“Holy Mackerel, When’d You Get Out?”

There are many words or combinations of words that one does not enjoy hearing.  Words you never want to hear. I was at our local Speedway the other day getting a coffee when I heard a guy say excitedly to another guy, “Hey, when’d you get out?”.  “Holy mackerel!”, I thought to myself. Am I in the midst of some former prisoners of some sort? Were they released or did they escape? Pardoned, maybe? And are they getting fired up on coffee? At least none of them were buying liquor, although one had a bottle of Sprite which can be sometimes mixed with liquor. I got my coffee using my Speedy Rewards Discount Card and got the heck out of there. I mean, I’m pretty tough and all, but not nearly as tough as I look.

Speaking of the expression “Holy Mackerel”, my writing doesn't leave me much time for hobbies, but one of my hobbies is phrase etymologies. I typically ignore most research on the origin of the meanings and rely on good old common sense. “Holy mackerel” undoubtedly originated with Jesus and the feeding of the 5000. C’mon. What else could it have been?

Tattoo You

My friend had this tiny growth removed from his arm. It left a mark which was a perfect red circle. To hide the mark, he is contemplating getting an “M”’ tattooed on either side of it. So, it would read “mom” from one side, and “wow” from the other. He’d be getting a nice two for one from the tattoo parlor and they maybe wouldn’t even know it. (Are there other words you can flip upside down like that and turn them into other words? “ON” and “NO” come to mind. Of course, who in the world would have “ON” tattooed on their arm? We need to come up with a name for these words that can be flipped upside down and become other words.  Flipnyms, perhaps?) This guy probably should have done this before Mother’s day to truly honor his mother.  How much of a gift is it though to tattoo something on yourself as a gift for someone you care about? Do you receive a thank you note for that? 

That got me thinking. How many people with tattoos are just getting the tattoos to disguise scars? I need to rethink my level of sensitivity to this people group.  

Fine Library

I recently realized that I had lost my library card. It was right next to my Kroger card in my wallet for years, but suddenly it was gone. I was afraid that someone would find it and use it to check out some stuff and never return it and I would get charged. So I stopped by the library to cancel the old one and get a new one. When I asked the librarian about it, she said their computers were down and they couldn’t do anything to help me today. So I told her I really didn’t need the new card right away and could she just cancel the old one. No. The computers were down, she said. So I asked if she could maybe write my name down on a piece of paper and cancel my card when the computers came back up. Nope. Couldn’t do it. Wait. What? So I wrote my name down on a piece of paper and handed it back to her along with $10 and asked her to cancel my card when the computers came back online. She took the bribe.

If this ever happens to me again, I’ll know what to do. And now, you will as well.

Destination: Wedding!

Spring is the time for weddings. It’s a beautiful time of year. I spoke to a nice young man who’s having a destination wedding next month. “That’s wonderful,” I told him. So people will travel to wherever to go to his wedding. Good for him and his bride.

But really now, isn’t every wedding a destination wedding? I mean, have you ever spoken with someone at a wedding who said something like, “We were on the way home from the fish market so we thought we’d come to this wedding.” No, people go to a wedding to go to a wedding.

Other destination events do not work so well. The “Destination Birth” does not work well unless you have a history of long labors and don’t mind the travel. The “Destination Bar-mitzvah” has not caught on although there is the occasional Rabbi who enjoys travel. But the Bar Mitzvah personalized candy bar appears to be quite popular. This is where you put the young man’s picture on the wrapper. You have to be careful with these however, and you’ll want to avoid reducing these events to a simple “Candy Bar Mitzvah”. Sweet.

I’ve not really thought through this, but as a reformed Christian, I think I believe in “pre destination” weddings.

Brush with Death

Our pets take a lot in, don't they? They see everything we do, but we seldom know what they think about it, or even IF they think about it. They pick up on the strangest things. Well, our dog has apparently been observing us brushing our teeth because we came home recently and found the remains of a toothbrush in the hallway – she’d eaten all but part of the non-brush end. So yeah, we’ve been monitoring her behavior. She seems a bit tentative, but the good news is that, since the incident, her breath has improved and there’s a bit of a sparkle now in her smile. 

This whole thing got me thinking. I wonder if the dog somehow knew she had bad breath. Perhaps she has realized what brushing one’s teeth does for a person, and she was following our example. What’s with dog breath anyway? They eat no onions, no garlic, they don’t drink, smoke or chew, and yet still smell like sin. Could somebody look into that please? I’m pretty busy here with the blog. Thanks!