The Book Report

I'm pretty sure that one of the few bright spots in the life of a Reading teacher is to assign book reports.  This is clearly their method of revenge on classes full of kids that talk, pop gum, text, disrupt and otherwise annoy them during the early part of the year.

Little Smoot's reading teacher took this form of revenge to an even greater level this year by making her class's reports due on the day they returned from Christmas break.  Merry Christmas children!

Normally Little Smoot does a good job of getting homework finished promptly.  In fact, that's our rule.  It's the first thing she does as soon as she gets home from school, so she doesn't have to worry about it later.

Well, it was a little harder to motivate her to get this particular project done, particularly when she could spend more time playing the Wii while basking in the glow of the Christmas tree.  I was pestering her every day about this stupid book report, and telling her how I really didn't want her to put it off, and her answer was always, "I will!"

Naturally, a couple days before returning to school she realized that she had managed to lose the instructions for what all had to be done for this project.  She called a friend, and got all of these details, which included a diorama, summary, a word find consisting of vocabulary words from the book, and a bunch of other stuff.  I am surprised she didn't have to do a one-on-one in-person interview with the author, or some such thing.

After shedding some number of tears, realizing that she had no idea where to begin (and I'm sure I didn't help with the number of "told-ya-so" comments I made), she was literally up late the final night of vacation to get the stupid thing done.

She finally got her project back this week, and we were happy that she got a 94 out of 100 on it.  Apparently other kids in the class weren't so lucky.  Most of her class did terribly, and several kids didn't bother doing it at all, and Little Smoot's teacher told the class (this is an actual quote, according to Little Smoot), "I wanted to kill myself while grading these things!"

So I guess we'll be happy with the 94.  I can hardly wait until they start assigning her science projects, like making her build a fully functional volcano, or whatever.

Say... Is That My Butt?

I'm a bit of a news junkie, so I tend to notice various trends and habits of our local newscasts.  And over the past several years, I've noticed a disturbing trend concerning news stories devoted to anything related to diets.

I couldn't help but notice that every time a TV station does a story regarding diets, they seem to be obligated to show footage of overweight people while the newscaster reads the story.  Apparently the TV people think that we, the viewers, might have forgotten what large people look like, so we need this important visual aid.

So last night, for example, they were telling a story about how Taco Bell is creating their own "Drive-Through Diet" (which I'm sure is extremely effective), and they illustrated the story with footage of enormous people waddling down the street.

To make matters worse, they usually slow the footage down to make it look more dramatic.  To their credit, I have not yet seen a news report where they add sound effects, like the ones you'd hear in Jurassic Park when the dinosaurs are stomping around.  I'm sure they'll begin doing that soon enough.

I am almost positive that it's the same footage that they show every time they do one of these stories.  Surely, as often as they feature dietary stories, they don't tell some poor camera guy, "Hey Mark, go down to the donut shop, and get us some more B-roll footage of the back ends of enormous folks for the 6:00."  Instead, I'm sure they just re-use the same stuff time after time.

They usually show these video victims from behind, and they crop them from the neck down, as if to say, "Whoa, that is one gigantic fanny."  I feel voyeuristic just watching these stories.  And I doubt very much that the video crew asked permission to record these folks ("Hi.  I'm from WONK-TV, and I couldn't help but notice that you're enormous.  Would you mind if I videotape your butt while you waddle down the street?")

I dunno.  One of these days I just know I'm going to see my own butt on one of these stories.

Continuing a Family Tradition

I'll apologize in advance for having two toilet-related blog entries in a row.  Hopefully I'll think of something different tomorrow.  But I'll warn you in advance that tomorrow's entry could very well involve toilets.  I just don't know.

I have many great memories from my childhood visits to my grandparents' house in Mount Pleasant, PA.  And now that they're both gone, I cherish those memories all the more.  It seems that now, though, I am reminded every day of one of the more unusual things about visiting them.  Of course I speak of:  The Toilets.

Their original house -- the same one where my dad grew up -- had a toilet with some sort of crippling plumbing problem, and anytime it was flushed you'd need to "jiggle the handle" to make sure it would fill up properly.  The result was that each and every time that my brother or I would announce that we were going to the bathroom, whichever grandparent was the closest at that moment would remind us:  "Don't forget to jiggle the handle!"

