My best tweets of 2013!

No prologue. No tart observations. Just fulfilling an annual obligation to give a mild boost to @8days2amish.

Happy New Year!

• Question for the ages: Am I a pig because I eat too much Christmas ham or does eating too much Christmas ham make me a pig?

• Porn directors are the only people who should ever be allowed to say, “Man up!”

• I'm sure he was a perfectly competent carpenter, but I think Jesus missed his calling. He’d have been one hell of a bartender.

• There are still many pockets of America where "Do you think rasslin's fake?" is considered a sophisticated pick-up line.

• Just discovered Crayola has a color called “Macaroni & Cheese.” Be warned: it tastes nothing like the real thing and Listerine won’t help.

• Chances of getting rope aficionados to call themsleves "Knotsies" are the same as getting florists to call themselves petalphiles.

• Loud bulimics make the worst neighbors. They can never keep it down.

• Nana just demolished any chance at being cool in granddaughter's eyes by responding, "Susan Boyle," when asked to name her favorite Beatle.

• Remember: a good mime can be safe, but never sound.

• Spending the weekend willing myself to blink more slowly. I want to be able to savor all the things they say go by in a blink of an eye.

• Great way to enliven 1st grade spelling quiz: Ask 6 yr. old to spell "rule." Listen, then say, "You know I'm not, Ellie. Now spell rule." Repeat.

• I humbly try and include at least one deliberate typo in everything I write lest people think I'm too perfict.

• If Jeremiah was, indeed, a bullfrog, who drove him to the liquor store to get his mighty fine wine? So much of the story remains untold.

• Aggressive stationary salesmen are always pushing the envelope.

• Women who purse their lips are apt to put their money where their mouth is.

• Equine proctologists would never dream of looking a gift horse in the mouth.

• Must be tough for peg-leg pirate captains to be taken seriously when they say they’re really going to put their foot down.

• If people who revere the Grateful Dead are called “Deadheads,” what does that make those of us who revere “Moby Dick?”

• I’m always at a loss for words whenever I take the dog out and he looks up at me like I’m supposed to congratulate him when he craps.

• A hyphen-nation is a land to which grammarians will likely dash.

• Why are there locks on the lobster tank where I shop? If I'm a shoplifter, a live lobster is the last thing I'm stuffing down my pants.

• It is a confounding paradox for those challenged with marketing the machines, but the best vacuum cleaners really do suck.

• It's been a long, long time and I still can't believe it's not butter.

• If Flex Seal works as well as the commercials say it does, I'll never need Right Guard again!

• Given the dietary challenges Paleolithic cavemen faced, I'm surprised Fred & Barney were tubby. I'm surprised they found time to bowl, too.

• I believe in the next six months, the combined age of the Rolling Stones (247 years) will finally exceed their combined weight.

• Even if it were true, I’d never dream of telling the world Mama’s got a squeeze box she wears on her chest and when Daddy comes home he never gets no rest.

• Let's clear this up: A tornado warning is dangerous weather. A tornado watch is an inefficient timepiece whose hands spin really fast.

• You think you can tell time. Foolish mortals. Time tells you!

• “Godspell” is a popular theatrical production. “Spell God” is a statement that will get public school teachers into trouble with the ACLU.

• The tasty snack would still taste and look the same, but they would take on a whole new connotation if they were spelled "FreeToes."

• Dining oddity: It's perfectly okay to cook on a spit, but never okay to spit on a cook.

• I'm opposed to spanking but whenever I hear a father say this is gonna hurt me worse than it hurts you I think he needs to spank harder.

• Scientists who declare matter cannot be created nor destroyed have never observed a bar of soap in a shower.

• I wonder if when surprised by something on-line Satan worshippers instinctively type, "OMD!"

• Chickens have breasts. Women have breasts. Women have nipples. Do chicken have nipples? Are chicken nipples some kind of delicacy?

• I dreamed last night I was Chris Rock and slept funny.

• Told 7-year-old if she squeezes a piece of coal hard enough she’ll make a diamond. She squeezed so hard she almost made a turd.

• Proof that cocaine disrupts logical thinking is that cocaine users call cocaine blow instead of sniff.

• Anyone typing the phrase “To err is human” should always feel obliged to include at least one deliberate tiepo.

• I can only conclude anyone who says puns are the lowest form of humor has never seen an Adam Sandler flick.

