December 2005
Found a couple of specks of some black substance in my sugar bowl this morning. Fished them out and flushed them down the drain. Got me thinking as to how many specks it would take before someone would say the hell with fishing them out and dump the whole bowl. Maybe only three or four for picky people while others might tolerate any amount and not even bother (I can think of one of the latter, who by the way wasn't at the Orlando reunion). Fortunately the Federal Government has awarded the Psych Department at Tomaine University $37,000,000 to study the matter. Maybe this research will compliment the Pentagon study on camouflaging sugar that General Shinseki ordered when he was Army Chief of Staff. He's the guy who gave berets to everyone in the entire frigging Army. Same guy who said drill instructors couldn't yell at trainees because it might traumatize them! My hero.
I guess anyone's tolerance for something depends on his or her mood at the moment. Let's say you've spent the last two weeks painting your living room and you suddenly notice a fly on the wall. Maybe you're in a bad mood and react angrily, rolling up a newspaper and swatting the fly. This leaves a nice mess of blood, guts, and newsprint on that freshly painted wall and now you're really pissed! On the other hand, you might be in a reasonably good mood, give the matter a little thought and react calmly and coolly, taking the vacuum cleaner hose and sucking up the fly. Very neat solution! Or maybe you'd react like the guy I didn't name earlier, and drink a bottle of red wine while sitting on the sofa and watching the fly. Since watching a fly on the wall is about as entertaining as today's television programs, he'd soon fall asleep and start snoring with his mouth open. This would attract the fly and when it tickled one of the guy's tonsils, he'd wake up and swallow the fly in a reflex action. Realizing what he'd done would result in the living room carpet being decorated with the previously ingested red wine. What the hell - room's been painted and needed new carpet anyway. And guess what - the fly probably survived!
Talk about being angry - went shopping for Christmas cards the other day and spent three hours trying to find a card that had "Merry Christmas" on it. Took two hours last year so things are only getting worse. Season's Greetings and Happy Holidays just don't get it with me. So bad that local Lowe's store had a sign up for "Holiday Trees." Made someone irate enough to vociferously complain and the store did change the signs to now say "Christmas Trees." Same crap in Washington, D.C., where the Architect of the Capitol called it the "Capitol Holiday Tree." Stores are doing the same thing. You'll see "Holiday" sales rather than Christmas specials. Surprised a few of them still have Santa Clauses - I suppose he's now a "holiday" person or the "seasonal" fat man rather than someone associated with Christmas. And I bet you now have to ask for "holiday" stockings to hang from the mantel. Interesting how people send junk Emails that guarantee you prosperity if you forward the Email to ten other people but I have yet to see even one that asks you to boycott stores that don't acknowledge Christmas. You'd be surprised at how quickly a drop in sales will affect corporate policy. Seems the "silent majority" is living up to its name. Just sitting around with its collective mouths open and swallowing flies. Time to take action and have all those anti-Christmas people serve as repositories for discarded CHISTMAS trees, assuming of course that their heads aren't in the way.......
September 2005
Many, many moons ago, back in the 50's, many a Saturday morning were spent watching westerns on an old black-and-white TV. Quite often the bad guys - cattle rustlers, horse thieves, bank robbers - were tracked down by posses and brought back into town to meet justice at the end of a rope. Good entertainment with a message!
In the 50's, a dime would buy a Good Humor or a comic book. Also a Coke that really tasted like Coke and came in a thick glass bottle that could withstand a fusillade of BB's, escaping with only minor nicks. Age was viewed with a child's perspective - upon learning that your babysitter was someone in her 20's you'd moan and say "Mom, not that old lady again!" The $25 Savings Bond that you might receive on your birthday was beautifully engraved and you knew for certain that you could cash it in and get your money because it was issued by the United States Government! Going to the local saving's bank with maybe a few singles and a roll of pennies (sorted through to remove the old ones) was pleasurable with the anticipation of having a few cents in interest printed in that little passbook you carried. A peek behind the teller's counter allowed one to see that massive, shiny steel vault with doors three-feet thick. Unlike safes which were blown open with one stick of dynamite in the westerns, you knew that all the dynamite in the world would never open this vault. You just knew your money was secure in there, just as secure as if it had been in Fort Knox!
As the end of the decade approached, I was fortunate to be offered a job which would add considerably to my meager saving's account. The job entailed running the golf shop at a nearby summer resort hotel for the grand sum of $3 per day. Plus tips and whatever I could get for shining shoes and cleaning golf clubs. However, there was a catch! Being a corporate entity and having to comply with all applicable regulations, the hotel insisted that I secure a Social Security card. Don't even remember where I got the damn thing and really had no idea what is was. What the hell was "social security"? My grandparents tried to clue me in, saying that a small (and it was very small in those days) amount would be deducted from my pay and put into an account that would start paying me monthly when I reached the age of 65. I could grasp the first part but sure had no concept of being a 65-year old fossil. But I had no doubt that the money would be there - after all it was the Federal Government which was just as secure as that bank vault or Fort Knox. Not a worry in the world!
Well, guess what? That bank vault has been robbed, robbed of every cent that you and I and everyone else put in it over the years. Robbed of $1,700,000,000,000. That's more dollars than there are stars in the entire Universe!! Damn near as many as there are grains of sand on a beach! And it wasn't the Dalton gang that robbed the vault nor was it the James gang. It was that gang of 535 members of Congress. The ones that don't want us to have individual accounts that they can't touch. No, once a robber, always a robber.
Thieves! Thieves! Thieves! Where, oh where, is the posse? And the rope?