of fun is sure weird.

CHEER UP

What I want to know is how we say cheer up and never cheer down? It just seems like I know too many people that are so much better at complaining than making you feel good. So cheering up is hardly their specialty.

I don’t really mind when somebody gets pissed about something. I do my share of griping at times. But I also like to say a few nice things too. You know to try and balance it out in some way.

However the one thing is that I never sit down and claim I’m trying to cheer somebody up when I’m griping. I know the difference and I bet you do to. Heck I think most people do.

So how come if folks got that part figured out they get so daffy about thinking griping is a way of making you feel better? Believe me I see that far too much.

Like over a STINK. Most of the guys I work with are okay. They may gripe from time to time, but they also enjoy saying some good once and a while.

All except for old rat boy, Junior Hemoglobin. Now I should be far as say he doesn’t necessarily concentrate on complaining so much or criticizing people all the time. His way of not cheery you up is to give you more work to do.

What happens is that you’ll be sitting and savory some real cool victory over the bad guys and in a mood to celebrate. So you are ready to be cheered up since you are already cheery. Well instead of being happy about it or telling you did good what he does he say something really annoying like, “Now that you are done with that, why don’t you do…” And it doesn’t matter what it is that he’s telling you to do you can be darn sure it won’t be fun.

So pretty much Junior is the one guy we do try to avoid when we are in a mood to be cheered up. That is unless we can figure a way to give him a headache like hiding his cheese. Then that makes the rest of us all happy and ready to cheer up.

At least with Junior we don’t have to see him everyday. For him to hang around STINK all the time might mean he would end up getting stuck doing some work beside sitting in his office eating cheese with his feet up on his desk. Oh I imagine we would all be happy to see him get stuck doing some lame chores. But that doesn’t happen as a rule.

And when he isn’t around the rest of us manage to find time for a few smiles. Even if it does require using those darts and the dart board that has Junior’s picture on it with a bull’s eye!

Now I just hope that the rest of you all have found some cool way to cheer up when you need to. Also that if you do have a jerk like rat boy in your life that you manage to finda smile despite of him.

EGGS, PEANUTS AND LINT

Okay now I bet you are wondering what in the world these three things have in common or why they should even be mentioned together? Well for starters we do know that both eggs and peanuts have shells. Actually I guess all nuts come in shells, but there was no way I could have fit all of them in the title. So I figured just talking about peanuts was good enough.

There is one thing you can say about eggs and peanuts it is you don’t eat the shells. So it means you have to basically destroy the shell part to get to the good part you want to eat. I reckon everyone is getting that part okay.

And even though you probably haven’t thought about it, the one thing you can say is that shells don’t collect lint. A lot of things will like clothes and carpets, but not things with shells. So if are the kind of person who has problems with lint and worry about it a lot then you can look forward to having two things not to fret over in terms of lint. That can be a pretty good thing in my book.

Of course I never let anyone read that book. I tried once, but the person I showed it took sort got sick at his stomach and mentioned how it would be dangerous to people’s mental health to have to read it. You know it is kind of shame that so many people are like that and if you show them something real smart it causes them problems, but I guess it can’t be helped.

In any event, which I think is the one they are going to broadcast on the cable pay per view channel since everything else seems to end up there, I guess what I’m getting about with this whole thing is that no matter how bad some things are sometimes they still have a good side. So in this case with egg and peanut shells they may seem to be a pain in the butt to deal with, but they do have a good side in terms of not collecting lint.

The way I figure that is the kind of thing that actually makes me smile. It sort of gives me hope when I have to deal with other things they may have a good side too.

That can be a really challenge with something like thinking about old rat boy, Junior Hemoglobin. Talk about having a shell you think doesn’t have any value! His is made of cheese and well ain’t worth having to be around. And I don’t even care in his case if it doesn’t attract lint. He can keep it for himself is all I can say.