No matter how many times we'd visit the house, we would get that reminder from them.  It was pretty much an involuntary reflex on their part.  Upon hearing the word "bathroom," they would automatically reply with the jiggle the handle warning, without even necessarily realizing they were saying it.  Come to think of it, I do believe that they had similarly infected toilets at each of the three houses they occupied, so that tradition followed us over the years.

Now here we are, with our very own house with its very own toilets.  And, wouldn't you know, our downstairs toilet is starting to develop its own problem which can only be resolved by smashing it with a sledgehammer.  Ooops... I mean, the problem can be solved by jiggling the handle, and I find myself telling Little Smoot to do this when the toilet won't immediately refill.

Just carryin' on the tradition.

Beware: Mickey Mouse Toilets!

I've had a couple experiences this past week that reminded me of a traumatic trip we took to Florida a number of years ago.

When Little Smoot was 3, we decided for some bizarre reason that she was old enough to appreciate the Magic and Wonder of Disney World, so we hopped in the car and headed for Orlando.  Little Smoot was a good girl in the car, which probably lulled us into thinking that the trip was going to go really well.  This was before we encountered the Disney Toilets of Doom.

We met up with some people we had met on a cruise a year or so prior to this trip, and we all headed to Disney.  I should mention that Little Smoot had just kicked the diaper habit a couple months before this trip, so public toilets were still a pretty new and unusual experience.

It didn't take us long before nature called at the park, and Little Smoot had her first experience with one of the wonderful Disney toilets.  In an effort to be magical and wondrous, virtually all of the toilets at Disney have motion sensors, which would be a great thing in theory.  You see, in theory, the toilets know when you have finished your business, and they'll flush everything into a wondrous magical land somewhere.

But in reality, what happens is that every time you wiggle your butt in the least bit, the toilet thinks you're finished and it decides to flush, and it doesn't care that you're still sitting there.  And if you're a 3-year-old, a gigantic eruption of wooshing water right underneath your butt can definitely be a bit traumatic!  So Little Smoot completely freaked out and cried her eyeballs out thanks to the Scary Toilet of Doom.

In a seriously-flawed attempt to be helpful, one of our friends we were traveling with suggested to her, "It's okay, Sweetie!  Mickey Mouse is in those toilets, and he flushes them for people!"  In theory, this seemed like an innocent remark, but in reality, now she was not only freaked out by the toilets, but now she was scared to death of Mickey Mouse.  Super.

The rest of the trip was basically a nightmare as she refused to go to any public restroom.  On the drive home, she displayed the most remarkable ability to "hold it" that I've ever personally witnessed.  We literally drove from Sarasota, FL, to midway through South Carolina before she attempted (and then refused) to use a bathroom.  Her eyes were turning yellow, for heaven's sake.

And for the rest of the trip, it was obvious that she had to go to the bathroom, so I'd stop at every single rest area so that she could go into the bathroom and freak out, telling us, "What if Mickey Mouse is in there!?!?!"  I could undoubtedly write a book called "The Restrooms of I-95," because I saw all of them.  I did finally get her to pee in the woods behind the restrooms at a stop in Virginia.

When we finally got home and vowed never to go to Disney World again, I wrote a snotty letter to Disney to suggest that maybe, just maybe, their toilets could be a little more kid-friendly since perhaps we weren't the only people in the world who thought Disney would be a good destination for kids.  They responded a few weeks later, and as some sort of ironic apology, they sent us an autographed picture of Mickey Mouse.  I would have framed it and put it in Little Smoot's room, but I really didn't want to have to put her in therapy at such a young age.

Fast forward to this week, where this motion sensor toilet phenomenon happened to me on two occasions at two different public restrooms.  I have to admit that I peeked around to see if Mickey was lurking around in there somewhere.

How Did I Miss This?!

I was greatly disturbed when reading the paper yesterday.  Somehow I wound up missing the "No Pants Subway Ride."

There's a group based in New York City (of course) called "Improv Everywhere" which holds various odd events throughout the year.  This group sponsors a variety of weird events throughout the year, like showing up shirtless at certain stores, performing an impromptu musical in a grocery store, or freezing in place at Grand Central Station.  One of their events encourages people to show up at designated subway stations to take a ride sans pants.

