Remote Access

Another football season is upon us. Time to check the batteries in your remote. From a health standpoint, is the remote a good thing or a bad thing? I’ve read some studies, and from the positive side, the remote keeps us from watching commercials, in particular those tempting food commercials. With a good remote, we are less likely to run to the kitchen or run out for Burger Kings or Taco Bell. From the negative side, the remote enables us to stay in our Lazy Boys with our feet up for two, sometimes three games. Our ancestors had to get up and change the channels, and, let’s face it, they were not as obese as we are.  

There’s a compromise here I think. This football season, I want you to continue to use the remote. But, instead of keeping it with you in your chair, place it on the coffee table out of your reach, so every time you use it you have to get out of your chair. Let’s check back mid-season and see how many pounds we’ve lost! Send us before and after pictures. But let’s try to get out of our chairs for the pictures.  

FNOPs Revisited

I’ve always found hyphenated names to be interesting. A kid will get a last name that typically contains his mother’s maiden name and his father’s last name. If Ms. Jones marries Mr. Smith, the kid will have the last name of Jones-Smith. But what happens with the next generation? Will we see a third name and second hyphen added? That would result in some really long names. Or will one of the original hyphenated names be dropped? If one is dropped, will it be the mother’s name or the father’s?

One solution would be to just drop last names entirely, and that of course is how we end up with FNOPs (First Name Only People). Madonna, Bozo, Cher, Ichiro, Barney. Yeah, those guys. And yeah, I’m still trying to out what happens when two FNOPs marry. If Cher marries Bono, will she become Cher Bono again?  

Donkey Tales

Pin the Tail on the Donkey (PTTOTD) is a horrid game. It was played at just about every birthday party when I was a kid. First we would get blindfolded. I get that. But then somebody’s mom would spin you, get you all dizzy and all. Then you would stumble around the room, trying not to vomit, and eventually pin the tail on your friend’s dog or something. This was somehow considered fun. And of course you always had the kid who peeked and pinned the tail right on that burro. I was never that kid. If you think of the kid from your neighborhood who ended up in the joint, odds are he’s the kid who cheated at PTTOTD...

Nowadays we’ve progressed to having blindfolded kids swing a baseball bat at a piñata. Not sure what lasting effect this has on kids, but can it possibly be good? I’ve never heard of a baseball or softball player being discovered at a piñata game, but I suppose it could happen. (“Did you see that level swing?”) 

False Alarm!

It soon will be that time of year when it gets cooler and we start hearing car alarms go off all around us. Do we see more car break-ins in the fall, you ask? Heavens no! Fall is the time when we men have to switch back to wearing our jeans which are typically tighter than our shorts we've been wearing all summer. When we bend over in our jeans, our car alarms go off because we have our keys in our pockets. I set off my alarm repeatedly unloading our dishwasher last fall.

So yeah,  I can tell you that, as I lay in bed at night and hear these alarms going off, I’m comforted knowing it’s just a few of my neighbor friends who gained a pound or two over the summer. They're  maybe tying their shoes or reaching to grab the remote. You guys know who you are.

New Psychic at Costco

We get letters from you readers from time to time asking questions and/or making suggestions. Somebody recently asked: “How come you don’t write about Costco anymore? Did you let your membership expire? You could maybe write about it in really big font or something!”

Well that’s a good question and a good thought.  Speaking of which, have you heard about the new psychic at Costco?

•                    She reads the palms on BOTH of your hands

•                    She tells you your future AND your past

•                    She uses two decks of tarot cards

•                    Her crystal ball is the size of a medicine ball

•                    She’s 6’8”

Mail Box Post

Have you ever driven home at night and turned onto your street only to find a car seeming to be coming at you on the wrong side (your side) of the road? As you slowly drive forward you realize that it’s one of your neighbors pulled up to their mailbox getting his or her mail. So yeah, your fear and shock fades to anger. Why do they need to drive to get their mail, you think to yourself. In this age where everybody has a gym membership of some sort, does it make sense that these folks drive to their mail box? Are these maybe the same folks who fight for the close up parking spots at the YMCA?

We need to eliminate this practice. I’ll allow for two exceptions: (1) if you have a handicapped parking permit, or (2) if your driveway is called a “lane”. If it’s a lane, you can drive to get your mail but you have to have a really nice car.