Shirt Story

I saw it again. It happened once last year, and, like the eclipse, I didn’t think it would happen again. But it did. Yeah, I saw a middle aged, somewhat overweight man walking shirtless through my neighborhood last week. He was with a middle aged woman. She was fully clothed. But yeah, after living here 18 years and having never seen that, I’ve now seen it twice. Two different guys, I think. But I’m not sure – I didn’t look long enough. If I see it one more time, is it a trend?

We need laws against this type of thing. Let’s set some reasonable limits: Maximum age to be shirtless (22?), and maximum weight (200 lbs?), and maximum distance from a beach (1/2 mile) would be a good place to start. Have shirt dispensers in the neighborhoods like how the parks have those dog bags dispensers. Sell advertising on the shirts…

In our town, cats can’t just walk around. They need to be leashes. I’m not suggesting that we need to put these men on leashes – no, not at all. With no shirt, the collar would chafe their necks.

Starving Actors

Have you seen these starving dog commercials? They’re on all the time. They used to be hosted by that fine actress Sally Struthers. They show these mangy, skinny dogs looking sadly at the camera, too weak to bark. And Sally would say, “For thirty-six cents a day you can support one of these dogs, keep it alive” or whatever.

I have a problem with this concept. I mean, this organization finds these starving dogs, right? And before they feed them, they video the dog looking depressed or licking a wooden pallet or something. And how many takes do they film before the dogs get it right? “No Fido. Lick the pallet when the camera is on! If you want to eat, do it right…” That doesn’t seem fair to me.   

And none of the dogs have jackets…

Dog Paddle

 

A reader wrote in recently and asked, since it’s springtime, should they make their dogs wait 20 minutes after they eat before they’re allowed to swim. 

Well, that’s a great question. I think there are two options:

1.       Let the dogs swim. It’s spring. Maybe keep them in the shallow end at first

2.       Make the dogs wait 20 minutes

Actually, there’s a third option. Make the dog wait 20 dog minutes. This seems like a reasonable compromise.

Odds and Ends

I had an ad pop up on my phone where a woman says, “My husband and I have won the lottery 27 times. Would you like to know our secret?” Unfortunately/fortunately I was in a hurry, and I did not stick around for the remainder of her presentation. I can only guess at their “secret”. I can think of two strategies they might use:

1.     Buy a lot of tickets. Cash in your retirement. This would increase your odds of winning.

2.     Try to get other people to not buy tickets. Maybe, like, write letters to the editor of every newspaper in your state stating how the lottery rips off the poor.  Use a fake name so, when you win, you don’t have to explain the letters. This would also increase your odds of winning.

Actually, I think I know this couple’s secret. Their secret is that they didn’t really win the lottery 27 times. 

Yeah. 

 

A Day in the Life

 

Friday is D-Day. Eighty-one years ago, our brave soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy in a well-planned and well-executed attack. It was a huge success and it led to the eventual liberation of France. An important component of the plan was knowing what the weather was going to be. In fact, the attack was delayed at least one day, maybe more due to forecast inclement weather patterns.

So, yeah, a lot of this stuff is still top secret, and, it’s probably none of my business, and we may never know. But let’s say the attack was delayed 3 days. Was the first day attack to be known as “A-Day”, the second day as “B-Day”, etc?

I've always wondered...  

Uncle Colin?

While on vacation, we called in an order for some breakfast sandwiches to a little restaurant we like. When I went to pick up the order it wasn’t ready yet. While I was waiting, they shouted out that an order for Colin was ready. Nobody responded so they yelled it out again. “Colin! Colin!” I didn’t think anything of it, since my name is not Colin. Finally, since there were just a few of us waiting there, the cashier asked me if I was waiting for a called in order. So, yeah, apparently this place does not call you by name, they call everyone “Call In” which I thought was “Colin”. Next time I’ll know…

If your name really is Colin, you might not want to go to this place. It could get messy.

Just an Old Fashioned Love Song

So, yeah, we stopped at the same Love’s service plaza on the way home from our trip. (See previous post.) This time they weren’t playing loud, upbeat music in the men’s room. No. And yes, I confirmed that the same music was being played in the women’s rest room. (We don’t call it “the women’s room, do we?) Their playing of different songs in the different rest rooms wasn’t gonna last, was it? I mean, this is 2025. Everything’s gotta be equal. Somebody must have told Mr. Love that women can even vote now…

Now the bad news. The song playing when we were in there was Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall”. The well known lyric, “We don’t need no education” starts the song. C’mon Mr. Love. It’s the end of May, kids across the country are graduating, and we have to listen to this 46 year old warn out anti-education rant?   

Might as well change the name of the place to Hate’s, Mr. Love.