However like I said everything in terms of shell part of them still have some good side. It might take a while to sort through with Junior what the good part is. To be honest I’m still working on it.

While I am I decided to treat myself to a few eggs and peanuts to give me some inspiration. But to make it easy I went to the store and bought peanut butter since it was easier to deal with than regular peanuts. I haven’t tried it on eggs yet. However it does seem to go well with a lot of things so it is worth a try. Maybe I can even end up making it shaped to look like a Junior omelet?

GIFT WRAPPING

Wrapping paper is so cool. I like it so much I even use it to write on. Only I try the side that is white and not the side that is decorative. I did try that side once, but nobody could read what I wrote.

That wasn’t so bad in some situations, but it can be a real bummer if you use it the wrong way for making a shopping list. Believe me I found out that the hard way. Otis will never let me forget when he sent me to the store to get a big bunch of stuff and all I came back with was a grocery bag full of cookies because I couldn’t read the other junk.

Now most people might not look at wrapping paper as good for stuff besides used on presents. And I think that is a tragedy. I mean think about how sad it is. Here you got this nifty colorful paper you used to wrap a gift. So you take it off and you got the present. But wasn’t seeing that paper part of what made you happy? Does it really seem kind of lacking gratitude when you just toss the poor stuff away and never use it for something else.

Of course there is Granny Potts. She tries reusing the paper for a different present. So if she gives you something such as for Christmas she will stand over you and watch and make sure you don’t tear it. Then she takes it back and uses it the next year. I tell you that paper is so worn out that you can practically see right through it. That sort of takes the fun out of using it for me.

What I do is after say Christmas I take the paper that is still good and try to save it for when I need to say send a letter. That really is great for example if you have to write a letter to some creditor like Otis does and is making up some lame story why he is late with a paper. A nice colorful paper just sort of helps to make the person reading the letter a little more cheery so maybe they don’t feel so grumpy about what you say.

The only person you don’t want to do that with is old Mr. Mammongrabber. That is one dude who manages if you use wrapping paper to send him a letter will end up sending you a bill. Don’t ask me how or why he does it, but he does. And man let me tell you getting a bill for doing some thing like sending a guy a birthday card made out of wrapping paper is definitely not cool.

Outside of him and bill collectors though using the wrapping paper again generally ain’t so bad. I find most folks are okay about it.

Course one other helpful hint is if you decide to send a nice letter to one of those great cops in town who you want to thank for being so nice or whatever, be sure you don’t use some kind of paper that is too much like for some girl. Like pink in color and all covered with dolls. They kind of get upset when you do that. I guess I learned that the hard way when I grabbed the wrong paper one year to send that nice officer a thank you note for the parking ticket he gave me. I never won anything for parking for.

Lucky for me I guess, I thought I would impress him and decided to make it looked like I was somebody important, but not too important. So I signed it using Junior Hemoglobin’s name. All I can say is that Junior’s stay in the hospital after that cop thanked him with his nightstick and did it like fifty times was sort of restful. And he even got his memory back for good or bad about two months later.

BOX LUNCHES

I just don’t get it. I mean boxes are great. You can keep junk in them and cardboard has lots of good values. But eating a box? Who thought up that lame idea?

Okay cardboard is made from trees. I’ll grant you that. And I suppose that sort of qualifies as plant life for some. However I’m sorry, even with lots of ketchup or sugar or even peanut butter it just don’t sound all that tasty to me.

Still I do try to appreciate that well people are different and who am I to question somebody else’s appetite? So if making a sandwich out of a box is your idea of cool then fine. I just hope you don’t bother to invite me for lunch!

I do sort wonder though. Now do the person who likes eating things made out of boxes do they prefer used boxes or new ones? After all with a used box you sort of have to worry about what was in it. If it was crackers or cereal, no problem since they don’t taste bad. But what if it had something really disgusting in it? Such as that junk they use to kill snails. I sure wouldn’t want to bite down on any cardboard sandwich made from that kind of junk.

