Twice As Lucky Fibbing Friday

Pensitivity101 has thrown up her hands in resignation and wonderment at how I continue to sneak past her guard-Corgis, and purloin yet another list of prompts for creative mendacity.
(Trade secret: I quietly read to them from The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-Time, as a bed-time story, and they doze right off.)

1. What is meant by jumping bail?

He is Christian Bale’s irreligious cousin, Atheist Bail.  (The Immigration Department spelled their name differently, when they immigrated here separately, from Inner Slobovia.)  He is the Track and Field Wunderkind at his high school, with his long, powerful legs.  He competes in long jump, high jump, hop-step-and-jump, and finishes his afternoon workout with a few laps of hurdles.

2. What is a skipping rope?

The United States still has several states with the death penalty.  If you kill somebody, we’ll kill you back.  In Texas, if you kill a police officer, they have installed an express lane.  The State of Utah, full of loving, religious Mormons, offers the condemned prisoner a choice – hanging, or firing squad.  If you choose the firing squad, that’s skipping rope.

3. What is a sickly hue?

One of my cats has allergies, and is not above hacking up a bile-encrusted hairball in the middle of the night.  When I stepped on one, getting out of bed one morning, I said to the wife, “I must remember to put on my slippers.” until the morning I found one – by squeamish touch – in a slipper.  A sickly hue was the look on my face that day.

4. What is cooking the books?

In an effort to be relevant as a wife and mother, providing food for her family, the wife purchased cookbook after cookbook – The Betty Crocker Cookbook, The Joy Of Cooking, The Canadian Cookbook, Food That Really Schmecks, The International Cookbook.

Over the years, we have enjoyed a spicy beef stew from Kenya, Scottish shepherds’ pie, French onion soup and tourtiere, perogies from the Ukraine, hot and sour soup, and beef and broccoli stir-fry, vindaloo beef, and tandoori chicken from India, Greek tarragon chicken and rice, Mexican beef fiesta, and Louisiana shrimp Creole.

As she aged, she grew weaker – more apathetic.  More and more, the preparation of meals fell to me.  I couldn’t produce the fancier dishes.  There was one more book that I found invaluable, 365 Ground Meat Recipes – meatloaf, pork burgers with sautéed onions, hamburger goulash, hamburger stroganoff, curried hamburger, spaghetti Bolognaise, chili con carne, sloppy Joes, chili fries, ground chicken or turkey egg Fu yung, and ground lamb gyros/doners.  Bon appetite.  😀

5. What is a microwave?

It was the minuscule, almost subliminal, acknowledgement of my existence, from him, when I ran into my Baptist minister at the liquor store.

6. What is meant by passing the buck?

This is a habit that Canadians have developed since our government stopped printing one-dollar and two-dollar bills, and replaced them with large, clunky coins.  Small change isn’t all that small anymore.  If you’re not careful, it’s easy to acquire a pocket or purse so full, that a limp can be induced.

While Canadians in general have embraced debit and credit cards, many of us make sure to lighten our load by paying for small purchases with these albatrosses Loonies.  And some genius has been minting and passing counterfeit Toonies, with seals instead of polar bears, and some zombie guy instead of Lizzie the Twooth.  https://ottawa.citynews.ca/police-beat/police-investigating-counterfeit-toonies-found-at-hawkesbury-store-4949995

7. What are air kisses?

Hopefully, they’re the only kind you get, while COVID and Omicron are putting tag-team arm- ass-locks on us.  The Glitterati out in Hollywood have been practicing for this for years.  They’re a lot like online sex.  You can have a thunderous orgasm – even if no one else is in the room.

8. What is meant by shooting one’s mouth off?

A female Arizona newspaper columnist was assigned to interview the oldest man in the county – 106 years.  She asked him what he attributed his long life to.  He told her that he mixed a little gunpowder with his cereal each morning, and suggested that she try it.  She did so for years, finally dying at 96.  She left behind four children, eight grandchildren, twelve great-grandchildren, and a 24 foot crater where the crematorium used to be.

9. What does a dentist do?

He’s a guy like my neighbor Bob, operating a vehicle in a crowded parking lot.  The local Association of Auto-Body Shops have voted him their favorite driver, three years in a row.

10. What is a ruff?
    

That’s Dennis the Menace’s dog!  Am I the only one old enough to remember?   😕

’22 A To Z Challenge – B

 

Good afternoon class.  Today we’re going to discuss a phoney and valueless word, which came to epitomise a phoney and valueless city.  If it fell out of the mouths of anyone other than Englishmen, it would be Birmingham, but the rustic tongues of the northern shires turned it into

Brummagem

[ bruhm–uh-juhm ]

showy but inferior and worthless

WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF BRUMMAGEM?

Brummagem, an adjective and noun meaning “showy but inferior and worthless; something of that kind,” comes from the local Birmingham (England) pronunciation of Birmingham. The original (and standard) spelling and pronunciation of the city is bir-; the nonstandard or dialect spelling bru– is an example of metathesis, the transposition of sounds, a very common phenomenon.

Compare Modern English bird with Middle English brid (brid was the dominant spelling until about 1475; the spelling bird is first recorded about 1419).