• Enjoyed "Walking Dead" premier, but once for the sake authenticity I'd like to see a cliffhanger that ends with someone hanging from a cliff.

• Join me in crafting more sensible spellings: let's all spell hyphen ... hy-phen!

• Often the things we most want are the things that’ll kill us the quickest if we were given unrestricted access to them.

• Spanker devotees spend their lives in the pursuit of slappiness.

• I’m going to start signing all my proper letters, “Worm regards.” I think earthy people will really dig it.

• The world will be better off when our elected officials would stop quoting "Art of War" author Sun Tzu and start quoting Fred Rogers.

• News report says New Delhi discount days failing to drive sales the way experts predicted. Know what that means? Goodbye rupee Tuesday!

• Until the league welcomes at least one single-legged player, it to me will from now on be the National Feetball League.

• Sometimes adult entertainment titles come unbidden to me. Just happened again: "Pornochio." Now if only I could think of an unusual physical oddity that grows with every lie. Hmmm . . .

• Most people never wash the bottom of their feet. Here’s what I do: slop some shampoo on the shower floor and dance! Dance! Dance!

• I’m sorry “concentration camp” has negative connotations. I’m often so distracted I could use a couple of weeks in a concentration camp.

• I enjoy hanging with drunks ‘cuz you can tell same joke same way five times in one night and it’s always hilarious. Not so w/sober wife.

• I’m pretty sure I’ll be disappointed in the answer, but one of these days I’m going to see if the nation of Turkey has a national bird.

• To many users, prescription drugs are the wheels on all the emotional baggage that help them get through life’s airports.

• Man, the only animal who spends most of its time stationary on its butt, is also the only animal to spend billions each year on footwear.

• I so love the word "hanky-panky" I'm devoting weekend to finding useful meanings for hinky-pinky, henky-penky, honky-ponky & hunky-punky.

• Can't prove it, but I'll wager Superman was the first person to ever say, "I see London, I see France ..."

• True faith isn't believing in God. True faith is when Curly yells, "Moe! Larry! Help! Help!" and believes the situation will improve.

• It reveals a profound ignorance about my understanding of pharmaceuticals, but I'm surprised iron supplements don't weigh more.

• A mohawk is a colorful hairdo. A Moe Hawk is an irrationally angry bird that inflicts slapstick violence on a Curly Hawk or Larry Hawk.

• I advise people to not fixate on diet. A waist is a terrible thing to mind.

• Do other animals in nature use their tails to wipe their tears or is that behavior exclusive to the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz?

• When Mandela said we need to stop hating everyone he wasn't including Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, was he? No way, right?

• I'd like to be a fly on the wall when flies on the wall discuss their bafflement over why any human would ever want to be a fly on the wall.

• I'm surprised none of the hand soap people have used Pontius Pilot in ads.

• I'm trying to persuade daughters to rename our annoying little yip dog Peeve, so I can with all honesty say, "And this dog is my pet Peeve."

Happy Birthday, Jeff Lynne! The essential Wilbury

(791 words)

One of my great contradictions is telling my daughters how unimportant it is to be cool while devoting much of my wakefulness to remaining what I consider perfectly cool.

So what will I do today to extend my career cool?

I’m celebrating Jeff Lynne’s 66th birthday!

The name may leave more than a few of you scratching your heads. The English musician’s never had a hit single released under his own name. But he’s the spiritual godfather of one of the most tuneful epoch’s in music history.

He’s to the Traveling Wilburys what Phil Robertson is to “Duck Dynasty,” only without all the homophobic fondness for Jim Crow Dixie.

Besides the Wilburys, Lynne is the creative genius behind some of the best work of Tom Petty, George Harrison and Roy Orbison.

And before all that, he gave us some of the most indelible, unique and joyful music ever recorded.

Yes, Jeff Lynne is the Electric Light Orchestra.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m sensing a new and overdue appreciation for a band whose infectious hits -- “Mr. Blue Sky,” “Strange Magic,” “Telephone Line,” “Living Thing,” “Evil Woman,” etc. -- were on every one’s lips throughout the 1970s.

Many of us will never get “Can’t Get it Out of My Head” out of our heads.

Trailers for the well-reviewed "American Hustle" are featuring a compelling string from ELO's early song, "10358 Overture. 

I’d written before how my first concert was Tom Petty on the 1979 “Damn The Torpedos” tour with Joe Ely opening (cool), and how the first album I ever bought with my own money was Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” in 1973 (also cool).

