Beauteous Bitch

I was well and truly told off recently, and, as usual, I was (almost) completely innocent.  The wife and I shopped the food section of a Wal-Mart store.  As we worked our way across, I kept seeing a beautiful young couple – high-schoolers – 16.

I think that he was being led around by the…. hand.  She never let go.  They flitted here.  They flitted there, never too close to us, but without a cart.  I never saw them actually buy anything.  Perhaps they were shoplifting.  I don’t know where she would hide anything.  She had pants that looked like they were sprayed on.  They were so tight, even I had trouble breathing.

Above the waist she wore a strategically-placed collection of holes, held together with the legal minimum of thin fabric.  Finally, they disappeared.  We proceeded to the dairy section at the back, and stopped at a refrigerated cabinet at the end of the last aisle, that contained YOP drink, on sale.

I held one door open, so that the wife could choose her flavors.  I stood sideways, out of her way, facing the last aisle.  Suddenly, they were back, at a brisk walking pace, tight to the corner, with her to the inside.  She almost stepped on the wife’s foot, and then thrust her pert young bosom, directly into my eye.

They never slowed down.  She was in my field of vision for less than a half a second, but I savored the after-image. I didn’t have time to look, or leer, or ogle.  In the reflection of the other door, I saw that they had stopped, just behind me, probably trying to figure out where Smyrna figs, or Everything Bagels, were.

Finally finished, the wife pushed the cart around the corner, into the aisle that they had just come from.  She asked, “Was he talking to you?”
Did he say something?
It sounded like he said, Creepy old pervert.

Oh, did he now??!  Almost definitely at her instigation.  It’s a good thing I didn’t hear it, or I would have educated both of them about some facts of life.  I’ll admit to “Old.”  I can’t even chase cars any more, much less drive them.  Like ‘Woke,’ creepy is in the mistaken eye of the beholder.  Appreciating the image of a lissome, nubile, young female is not perverted.  Perverted is appreciating the looks of her boyfriend.  That would piss her off even more.  😮

I am sympathetic to the problem of sexual harassment, but I did not pursue!  I did not stalk.  I did not follow.  I did not leer.  I did not ogle.  I did not comment.  At most, I appreciated what she blatantly presented.  If you don’t want that to happen, wear a burqa, or stay home.  Otherwise, get used to it.  Almost every non-LGBTQ male is going to look in appreciation.

One or both of them are going to have to learn better social interaction.  If she urges him, and he complies, and says something like this to a guy in better fitness, but with less forgiveness, he stands a good chance of getting his pretty face rearranged.  Just sayin’.  🙄

Getting To Know All About You

Getting To Know You

Have you ever learned to fight or taken self-defense lessons – why did you feel this was necessary or was this something that you wanted to know to feel safer?
A man who resorts to violence has already lost the battle.
The Army no longer accepts karate experts.  The first time they salute, they kill themselves.
If it’s soft, hit it with your fist.  If it’s hard, hit it with a stick.
I haven’t lost a fight since I learned to run.

Now that the humor and philosophy are out of the way….  With my shake, and lack of muscle control, these are all true for me.  I could injure myself in training.  Backed into a corner – fight fast and dirty.  Hit it with a stick, or a brick – and run like Hell.  There is no shame in surviving.  I use my head to prevent getting into situations where I might have to use my feet.  I cannot lose a battle I did not get into.  A soft answer turneth away wrath.  I’ve also seen humor work.

Do you spell grey as gray and also is it colour or color?

 

We Canadians confuse the rest of the world.  We talk like Americans, spell like the British, and throw in random French words.  Socially sandwiched between Britain and the US, I am as likely to spell it grey, as I am gray, without even noticing it until the American English Spell-Check puts a red line beneath it.

I probably have more American readers that I do British or Canadian.  Unless I’m submitting Fibbing Fridays to our gracious hostess in Lincolnshire, I tend to leave the redundant U’s out.  My blog-tag is spelled humor, not humour.

If you typed as slowly and laboriously as I do, you’d realize that skipping all those extra single letters adds up to me being able to go for dinner just that much earlier.

 

Are you now or have you ever been afraid of the dark?

