An Enchanted Evening

I have always thought that many reporters are whacked out of their minds based on some of the questions they tend to ask at press conferences:

Reporter: Was the president saddened by the explosion of the space shuttle?
Spokesperson: No, he thought it was the prettiest pyrotechnics display he's ever seen. Moron.

As far as I recall, that wasn't the exact question or response during a press conference after the Challenger disaster in 1986, but I remember an exchange that was hauntingly close to that.

Did you happen to watch President Obama's press conference last night? One of the reporters asked him an extremely thorough question which included a query about the president's "most enchanted moment" during his first 100 days in office.

I looked up the word enchanted, and it means, "To act upon with or as if with magic." I'm pretty sure I've never been enchanted, even while standing under Cinderella's castle at Disney World. I really doubt that Mr. Obama spends much time being enchanted, either, despite the fact that he came up with some story about members of the military who have enchanted him, or some such thing.

You never hear people admit that they're enchanted, let alone the president. ("Good morning, how are you today?" "I'm enchanted, thank you.")

So did the reporter come up with that question on his own, or was he walking out of the door of his newspaper and an editor came running up to him in the parking lot, out of breath, to say, "Oh, don't forget to ask the president if he's enchanted! Everyone else will be asking silly questions about the economy, Iraq and the Swine Flu!"

Alright, enough about all of this. I have to go sprinkle some fairy dust on my hard drive.

Tis the Season For Sneezin’

I never had any sort of allergy problem when I was growing up, but over the last few years I've apparently been trying to make up for lost time. Every year when the trees start to really turn green, I launch into a non-stop sneezing routine that will last about two weeks. People really enjoy being around me during this period of time, especially when sneezes erupt out of nowhere, before I'm able to cover my mouth.

I've been thinking about inventing some sort of sneeze helmet. It would work just like those sneeze shields they put on salad bars, but it would be portable so it could be worn on the head. It would also be disgusting, but that's beside the point.

I stopped by the pharmacy today to get my annual package of Claritin-D, which must be a really fancy drug because they make you show identification and sign some sort of release when you buy it. I often wonder what exactly people have done in the past that has created the need for the paperwork and ID. Did someone smoke the pills? Did someone stick one up each nostril and stop breathing? Who knows. I'm sure it was the work of a real genius that prompted the extra security.

In any case, I'll be popping one of these babies every day for a while. They don't have quite the same effect on me that NyQuil does, but I usually still feel kinda loopy when I take these things. Part of me thinks maybe I can fly… you know the feeling.

And now we have the whole Swine Flu fears on top of my allergies. As I am typing this, they're talking on the news about someone from our area possibly contracting this disease after returning from Mexico. I guess I'll have to pay attention to my sneezing to see if it sounds more like oinking.

Meeting Adjourned!

You know what I don't miss? Meetings, that's what.

I've been lucky enough to be working out of the house for a few years now, and I've come to realize that the biggest benefit to this arrangement is that it's extremely rare that I have to be involved in meetings.

We used to have meetings quite often – way too often if you ask me -- and it seems like there was never anything useful that came out of them. Most of them seemed like they were never ever going to end. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them were still going on.

Our boss used to call for meetings constantly, and it was very rare that any of us could define the actual point to any of them. I could tell that he just liked having meetings. While other kids were out playing Cowboys and Indians, I'm betting that he was holding pretend meetings when he was a child.

At work quite often we would all gather together around a big, wooden desk, and the boss would say something like, "Ok. According to my calculations, we will be running completely out of money by 2:36 this afternoon. What are your ideas?" We had those meetings pretty often, and he'd usually encourage us to brain storm our amazing ideas "no matter how dumb we thought they might be."

In those cases, we'd all sit there and stare at each other, kinda secretly hoping he'd just tell us we were all laid off so we could go out and have a beer and be done with it. After several minutes of awkward silence, one of us would chime in with a dumb idea, and he'd let us know how dumb an idea it was and we'd all go back to being quiet again.

Ah, how nice it is to go through long periods of time without any sorts of meetings. It's just me and the cat now. We have meetings every so often, me and Feline Smoot. His ideas are usually pretty dumb, though.

Fashion Contrasts

So I was at McDonald's yesterday after church, and I was somewhat amused by an extremely elderly man who shuffled in while I was stuffing my face with fries. I could tell just by looking at him that he was probably a wonderful, sweet old guy… the kind of old man anyone would be happy to have as a grandpa.

