"Treat" Her Like a Lady

Isn’t it amazing the way parents keep their kids in the house until exactly the start time (6PM here) for trick or treating? Nobody goes out even five minutes early. It’s a very disciplined thing. You’d think there’d be one kid who would escape like 10 minutes early but it never happens. Well, somebody came to our door last year just before the trick or treat hour. She was older but she was dressed somewhat unusual and her glasses were kind of different. So yeah, I offered her candy (thinking maybe she was the first person ever who was just a bit early for trick or treating) only to find out she was running for school board and going door to door.

In hindsight I think it was a win-win for her. She took the candy and I voted for her.  

The Masculine Touch

Some words and phrases used for men and women sound a little too women-centric. That’s OK if the phrase is meant for women. But some phrases are meant for men AND women, and I think they need to be fine-tuned a bit. Tweaked. See what you think:

• The word “Barista” does not work if it’s a guy. Not sure what it should be. Barist maybe? Baristo?
• While the term “Jane Doe” works well for women, I think “John Doe” needs some work. I don’t think the “Doe” part works well for men. Let’s switch to “Jack Buck”. (Yes, I know Jack Buck was a baseball announcer, but he was a fine announcer.)
• "Prima donna” works well for a woman, but if it’s a guy, I prefer “prima don”. Are we making sense?

I'm sure there are more. As always, let us know your thoughts here at Uncle Tommy.

Bun Fun

Continuing on our meat theme that just won’t seem to go away, I’ve never entered one of those hot dog eating contests, have you? I really don’t want to. The big national contest is in June, I think. That doesn’t seem fair, ‘cause how long do you have to wait before you can go swimming after one of those contests, three, maybe four days?

I bet those contestants never get invited over to someone’s house to eat. “We can’t invite Howard over! You saw how many hot dogs he ate at that contest, Ron!” 

All it will take is for one of these guys to die during the contest and we won’t see these contests anymore. They’ll get replaced by kale eating contests or something …

Speaking of which, has anyone ever followed up to see how long these contestants live? Do these guys live long? If they do, this should be part of Hebrew National’s advertising. “This man ate 32 of our wholesome hot dogs in a span of 60 minutes back in 1984 and look, he’s still alive!”

The Last Robin

Fall has arrived. Leaves are falling off the trees. Families are raking. Children are making leaf houses. Dogs are running through leaf piles. The robins have flown south. Wait a minute? Have they? We make a big deal out of seeing that first robin in the spring. For me, it always seems like they come a little too early. I say to myself, “Oh, that robin came up here way too soon. Doesn’t he know that it’s early March and it might snow again?” But they always seem to live, don’t they? I’ve never shoveled up a dead robin when I’m shoveling that last snowfall, have you?

But yeah. How about the last robin of the fall? Nobody cares about him apparently. This year, let’s take a minute out of our busy lives and look for that last robin.

Maybe leave a worm for him in your driveway or something.    

New Exit

We have a newly designed expressway interchange in our community. It’s somewhat unusual but really not at all difficult to drive through. You follow the signs, obey the traffic lights. Stuff like that. So the Department of Transportation decided to hold a class to help people learn how to drive through the interchange. Wait. What? A class to learn how to drive through an interchange? You read that right. I heard 39 people showed up. Who were these people? Should they really be driving? How can this not just be the Department of Transportation having some fun with us? I would have loved to have been there for the Q & A. The Q & A should have been directed at these attenders:

•          “Why are you attending a class to learn about how to drive through an interchange?” Or,
•          “The fact that you attended this class indicates you should not likely be driving.” And,
•          “Can you please leave your driver’s licenses in the basket by the door when you leave? The bus will take you home.”  

"You Want Flies With That?"

I had a business related lunch downtown yesterday. We went to a new restaurant which had a nice view overlooking the river. Unfortunately, we soon found out that the restaurant had a fly problem. We sat down, got served water and suddenly flies were buzzing around our table. As a result, we both ended up having to wave our hands fairly constantly to keep the flies away. In fact, our hands were moving so much that our waitress thought we were deaf. That’s a lot of flies.

Yes, I’m exaggerating a bit. But I do think that, based on my hand movement, the waitress at least thought I was Italian. Maybe even a deaf Italian.