 

NEVER!  My family never indulged in the Monsters under the bed or in the closet silliness.  Even as a child, I was wise enough to know that there were times and places where there might be something in the dark to be wary of, but never the dark itself.

As a teen, I sometimes participated in a Chase/Hide-and Seek game that had me in dark lumber storage buildings, or abandoned factories.  Coming home late at night from the beach bowling alley, I could save half a mile of walking by following an abandoned rail line through a narrow evergreen forest corridor.  I learned to feel the ties and rails that I could not see.  What I did sometimes see, were fireflies, which made the dark walk worthwhile and enjoyable.

The wife and I have been down in two Virginia caves/caverns.  In one, the guide made sure that no-one was fearful, and turned the cave lights off for Total darkness – before glowing watches and smart phones

 

Where do you prefer to do most of your clothing shopping – online or in-store?

 

It’s a little hard to try something on over the internet.  I remember small-town catalog-shopping with both Canadian Eaton’s, and American Sears.  There were too many things that had to be returned – expensive and time-consuming.  You never got the right-size replacement in time for a birthday or Christmas present.

Even an item that fit in the store, doesn’t fit when you order it online.  Tops get smaller, and shoes get larger – a size 8 then, is a size 10 now.  Other than shoes, I may never buy more clothes.  I’ll go into my coffin with four shirts and two pairs of pants, looking like an Arctic explorer.  I’m searching for the post that revealed that my kindly, thoughtful, OCD, wife has put 42 polo shirts in my closet.

***

Anything else ya wanna know??  😕

Smitty’s Loose Change #23

Snippets

 

Some frazzled, forgetful kindly, thoughtful person just contributed another $8.55 to my retirement fund.  I just extracted eight Loonies, two quarters and a nickel from the overflow chute of one of those in-store coin-counting machines.  It doesn’t compare to the $76 that I found last year, but every little bit helps.  I went back to the store two days later, for something I’d missed, and got another two dimes, a nickel, and a $1 token for releasing chained-up shopping carts.

***

Let us not think of Freedom as the right to do as we wish, but rather as the opportunity to do what is right.

***

If you had to change your name, what would the new one be?
Joe Shitz – instead of Bill.

How do you want to retire?
First, I’d wash and shave, then put my jammies on, then hop into bed.

List ten things that you know to be absolutely certain.
That there is only one thing, and this is it.

Which activities make you lose track of time?
Stopping at a jewelry store to get a new battery for my watch.

What are your future travel plans?
I don’t plan to travel to the future.  It’s difficult and quite expensive.  Besides, The Apocalypse is right around the temporal corner.  I’m just gonna stay right here now.

How would you describe yourself to someone?
Seriously undecided as to whether to say uninterested, or disinterested.

Describe your life in an alternate universe.
I’ve never been in an alternate universe.

Describe a family member.
It hangs off my right hip, and is just long enough to reach the ground.  You thought I was going to describe its neighbor to the left.  Sadly, that’s a very short story.

Where is your favorite place to go in your city?
Well…. The newest Wal-Mart has a nice clean washroom.

***

I had hoped for a blog-theme prompt from my Muse, but I’m drawing a blank.

***

Long-Stemmed Rose

The wife planted this beside our front walkway.  It hasn’t produced a flower, but it’s grown higher than the garage eave, and is reaching for the second-story window.

Not In My Write Mind

That title is a lie!  I am a writer!  I am always a writer.  I am not sometimes a writer.  I am a writer 24/7/365-1/4.

I am not an author.  My well of inspiration is not deep enough, nor my attention span long enough, but I am a writer.  I have been one almost all my life.  I kept a diary when I was 12.  I have a thick file with Op-Ed letters, and opinion-piece essays that have been submitted to at least three newspapers, a couple of magazines, and various politicians and public figures.

Over the years, I sent hundreds of hand-written and typed, newsy, gossipy letters to family, friends, and neighbors, recounting personal experiences.  Then, finally, along came the internet, and the wife and daughter set me free in the verdant pastures of the blogosphere.  I was in Heaven.

Just because you don’t see me hunched over my keyboard, doesn’t mean that I am not writing.  I am a writer when I am consuming a breakfast of oatmeal and toast, and I’m mentally mulling various verb forms, and searching for alternate adjectives, so that my prose does not become repetitive.

