Sam an' Ella, and Jim

I've been bringing my lunch to work consistently for a couple of months. I've only cheated twice. Yesterday, I just couldn't face the frozen meal. I needed something fresh. Something perky. Something with a little zip, a little zap, a little zing. Mmmmm. Salad.

And the cafe downstairs has my favorite taco salad ever. It's a veggie salad with black or pinto beans, lettuce, tomato, black olives, cheese and spring onions, with fresh salsa. It's a little bit of heaven.

Anyway. The problem was those tomatoes. I looked at them. I wondered. Should I? Surely, they wouldn't put tomatoes on my salad if there was any chance of salmonella? Surely, it would be bad for business to poison customers with tainted produce? And of course, the salsa. It's cooked. But I doubt it's cooked at a high enough temp to kill food cooties. Is it worth the risk? It is a damn good salad. Ah, well. Dig in.

So around 5 I start feeling a little wobbly. Not disabling. Just . . . off. In the stomach area. Not good. I muscle through the rest of the work day. But by the time I get home I feel like hell. Unfortunately, I'm a complete hypochondriac when it comes to food poisoning. So I can't tell if it's actually a hideous case of salmonella, where I will end up in the hospital. Or just a raging case of psychosomatic gastrointestinal distress, brought on by the fact that I'm completely neurotic and too lazy to get the years of psychoanalysis I so richly deserve. So, one or the other.

What do I do? What do I do? Do I drink a lot of water and try to flush the imaginary cooties out of my system? Do I chew some Tums and hope it will go away? Or do I go to the emergency room and hope that it really is salmonella, so that I don't look like a raging nutbag?

I finally decided to take my all-purpose cure all. I drank a couple of shots of bourbon and took a nap. All better. Jim Beam - kills the imaginary food cooties, makes you go night-night. Good for whatever ails ya.

Because the Bible tells me so

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/24/evangelical.vote/index.html

Really. I'm quite outraged. Barak Obama shouldn't be quoting the Bible and twisting it around to suit his political agenda.

That's Pat Robertson's job.

Tit for Tat

Is it just me, or are we in some sort of visa grudge match with the Brits?

First, they said that they wouldn't let Martha Stewart in their country -
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080620/ap_en_ot/people_martha_stewart_1

Then, we come back with, well, then we won't take Boy George -
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080624/ap_en_ce/people_boy_george;_ylt=ApgNTQDVv3YQIy21u9SAon1xFb8C

If you won't allow a friendly visit from our lifestyle guru/securities fraud convicts, we don't want your heroin addict/gender ambiguous pop stars. So there.

Actually, I think our West Side should call a truce with their East Side. Let the pond crossin' love-in begin. Let Martha visit her spiritual WASP homeland. And free the Boy. They have both done their time (And let's face it. Orange coveralls isn't an easy look for either one of them to pull off). Forgiveness, y'all. Forgiveness.

It's a fad

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/06/23/pact-or-no-pact/

I've been following this one with the same slack jaw that everyone else has. The female high school students. The pact. The high fives. The 24-year old inseminator. The denial of the pact. At the very least, whether there was an actual plan or not, it's obvious that getting pregnant was kind of trendy at Gloucester High. Like banana clips or Hello Kitty backpacks.

Getting pregnant as the hot new thing to do. And if that doesn't give you a full on Scooby-Doo "Huhruh?" moment, I don't know what will. Where do kids come up with the weird ideas? Like when they think that they'll get sucked down the bathroom drain, or when a friend's 5-year old asked me when his Mommy had the baby if it was going to come out of her butt. What? Those questions that kids ask you where you get stalled just because you can't figure out where the hell they would get that idea.

But these are teenagers, a little old for the truly whacky ideas. So where would "Hey! Instead of getting belly button rings, let's all get pregnant! It will be soooo fun!" come from? Then I heard somebody in one of the interviews say the magic phrase - "unconditional love". They wanted babies because the babies would love them unconditionally. Ah ha.

Anybody who thinks that has never actually met a baby. Baby's do not love unconditionally. It's completely conditional. Feed me. Rock me. Make goo-goo faces to make me laugh. And change my poopy diaper while you're at it. Bitch. Now I will grant that a baby will love you instantly. Pop a bottle in their mouth - I love you. But they're going to want it again in a hour. And an hour after that. And again at 2 o'clock in the morning. All that "unconditional love" is going to take a lot of work.

I'm not baby hating here. Love the babies. I believe that babies are our future. But they are not easy. Babies are work. Which, if kids had to take care of a real baby on their own for about a month, most would hand the baby back after 2 weeks and ask for condoms. Eventually, babies will need you less. They grow up and can feed themselves, and take care of their own poop. They need less from you and the love is less conditional. But unfortunately, if you need unconditional love, it's really had to give birth to a 30-year old.

My suggestion to any teenage girl who's looking for unconditional love and thinking of having a baby - go volunteer at an old folks home. It will be very similar. They don't have teeth. Some of them are in diapers. You can read to them. Take them for walks. And they will love you because you're 15 and you're there. All you have to do is be cute and sweet. Way easier than a baby. Leave the tough stuff to the adults.

Radar Love Redux

One of the more strange consequences of the rising gas prices is that I now get to listen to the joys of the "Double Nickel". If you aren't fluent in codger, or don't have a handy copy of the "Old Coot to English Dictionary", the "Double Nickel" would be driving 55 mph. And my Dad is now a big, big fan.

Since car engines lose efficiency over 55 mph, you can actually save gas by not speeding. Or in some cases, not doing the posted speed limit. Dad likes to get out on the open road, and nail that cruise control down on the old Double Nickel. He saved over a third of a tank on his last trip up to Oklahoma City. So he was just cruising along at 55 in places where the speed limit ranged from 55 to 65. Just shaking his head over all the gas those people were wasting. They just must not know about the joys of the old Double Nickel. And of course, he'll tell me the story about how much gas he saved very seriously, so that I, his daughter will too know the great and powerful Double Nickel. Not that he's telling me what that I shouldn't speed. He just thought he'd share. Ok. Got it. Good to know. Thanks, Dad.

This is just Pop's latest obsession. Much like when he discovered the senior discount coffee at Jack in the Box - "You have to ask for it. They won't just give it to you." Yeah, Pop, but you have to eat at Jack in the Box to get it. "But your mother and I can split a Breakfast Jack and eat for $2.75!" Or that they sell 9-volt batteries at the $1 Store in a 4-pack. "They've got a 6-pack, but they're no good." But Pop, you're on a ladder replacing the batteries in the smoke detector every other month! "I'm retired. What else do I have to do?"

If they ever come up with a website called "Stuff Old Dudes Like", they should e-mail my Dad for tips. He's got a million of them.