For the longest time, Beloved (the woman to whom I am wed), has purposefully avoided reading this blog. She said she didn't want to know what I was writing about her. I tried to convince her that she really didn't get mentioned all that often, but I think that ended up being less of a comfort for her and more of a disappointment.
All that changed recently when, what to my wondering eyes should appear but a FaceBook notification telling me she had clicked "Like" on the Almost the Truth(TM) Publishing FaceBook page, where a link to each week's new blog post appears. Of course, I realize she probably did it from a sense of obligation or thanks because of my public support of her speaking and singing with Rest in Him Ministry. Chances are probably pretty slim that she actually, you know, reads this stuph.
Probably.
There's just enough uncertainty there to make me slightly nervous about posting the cartoon that I'm about to post. Not that I created the cartoon. Not that I am saying it is an accurate representation of the relationship between Beloved and I. Not that I think it is true for the majority of male-female relationships on the planet (however, it wouldn't necessarily be out of place in my other blog, Truth is...).
It must relate to enough people for the cartoonist to have thought it up in the first place...and for me to split a gut laughing about it in the second place.
At Big Brother, Inc., I do a lot of work with certain departments of the United States Government. This, surprise-surprise, involves a plethora of acronyms (e.g., USMC, VIP, IGOT2P).
Often, when editing a new document, I run across an acronym I've never seen before and have to try to discover its meaning without waking up the author. That's when the World Wide Wackfest comes in handy. There's a sweet little online tool called Acronym Finder (AF) that has often come to my rescue.
For instance, let's pretend that I've been under a rock for the last decade, crawl out, and find myself confronted with the three letters, "GPS." A visit to my trusty AF quickly informs me that GPS stands for "Global Positioning System." Problem solved.
However...
AF also tells me those three letters are the stock symbol for The Gap, Inc. and the airport code for Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. They could also mean "Gallons Per Second", "German Potato Salad", "Ghostfinder Paranormal Society", "Gloucester Public Schools", "God's Plan of Salvation", or one of 83 other definitions.
All of which does at least two things to me:
1) Distracts me from my original reason for looking up the acronym
2) Gets me wondering about other letter combinations
Take the title of this post...I fabricated the acronym AFFAP out of thin air, but do those letters have an actual definition? According to AF, the answer is yes. Two definitions, to be exact: "Air Force Family Advocacy Program" and "As Far Forward As Possible"...go figure.
There are also two official definitions for my last name, ROTH:
1) Reach Out to Humanity for Health (Shouldn't that actually be ROTH4H?)
2) Realms of the Haunting (Okay, that's a little creepy.)
Final discovery...while there are 20 definitions that include the word "Dewey," the letters D-E-W-E-Y are not an acronym for anything. The way I see it, that means I can create my own:
- Dog Ears Will Eventually Yellow (Librarian's rule of thumb)
- Do English Women Ever Yawn? (British ladies' man's burning question)
- Danish Entrepreneurs With Evil Yearnings (Secret society; lots of members)
Here's another collection of "status updates" that have previously appeared on the Almost the TruthTM Publishing FaceBook page, which you should definitely go to and "Like."
- Behind every good man is a good man’s behind.
- Better to light a single candle than curse the darkness…but
it’s even BETTER to set a huge pile of wood aflame and then curse the heat.
- It’s raining. It’s pouring. The old man is getting wet.
- Wednesday, Wednesday…can’t trust THAT day either.
- Which came first…the chicken or the nugget?
- In the beginning, God created the sevens and the mirth.
- When the going gets tough, that sucks.
- People who live in glass houses shouldn't.
- Leftover Mole Ranchero makes an excellent lunch...if you
pronounce it correctly
- God so loved the whirled that he shaved his only forgotten
nephew.
- To infinity…and…that pretty much covers it.
- A good cry is only as strong as its leakiest wink.
- All the leaves are brown, and the sky is...well...not.
- Jimmy cracks corn and who gives a rip?
- E=MCHammer
- Sleigh bells ring...it's annoying
- Should old acquaintance be for naught and never bought or
kind...
- If you can't say anything nice, try sarcasm.
- For every action, there's an
unequal and opposite over-reaction.
- If you can't stand the heat, move
to Minnesota.
- 2, 4, 6, 8...Be careful when you
masticate. Foot, ankle, patella, hip...bite the food and not your lip!
- Pepsi…the choice of an obese
generation
- Don't judge a Nook by its cover.
- You can lead a horse to water...good
for you.
- How much praying may a praying
mantis pray if a praying mantis may pray...man...tis...
- A watched pot is a lousy choice
for an evening’s entertainment.
- Oh, the weather outside is
frightful…RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!
- If at first you don’t succeed,
that’s pretty much normal.
It's amazing what a feller can learn while sitting on the porcelain throne (Thank you, Uncle John's Bathroom Reader):
- The 1896 Old Farmer's Almanac gave instructions for kissing. Tip #1: "Take good aim."
- On average, it takes 157 seconds to traverse a McDonald's drive-through.
- Singer Sheryl Crow's two top front teeth are fake.
- The average boat owner will spend 20 days on his or her boat this year.
- It can take five years for an oyster to make a pearl.
- The odds are 1 out of 3 that you've nearly fallen asleep at work in the past month.
- Actor Dan Aykroyd has webbed toes.
- The average American spends $100 more per year on footwear than on vegetables.
- Buckwheat is not related to wheat. (No word on its connection to buck)
- During the 1930's, speed typing was a popular competitive sport.
- A third of the world's population has no access to electricity.
- During the 5-year run of TV's The Brady Bunch, the word "sex" was spoken only twice.
- First ocean liner with a swimming pool: The Titanic
