Little Known Facts Of Life

As we go through life there are many things we read, see, hear and learn that enable us to know what the best solutions might be in various situations, and these pearls of wisdom are certainly handy later on in our lives.  For example, I'm sure most of us remember the Roger Miller song Can't Roller Skate In A Buffalo Herd or the infamous Will Rogers quote Never Squat With Spurs On.  That same care and methodology comes into play as we go through the aging process and here are just a few things to avoid along the way.

- A nose ring and bifocals;
- Thongs and Depends;
- Spiked hair and bald spots;
- A pierced tongue and dentures;
- Mini-skirts and support hose;
- Ankle bracelets and corn pads;
- Speedo's and cellulite;
- A belly button ring and a gall bladder surgery scare;
- Unbuttoned disco shirts and a heart monitor;
- Midriff shirts and midriff bulge;
- Bikini's and liver spots;
- Short shorts and varicose veins;
- In-line skates and a walker;
- Loose toupee while riding with the top down; and
- Preparation H lying next to the Poligrip on the night stand.

Never eat at a diner where the special is the same animal pictured on the nearest road crossing sign.

I Don't Do Well In Crowds...Not At All!

During my entire 66 years on this lovely planet Earth, I cannot think of one instance in which I have ever enjoyed being in large crowds during the holiday shopping season.  It's about as enjoyable as watching a pile of dirt.  By the time my young bride and I get home, I'm fightin' mad and ready to open up an industrial size barrel of whoop ass; thus, the reason why she normally leaves me at home if at all possible because I don't play well with others.

My jaws begin to tighten as we turn into the parking lot and all I see is an ocean of cars, pick-ups and people in various stages of insanity with grocery carts roaming about the asphalt lot like a stampede of African Wilder Beasts.  This is NOT a good sign of things to come...nope, not good at all.   With it being just a couple of days away from Christmas, everyone is in a hurry and have procrastinated to the point to where they're now in a do-or-die situation and all common sense and politeness is tossed to the wind.  Every lane in the parking lot resembles a stacked up JFK airport with people driving around trying to find an open space and then all of a sudden, the whole damned line comes to a complete halt.  Oh for God's sake!  What now?  Three cars ahead of you has come to a complete stop and is now waiting on the people who are loading their groceries into their car to finish, so they can have their spot.  Oh, and of course, the person who is loading all these groceries just so happens to have four children under the age of 8 with her and they're bouncing all over the cart like monkey's on a yo-yo!!  So, where is the father during all of this?  Well, he certainly is not with his wife and kid's that's for damned sure.  Bastard!

Once I got the car finally parked, my young bride and I start bobbing and weaving our way towards the entrance to the store, dodging runaway carts and people driving with handicapped plates.  Geezus, it's like dancing through a mine field wearing a blind fold!  As we entered the store with a list of just a few last minute things to get, every aisle was jammed pack with people of all sizes, ages, mental disorders and personal hygiene.  Well, butter my butt and call me biscuit!  There's more crazy twits and dysfunctional people in this grocery store than the entire movie One Flew Over A Cuckoo's Nest for cryin' out loud.  It's a damned good thing I took my Charles Manson pill this morning or else it would be a bad day at Black Rock and I'd be strangling the crap out of a bunch of ignorant people.  God they're gratin' my nerves!

Some how, some way we managed to get those few things on our list up to the check-out counter without me shoving my entire fist up someone's ass and make them look like a sock puppet.  All 22 check-out lines are packed to the maximum, lines snaking back into the aisles and those that have the sign of '15 items or less' above them, well, they're meaningless today.  Each cashier has no less than a dozen or more people each waiting their turn to be checked out and stroll to the parking lot.  I would rather polish and buff a bob cat's ass with barbed wire than stand in this line.  It's sssooo boring!