But I’ve never written about my driving affection for ELO’s music in the ‘70s (not what most would consider cool). 

I still recall the eagerness I felt when I could get Mom or Dad to drive me to the old National Record Mart store the day “Face The Music,” “Eldorado,” “A New World Record,” and the great 1977 double album, “Out of the Blue,” came out.

It’s no exaggeration to say it was Lynne’s music soundtracking my ‘70s.

The band seemed to go pffft after the 1981 “Time” album.

Musically, too, my tastes were changing. I was by then really into Petty, The Stones, Bruce Springsteen and The Kinks and more meat ‘n’ potatoes rock.

Jeff Lynne’s best days seemed over.

Happily for fans of great music, they were in many ways just beginning.

Some of the greatest minds in music were beginning to circle and the common orbit was around Lynne.

This is well-chronicled in the 2008 Peter Bogdanovich documentary on Petty’s career, “Runnin’ Down a Dream.”

George Harrison so admired Lynne’s work with ELO, he tabbed him to produce his   1987 comeback album, “Cloud 9,” a collection that included “When We Was Fab,” and “Got My Mind Set on You.”

This union formed the catalyst that became the Traveling Wilburys. It was during these recording sessions that Harrison remarked to Lynne that recording flaws would be diminished because “we’ll bury ‘em in the mix.”

All those “we’ll burys” became the Wilburys, Harrison, Lynne, Petty, Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan.

According to Petty, he met Lynne at a Beverly Hills traffic light. He recognized him and rolled down the window to tell him how much he loved the Harrison album. Lynne followed Petty home for an impromptu jam session that eventually led to the collaboration that produced “Free Falling” and the epic “Full Moon Fever” album.

Unbeknownst to me at about the same time, the great Roy Orbison had tabbed Lynne to produce his comeback album, “Mystery Girl,” for which he co-wrote “You Got It.”

The two Wilbury albums remain some of the most tuneful hallmarks any bands have ever released.

I don’t think I began to fully appreciate Lynne’s ubiquitous impact until 1989 in a darkened movie theater when the credits for Mel Gibson’s “Lethal Weapon 2” began to roll.

That was the first time I heard the enduring catchiness of one of my favorite songs, Harrison’s “Cheer Down.” It’s a great, catchy song. Co-written by Harrison and Petty, it has producer Lynne’s fingerprints all over it.

Think Pete Best is the fifth Beatle?

Wrong. It’s Lynne.

Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr coaxed him in 1994 to co-produce their “Anthology” series that featured the virtual Beatles reunion on the Lennon songs “Free As a Bird” and “Real Love.”

Still, I was skeptical when in 2001 when Lynne released “Zoom” under the ELO brand. The album earned rave reviews, but tanked, another indicator of record-buying tastelessness.

It’s great. Very tuneful and worthy of ELO’s heyday.

I remain hopeful he still has landmark music left in him and am eager to hear news of his producing interests. It seems he has the golden touch.

I wonder if he’d consider producing my blog.

That’d be cool.

Related . . .

Grammy thoughts: Recall all music since 1986

Mylie, Tom Petty & MLK: I have a dream

Listening to classic rock with my senile Mom

Lennon vs. McCartney

My 25 most played songs (2010)

Roll on, Stones

What ruined Billy Joel?

The Springsteen show & when music still mattered

December tweets of the month: 68 good 'uns.

After two years, I think I’ve about got the hang of this Twitter thing, which means I’m due for a slump that will make me want to give it all up as a big waste of time. But the last two months I’ve been very prolific with lots of good ones, at least in my opinion. See for yourself.

Oh, and I’ll have my second annual tweets of the year round-up in the next couple of days. Follow my tweets at 8days2amish if you're ever impatient for them.

Go Steelers!

• True faith isn't believing in God. True faith is when Curly yells, "Moe! Larry! Help! Help!" and believes the situation will improve.

• I’m so pretentiously self-important my voice mail ends, “If this is a real emergency please call 911.” Like others call me to sked surgery.

• Earth is the last place anyone will ever hear the question: Friend or foe? In heaven, it’ll be, “Friend or lover?” In hell, “Foe or in-law?”

• It reveals a profound ignorance about my understanding of pharmaceuticals, but I'm surprised iron supplements don't weigh more.

• I'm surprised more chiropractors don't advertise that their patients are better adjusted.

