Mint Condition

Back in the 20^th century my grandmother made homemade mints and would bring them to parties and weddings and stuff. They were really good. Sometimes those little soaps you see around remind me of Grandma’s mints. Don’t you hate it when you accidentally eat those little soaps that you thought were mints? I seem to do that from time to time, especially around Easter. Yeah, if you see me at Dillards and I look kinda sick, it’s ‘cause I ate what I thought were sample mints. I try to justify the experience by asking myself if I’ve used any bad language recently, and that maybe eating soap is my punishment. The problem is that I’m more likely to use the bad language (somewhat loudly) AFTER I eat the soap. As a result, I’m no longer allowed in Bath and Body Works.  

It also gets confusing when the fancy hotel or bed and breakfast puts a mint on your pillow. I know that more than once I’ve tried to use that mint in the shower…

Poodle Paddle

Remember when you were a kid and you had to take a shower before you went in the city pool? At our park pool growing up we had to walk through this series of showers but if you danced around enough you could avoid the water. Nowadays, you don’t have to take showers before you go in the city pools, I don’t think. Maybe it’s because of the stronger chemicals they have in the pools now.

I saw recently in our newspaper that there is going to be a time set aside for bringing your dog to our pool for a swim. No humans allowed. Just dogs. Wait. What? Are these dogs “pool trained”? Does such training exist? Are the pool chemicals strong enough to kill fleas? Are they going to drain and scrub down the pool afterward like you and I do our tubs after the dog has a bath?

Oh, and this dog swim is free. Unbelievable! Humans pay like $9 to swim there. The city had better not be paying for lifeguards for this event. Call me cheap, but I am OK with a couple of the better swimming dogs “manning” the lifeguard chairs.

Loving Out Loud

A friend of mine sent an email to her aunt recently to inform her that a relative had died. Her aunt’s response was a surprising “LOL. Thanks”. So, my friend became alarmed ‘cause, like, why would her aunt be laughing out loud about something like that? A few days later, she was comforted when she saw her aunt at the funeral and her aunt was her normal old self.

  

Finally, after talking to her aunt, she solved the mystery. It turns out that “LOL”, before it became somewhat overused in emails, texting and what all, had the meaning “Lots of Love”. So, this put a different spin on her aunt’s response.

Well apparently there are versions of this story floating around the net. So, this whole thing got me to thinking. I really need to go back and review all those responses I’ve received from you, my loyal readers, and determine which LOL you meant. Going forward, when writing to us, please note which acronym you’re using. But really, in this troubled world in which we live, why can’t it mean both, as in “laughed out loud with lots of love”? That's what we're all about here at Uncle Tommy.

Corn Tax

Remember when you used to buy fresh sweet corn and you were not allowed to pull back the husks to look at the corn? It just was not done. It would be like peeling back the wrapper on a pack of baseball cards to make sure you didn’t get another Billy Ripken card when you needed the Cal Ripken one. You’d get thrown out of the store for doing that. Grocery stores had those double swinging saloon type doors at the back of the produce aisle. And the doors had those little windows at the top. If they caught you peeling back husk the produce man would bust through those swinging doors like the Dodge City Sherriff in a western. He’d be on you like flies on…….corn.

Nowadays, people pull back the husks and nobody does anything. Nothing. So, yeah, you start digging through the fresh corn and half of it is half peeled. And, no, I’m not gonna buy the one that’s half peeled. No way.

There is an easy solution here, you know. Simply charge extra for the half peeled corn. That’ll stop them in their tracks. After the shoppers start behaving themselves the policy can be, um, “repeeled”. Heh!

Tear Down this Wall!

Our pediatrician always had a healthy waiting room and a sick waiting room. That was cruel. The two rooms were connected but were L shaped. The sick people would sit wherever in their room, but the healthy ones would all congregate at the far end of their room, as far away from the germs as possible, like boys at a Junior High dance. When you were in the sick side, you’d hate it when a healthy person got called in to see the doctor. “Hey, why you taking that healthy person in? We’re dying over here.” Eventually you would lose hope, paranoia would set in, and you’d start having thoughts like, “There’s no hope for us in our room. That’s why they’re taking the healthy kids first.” Can we please end this horrid practice of separate waiting rooms?

Having said that, I wouldn’t mind seeing sick and healthy waiting rooms at the license bureau. You wait a long time there and some of those people are pretty sick looking.

Grand Old Flagman

Summer is the time for road construction. It’s everywhere, isn’t it? Well, nobody likes to see that “Flagman Ahead” sign when there’s road construction. You really can’t fault the flagman or flagwoman. They’re just doing their jobs. But they sure slow down your trip, don’t they? I think the secret to avoiding being stopped by the flagman is to tailgate the car ahead of you really close as you approach the flagman. That way the flag person can’t stop you. That, and avoiding eye contact with the flag person would give you a better chance of not being stopped.

So, yeah, despite my efforts I got stopped by the flag person the other day. The dude stopped me and then ate a sandwich in front of me while I waited. It was a small sandwich, but I got the impression that his timing of letting traffic through had nothing to do with the amount of traffic. Rather, it was all about giving himself enough time to finish the sandwich, and then he could go back and get his chips before he came back and stopped traffic again.

  

My other theory is that someone drove by and gave him their sandwich. “If you let me through you can have my sandwich.” I think I’m gonna stick with that one.