Have you ever noticed that when people are literally jammed together in a public place, they're not real comfortable in making eye contact?  It's as though they've withdrawn themselves into a mystical world while waiting and that's when they're the most vulnerable.  Lucky me?  It's during this "Twilight Zone" effect, I've seen people pick their nose, stare off into space, have a one-way conversation with themselves and men playing pocket pool by sticking their hands into the front pocket of their pants to scratch their scrotum or whatever else feels good.  I'm always tempted to say, "Hey, Scooby!  You do away games and tournaments?" And if a woman is wearing a thong that's riding her a little high, you can take it to the bank they'll go digging for that bad boy like it was made of gold.  You betcha'!!

Did I mention the clientele that frequent my local neighborhood grocery store aren't, shall I say, very sophisticated when it comes to what not to wear out in public?  They're not as bad as the Walmartians we've all seen (sleeveless Lynyrd Skynrd t-shirts, plaid Bermuda shorts pulled up to the middle of the chest and knee length black socks worn with ragged sandals), but they're close to it.  They're certainly a constant source of humor for me.

It's Not That Difficult

My introduction to computers was in 1982 when my entire job as an analyst was done on a Wang Word Processor and I didn't get to the universe of the Internet until about 18 months before I retired in 2002.  Over the next five years, I built myself a network of other Yahoo users to share cartoon's, jokes, pictures, stories and it was a fantastic method of staying in contact with close friends and relatives. I soon discovered, not everybody who used the internet are equipped with common sense, morals, scruples or good judgement; therefore, I took it upon myself to make a few rules of engagement when it come to what kind of information I would and would not share with my network of friends and relatives.  I had to become a censor of my own digital data and information.

Over the past 16 years, the number of internet buddies that I share jokes and pictures with has grown significantly and has gotten to the point in which people "ask" me to add them to my "funny list".  I'm very proud of the fact that at my age I still have the ability to bring a good belly laugh to a lot of people and brighten their day, even if it was for only a few seconds.  But, alas, not everyone thought my material was uplifting or funny, and of all the thousands of humorous things I've posted, there has only been "4"people who had any complaints.

Thus far, I've only had to use other alternative methods of discipline on one person who felt the need to treat me as though I were an unruly five year old.  It all started when I sent an email to everyone that had a 1950's era booklet on "How A Woman Should Treat Her Husband" and the contents were so idiotic it was funny.  The woman, however, found no humor in that email whatsoever and told me not to send her anything like that again.  I certainly didn't mean any harm, but I would respect her wishes and try my best not to get her upset with me again.  A few months later, this same woman sent me a very angry email that said "I told you not to send emails like this to me anymore.  Don't make me have to tell you again."  Let....the....games....begin.

In Texas mileage this woman lived about a days drive (8-hours) from my house, so whatever I planned on doing had to be long distance.  I came up with a four-pronged plan to demonstrate to this individual that talking to me in that fashion was not only uncalled for and not very wise on her part, but would result in a resounding, aggressive tactical encounter of the highest caliber.

Seeing as how this person of interest was somewhat a religious fanatic, I decided to send her every religious email of every type, regardless who sent it to me, and nothing else....no jokes, no cartoons, no comical pictures....just religious material.  And somewhere in those emails the word God had to appear no less than four times.  This 1st step was either going to demonstrate that I had once again bowed to her wishes or else drive her to drink, I was hoping for the latter.  My 2nd step involved going on the internet and having every free Mormon religious magazine and newspaper I could find sent directly to her home.  If by some chance steps one and two didn't get results, then I would proceed with step three in which I would order a dump truck full of crushed gravel delivered to her house and dumped in the middle of the driveway.  And if everything up to this point had failed, then I would be forced to initiate step four by calling the ASPCA and say there were a lot of strange people chanting in her backyard in the middle of the night and I could hear unusual wild animal noises.

All of this discomfort could have been avoided had this individual of questionable intelligence and integrity simply hit the delete button and went about her way. As a wise person once stated "it's not what a person says, but how they say it that will impact the outcome."  And just for the record, I've only had "four" people tell me that my emails were offensive, filled with innuendo's, sexists and anti religion.

