There’s a less to be learned in this…

It was autumn, and the Indians on the remote reservation asked their new Chief if the winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was an Indian Chief in a modern society, he had never been taught the old secrets and, when he looked at the sky, he couldn’t tell what the weather was going to be. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he replied to his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect wood to be prepared.

But also, being a practical leader, he decided to seek advice from experts. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, “Is the coming winter going to be cold?

“It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold indeed,” the meteorologist at the weather service responded. So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more wood in order to be prepared.

A week later he called the National Weather Service again. “Is it still going to be a cold winter?” he asked.

“Yes,” the man at the National Weather Service again replied, “It’s going to be a very cold winter. The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of wood they could find.

Two weeks later he called the National Weather Service again. “Are you absolutely sure that this winter is going to be very cold?” he asked for a third time.

“Absolutely,” the weatherman replied. “In fact, it’s going to be one of the coldest winters ever!”

“How can you be so sure?” the Chief asked.

The weatherman replied, “The Indians are gathering wood like crazy.”

For you non-mathemeticians, that’s analogy notation… i.e., tennis racquet is to bats as broom is to what?

Answer: chicken.

If you read my post from yesterday, you’ve already heard about the chickens taking up residence in the middle of our road. Today they were still here, so my neighbor herded them down to our front yard with a broom. Not sure why, but I’m thinking he was either really, really bored or didn’t want his wife to keep feeding them.

Well, truth be told — he didn’t. He started to but then he got distracted by the chicken going the opposite direction and they decided to spend some quality time together.

My neighbor calls a little while ago and asks “Is Tom home yet?”.
Me: “No, but he’s on his way. What’s up?”.
Neighbor: “You should call him and tell him if he’s not careful, the chicken police will come after him?”
Me: “The what?”.
Neighbor: “The chicken police. There are two chickens nesting in the middle of the road and with all the snow, you can barely see them.”
Me: “Uh, ok. They’re just sitting there?”.
Neighbor: “Yup.”
Me: “For how long?”
Neighbor: “All day.”
Me: “But it’s freezing out.”.
Neighbor: “Which reminds me… what are you guys doing for dinner tomorrow? By morning, we might have some frozen poultry that needs pluckin’.”

Ok… more like the Burb Slicker.

The first thing you need to understand is that we live at the end of a dirt road in a tiny New Hampshire town surrounded by acres of ponds, woods and fields. Mice are a fact of life. They’ve trashed our phone wires, destroyed everything in the attic that wasn’t sealed, leave droppings and seeds in every corner and basically wreak havoc on the walls, siding and crawl spaces. But, they’re like family — they’re just sort of there and you take them for granted, like your eccentric aunt or mad, mad uncle.

So now we have a dear family member staying with us for a while whom we’ll just call T. T is from the burbs and he’s on a mission. He’s helping us clean out the garage and attic, and seems to be a little overwhelmed by our, uh… unwavering supply of critters. So yesterday, he hit Edmund’s and stocked up on mouse traps — nothing fancy — just the normal wood things with the little copper-colored trigger. Then he hit the Harvester Market and stocked up on peanut butter (yes, peanut butter… catches way more mice than cheese or any other treat).

Last night, T says with a grin “I have to go set my traps“. Tonight we go out to dinner and he says with a grin “I caught three“. After we get home, he says with a grin “I have to go set my traps.“.

I have never in my life been so grateful… for the long overdue cleaning in the garage and attic… for helping keep the outside mice outside (the indoor mice belong to the two cats)… and for the constant chuckle I get from the cartoon in my head — the one where a guy’s setting a few traps and there’s one mouse peering in the window and relaying the trap location to the thousands of mice behind him.

So we’re coming home from the grocery store, turn the corner onto French Road and almost hit a horse. Just wandering down the road as if a lone horse out for an evening stroll was perfectly normal.

I have no idea who it belongs to. Tried to call Mike and Zoe — they used to have a horse, but I haven’t seen it in ages. I was going to leave it be, but then I started thinking… what if the rider is laying in a ditch somewhere. Worse yet, what if he’s laying in the woods with the fox, coyotes and bears we have around here.

So I called the Henniker Police Department. Do you know how stupid it feels to tell some cop there’s a horse roaming around the neighborhood? So much so that I felt it necessary to start the conversation with “please don’t laugh, but…”. I think she may have thought I was a little crazy.

A United States Marine was attending some college courses between assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the courses had a professor who was an avowed atheist and a member of the ACLU.

One day the professor shocked the class when he came in. He looked to the ceiling and flatly stated, “God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I’ll give you exactly 15 minutes.” The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop. Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, “Here I am God. I’m still waiting.” It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Marine got out of his chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold. The Marine went back to his seat and sat there, silently. The other students were shocked and stunned and sat there looking on in silence. The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the Marine and asked, “What the hell is the matter with you? Why did you do that?”

The Marine calmly replied, “God was too busy today protecting America’s soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid shit and act like an asshole…so, He sent me.”

So I’m on this flight tonight from Manchester to Philly and about 20 minutes before we land, the guy sitting in front of me whips out his cel and starts sending email and making phone calls. Everybody’s staring at him, but nobody says anything.

So after we got off the plane, I caught up to him and the conversation went like this:

Me: What part of no phones from gate to gate do you not understand?
Him: Do you work for the airlines?
Me: No.
Him: No really, do you work for the airlines?
Me: No. Really.
Him: Well I do.
Me: I don’t really care who you work for — it doesn’t give you the right to break the rules.
Him: I was conducting official business.
Me: That doesn’t give you the right to break the rules, either.
Him: I was coordinating our landing.
Me: Huh? What kind of idiot do you think I am?
Him: Really.
Me: I know you’re lying. My husband’s a pilot.
Him: I sign your husband’s paychecks.
Me: Regardless of what you think, you are not that special. What if everyone had whipped out their phones? Don’t you get it?
Him: I am special.
Me: Not only are you a jerk, but you’re way more stupid than you look. My only hope is that the Darwin principal kicks in where you’re concerned.

I was met with a blank stare. I rest my case.

My only regret is not getting security to arrest him — impersonating an FAA official is a federal crime.

This country is like an eagle. It takes both a right wing and a left wing to fly.¹

References:
¹ Comment by Janine Turner on O’Reilly, 31 Oct 2008.

Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it sure helps with the down-payment.

References:
¹ http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008309258_camphappy250.html