At the same time, I got a kick out of how stereotypical the guy was, with his old man hat (to keep him warm on this 85-degree day, apparently) and sports coat. He had his pants pulled up so far that he almost had to cut holes around the pockets so he could stick his arms through them.

I was telling myself that, no matter how elderly I am lucky enough to become, I will make an attempt at staying a little more fashionable than this guy.

Just as I was basking in my own fashion glory (relatively speaking, anyway), these three teens came bumbling in with an entirely different perspective on fashion. They wore knit caps (again, it was 85 degrees outside), and grungy sorts of clothes, which by itself wasn't too bizarre by my standards. But the true shock value was in their choice of ear apparel.

I've seen all sorts of various piercings over the years, and there's not much that alarms me anymore. But these guys had taken things to a whole new level of creepiness. They had taken bottle caps, like the ones you get on 20-ounce bottles of Pepsi, and embedded them into their earlobes. In other words, they poked a hole in their earlobe, and stretched the hole big enough so they could stick a bottle cap in each ear.

I've seen pictures of some tribal women who do these sorts of things with wooden disks in some of these third world nations. But I have to imagine that as soon as the National Geographic photographers leave, they probably go back to dressing normally right away.

I honestly wish I would have been brave enough to ask these guys if I could take a picture of this phenomenon, but it was actually disturbing enough that I kind of just wanted to get the heck out of there.

I hate to think about it this way, but I guess I would have to align myself a whole lot more with the geezer guy than with these kids. In fact, when I got up this morning, I subconsciously pulled my pants up a bit higher. So much for any aspirations I had of being at all hip…

Driving Erotically

Have you ever have one of those moments when you're driving along and you think of something funny from the past, and you laugh out loud (that's "LOL" for you kids), despite the fact that your windows are down and there are other people around and your radio isn't even on? Sure you have. It was a rhetorical question.

I had one of those moments in the car yesterday. Something triggered my brain into thinking about my early years as a radio DJ while I was in high school. I can usually control most of those memories with the proper medication.

Back in 1985 I worked part-time as a DJ for our town's little radio station. And from time to time I had to read the news, which wasn't exactly my strong point. Let's just come out and say it: I sucked at it.

It's not like I couldn't read, it's just that I would get really nervous about reading news and I'd wind up reading things at a lightning pace, and oftentimes my brain would come up with radically different words than the ones written in front of me.

One day I was reading a story about a traffic accident where someone had crashed their car into a 10-point buck. For some bizarre reason, each time I read "10-point buck" in the story, my brain twisted it into "10-point duck," which would be an entirely different animal.

People in town would never admit that they listened to the local radio station. If you did a survey, most residents would probably deny that they even knew the town had a radio station. But strangely enough, the day of the 10-point duck episode, every single radio in town was apparently tuned in. I'm guessing that the station was being piped in through speakers around the town just to be sure that everyone was able to hear me say that one.

I walked into one of my classes the following day, and the teacher literally started laughing so hard she was crying. She couldn't even speak for several minutes as the rest of the class sat there, wondering what was going on. Eventually she gathered enough composure to say, "10-POINT DUCK!!" and the rest of the class erupted with laughter since they were all apparently listening at that moment, too.

On another occasion, I was reading a story about someone who had been arrested for driving erratically. But my mind must have been somewhere entirely different as I said that the person had been "driving erotically." I'm sure that put some interesting mental pictures into the minds of the listeners.

Things could have been much worse, though. I had a good friend who used to read our school's morning announcements from time to time. One day she repeatedly mispronounced the name of a local baseball venue over the school's PA system. Let's just say that she gave Kuntz Field a whole new meaning…

Aloha!

The Smoots are heading for Hawaii!

Well, we're heading to Hawaii a year from today. But in any case, we can finally say that the trip is less than a year away, and I'll finally be able to fulfill my lifelong ambition of peeing in every state. To date, I have peed in every state except Hawaii.

Anyway, I'm really excited about the trip, not only because of the ample urination opportunities (how cool would it be to pee on a lava flow?), but because I've always wanted to go there to explore the beauty of the land. And of course, purely for research purposes, I'll be interested in seeing whether the local women really do wear coconut bras, and what it means, exactly, to "get a lei."

Even though the trip is still fairly far in the future, I've already been studying. I have a tendency to over-research every vacation we go on, and this one is no different. I have a couple books about the state, and I've learned some things already. For example, did you know that Hawaii is a series of islands in the Pacific Ocean? Who knew?