I can say in all honesty and without any fear of contraindication, that far more people enjoy and look forward to my emails than the mere handful who do not.  This pleases me greatly.

You Just Can't Make This UP!!!!!

If the Almighty sees fit for me to live a hundred years, I'll never be able to understand how people can be so damned stupid.  Below is a news article that my son sent me via Facebook and I just had to share this.....they walk among us!

                              Date Of Article: December 14, 2015

Greenville, NC – An incident coming out of Greenville, North Carolina is just one example of what some people will do around the holidays when they are short on cash. A 34-year-old mother of 3 is now under arrest after a shoplifting incident turned tragic. Witnesses say Shatuanee Greene entered the North Carolina Walmart on Sunday with her three children ages 5, 7, and 8 when she grabbed a can of pre-made Christmas cookie dough. CCTV footage shows the young mother take the can to the toy aisle as her children crowded around her. Greene then lifted up her skirt and made the can of cookie dough “disappear.”

 

When Greene was approached by Walmart security, she told her children to go find their Aunt in the front of the store. “I told her to hand over the cookie dough,” said Timothy Reiner, a security guard at Walmart. “That’s when she turned around to run and I grabbed her by the arm. She put up a good fight, and that’s when I tackled her to the ground. Then I heard a loud pop and the lady started screaming. Gooey cookie dough was running down her leg. All hot and runny… it was so damn gross.”

According to eyewitnesses, the EMT that treated Greene on the scene said the Pillsbury cookie dough can exploded in Greene’s vagina during the fall causing her extreme pain. They removed the contents at the scene. The woman was treated then released into the custody of Greenville police. While stabilizing green they also found candy sprinkles and a number 6 birthday candle wedged into the woman’s vaginal cavity. Greene did not suffer any serious injuries and is being held at the county jail on a $2000 bond. Her children were placed with family members.

Can I Get An Amen From The Crowd?

A few years ago when my young bride and I lived in Maryland, we had to return to Texas for the funeral of a very caring and kind woman who we loved dearly.  The first flight we could get out of Baltimore for Dallas/Fort Worth didn't leave until about 6pm, so we took off from work a few hours early to beat the traffic and to have time for a bite to eat prior to getting on the plane.  I will be the first to tell you that if and/or when I must fly at night, I'm one of the worst white knuckle flyers God ever put on this earth.  I never had this problem before until I got to be about 35 years old and then it got so bad I had to make some serious life changes when it comes to flying.  With my young bride being a nurse, she got a prescription for Zanax, or as I fondly refer to them as happy pills, from our family doctor specifically for this trip.

There was an enormous summer storm we had to fly through that stretched from the entire eastern seaboard to southern New Mexico and it was loaded with high winds, lightning, thunder and in some areas tornadoes were possible.  Oh joy, oh rapture!  I waited anxiously with bated breath to crawl my big chubby butt on this metal tube of an airplane and bounce around like a Puerto Rican short stop hitting every air pocket imaginable for the next three and half hours.  Luckily for me, and my fellow passengers, my wife had the forethought to give me two Zanax to take while she and I were having a couple of glasses of wine about 30-minutes prior to boarding.  Excellent decision on her part.

We were lucky enough to get our seats upgraded to first class from coach for this trip and man, was I ever glad!  Finally, I would have enough leg room for my 6'4" body and not have to sit at the back of the airplane next to the damned toilet like kitchen help and not have to suffer the results of a fellow passenger porkin' out on boiled eggs and beer at the airport bar!  Sometimes the air flow in that part of the plane is so bad, it caused me to have flash backs from cleaning out livestock stalls and corrals as a kid.  And that's another reason why I joined the Navy, I got tired of smelling horse and cow farts!

There we are, in first class, I'm sitting next to the window looking out into the dark of night, got my headphones on listening to some fantastic Carlos Santana tunes on my CD player and being waited on by a very attentive air line stewardess.  It just can't get any better than this!!!  During the entire three and half hour trip, every time the airplane hit an air pocket...the drummer in Santana's band stepped up the pace of the music and I was rockin' on baby!!!

