Happy Halloween... or Football Game!

Happy Halloween! Well, for most people it’s Halloween… our community had Trick or Treat last night, because you simply don’t mess with high school football in this area. If October 31 falls on a Friday, they will move Trick or Treat night so that every ounce of attention can be focused on football. It’s lucky that Christmas doesn’t fall during the month of October, or it would also occasionally get bumped into a more convenient time slot.

To give you an idea of how big the sport is in this area, the coach of our town’s high school was the inspiration for a Tom Cruise movie about high school football in the early 80s. Don Yanessa, inspiration for the movie “All The Right Moves,” retired from his coaching position at Ambridge High School this week, so I would assume that this will spawn a new annual holiday/parade/statue/church in his honor.

Anyway, Trick or Treat is awesome. It’s a great opportunity for us to send our child out to collect tons and tons of candy for us to eat. As responsible parents, it’s our job to forbid her from eating sweets, so as a precaution we simply eat them ourselves. I am sitting by a mound of empty M&M wrappers, and I’m very grateful to the people in the neighborhood who give out the full-size Hershey bars. Many thanks, guys!

AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!

My apologies for the title of this post. We have come to that point in the political campaign where things have gotten so nasty that I can't take it any longer, and I am going berserk and I feel the need to type in all-caps.

I made the mistake of watching TV last night. During breaks, every single commercial was a political ad. Not only are they all political ads, but they have apparently reached the point where the candidates can no longer think of a single good thing to say about themselves, so they go nuts with the negative stuff against their opponents. And they whip out the slimiest, most derisive ads this week before the election.

It's hard to imagine how the candidates even have time to campaign for the election, what with all of the time they must be spending approving messages.

The commercials all follow the same formula. They start with foreboding music, and slow-motion, non-flattering, pixelated footage of the competing candidate against a dark background. The announcer, who apparently went to Bob's Discount Broadcast School of Sarcastic Annunciation, begins running through the laundry list of atrocities committed by the opponent.

They'll claim that the opponent is guilty of raising taxes, beating the elderly, kicking small, furry animals, having a bad hair piece, or having an annoying, screechy voice with an Alaskan accent. In the last five seconds of the ad, they'll play hopeful-sounding music with a shot of their candidate doing something vaguely related to being a leader, like signing a paper at a desk in the presence of a U.S. flag. Then the next political ad will begin.

While I'm whining, I should also point out to candidates that if you would like to guarantee that I'll cast my vote for your opponent, all you have to do is call my cell phone with a recorded message. That's right! I have had several calls from one local candidate who felt that I could have no better way of spending my cell phone minutes than to listen to a recording of his monotone voice.

Getting back to TV... I'm actually looking forward to next week, when we get back to regular ads that remind us to apply Head-On directly to our foreheads, and what to do if we experience an erection that lasts for more than four hours.

No Pooping in the Yard!

We sat down last night to watch the late news, and a familiar face appeared as the TV anchorperson was reading through the top stories. There was an old boss of mine, being led away in handcuffs! I’m not identifying him in this blog entry; I’m not writing this to drag his name through the mud any further than he has already dragged it himself. Let’s just say that since the time I worked for him at a radio station 15 years ago, his life has apparently taken him in some new, different directions.

I thought I’d bring this up because he authored the single-most hilarious office memo I have ever received, and I thought this would be a fine opportunity to share it. In the early 90s I worked as a DJ at a radio station in Wheeling, WV. Being West Virginia, it was apparently necessary to write a memo to remind employees that it is not good to poop in the radio station’s yard.

Without further adieu, or doo-doo, I present the infamous “Poop Note of ‘92.” In order to keep things as obscenity-free as possible, and to help keep the author’s name anonymous, I have blackened-out certain parts of the document. For most of the blackened-out parts, you can simply substitute the word “poop,” and it will read just fine. Obviously, he chose to use a more colorful form of the word, so if you’re reading it out loud to your friends, you can substitute whichever word you deem most appropriate.

You’ll want to click on the image of the memo to see the full-sized, readable version. Enjoy!