The name Birmingham is first recorded as Bermingeham in William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book (1086); spelling variants with Br- first appear in 1198 as Brumingeham. In the mid-17th century Birmingham was renowned for its metalworking and notorious for counterfeit coins.  At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, there was an abundance of both metal, and men who knew how to work it.  It was easy to substitute cheap steel for valuable silver.

Brummagem entered English in the second half of the 17th century.

My Scottish ancestors, up in Glasgow, might steal an Englishman’s silver coins, or serve him a bowl of dodgy oatmeal, but they’d never stoop to counterfeiting.  Some of them might have been crooks, but they were honorable, honest crooks.   😉  😳

There Was A Crooked Man

Who walked a crooked mile
And when I tell his tale
We get a crooked smile.

The Back-to-Jail Special

Two men decided a back-to-school event at an office supply store would be the perfect time to do some shoplifting. After all, store clerks would be busy helping an influx of shoppers. The sale happened to coincide with the annual ‘Shop with a Cop’ day, when about 60 police officers show up to help children pick out school supplies.

Burrito Patrol

Adan Juarez Ramirez had it all figured out—he could be a cop without having to take the boring test. But he was arrested in Grapevine, Texas, after pulling over a driver in his pickup truck, outfitted with flashing lights. He even had an ID badge, which he’d made by blacking out a restaurant gift card and etching in the word ‘POLICE.’ However, he’d kept the restaurant’s logo, a jalapeño pepper surrounded by the words ‘Chipotle Mexican Grill.’

The Case of the Returned Merchandise

A Target store in Augusta, Georgia, agreed to take back a printer from a dissatisfied customer. Then the clerk noticed some work the customer forgot to remove from the machine: Counterfeit bills.

You Mean It’s Not Scout Night?

Two machete-wielding men barged into a Sydney, Australia, bar demanding money. They didn’t know the club was hosting a bikers’ meeting at the time. One of the robbers ended up in the hospital, the other hog-tied with electrical wire.

Hampered by Stupidity

In Mesa, Arizona, a home break-in was foiled when the burglar jumped through the bedroom window—and got trapped in a clothes hamper. Cops took it from there. (That definitely wasn’t the kind of clean getaway he had planned.)

Worst Customer Service Ever!

Joseph Goetz’s alleged attempt to rob a York, Pennsylvania, bank met with some snags. Cops say the first teller he tried to rob fainted and the next two had no more cash in their drawers. Fed up, Goetz stormed out, threatening to write an angry letter to the bank.

To: idiot@jail.com

A German bank robber sent mocking emails to local police, ridiculing their efforts to arrest him. First he let them know they had his age, build, and accent wrong. Then he corrected their announcement that he’d escaped on foot; no, he had a getaway car! The cops got the last word in, though, when they arrested the guy a few hours later. They used his email to trace him.

The Case of the Clean Intruder

After a man kicked in the front door of a Texas home at 3:30 a.m., the resident fled and called police. When cops arrived, they were surprised to find that the intruder hadn’t stolen a thing. Police found the man in the bathroom, enjoying a warm bath.

Fish Tales

Robby Rose lost his first-place medal and was charged with a felony after it was discovered that he’d cheated in a Texas fishing tournament by stuffing a one-pound weight down the throat of a bass he’d caught. Officials became suspicious when they placed Rose’s fish in a tank and it sank to the bottom.

Banana attack

According to the bus driver, it was a brutal, unprovoked attack. A woman got on his bus and assaulted him with a half-eaten banana. ‘I had banana all over me,’ he insisted. ‘On my tie, my shirt, and my eye.’ The woman explained that the driver had almost hit her car and that when she entered the bus to rationally discuss the matter, the banana slipped … right into his tie, his shirt, his eye … The court may not have believed that, but it did believe her when she argued that it was ‘unreasonable that a banana could cause this much damage.’ They slapped her with a fine of only about $100.

You are gonna regret that tattoo

Police in Pico Rivera, California, had an easy time pinning a four-year-old murder on Anthony Garcia. That’s because he pinned it on himself—with an elaborate tattoo on his chest, depicting the killing. Cops noticed the incriminating ink when taking Garcia’s mug shot for a petty crime. The tattoo revealed all the details of the night, from the Christmas lights and bent streetlamp near the liquor store where the body was found to the image of an angry helicopter—Garcia’s nickname was Chopper—machine-gunning the victim.

Lincoln on the money

James Rhyne of Memphis was charged with forgery after he handed a waitress a $100 bill. The waitress knew something was funny with the money: Instead of the portly visage of Ben Franklin, it was the star of the $5 bill, Abe Lincoln, who was staring back at her.

Paper Or Plastic?

 

That used to be the question when grocery stores asked how you wanted your purchases packed. Now, here in Canada, it could be the question of how you want your change.

In my Funny Money post of about a year ago, I mentioned that Canada was switching over from paper money, to bills made of polymer plastic.  Working from the Hundred, they’ve finally changed all the bills over, down to the Five, which is the smallest Canadian bill printed, since we replaced the One and Two-Dollar bills with coins several year ago.