As to be expected, the circulated air on an airplane does make a person's mouth very dry, so my young bride told the stewardess to "keep the beer coming for my husband until we're preparing to land."  About an hour out of Dallas, the stewardess ask my wife if she and I would like another drink before we start preparing to land.  My wife said yes and to bring me another beer.  At this point the stewardess leaned down close to my wife and said, "Is your husband wearing a catheter?  He has drank all the beer in first class and we're now having to get it from coach, and he hasn't gotten up to pee since getting on the plane."  My wife replied "No, he isn't wearing a catheter, but he will certainly need to find a restroom once we land.  Why do you ask?  Is he causing a problem?" and the stewardess said "No, he isn't a bit of trouble at all.  I've just never seen anyone that can drink that much beer at this altitude and not need to pee."  I got another beer.

OK, so now we've landed at the airport in Dallas; we're with my wife's younger sister who is waiting on her husband John to fly in from a business trip to Chicago and all three of us are sitting in this large empty baggage claim area waiting on John's plane.  We only had about a 30-minute wait for his plane to land and for him to come through the baggage claim door; however, that's a dangerous amount of "free time" for me to have on my hands.  Boredom is not my friend...has never been my friend...and I will find something to entertain myself with, no matter how odd or unusual it may be.

Wwaayy down at the opposite end of this enormous room was a "lonely wheelchair" that was just begging for my attention.  After doing multiple wheelies and racing back and forth in this marvelous mechanical device to entertain myself, under the watchful eye of my wife and her sister I might add, I was told that my brother in-laws plane had landed and would be coming through the doors anytime.  Not being one to pass up an opportunity to embarrass my my brother in-law in public, I sat in the wheel chair and rolled myself over to within just a few feet from the entrance where he would be walking through and could see me.

When the doors swung wide open, I spotted John in the crowd with about 15-20 people in front of him and just as he stepped through those doors, I stood up from the wheel chair with both arms shooting to the sky and said, "John!  I've been healed!  Thank ya' Jesus!  This a miracle!  Just send the fine folks at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma a $100 check donation."  I was flabbergasted at John's refusal to even acknowledge my existence and walked right past me to where our wives were waiting.  When he wouldn't turn around to look at me, I yelled "John!  Don't be like this John.  The doctors at the free clinic said the rash would go away in a couple of months."

My brother in-law didn't say a word to me until the four of us got to his car in the covered parking garage where he popped open the trunk, got out two beers and said, "have a beer....I need one after that!"

Where Did You Come From?

Over the past few weeks, a gray and white ferrel cat has been stalking around the neighborhood and is under the false impression that my backyard is his personal toilet and hunting grounds.  When my young bride saw him laying in her flower bed, she was preparing to snap a knot in his furry ass that would take a dozen boy scouts to untie when he leaped over the fence and was off like a pair of dirty underwear.  All of a sudden the ground begins to tremble and the doves began fluttering away with a mighty swoosh to the harsh sound of "Jim!  Get out the trap and catch that little shit before he tears up anymore of my plants.  I want him out of here ricky tick toot sweet."  I'm not going to tell my wife no....she's got a pair of sharp pruning shears in her hand. I didn't get off the banana boat yesterday.  Duh!!!

So, I set the trap....used cat food for bait....and low and behold, I've trapped an adult female raccoon! I was very surprised to see this little beauty, because I normally catch them with marshmallows; peanut butter and just a touch of pancake syrup to top it off.  Raccoon's and possums have one helluva sweet tooth.  I never use cat food as bait unless I'm specifically trying to catch a ferrel cat, because it usually brings a lower class of critter to my trap.  I do have a reputation to uphold.

Since my granddaughter is normally the one who supplies me the names for my critters, and she was in school at the time, I chose the name Senora Mapache Raquel and translates loosely to Miss Raquel the Raccoon.  And just so you'll know, all of her Facebook BFF's call her "Raq"...no need for formality with this bunch.  They all speak the same language in which each sentence begins with the word "like" and they constantly interrupt each other before finishing a sentence.  I would rather gargle with paint thinner while standing on a bed of hot coals than having to listen to all the Facebook jargon.  It's deadly!

