Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

The World Cup made me thankful for foreigners. The soccer fans delighted in many of the quotidian aspects of American life that we often take for granted. It can be good to have fresh eyes looking at us.

I jokingly told my thrice-married friend that I would teach him all about women. He responded, “I know a lot about women. . . . I just don’t believe it.”

I learned at the bar trivia contest that the official state motto of Indiana is “The Crossroads of America.” That motto made sense to me. I have entered Indiana from the north, south, east, and west. Every time I continued driving straight through, wondering when I would get to the next state. I, however, have met nice, interesting people from Indiana. I met them all in New York or Pennsylvania.

I had forgotten the German-Turkish-American server’s name. She feigned, I think, that she was upset. I said, referring to the Mexican-American server/busboy standing next to her, “I have known him longer, and I forget his name, too.” She replied, “We call him Doughnut.” I looked at him and said, “Why is that?” He just smiled. She explained. “He went to a house of pleasure, and instead of giving out dollar bills, he handed out doughnuts.” The Colombian-American bartender clarified that the establishment was a strip club not too far away. The Mexican-American server/busboy had bought the doughnuts at a fancy neighborhood shop, and he had given them out to the strippers. He would not tell me what kind of doughnuts they were—I thought that they should have been Boston cream—but his English is limited, and he might not have understood the question. A few minutes later, however, he looked at me with his always sweet smile and said, “Now I am a VIP.”

The billboard from some sort of church warned “LUST DESTROYS.” And here I thought that lust led to the creation of new life.

At this time of year, I remember the country song lyrics: “There are two things money can’t buy: true love and homegrown tomatoes.”

When my young friend turned around, I could not help but notice the shiner under his left eye. Some guys tried to rob him as he got out of his car. A scuffle ensued. My friend adamantly maintained that he got in some good blows, but clearly, he also took one. The would-be robbers ran off when a shopkeeper came out of his store. My friend lost nothing. I commiserated with him and told him about various incidents involving me, the spouse, and the son. I asked him if his girlfriend had been with him. “No,” he said, but he saw her the next day. He said that she had been very sympathetic. He hesitated for a moment. A slight grin appeared—his first smile of the evening. Then he said, “Sympathetic sex is very good.”

A supposedly wise person once said, “Friends are people who dislike the same people.”

Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

She was carrying into a neighborhood Italian restaurant a stack of boxes. One was labeled “Cannoli Cream.” It had never occurred to me that somewhere I could buy just the filling.

I have read that in high society in antebellum New York flowers were never placed in a dining room because their perfume interfered with the food’s enjoyment.

The headline referred to “corporate profiteers.” While not always redundant, isn’t that always the goal?

In 2017-18, political action committees supporting business interests outspent PACs aligned with labor sixteen to one.

The promo on the public address system at a college basketball game was for a bus company. It told me that it had diverse vehicles that could fit any need and had “professional drivers.” Until then it had never occurred to me that some company’s buses were driven by amateur, unpaid people.

The wheels on the bus go ‘round and ‘round. By definition, can’t all wheels spin?

Until I heard that a hockey player was suspended for it, I had never heard of slew footing. Slew footing, however, must be the greatest name ever for a sports infraction. Surely baseball’s balk, basketball’s charge, soccer’s offside, and football’s pass interference don’t measure up. (But false start has some potential on the colorful front.) I am not a great hockey fan and don’t believe that I have ever seen it, but I gather slew footing is dangerous. When I first heard of slew footing, I did not know that it was a hockey term and assumed that it was something that happened at a dance in a Harlan County holler.

“Too many people seem to think life is a spectator sport.” Katherine Hepburn.

If you restrict your watching, as I do, to every four years, soccer can almost seem exciting.

The label on the inexpensive hairspray read: “This Product Has Not Been Tested on Animals.” That begged several questions. If it had been tested, for what? If it had been tested, how? I assumed no label ever says, “This Product Has Not Been Tested.”

I identify: The struggling writer told his significant other, “Don’t worry. My work will be remembered long after Shakespeare, Milton, and Dickens are forgotten.” “Yes, indeed,” the SO replied, “and not a day before.”

So far I have not undertaken the catalog of my actions that I keep promising to take to satisfy my curiosity. This is about those 50/50 actions of daily life, such as when, without looking first at what is the proper way to do it, I push/pull a door or insert a USB cord into an adapter or insert a polarized plug into an asymmetric outlet. I feel as if my initial attempt is wrong more than half the time. Could that be true? If so, why?