Often kidded by Americans about our “Monopoly Money”, I thought they, and perhaps other non-Canadians, might like to see the changes.  These are the most recent, non-plastic 20s, 10s and 5s, first the fronts, and the backs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are the new polymer versions, again, first fronts, then backs, showing the uneven-shaped clear strip, the security strip, and (hopefully) the holograms.  The first thing I found is that they “talk” to your computer/scanner, and refuse to resolve, to prevent color-copier counterfeiting – after the third try, and checking the computer, and then the scanner.  I finally had to use the digital camera, upload to the computer and hope that they publish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At our income levels, hundred-dollar bills don’t enter the house very often, but thanks to a son who lives at home and doesn’t have to rely on government pensions, and the wife’s stash from selling candles, we have the three most recent iterations of the fifty-dollar bill, the ten-year-old, pure-paper version, the modified version with the security strip, and the new, all-polymer edition, bottom to top.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite some snide, condescending, redneck comments about our cash, Canada doesn’t even come close to having the most flamboyant bills.  I have some very pretty, and colorful, foreign examples with my coin collection.  Perhaps later I could publish pictures of bills from places where it’s a good thing you’re already wearing sunglasses.

Funny Money

Canada has plastic money!  Well, we’re getting plastic bills.  We have joined other countries like Australia in making our bills from polymer.  Things will be different but, with other countries leading the way, problems should be minimal.

The first bill changed over, in 2011, was the $100 note.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t usually see too many hundreds.  Last spring, the Mint released the new $50 bill.  I’m a little more likely to see a fifty, but I haven’t got a new one yet.  Since these two denominations give the most bang for the buck (see what I did there?) they were the ones most often counterfeited.  While it was technically illegal to do so, there were many businesses which refused to accept the higher denominations.

Finally the Mint has got down to the man on the street, and released the new twenty.  I took $200 from an ATM last Saturday, to go to the farmers market, and got ten of the new bills.  Canada leads the rest of the world in usage of debit cards.  Butchers and bakers inside the market building have card readers, but most produce vendors outside still insist on cash, especially the Mennonites.

The ten and the five will be changed over this next year.  Canada did away with one-dollar, and two-dollar bills some years ago, replacing them with pocket- and hip-destroying coins.  I will wait to see, both from personal experience and general public reaction, just how good an idea this was.  The new bills are 25% more expensive to produce, but are expected to last two and a half times as long.  The Mint also says they are ten times as difficult to counterfeit.

First of all, unlike paper bills, they don’t fold well.  New paper bills are hard and slippery, making them difficult to handle and count.  This slowly changes as the paper fibres are roughened up.  Sadly, this is what makes the bills deteriorate.  The new plastic bills are hard and slippery, but I don’t expect them to ever soften up.  Sales staff are already familiar with their potential problems.  My egg vendor lady admonished me to be sure I handed over just one.  I always stand in front of the surveillance camera at an ATM, and count my bills, before I leave.  I will just continue to do so, to ensure that I get what I paid for.

The new bills have an irregular strip of clear plastic, three-quarters of the way to the right of the bill.  Within this strip are holograms of the Queen’s face, the tower of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, and the value of the bills several times, some reversed, so that it can also be read from the back.  The value of the bills is also in micro-printing on the bills, and there are raised dots for the blind to read in Braille.

The symbol for twenty is six dots, like on dice.  This is repeated three times on the bill.  The conspiracy theory nuts are already out in full force, claiming that the six – six – six arrangement of Braille dots, proves that this is the Devil’s money.  Some of the more gullible and hyper-Christians are refusing to accept it.  All the more for the rest of us.  Let them carry tens.

While I agree with some of the Mint’s decisions, others are more questionable.  They saved money by changing the one and two dollar bills to coins, but ruin our pants and purses.  It’s possible to think you’re low on cash, when you still have twenty or thirty dollars worth of pocket change.

With at least six months notification, almost no establishment modified their bill-readers to accept the new money.  Trains, city transit and hospital parking machines all refuse to accept the new bills until they’ve been reprogrammed.  Way to go, guys.  Thanks for getting out ahead of this problem.

The Mint has stopped stamping out the Canadian penny, but they will remain in circulation for years.  A musical artist in New Brunswick wrote a song to mourn its passing, and put the image of several pennies on his album cover.  The Mint sent him a nasty note telling him that the rights to all images of Canadian money belong to them.  He’d have had to pay usage fees if he sold more than 1200 copies.  The Mint eventually backed down, when the David and Goliath story hit the newspapers.

The Toronto Sun printed a story about council cronyism, where friends were getting two-dollar-a-year leases.  On the cover of a newspaper with a million distribution, they placed the picture of two toonies, the Canadian two-dollar coins.  I wonder whether the Mint had the nerve to send them a letter.

Now there are rumors of the demise of the Canadian nickel, and maybe even the dime.  If they do that, they also want to eliminate the quarter and make twenty-cent pieces.  There’s even talk of a five dollar coin.  I begin to understand why England, having already switched over to decimal coinage, is refusing to accept the Euro.

A penny for my thoughts on Canadian money, or I could just go with my usual fee.