LOADING ZONE

Okay who is the wise guy, practical joker that come up with this lame idea? I mean man what gives with the idea that you can only load crap in some special place? That can be really tough if say you have to load some groceries and the only loading zone is a really long ways away.

Talk about something being a major pain in the butt. Jeez, first you have to go and make sure that you can find some moron of a box boy to watch your groceries without eating them. Then you have to drive your van all the way over to that loading zone and then walk your groceries all the way over to where you van is parked. Shoot if it is far enough away you could end up with your ice cream melting before you get home.

Even worse is if you go to buy like pizza or fried chicken. Boy there ain’t a single decent loading zone anywhere near those places where I live.

Now in my town the loading zones are all marked by somebody marking the curb yellow. So I’m thinking I might just get myself some paint and mark the curb till I got my pizza. Then I can always wash it off later.

Up till now I haven’t had a chance to try that. Mainly because I keep forgetting to take a paint brush with me when we take the van some where that we got to load something.

Man that really is such a hassle too. Heck I painting the curb by using my finger as a brush, but it just takes forever. Plus it is really had to get off your fingers afterwards.

The one thing you sure don’t want to have to do is have to eat pizza with your fingers all covered in yellow paint. Oh the red pizza sauce sort of covers up the yellow to a degree, but just knowing it is there kind of spoils things.

About the best solution I came up with so far is the idea of ordering stuff by take out. That works for some foods, but it is kind of tough convincing the grocery store people you need them to bring the stuff to you. I’m still working on that part.

Then there is the other stuff too. Ever tried to explain to some clerk why you can’t pick up toilet paper or soap?

I tried faking that I was in a wheel chair to get the dude to feel sorry for me, but I don’t believe he thought I really sounded like a wheel chair. I’m going to have to work on that part.

Meanwhile, I’m working on figuring ways to get whoever is in charge of these loading zones to cut us some slack on where they put them. I’m not sure where to find them yet. but I have this one neighbor who probably does. Otis says he gets loading almost every night. Although it is a little hard to understand him after he takes his medication that he sometimes takes by four or five bottles a night. I think he is for some kind of speech impediment since he’s always slurring his words.

TO SERVE AND REJECT

Now to me I think we would be in big trouble if those wonderful men in blue weren’t running around serving us with safety. Even those they sort of take a dim view of the times I do my talking with my bat, being a grimefighting super hero I sort of think I am on their side.

And that’s cool in many ways. I like being part of the good guys. I just wish that the bad guys were always bad and also unpopular. But you know at times it just don’t seem that way.

Plus you know, being civic minded as I am, which to me means I don’t use bad words unless I really, really have to, I sort of like to help out with those nice uniform dudes when I can. So you would think they would appreciate the help. After all it ain’t like I’m asking them to pay me for the help. It might be cool if they did, but I don’t mind giving them a helping hand once an a while.

Normally I stick with griminals though. That is my specialty, which is a good thing since I haven’t been allowed to carry any guns so far.

Oh believe me I have suggested it to my boss, Dr. Hemoglobin, but every time I bring the subject up he gets this bad case of some mysterious illness. He’ll sit there and get all red face, have to tug at his collar and then can’t talk. Poor guy ought to find out what causes that.

My buddy, Otis has let me take my sling shot with me. But it hardly does me much good when all I get to take along as ammunition is jelly beans. I mean by the middle of some assignment I’ve done eaten all my ammo so you know how much help a sling shot is then.

Otis doesn’t seem to be much help on the gun thing either. I keep telling him that it sure would simplify our grimefighting stuff. We would have to mess with such junk and catching a griminal in the act. If we saw somebody who looked suspicious we could just shoot first and ask questions later.

But he keeps insisting that isn’t a good idea. I think that is really unfair. Okay, so once I made a mistake and mistook this boy scout for a griminal. Mistakes do happen you know. Otis just never lets me forget!

Well alright, I admit there were those other times too with that delivery guy, that janitor, that security guard and er, like I said mistakes can happen. Still maybe I wouldn’t have to beat people senseless with my bat if I had a gun. I mean one bullet hole in the foot would pretty much guarantee they told me the truth I reckon.

In any case, I do suppose I’ll get to find out anytime soon. At least not as long as Dr. Hemoglobin and Otis keep having the kind of memory where they can’t forget those times when I made an honest mistake.

THIS LITTLE LIGHT SO FINE

Ah, I want to tell you that there is nothing cooler at times than a great flashlight. Providing it is working. Man let me tell you if you get one that the batteries don’t work, it is the worse feeling. And the real pits is when they just plain didn’t get replaced because you are a lazy jerk who didn’t bother to check them enough times.

So then what happens is you end up with finding out when the power is out that you need the flashlight. That is the one thing about flashlights, they generally aren’t something you think about till it is too late.

What makes it tough for me is that you know when we do need them and the darn thing doesn’t work because the batteries are bad then you can find the spare batteries in the dark to fix the problem. Man does that feeling ever suck. I mean it is bad enough feeling like some idiot. Then you feel even dumber when you can’t manage to fix the problem because you can’t even find the drawer in the dark to look for the new batteries.

But for me the absolute worse part is having to put up with listening to my buddy, Otis, ramble on about being prepared. Man if he spent half as much time being prepared as talking about it then we both wouldn’t have a problem.

I guess what bugs me in that regard is that he generally doesn’t tell me it is my job to do something tell after it doesn’t get done. Like with batteries he never sits down and say, it is your turn to check the batteries. He just sort of says that afterwards like I’m suppose to be a mind reader.

I did know a dude who said he was a mind reader once. Only we didn’t get to spend much time together. He just kind of claimed he could read my mind. Well after that I guess for some reason he got brain drain or something because he had to go over and spend some time in a place for resting after apparently reading my mind. Can’t understand what the problem was. I mean I didn’t even think about flashlights or batteries once when I knew him. I reckon that didn’t keep him from thinking about it though.

In the meantime I’m working on my own plan for making sure the batteries down run out in our flashlight. I’m thinking if I leave it on all the time that is one way I’ll know. And to be sure Otis doesn’t gripe about me not checking batteries maybe I’ll be sure I leave the flashlight on and in his bedroom so it will shine in his eyes when he’s trying to sleep.

But I imagine with my luck he’ll find something wrong with that idea too. That is one of my problems. I just never can solve these problems and make everyone happy.

That don’t mean I don’t try. Lord knows I try all the time. Why I even tried with the toaster that time. Otis said there was nothing wrong with it, but I thought there was and it was because it had too many crumbs in it. I figured washing it good would solve the problem. Only I suppose I should have dried it before Otis tried to use it to make toast. At least he didn’t need a flashlight when that sparks were shooting off his body at the time. And he didn’t even need batteries!

MIRACLE GADGETS

I sure love the idea of miracle gadgets. That is providing the actually work. With some of them, I don’t know, but heck it seems that the real miracle is that they work at all.

I like to believe that for example when they put an ad in some magazine or newspaper that it is really true. Like the one about those X-ray glasses. Boy those sure have possibilities.

The idea of being able to stand outside a candy store and look through the walls to see if they had jelly beans is so cool. It sure would make life a lot easier for me than having to go inside and ask them. I don’t think that would be so bad, but man when I go in there too often they sort of get pissed at me. And that ain’t cool.

Personally, I don’t know what the big deal is. I mean I don’t think my going inside fifteen times in one day should count when I’m trying to find out if their delivery truck showed up. Is it my fault that the stupid delivery guy is running late and they don’t know for sure when he will be there?

Plus I think it is their fault to begin with. They stopped taking my phone calls after the one time when I wanted to know if the truck was there yet. And that is such a pain considering I had just got them added to the speed dial goodie on my phone. Heck, it was working good too. I could hit that button in less than a minute after hanging up with them from the other call.

But I guess they got something called “caller” id and somehow knew it was me so they just stopped answering the phone. Well what the heck was I suppose to do? I had no choice, except go by and see them in person.

