Foods for Thought

You can buy jars of peanut butter with jelly swirled in it. I guess this is for folks who don’t want to take the time to open two jars. Maybe somebody was trying to be the next Reese? Or Arnold Palmer? With that thought in mind, here are some food products that we may or may not need:

• Bagel holes – when you’re not hungry enough for the whole bagel and you don’t want to risk slicing off your finger again trying to slice the bagel. Hey, it worked for doughnuts…
• The Pee-wee Reece – Bite sized peanut butter cup (no jelly). Named after the former Dodger shortstop. In the spirit of the baseball themed Baby Ruth, O Henry, and Reggie Bars.
• Rosanne Bars – Like a fortune cookie, they come with little sayings, but these sayings are offensive.

Project Scarier Terrier

When somebody takes a dog through the drive-through at a bank, the dog gets a dog treat of some sort from the teller. Why can’t this carry over to Halloween? Let’s face it. Since the end of the baby boom, there are fewer kids out there. Should we not open up Halloween to dogs?

Yeah, the homeowner could have two bowls of treats: one for kids and one for dogs. Maybe you put the peanut candies that kids with peanut allergies could not eat in the dog bowl. That could result in a win-win: the alergic kid doesn’t get peanut candy and the dog gets a nice treat. I've named this effort Project Scarier Terrier.

The dogs would have to be on leashes of course - they couldn’t just run from door to door.

Nut Job

Why in the world are people still giving out Snickers and Reese’s and other peanut related candies on Halloween? Where is the peanut allergy sensitivity folks? It’s kind of sick when you think about it. (“Yeah. I get a kick out of giving kids candy they can’t eat.”) Some people rationalize it by saying that the kids with the peanut allergies will just trade their peanut candies with their brothers or sisters. Sure. Have you considered that these kids might not have a brother or sister? Or that the brother or sister might have the same allergy? Hey, why not just go all out and give the kids a Payday? People are sick…

The solution here is to offer the child a choice between Dum Dums and Smarties. This process, while providing a more healthy choice to the children, also provides you a survey of the intelligence levels of the kids in your neighborhood.

Fantastic Four

What if you found out you were having quadruplets? Would you be prepared with names? Here’s some help:

•  John, Paul, George and Ringo – I had a prof who referred to Pope John Paul as Pope John-Paul-George-Ringo
• Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful – Yeah, there were four dwarves before the other three were born. What? You thought they were all in one litter?
• Davenport, Bettendorf, Rock (Island), Moline – You guessed it. The quad cities. Beautiful area. Wasn’t one of the last three dwarves named Bettendorf?
• Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – I like this better than Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers.
• Levi, Wrangler, Lee, Jean – I think this is our winner. “Get over here, Wrangler!”

Re (home) run

There’s supposed to be a live Yankee-Astros baseball game on TV tonight but I guess it’s raining in New York so they’re showing a rerun of last night’s game. The problem with watching reruns of sporting events is that, unless you watched the game the first time, you don’t know it’s a rerun. So yeah, it’s a good time to check out the box score and then run down to the sports bar and make some bets with the guys there, ‘cause they probably aren’t gonna know that it’s a rerun either. Make sure you show plenty of enthusiasm and get others engaged as well. Bet early and often but collect your money and get out of there before the rain blows over and they start showing the live game.

You might want to check out a New York weather forecast before you go. Make sure it’s not a rerun.   

Tongue Out of Cheek

When I was a kid you would often see kids hanging out the windows of moving cars. We’ve come a long way and now we are very (rightly) protective of kids in moving cars. There are seat belts now and new, safer designs of infant car seats every year. And these seats are complicated. Motor Trend Magazine says it takes an average of 12 minutes to get a child strapped into a car. And you can’t sell an old infant car seat at a garage sale ‘cause the safety standards get updated and the old seat’s obsolete. So yeah, we’re rightly protective of our kids in cars. Meanwhile, we let our dogs hang out the car's windows with their tongues out. Where is the concern, America, about these dogs hanging out the windows?

The tongue thing is more of a manners issue that can be dealt with separately.