Obama-Rama

Little Smoot and I attended the Barack Obama rally in Pittsburgh last night. I had told her that if she wanted me to take her to see John McCain last week, she was going to have to go to an Obama event the next time he was in town. Gotta keep the kid balanced, you know.

The event was held at Mellon Arena, which was nice because we could actually sit down in an actual seat to watch it, and Little Smoot wouldn’t have to stand on her 10-year-old tip toes in hopes of seeing things.

Now that she and I have been to both a McCain rally and an Obama rally (actually, I’ve seen them each three times now), I thought I’d put together a helpful voting guide based on the knowledge I’ve gained by attending these events:


So there you have it! Hope this helps with your decision next week.

Beware: Mountain Oysters

I thought it would be a good public service effort on my part to alert people about Mountain Oysters. Then again, apparently I’m one of the very few people in the world that don’t know what these are.

This summer we were driving through Texas, and Mrs. Smoot suggested that we ought to find a good steakhouse where we could have dinner as we spent a night in Amarillo. We ordered an appetizer platter, which included an abundant supply of Mountain Oysters. Being a bit naïve, I thought were indeed oysters, based on the name. Silly me.

Well, Mrs. Smoot decided to inform me (three weeks after the fact) that these were not oysters at all. No, Mountain Oysters are actually bull testicles, breaded and deep fried. I can’t help but think that maybe I wouldn’t have ordered them had I known this at the time.


We enjoyed this meal at the Big Texan steakhouse, which is actually very famous. We’ve seen it featured on the Travel Channel a few times since we’ve been home. They’re actually much better known for their monstrous 72-ounce steak. If you can eat it within an hour, it’s free; otherwise it’s $72.

I failed to pay too much attention to the description of Mountain Oysters on the menu. In fine print it said, “If you think it’s seafood, go with the shrimp.” That makes sense now…!

I have to admit that back when I thought they were oysters, they were delicious! We ate many, many of them, and you can see in the picture that Little Smoot also loved them. Someday that picture will make for wonderful blackmail material.

Mmmm. Salad.

Since it’s Friday, I’m thinking about having a big honkin’ salad for lunch. There’s nothing like a great big salad to polish off the week. Sounds healthy enough, doesn’t it?

Of course my definition of a salad is “anything that involves layers of food, at least one of which is a vegetable. But not necessarily.”

So when I tell Mrs. Smoot that I had a “salad” for lunch, she will roll her eyes, knowing that my salad consisted of a base layer of nacho chips (fulfilling my daily requirement of grains), followed by a layer of melted cheese (from the dairy group), onions (there’s a vegetable!), crumbled ground beef (meat group), shredded cheddar cheese (more dairy!) and tomatoes (which can pass as either a vegetable or fruit!).

Sometimes I’ll supplement all of this with some sour cream (to fulfill my daily requirement of sour cream), and a Diet Vanilla Pepsi (to fulfill my daily quota of bubbles).

There you have it. At least four food groups all wrapped up into one delicious salad. At night I often enjoy one final salad, consisting of ice cream with Hershey’s syrup on it. I really do enjoy my salads.

Spooky.

You can only imagine how exhausted I am now that I have finally finished my annual Halloween decorating. I got our light-up plastic pumpkin out of the garage, carried it to the front of the house, and plugged it in. Phew -- I'm whooped!

Ok, I'm not all that tired. I've pretty much given up on any attempt at keeping up with our neighbors when it comes to Halloween. Some of the people in our neighborhood go absolutely nuts when it comes to this holiday -- many of them go more overboard for Halloween than they do for Christmas.

We have had people on our street who have rented Hearses to finish off their displays. Seriously. I used to try to keep up a little bit by using a smoke machine during trick-or-treat night, but it seems a little amateurish compared to people on our road who have apparently hired Steven Spielberg and Disney to coordinates their efforts.

If I get ambitious, I may go out and buy a new bulb for our pumpkin since it has burned out. If I get super ambitious, I might put the fake cobwebs on our bushes like I usually do. Little Smoot actually still believes that a giant spider comes along and does that at this time of the year.