You would have figured they would have been happy to have a customer be as faithful as I am. But NOOOO! All they do is gripe and complain about me coming in there too often.

What I want to know is where is it written that a free sample can only happen once a day. I thought once a visit should work. Just because I go out of the door and come right back in shouldn’t count as not another visit to me?

They sure threw a fit though. I even got them to be too dang picky on the two for one deal. I mean it doesn’t say anywhere on that stupid buy one get one free deal that the one has to be the same one. So if I buy ONE jelly bean and want ONE bag of them free I didn’t think it was any big deal, but they did.

Like I said when it comes to miracle gadgets such as those X-ray glasses all I wish is they were a real miracle. Then I wouldn’t have to strain my brain so much trying to figure out miracle to come up with to get me more jelly beans for the same price.

In the meantime if somebody can come up with a miracle gadget to get those candy store clerks to forget they saw me ten minutes ago that would be even better. If not, well I’ll have to go back to finding new masks to wear.

SIGNAL LIGHT JUNK FOOD

Well I don’t I definitely don’t like having to wait at stop lights. Personally I have this feeling that there are a few of them in our city that are just plain vicious. Yeah, I know that might sound silly. But let me tell you I’ve spend enough time at some traffic light where I swear it intentionally knows I’m there. And honestly it refuses to turn green my way till everyone else has a chance to go.

I just have this feeling that somewhere in our city there is this mad scientist kind of dude who loves ruining driver’s days. So he had fixed the signal lights to give them an attitude so they can work extra hard pissing you off.

I did try at one time to figure a way to find this jerk, but I haven’t found him yet. Until I do, I just try to avoid going down certain streets if it means I have to deal with some snooty signal light.

However, for those times I can’t avoid those lights, I just simply try a different solution. I call it stop light junk food. That is the extra yummy snack stuff you can put in your mouth instead of having to sit there and gripe about the signal light. I’m still working on refining my list of waiting foods, but half the fun is with the experimenting.

Now so far I have found out that some foods definitely don’t work as waiting foods. Even though they are fast foods and not technically junk foods, they don’t work in this category on account of messiness. That applies for me to burritos and burgers. You end up dripping that secret sauce or those refried beans on your pants and it just is such a pain. Plus you’ll end up still holding it when the light changes and that can be a pain too.

Fries don’t work too bad. As long as you don’t try using ketchup. It is hard to concentrate on dipping the fries in the ketchup while watching for the light to change.

As for you more usual junk food, well most of it works okay. Candy bars, jelly beans, anything you can eat without having to work at it is pretty cool.

Donuts are kind of okay, providing you are talking about something other than jelly filled. They might drip all over and then you might miss when the light changes.

I appreciate how some might think this whole thing is silly. But you know when I see people sitting at a signal light they sure don’t seem very happy.

So the way I figure, why not at least be able to put a smile on your face? At least then with your mouth full of something tasty you won’t be as inclined to feel a need to gripe as much.

Plus you tummy will probably be happy too. And if there is one thing I appreciate it is that an unhappy tummy will make the rest of your body pretty miserable at the same time. So grab it, stuff it and keep smiling till you see the green light.

WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK

I saw this movie once with a bunch a midgets and this really pretty gal. These little dudes were kind of funny to watch. They had the idea of whistling while they worked as a way of making it seem like you could enjoy a crappy job.

Well that might have worked for them guys, but believe me if I tried it that wouldn’t work for me. Frankly I’m not sure it worked for them either since one of the was named Grumpy, but it sounded good.

Now in my case, whistling would definitely not be cool. I mean on my garbage route if I was to start whistling that early in the morning, I could really piss off somebody who was sleeping. They sure wouldn’t thank me for waking them up!

Plus I reckon my partner Otis would think I was weird too. Well okay, he already knows I’m weird, but there is no reason for me to give him extra cause to think I’m whacky.

Beyond the trash collecting times though there would be other times it wouldn’t be cool either. Like when I’m at STINK headquarters. I mean shoot there are days when Otis and I do something wrong and the last thing we want to do is have our boss Dr. Hemoglobin find out we are there. Those are the days when we try to just sneak in and out and hope we manage to do so without him finding us.

I tell you when those days happen I really prefer to listening to our boss yelling on our answer machine to doing it in person. Because the one thing we both know is that if we are at STINK headquarters and he has a reason to yell the odds are he’s going to find a way to give us a really crappy assignment. And if there is one thing I don’t want when working for a place that fights grime is a crappy assignment because you can be sure it will involve real crap!

Beyond those times the other occasion when I wouldn’t want to whistle is when we are hunting down some griminal. Man you sure can sneak up on a griminal or go on stake out if you are whistling. Those dang griminals may be scum, but they are also smart enough to know that if they hear whistle coming from behind a dumpster it isn’t going to be a bug making the noise.

So when it comes to whistling I will have to keep mine for when I’m in the shower. And let me tell you with my buddy Otis, I wish he would do his whistling then too. It sure would be a lot easier on my ears than having to hear him singing in the shower.

My buddy is a cool dude in many ways, but God sure didn’t see fit to give him a singing voice. But then I suppose I ought to be grateful he just sticks to singing in the shower. I remember when he did give a shot at singing in the choir over at Reverend Analbe’s church. Eventually he got the message that he wasn’t perhaps that great of a singer when they kept moving the practices without telling him.

In any event I think I’ve explained why whistling and work don’t go together for me. And perhaps it works better for you. If so, happy puckering!

Thought for the week: "We only get 24 hours in a day, but there is no limit to the amount of grief you can end up with. Shouldn't you all the time you want and a limit on grief?"

A HOLE IN NONE

In that game called golf they make a big deal about what they call a hole in one. Now they never say one what, but from what I understand it is suppose to be one in a hole. Why they don’t call it one in a hole I have no idea. At least that would make more sense to me.

Anyway, I’m not really sure why they make such a big deal about it. So far whenever I’ve played golf I’ve never gotten that stupid little ball in one of those holes without hitting it at least ten times.

I know they have this thing called “par,” which is suppose to be about how many times it should take you to actually hit the ball into the hole. Oh yeah and they even number each hole so when you really screw up and it takes like fifty times to hit it in the hole you can remember it by the number. Like I really enjoy the idea of remembering that much embarrassment.

Personally I don’t try and play golf that much. Frankly it is just to dang crowded most of the time for me. I mean you go over to the place and you get that golf club and little colored ball and then you have to stand in line to take a turn behind a bunch other people.

Plus when you do get your turn you end up standing there and hoping you can hit the ball without it hitting the blade of that windmill as it is turning. Man can that be a real pain in the butt.

As far as I’m concerned in the middle of all the pushing and shoving, not to mention going swimming in that big pool when your ball goes whacky, I just don’t find it all that much fun. Plus with all of that to remember how can I be expected to also worry about trying to get the stupid ball in that stupid hole in only one try.

Now if they really wanted to make that a big deal how come they don’t make it easier? I mean they put all those darn obstacles and other crap in the way so you can even see the hole from where you are starting. I swear some dude who was totally drunk must have designed that place if you ask me, which nobody has so far.

Anyway they sure could make things easier if they were to straighten out a few of those curves and junk. Then maybe a few of us would have a better chance at actually getting one of those hole in ones.

Don’t tell anybody, but once when nobody was looking I went ahead and instead of hitting the ball, just walked over to the hole and dropped the ball in it. I got to be honest it sure didn’t feel all that special.

However, I reckon that no matter how silly that might seem and all, it sure doesn’t keep other people from thinking it is a good idea. Hard to figure what some people think if fun at times. I suppose if it was then the dang miniature golf course would be more crowded than it already is.

SILVER LININGS

I heard somebody say once that every cloud as a silver lining. Well, I’m not sure what clouds he was looking at, but I can say I sure haven’t seen any lining, silver or otherwise when I see those clouds.

Believe me, I sure tried too. However, so far it just ain’t happening when I gawk at them. And that really is sad to me because I think clouds are really so darn cool. Why shoot man, I’d be so jazzed if I was looking up at them on day and could say, “Wow look at that silver!” I am going to keep looking just in case, but I just all that convinced it is going to happen.