OK, up to this point I've not been successful in trapping my initial target...gray and white ferrel cat.  I'm not one to give up quickly, so once again I bait my trap with cat food and wait to see what, if anything is captured.

Oh gosh all hemlock!  Geewilikers Batman, how could this free spirited animal possibly get into my backyard and into the trap?  Maybe it was raised by gypsy's, lived in a dysfunctional family, did time in the state penitentiary, its' father abandoned the family and joined the merchant marines, or was forced to live on the streets.  I suspect the owner of this fine feline specimen, which I nicknamed Zorro, is in the habit of letting the cat outside at night to roam the neighborhood and do what Mother Nature has taught his species to do.  Before I go any further, I live two blocks from an extremely large city park that is called home by a family of grey fox and at least three, possibly more, coyotes.  Small animals such as Zorro are prime candidates for these carnivorous animals and they ARE coming into my neighborhood catching small dogs, cats and chickens to eat.  And as more and more ranch land is being sold to developers to build homes, these wild animals are being forced to enter the city to find food.  And what few cats I've trapped, I'm not taking them to the city pound or the ASPCA because they'll be euthanized, so in a round about way I'm actually saving their lives.  And as for the owners, if ignorance was dirt they would have enough to cover about an acre. And before I forget, I will never ever intentionally hurt any animal - the pet owners on the other hand...they're fair game!  You ever look at someone and wonder who ties their shoes?

It's obvious to the most casual observer that Zorro has never had to hone his survival skills, so leaving him at my usual Refugee Camp For Wayward Critters is not going to work.  Getting him a job with a traveling circus is out of the question, he doesn't have the computer skills to work in a call center, with his anger management issues, the nursing home industry is a big time no-no and joining the Navy is absolutely out of the question...he is terrified of the water.

So the question begs answering: Where do I take a male cat that has spent his entire life being pampered, sleeping indoors, an endless supply of food and water, has no clue what a predator is unless you count the vacuum cleaner and has never been disciplined for his destructive ways?  I know just the place!  I put Zorro in the back of my truck and off we go for the southeast side of town where he will absolutely have full access to all the necessities he'll require.  However, his "new territory" is going to have a few twists that he is unfamiliar with, but hey, he'll figure it out.  Those keen cat like survival skills will kick in and then Wham-O!  He will be king once again!!!

After a short 30-minute ride, Zorro and I arrived at our destination.  A quaint spot where there is very little truck or car traffic, an abundance of older homes that are filled with young families, no coyotes or fox -- that I know of and plenty of yards to explore.  There is one slight, ever so slight, draw back to Zorro's new location.....nobody speaks English....only Espanol!  I thought this would be Zorro's golden opportunity to expand his horizons, learn a new language and custom, meet new people and establish new relations.  Adios muchacho! Via Con Dios!

It's That High Level Math - Numbers Don't Add Up

Two weeks ago I went to my local UPS store to check my business mail box and upon my entering, I noticed a young man approximately 6'6" and weighed about 275lbs with two extremely large cardboard boxes.  Once this man departed the store, I walked over to the clerk and asked just how large those boxes were and was informed they were the largest size boxes UPS has in stock.  The clerk went on to tell me the boxes were going to be used for shipping two deer heads and each with a rather large rack of antlers, and it was going to cost this particular person at least $300 in shipping costs alone.

As I was walking back to my truck, I got to thinking about how much money this young man was going to spend in getting these two deer heads and antlers to their final destination and a million questions ran through my mind.  Such as, where is the rest of the skin and meat of these animals and what did he do with them?  I know from personal experience that any type of hunting or sport can become very expensive, if allowed to.  The only hunting I personally have done is for elk and whitetail deer in the Colorado Rockies, and quail and dove in the panhandle of Texas.  And each time I did go hunting I always had to walk over the terrain and never had the pleasure of using dogs to point and fetch. My hunting clothes was weather dependent and were the same ones I wore on a daily basis when working outside.  And before I forget, hunting and killing rattlesnakes' doesn't count.

