Spree

In the hustle of the Halloween rush I ran across some Spree candy today. I enjoy an occasional Spree. My daughter loves Spree. It’s a chewy tart candy with real fruit flavor. You can’t eat just one. So you try to eat just one of each color. But you can’t stop there either. Good stuff. My problem with Spree is the word “Spree”. Do we really need to be creating product names that are the same word plural that they are when they’re singular? As in, “Can I have a Spree?” and “You’ve had too many Spree!” The English language is hard enough already without intentionally adding “trick” words like this to it.

Yeah, I know. You’re saying “What about taffy? There’s no “s” in the plural form of taffy.” Good question. But taffy is grandfathered in. It’s been around long enough to do whatever it wants. Yeah. I’m OK with taffy.

Rock, Paper Scissorhands

We needed a new electric knife this year so my wife ordered one from Amazon. It turns out that you cannot order just one knife. You have to order two. Now what am I gonna do with two electric knives? We hardly ever use one - it’s not like we use it to spread peanut butter around. Is there some group of people out there who maybe use an electric knife in each hand at the same time? Kind of an Edward Scissorhands look? I’m guessing that maybe there is. I might try it at Thanksgiving this year. Cut white meat and dark meat at the same time. I’ve got three weeks to practice.

So yeah. On Thanksgiving we’ll have the parade in the morning, the Lions’ game in the afternoon and now Uncle Tommy’s dueling electric knives at noon. Come early for a good seat!

Halloween A La Carte

I saw a golf cart carrying around parents following their kids trick or treating this year. Really? Is it that hard to keep up with the little kids with their little legs? C’mon. Then there’re the parents who drive their kids from house to house in their SUV’s, endangering things for everybody. Is walking really that hard? These folks don’t seem to have a problem walking their dogs. As a result many families have thin dogs and obese children. It doesn’t take a genius to figure this stuff out…

People worry too much nowadays about their kids at Halloween. We somehow forget that, yes, even if the kids get lost, they're carrying enough food to nourish themselves for months... 

"Treat" Her Like a Lady

Isn’t it amazing the way parents keep their kids in the house until exactly the start time (6PM here) for trick or treating? Nobody goes out even five minutes early. It’s a very disciplined thing. You’d think there’d be one kid who would escape like 10 minutes early but it never happens. Well, somebody came to our door last year just before the trick or treat hour. She was older but she was dressed somewhat unusual and her glasses were kind of different. So yeah, I offered her candy (thinking maybe she was the first person ever who was just a bit early for trick or treating) only to find out she was running for school board and going door to door.

In hindsight I think it was a win-win for her. She took the candy and I voted for her.  

The Masculine Touch

Some words and phrases used for men and women sound a little too women-centric. That’s OK if the phrase is meant for women. But some phrases are meant for men AND women, and I think they need to be fine-tuned a bit. Tweaked. See what you think:

• The word “Barista” does not work if it’s a guy. Not sure what it should be. Barist maybe? Baristo?
• While the term “Jane Doe” works well for women, I think “John Doe” needs some work. I don’t think the “Doe” part works well for men. Let’s switch to “Jack Buck”. (Yes, I know Jack Buck was a baseball announcer, but he was a fine announcer.)
• Prima donna” works well for a woman, but if it’s a guy, I prefer “prima don”. Are we making sense?

I'm sure there are more. As always, let us know your thoughts here at Uncle Tommy.

Bun Fun

Continuing on our meat theme that just won’t seem to go away, I’ve never entered one of those hot dog eating contests, have you? I really don’t want to. The big national contest is in June, I think. That doesn’t seem fair, ‘cause how long do you have to wait before you can go swimming after one of those contests, three, maybe four days?

I bet those contestants never get invited over to someone’s house to eat. “We can’t invite Howard over! You saw how many hot dogs he ate at that contest, Ron!” 

All it will take is for one of these guys to die during the contest and we won’t see these contests anymore. They’ll get replaced by kale eating contests or something …

Speaking of which, has anyone ever followed up to see how long these contestants live? Do these guys live long? If they do, this should be part of Hebrew National’s advertising. “This man ate 32 of our wholesome hot dogs in a span of 60 minutes back in 1984 and look, he’s still alive!”