I am also learning about their fascinating language, and I think it would be nice if I could learn a few key phrases before the trip. For example:

"E noho iho i ke opu weuweu, mai ho`oki`eki`e."

That means: "Remain among the clumps of grass and do not elevate yourself." That'll certainly come in handy.

And of course:

"Ho`ola`i na manu i ke aheahe?"

Which means, "Mind if I pee on this volcano?"

It's gonna be a long year.

Another Step Closer to Manhood

I am shopping for a toolbox. I know that most people would consider this to be a pretty non-eventful thing, but most people have at least a shred of manual dexterity, too.

People who know me know that I'm not exactly Mr. Handy. When something breaks, my typical response is to give it a proper burial and buy a new one of whatever it was. This approach isn't such a bad thing when it comes to, say, bird feeders, but it can be a little less pragmatic when it comes to cars and the house.

We have been homeowners for a little over a decade now, and somehow we have managed to accumulate a fairly large cache of tools in our basement. I honestly have no idea how we have obtained the majority of these things (the Tool Fairy?). There are tools down there I don't even recognize, let alone know how to operate properly.

Over the years I have done an exceptionally lousy job of keeping these things organized. When I find a tool that has magically materialized in the house, my basic policy has been to simply toss it into the growing pile downstairs. The mound of mystical tools has been expanding to the point where it is getting more and more difficult to access our basement door.

Naturally this has resulted in some action on the part of Mrs. Smoot; namely, she has been hounding me about The Pile a few times a week in hopes that I'll actually do something about it. There's even a note to that effect posted prominently on our refrigerator.

I finally went down there to face The Pile the other day, and I started to weed through it in an attempt to give it some semblance of organization. I got rid of an entire Hefty bag of random things that I can't imagine will ever be useful. I sorted the rest of the stuff onto a table as best as I could, separating things into categories like "Long and Pointy," "Short and Round," and of course "Potentially Lethal."

I have come to the conclusion that in order to really organize these things, I am going to need an actual toolbox, like ones you see in the basements of real men. I do have a couple little toolboxes around, but many of them still have a "Fisher Price" label on them. I'll probably need something more substantial.

I went to our local hardware store, but I didn't find one that I liked right off the bat. I want one that has lots of fancy little drawers and stuff. And it would sure be a blessing if the Tool Fairly would stop by and put all of these things into their rightful places for me.

Adventures With the Two-Pronged Prongy

Thanks to my ongoing fascination with Facebook, yesterday I reconnected with a friend I met at church camp back in 1983. It brought back many fond memories of those days at Camp Lutherlyn, near Butler, PA!

I can remember how we used to have these young counselors, many of whom had aspirations of becoming preachers, at least until they had us as campers. I did find one of my old counselors on a web site a couple years ago. Somehow he did manage to go into the ministry, despite our efforts to thwart him.

Anyway, I often think about some of those people from my days at camp, and I can't help but wonder what they're up to now. Specifically, I'd love to know whatever happened to Bob Pearson, inventor of the Two-Pronged Prongy (pictured above). I keep expecting to see Billy Mays on TV pitching this fine product, which Bob invented during one of our weeks at camp.

It's such a multifaceted piece of equipment; I truly believe everyone should own a few. Bob simply took a coat hanger, and twisted it in such a way that it could be used as a long, thin pair of tongs. We were able to use it for all sorts of purposes, including but not limited to: picking stuff up off the ground without needing to bend over... torturing frogs and other small animals... chasing girls with it, although I'm not sure what we would have used it for if we caught one... and of course, poking people while they were sleeping.

By the end of the week we probably had a couple dozen Two-Pronged Prongies in our inventory, but only a few of them were really well-crafted. I guess I should use this opportunity to apologize to the kids who came to camp the week following us, because I have no idea how they may have been able to hang their coats up.

Comcastic, Indeed

Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall when some of these companies develop their marketing campaigns? I'd be very curious to see what form of drugs some of them were smoking when they came up with their ideas.

