Old Flavorites

I’m not a big ketchup guy. I, like former President Obama, prefer mustard. And I like that you can get a million varieties of mustard. Ketchup is the opposite. It’s like goat cheese. There’s only one type. Apparently it wasn’t always that way. Heinz advertises that they used to have 57 varieties. They advertise that right there on their ketchup bottle. That must’ve been nice to have all those choices. I would have spent a lot of time in the condiment aisle deciding what flavor of ketchup I’d buy. But yeah. To promote what you used to have when you don’t have it anymore is strange. Heinz needs to stop reminding us of what they used to be.

To put this rather odd marketing technique into perspective, let’s do an ice cream comparison. What if Baskin-Robbins cut back to one flavor, but they advertised themselves as “Baskin-Robbins' 31 flavors“? You’d be pretty disappointed wouldn’t you? And no, that flavor could not be Neapolitan.  And no sugar cone option neither.

Would they still give samples?   

New Word Order

I recently stumbled across a list of new words for 2016. The list included:

•          Niblings – A person’s nieces and nephews.  Wow. This was much needed. I can’t believe we went so long without that word.
•          Definotly – Definitely not. Nice. I like it.

Here’s some I would like to suggest for this year (Yes. I know it’s early…):

•          Mojis – When you use the smiley face things in a hand written note as opposed to an email or text
•          Flavorites – favorite flavors. Yum!
•          EWOL – When a person does not respond to repeated emails or texts.
•          Drive-Flu  – When you get your flu shot through a pharmacy drive-thru window.
•          Clarinut – That clarinetist who bends from side to side just a little too much when she (or he) performs.
•          Urigate – what your dog does to your back yard (Let them think that they are helping ‘cause it sure beats the indoor alternative)
•          Onhand – Not an offhand remark, more of a prepared response
•          Ring Toe – The fourth toe, between the pinky and the middle toe
•          Mapkin – using the map in your car as a napkin when you eat and drive
•          McBib – Has McDonald’s invented this yet? Why not?
•          Cloxting – Usually after a time change, when you try to change the time on your car's clock while driving

Go ahead and use 'em. Don't wait for the official announcement. Let's get 'em out there. 

Women's Day

Today is Women’s Day. I’m still figuring this whole thing out, but isn’t Women’s Day that magazine at the checkout at the grocery? It’s usually next to Family Circle Magazine, I think. If I’m the publisher of Women’s Day Magazine I’m not too happy about the Women’s Day holiday thing. I’d be thinking that the name “Women’s Day” was already taken and now, when somebody sees the magazine at Kroger, say, a month from now, they might think, “hey that’s an old magazine. Women’s Day was March 8^th".

I guess some women stayed home from work or wherever today because of this new holiday. What if, though, you were a woman, and you were really sick today, and you had to stay home, and now your employer thinks you stayed home ‘cause of Women’s Day when you really had no intention of staying home on Women's Day? It gets muddy.

Let’s start a “Family Circle Day”. Sit on the floor. With your family. In a circle. Hold hands. Yeah. I’m in!  

Holiday Update

The month of March brings us Pi Day on March 14^th which numerically is 314 like the mathematical pi formula. Clever! It’s too bad that this day occurs during Lent when many have given up pie or I would say go out and get a piece of pie on that day. I admire the creativeness of this holiday and would like to suggest a couple more for the upcoming weeks/months:

• March 4^th – Waltz Day. (3/4 time.) Listen to some Strauss!
• March 11th – Second shift day (3-11). Take a second shifter to lunch!
• April 9^th – Clean your microwave day (409 – do I really need to explain these?). A clean microwave is a safe microwave. Oh, and yeah, I lived in room 409 my freshman dorm in college. Looking back, our room was relatively clean once we realized there was no maid service.
• May 7^th – Ketchup variety day – Were there ever really 57 varieties? I, for one, have my doubts.  If there really were 57 varieties, why did they settle on this bland one? C’mon Heiny!
• June 1^st – “A Half Dozen of the Other” Day – Buy 6 of something.
• July 11^th – Visit a carryout day. Splurge. Get yourself a slurpee! Play the lotto.

So yeah, mark your calendars!

Uncle Thommy McAn

What’s with people buying shoes on-line? I don’t get that, ‘cause, what are the odds that the shoes are going to fit? Don’t you end up sending back half the shoes? Can you send back just one shoe? “The right  feels OK but can I get the left in a 7½?”

When I was a kid we had shoe stores everywhere, and kids would have to go to shoe stores with their Moms ‘cause Moms needed lots of shoes. Dads only got to have maybe 3 pairs and one of those was either golf or bowling shoes. And nobody ever saw Dads buy shoes. Never. Regardless, you’d have to go with Mom to these shoe stores with the long rows of chairs. Each chair had its own ashtray, these two foot high metal receptacles that sat on the floor between the chairs. They had these retractable metal covers that you could make open and close. For us bored to death kids, these were cool percussion instruments. Moms hated these things ‘cause they were noisy, they never got cleaned, and when you played with the lids, ash and soot would come floating out.

I bet if you asked 100 smokers how they started smoking, at least 10 would say it’s because they liked the ash trays at Thom McAn’s and Nobil’s.