Now the way I figure it the dude that started this talk about silver linings probably was confused. Maybe he just saw a rainbow and got confused. Course as best as I can tell, rainbows ain’t normally silver. Still I have been everywhere so maybe there is somewhere they are just plain silver. Only if it were all silver I am sort of wondering would you really know it was a rainbow in the first place? I think I would, but who can say what other people think.

One thing I did consider though was that perhaps you know instead of it being a cloud maybe the dude saw something else. Perhaps the guy saw a plane or something. I’ve heard that those UFO things are often silver. You do got to wonder about some people if they confuse a UFO with a cloud though. Well that is providing the UFO wasn’t trying to look like a cloud on purpose. I’ve heard those dang UFO’s could be sneaking like that. So I could hardly blame some dude who saw one and thought it was a cloud by mistake.

The only I can’t quite understand in all of that is how come that is the kind of think I need to know about? I mean if some dude is sitting there and freaking out over some stupid silver whatever and acting goofy that’s okay by me. I just don’t understand why it should be deserving of being mentioned so that when I’m out looking at clouds I end up acting like an idiot.

Then on the other hand, maybe that is part of the whole idea with this thing. Some joker is running around trying to make people look like a horse’s ass by having them look for silver clouds that aren’t there. Yeah, that could work.

Or perhaps the deal it that again this dude simply was mistaken. It just occurred to me how you know a blimp is silver a lot of times. And if the guy was say at some big outdoor sporting event like say a football game he might get so excited that he thought he saw a cloud. Only it was in reality a blimp.

Gee, you would kind of think though that if he had saw blimp he might have seen the big letters on the side saying Goodyear or whatever. I reckon that will have to wait till I find this clown and make him spill his guts on what he really saw and not what he claims he saw. One thing is for sure, if I make him talk my way, he won’t be seeing any clouds with several linings, but I bet he’ll see a few stars!

SHOE SHINES AND UMBRELLAS

Okay, rule number one, if you need an umbrella then you will most likely need a shoe shine too. Because rain don’t exactly do shoes any good. At least it doesn’t work that way for me.

I’ve tried different ways of avoiding that problem. Like not wearing shoes, only then my feet get so cold just wearing socks and man when they get soaked that is a really pain.

Now you can do like I do and wear mainly sneakers. They don’t need to be shined, which is a good thing.

However, the big problem is that they don’t do very good in the rain either. There are what they call goulashes, which shouldn’t be confused with that goulash that you eat. But the big hassle with those goulashes you were is that they can be a pain in the butt to get off once you put them on. At least they don’t have to be shined.

So for me the option on a rainy day is to either not go outside or if I do then to be sure I pick shoes that are made of leather or a reasonable facsimile. The facsimile part is what you get at discount stores that is almost the same and works nearly as good. Unless you get them too wet.

I trying to work on getting an umbrella that will make sure no part of my body gets wet, including my shoes. But so far I haven’t managed it. That doesn’t mean I going to give up though.

Okay so in the meantime till I figure out it, I think I’m also going to keep looking at alternatives to using regular shoes that don’t have to be shined and it don’t hurt if you get them wet. My first choice right now is flippers. I figured that perhaps they would be a good option in case you say fell in a river or ocean accidentally on purpose.

And if those don’t cut it because of junk like some jerk making fun of your fins, then I might check into what they call, “wooden” shoes. I figure those probably float so that would be a good option.

I’m not sure where I can find those yet. If I can’t find them I might just make my own. I can’t imagine they would be tough to create.

All I need is some wood. Hmmm, I wonder if I would be able to get it to stick to my feet without much hassle. Nails works good on wood. But I reckon that could smart.

Perhaps glue would be a good option. Yeah, I could glue the wood on my feet. Er, if I did that though I might not be able to get it off.

Gosh I guess that is going to be a bigger challenge than I expected. Oh I imagine I can figure it out eventually. At least there ain’t no rain coming for while so I guess I got some time.

A TASTEFUL TRIBUTE TO LOVE

It’s passed Valentine’s Day and all, but I just thought this time of year we seem to have extra occasions when people feel mushy. So I thought I would chip in my contribution with my own version of a love poem:

IT AIN’T LOVE IF YOU DON’T VOMIT

Every time I see your face
it makes me spew all over the place.

Cus it’s not lovin
till the chunks start comin.

Oh baby,
gimmie that old time
tummy burnin
passion of slime.

UPHILL GRADES

Okay since when did they teach this in school? I mean you got to have somebody teach you the difference between going up a hill and down? I tell you some people sure got weird ideas at times.

The other day we were going up to the mountains and I saw this sign that said, “uphill” grade. I suppose it was nice that they put it on a hill as you were heading up, but I didn’t see any schools around. Nor did they mention what the grade was. I mean was it an A or B or what?

I’m assuming that if the person who took the class had gotten an A they would have mentioned that on the sign. So I reckon if they didn’t then the person probably didn’t want to brag about that since it wouldn’t impress that much.

As best as I can figure you know what happen is that there is something cool about taking the class. Maybe they show lots of films about mountains and hills or something. So taking the class is a big deal and if you get through it then that is a worth bragging about.

For me, I don’t know, a hill is a hill. So if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. I wouldn’t feel any need to have some teacher take me out and point at one and ask me what it was.

Anyway these days I reckon you just never know what will impress some people I guess and if studying about hills and getting a grade on it matters then I suppose that’s there problem. The one thing I did also notice was that I saw another sign that mentioned about “steep” grade.

Now that is one thing I wouldn’t want to advertise. Shoot to me just having to study about hills and getting a grade on it would be a pain. But these dudes want to let you know that it is hard to do also. Do I really need to know this?

I’ve heard them talking about the problems of education these days. Stuff like the fact that people are learning as much as they are suppose to. Well if you ask me, the one thing they could cut back on would be junk like classes to teach you what a hill looks like.

I just think that could be handled real easy by a parent. Take the poor kid on a little camping trip and while you are going up some hill to the mountains you just say, “Oh by the way, this is a hill.”

That seems pretty simple to me, but then that is just me. However I guess that is not good enough for some folks.

In the meantime I’m just going to do what I can to help those poor kids out who don’t know what a hill is. I’ll just use that little code to test if they do by saying “up yours” a lot. Yeah that ought to get them thinking.

DOWN THE ROAD

I have learned that there are two kinds of down the road. The one is a direction. You go a certain way to get down the road.

The other is more of a plan. As in down the road I’m going to do this. Only you really don’t have to go anywhere to do this.

I just wish I spent more time with the down the road that actually went somewhere. Most of my traveling is to race off on our trash route, which really only goes the same places each week or to chase some griminal.

Those creeps never go anywhere fun either. I mean how come they can’t ever pick somewhere like an amusement park to want to mess up? Even a candy store or theater would be cool too! But no, those jerks pick out places like alleys and other spots that are hardly fun to visit.

So I hardly get a chance to you know have a fun of down the road, down the road kinds of down the road. I only get those “down the road” as in tomorrow that really seems to never come as often as I hope.

I suppose that is one reason my buddy Otis and my boss Dr. Hemoglobin are big on talking about down the road. It sounds so good to talk in terms of someday. That way you know you don’t have to worry about it right now.

What I wish I would hear more often is down the road, right now! I could definitely get used to that kind of down the road. Hasn’t happen so far.

As for myself, well I’m thinking of while I’m waiting for these other dudes to get around to some down the roads that aren’t really down any road, I might plan a few of my own. So I’m going to make mine, down the road, this afternoon. I think the time thing makes the difference.

The hard part though is making sure I get all the details and plan the thing out first. One thing I know with my buddy is that if I say down the road this afternoon he’ll be bugging me for details. He’s big on that when it comes to me. For some reason he’s got this crazy idea that too many things I come up with won’t work. So he always asks a million questions if I come up with some plan.

But I know that is no big deal. All I got to do is figure out the where part. That might take a bit of doing. I mean I want to be sure I pick out some real cool places.