For reasons unknown, I just couldn't stop thinking about how much it costs the average person in today's economy to go hunting, regardless of what type of animal was being hunted.  When I got home I immediately went to my computer and started a list of items that I thought would be needed to be a successful deer hunter in south Texas and to be perfectly honest, I was more than amazed.  I'm certainly in the wrong damn business!  The folks at Bass Pro and Cabela's are laughing all the way to the bank.  The more research I did on this subject the more questions I had; therefore, I had to build a financial model that would at least give me a ball park figure of what it would cost to shoot one adult male deer.  The hunter in my model was going to be:

(a) male or female and over 21 years old;
(b) doesn't play "hold my beer and watch this";
(c) middle-income and lives in town and/or city;
(d) top of the line clothing and equipment was NOT used;
(e) has been taught good hunting skills; and
(f) eats what they kill

Note: What isn't built into this model is the weapon of choice (i.e., rifle, pistol, cross bow, long bow), ammunition, arrows or whether the property owner on which the hunt is taking place is a friend, neighbor, old school pal or relative.

So, after a few hours researching the various sports websites here is what I came up with.

                        Whitetail Deer Hunting Season 7 Nov 2015 - 17 Jan 2016

- Hunting License: $25
- Hunting Lease: $2,000 per gun (this is the going price around here)
- Average weight of a buck is 150-300lbs -- 100lbs of meat is all that will be gotten

- Trail Camera: $99.99
- Nikon Aculon Binoculars: $179.95 (Zoom)

- Boss Duck Deer Feeder: $319.99 (55gal tripod - fill every 2-3 weeks)

- Deer Corn: $5.99 - per 40lb bag
- Feeder Filled 4 Times: $8,625.60 (40lbs X 9 = 360lbs X $5.99 = $2,156.40 per fill)

- Camo Boots: $99.99
- Camo Pants: $34.99
- Camo Shirts: $69.99
- Camo Gloves: $34.99

- Processing The Meat: $400 (steaks, roasts, etc.)

- UPS Cardboard Box: $11.65
- Shipping Costs: $300

Grand Total: $12,208.73 -- Divide a 100lbs of meat into $12,208.73 and that equals $122.08 pound!

Now, at my local grocery store a pound of chopped Sirloin is $5.19 a pound and for 100 pounds of this steak it would cost me $519!  Oooooooo....that cow's butt is looking a lot better for my wallet than steaks from some deer that likes to bounce through the wilderness.

I have friends, relatives and neighbors who work all year and never leave home or go past the county line for anything, except when it's deer season and then they're off like a pair of dirty underwear for a week or longer.  They tell me that going hunting is very relaxing for them and it's a way to re-charge the ole' batteries, be one with nature(??), get a little me time without the old lady and kids biting at their heels, and to do a little male-bonding with their buddies.  These are certainly valid reasons to hunt, fish, play sports or whatever floats your boat; however, when it comes to the cost, that's where I have to jump ship.  Now, when I told this story to my female optometrist at my last exam she said and I quote, "A $122 per pound is without a doubt a lot of money, BUT I'm more than happy to pay that amount, and more if necessary, to get my husband out of the house for a week."  She went on to say "Not all wives are miserable when the husband is gone hunting with their buddies.  It means a week of quite evenings, less meals to prepare, no haggling over which tv programs to watch and no having to constantly yell out towards the kitchen 'don't forget to shut the refrigerator door'."  What could I say?  She makes a very outstanding argument.

Whenever a hunter sits in a tree stand or behind a blind and literally teaches the wildlife to come to feed where there is a constant source of food so they can hopefully get a kill shot,  that's not my definition of hunting.  To me it's more of "bait and wait" than walking, trailing and stalking the animal. Testing the humor spirit and skill against that of a wild animal is certainly a testosterone event.