Realtor Woes

Ever notice that realtors don’t get elected to public office? It’s not that they’re bad people. Realtors work hard, hosting open houses on Sunday afternoons while you’re home watching football with your feet propped up. Heck, you might even be asleep. No. These realtors could run for office – no one is stopping them. But there’s a little known reason they don’t run. We never talk about it, no. No one brings it up. But that’s why you come to this blog. You readers know that we don’t avoid the difficult, sometimes awkward subjects.

Realtors can’t run for public office ‘cause when they put their campaign sign in your front yard everybody thinks your house is for sale. Confusion reigns, people come to your house on Sundays when you’re trying to watch the Lions and they want to go through your house and you end up getting mad at the realtor and maybe not even vote for him or her.

It doesn't take a genius to figure this stuff out.

Halloween Words to Retire in 2018

• Spooktacular – How many more times do we need to see this? It is everywhere! Somewhere there’s a guy walking around saying, “Hey. That word “spooktacular”? I invented that, man." Regardless, this one has served its purpose. Oddly, it has not been added to the dictionary yet but it’s used more than all but about 15 of the words in the dictionary.

• Booook – I got an email from my dermatologist this week saying that now might be a great time to “boooook an appointment”. C’mon. Really doc? You have resorted to Halloween themed advertising? I think I’ll call the office and schedule an appointment for the doctor to look at my goose bumps. Yeah. Do I really want to go to a doctor who feels the need to do Halloween themed advertising? Booooo!

Did you hear about the guy who went to the doctor and the doctor bit his neck? He says he’s never going to that Dr. Acula again…

Where's the Beef?

I spoke to our local sheriff last week. He continues to cut back expenses at our local jail saving us tax payers money. He’s already eliminated the hot breakfast, along with fresh fruits and vegetables. He’s cut out beef. He cut down the number of different dinners from 31 to 7. They serve the same 7 dinners every week. He’s now eliminated condiments - no ketchup, no mustard, no pickles. What’s next? Salt?

As a deterrent to crime, we need to continue to get the word out on how bad the prison meals are. I’ve suggested in the past that the prison menus be published in our newspaper to encourage people NOT to break the law. Yeah, print the same menu every week. Maybe have someone do a prison “restaurant” review. Start some Yelp prison food ratings of some sort. Get the word out!

A while back our local paper ceased publishing the school cafeteria menu. This cut student truancy sharply. So we know this type of stuff works. The menu was scaring kids away. Let's scare kids away from prison.

That's the Brakes

Don’t you love these car recalls where they tell you there’s something wrong with your car so you have to take it in to the dealer and then they find all kinds of other things wrong with the car when you take it in? What a sham! Yeah. Some guy in Detroit says “Our dealerships need more service work. Send out a letter saying there’s something wrong with the power steering.” 

We had a car recalled for a passenger side airbags problem this year. So we took it for the repair. When we picked it up, they said we needed to get the brakes fixed. I of course replied, “Why do I need brakes if I just got the airbag replaced?”

It doesn’t take a genius to figure this stuff out…

Silent Treatment

The subject of Tarot Cards came up today. No, I don’t use them. I’ve never bought one. I’ve never sent one to anybody. I leave that type of thing to Sylvia at her Psychic shop. (They say she’s a happy medium.) So yeah, the pronunciation of the word “Tarot” came up in discussion today. Since I had no involvement with Tarots, I never knew how to pronounce the word. I would say Tarot with a hard “T” at the end. Like Talbot. Or kind of like saying Tater Tot really fast. Try it! Tarot!  

Well it turns out, it’s pronounced tarou. So yeah, the “T” is silent. Wait a minute. Is it silent or isn’t it? You DO pronounce it at the beginning of the word. Can a letter appear more than one time in a word, where the letter is silent only one of the times? Are we going to allow that? C’mon, English language. Make up your mind! You can’t have it both ways. Do we really expect immigrants to learn this mess?

I think there should be silent numbers. “That’s not really my weight. The 2 is silent.”