Case in point... the latest commercials for Comcast. I would have really enjoyed seeing the marketing gurus giving their presentation for their latest campaign. Picture a big boardroom with a bunch of suit-wearing individuals, and some perky marketing people giving their presentation:

"Ok, so here's our idea. We create a fantasy place called Comcast Town. It's a cartoon-ish place where a whole bunch of really creepy, zombie-like people live! And they all just LOVE Comcast! It's all they think about, day and night. Comcast Comcast Comcast! Some of the zombies are thinking about Comcast while riding their bikes, sitting in hottubs, etc. It'll be great! Oh, and the web site should feature a giant squid in the town square! And we have created a monotone Zombie Song -- C-O-M-C-A-S-T -- should be annoying enough to stick in everyone's mind for days at a time!"

Any normal group of people would have kicked them right out of the building, possibly after setting them on fire. Yet the suit-wearing individuals, presumably after taking several tokes on an enormous reefer, say, "YES! That's exactly how we envision our customers! Zombies! Woooo! Pass the nachos!"

Canceling Comcast and moving to DirecTV was one of the smartest moves the Smoots have made lately, and I have to say that this new ad campaign confirms that for me. And apparently we're not the only ones. I can't tell you how many times I've walked down our street and have seen the Comcast truck parked beside a guy climbing up a ladder to disconnect someone's service. I know that's what they're doing, because I always see a shiny new satellite dish attached to the house they're visiting.

Anyway, we're very happy that we're no longer Comcastic Zombies.

On another subject, what on Earth is the deal with the creepy Burger King guy? I'm betting he once lived in Comcast Town.

I Shun Thy iPod

Do you ever think much about the Amish? I do, particularly when I'm swerving around their little buggies and horse droppings while passing through their territory on my frequent trips between here and Punxsutawney.

As I'm driving erratically through the Smicksburg area, I often think about their culture. Several questions pop into my mind. First, at what point did the Amish decide that they would no longer accept new technologies? I mean, if you go back 100 years or so, pretty much everyone was living the same sort of lifestyle we see in current Amish settings, right?

So did they decide enough was enough when electricity started to become popular? Indoor plumbing? Was it the gas powered engine? The iPod? I have no idea.

My next question is this: do these folks really live like this, or is it just a big charade they perform for us non-Amish (also known as "normal") people? I can't help but picture them hiding satellite dishes out behind the barn somewhere, and they all get together to play MarioKart tournaments on their Wii at night. Does anyone really keep close tabs on these folks to make sure they're playing by the rules?

In other Amish news, I had to share these pictures of a couple I met a few years ago along Interstate 80 near Toledo, Ohio. I had passed them on their motorcycle and I didn't think much of it at first, but then I realized that it isn't every day you see Amish people on motorcycles. I slowed down to let them pass, and I followed them to the next rest area.

It turns out they're not Amish at all, and this was their hobby. They're from Columbus, and the man works at a cabinet shop along with several real Amish people who jokingly try to recruit him into their religion from time to time. So these folks have real Amish outfits and they spend their weekends riding around on their motorcycle (note the license plate: "AM1SH").

While I was following them, nearly every car that passed them honked and waved, and we all definitely enjoyed the spectacle!

Putting the Blame Where it Belongs

I’ve been thinking more and more about my Easter Sunday morning incident, during which I somehow managed to wear two neckties simultaneously at our early church service.

For a period of a few days, I was thinking about how I could have possibly done such a thing without knowing it. Believe it or not, I was blaming myself for this! But now I have realized that this kind of thing couldn’t possibly be my own fault, so the obvious question is: “Who can I sue?” Obviously I experienced some degree of mental anguish over the whole thing, and somebody should certainly be held accountable.

People are always suing other people and companies for really dumb things. Heck, we just had yet another idiot who wants to sue McDonald’s because they were lucky enough to be burned with hot coffee.

So I would think that I should have plenty of opportunity to cash in on my misfortune. First of all, it goes without saying that I should sue the people who manufactured each of said ties. I checked them this morning, and neither one of them had any sort of warning label that would have reminded me to wear just one of them at a time. That’s clearly irresponsible.

I’ll file suit against the people who made the mirror I was using when I spotted the problem. Obviously I can sue the church for having such an early service; I never would have done such a thing had I been more awake.

I can sue my parents for creating someone as idiotic as me in the first place. And while I’m at it, I can certainly sue McDonald’s because, after all, there is one just a few blocks from the church.

See you on Easy Street!

A Couple Degrees of Separation

We are soooo close to being on a first name basis with President Obama now.