Well I can’t do that today though. I got to many errands to run. So I’ll have to figure it out down the road. Gee, so here I am, doing it myself. Only I known I wouldn’t lie to myself. So when I say down the road I’m going to plan what I do down the road, I think I can depend upon me to do it. I better or else I will get pissed with myself and boy if that happens, myself better watch out or I might hurt myself!

GREATER TRAGEDIES

My buddy, Otis, always tells me that there are greater tragedies in the world whenever I start pissing and moaning over something that really bugs me. Well let me tell you when he’s bugged about something and I talk about there being greater tragedies he sure don’t want to hear about it.

What kind of annoys me is how come the size of a tragedy should matter in the first place? I mean if it is a tragedy ain’t that enough? Is sure seems like it would be that way to me.

I will admit that you know a tragedy for one person ain’t the same as it is for somebody else. For me a tragedy can be as simple as going to the candy store and finding out they don’t have any jelly beans in stock. Or say if I misplace my last stash of jelly beans. Now that really is a tragedy for me.

But the rest of the world would hardly get all excited if that happens I reckon. At least I doubt it will happen in a way that they will put it on the news.

I do wonder about those news people too at times. I mean how come they get to pick what qualifies as a tragedy any way?

Plus it kind of annoys me too that you can’t always be sure the tragedy took place. Not that I’m saying when they talk about a plane crash that they are making up, but if I can’t go there and visit, how do I know for sure it really happen?

It did make me wonder whether or not they would have say some pictures on film and if they say run out of tragedies for a given program they just dig out the old film. Hey I didn’t say they did it, just a thought.

However, I guess that won’t matter anyway in terms of fixing any tragedy. It would be nice if it was as easy to fix a tragedy as create one.

I wonder if you could have a list of news items called greater fix-it moments. But then I can’t say if anyone would listen. I think I would.

In the meantime, I think I’m going to write to the news people and see if I can suggest a few stories they don’t give a lot of attention. Say like one about missing jelly beans.

Yeah, yeah, I know you’ll probably say that is silly. Still what I was thinking if we could spend a little more time talking about those kinds of tragedies then maybe the other ones wouldn’t matter as much.

Or we could just pass the jelly beans and pretend a little more. Greater tragedies will come and go, but jelly beans are forever.

Hmmm, I wonder if I can get that on the news somehow? I guess it is something else to add into my letter.

Thought for the week: "When you're a kid they tell you fairy tales and everyone says it is a good thing. But as an adult you aren't suppose to believe in fairy tales. So what's up with being expected to belief what politician's say?

CURSE, NURSES AND VERSES

This whole thing has to do with a visit I made to the hospital the other day. Generally I only go there when I have one of those “oops” that ends up with a trip to the emergency room.

However, on this occasion I went to visit a sick friend, which is why I was at the hospital since they probably wouldn’t have been there if they weren’t sick. That is the nice thing with such places, you don’t have to worry about getting too confused over what they do.

Well, like I said, the other day I went there to visit this buddy who was recovering from an accident. And I ran into this girl that was called “A candy striper.” I didn’t personally see her have any candy striped or otherwise, but that was her name.

Anyway I tried to get her to explain what the deal was with the candy thing, but instead of answering she went and got this nurse. For some reason after talking to that girl she thought I needed a nurse because I had something wrong with my head. There was nothing wrong more than usual so I’m not sure how she figured that part.

I talked to that nurse for a bit, which hardly improved things as far as I’m concerned. She got hung up like that gal with thinking something was wrong with my head. Said I should have it examined, even though I wasn’t feeling sick.

So eventually I got tired of her asking me silly questions and decided to leave them alone. I tell you when those nosey nurses get curious it can be a real curse. Maybe she was just bored, but for some reason she just didn’t want me wandering the hospital. It wasn’t like I didn’t knew where to find my friend.

She decided to call this dude in a uniform and he wanted to wrestle. But he didn’t want to play fair because he wanted to use a stick. I showed him though. I found a nice chair to use in place of my bat.

Eventually I got bored with him and ended leaving him unconscious on the floor. Then I went and visited my friend. But I’m not sure I’m going back very soon. I heard a couple of the nurses talking about a crazing man running around the hospital who assaulted some security guard. I’m sure glad I didn’t run into that guy!

I mean assaulting people ain’t my idea of fun. I guess you can a pepper a person too, but I’m not crazy about getting sprinkled with either. I figured it probably was some dude who was trying to make one of those “statement” things. So it must have been some kind of person who writes poetry since they always are trying to make statements it seems like.

I guess the part about this person being crazy was part of the person have an artistic spirit or something. Not sure that acting strange in a hospital is a good way to express it, but I guess it worked for him.

PRELUDE TO A FART

Oh yeah this is definitely important and in the right situation can mean the difference between survival and getting pulverized by a bunch of pissed off people. Basically it takes a whole lot of practice to know when your behind is about to blow. And then comes the stress from trying to figure out the perfect way to let off gas without being caught. Noise is definitely a big deal in this case.

There are certain basic rules I try to follow to cut down on the situations where some unexpected “eruption” might prove too risky. That is especially important if you are standing next to some big ugly dude with a tattoo on his bicep that says “killer.”

So the first thing I do before going out in public is make I avoid eating any foods that might increase my risk of a gas attack. For me the biggest stuff I can eat and have problems with gas is beans. Not jelly beans of course, but the regular kind. Like the kind you get in can of pork and beans or a burrito.

And then I just sort of do this mental checklist of stuff like did I do anything that might cause me to be extra prone to a gas attack? See I know with my body, even if I didn’t eat beans that there are times when my insides sort of get clogged up for a while. Then later it will be like a dam busted and I get the runs big time.

Well that is another time I got to be careful when going out that I don’t find myself with my rear end threatening to embarrass me in one way or another. That is just a matter of taking the time to be extra careful and remembering if my body is in the middle of plotting some sneak gas attack.

In any case naturally the other thing is there are times I just can avoid it. You know like when I’m working. Well the thing is if I’m saying doing my garbage route no big deal. People sort of expect bad smells from garbage so it is no big deal.

When I worry about it is mainly while being a super hero grimefighter type. Because you know I don’t want to disappoint any kids who might think of me as a hero type. I just would hate to get them upset because right in the middle of beating up a bad guy I passed the gas.

See that is something your usual folks just don’t have to worry about. I reckon they never even give it a thought, but I have to.

But if all else fails and I do have to pass gas in those situations I do my best to try and avoid making it obvious. One way to do that is to try and see if you are near say a fast food restaurant or some bakery. Because the cool smell of something cooking or being baked will a lot of times offset that other stench.

Another thing is to try and find a place that is noisy. Then people might hear when ou have to let a big one. And if they don’t hear it you have a better chance of them not noticing it was you. In the worst case situation the old standby is to find somebody you can blame for the fart. It just a back up plan, mainly meaning you back up while pointing the finger at somebody else.

THUMBS, SCUM AND NUMB

One thing I have learned from being a grimefighter is how scum on your thumb ain’t cool if you don’t get rid of it right away. If you get busy and don’t get to wash you hands right a way it can make your hand numb trying to clean it later.

That ought to be pretty obvious, even if you aren’t a trained professional at something like grimefighting. Like they say, “cleanliness is next to godliness.” I’m not sure if that means “dirtiness is next to deviliness,” but I reckon it sort of fits.

Anyway I know that even the government takes this whole deal serious. That because I see those signs in public restrooms about how all employees have to wash their hands before returning to work.

They don’t really say, though, anything about how they know if you don’t wash your hands or what happens to you if you don’t. I think if they had asked me I could have fixed that part. I would have simply added, wash that scum off your thumb or I’ll be you till your blind and dumb. I think that would do it.

Now over where I work at STINK we don’t make a big deal about washing your hands. That’s because we make sure you never forget it by making you deal with lots of grimy stuff to the point you want to get clean.

