In Stitches

After the Pres took a shellacking on the basketball court this morning the American people may finally get some hope and change we can believe in. We can hope the stitches stay in for a while and thereby silence the TOTUS. That would certainly be a welcome change.

Here’s an idea: What uh-if-uh the-uh Teleprompter-uh Of The-uh United States (TOTUS) uh just let us uh-read his speeches-uh uh-ourselves?

I don’t really think the big O would go for my idea though, because then we’d all find out his secret to being such a-uh good uh-communicator.

Uh, oh well.

Sheriff’s Log

Every once in a while, a Sheriff’s Log will pop up on my Really Simple Syndication (RSS) reading list from one of the small-town newspapers that I subscribe to. Sometimes a little humorous, these police logs almost always include high-drama episodes such as the cows are out, someone is playing loud music, someone is sleeping in their car playing loud music, dogs are barking, someone is shooting at dogs, suspicious vehicles, speeding, weaving, driving erratically, and the usual car horn alarm going off.

This morning, one such feed hit my reader and also hit my funny bone.

Sheriff’s Log

October 4

Report of possible threatening gestures at local business.   Deputy responded  Case under investigation.

October 6

Report of concern over party driving a “scooter chair” in the middle of the street.  Reporting party indicated the scooter was hard to see and the person could be hit.  Deputy talked with the operator of the vehicle.  Request for welfare check to be done on individual.  Party located and everything was fine.

All’s well that ends well, when “everything is fine.” Happy Thanksgiving!

Paradox

The little lady and I swung by Wally World the other evening to pick up a few groceries. As we began to drive out of the parking lot, I could hardly believe my eyes. Right there in the Walmart parking lot in Guymon Oklahoma was a riding lawnmower pulling a homemade travel trailer. This was an amazing sight, and not something you see every day, so I stopped to take a closer look. Noticing a teddy bear on the front bumper of the riding lawnmower, I mused if that might be road kill from driving too fast. The mower looked to be equipped with a CB radio, presumably to call ahead for speed traps. I was also amused to see the extra-large side mirror, which I guessed to be a street legal requirement for travel trailer towing.

I stepped out of my Suburban and took this picture, so I could confirm later on that I was not just dreaming again. It was then I heard the roar of a portable electric generator. Upon further inspection, I could see some guy was inside this tiny little homemade travel trailer watching television. I realized that behind the homemade travel trailer, was another trailer, a garden trailer with a portable generator on it.

By now, I am starting to get a little envious of this guy’s set up. I begin to wonder if he can technically be considered homeless or not.

Does his possession of a homemade travel trailer, by definition indicate that he has a home?

Who would intentionally live in this tiny little travel trailer pulled by a riding lawnmower, unless they were homeless?

This line of thought is a paradox for me. Perhaps referring to this contraption as a homeless-made travel trailer would more aptly describe this homeless man’s home.

Future Snipes

While dozing on the couch watching television last evening, the lights in my house suddenly flickered and the cable went out briefly. I was a bit groggy when it happened, but what I saw on my TV right after that totally shocked me. It was as if I were transported forward to some time in the future. Thinking I had fallen asleep and was merely dreaming this, I began pinching myself frantically trying to wake up, but I could not wake myself. I remember thinking I wanted to record what was on the TV. I grabbed my cell phone to take a picture of it, but the battery was dead. Then I blacked out. That is the last thing I can remember.

I woke up in my own bed this morning. I must have been extremely tired last night. I do not even remember getting up off the couch and going to bed. I thought about that dream off and on all day long, while at work today. When I got home from work tonight and began to watch the evening news, I was shocked.

“This cannot be happening,” I thought to myself. “I had a weird dream, something about Wesley Snipes, just last night.”

It does not seem fair to me that Wesley Snipes has to go to jail for not paying his taxes, while a sitting US Congressman can get away with it scot-free. Something is terribly wrong with this picture.

“Picture,” I mouthed to myself. “That’s it!” I squealed.

Grabbing my cell phone, I hurriedly opened its photo album. I cannot explain the photograph I found, nor do I fully comprehend what happened to me last night. But it happened, and here is the photographic evidence.

You be the Judge.