Not to brag, but someone within short walking distance of us here in Smootville owns the father of the dog that has just been adopted by the First Family. So, presumably, we should be pretty high up on the list of people who will be getting invited to state dinners and whatnot. I may have a fancy red hotline phone installed in the house, purely for the purpose of taking all of the calls we’ll surely be getting from Washington.

Just think… it’s now entirely conceivable that I could be driving down the road and I’ll have to swerve to avoid hitting one of the extended members of the Obama family as it runs into the road with its tail wagging.

The Obama's puppy, “Bo,” is a Portuguese water dog, which of course is bothering some people already. Is there something wrong with American water dogs?

I found it interesting that in a Post-Gazette article one of the breeders described the First Puppy’s mother like this: “She was a real nice little bitch, very sweet." If I’m not mistaken, wasn’t that exactly how President Clinton described Monica Lewinsky during her tenure as Official White House Pet?

Tying One (or Two) On at Easter

Easter Sunday morning proved to be the perfect recipe for me to do something so dumb that I once again have to question my own sanity situation.

We went to our church's early service, which itself is a problem when you take into consideration the word "early." I am not a morning person by any means. Since it was Easter, I decided to comply with tradition and wear The Suit. I am not a suit-wearing individual by any means.

Mrs. Smoot and Little Smoot were playing in the handbell choir for this service, so we arrived extra early so they could warm up, adjust the tension on their pellethane restraining springs, wax their mallets, or whatever the heck it is bell people do prior to performing. I headed off to use the restroom, and made a point of greeting several people along the way.

As I was washing my hands I was admiring my charming Easter morning appearance in the mirror, thinking what a stud muffin I was, all cleaned up and wearing a suit and everything. Those pleasant observations were quickly interrupted by the following thought, which I may have thought out loud: "Why on Earth am I wearing TWO TIES!?"

Yep, for reasons I simply cannot explain, I had not one, but two neckties on. I can't even begin to fathom how this occurred, exactly. I hurried up and yanked one of them off and headed out to the car to hide the evidence by stuffing the extra one into the glove compartment.

And I spent a good bit of time trying to remember how many people I had encountered prior to making this discovery. I figured that the people who knew me pretty well probably didn't think too much of it since I manage to do dumb things pretty often. But I am concerned about the people I may have greeted who didn't know me so well...

Nu Shooz

I think I'm due for a new pair of shoes. When I walk with my current pair, it sounds as though I'm stepping on an angry duck every time my left foot hits the ground. I had similar problems with my right foot recently, although the right foot sounded more like I was stepping on a startled puppy.

For a while, it sounded pretty scary as I was walking down the street: Quack! Yelp! Quack! Yelp!

There is a trick that can stop shoes from squeaking sometimes. If you take the insole out and sprinkle some baby powder inside, the squeak oftentimes will go away. There's your hint from Aunt Hank today.

Anyway, that trick seemed to work on the right foot, so the puppies are safe. But the ducks are persisting.

So I think it's time to maybe invest in some new shoes for Spring. At least this is an easy task for me. I just go to the store and grab a size 9 1/2 pair of white Nike Air Monarchs. There's no point in me trying anything else on, since this is what I always end up with. I must have 10 pairs of these shoes around the house in various stages of rotting.

When I finally get a new pair of shoes, all of the older pairs take a step down the priority list. The new shoes will be my "everyday shoes" that I wear most of the time. The previous pair will step down to be used just for hiking. The pair before that will be designated for lawn mowing. The ones before that will be used solely for walking through sewage, if for some reason I get the urge to do so.

I'm just thankful I'm not a woman, because it seems that I would be spending a huge amount of time worrying about shoes. As I look at the entrance to our house, it appears that Imelda Marcos has been renting a room from us, or some such thing. Mrs. Smoot seems to have a different pair of shoes so that she can go a whole year without wearing the same pair twice. Little Smoot seems to be accumulating her share, too.

I'll stick with my Nikes.

Dealing With the Chartreuse Screen of Doom

I spent most of yesterday (and continuing this morning) farting around with an old computer to try to get it to work. So you can just imagine what a great mood I've been in.

I've had this computer for around five or six years, which makes it about an age of 300 in computer years. The keyboard is actually made of stone, and the mouse is an actual mouse.

This computer has had basically two primary responsibilities for the last couple years. I use it to display pictures to prospective photography customers, and I use it to back up some files. Even a reasonably well-trained cat could probably provide similar services.