There was an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that lamented the fact that virtually nobody showed up to participate in the event locally.  Had I only known!  As you're aware if you are an avid reader of the Hank Smoot Files, I am more than happy to toss my pants aside for the amusement of others.  In fact, that's how I spent part of Christmas Day 2008.

I'll have to put it on the calendar for next year.

My Next Amazing Invention

Every so often, I come up with an invention so compelling that I just know I could become a millionaire quickly if I could just get off my butt and do something with it.  This is yet another of those moments.

I was busy plunging the toilet over the weekend, a process I find myself doing more and more, and it occurred to me:  Wouldn't it be nice if we could apply plunger technology to our noses?

I mean, our noses are basically like head plumbing, right?  We have these drains in our head, and every so often they get clogged up due to colds, allergies, or the rancid smell of sauerkraut permeating the house.  To relieve this problem, we typically either reach for the Kleenex, or if that's not available, a shirt sleeve.  Of course if neither of those are available, this is why God gave us fingers that fit in there so neatly.

Anyway, just imagine how nice it would be to have a small, nostril-sized plunger that we could stick in there to take care of the problem.  And people would look so classy using them, too.

You heard it here first.  Don't steal my idea, please.

Snow Day!

Little Smoot's prayers were finally answered this morning.  No school due to snow!

This is the first time this school year that our district has had a delay or closing, so she's pretty excited.  Granted, she's outside right now shoveling the driveway, so her enthusiasm for snow days may wane a bit in the very near future.

I used to enjoy going out and playing in the snow, but I can't say I have been too excited about it during the past, I dunno, 30 years or so.  Growing up, we had a really good yard for sledding, and we'd build some pretty elaborate trails for doing so.

We also had a pond, so we would often make a sledding path that would end up on the ice.  So not only did we have the possibility of running into various trees while sled riding, we also had the distinct possibility of crashing through the ice and drowning.  Ice was much thicker back in those days, since we didn't have Global Warming back then.

In recent years I haven't been all that excited about going out in the snow, but I did enjoy it one day a few years ago.  We had stopped at a relative's house to see if they were home, but no one was around.  There was a lot of snow around though, so I decided it would be a good day for a little prank.

This was back in the days when I was addicted to Mountain Dew, so I had a full can with me.  I walked up to their house, making sure I was leaving distinct footprints leading up to their door.  I also made sure that the last steps I took made a nice, wide stance right at their door step.

Then I poured a generous amount of the Mountain Dew onto the snow between my legs.  I didn't have any way of finding out what may have happened after that, but I really like to think that they got home a few minutes later and wondered what kind of idiot would walk up to their house and take a whiz.

My Morning Treasure Hunt

Imagine for a moment that you are my newspaper delivery individual.  Yes, I am aware that you are probably cranky much of the time, because you get up at some absurd hour of the morning to deliver newspapers to people like me.

Let's pretend that you have approached my home and you are about to deliver my newspaper.  Where would you suppose would be the best place to put it?

A.  Thrown randomly anywhere on the property.
B.  Conveniently underneath my car.
C.  In a neighbor's yard.
D.  In a nice, green mailbox, situated right beside the road and within the glow of a street light for your convenience, with the words "POST-GAZETTE" emblazoned on it; a box I personally erected several years ago because you keep choosing A, B and C!

I cannot fathom why it would be difficult to place the stinkin' newspaper into the mailbox that is obviously there for this single purpose.  But no.  Every morning it's like a treasure hunt for me.  I drop Little Smoot off at school, and then I begin hunting for the paper.  Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it isn't.

The other day I couldn't find it at all, and I found it a day later by the neighbor's mailbox, buried in snow.  I suppose the delivery individual is hiding in the bushes somewhere nearby, watching to see if I am able to locate the paper each morning.  When I am able to find it, he/she probably wanders off in a huff, determined to hide it better the next day.

A Night at the B&B

The Smoots tried something new this past weekend while visiting family out of town.  For the first time ever, we stayed at a Bed & Breakfast.  We had a really nice time there, and would highly recommend "The Cozy Afghan" to anyone who has the strange, sudden urge to visit St. Marys, PA.

