The Big Shake Up

Don’t you hate it when you go to open a two liter bottle of soda and it sprays all over your kitchen? And you have guests. And they get sprayed. And it leaves a mark on your counter top, and you don’t know if it’s gonna stain or not. And you try to put it out of your mind while you’re hosting these people but you can’t. And it’s grape soda.

Well, things could be worse. When I was in elementary school we had 90 minute lunches(!) so everyone could go home and eat with Mom. Well, 90 minutes would be enough time to get in a bit of trouble. We had to walk past this drug store to go back to school after lunch. The drug store did not have a soda fountain but they did have a pop machine there with ten ounce bottles. There was this eighth grade guy named Dave who would buy a bottle of soda and stand in front of the drug store in his black leather jacket and black pointy toed boots, cigarette in one hand, soda in the other, all James Dean-like. When girls would walk by he’d shake up the bottle and spray them with soda. Thank goodness he only had the ten ounces. We never knew what led him to do that. We were afraid to ask.

For old time’s sake I’ve recommended to our eighth grade reunion committee that Dave be invited to open the 2 liter bottles of ginger ale (which will have been shaken up) for the punch. These things tend to even out over time.

Wonder Man

I heard recently that Ocean’s Eleven is being redone for a second time with an all female cast. I thought to myself that there must be some women’s roles that could be remade with men. Here’s a start:

•          Bambo – baby deer loses his father to a deer hunter and takes revenge on Michigan hunters. Sylvester Stallone as voice of the young buck.

•          27 Tuxedo Receipts – Dude’s been in 27 weddings and really wants to get married. Finally marries the girl at the tuxedo shop.  Uses her employee discount on the 28^th tux. Gets free shoes.

•          The Little Merman – Michael Phelps stars in this wacky real life Spongebob spinoff

•          Made in Manhattan –  Ted Cruz moves to New York!

•          Chicago II – Changes in the law force Cook County to admit a man into the all-girl jail. All #$^@ breaks loose in this wacky prison comedy musical.

•          There’s No Crying in Field Hockey – Set in the year 2040. When all the women get drafted into the military, it’s up to a bunch of wacky misfit men to take over the field hockey team at West University. Tom Hanks stars as coach.

•           Charlene’s Anglers – Three handsome fisherman reel in criminals in the Bay area

 See you at the box office!

Edit: I have recently learned that Bambi was a boy. So scratch that first one. Maybe do something with a Cinderello concept or something.

It's a Maid, Maid, Maid, Maid World

I saw one of those maid services driving around today. I like the little cars they drive. That's one clean vehicle I bet. You see them pull into a driveway and then, like a clown car, those maids just keep coming out of that little car.  

What’s with the names of the Maid services? There’s:

•          The Maids – What? Like they’re the only ones?
•          Molly Maids – This one baffles me. What exactly IS a Molly Maid? Is molly an adjective I missed along the way as in “despite the hostile weather conditions, she was quite molly”?

I would like to see these folks get a little more creative with their names. How about these:

•          Maid Max – All guy cleaning service
•          The Mom Maids – They yell at you for not picking up your stuff
•          Maids of the Future – All the latest in modern technology including the rider vacuum cleaner
•          Maid in the Shade – “Lamp cleaning is our specialty”
•          Sun Maids – They leave you a box of raisins when they’re finished
•          The Home Maids – self-explanatory
•          Maid in America – All English speaking
•          The Old Maids – Semi-retired, yet thorough

Get ready for this industry to explode, folks.

Drive-through Windows 3.0

I went through a drive through at a Greek Restaurant a while back. I love a good Coney Island Hot Dog. Just so you take it home and not try to eat it behind the wheel. So yeah, I ordered at the first window from this older guy, and then I drove around the corner of the building to pay and get my food at the second window. When I pulled up to the second window a woman asked me what I wanted. Wait. What? I said that I had placed my order with the gentleman at the first window. The woman said, “Oh that guy doesn’t know what he’s doing.“ I suppose I could have asked “Then why is he there at the window?” or, “Oh I paid that guy at the first window”. But I didn’t. So, I gave my order again to the woman this time. She gave me my food and yes, it was good.

Actually, now that I write about this incident, I like the concept. I like the second chance to order, especially when you’re ordering for others. So, yeah, the first window is just for practice, and then the second one you hopefully get right. I think they’re on to something. Now, to further improve the process, they need to create the third window, also known as the “correction window”. That’s the window where you give your food back and have them correct your order. One step at a time, I suppose…

Babe Roof

Happy Mother’s Day! In the spirit of Mothers Day everywhere I see that Ghostbusters is being remade with women playing all the major roles. Hey, I’m all about equal opportunity. But I prefer when it’s women playing women and not women playing men. I’m probably dating myself here but I did not care for the movies where Julie Andrews (“Victor Victoria“) and Barbara Streisand (“Yentl”) played men. What a waste. Here’re two of the best singers of their generation and they play men? That would be like putting Robert DeNiro in a movie where he couldn’t cuss. C’mon!

Yentl was known in some circles as “Tootsie on the Roof”. That made me think of course of “Fiddler on the Roof”, a fine movie that deserves a sequel. In the spirit of Ghostbusters, why not rewrite Fiddler, creating a new main female role. I thought I heard recently of a Bette Midler concert happening somewhere, so she must still be alive. “Midler on the Roof” sounds like a surefire hit to me. Yeah, I’d probably go.

Sometimes these things seem just a little too obvious.