This computer has been a problem child for a long time. And trying to upgrade it has been extremely aggravating. It has given me the famous Blue Screen of Death, the Red Screen of Warning, and the dreaded Chartreuse Screen of Doom while I've been messing with it.

I have made some headway with it, but I am still mentally exhausted after tinkering with it for so long. Of course, when it came time to give it a name, I dubbed it "The Damn Thing" so that is how it will appear on our home network.

As I'm typing this, The Damn Thing is attempting to install Windows XP Service Pack 3, which means that once this "upgrade" is finished, the computer will likely no longer boot up at all. At least that has been my history with that particular procedure in the past.

You'll know that things didn't go well if you drive past my house and see a whole bunch of electronic gizmos out by the curb, our curtains pulled to the side, and my Pruis replaced with a horse and buggy. The Amish life is sounding better and better.

Oh, Deer

I am not a hunter, but I have killed enough deer in the past to feed many a village. I could almost list "hitting deer with cars" as a hobby. Knock on wood, I haven't run into a deer for several years now, but Mrs. Smoot wasn't so lucky a couple weeks ago.

While I was on my trip to Louisiana, I got a mysterious text message from Little Smoot:

"no one was hurt so dont worry"

Hmmm. An interesting note for me to receive while I was 1,100 miles away, don't you think?

Later I learned that she had apparently sent a previous message that said something about the fact that they just smacked a deer with the car, and that Mrs. Smoot suggested that she should send me another note just to let me know that everyone was ok. But I never got the first note that mentioned the deer... just the "no one was hurt" message.

In any case, everyone was ok, and the deer left behind a lovely souviner dent for us to admire on the hood. I was surprised to learn that this was the first time Mrs. Smoot had hit a deer. I guess it was her turn, since I've hit entire herds of them before.

I think deer have some sort of fascination with our vehicles. I once ran into one in a construction zone on the Turnpike. I really messed up Mrs. Smoot's car one Thanksgiving. I also hit one just a few hundred feet from my first apartment years ago.

Ironically, the only damage that last one did was to knock off my "deer horns," which are little plastic whisteling devices designed to annoy deer and keep them from running into the path of cars. I'm sure the people who sell them laugh themselves silly every time some sucker buys a set.

Bumper to Bumper Traffic

I like elderly people. I even plan to be one someday if I'm lucky. But there really, really should be a point where they should stop operating any motor vehicle larger or more complex than a Hoveround.

I submit to you as Exhibit A, a profoundly elderly woman from our church. After church was over yesterday, I was beginning to pull out of my parking spot when I saw this woman attempting to get out of the lot. She had backed up, and at the point when I looked over, her back bumper was smack up against the front bumper of another parked car.

Another woman from our church was at her window, trying to explain to her that she was up against another car, and maybe she should try the concept of "Drive" instead of "Reverse." I hopped out of the car, figuring this was one of those rare instances where I could be The Hero of The Moment by offering to get her out of this predicament.

I offered to get her car positioned for her so she could easily get out of the lot and she could presumably go crash into something else a little further down the street. But she said, "No thank you." Apparently she seemed to think that she was doing a perfectly fine job, and so far her attempts to get out of the lot were going just swell. Either that or she simply didn't trust some young whippersnapper with her car.

As soon as she refused my offer, she anxiously resumed hitting the gas, oblivious to the fact that her car was still in reverse and was still up against another car. She was nearly to the point where she was going to squeal her tires while pushing the other car backwards. I stood there, mostly helpless, as she would inch forward (toward a classic car owned by another church member), put it back into reverse, thwonk back into the car behind her again, etc.

Once she finally exited the lot (I don't even want to know what happened to her beyond the parking lot), the profoundly elderly owner of the other car came out to leave. I thought he should know that this lady was bonking into his car in case there had been any damage, so I told him what had been going on. Even though it was a reasonably nice car, the man basically told me he really didn't care.

So I guess the moral to the story is that once you get to be a certain age, you just don't give a crap about the condition of your car (or other cars) any longer. The other moral, for me, is that I will know better than to park within a mile of this lady in the future.

Lending a Hand

Perhaps you heard about the former Marine from our area who recently underwent a hand transplant at a Pittsburgh hospital? There have been stories about his progress in the Post-Gazette. He lost his hand during an explosion at a 2007 training exercise, and had an operation to attach a new hand from a recently-deceased 18-year-old.

I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I really do think that it’s a great thing, overall. It’s amazing that we have the technology to transplant a hand onto someone and actually make it work and everything. That’s pretty impressive!