Box Lunch

Growing up in a family with five kids my parents had to be frugal to make ends meet. We always had everything we needed, and one day a year, one of us kids got everything we wanted, sort of. During my early childhood, our family did not get to go out to eat very often, but I remember that for each of our birthday’s we always got to go out to a restaurant for a Sunday Dinner celebration.

The first order of family business after we would arrive at a restaurant was setting our spending limit. We would always ask with eager anticipation, “How much can we spend Daddy?” With five children, my parents knew all about setting limits, although the birthday boy or girl had no dollar limit at the restaurant. Unless of course, you wanted to order the most expensive thing on the menu, in which case Dad would have to impose a birthday maximum amount. This haggling was all part of the fun, which took place before the waitress came to take our orders, and usually ended with my father pulling out his wallet to double check the amount of cash he was carrying.

Back in the 1960’s, everyone knew the best place to go for Sunday dinner in Julesburg Colorado was Whitten’s Cafe on West 1st Street, a square shaped building painted white, just past Obermier’s Mobile station. They had broasted chicken.

One of my family’s most retold and laughed about inside-stories of all time is the one about a funny thing that happened at Whitten’s Cafe. Trying to save money and help Dad out with his budget, my older brother poured through the menu determining what he could order to get the most food for the money. To remain under his spending limit when it came his turn to order, he orded the “Box Lunch.” I was too young when it happened to understand why it was so funny to everyone but funny it was, and oh how we laughed. Back in that day and time, take-out was a menu item. If you wanted take-out at Whitten’s Cafe, you ordered the “Box Lunch.” My brother still contends that the “Box Lunch” was the best value on the menu, and I think that maybe it was too.

When I was old enough to have my first summer job, Alvin and Agnes Whitten hired me to be a bus boy at Whitten’s Cafe. I worked for them a summer or two, even learned how to run the broaster. When the Interstate Highway opened in 1970, traffic began bypassing 1st Street in Julesburg. I got my drivers license when I turned 16 the following summer and took a job bussing tables at a new truck stop restaurant out by the interchange.

On Monday, Agnes Whitten passed away. She was 92.

Stoned

U.S. District Court Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange ruled on Monday that over 70 percent of Oklahoma voters got it wrong when they passed a constitutional amendment prohibiting the use of Sharia Law when making a ruling.

Claiming the law violates his constitutional rights, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) executive director Muneer Awad said, “We are humbled by this opportunity to show our fellow Oklahomans that Muslims are their neighbors and that we are committed to upholding the U.S. Constitution and promoting the benefits of a pluralistic society.”

Just trying to be neighborly, huh? Well that sure is nice of you Mr. Adickwad, but pardon me while I trying to hold back my gag reflex.

This really looks to me like CAIR is committed to upholding Sharia Law, not the U.S. Constitution. Could it be more obvious? Maybe Adickwad should have said, “We are committed to upholding Sharia Law and if you try to steel that away from us we’ll have to cut off your hands.”

Judge Vicki ought to be an object lesson for anyone who ever considered voting for a democrat. Vote for a democrat, and this is the kind of judicial activism you can expect from the bench. Barack Hussein Obama considered her as a nominee to the Supreme Court, and probably would again if given the opportunity to make another nomination. Although, I do feel a little sorry for the Judge, as apparently when issuing this injunction against the people of Oklahoma, Miles-LaGrange failed to realize that under Sharia Law [Qur’an 33:5] she could be in big trouble for hyphenating her last name.

Maybe she thought getting stoned meant getting high.

For her, maybe it did?

Mac Attack

When my kids were young, I used to swing by McDonald’s on my way home from work every Family Night to pick up Happy Meals. I remember how I always had to make sure I got the right combination of boy and girl toys. The Happy Meals were cheaper on Family Night so as a provider trying to make ends meet, Mickey Dee’s was my lowest cost option. While it is true that my kids loved these little toys, the low price was undoubtedly the overriding factor in my decision.

Today there are several debates raging over the toys that come in Happy Meals.

One point of contention seems to be that McDonald’s specifies the gender preference of its toys. Maybe I am just being a little dense, but I think if a toy is born that way, why not specify? The bashers believe that toys should be gender-neutral. After all, “What father wants his sons to be limited in their choices?” Ah.., me.