• When Yosemite Sam says, "Say your prayers, rabbit!" does Bugs Bunny pray to the same God as you and I?

• Romantic trees can never be accused of being "too sappy."

• Must be tough for peg-leg pirate captains to be taken seriously when they say they’re really going to put their foot down.

• A mohawk is a colorful hairdo. A Moe Hawk is an irrationally angry bird that inflicts slapstick violence on a Curly Hawk or Larry Hawk.

• I advise people to not fixate on diet. A waist is a terrible thing to mind.

• I enjoy the convenience of the modern devices, but I sometimes find myself nostalgic for the days when phones were still phone shaped.

• Many newspapers today reporting on their 15-yr-old websites that still have bugs that 8-wk-old healthcare.gov  website still has bugs

• If I restricted conversation to only enlightened thinkers it would be a very lonely existence and I’d have to stop talking to even myself.

• Batteries die and come back to life so frequently I'm surprised there's not a cult. Worked out for Jesus. 

• Scientists will in 10 yrs figure way to harness hate as renewable energy. Good: it's green. Bad: Driving someone crazy will be civic minded.

• A pessimist dwells on the fact that Smallpox killed 15 million. An optimist says at least it wasn't Bigpox.

• Dozens of "pilot" whales stranded/lost near Everglades. Given my experience, I'm guessing these pilots work for USAirways.

• Has anyone thought about what we’re going to do with all the telephone poles once the whole world’s wireless?

• Do other animals in nature use their tails to wipe their tears or is that behavior exclusive to the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz?

• Nelson Mandela, one of the world's great leaders, is gone. Who'll fill his shoes? Geez, I guess it's Bono.

• It says something about accomplishments of Nelson Mandela that his death has temporarily made people forget actor Paul Walker's gone.

• Given their penchant for relentless self-promotion, I'm surprised NBC didn't cast Al Roker for the Sister Maria role.

• I’m so simple-minded I still rush to put an X in center square of every hashtag then sit there and wait for someone to make the next move.

• The more I see and learn of Pope Francis the more I hope he lives another 100 or so years.

• Even the most successful vegetable farmers are doomed to live in the seediest parts of town.

• When Mandela said we need to stop hating everyone he wasn't including Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, was he? No way, right?

• I'd like to be a fly on the wall when flies on the wall discuss their bafflement over why any human would ever want to be a fly on the wall

• Someday I hope I'm as happy as all the girls in the hair commercials. They make having really great hair seem utterly euphoric.

• Just saw the name “Christian” is 34th most popular boy name. I’ll let you know when I get to the name “Atheist.”

• We should distribute phone numbers in order of importance. It’d be fun to watch Trump argue that he, not God, should be #1.

• Mandela forgave jailers 44 years wrongful imprisonment. I want lethal revenge on those who cost me 75 secs by stopping at stale yellows

• It's a cruel irony that things that could most benefit from alcoholic diversion - church, work, parenting - require at least some sobriety

• I love slapstick comedy, but the idea of watching a film where people get slapped with sticks makes me sad.

• It was the greatest impostor performance since Lt. Frank Drebin pretended to be both a MLB umpire and opera tenor Enrico Pallazzo.

• My faith in humanity is always restored anytime I see someone get out of a handicap space with a cane. Me, I always fake a little limp.

• My tweets are more lively when I'm agitated, yet I still strive for serenity. Thus, my life's great paradox.

• The people in our lives we most frequently exhort to "have fun!" are the ones least in need of that kind of advice.

• Runways among our most illogical words. Planes never run on runways. If we named them after what happens most on them they'd be waitways.

• I was just in my mind listing the 5 most influential people from my life; 4 of them are bartenders. It’s all starting to make sense.

• The next song Rod Stewart records will make his ratio of crap songs to 30-year-old good ones about 25-to-1

• Shoes are our most human-like accessory. Like us, they have tongues, eyeholes, heels, toes -- if they had souls not soles they'd be equals.

• Self-cannabalization gives literal depth to the old you-are-what-you-eat dietary adage.

• Being on the web, today's Yellow Pages are neither yellow nor pages.

• “Godspell” is a popular theatrical production. “Spell God” is a question that will get public school teachers into trouble with the ACLU.

• I love brats on a bun, but hate having them in my neighborhood. The cruel paradox will again keep me awake tonight.

• This is just a hunch, but they must use lots and lots of hand sanitizer in Germany.

• I'm surprised none of the hand soap people have used Pontius Pilot in ads.