On the other hand (ha -- get it!?)… there is no getting around the fact that this has to be a bit creepy, don’t you think? Several thoughts are rattling around my head when I think about this whole idea.

Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is the obvious issue of nose picking. I mean, that would be really weird to be sticking someone else’s fingers up my nose, not to mention conducting other routine bodily hygiene activities. I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes from the movie Airplane!, where one of the men tells another, “Get that finger out of your ear; you don’t know where that finger has been!” Ain’t that the truth.

And I can’t help but think that by conducting this surgery, we simply haven’t learned anything from the past. It’s well documented (in the form of several really bad horror movies) that eventually the spirit of the person who originally owned the hand is going to take control over it again, regardless of the fact that it’s attached to someone else. Sooner or later, the hand, acting on its own, will wind up going mad and start wanting to strangle people, get some sort of vengeance, and whatnot. It’s inevitable.

In any case, I commend this young man for having the courage to go through with this procedure, and I hope that it will give him new opportunities to enjoy life. If I ever meet him, I’ll definitely give him a hand. Errr… I mean, I’ll congratulate him.

Avoiding Death 101

At the beginning of our Louisiana mission trip last week, we attended an orientation session which mainly consisted of several people telling us how we could avoid the many possible methods of dying they have to offer.

They told us about the alligators that are plentiful in the bayous. And during the week, we did see quite a few of them! If you stay in your car and thwack on the side of your door, they’ll actually swim right up to you. I tested that theory one afternoon, and it was pretty cool to sit alone in the car with a wild alligator just a few feet away. I fed him a healthy appetite of potato chips, and took some pictures.

They told us that if we were to encounter an alligator while we were outside, they would likely leave us alone, unless we looked particularly tasty. But if one runs at you, you basically have three options. You can try running in a zig-zag pattern, because they have a hard time running any direction other than straight ahead. Your second option is to have someone else with you, and hope that you can run faster than that person can. Or you can simply become lunch.

Next come the spiders. They told us about a number of spiders that could spoil our day, including the brown recluse. And sure enough, I had the pleasure of encountering one at a house we were tearing apart. I was helping the owner carry some boards from one part of a room to another when he jumped back and started whimpering a bit. And there was Mr. Happy, scurrying around below my feet.

I have to mention that I had a 14-year-old girl as part of my team while we were at that house. She has pretty much every irrational fear a person could ever dream up, including but not limited to: bridges, garbage trucks, and of course, clowns. I was reasonably tempted to hire a clown to drive a garbage truck across a bridge out of morbid curiosity to see her reaction. But anyway, I found it ironic that the spider didn’t bother her all that much.

Oh, and there were also the snakes and fire ants. Come to think of it, the only deadly thing we didn’t see during the week was the snakes, although we did see snake skins here and there. And we only saw one clown.

Happy Pranksgiving!

Ah, April Fool's Day. I thought about using today's blog entry to pull some kind of prank, but obviously I wouldn't want to taint the journalistic excellence my readers have come to expect.

I even thought about using this opportunity to finally reveal that I am indeed a lesbian, trapped in a man's body. But why spoil that secret.

In my early years, I used to dream about April 1^st like it was Christmas. I'd spend the entire day pulling stupid and annoying pranks on whoever might be within reach. I fondly remember the time early in my high school years when I had a friend at our local radio station call my dad and tell him he'd win a trip for four to Florida if he could name the last three songs they played. My dad couldn't stand listening to the local station, let alone being able to identify current songs, so it was pretty funny. I still have a tape recording of that somewhere.

I pulled some really good pranks in college, including the time I had an annoying acquaintance convinced that, due to a computer error, all of his classes for the next semester had to be switched. I mailed him a convincing-looking computer printout that suggested he was going to have to take classes like Basket Weaving 101 the following semester, along with a note that said he may need to sign up for summer courses to make up for missing required classes. He wasn't thrilled. Neither was the admissions office when they thought maybe someone had broken into their computer to switch his classes.

Some friends and I also had tons of fun at the expense of an obsessive compulsive friend who lived in our dorm. He's probably still in therapy. Oh, and we had great fun with a Japanese guy down the hall who spoke almost no English. That's another story entirely.

Now, all these years later, April Fool's Day is pretty much like every other day. I wonder if Little Smoot would notice shaving cream in her shoes. Hmmm…