It is amazing how making some clown spend lots of time handling garbage or dirty diapers will affect his attitude. Why some of the rookies will spend a real long time in the bathroom after coming back off of some trash route.

I know though that if they road with the one grimefighter, “Smelly Belly Buford Bugspud” they will no doubt wash more than their hands. Old Smelly Belly is a reformed griminal only sometimes he kind of has this problem with a relapse.

Believe me when he does you don’t want to be downwind from him. That can literally bring tears to your eyes. I know because I’ve had that experience.

But outside of him the rest of us are generally pretty good at this washing and scum thing. Makes me sort of proud when we can really practice what we preach.

Okay I guess we don’t do much in the way of preaching. That is the Reverend Analbe’s department.

I’ve never asked him about the hand washing thing. He seems mainly hung up on dunking the whole body with your clothes on. I think they call it being baptized. Well I guess that ain’t all bad when you consider how doing it does take the place of having to take a bath and wash you clothes to. So maybe it ain’t all such a crazy idea.

In the meantime, we do our best to keep teaching folks all about making washing your hands a priority. And especially if you have to pee, which kind of can be a priority after you get real thirsty too.

WHERE FOR

This is this famous story that was written by some guy named Shake-a-spear or something along those lines. It was one of those mushy love kind of stories that I don’t care much for called Row-me-toe and Jewel-ate-a-hat.

I’m not partial to all those love kind of stories normally because nobody gets blown up or anything. It is just you know a bunch of people sitting around smooching and talking about much they love each other. I mean you can go over to a lot of places and see that kind of thing without paying to see it in a movie.

Anyway the one good thing with this movie as I understand it is that basically you know the writer did give it a good twist from just the usual mushy junk. Even though nobody got blown up in it, at least somebody ended up dying and that was cool as far as I’m concerned. Not that people dying is a good thing, just you know it sort of makes the whole lovey-dovey thing have a more fun twist.

The thing is in this movie or story they said this deal about “where for” and then added “aren’t thou.” I assume that has something to do with you know somebody not being something they claim they are so the person was talking about “where for” as in where for did you say something stupid like that?

Now, that seems to me to be more the kind of question you would think of asking with one of the movies where you had lots of people doing an in your face kind of action. In some mushy movie I just think she they can be kind of boring that the old Shake-a-spear dude figured he wouldn’t take any chance and he would you know toss it in there to be sure nobody complained about the story that much.

Course I understood that this Shake-a-spear dude did live like a long time ago. At least fifty years. That was before cable and the internet. So I reckon he had to worry about keeping his stuff more interesting than now seeing how they didn’t have a many choices.

But in any case maybe that is why we don’t have to worry about the “where for” stuff as much now. We got all kinds of neat options like “Hey dude” “Are you serious” and a whole bunch of other junk that would make things kind of cool these days without that “where for” stuff.

Course I’m no expert on junk like history, but maybe you know, in those days the dudes who issued things like literary licenses had a different set of rules in terms of junk like the words you can use. I’m just glad I live now where I don’t have to take a test or anything to use my literary license. So I can use that where for thing without having to worry about any what for from some clown with a badge who wants to see my license.

Makes me sort of thing the good old days weren’t so good after all. You just never know what will make people happy though.

WHY NOT?

Ever do stuff just for fun? Well sometimes I just want to do junk for no reason. Which doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. I don’t want to explain or think about it, I just want to do it because I like to.

From my point of view that ought to be no big deal as far as I’m concerned. I mean do I really have to have a reason for everything I do?

What bugs me the most is whenever I get in one of those moods and just want to do something for the heck of it, somebody comes along to ask me why. I tell you I don’t know how I get so darn lucky in that regard, but honestly it is like somebody painted a big sign on my butt saying, “Ask me stupid questions so you can keep me from having fun and bore the crap out of me.”

The person will stand there with his or her arms folded across his chest and look at me and ask, “Why are you doing that?” Like he is some kind of fun inspector checking to see if I have a license or something to enjoy myself.

What I’m tempted to do is to use my bat to answer by basically bashing in his brains for being such a jerk and acting so snotty. But then I think better of it, which is also inspired by that regrettable incident that happen the other time that my lawyer told me not discuss tell after the till and I just reply “Why not?”

Now you would think that would be enough of an answer. It should be, but never seems to work. Instead I get the person saying like “that’s not an answer.”

Again I want to say something like “It ain’t a question you dumb, dumb, jackass!” Again because of a “conversation” I had that ended with me using my bat that hasn’t been ruled on by the judge yet, I can’t talk about it. So instead I just say, “It’s good enough for me.”

You would think that would be enough to shut up some people. But every once and a while I’ll run into some moron who decides he’s going to give me the benefit of his knowledge. Now I ask you if I sitting in a park somewhere and feeding the birds do I really need a lecture on bird watching or the history of what he calls “aviary” myths, whatever those are.

About the only good thing that happens in those situations is that I have at least found a way to use the bread I am feeding birds in a way to stop those questions. At least when the cops show up and the guy is sitting there with a loaf of bread stuffed in his mouth while laying on the ground unconscious, I can say I thought he looked hungry.

Admittedly, I haven’t talked to my lawyer yet to find out if using a loaf of bread instead of a bat is considered less of a reason for a court case. Guess I better check with him before I have to talk to the judge on the bread thing. I wonder if he’ll ask me why too? I hope not.

GOD BLESS YOU?

What I want to know is how come you deserve some blessing from God when you got something stuck in your nose that makes you sneeze? Does God have a thing about snot or something that makes it seem more deserving of a need for blessing than any other situation?

I only ask because it seems like a fair question to me. I mean I sure would like to know the answer. Only I’m not really clear on where to get one.

My first thought was naturally to ask the Reverend Analbe. He does know God personally and all. But the big problem is that he mainly seems to be more about talking on cursing stuff and what the Lord is against instead of what God will bless.

Plus you can’t hardly talk to the Reverend that he don’t end up at some point turning the conversation into a prayer. And if by chance you are sitting there with a bunch of donuts at the time you can be darn sure he will probably reach over and start eating them while he’s praying. It is kind of tough to figure out what he’s saying when his mouth if full of donuts, but it doesn’t do any good for you to say anything because he won’t answer, he’ll just turn it into a longer prayer.

Anyway I did all my thinking about asking him and decided first of all I didn’t have any donuts to take with me and he would most likely not explain it to me in a way that would make sense, so forget it. I figure it was smarter to work out some other way to deal with this issue.

I always thought calling junk an issue was kind of weird though. Because to me an issue is something like you know a magazine subscription. Well at least it is to me. So I don’t like saying I got an issue over something like this kind of question and make people think perhaps I’m getting some magazine that talks about weird junk. I got enough people who think I’m different as it is.

So my other thought was seeing if I could find a good doctor that perhaps was known for being a little religious or something who could tell me why the bless you think was important when it comes to sneezing. I even spent time talking to several doctor’s offices, but none of the ladies who answered the phone were willing to help me very much.

I guess they might off if I hadn’t maybe started out asking if their boss knew God personally or not? After I asked that question the conversation went sort of down hill after that.

So I guess I got to go back to the old drawing board as they say. Which bothers me too because nobody ever says where the old drawing board is.

Maybe one of these days I can figure a way to get both questions answer at the same time. It will fit right in there with knowing a bird in a can is worth two shove up your tooshe.

DEBATES

How come arguing ain’t cool unless you do it in a form called a debate. Then it considered okay by some people.

I mean as far as I’m concerned all that debate junk is something that is normally kind of boring. Like those big deals they make about presidential debates. I tried listening to them once and let me tell you I never heard any of those guys do any debating about if we should have a president. How can it be a real presidential debate if they are arguing over if we even need a president?

Instead there was a lot of time spent with these guys up there shooting their mouths off about what they liked and didn’t like. And another thing that bothered me was that only one of them had actually been president. So shouldn’t it have been president and what’s-his-name debate instead of the presidential debate? How come they never gave that any thought.