Little Smoot's Endorsement

So Little Smoot decided she wanted to go to the John McCain rally last night. I really didn’t plan on going, but she said, “Why wouldn’t we go?” I figure it’s a good civics lesson to take her to this sort of thing, even though I’m not a McCain supporter. And it’s a rare opportunity for her to see such an event.

I took her to see Bill Clinton speak at a rally for Hillary this spring, and he even held her hand at the end of the speech! Granted, at age 10, she didn’t realize just how famous Clinton was until I showed her an episode of The Simpsons that featured the former president.

Anyway, we headed to Robert Morris University as soon as she got out of school.

Keep in mind that she is in 5th grade, and I don’t even know what her fixation is with McCain. We have quizzed her in an attempt to figure out why she prefers him over Obama, but she hasn’t exactly given decisive answers (perhaps this could be an indication she has a future in politics herself). Hopefully it’s not merely because he has a hot wife; that would be one of the few reasons for me to consider supporting his candidacy. In any case, Little Smoot has officially given her endorsement to the GOP ticket, in case that helps you decide for whom to cast your own vote.

She had a wonderful time collecting Republican propaganda while we were there. She was excited to get a new McCain/Palin sign, and red, white and blue pom-pons to shake in an obnoxious fashion all evening.

She also took great pleasure in announcing to everyone within earshot that her father was voting for Barack Obama. That went over tremendously well with everyone, as you can imagine. Thank you, sweetheart! Next time we’re at the zoo, maybe you can tie some meat to me and throw me into the lion’s den, too!

Thankfully, we both made it out of there alive, and she even had a chance to shake John McCain’s hand after his speech. Just another reason for her to go without washing her hands for a few weeks…

Innermost Thoughts and Feelings

I view my blog as a place where I can sit and reflect upon my innermost thoughts and feelings, give them careful consideration, and then share them with whoever may stumble upon them in this wonderful thing we call Cyberspace. That's why today I want to talk about these weird eyebrow hairs that have been bothering me.

I am having weird issues with two of my eyebrows, which represent 100% of the eyebrows attached to my personal head.

On one side, I have this bizarre single eyebrow hair (I call him Harold) that seems to be extraordinarily thick for an eyebrow hair. If I brush over it with my fingers, it feels as though it's about the same thickness as one of my legs. But the weird thing is that I can rarely spot it in the mirror. When I can identify it, I'll use the tweezers and yank the sucker out of my head, which is not one of the more pleasant routines of my typical day. And it just grows back anyway.

On the other side of my face I have developed some sort of weird eyebrow hair that feels as though it has grown out a bit, and then for whatever reason decided to burrow back into my head. It's a very strange sensation. This one is also generally invisible to me in the mirror, so it just goes on and on, feeling a little weird.

Of course I'd be remiss in this discussion if I didn't bring up my occasional protruding nose hairs. I turned 40 this year, but you'd swear I was one of these old guys in his 90s with hairs awkwardly sticking out of every body part. I had a nose hair the other day that was so long that you'd normally only associate such a thing with Cher.

I'm certainly hoping this trend doesn't continue, because I am beginning to fear that by age 50 I'm going to be mistaken for a Sasquatch. When I start getting the dreaded old man ear hairs, I'm definitely doing to be concerned.

Merry Christmas!

I must say I was a little surprised to turn on my radio this weekend and hear Christmas music oozing out of my speakers. It's not that I don't like Christmas music, it's just that, according to my calendar it was only October 18. My memory could be failing me, but I'd swear Christmas didn't occur until sometime in late December.

But sure enough, there it was: Jingle Bell Rock on 3WS radio in Pittsburgh. On October 18. Given the date, I can't be sure whether 3WS is playing Christmas music absurdly early this year, or perhaps they're still playing it in celebration of last Christmas.

I guess I should dress up as Santa Claus for Halloween...?

The Daily Dorko Spazo

I kind of miss junior high school, because I no longer get to vote on the Daily Dorko Spazo Awards.