The accommodations were very quaint, the breakfasts were very tasty, and we even had a fireplace.  Granted, it took a couple phone calls to figure out how to make the fireplace work since I was not interested in accidentally getting my eyebrows burned off, but we finally found the trick to it (turns out, you flip the button to "on").

So anyway, we give the Cozy Afghan our coveted five-star rating, although I suppose it would only be fair to mention that it is run by one of the members of Mrs. Smoot's family.

This experience got me thinking about how people give names to B&Bs.  It seems like they almost always have rather unusual names, presumably meant to sound quaint so that people will be enticed to visit.

I was thinking about creating a web site where people could randomly generate names for their new Bed & Breakfast.  People could visit the page, pay me a large sum of money, and the web site would churn out gems like:

The Fluted Peasant
The Poofy Pillow
The Flatulent Frog
The Crumpled Muffin
The Pickled Nest
The Steaming Bucket of Quaintness
The Hairy Barnacle
The Ornery Hen
The Gilded Truffle (oops... I stole that from a restaurant in The Simpsons)
The Satin Slipper
and of course The Floating Inn of Doom

The possibilities really are endless.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Less Like Christmas

Well, here it is again, that time of year that I look forward to so much.  Time to take the Christmas crap down again.

Mrs. Smoot is always very, very anxious to get the Christmas stuff put away.  I honestly think that if she had her way, she'd be tearing down the tree while we're unwrapping presents on Christmas morning.  It is good that she is enthusiastic about getting it taken down, because if it were up to me, I'd probably put it off so long that we could wind up keeping it up until next Christmas.

I'm also very glad that she is organized and meticulous about putting stuff away.  She has boxes that are clearly marked with their contents, and she neatly organizes all of the ornaments as she takes them off the tree.  It's a good thing that we don't have that old fashioned tinsel on the tree; she'd probably organize it by length and sort it into color-coded boxes or something.

She knows that it is best to just let me stick to the manly part of the job, so my primary role is to take all of the boxes downstairs.  If she relied on me for anything more complicated than that, she knows I'd just grab the tree -- ornaments and all, with the electrical cords still connected to the outlets -- and I'd use whatever force necessary to shove it down the steps, and plow it into the closet, and that would be that.

Sooner or later, though, I will have to tackle the dismantling of the outdoor lighting.  Mrs. Smoot has no part in messing with that.  I'm not nearly as angry with the lights since we got all new LED strings this season.  Every bulb remained lit for the entire holiday (with the exception of the string that some moron decided to steal from our shrub), so I actually have very good intentions of packing things away very neatly for next year... unlike how I did it last year.

Of course the problem is that the weather is crappy, and we're not even supposed to get up to 30 degrees for at least another week.  So even if I actually wanted to go out and fart around with the lights in the freezing cold, they're probably pretty well frozen to the shrubs and so forth.  I'm guessing it's not a good idea to go out there with a blow torch to try to help thaw them.

It also doesn't help that I basically booby-trapped the lights by using tie-downs to fasten them to the bushes in order to thwart future thefts.  I remember thinking, "I'm going to hate myself for doing this when it comes time to take these down in January."

If you drive by and see that my lights are still up, just assume that my excuse is that I'm leaving them up in celebration of Groundhog Day, Easter, July 4th, Arbor Day, etc.  It'll be festive.

Welcome to The Future!

Woooooooooo... it's finally here -- 2010!

I can remember when I was growing up, and thinking about this year.  2010 definitely represented "The Future!"  So I'm definitely looking forward to all of the amazing technological advancements we are expected to see, based on how I envisioned 2010 as a child:

- Flying cars
- Self-tying shoes (as shown in Back to the Future)
- The hoverboard (also as shown in Back to the Future)
- Colonization of the moon
- African American President (ooooh... we have that one already!)
- Friendly interactions with alien beings
- Bionics
- Floating houses, like in the Jetsons
- Robot maids, like in the Jetsons
- Oooooh... jet packs!
- Cures for all known diseases
- And of course, the orgasm pill.

I am very excited about these advancements, which we have clearly been promised on numerous TV shows and movies.  I must say, I am very optimistic about the decade now that I have read this article.  Please let's give these people an enormous government grant.

Feel free to add your own expectations for technological advancements.  I'm sure I may have forgotten something.