In any case as far as I’m concerned those dang presidential debates weren’t worth even having. It wasn’t like they asked any important questions. They talked about stuff like foreign policy. Why should I can if some foreigner has insurance.

Then there was the thing about the economy. They were blabbing about their plan to improve the economy. It all seemed to be related to the idea of creating new jobs. What gives with that? Can they find enough stuff to do as president without having to create some extra work. I can’t see where that would do much to improve the economy for the rest of us.

I also didn’t figure this deal about fixing social security was so good either. Not once in that whole conversation did either of those cand-of-dates, which is to me a weird name for a dude running for president, but anyway, not once did they mention of social security was under warranty. And where do you get a decent mechanic’s guesstimate for something like that too?

Plus neither dude mentioned anything about glue. Maybe some super glue would be enough. It sure would save all this debating silliness as far as I’m concerned.

I guess it is a good thing for them that Otis doesn’t get to run those things. Because he would bring some glue. Only to listen to him he would use it to glue those cand-of-dates mouths shut.

Come to think of it that might not be a bad idea. It sure would simplify the whole thing. In fact it would end the need for any debates.

The big problem would be catching those suckers though. Those cand-of-date dudes are always running for some office. I doubt they would stand still long enough to let you glue their lips closed. But maybe if knew where the office was they were always running to you could grab them when they went through the door. Guess it is worth thinking about.

Thought for the week: "How come one of the four seasons it is okay to fall down, but there are none for going up? Does it mean Father Time is a pessimist at heart?"

INCOME AND LIABLITIES

How come credit people always got to be so dang noisy? And they ask such crazy questions. Like how much is your monthly income? Which I don’t mind till that add the part about wondering regarding your household income.

Personally, I don’t even own a house, but if I did I wouldn’t expect it to make money. Oh I don’t think I would complain if it did, but how would a house make money anyway? I suppose it could perhaps rent itself out for Halloween. And maybe even for surprise birthday parties.

The big problem would be how the house would let anybody even know it was wanting to make money? I feel it is a far question. After all if I got a phone call and the voice on the other end asked, “hey, I’m house, you want to pay me to use me for something?” I think I would just hang up.

But apparently those credit folks must believe anything if they think some house has a whole lot of ways to make money. I just never figured was the kind of thing that would come up most of the time. Never working for the credit dudes I just can’t say for sure.

The other thing that bugs me with this whole process is what they call liabilities. Otis explained libel to me once. That was where people say bad stuff that isn’t always true about somebody else. So I reckon liabilities would be were lots of people say bad junk about you.

Now I don’t know about you, but if that was true, I sure wouldn’t want to be bragging about it to anybody. And I sure don’t understand why the dudes at the credit company would need to know that. Unless they love saying junk that ain’t true and then want to get a few ideas to talk about you behind your back. Yep, that is a pretty darn crummy way to be.

However no matter how bad it is, the thing is apparently those darn credit people just assume that is the way most people are or other words they wouldn’t be asking you about it when you apply for a loan. And apparently the biggest blabbers can gossips have what are called credit cards. Because the credit card people always ask about whether you have them. So I figure that is where the credit card dudes write down all the liability crap they hear about you on some card so they don’t forget it.

All I can say is I sure don’t think I want to brag about having any dumb cards where I wrote down all the bad stuff I heard about somebody else. I just don’t see like the kind of thing I ought to feel happy about.

Still I guess those credit people don’t have lots of stuff to keep them happy. And I reckon that it can be as much fun as going to school. Because I heard they like to worry about credit reports and credit scores. I figure that makes being in the credit work includes homework. Which is another reason for wanting to find out bad stuff about people. That way you can tell it to the credit teacher when you didn’t do your homework.

GROSS VERSE NET

There was some whacky dude I heard the other day while I was stuffing my face at this burger joint who was talking about gross verses net. I guess he worked for a bank or some place that he made a big deal about the important of knowing the difference between gross profit and net profit.

Well let me tell you I know the difference. As a grimefighter I know that a gross profit is one you made off of something really disgusting that you have to call it gross. Like say if you managed to sell some rotting garbage. Now that would be gross profit to me. I don’t even know who you would get to buy that crap, but it sure would be gross.

As for the net thing, well I reckon that applies to people who go fishing a lot or catch butterflies or you know just about anyone who uses a net for one reason or another. The only thing I don’t get is how you couldn’t know the difference between making money from something gross and from something caught in a net. Sure doesn’t seem to me that would be hard to understand.

Anyway, after that guy got finished talking on his cell phone about gross and net profit I figured I would walk over to his table and make sure he understood what was really gross and what was net. I figured since he was so concerned with it that it might be a good thing if I saw to it that he understood them correctly.

All I can say is that I tried. Yep, I tried to be friendly and see to it that he had all the right facts to appreciate that terms correctly.

He didn’t seem to appreciate my efforts though. I tell you boy did he get kind of insulting too. He had the nerve to suggest that I didn’t know what I was talking about. Can you believe that?

Well at this point I tried to be nice and explain it some more, but eventually it just didn’t do any good. So in the end, I sort of had to end the conversation.

I guess it would have been cool if I had my bat with me at the time. I generally find it is a great way to end a conversation.

In this case I had to get creative a little. But know, it is nice how a chair works as good as a bat. And after I finished talking once my arms got tired from hitting him with that chair he sort of upchucked his lunch.

So I picked him up and showed him his lunch as it was looking gross on his chest. Believe me he sure understood the meaning of gross then. Pity I didn’t have a net with me at the time. But he didn’t seem to be in the mood to learn about that at the moment.

Anyway after that I left the place. Which is a good thing since they apparently had some big problem right after that because I heard the police sirens. I reckon maybe they thought gross was a bad thing too.

ALL MINE

Yep, this is the coolest thing. Just being able to say it about something is the best feeling in the whole wide world. Because you know that it belongs to you and no matter what happens you get to keep it.

What really bugs me is when you get stuck dealing with somebody who seems to have this weird idea that what is something you can call mine is stuff that is other than regular mind stuff. See like to me regular mine stuff would be possessions such as your clothes or maybe a car or even a house.

But to me I don’t consider mine as something that applies to stuff like say the air. However the one thing that really bugs me is when you get around people who act as if that is something they can call mine.

Now personally for example I don’t smoke. And I don’t even care about if they do smoke. But how come these smoker types seem to think that they own the air since they can stink up your air whenever they want to?

I don’t get if they want to mess up their air. That is there choice. But how come they think mine means they can do whatever they darn well please?

What really cracks me up beyond those folks it the people who go over to the grocery store and when it is their turn to talk to the cashier they always end up waiting to tell the person their life story. I know some folks get bored, but jeez, is their life so dull that the only person they can find to listen is some poor cashier?

Oh I suppose if I want to think about it even longer I can find all kinds of people who take this mind thing way beyond where it ought to be. It is just a shame we have to get so messed up on stuff like that.

But I’m not sure what we do to fix the problem. I guess we could do like this one guy I know handles stuff. He lives in this place called a commune. And he doesn’t own anything junk. At least he claims he doesn’t. Tells me it all belong to the commune dude that is the leader.

I will admit that he doesn’t seem to upset with the way things go over there. Nor does he get bent out of shape about a lot of other stuff. Most of the time he just seems to smile a lot.

Course I reckon one thing that keeps him smiling is all those little blue pills he is always taking. I’m not sure what kind of vitamins they have, but it does work for him.

I guess it works for him. And that is the good thing I suppose. As for myself I think I’ll stick with jelly beans. They don’t always come in blue, but my tummy don’t complain. Plus I don’t think I would want to have to live in some commune where I had to wear some white robe and no shoes all the time.

TAKE AWAYS

You would think that a take away would something you wanted to get rid of. It doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable any more, just that you don’t need it for some reason.

As garbage man it sort of shocks me at times who many perfectly good things end up in the trash. I mean just because a chair is lacking a leg doesn’t make it worthless. You just have to learn out to be more careful how you sit on it. But some people don’t look at it that way.

