Observed Absurdities™ 3 - A Salted Battery

Up to this point, the little sub-set of posts falling under the title of Observed Absurdities™ have included oddities brought to my attention from alert readers around the globe (all the way from Elko, Minnesota to New York, New York!), but today, I offer something I noticed all on my very own.

First of all, you need to be aware of the general apoplexy that overtakes me when I consider how convenience-dependent the North American Public has become. We don't buy heads of lettuce anymore...now it's Salad-in-a-Bag. Kids aren't sent to school with a sandwich and a Tupperware bowl full of chips...nooooo...it's got to be one of those pre-packaged, cartoon-infested Munchable thingies.

It's even possible to buy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches...like it's too much to ask anyone to spread their own peanut butter...with the crusts of the bread already removed!

Knowing how such self-helplessness appalls me, imagine how many blood vessels broke in my brain when I was driving home one day following a van with THIS painted on it:

AAA Batteries

Delivered and Installed

I freely admit that I have a less-than-symbiotic relationship with most power tools, but seriously...

Big Brother Is Watching

Toward the end of last month, Beloved and I spent a couple days at the Great Minnesota BragFest, which I've written about before (http://almostthetruth.blogspot.com/2009/09/great-minnesota-get-together.html).

The biggest shock to my system this time around, other than the Australian Batter-Dipped, Deep-Fried, Ranch-n-Cheese-Sauce-Smothered Potato Slices, was heading into the Public Rest Room and being greeted by the following sign:

"This restroom is under video surveillance by State Fair Police."

I'm wondering just where the cameras are focused, what out-of-work pervert do they pay (or, more likely, pays them) to monitor said cameras, and...gosh...don't people get sent to jail for that kind of stuff?

Not being one to let a performing opportunity go to waste...and thinking that maybe this was a new recruiting technique for America's Got Talent, I quickly went to work with a little song-and-dance number I keep in my back pocket for just such occasions.

I had just finished the second chorus and was beginning the dance break when my left (jazz) hand was grabbed and put behind my back, where it was greeted by and manacled to my right hand. It seems the State Fair Police (whose uniforms are apparently plain white coats) thought I was busking for dollars without a license.

It took Beloved a few hours to get me released...especially since she didn't miss me until she ran out of money for cotton candy and cheese curds.

But everything's okay now. My parole officer has a very comfortable couch in his office. It's really relaxing and helps me talk to him in our weekly sessions. (But he makes me call him "Doctor." Crazy, huh?)

CAUTION: Handle With Care, Part 2

When last we met, I was going on and on about an old memory that had been pulled up from the files because I ate a McDonald's cherry pie. This time, let me call your attention to the box in which said pie was delivered to my anxiously awaiting hands.

I'm pretty sure that the phrase "I'm lovin' it" is what's supposed to be associated with the graphic of the canoodling couple...which is satire-worthy enough...but what really got my attention was how appropriately inappropriate the other written message was for the picture: "CAUTION Handle With Care I'M HOT"

Makes me wonder what kind of other consumer warning labels people ought to have attached to themselves...

• DO NOT CROSS...It's my way or the highway
• NO SHOULDERS...So don't come to me crying about your personal drama
• TOP SECRET...Except when the gossip is really juicy
• DO NOT TALK...Because I'm not listening
• NO JOKE...I have no sense of humor
• I'M WITH STUPID...Even when I'm all alone

NOTE: No fair printing up T-shirts without giving me a cut. (COPYRIGHT BAD COP...I take bribes)

CAUTION: Handle With Care, Part 1

I recently indulged in the evil pleasure of a McDonald's cherry pie, and there are two things I want to say about that.

ONE 

McDonald's cherry pies remind me of McDonald's apple pies which remind me that a few years back I bought a pair of them at a New York City McDonald's so ActorBoy and I could properly be called "customers," for whom the use of McDonald's not-so-public restrooms were reserved.

It happened six years ago, when the two of us were exploring The Big Apple as part of his beginning his theatre studies. He was 18, moving to a refurbished hotel/dormitory in Brooklyn, and excited about this huge new world that was opening up before his very eyes. I was 48, dropping off my only son in New York There's-a-Victim-Born-Every-Minute City, and decidedly anxious about this huge new world that was opening up before his very eyes.

It's true that my anxiety had a lot to do with taking this fish of mine and putting him in an exponentially larger pond, but I confess that my biggest worry during the four days we spent together there was if my bladder would hold out until we found a Relief Station.

City That Never Sleeps? HA! It should be called The City That Never Pees. I'm convinced this is the reason NYC residents have earned their reputation of being cranky and impatient...they are all fighting incontinence with a fervor that rivals Teddy Roosevelt's charge up San Juan Hill.