Yes, we had some weird traditions when I was in school. During 7th grade, a bunch of us would cast votes every day for the person we thought was most deserving of the DDS Award. We would chose the recipient based on whether the person was acting weird on this particular day, or if they had done something stupid, or if they were actually campaigning to earn the award. I believe we even had a special Dorko Spazo Button the winner could wear on his shirt.

The best thing about the award was the fact that even though I definitely met the criteria of being dorky, I would never win the award. I would have been embarrassed about it and it would have chipped away at whatever little self-esteem I had back then. But the award always went to Mark Stephens. Every day. He seemed to be pretty proud of earning it, so we would always oblige.

Another tradition I miss was the annual Jello-on-the-Cafeteria-Wall Experiment. The first time of the school year that we would be served Jello, we’d flick fragments of it on the wall to see how long it would stay there before the walls were cleaned. Let’s just say that some of those fragments are most likely still there today.

Freeze Frame!

Political season is heating up, and the attack ads are getting more and more amusing. I always get a kick out of looking at ads where candidates include photographs of their opponents, because they always choose the most horrendously unflattering pictures they can possibly find.

Some of the print ads I have received in the mail make me laugh out loud ("LOL" for you hip people). Opponents in these ads always look as though they have just committed some sort of unnatural acts involving livestock, or some such thing.

With this in mind, I got to thinking about how much fun it would be to make a living as a person who takes unflattering shots like these. I'm a photographer, and people normally expect me to take nice photos, so it would be refreshing and fun for me to take pictures that are intentionally terrible.

Heck, I have taken hundreds and hundreds of photos of political candidates, and if you take enough shots of anyone, you'll undoubtedly come up with a bunch where they look completely dorky.

I thought I'd illustrate that with some of my personal favorite shots that I have taken (like one of John McCain, demonstrating what he may look like as a corpse, and one of Hillary Clinton that looks as though she is checking out someone's "economic package," if you catch my drift). I shot most of these during the current campaign season. Enjoy!

Best. Invention. Ever.

I challenge you to come up with an invention over the past millennium that is better than NyQuil. Sure, the Internet was a pretty good one, God bless Al Gore. But even the Internet doesn’t make me feel as absolutely wonderful and as carefree as NyQuil does.

I’ve been teetering on the brink of catching my annual Fall Illness these past few days. Every autumn, as soon as the temperature outside begins to fluctuate by a few degrees, my body decides that it’s time to catch a cold. And I’ve been getting a hint of a scratchy sensation in my throat along with a slightly stuffy nose this week.

These past several years I’ve kinda been looking forward to this occasion, because it gives me the opportunity to ingest NyQuil on a daily basis without feeling like I’m doing it purely for the entertainment value it brings.

I am not an illicit drug user -- heck, I’ve never even smoked a cigarette before -- so I’m pretty naïve about the whole thing. But I must say I quite enjoy the sensation I get after a good swig of NyQuil (or “NQ” as we say on the street).

For one thing, it puts me right to sleep. I take a swig of it, I’ll feel a bit loopy for a short while and I'll spend some time jumping up and down going "WHEEEEEEE!", and then BAM! Out like a light. And once I’m asleep I tend to have some of the weirdest and most vivid dreams. Last night, for example, I was being chased by alligators at a tennis court. That never happens under the influence of, say, cheese.

I will admit that the morning after is always a bit rough, though. When the alarm goes off, I never have any idea where the heck I am, even though I’m in my own bed (unless of course I really was eaten by alligators, and in that case, who knows where I’d end up).

Well, I took a dose of it a few minutes ago, so needless to say, pretty soon I’ll be asdzxxkjcfgzkxjdgfadsalkkkkkkkkk

Remotely Interesting

I am here to ask a question that has been bugging me for several nanoseconds now. When setting the table for dinner, exactly where should the TV remote controls be situated, according to proper etiquette?

I have searched the web and have found nothing useful about this common table setting. It’s ironic that there is a plethora of information out there about how to set up the various spoons, knives, forks, plates and as many as three different glasses, but not a darned thing about where to put the remotes.

Think about it… which do you do more often? At dinner, do you really normally drink from three different glasses at the same time? Or is it more common to be using your TV remote control? For us, it’s a simple answer: one drink, two TV remotes.