For me though it sometimes ended up such a joy when I find all those little treasures in the garbage. I take them home and try to get them ready for adoption. It has been a little difficult at times getting people to see the stuff as having as much potential as I see it, but I keep trying.

Once and a while though it does give me a real warm spot in my tummy to find out I made somebody happy in that regard. It is true that most of the time it ends up being Granny Potts. She always seems to appreciate when I bring her something I’ve found.

Course she doesn’t see too good or hear that well either, but the important thing is that she does get happy when I drop it off. I suppose it doesn’t matter too much when she things that old rusty can I brought her is a vase or that three legged chair is say a bookshelf or actually thinks it is her friend either.

It is just nice to take something that was a take away and not make it a take away any longer. I’m cool with that.

About the only thing that bugs me the most with this idea is when stuff gets taken away that you don’t want to get rid of. I’m talking of how the government just up and takes away part of your pay check without even asking. Now that ain’t cool.

How do they know I wanted to get rid of that money anyway? It wasn’t any of them called me and asked. Nor did they ask me to vote on it.

Believe me I can hardly imagine wanting people to just take away what money I do get. Now if they want to come and take away stuff I really want to have taken away that would be nice.

But with my luck I reckon that would end up in them charging me for picking the stuff up and then they would probably get so used to doing it that they would tell me I couldn’t even get paid for picking up garbage any longer. That wouldn’t be fun.

So I guess I’m stuck just doing what I can to find those treasures and let the darn government keep acting weird taking away stuff that don’t really need to be taken away. You just can please some people no matter how hard you try. I know because I’ve tried enough and there are just too many folks who don’t like three legged chairs.

DISCOUNTS

Now there are discounts and then there are discounts. Some of them to me are really a lot more important than others.

Like for me a discount on jelly beans is the ultimate. Whereas a discount on something like Spam is no big deal. Only you can be darn sure I’m not going to tell my buddy, Otis, that considering how he is bonkers over Spam.

But that is just one thing. There are others too. Some are okay, others nothing I worry about. I wish I could say the thing for Otis.

Now he is a cool guy in many ways, but he is really a discount junkie. I mean if he sees the word on some coupon he goes totally insane about it being a bargain. Then he gets all excited and decides we better save the money to get whatever it is on sale regardless of whether we will ever get a chance to use it.

Which from my view is kind of nuts. I can’t think of the number of times he has seen something on discount and drags my butt down to wherever just so I can help carry it home.

That sure puts a smile on his face even though to me it is dumb and stupid. I just kind of get bored with the whole idea.

But you sure can’t tell my buddy that. He just keeps rambling on about how he’s saving money. He talks about how you have spend money to make money. I always wondered what happened if you didn’t spend the money in the first place? Does it go bad or something if you miss some bargain?

It sure seems that way too me as far as Otis goes. But I sort of doubt it will do any good to bother to try and get my buddy to appreciate that part.

That is why I sort of hate when we get the Sunday paper. Because it is the one that always has the most discounts in it. Shoot I’m sorry, but when he gets all excited about the tire store having a sale on say snow tires and we don’t live anywhere near the snow it just don’t seem like a big deal. Heck we only got a moped and that sure don’t need snow tires.

Guess some things will never change though. It is just something I do my best to cope with as far as my buddy goes.

Meanwhile, I’m working on a way to figure out I can get more jelly bean discount coupons. I’m sure if my buddy Otis just sees the word discount that will be enough. I’ve been practicing, but so far writing the word jelly bean on a coupon in crayon that is a coupon for detergent didn’t seem to fool him. I’ll keep practicing though. You know it will be one of those things if I succeed my tummy will appreciate it the most. And you can’t complain when that happens.

HOT DOGS AND EGG PLANT

This might be best called things I like and things I don’t understand. Hot dogs I like. They aren’t as cool as hamburgers, but they are better than a salad. So they fall in my book under the like category. Only not the love category. I save that for really important foods.

As for egg plant that is on my list of huh stuff. Those are things that don’t make a lot of sense too me. I mean what is with this thing anyway? First of all it is purple. That should be for grapes, but no this thing, which sort of looks like a big grape, sure doesn’t taste like one.

Plus it don’t seem to be able to make up its mind. I mean it isn’t an egg and I guess it is a plant, but does it come from an egg? If so I’d sure hate to see the chicken that would lay that kind of ugly thing.

Also you can cook it like an egg. I mean you can’t make an omelet from it. So was this just something Mother Nature invented while having a bad day or perhaps was too drunk on something she brewed? I tell you it sure does leave me without being able to make sense of it.

Well since Mother Nature ain’t got any kind of email address to answer important questions like that I suppose I’m stuck just figuring it out on my own. Only so far I think I’ll just let be something to wonder about.

I also wonder why that need what I guess is an Italian version of this plant? What’s the big deal here, is the regular kind not good enough. So some people thing if you grow that Eggplant Parm-a-john kind it will somehow make a different. Does claiming somebody that is Italian grows it suppose to make it taste better? I’m just wondering you understand.

Oh well, I suppose it is like too many situations, I’m left alone to work on solving such questions. It sure would be great if once and a while somebody else would spend more time figuring out this kind of important stuff.

Boy I sure would appreciate it. Then I could get back to the more issues. Stuff like how come hot dog buns and packages of hot dogs don’t have the same amount in them. I’ve been wondering about that for a long time.

Course for me it only matters when I’m in the mood for hot dogs. And then while I’m at the store sometimes I think about the bun and dog problem.

If it bugs me too much then I just end up buying stuff to make hamburgers. They don’t seem to worry about that kind of problem with burgers since you can buy all the meat you eat from the meat section.

That butcher dude though gets a bit snooty when I ask him to make it into burgers. Just because I ask him to shape them to look like jelly beans you would think I was asking the impossible.

BOOTING THE MESSENGER

I can’t say I really get this that much. I heard this dude on the television who is always rambling about this and that talking about not booting the messenger because of the messenger. Well, I’m sorry, if some messenger has bad news to give me and he acts snooty about it I’m probably going to be inclined to want to show me the end of a boot.

Personally I can say I haven’t known too many messengers. We did have one neighbor who used to work delivering singing telegrams. But I think there was something phony about those telegrams. I mean I was talking to him once when he was fixing to deliver a singing telegram and I never saw any telegram or heard it singing.

But I never felt inclined to boot him for that. Maybe feel sorry for him in case he was like that other guy I knew who used to carry on conversations with light bulbs that he said told him the secrets of the universe.

In any case I guess this messengering stuff is pretty dang important to who ever spends time needing to get some messengering done. And maybe some of those people who do the deliveries sort of got pissed or stressed out and that made them way too grumpy.

Perhaps they even did too much of the booting part. That could be a big problem you know. Yeah I wouldn’t want to have some dude banging on my door demanding me to open the door just so he could shove a message in my face.

As for me, I’m just happy sending stuff by mail. Yeah that post office guy that brings our mail is pretty decent and friendly. Although I have noticed he does wear boots. So you never know what he might do when around others. At least he’s decent when I talk to him.

I guess I’ll see if I can find out more about this booting and messengering thing before making up my mind on if it is important or not. Not sure where I’ll begin for sure yet.

Maybe I ought to you know head over and see if I can find the place in the sky where those dudes come from who have the UP trucks. I never see any wings on those trucks so I don’t know how they get UP, wherever it is, but they must get there somehow.

Meanwhile, I will be on the lookout for any messengers coming around with boots. It never hurts to be careful. They might be sneaky and that would be a problem if they went around booting you when you weren’t looking.

Gosh it is amazing how something like a messenger could end up having so many complicated aspects that you just never think of. But I always figure that is the important part of what I do. The thinking that not everyone else has time to do.

And someday maybe I’ll even be ready to explain everything. Although with my luck it will come by some messenger with boots.

Thought for the week: "If all is well that ends well do we get some other kind of thing to drink from when all ends crappy? Man I hate to think what is in that water."

SUCKERS AND SUCKERS

I like the lollipop kind of suckers. I don’t like the kind where somebody lies to you and makes you feel like an idiot.