Another point of concern surfaced recently because apparently kids in San Francisco are eating these toys and getting fat. I totally understand why the San Francisco Board of Supervisors are trying to curb childhood obesity. After all, fat kids might grow up to become fat adults, and what adult looks good in a pair of leather jeans when their ass is too fat. Plus, imagine the disappointment of ordering a Happy Meal and spethifying a boy-toy, only to find a tiny plastic Alien figurine in your box. I am sure that would be very uncomfortable.

Welcome to San Francisco, did you want that with fries or a fruit?

I Voted

I was the 5th or 6th person to get into a line that had formed in front of City Hall in the dark just before 7:00 am Tuesday morning. With only a few minutes to go before the poll was to open, we could clearly see inside through the outer glass wall into the well-lit polling place. The three election workers scurried around in preparation for the day. One fellow wondered aloud about what time the workers must arrive to set everything up by 7:00, but none of us knew. It was quite chilly out and a little breezy. The scotch tape holding up the “Vote Here” sign on the front door came loose and the sign fell down. I walked over and taped it back up. Joking about the sign falling off, we all laughed. All Americans, all Oklahomans.

The doors opened to the polling place with only a minute to spare. Our precinct poll workers have been the very same three ladies for several election cycles now. One of the poll workers is the mother of Michael Brown who was the FEMA Director during Hurricane Katrina. Guymon is a small town, and so I am casually acquainted with all three of these women. It must have been a little hectic getting the poll set up this morning, as they seemed slightly harried, not quite as relaxed or talkative as usual, but still just as polite as can be.

After officially signing in with the first women, the second handed me my ballot and quickly greeted me by my first name before I moved off to an open poll enclosure to fill in my ballot. I completed my ballot, carefully fed it into the ballot box machine, and walked over to turn my ballot marker back in to the third.

“Thank you for voting,” Mrs. Brown said as she peeled an “I Voted” sticker off the roll, leaned forward, and handed it to me.

“You’re welcome,” I grinned as I proudly applied the “I Voted” sticker beside the company logo on my Polo shirt and began to walk away. Then pausing, I turned back to her and quietly added, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

I knew she got my meaning as she reclined slightly in her chair, looked up and with a calm confidence replied, “Neither would I.”

Tuesday was a long day for me, heading out early to the polls and then staying up late to watch the election results on TV that night. While not trilled with every single race across the entire country, the races in Oklahoma all turned out the way I had hoped, each and every one of them. These results made for a perfect ending to a long Election Day for this Oklahoma Panhandler.

I would not have missed it for the world.

Pollsters

My phone has been ringing off the hook lately with all the last minute campaigning and polling in advance of tomorrow’s midterm elections. You really have to scramble to answer the phone or those robocalls will hang up before you pick up. I had a robocall last night suggest I vote for a democrat because they were conservative. Apparently, liberal democrat is a pejorative in Oklahoma, but if you are a conservative democrat you might stand a chance. I told the robocaller that there is no such thing as a conservative democrat. Even talking back to some prerecorded spiel makes me feel better, just to get it off my chest.

My latest call was one of those last minute public opinion polls. I always talk gruff with these callers in the beginning, just to make sure that they know that if they want to come to my house to test my tap water, they will have to test the tap water at the Oklahoma State Attorney General’s Office first. Remember the good old days when telemarketing was perfectly legal?

I agreed to answer a few questions, and the pollster began with the simple qualifying question, “Are you registered to vote?”

“Yes, and I’m a legal resident too.”

I never understood why they still ask me my party affiliation after that, but they almost always do.

“Which best describes how likely you are to vote in the upcoming election? I do not plan to vote. I probably will not vote. I will most likely not vote if it rains. I might vote. I will vote if I remember. I will probably vote. I will definitely vote. I will definitely vote early and often.”

“Can you repeat the choices?”

Finally, determining that I am definitely going to vote, the pollster needs to see if I come from the appropriate demographics and then we can continue, so they ask, “In what year were you born?”

I proudly boast, “Nineteen Fifty Five.”

“No more questions.” Click.

A little disappointed not to be part of the opinion poll, I plead with the dial tone, “But people tell me I look young for my age.”

I slowly hang up the phone, reflecting, then chuckling, “I may be too old to matter, but I am not too old to vote.”

See you at the polls.