I am a writer when I reluctantly slip back out of bed, after an hour of failed attempts to doze off, just so that I can key in at least the bare bones of a blog-theme idea I just had.  Some people are convinced that they have great ideas while they sleep, so they put a notepad and pen beside their bed to write them down.  Usually, the best they get is  “Mmmffap, bittensnarg klarn.” I wouldn’t even get that.  It seriously irks me to wake up, knowing that I had a great thought before I went to bed, but not be able to recall what it was.  I don’t really have a memory.  It’s more like a forgettery.  🙄

I am writing when I am peacefully reading my newspaper – including the comics, which are social commentary, and also while I solve the crossword puzzle, which provides all kinds of historical, geographical, political, scientific, and entertainment trivia.

I am writing when I am shopping in stores, or driving the streets (Just not with one hand on the steering wheel, and the other massaging a Smartphone or tablet.  I’m dumb, but I ain’t that dumb.) – anywhere I can people-watch and gather grist for my blog-mill.

The crossword puzzle definition of a blog is, an online diary.  In 65 years, I’ve come full circle.  Blessed are they who run around in circles, for they shall be called Big Wheels.  Circle back later for some Friday fun.

😀

Happy Birthday John E.

A funny thing happened on my way to the Post Office.  It wasn’t there.  😳

I sent John Erickson, who litters decorates my blogposts with witty comments, a birthday present.  His actual birthday is still over four months away, but I was using the Canadian, metric calendar, and got my conversions mixed up.  I sent BrainRants a birthday present some years ago, and there were very few repercussions, so I thought I’d risk it again.  Since it was by surface mail, TSA didn’t get involved.

The daughter’s bestie likes to buy the occasional commemorative coin from the Canadian Mint.  She claims that she only intended to buy one, but wound up with two coins medallions, celebrating the life of Queen Elizabeth II.  Since she knew that I was interested in coins, she gave one to the daughter to pass on to me.

While I am ‘interested in coins,’ I am interested in mostly foreign coins.  Even though this is a magnificent artifact, it is neither foreign, nor a coin.  It has no face value.  It is a medallion.  If I kept it, it would only languish in a box.  I thought of John E.  Despite being an American, marooned in the wilds of Ohio, he is a greater – finer, Anglophile, Royalist, and Elizabethan than I ever could be.  When Elizabeth died, he wailed so loudly that, “My Queen has died!!” that I thought he was talking about his wife.  I decided to send it to him as a surprise present.  I put it in a bubble-pack mailer, added a cover letter, and headed for the post office.

In Southern Ontario, Canada Post has a sorting and shipping depot in every large urban area.  All of the other Postal Services, they have abdicated to branches of the most populous pharmacy chain, as well as some selected convenience stores.  Certain clerks are supposed to be trained to Canada Post levels, on Canada Post protocols and procedures.  I have a pharmacy nearby, but I was headed for the Wal-Mart out on the Golden Mile, so I went to the drug-store next to it.

Some of the stores are mirror images of each other.  I marched in to the left-rear corner.  Hmmm, cosmetics.  I grumpily stomped over to the right-rear corner.  Grrr!!, vitamins.   Where in Hell is the postal outlet???  A clerk told me that they are the only branch which does not host one, and she had no idea why not.  The one by my house is nearer but, “If you’re going to the XXX Plaza, on the other side of town, there’s a store over there with a postal outlet.”

By coincidence, we were headed for that plaza, to reap savings on grocery sale prices.  This damned inflation is eating better than I am.  While the wife grocery-shopped, I walked over to the pharmacy and stood in line – and stood in line – AND STOOD IN LINE!!  That part of Postal Service, they have mastered.  The woman in front of me had a mailer identical to mine.  She finally stepped forward, handed it to the ‘Postal’ clerk, asked that he check that it was ready to go, and to please apply sufficient postage.  It was judged okay.  $2.08 later, she was on her way.  I stepped up, handed the same clerk the same mailer, and asked for the same thing – check that it was ready to ship and apply postage.  $2.08 later my little package was on its way.