Which also makes me wonder if they somehow do something with the box that makes it so you don’t know what kind of box it was before you ate it? See I bet not everyone would think of that. I just think it would be a really good thing to know.

I guess I should be grateful that as far as I know most of the people I hang around with aren’t big box lunch types. In fact the only place I know that is big on that kind of think is over at this one school. That’s because my buddy Otis and I were over there once and I heard this one teacher talking about box lunches.

I did stop by the cafeteria, but I didn’t see any boxes in the lunch stuff. I was glad those kids didn’t have to eat something like that.

And all I can hope is that while some teaching my have a thing about eating boxes that she doesn’t insist on making any poor little kid eat it. That ain’t the kind of lesson they should be teaching if you ask me.

If it is all I can say is that I’m sure glad I don’t have to go to any school like that. At least when I was in school you got regular food. I was sure grateful for that reality.

Meanwhile, I think I’m going to check out this whole box lunch thing a little more. I think it never hurts to be sure that you don’t miss out on something good. Not sure where I’m going to start though.

Maybe I’ll do something like stop by the store and pick up a few boxes of whatever. I’ll probably get some extra ketchup and chocolate while I’m at it. Never hurts to have extra of those. There just is hardly any thing you can eat that doesn’t taste better with some chocolate added. I hope that applies to boxes too.

A HOLE IN SOME

If there is one night I don't look forward to it is the last Saturday of the month. That is the one that my buddy Otis sets aside so we can fix things like holes in our socks.

Now don't get me wrong, darning socks ain't that big a deal. I mean no sense getting rid of a cool part of socks just because of a hole. But how come that Saturday is the only one that we end up having to do this on?

I tried asking Otis once, but when he decides something and there is no way to reason with him then asking him to explain is a really bad idea. That's because by the time he gets finished explaining, which can take an hour by the time he adds in all the junk he calls metaphors and philosophy. I call those things ways of wasting time. Because you can be darn sure before he is done it will be too late to do anything else.

Anyway I have gotten past the part of trying to argue with him over fixing hole night. And I have even gotten the hang of using a needle and thread in a way so I don't poke lots of holes in my fingers. Now that was a pain in more than one way let me tell you that much.

The only thing is that our socks don't always have holes that need fixing every Saturday. Now don't tell Otis, but one way I figured to get around his wanting to use that day for darning socks was to be sure I stuck my socks with holes in them into the wash before he found them.

I wish I could say that fixed the problem. But it didn't. Now Otis has this deal about holes in general. So we have to do stuff like checking our underwear for holes. Yeah that is exciting.

At least he hasn't' started making us darn those underwear. Although he has managed to make us check pants and shirts at this point.

Now for me personally it shouldn't count as a hole if it isn't where somebody can see it. I mean if you have one in your shirt's armpit then what's the big deal? You just don't raise your arm while wearing that shirt.

And with pants, well if you have it near the waste just leave your shirt out and cover it up. That sure is a lot simpler than this business of sewing the hole.

However like I said it doesn't pay to argue with Otis over that kind of thing. At least I did get him to agree that it was okay to have some donuts while we did the sewing business since they do have holes in them. Guess he figured if stuffing my mouth with a donut kept me from griping about sewing up holes it was a good thing.

So for now I put up with the hole stuff in terms of socks and pants and junk. The one big worry I have is if he decides to sew up that hole he claims I have in my head. That ain't going to be fun or without pain I can imagine.

Thought for the week: “If your wish doesn't come true then shouldn't a wishing well be called a wishing bad?”

STREET LAMPS AND UNDERWEAR

I bet you read that title and wonder how could those two things be related in any way. That’s why I thought I would write this posting. Because we all should know important stuff like that.

What do those two things have in common? Well for me they are both things we have a tendency to take for granted. I mean who spends time worrying or even caring about the fate of a street lamp?

