A Very Special Sand in the Gears
I have several semi-connected things to tell you about today. The title of this post is dedicated to the end of another season of television, and my attention-deficit mood is inspired by the same venue:
From the Proud To Be an American Department: In a wooden box on my dresser I have cufflinks, a Purina Mills checkerboard pocketknife, an American flag lapel pin, and two Beretta clips holding .380 hollow-point rounds.
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We bought our two-year old, Stephen Caleb, some Matchbox cars at Target last night. He digs cars. At night he gets three or four in his little hands and holds them tight, so that I have to pry them loose to get his pajamas on, and then he snatches them right back. He clutches them to his chest while I read him stories, and while we say prayers, and while I sing to him as he's lying in bed. In the morning, he's sprawled sideways with little cars strewn about the bed, like a giant who has demolished a city before falling asleep on the wreckage.
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The receipt from Target had this informative note at the bottom:
"DID YOU KNOW WE HAVE A PHARMACY? FAST, FUN, and FRIENDLY Pharmacists here 7 days a week to serve you."
Who wants a "fun" pharmacist? Friendly, yes. Fast, only within reason. But fun? Fun is switching a high-powered laxative for someone's Viagra. I don't want a playful pharmacist. I want anyone handling my drugs to be deadly serious.
Not that I use Viagra, mind you. That was just an example.
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Saw these bumper stickers on the same driver's car a few days ago:
Everybody has a right to be stupid. You're abusing the privilege.
Your village called; they're missing their idiot.
The second one reminds me of a review someone wrote about Hillary Clinton's insipid book on raising children; he entitled his essay, "It Takes a Village Idiot."
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I like Don McArthur's take on Stephen Jay Gould's recent passing:
God kills noted evolutionist
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A while back I posted mail from a reader who mentioned an old Blondie cartoon. Since then, I've been getting hits from Google, about one per day, from people searching for Blondie and Dagwood porn.
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I used to do a lot of corporate training, speeches, etc. I still do a little of that, but don't tell anyone. Whenever I would talk to people about the ubiquitous corporate vision statement, I tried to get across to them that the words should be in plain language, and they should mean something to the people who do the work. I contrasted this with 99% of the vision statements I've seen, which look like they were written by aliens who are impersonating humans, but who haven't quite got the lingo down yet. My favorite vision statement, up until yesterday, was from the Miracle Brewing Company:
We Make Good Beer and Sell It.
Yesterday, however, I saw a vision statement I like even better. It was, interestingly enough, from another beer company, Oaken Barrel Brewing:
We Brew It. We Drink It. We Sell What’s Left.
If you fax them your resume, tell them Tony sent you.
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When I get home from work I like to put Caleb in the baby jogger and go for a run. It's hard work, pushing 60 pounds of jogger and little boy, and he doesn't make it easy. He's well-behaved enough, but he's a chatterbox; he has this overpowering need for a response to everything he says. It's like having a second wife. Here's a typical example:
Me: (puff puff, puff puff, puff puff)
Caleb: "Airplane, Daddy."
Me: (puff puff, puff puff, puff puff)
Caleb: "Airplane, Daddy.
Me: (puff puff, puff puff, puff puff)
Caleb: "Airplane, Daddy. Airplane.
Me: (puff puff) "Mmmhmm." (puff puff)
Caleb: "Daddy, it's a airplane. Airplane daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Air - plane Dad - dy.
Me: "Airplane. It's an airplane." (wheeze, puff puff)
Caleb: "Airplane."
Me: (puff puff, puff puff, puff puff)
Caleb: "Hear dat birdie Daddy? Daddy? Daddy?"
Posted by Woodlief on May 22, 2002 at 09:39 AM