I excitedly waited for an email from John, that the parcel had arrived….  Two weeks later, I went to the community mailbox to pick up my own mail, and there was my mailer back again.  It had a Canada Post sticker over my address label, with three little boxes – all checked.  Insufficient postage – Incorrect label – This service not available in this country  W.T.F!!?

The next day, I went to a convenience store.  It’s a bit farther than the pharmacy.  The people who run the store, and the Postal Outlet, are recent immigrants, but I’ve used them before, and feel confident.  I handed the clerk the package and asked what was wrong with it, and how could I correct any problems.

Three check marks – three lies!!  I had sufficient postage, but I was also expected to pay for a Customs Declaration of value.  My address label was correct, but I was expected to add the Customs label, because…. The country that didn’t provide the service was the USA.  “You’ll have to send this as a small parcel.”  “What the Hell is in your hand, if it’s not a small parcel??”  “Well, it needs the Customs sticker added to it.  How much is it worth??”  I received it as a present.  I don’t know!?

I guessed at $29.95 Cdn, hoping that John would not have to pay duty on it when he received it.  If he did, I should have guessed $9.95.  How much for the Customs sticker?  $10.00, do you want it traced??  I didn’t trace it the first time.  How much to trace?  “Only another $5.00.”  Screw that!  If it don’t arrive, I just won’t tell John I tried.

When I got home, and told the wife what had happened, she innocently said, “Well, we could have driven it down.”  Are you saying that we might go on a trip?  Further adventures may ensue.  😀

Four days later, I got an excited, grateful email from John.  Apparently, I done so good that he and his wife were willing to consider another short visit.  😎

Loose Change Fibbing Friday

There was a little change of pace this/last week.  Below are ten scenarios and Pensitivity101 would like you to make up excuses/fibs for not complying or owning up either as kids or adults.

1. Meeting the prospective in-laws for the first time.

My in-laws had the good sense and taste to both die before I even met my future wife.  It saved me the trouble of later having to water the grass around their grave-stones.  My fine friend asked me to pour a pint of good Scotch whiskey on his grave after he passes.  I asked him if he minded if I strained it through my kidneys first.

2.  Going to your partner’s firm’s social evening where you know it will be talking shop all night.

Honey, you know how impressed I am with insurance actuarial tables, but Elon Musk called, and he wants to discuss my expertise in designing high-power Maguffium batteries. He’s going to let me watch the SpaceX rocket launch, and help him name his next kid.  You just go and have fun, and I’ll bring you back a Tesla.

3.  Not going to school on a test day.

Win, lose, or draw, you would have to be a complete fool to do this – as I know, from sad, personal experience.  One year in high school, there were exams scheduled every morning, and every afternoon for a week, depending on what courses you took.  I blithely showed up on Tuesday afternoon for a French test, only to find that it was Greek History.  French had been that morning.

I explained my problem to the French teacher.  He promised to put me in a supervised study hall to take it, if I would swear that I had talked to no-one about it, or been given any of the questions.  I passed the exam, but the dismal mark I got proved that I didn’t cheat.

4.  Broken a window whilst playing outside

I once kicked a soccer-ball real hard, and broke a lady’s window.  She was yelling at me, and saying that she was going to go to my parents.  I told her that my dad was a glazier, and he would come and fix her window if she let me go get him.  Soon, a man showed up and fixed it.  Then he said, “That’ll be $10.”  She protested.  “Aren’t you that boy’s father?”
“No!  Aren’t you his mother?”

5.  Having gone shopping, spent all the money, but not bought anything on the list.

Shopping list??!  This isn’t our shopping list!  This is our neighbor Bob’s shopping list.  He probably put it in my pocket as a joke.  You remember about a month ago, when he tricked me into going to the bar with him and getting really, REALLY wasted – and he peed my pants, too.

6.  Damaged the car

I was just trying to pull into our driveway, when a tree we don’t have jumped out right in front of me.

