Tag Archives: Humor

Damn It, Sally.

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Earlier today…and every, I mean ev-er-y, single blessed day…

There was Sally, attempting to walk in shoes that missed practical by several inches.

Sally looks great. She always does. She of the 3-inch stilettos, the canny elevator wedges (elewedges). Sally is fashionable. Sally is pretty. Sally looks composed and professional and stylish.

Until she has to move.

So there's Sally in the one and only long and narrow hallway which leads from work to parking. And she's, you know, not moving quickly (because she just can't; the shoes never permit) and she's not-moving-quickly square in the very middle of the long and narrow hallway.

Damn it, Sally. Look up from your phone and stop texting.

See, if you would look up for a second, you would notice that the madding crowd is on your stylish heels. And we're all frowning.

At you.

Because you are (a) blocking egress from the building (b) and you're not doing it quickly and (c) you're oblivious. And (d) do you really have nowhere you need to go?

Hug the wall, honey. Move to the side. Hell, Sally, just stop and stand there and we'll all go around you. Like a river around an eternal and immovable rock.

Sally does this in the mornings (the texting, the mincing, the oblivion) too. And Sally has a posse or twins or lots and lots of copycat admiring wannabes who do the same thing.

In the mornings, in the evenings, my days are filled with Sally: Speed-up, Sally and Seriously, Sally and Shit, Sally, and Just-Move-Already, Sally.

A surplus of Sally. A superfluity of Sally. Sally, Sally, everywhere– except out of everyone's way.

But I guess you've got to give her credit because, my god, her shoes are just darling, after all.

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Ode to Lost Greatness

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What you see there is what was undoubtedly the finest menu in the world. “Pearls of the Sea…and Other Waters.” A more mellifluous title to dinner entrees will never again, I fear, be photocopied and placed into sticky vinyl folders.

Alas, this is the greatness that was. The menus at Four Seasons in Greenwood have now been replaced with glossy hateful things, pale imitations of the artful, graceful, most beloved previous versions. Gone, gone are the “Imperial Burgers,” the “Flavors of the World,” the “Saucy and Spectacular.” Gone are the “Pearls of the Sea and Other Waters” that filled the hearts of mankind and made all souls sing with joy.

Greatness is mourned when it is lost.

The new menu says simply “Seafood.” Poetry is dead.

It will be painful going back to Four Seasons now. So sad to be reminded of the loss of greatness. However, they didn't stop serving up the best omelette in the world, so I'll have to be brave. We all will.

Goodnight and farewell, sweet menu. I loved you so.

Evaluating the Value of Field Trips in Early Childhood Education

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1.) The Orchard: Lessons learned: a.) The air in autumn smells better than any air anywhere at any other time. (b.) Apples with both green and red in them are the prettiest, followed narrowly by the ones which are yellow and the ones which are yellow-green. This is not subjective. (c.) When visiting an orchard on a field trip in October, each pupil will receive a free pumpkin. This is awesome. (d.) Size and appearance matters; the free pumpkin will result in early introductions to comparative studies on the bus ride home. This will involve tears and disappointment for pupils who choose poorly. Their misshapen, flat-sided, and/or otherwise inferior pumpkins will elicit conversation/derision on the bus ride back to the school. (e.) Decision-making.

2.) Kroger: Lessons learned: a.) Each pupil visiting a Kroger (grocery store, for those outside the continental U.S.) will receive a free donut. The donut shall be glazed; it shall be yeast. (b.) The students will be taken upstairs to look out at the store behind the one-way glass mirror. (c.) Kroger has an upstairs. (d.) There is no privacy in a Kroger.

3.) McDonald’s: Lessons learned: a.) McDonald’s does not give free food to pupils. (b.) Birthday parties at McDonald’s include party favors, unlimited orange drink, and one box of McDonaldland cookies per child. (c.) Parents who truly love their children give them birthday parties at McDonald’s. (d.) Even young children are not fooled by McDonald’s, even though the French fries are good.

4.) The Fire Station: Lessons learned: a.) Dalmatians are optional at fire stations. Do not ask to see one; you will be embarrassed. (b.) There really is a pole in the firehouse. Yes, firemen will occasionally use it but they prefer the stairs. (c.) Firemen don’t fight fires every day. (d.) The grass in front of a fire station is greener than grass anywhere else. The grass in Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day in the fulsome mists of spring wishes to be fire station grass when it grows up.

Are field trips in early elementary education worthwhile? Yes.

Random Sauce

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Stick-figure Me. Artwork by my friend Marty and his iGadgetry.

A Kid Called “Puce”

You know those “My Family” decals which festoon, and I am not exaggerating, every minivan in suburban Indiana? Those happy stick-figure man + woman + kids + pets decorating rear windows across the roads of this country? Well, I was stopped at a red light (as one generally finds oneself, you know, at the red light) behind a minivan with the whole family visually represented in cutesy shorthand and lo, and behold, all the names of the family members were marked underneath. So I knew the non-baby children were named (for the purposes of my story) “Brooklyn,” “Addison,” and “Haley.” (And incidentally, any pervs hanging around the Target who park next to that van will know, too, and will also know that Brooklyn and Addison are cheerleaders, which is helpful advertising if you’re the perv in the parking lot, I guess.)

Well, it being a free country and all, even for liars, there’s really nothing stopping me from being the life of the vehicular stoplight party: I’m thinking two female grown-up stickers, a male grown-up sticker, and like, 20, kids. And some stick-figure cats. And I’m going to name every single member of that fake My Family.

A couple of those kids are going to be named “Puce.”

Oh, the Things America is Googling!

In the blogosphere, in the ongoing quest for ever-increasing “more hits,” one starts to discover that nothing is so important as a really good keyword. Some people will actually load their “content” with keywords just to drive traffic to their site.

Other people, like me, will just check and see which search terms were used to lead people to their site. This is really entertaining, actually. Emerald/Orange has received more hits from people looking for “paul ryan abs” and “mountain dew pajama pants” than for any other search inquiries.

So, in the future, all my titles and tags will include popular and/or ironic really random (and fun!) keywords: Teddy Ruxpin! Gluten-free! Kardashian!

I can’t wait to see which one America googles first.

And a Brief Moment of Politics: The Food Stamp President

During this silly season of campaign-palooza, one of GOP candidate Newt Gingrich’s habitual lines involves calling President Obama “the food stamp president.” Former Speaker Gingrich loves to point out that this president has put more people on food stamps than any other president, which isn’t actually true, but even if it were, well, he also inherited the worst American economy than any other president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

But hey, why ruin a perfectly good and limitlessly usable sound bite with facts and context?