We have one remote for the television itself, and another one to operate the DirecTV satellite stuff. So we have to figure out where both of these things rightfully belong so we won’t offend Emily Post if she shows up for tacos some night. Hopefully one of my wonderful readers will post a suggestion; otherwise, I’ll simply stick with the configuration in the photo.

49 Down, 1 To Go

Dozens and dozens of letters have been pouring into Hank Smoot Central, with people asking the burning question: “Why haven’t you blogged about your life goal yet?”

Well, most people who read my blog (if there are, in fact, people who read this) already know that my life goal is to pee in every state. I’m happy to say that I have successfully peed in 49 states so far, with Hawaii being the only state I have not yet moistened.

Some people have asked me whether this goal requires me to pee outdoors, or if a regular toilet will be fine. Well, ideally, it would be best to pee outdoors because I can be sure that the pee will remain in whatever state I’m in, whereas if I use a toilet, the sewage system could potentially transport it into another state as though I had never been there at all. Nevertheless, I have allowed myself to use regular toilets for most of these visits.

There have been times that this goal has taken me well out of my intended route. For example, I drove a couple hundred miles out of the way so I could pee in Nebraska a few years ago. Actually, peeing is the only thing I did during my visit to Nebraska in 2003. I crossed the state line, found an appropriate location, did my thing and continued on my way (the actual Nebraska toilet from that visit is pictured above).

This summer we took a driving trip out West. While visiting Las Vegas, I took a little side trip into California with Little Smoot so that she could say she has been to that state. We stopped for lunch at a McDonald’s, literally a few feet across the state line, and she wanted to use the bathroom. She got to the back of the store and found that it was closed for cleaning.

Concerned, I asked her, “How bad do you have to go?” And she replied, “I don’t have to go at all. I just wanted to ‘claim California!’” That’s my girl!

Yet Another Sign I'm Aging...

I’ve been making a conscious effort to listen to current Top 40 music nowadays. Little Smoot is getting a teeny bit interested in current music, so I am trying to stay on top of it to some extent.

Thankfully this has been very easy, because it turns out there are only three current songs. At least that’s the clear impression I’ve gotten by listening to our local Top 40 station in Pittsburgh, B94.

Every 15 minutes they play “So What” by Pink. It’s a song that features compelling lyrics about how Jessica Simpson took her table, but she’s still a rock star, and would like to start a fight. “Na na na na na na na, Na na na na na na... We're gonna start a fight!” This song keeps me awake at night.

There’s also “Dangerous” by Kardinal Offishall. Little Smoot seems to have made up her own lyrics for this song, thinking he’s singing “She’s a faaaaat girl!”

And there’s a very weird song called “Paper Planes” by M.I.A. I don’t get this song at all. For some bizarre reason it features sound effects of gunshots and cash registers, and indecipherable lyrics. Frankly, it makes me scared.

That’s it – just three songs! I guarantee if you dial up your local CHR station, these three songs will most likely be playing back to back. Once in a while, they’ll toss in "Low" by Flo-Rida just to create the illusion that there are four songs in their music library.

Of course I have little room to criticize this kind of thing, considering I once worked at a radio station where we played “Achy Breaky Heart” every 10 minutes or so.

A Changing of the Guard

I have finally changed my underwear. I mean, I’ve changed them in the sense of changing styles; I do change into clean individual pairs of underwear on at least a weekly basis.

I actually made this monumental switch about a month ago, but I thought it would be foolish and premature to make an official public announcement on the subject earlier, just in case I didn’t like them and I’d have to resort to sheepishly returning to the old style. But so far I’m liking the new ones.

This is a pretty big lifestyle change, I think. Mrs. Smoot will probably attribute my decision to an impending (or in-progress) mid-life crisis.

The last time I switched styles of underwear was back when I switched from using diapers, to “big boy” underpants. Specifically, I’ve always favored the “briefs” style of underwear. These used to always be white, but in recent years they have bloomed into various colors.