7.  Late for work

Sorry Boss, I’m still on standard time.  I haven’t switched to Daylight time.
Smithers, It’s the end of April.
I know, boss, but the battery in my calendar needs to be replaced

8.  Forgotten to do your homework

I never ‘Forgot’ to do my homework – ignored it maybe, but never forgot it.  The only thing that elementary and high schools teach, is how to memorize and regurgitate.  With my innate neurological memory problem, I soon found that homework was little help.  I understood principles, but found rereading, and rereading, and rereading the texts and my notes finally cemented the memories.
We had trouble
right there in River City
with a capital T,
and that rhymed with P,
and that stood for Pool.
That left me time to do most of my studying of physics – reflection, refraction, colours of the spectrum – at the local pool hall.  😳

9.  Insurance claim for damage to property

No Sir!  The pizza was stuck to the ceiling when we moved in.
Nah.  That won’t work.
Everybody else jumped off the roof, so I did too.
No, that’s not even related.  I might as well try the truth for a change.
We had a strong little storm cell come through.  It generated a small tornado, and golf-ball-sized hail stones that made my car look like J. Arthur Rank’s giant gong.

10. Ruined an expensive piece of clothing.

The wife saved, and saved, and saved to buy this pricey little gown for the likes of company Christmas parties – and then managed to get salad oil on it.  Dry-cleaning isn’t dry.  They use liquid solvents to lift the stains.

I had a bit of petrol for the mower.  I drizzled a bit on, worked it in well, and blotted it up with paper towel.  I took ‘Before’ and ‘After’ photos with my cell phone.  The ‘after’ shot apparently generated a static spark, and I learned three things.
It’s a good thing that she wasn’t wearing it at the time.
My left eyebrow will probably grow back in six months – and
The phone will remain turned off, and in the car, when I fuel up.

Time Hobbles On

Growing “Older”
How many do you identify with??

As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but annoying everyone is a piece of cake.

I’m not saying I’m old and worn out, but I make sure I’m nowhere near the curb on trash day.

As I watch this generation try and rewrite our history, I’m sure of one thing: It will be misspelled and have no punctuation.

Me (sobbing): “I can’t see you anymore — I’m not going to let you hurt me again.”
My physical exercise instructor (exasperated): “But you did only one sit-up.”

I haven’t gotten anything done today. I’ve been in the produce department trying to open this stupid plastic bag.

Turns out that being senior is mostly just Googling how to do stuff.

I’m on two diets. I wasn’t getting enough food on one.

If you find yourself feeling useless, remember it took 20 years, trillions of dollars and four presidents to replace the Taliban with the Taliban.

As I’ve gotten older, people think I’m lazy. The truth is, I’m just being energy efficient.

I put my scale in the bathroom corner and that’s where the little liar will stay until it apologizes.

My tolerance for idiots is extremely low these days. I used to have immunity built up, but obviously there’s a new strain out there.

There is no such thing as a grouchy old person. The truth is, that once you get old you to stop being polite and start being honest.

My mind is like an internet browser. At least 19 open tabs, 3 of them are frozen, and I have no clue where the music is coming from.

Hard to believe I once had a phone attached to a wall, and when it rang I picked it up without knowing who was calling.

So, you’ve been eating hot dogs and McChickens all your life, but you won’t take the COVID vaccine because you don’t know what’s in it. Are you kidding me?  😕

’22 A To Z Challenge – P

You dirty, rotten, stinkin’ Polecat, expectin’ me to come up with a theme for the letter P on short notice.  (Notice that I wasted three weeks of lead-time??!)  There I was, contentedly looking up the meaning of ‘lollygagging,’ – idling, loafing, slacking off – goldbricking – American slang = shirking responsibility, when Matilda the Muse pointed out that Monday deadline was bearing down on me.  She’s often overbearing.

I always want to provide food for thought, so I thought that I would provide a post about providing food.  Ready or not – here comes

PROVENDER

any dry feed or fodder for domestic livestock
food in general

The NEW COVID-inspired, grocery-store concept of ‘We shop for you, and deliver it’ isn’t new at all.  The vocal group Home Free recently released a compilation of sea-shanties, a couple of which refer to whale-hunting around Australia, in the mid/late 1800s.

One song mentions
Soon may the Wellerman come
To bring us sugar and tea and rum

A ‘Wellerman’ was a captain who worked for two brothers named Weller.  They had five supply ships that serviced the whaling fleet.  They would sail out, and haul back the processed products – rendered oil, blubber, salted whale-meat, baleen ivory, and ambergris.  In return, they would bring out supplies, so that the whalers could remain at sea for weeks and months.