• Given the dietary challenges Paleolithic cavemen faced, I'm surprised Fred & Barney were tubby. I'm surprised they found time to bowl, too.

• If making botanical sense was a goal of our language, pineapples would grow on pine trees.

• Remember, having a really great relationship with the Lord doesn’t mean you can treat the rest of us like crap.

• I'm trying to persuade daughters to rename our annoying little yip dog Peeve, so I can with all honesty say, "And this dog is my pet Peeve."

• Attending church scares me. I'm fearful I'll need to bury my inner smart ass so deeply it will suffocate and life will become meaningless

• Skeptics abound, but I swear if www.ChristianMingle.com  is a success, then www.ChristianFornicator.com  would have to hit, too!

• Most of the those engaged in pathetic argument about whether Santa is white or black probably stopped believing in Santa when they were 4.

• It used to be said that religion was opiate of the masses. No more. Today, it’s basic cable television and increasingly things like opium.

• Honesty without tact is like brain surgery without anesthesia. The operation could cure but the complications can kill.

• Who else here loves psilent letters!

• If Flex Seal works as well as the commercials say it does, I'll never need Right Guard again!

• Women who purse their lips are apt to put their money where their mouth is.

• The person you see for oral difficulties should be called a mouthist or toothist. A dentist should be who you see after a fender bender.

• Equine proctologists would never dream of looking a gift horse in the mouth.

• “It’s a Wonderful Life” rates 95 percent on www.RottenTomatoes.com. Question: Who are the jackass 6 percent?

• Nana just demolished any chance at being cool in granddaughter's eyes by responding, "Susan Boyle," when asked to name her favorite Beatle.

• Now, pope is saying atheists are people, too. He's either a heretic or God's ironic gift to secular humanists.

• I'm sure he was a perfectly competent carpenter, but I think Jesus missed his calling. He’d have been one hell of a bartender

• For authenticity's sake, websites should be run by spiders.

• “Breaking Bad” marathon reminding me how Walter and Jesse are the Abbott & Costello of meth manufacturer/dealers.

• I'll bet if Lazarus had a brother or sister they were jealous that he wound up getting two birthdays a year.

Family Christmas pictures & the pressures to appear perfect

(628 words)

I think sociologists studying the subject could today divide American families into two camps: one represented by The Waltons, the other by Charles Manson.

You may have seen most of the former posting lovely Christmas pictures on Facebook.

You’re probably like me in that you’re Facebook friends with people who have families that are gorgeous enough to model for magazines like “Good Housekeeping.”

The kids are beautiful and the parents seem to exude a warm wisdom I couldn’t muster masquerading as Bill Cosby.

I look at these pictures and think, gee, a family that gorgeous couldn’t possibly have any real world problems.

Surely, the kids don’t sass, the parents are never at odds and they live in a house where the plumbing never malfunctions and the dog’s farts are as aromatic as breezes on beaches.

I love my family, but part of me wishes you’d all invite me to join yours.

And I don’t mean in a surrogate parenting role. I’m talking about you letting me move in with you to maybe a room above the garage where I can come and play with your kids when they get home from school and then after dinner drink beer with you until the credits roll on the last of the “Seinfeld” re-runs.

See, I wonder if mine is a Manson Family.

We take what I think is a nice picture, too. In fact, a couple of years ago I strived to stir envy in my Facebook friends by posting a lovely Rodell family Christmas picture of me, Val and the precocious tots.

But I went for the obnoxious one-up by asking Arnold Palmer to be in it.

And he said yes!

So there we are looking like a lovely American family who happens to be chummy with one of the world’s most famous and beloved men.

I’m sure distant friends of mine saw that and said, “Wow. Will you look at this? That Rodell kid I knew from 4th grade wound up marrying a real babe and having two beautiful daughters. And he’s buddies with Arnold Palmer. Oh, well. I’ll bet he’s still a booger-eating moron.”

But what people couldn’t discern from the picture was the instant after it was snapped the daughters resumed their habitual ridiculing of me, my wife was again lamenting she married a man who answers “Blog!” when asked what he does for a living and that Palmer said, “Who are these people and how did they get in my house?”

In real life, we’re way more Manson than our pictures let on.

There’s too much pressure to be perfect, especially this time of year. It’s one reason why the Festivus phenomenon is only going to get bigger. People resent many of the overbearing trappings of our most over-commercialized mega-holiday.

