Crop

 

These cell phones are so smart. I took a picture of our flourishing vegetable garden to send to loved ones today. We’ve got peppers, squash, tomatoes, rhubarb, and raspberries. I did not plant the rhubarb – it just showed up, so it may not be actual rhubarb. But I left it in for the picture; it makes the picture look more impressive.

But yeah, back to the cell phone. Like when Charlotte spun the words “Some Pig” over Wilbur’s pen in Charlotte’s Web, a word appeared over my garden picture. That word was “Crop”. Impressive, eh?

While I can’t expect a phone to know all the vegetables by name – that may be for another generation, - I was still impressed. Now I need to see if it can tell me if tomatoes are a fruit or a vegetable…  

Really Big Shoe

Remember the post from last year where my son and I saw a shoeless woman getting on our plane? We thought she had maybe forgotten to pick up her shoes after they went through the inspection tunnel. Or was she just headed to Florida? We never found out. Well, the first instance should not happen again. A law is in the works where we will not have to take our shoes off in the airports anymore. What a relief for the employees to not have to deal with our shoes. It always seemed like the shoes heated up in the tunnel. Gross! But those tunnels always made me hungry for Quizno’s…

There were changes to the inspection policy over the years. I know at one point, if you were over 70 you didn’t have to take off your shoes. I would have based the inspection on the size of the shoe. Say, if you’re bigger than a size 10 men’s shoe or comparable women’s size, you would need to run your shoes through the tunnel. Logic being that it’s easier to hide something in the larger shoes. They’d have a separate line for people with big feet.

I guess the downfall of my plan is that sometimes men wear women’s shoes and women sometimes wear men’s shoes. The shoe sizes get confusing. Would there be a separate line just for those folks?

Hot Stove in the Summertime

Major League Baseball has no shortage of sponsors for various things that happen during the game. There's a Rolaids Relief Award. Players even wear advertising on their uniforms now.  But there's room for more sponsorships. Here are some thoughts:

• A sacrifice bunt sponsored by Nothing Bundt Cakes - How has this not happened?
• The Wendy's Single - coupon redeemable on Singles night at Wendy's. This could go a number of directions. 
• A mound visit "brought to you by Mounds, the delicious dark chocolate coconut candy bar."  Mounds can use the help. Do people even like dark chocolate?  We had a bag of dark chocolate covered cherries at work and it sat there for months. 
• Gatorade needs to sponsor the Gatorade dump on the unsuspecting game hero getting interviewed after the game. Actually, I'd like to see this done occasionally during the game. C'mon. Looosen up, guys. 
• Since Denny's has the grand slam breakfast, they could sponsor each grand slam home run. Get 10% off your next grand slam at Denny's. 

Granted, there aren't many grand slams, but people don't go to Denny's very often. 

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.