Neither is my concept of an ideal job.  I complain about computer elbow.  There’s no mention of crazy Captain Ahab, and his white whale obsession.  He hung out in the Atlantic off the coast of Messyshoes….Massawhositz….Maine, but couldn’t get a good therapist delivered.  I thought Moby Dick was a venereal disease.  😉

’22 A To Z Challenge – J

 

Jesus, Jeremiah, Jumped-Up, Jehoshaphat, Jehovah!!  Here it is, time to have a ‘J’ post ready for the A To Z Challenge and, as usual, I don’t have a single black pixel on the virtual white page.

The wife thinks that I am a procrastinating Jackass.  The son says that I am a lazy Jerk.  The daughter is not as Judgmental.  She just sits on the sidelines and Jeers.

I took a short Journey, out to a shopping mall, now that they have re-opened after COVID.  It was Just a little Jaunt to the now-legal cannabis Joint, to buy a…. Joint. I met a Jolly old man with a bushy, white beard.  He assured me that he was Jovial, but not Jocular.  He was dressed in strange, all-red clothes, and was even more rotund than me.  He laughed a lot, and his midriff shook like a bowlful of Jelly.

He said that I deserved to get coal at Christmas, but EPA regulations restricted him to giving me a miniature wind turbine.  He assured me that I was so mouthy garrulous, that I could charge all my electronic gadgets with it, if I just kept talking at it.  I thought that was a bit Juvenile, but probably Justified.

After Jawing with him, I Judged that it was time to get me and my cowboy boots, which do not go Jingle-Jangle-Jingle, over to the men’s cooking class at the supermarket.  Today’s food category would be Jell-O salads.  The wife doesn’t like them.  The only time I get some is at a buffet restaurant.  As one of ten children in a Good Catholic family, she associates them with “Poor Folks” food.

Today’s was a Jewel of a lesson – a gourmet recipe for wiener Jell-O salad.  I Jotted down all the preparation instructions, every Jot and tittle of them.

Stop back on Wednesday.  After you’ve read my post, I’m throwing a picnic.  I hope you like frankfurters.  I’m just not grilling them.  Y’all come, now.   😉

He Is Not A Pleasant Fellow

I am not a very pleasant fellow – as certified by my wife.

The son often reads Quora, an online discussion forum, which has the recurring theme, “Was I The Asshole?”  I did it again – or did I??!  You be the judge.

The wife and I entered a small variety store – think Wal-Mart-Lite.  As many stores do, the entrance aisle was narrow.  Ten feet in, the store had put clothing racks on either side, narrowing traffic even more.  Two corpulent women stood, examining clothing on one rack.  Their shopping cart was crossways to traffic flow, with its nose buried in the far rack.

We, and the couple behind us, could not proceed.  I reached ahead, and moved their cart parallel to the aisle.  We all started forward.  Just as we passed, I heard one woman complain, “He’s not a very pleasant fellow, is he?”  Despite the fact that the wife insists that I need hearing aids, I heard her mutter, “No, he’s not, is he?”

Now, some of my readers might be surprised, but being voted a pleasant fellow by a random idiot bunch of total strangers is not on my list of desired goals.  Then I started thinking about the encounter.  Just what would I have had to do to be considered pleasant??!  What did I do, to deserve such denigration?

I didn’t scream or yell.  I didn’t raise my voice.  I didn’t demand.  I didn’t curse and swear. I didn’t insult either of them.  I didn’t say a word.  I didn’t even require that one of them actually move the offending obstacle.

I could have put a smile in my big, stertorous, public-speaking voice, and sweetly asked, “Could someone please take their inattentive and exasperating head out of their Fucking ass and move this piece-of-shit cart, so that I can get into this God-damned store??!

But no!  This was more like a good day at work.  No-one actually died.  There wasn’t much blood, and the flames were quickly extinguished.  What does a fellow have to do to be declared polite and pleasant, and not get voted off the island?

Now it’s your turn to vote.  Was I the asshole??  Or just a pleasant, if not totally innocent, bystander?

I’ll tabulate the ballots on Friday.  No Fibbing.  😉