What really sucks is when some jerk gives you one kind of sucker to keep you busy while he plans how to make you a sucker in some other way. I hate that.

But I’m learning ways to avoid those jerky kinds of suckers. Which is pretty dang good if I say so myself.

I’ve been thinking how cool it would be if they had a special school you could go to that would teach you the best forms of sucker defense. Oh I do have my own method you understand. Basically if I get somebody who tries to make a sucker out of me to often I just solve that problem with my bat. A few whacks normally gets people’s attention, not to mention it often leaves them with a broken bone or two unless they are unconscious in which case they might not notice.

But outside of that idea I think I’ve learned that you just got to be sure you pay attention all the time. See there once was this one dude who understood all about suckering better than anybody else. At least that is the way I hear it.

His name was P. T. Fartsome. And he said, “There is a sucker worn every moment.” Or something along those lines.

Anyway from what I understand this P. T. Fartsome had his own circus called Dingling Brothers. I guess he had some pals who used bells and rang them a lot. It was probably to distract people so they didn’t notice when he was busy doing whatever caused suckers to be worn.

Guess he got pretty famous for this circus thing. And imagine it was a little bigger than one of those flea circuses.

But the important thing was that he managed despite all that farting he must have done to figure a good way to do plenty of suckering and then making sure he someone had a moment or two to wear something that told people he knew all about suckers.

I wonder if he had to have any special kind of outfit to use to make people know he was wearing something that told others how he was good at suckering? Gee I have no idea what that would be, but I bet it was pretty cool.

Now I guess I won’t get a chance to see this P. T. Fartsome dude because my buddy Otis says he has gone on to his great reward. I bet that is somewhere he had something on lay away and finally got it paid off.

But if by chance you happen to end up in the store and see a dude wearing a coat covered in suckers who farts a lot, just say hi for me.

KEEP THE CHANGE

This is a big deal with Otis. He’ll pay somebody for something and then loves to say “keep the change.” Only he never does that with me. I guess because he never actually pays me for stuff. Well not in money.

I have wondered about this thing with him. It does seem kind of weird if you ask me. I mean it is sort of like he’s saying that change isn’t important so it is better just to give it to somebody else.

Believe me I have tried to get Otis to explain this thing to me, but whenever he tries he goes into this real long speech about giving and tipping and the meaning of life. Basically it seems to be about everything, except how come those people are the only ones he feels deserve to keep change.

I do wonder, you know if perhaps they are all part of some secret change society and they just spend time hanging around and giving each other change for some weird reason. If so I know that Otis never has let me join. Which I guess considering it is a secret, if you call that it, then he probably wouldn’t.

Now I do got to admit that I don’t use change that much. I use for stuff like vending machines, but then I met this dude who had a neat way of getting stuff out of vending machines without having to use coins. He said that the vending machine companies were basically the type that likes to be generous to smart people. So if you were smart enough to figure a way to get stuff out of the machine without paying for it then they don’t mind rewarding you for your brains.

It was sure fun that time he took me over to that one place with vending machines and treated me to a bunch of goodies. We had a real cool snack.

But unfortunately for me even though I watched him, I haven’t got the machine to cooperate and give me any free stuff. That really disappoints me too since I haven’t been able to do anymore visits to the vending machines with him.

I went by his apartment the other day, but his neighbor said he was spending time as a guest of the state. She said he was going to be a guest for three to five. Although she didn’t say if that was in the morning or the afternoon though.

In the meantime I’m doing my best to sort of keep this whole change thing in what is called perspective. That is where you try to make sense of it all.

And to that end I plan on seeing if I can visit Mayor Rash Limburger. I saw this billboard with his picture on it and it had him saying about some deal he was working on how it was “time for a change.” He didn’t indicated though if that meant nickels, dimes or quarters. Well when I see him I’m sure I can ask him. Heck if he’s loaded with change maybe he can even treat to something out of a vending machine. Won’t hurt to ask I reckon.

YOU WANT IT WHEN?

Man I don’t know about you, but I hate waiting. And I swear there are some people like those who provide some kind of customer service that seem to make it their duty to make you wait as long as possible for anything.

Is there some secret society of devote waiting meanies who live to make your life miserable with this waiting thing? It sure seems like it.

Yeah, I bet the dudes that work for the cable company and probably those who repair cars as well as whole lot of other type of folks have some place they meet to plot how to mess up your life. Boy if I ever find out where they meet you can be sure I’ll pay them a visit and see that they get thanked properly for being such jerks.

However seeing how it is a secret I’m sure they wouldn’t admit to such meetings. Still I can picture it now. They sit around some table drinking the hard stuff like Root Beer and laughing their asses off talking about how lame they are at treating the rest of us.

Why I wouldn’t doubt that somewhere they have a school you can go to in order to learn how to be a complete jerk. Oh I know plenty of people who can manage it without lessons, but imagine how much better they do it with some teaching and practice.

I’d give anything, well almost anything, to figure away to discourage these dudes from being so nasty. I imagine you could get through to them in one way or another.

Course the fun idea might be to say sick them on somebody else. You know like tell them were there are some people who are happy and used to being treated like people and not morons.

I bet they couldn’t resist the chance to go there and mess their lives up. That is one thing I know about such evil jerks, they really get jazzed finding new people do make miserable.

And if you are really lucky you manage to do something cool and give a little grief to somebody who deserves it. Say like have the cable people go to some other town and make the mechanics there miserable. Now that would be so great.

I guess I’ll have to work on figuring if there is a way to get that idea to work. It will take a while. After all these jerks they love to make you wait forever don’t have much motivation to improve.

But if I don’t figure out a good cure, I suppose I can wait with the garbage truck I use until the decide to walk across a street. I wonder if they would consider being run over by a garbage truck several times to be a good lesson. Guess they wouldn’t do it again. Well at least until their legs got better from being broken. It is worth considering I suppose. Now all I have to do is get my buddy Otis to lend me the keys to the garbage truck. I wonder if he’ll buy it is to go shopping?

WHO'S IN CHARGE ANYWAY?

Boy is this a question that really needs to be asked a lot and in a lot of situations. You ever try to get an answer to that question in some place like say over at city hall. Oh you can talk to lots of people who will you know tell you stuff as their opinion, but getting any of them to say they make the rules, forget it.

They are really good at telling you how you have to follow the rules, just not always are they willing to say who it is that makes them up. And that is really frustrating at times.

Some of the rules really bug me too. Take for example in that one department called customer service. Now I’m a customer because I help with Otis to pay the utility bill. So I reckon that makes me a customer entitled to service.

Only those creeps don’t give me the kind of service that I want. All they want to do is help me with stuffed related to utility. But what if as a customer I need some other kind of service? Like say oh a way to you know get to park in front of city hall for fee. I’m sure they got to have a few tokens behind the counter to stuff in the darn parking meters.

But are they willing to share! Heck no! And that sucks from my point of view. Believe me I tried to ask them to help me with that problem and I won’t repeat what they told me.

What griped me too was that I had to wait to even ask a question. There I was standing there and they had a sign that said pick a number. So I picked seventeen. That’s because I like the number seventeen. No special reason, I just do.

Anyway there I was and this darn lady standing behind the counter kept yelling out numbers. But she never called seventeen. So after a few minutes I went up and asked her what the deal was about not calling seventeen.

Well she looked at me like I was some kind of idiot. Boy did that gripe me. Then she had the nerve to say that wasn’t among the numbers they were currently calling. She pointing to this digital sign on the wall that showed they were now serving number sixty-two.

Boy did that gripe me. I mean it really pissed me off that she thought sixty-two was a more fun number than seventeen. And nowhere in that place did it say I had to pick THERE choice of numbers. All it said was pick a number. Only that isn’t what they meant the jerks.

I tell you I tried arguing with that lady on that one, but it didn’t do any good. Course I did make sure she didn’t forget me when I took that ticket machine with the numbers and opened it up and wrote seventeen on all the numbers. She still never called the number seventeen, but at least she won’t forget it either!