Frankly, I thought it was a big, scary change going from white to colored briefs, but now I have made the switch to “boxer briefs,” which are not only colored, but they’re a whole different shape.

Assuming all goes well, the next time I make an epic change like this will probably be when I revert back to diapers again, which I’m hoping won’t be too soon.

Ooooh! A Happy Pinch!

I had posted a note the other day about Little Smoot's recent dentist appointment. This brought to mind another story from one of her past visits there.

She had gotten a cavity back around when she was 6, and we went into the office to get it filled. As we entered, I was explaining to her that she was going to get a shot of novacaine, and it would sting a bit.

As soon as I said, "They're going to give you a shot..." the two dental hygienist ladies abruptly stopped what they were doing, looked at me and literally gasped in unison. They gave me approximately the same look of stunned astonishment you'd give someone if they lit up a joint in church.

Apparently they thought it was inconceivable that someone would tell their kid she was going to get a shot, merely because she was about to get a shot. Once one of the women was able to regain her composure enough that she could speak, she sternly said to me, "We don't call them shots. We call them Happy Pinches!"

Ah. Yes, of course. That'll make it feel soooo much better for her! I assume a Happy Pinch must involve singing and dancing and clowns and balloons and a whimsical numbing sensation of the mouth, whereas a shot would involve, at minimum, instant death.

Well, for the record, Little Smoot has never freaked out about getting shots -- er... Happy Pinches -- of any kind. In fact, she got one at her annual doctor visit just last night, and she seemed to be amused by watching them stick the needle in her arm. We're not the type of parents who are going to use semantics to disguise something unpleasant. It's a shot. It'll sting. She can handle that just fine, thank you.

On the other hand, since I turned 40 this year, I'm quite concerned about my next doctor visit. I'm afraid he's going to tell me I'm due for a visit from the Happy Colon Snake.

Night of the Living Dead Dogs

Far be it from me to make fun of the dead... but here goes. I couldn't help but get a kick out of this obituary in today's edition of the Beaver County Times. Apparently I have reached the age where I start to read obituaries with great concern.

I found it rather curious that the dearly departed was "survived" by his deceased dog. I can only assume that this means his dog has somehow managed to come back to life, presumably to hang out with its pal Bailey.

And if these assumptions are true, I would imagine that it is entirely possible that Ken could also come back to life at any moment, thereby surviving his own death? I'm getting confused just thinking about all of the possibilities.

Little Hannibal

Well, Little Smoot had her most recent dental appointment the other day, and it went a little better than normal, considering that during her last couple visits she managed to barf all over the dentist’s office. For regular visits, the kids go to a part of the office called the “Rainbow Room,” and Little Smoot definitely created a lovely rainbow for them during those past visits.

In an attempt to make the visit as obnoxious and as uncomfortable as possible, the dental hygienist ladies give the kids fluoride treatments. Back in my day, they used to just give us these little pink pills at school, and that seemed to adequately take care of our fluoride needs. But now, in order to administer this stuff, they fit the kids with these nasty mouth guard things, which are covered in some sort of horrible goo, and the kids have to hold this in their mouths for several minutes.

The result is that my child winds up looking like a 10-year-old version of Hannibal Lecter, unable to speak for several minutes with this terrible thing jammed into her mouth. And it triggers her gag reflex, which means that after a few disturbing grunting noises, she’ll dramatically demonstrate to the hygienist ladies that she really isn’t enjoying herself.

The last time she barfed at the dentist, the woman looked at me as if I should be upset at her for throwing up. Frankly, I was kinda wishing she had eaten an even larger lunch just to make a stronger point.

This time, I saw the lady starting to prepare the Hannibal Lecter thing, and I put a stop to it for the sake of Little Smoot’s happiness and for the sake of the sanitary condition of the office. So we had a much more uneventful visit this time.

In a New League

Little Smoot has been playing in a fall softball league. It has been a little scarier this year because she wound up on a 12-and-under team. Apparently somewhere between the age of 10 and 12, girls seem to make the transition from little girls who like playing with stuffed animals, to fully-grown women with fully-grown bodily features and the ability to pitch a ball at 300 mph.