TWO

Have you ever actually looked at the box that McDonald's pies come in? Well, let me tell you...next time... (stay tuned!)

Abundance and Lack

Beloved and I had just consumed mass quantities at our favorite local Mexican dining establishment (favorite because it's 1] close; and 2] cheap) and were being wheelbarrowed out to our car when I struck up a short conversation with a short person...may have actually been a child now that I think about it.

I complimented him on his hair, of which he had plenty, and how it was swooped up from both sides and formed a ridge along the top of his head. (You know what I'm talking about, right?)

I then bent over so he could see the opposite effect naturally transpiring on the top of my head (seen here in a shot from a wedding I recently officiated):

The closing line to the conversation was, of course, "You've got a faux hawk and I've got a no hawk."

What the thief is trying to say is...

This isn't a straightforward story.

It all started...well...it ALL started several years ago when God said, "Let there be..." and there was. But more specifically, this little tale started on August 1, 2007, when the I-35W bridge near the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota collapsed:

• The bridge collapsed, killing several and critically wounding several more.


• Four years later, a memorial to the fallen and a message to the standing was dedicated.


• One or two days later, 22 letters of that message were pried off the granite of the memorial and stolen away.

This morning, the local paper printed a list of those stolen 22 letters, wondering if the thief had hidden a message of his or her own that could be made from those letters.

So of course, I put my friend, http://wordsmith.org/anagram/, to work and came up with the following possibilities. Feel free to pick your favorite:

- A Urgently Mismanaged Wow
- A Reanimated Lung Wows Gym
- Emanated A Wry, Glowing Sum
- Swung A Grimy Emanated Owl
- Lemmings Wow A Runty Adage
- Urgently Swim A Mown Adage
- Adage Slew A Ingrown Tummy
- Own A Slummy Garaged Twine
- Winnow A Musty, Garaged Elm
- Summon A Wily, Garaged Newt
- A Mismanaged Rug Went Yowl
- A Mum Gently Wows Drainage
- Town Slew A Gummy Gardenia
- A Granulated, Newsy Mom Wig
- Damage A Mewling, Runty Sow
- Nuns Damage A Wormy Wiglet

Oh, Earworm, you came and you gave without taking

This quarter's collection of morning mind music is a little light for two reasons: 1) I spent most of the month of June waking up with songs from the latest Giant Step Theatre (find us on FaceBook) production (Beauty and the Beast); and 2) when it wasn't that, the most-common thing going through my head upon leaving the Land of Nod was something along the lines of, "Oh come on...I know it's light out, but I don't have to get up for another half hour!"

MAY
4 – Living Letters of HOPE (Debbie Roth) I kind of feel sorry for the world when this finally gets released to the public (http://www.restinhimministry.com), because once this puppy gets in your head….
5 – Couldn’t Get It Right (Climax Blues Band)
10 – There is a Way (Debbie Roth. Yeah, yeah, yeah…somebody else sang this in the version that made it onto Christian radio stations, but it was Beloved’s voice I was hearing…over and over…this morning.)
12 – Forever in Blue Jeans (Neil Diamond) “Nothing aROUND but the SOUND of my HEART and your SIGHS…”
17 – I Say a Little Prayer for You (Dionne Warwick) How appropriate: “The moment I wake up, before I put on my makeup…”
20 – Hungry Heart (Bruce Springsteen)
23 – Babe (Styx) I always thought that “Styx” should have been the name for a heavy metal band instead of one that did all these national anthems from Mamby-Pambyland.

JUNE
6 – Dr. Jesus (Michael & Stormie Omartian)
9 – Baby, You’re a Rich Man (Those Lovable Moptops)
28 – Chains (Having endured almost three weeks of “He must die! He must die! This awful beast must die…” from the Giant Step Theatre production of Beauty & the Beast, The Beatles were more than welcome this morning.)
30 – Western Island/The Broken Pledge (Eric Peltoniemi, about whom I wish to wax eloquent, but what follows is the best yer gonna git. I know Eric from our 7 summers of working together with the Dakota Chautauqua. He wrote all the music, played guitar and acted in the later years, and is the High Exalted Grand Poobah at Red House Records. The album from which today’s earworm emerges, Songs o’ Sad Laughter, is a collection of 12 of the best folk tunes ever written, sung by a man who knows what he’s doing.)

JULY
4 – Bluer Than Blue (Michael Johnson)
5 – The Other Side of the World (Rich Mullins)
10 – Afternoon Delight (Starland Vocal Band)
12 – To God Be the Glory (Tony & Donny)
27 – Sailing (Christopher Cross, which has always been a funny name to me: criss-cross)
29 – I’ll Carry On (Rich Mullins)