I was quite young when I first discovered that words starting with S were likely to be bad. No, I don’t mean bad as in naughty — not that kind of bad word. No, I mean a word that portends tedium. Lengthy, boring and for the most part, indecipherable. I think I was probably around five and just learning to read. I first noticed the connection between S and boredom. It was in church. We went to a little Baptist church in North Hollywood. Reverend Showers was a very nice old man. He could talk for hours. Well, it seemed like hours. I had no idea what he was saying, of course, but it didn’t take me long to realize that Reverend Showers long rambles coincided with the letter S. S as in Sermon. There were other words in the bulletin, of course, that started with other letters — 2… Read More »
Where’s Dr. Oz when you need him?
Obesity? Really? Dr. Oz
Free food ??
It happened again today. I was in line at the market behind the woman who thinks food is free. She had a rather large amount of items and stood here placidly as the checker rang them up and the box boy bagged and set them in the basket. Then the checker turned to her and said, “That’ll be forty-three-dollars and eighty-five cents.” “Oh,” she said as though startled, “how much?” The checker pointed to the total on the register. $43.85. The woman stood there another moment as if she expected the cashier to say something like “Oh, wait, I forgot. It’s Wednesday. It’s free food day. Never mind.” But the cashier didn’t say that and after a moment, the lady picked up her purse and put it on the counter. She somehow seemed a bit startled that the checker was actually asking her for money. She fished out a wallet. She… Read More »
If it’s Christmas, can Halloween be far behind?
Yesterday I received another batch of Christmas catalogs in the mail which means (Ta-DA!) it’s almost Halloween! Today when I stepped into Wally World, I was confronted with a large display featuring reindeer and a sleigh full of colorfully wrapped boxes. Must be time for the Great Pumpkin. Actually, since the end of September, my neighborhood has been gearing up. The house around the corner has a yard full of fake tombstones (which actually complement the dirt and weeds). Across the street they’ve hung white gauze “ghosts” from the tree and the people next door put orange lights in every window and a motion-activated skeleton that jumps and shrieks when someone walks past. The house on the other side has a display of carved pumpkins and a large rubber rat that makes horrible choking and gagging sounds. Jolly good fun! When did Halloween develop into this elaborate holiday? And how much does all… Read More »
Please don’t sit at the end of the row
Why do people get somewhere early, park themselves at the end of the row and then glare when someone asks to get by? Has this not happened to you? In a concert or church or anywhere with open seating. I realize they want the prized “end seat” so they can be first out and perhaps get out of the parking lot ahead of the other thousands of people, but surely they understand that when they sit at the end of the row, other people are going to need to get past them. So why do they get so upset when you ask to get by? It happened again this morning in church. A woman had parked herself at the end of an empty row and simply sat there as I stood mutely for a few seconds, waiting for her to make eye contact. She didn’t, so I finally said, “excuse… Read More »
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