Maybe next year I’ll strike a blow for imperfection by posting a warts ‘n’ all  picture of me in my shabby clothes with bloodshot eyes and my family looking at me in various stages of contempt. I’ll be sitting behind the wheel of my broken down vehicle and displaying a copy of my latest bank statement.

It’ll be my Christmas gift to anyone feeling like they’re struggling to measure up.

I think it’s healthy for us as a society to every once in a while let the curtain fall so everyone can see how much we all have in common.

We all have money woes, family difficulties and concerns that our precarious occupational situations might suddenly go poof.

Nobody’s perfect and it’s okay to expose our flaws.

And I promise flaws are the only things I’ll expose if my family ever gets tired of all mine and I have to come and live in that room up above your garage.

Related . . .

Christmas time = No time

Ways Christmas in July beats Christmas

A story on office party butt scanning with a picture & multiple uses of the word "ass"

(710 words)

I was further chagrined that moments after I announced the cancellation of my Pond office Christmas party, Dave expressed a nifty idea that would have made it really Yule special.

“Geez, I was hoping this year we could all sit around getting drunk and Xeroxing our asses on your copy machine.”

His offhand comment led to a bunch of questions about holiday office party butt scanning. How often does it happen? How much ass can your typical photocopier support? 

Happily, there was a bona fide expert just two stools down.

He’s for many productive decades run Latrobe’s premier business supply store. They sell copiers to many of the largest businesses in western Pennsylvania.

See, that’s the thing about The Pond. Every stool has an expert on something.

There are lawyers, engineers, plumbers, electricians, cops, educators, mayors, farmers, newspaper men. Need an instant expert on butt scanning?

The Pond has your ass covered.

Apparently, it happens so frequently I’m surprised copiers don’t come with warning labels advising setting your big, bare ass on the glass could be harmful to your health.

“Yeah, everyone who’s involved in copier repair has dozens of great stories of people who tried to photocopy their butts and broke through the glass,” he said. “And that’s not covered under any of our service warranties.”

He said just a couple of weeks ago one of his techs was called to an area university to service a malfunctioning copier.

“The woman was giving our guy a really hard time, saying that was the second time they’d had to call him in a month. Well, he gets inside there and finds a stuck black and white copy of this great, big ass and two testicles surrounded by a little bird’s nest of pubic hairs.

“He took a good long look at it, showed it to her and said, ‘Ma’am, I don’t think you could say this one was our fault.’”

The guy -- and the evidentiary testicles leave me assuming it’s a guy -- was lucky he didn’t break through. Can you imagine the distress? The embarrassment?

And you thought a typical paper jam was the only case of a broken copier being a real pain in the ass.

He said he has the picture on the wall at his office and invited us to stop by and have a look. Everyone was very enthused.

And I wonder why no one ever accepts my invitation to stop by my office and see the framed picture I have of 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates Roberto Clemente and Dick Groat.

Frankly, the detective in me wonders what he’s doing with the evidence.

If I was the boss of that office, I would have been like Humphrey Bogart as Lt. Comm. Philip Francis Queeg in the outstanding 1954 drama “The Caine Mutiny.”

He was the tyrannical skipper of the minesweeper USS Caine who conducts erratic crew investigations over who pilfered two quarts of fresh strawberries.

I wonder what an investigator as maniacal as Queeg would do with a case of an ass-smashed copy machine, repairs which cost thousands of dollars, and a picture like the one my friend has on his wall.

Me, I’d have assembled everyone who was at the party to meet in a conference room.

Then I’d have shown the people the picture and after waiting for the snickers to subside asked if anyone wanted to confess, hoping no one would.

Then I’d have asked everyone with two testicles to take two steps forward, an instruction which would have eliminated most of the women. If a woman intent on ball-busting the glass ceiling stepped forward, well, her initiative would be noted.

The obvious next step would be conducting a suspect line-up or a I guess a suspect bend-over. But labor relations would likely frown on that tactic.

So I’d tell them to relax, the investigation was over and thank them for their patience.

Then on the way out, I’d give each of them a friendly pat on the butt like the coaches do after one of his players sacks the QB.

I’d know I’d have my man the instant one of them jumped even a little bit.

Of course, I’d wait until after the holidays.

No point bumming anyone out.

Related . . .

Today’s space program needs nudity

2012 office party -- and you’re invited!

Yuletide taints and Christmas creep