Little Smoot is still in the play-with-stuffed-animals phase, so this league is a bit daunting for us. She has been holding her own, though, (she had a nice hit last night!) unlike when I was her age. I used to routinely allow balls to bonk off my head while I stood in the outfield, admiring the view.

Anyway, another thing I have noticed is that as we move through the various age tiers of softball, the cheers the girls sing tend to get more and more brutal. When she was on her first team a few years ago, the cheers seemed to be very positive and enthusiastic, with happy cheering for every single play, even if someone got bonked on the head. Not anymore.

There’s one cheer that has a line that goes something like “She stole a base! She stole a base! She’s safe! Safe! Safe! Neener neener neener! Oscar Meyer wiener!”

I often wonder where these cheers come from. Someone had to write them and then somehow get them injected into the softball vernacular. I’d like to write some new cheers, perhaps vicious enough for use in Little Smoot’s next level of play.

Something like: “She’s on third base! She’s on third base! We should smash her ugly face!” Or “She’s out! She’s out! She smells like week-old trout!” Or we could revert to some form of the very clever and original cheers we concocted during my days in high school band: “Retaliate! Retaliate! Hit them in the head with a brick!”

For the record, I had come up with some more very, very funny cheers, but they managed to accomplish the seemingly impossible. They were actually too inappropriate, even by my standards, to post here.

I Approve This Message

Election season is here. Hooray and/or yee haw.

I can tell that things are heating up because I’m getting more and more junk mail on the subject. Just today alone, we got three pieces of colorful campaign-oriented crap that went straight into the circular file.

I would like to propose an idea that would go a long way toward helping me choose my candidates, as well as being more environmentally sound. I am calling on all of those who are running for office to simply send me an envelope (or a box, if you prefer) full of money. On Election Day, I’ll count up what cash came from what candidates, and I’ll cast my votes accordingly.

This way, instead of putting all of that thought and money into all of these fancy 4-color brochures that I’m not going to read anyway, I’ll get something I can actually use, and you’ll gain my respect and possibly my vote. This would also help cut down on the amount of stuff I’m throwing into the landfills. In fact, if you’d prefer, we could set up some sort of direct deposit system so I wouldn’t even have to throw an envelope or box away.

It would also be swell if you could send me my share of the money you would have spent in vain attempts to sway my opinion via annoying television and radio commercials.

I’m Hank W. Smoot. And I approve this message.

Adventures at Crappy Mart

Mrs. Smoot has sent me on another mission to the grocery store knowing full well that in 17 years of marriage, I have never once returned home with the correct product she asked me to buy. In reality, it would probably be much more efficient and quicker for her to order whatever she needs directly from a Chinese manufacturer and wait for it to be sent here via barge instead of sending me to the store.

I headed down to our local Crappy But Convenient Mart to make a simple purchase of some sort of banana filling, which involved circumnavigating the store umpteen times before I got to the right section, and another 15 minutes of staring at boxes of varying sizes and flavors. I never did find one that just plainly said “banana,” so as per usual I just picked the closest thing I could find, which was undoubtedly the wrong thing.

The checkout line was just about as much fun as eyeball surgery. I chose the “10 items or less” line, which meant that I was just going to stand there and be annoyed with people who figure that “17” is pretty close to 10 in the sense of being a number and everything.

It was almost my turn in line when we hit the usual snag with the woman in front of me. Her broccoli rang up on the screen as “cauliflower.” You’d think that the cashier could simply push the delete button and ring it up correctly, but no, that would make too much sense and would take too little time. Instead she has to get a Mystery Person to authorize this tricky maneuver. And judging by the amount of time it took to accomplish, the Mystery Person apparently needs to have a rank no lower than Pope.

After much fanfare, they punched a series of secret codes into the register, and the cashier prepared to ring it up again. And of course it rang up again as “cauliflower.” I decided I wasn’t about to wait for them to go through the process of contacting the Vatican again, so I stomped over to the next line, which of course was much longer.

On the bright side, we now have our banana filling, which was very close to being the right thing I was supposed to buy!