Bloody Good Revenue Stream

 

I got a call from The Red Cross today. They want me to give blood and they’re willing to pay me $35 for a pint of it. $35!!  Tax free! That’s $280 a gallon for those of you keeping score at home. I can give every 56 days so that’s like $200 annually – another revenue stream as I contemplate retirement. Another pocket of money. And this would give me something to do in retirement! Now I just gotta find something to do the other 55 days…

As a slightly overweight person, I wonder if they’d let me give a quart. Slightly overweight people gotta have more blood, right? At $35 a pint (or $70 a quart), I would, unlike the Costco gas pump policy (yeah, I’m a member!), allow them to top off. And, unlike Tropicana, I’m not seeking to shrink the size of the pint. No, I’m doing the full 16 oz! (Or more if they let me.)

The Red Cross should adopt the following holiday slogan for the holidays: “Who doesn’t want to lose a pound after Thanksgiving?” C’mon! I’d love to see that commercial during the Lions' game Thursday!

Have a bloody good Thanksgiving!  

Drink Shrink

 

Oops, Tropicana did it again. They shrank their juice container from 52 oz to 46 oz.  People are upset. Sales are down. I guess the price dropped a bit, but yeah, people are upset. This downsizing has happened before of course, particularly with OJ and ice cream. And chips. OJ used to be sold in 64 oz containers.

Arnold Palmer downsized to 11 and 23 oz cans a while back. Thank goodness that did not catch on with other brands. Arnold did not live long enough to bring this trend to the golf course. Would he have shortened the golf course to 17 holes, I wonder?  And then bragged about how low his score was? Conversations would have gone something like this: “Hey Lee, I had a really good score Saturday.” “Oh yeah, Arnold? But I bet you got it on that 17 hole course didn’t you? Cheater!”

So yeah. People feel cheated. Maybe Tropicana needs to “concentrate” more on what buyers want. This would cut down on this “pulp friction”.

Forty Three Monkeys Jumpin' on the Bed

 

You’ve all heard by now about the 43 escaped monkeys from the lab in South Carolina, right? Apparently 35 of the chimps have been captured, some of whom were given peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Fruit Loops for dessert. That leaves 8 monkeys still on the lam. The authorities are tossing out warnings, telling people to lock their doors and avoid going into the forests, stuff like that. We here at Uncle Tommy would like to amend the warning list with the following:

•           Empty your house of Fruit Loops. They were probably getting Grape Nuts at the lab and those Loops no doubt taste pretty, pretty good. And no bananas. No plantains.
  
• Do not watch any Planet of the Apes movies – We’ve got enough problems without giving these chimps ideas about taking over the world
• Don’t pick up any hitchhikers – I don't care how cute they are. Even if they offer you gas money

Oh, and hide your tools – These monkeys can wreak havoc with their favorite wrench!

Cart for Cart's Sake

I was at a grocery store the other day where they have the regular carts and the little carts. I took a little cart ‘cause I only needed a few items. I question the need for these smaller carts – it’s not like we’re saving fuel (and saving the planet) by using them. I mean, what are we accomplishing with these smaller carts? Eliminating a traffic jam in aisle 3 maybe?

The real problem with the smaller carts is, if you’re unfamiliar with the store, you don’t know if it's for adults or if it’s a child’s cart. There’s nothing worse than going all the way through the store with the little cart and then finding a child pushing one in the dairy aisle next to his or her mother and her cart. At that point I suppose you can abandon the cart and maybe the employees will think a kid left it there.

For this reason it’s best not to use these small carts if you're buying liquor and cigarettes.  

Tired Blood

 

I saw a sign for a blood drive recently. Same old, same old. They haven’t changed much over the years. They still give you orange drink after you give. That’s fun. But folks, we need to have even more fun with the blood drives. If you make them more fun, and/or more convenient, more people will give blood. Some ideas:

•                     Halloween themed blood drive – “Ve vant your blood!”
•          Church blood drive – “Nothing but the Blood Drive”
•          Half Pint blood drive – “Don’t have time to give a full pint? We’ll take your half pint”
•          Drive through blood “drive” – “No shirt? No shoes? No problem!”

I sent these ideas to The Red Cross but haven’t heard back yet. I guess they’re not a first responder…

Fish Tail

Did you hear about the fishing contest a while back where the winners got caught putting lead in the fish to make them weigh more so they would win the contest? Yeah, these guys are looking at jail time – and they have to give back their trophies. (Not sure if they got to keep the fish.)

I know they won some money, and they were sneaky dishonest and all, but jail time for a fishing contest?  That seems a bit extreme. No Houston Astros went to prison for the garbage can lid cheating scandal back in ‘17...

Maybe they can set up a less strict prison for these fish crime guys. Make ‘em eat fish that’s supposed to be de-boned but it still has bones in it. Make them eat mackerel for 3 months.

Reduce their sentence but put ‘em in small cells and pack ‘em in like sardines.