Okay I will admit I did know this one dude who did. That was because he thought this one street lamp was his relative. Actually he sort of thought a whole lot of things like telephone booths and mailboxes were his relatives too. But I reckon he wasn’t the norm for thinking stuff like that. Which I guess is a good thing considering they didn’t let him out of that place where he stayed most of the time run by doctors. It might be real crowded there if everyone got to stay with him huh?

Now the thing to me is that just as we don’t give street lamps much though unless they are burnt out, I think the same applies to underwear. Do you ever worry about your underwear? Oh you might need new underwear from time to time, but who stops every few minutes to worry about seeing to be sure that their underwear hasn’t been stolen or ruined in some ways.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that isn’t it great that there are two things in life we don’t have to worry about? And in world with way too many things to worry about as it is I think anytime you can find something less to worry about it is a great thing.

Suppose you were the type to worry about street lamps? In the first place they only work at night so that means at least half a day you definitely don’t have to worry. Plus what is the worse that would happen with a street lamp? If it gets burnt out it is the street lamp dude, whoever he is that has to change the bulb. So you don’t even have to worry then. and maybe you don’t even go by a street lamp that often, then it really cuts down on the problem.

With underwear it is a little different. You do wear them every day. But what is the worse that could happen with them? The might get a big hole. However if you don’t tell anybody who is going to know? As long as you don’t tell anyone then everything is cool.

So that is why I say, ain’t it wonderful we can look forward to not worrying about that? And who knows with some practice maybe we can accomplish not worrying about other stuff as much either.

Maybe we could just pretend they are street lamps or underwear if that would help? Worth a try I reckon. Well for most things perhaps. Unless you are talking about jelly beans. I don’t think I could ever imagine them as underwear. It would kind of gross me out to think of eating a jelly bean used as underwear. So I think I’ll pass on even imagining that part.

THE SIGN OF THE TIMES

When I hear people say this I have to admit I’m not really sure they know what they are talking about. I mean they will say this when talking about how something is messed or wrong. Or else it is about how something is different than it used to be and is worse now.

Then they’ll make some comment about how it is the sign of the times. But I think they are all full of it. I know what the real sign of the times is. I’ve seen it lots of times. It is over on this bank and has a big digital clock on it that not only tells the time, but the temperature.

Only it never does anything else. Oh maybe if you were to squint or look at it after being locked up in some room without windows and inhaled too much cleaner fumes it might look like something else, but otherwise that is all you ought to see.

You have to admit that there sure is something really strange about some dude who would be driving down the street and see a sign with the time and suddenly decide it was telling him the world was falling apart. I’ve tried looking at it lots of time and I never see that anywhere.

Perhaps they get confused and look at the temperature and somehow thing it is the time. Well I reckon I can appreciate how that could be a problem. But you would think if you saw the F or C they put up with the temperature that you would know it ain’t the same as time. I mean I figure the C stand for Cold and the F has to be for Fire, which means hot.

Course I don’t want to get into what kind of moron figured that when it is 40 degrees out and your freezing your butt off and he puts an F with it somebody is going to decide you are stupid. But whoever runs that sign sure doesn’t seem to worry about that part.

In any case the way I figure if the sign bothers you so much that you can look at it without feeling the whole world is falling apart then stop looking! Heck we do have plenty of other roads in the city. And even some other signs that tell the time. Maybe one of them wouldn’t upset the person as much.

I guess with some folks they just aren’t happy unless they are complaining. So I imagine even if you could get the bank to take down that sign or maybe change it in some way the ones that want to complain would get upset buy that too.

As for me, well I just use the sign to tell me what time it is. And since we normally go by it after doing our trash route the time is generally about lunchtime. And that is one time I sure look forward to.

With the others, well they can do what they want. If seeing that sign makes them sick at their tummy that’s life I guess. For me it just makes me smile because I know lunch is just around the corner.