A back 'n' forth on palindromes

(694 words)

I’ve said previously that for the sake of clarity “palindrome” should be spelled palindromemordnilap.

That way people would never forget a palindrome is a word spelled the same forwards as backwards.

I bring this up today because I heard an ABBA song — “Waterloo” — on my morning stumble through the grocery store and immediately thought, as I always do, “Here’s a song by the most prominent palindrome rock band in music history.”

I’m not saying they’re better, but ABBA’s enjoyed more commercial success than bands named If I Had a Hi-Fi, To Rococo Rot or Dopapod, the latter best known for its palindromic 2009 album, “I Saw Live Dopapod Evil Was I.”

I know way too much about ABBA and I suspect my curiosity about palindromes is to blame.

For instance: “abba” is a Hebrew word from the Bible that means father, but that’s not how ABBA got its name — sometimes printed with the stylized first B backwards so it looks like a true palindrome (above).

No, the band is ABBA because the band members are Agnetha Faaltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad.

I much prefer the Winnipeg rockers to ABBA, but you have to give it to the Swedes. They put much more thought into their name than did B.T.O., a great abbreviation band named after primary members Randy Bachman, Fred Turner and Bert Overdrive.

I made that last one up. There is no Bert Overdrive.

The word palindrome stems from the Latin words palin, (means “again”) and dromos (means “way, direction”).

(Trivial aside: I once tweeted that a Sarah Palindrome would be an insightful blond capable of seeing Russia from the front porch of her Key West home.)

ABBA intrigues me because it might be the world’s shortest palindrome. Most palindromes are five letters: refer, civic, kayak, radar, etc.

Or in this case should that be etcte?

I once read a story about a walking palindrome named Zerimar Ramirez. It be fun to be his friend because you could be certain he’d never overstay his welcome, always coming and going as he is bound to do.

The Oxford English Dictionary says the longest single-word palindrome is tattarrattat, a 12-letter word palindrome coined by James Joyce to convey the sound of a door being knocked upon.

The longest phrase palindrome I can quote from memory is “A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!” It’s 21 letters long.

The phrase is credited to author Leigh Mercer who published the palindrome in 1948. It’s historical and punchy. It will endure.

I wonder how long it took him to come up with that handy dandy. I think it must have taken at least a concentrated week or so. Maybe more. 

What about ones like these uncredited gems?

• A man, a plan, a cat, a ham, a yak, a yam, a hat, a canal — Panama!

• A slut nixes sex in Tulsa

• Amy, must I jujitsu my ma?

• Lisa Bonet ate no basil!

• Zeus was deified, saw Suez.

Blogging, I realize, is an enormous waste of time, but even a guy like me looks at those who compose palindromes and thinks, c’mon, man, get a life.

Of course, they’re all mere pikers when it comes to marathon palindromes. It is said in 1980 David Stephens wrote a 58,795-letter palindromic novel he called “Satire: Veritas.”

Get it?

His other book is called “Dr. Awkward,” yes that’s another clever one.

His is an odd obsession. I could find precious little about Stephens or his books. Maybe shrewd booksellers realized the folly of publishing a palindrome novel.

Who’d want to read a book that spoils the ending in the very first paragraph?

So there’s a little overview of these linguistic house of mirrors for you to start your day, the A to Z of palindrome.

Or in this case the AB to BA.

Those now in the mood can just for the fun of it can now read the whole thing again backwards starting right here.

It’s a time-consuming splurge I’d advise against on what I’m sure must be an already busy day.

Palindromes can all go in reverse.

Time can not.

Related . . .

Word quest

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I am now the bar’s official Twitterist

And on the 7th day, he blogged . . .

Soccer beats NFL, but can't lick splinkton

(896 words)

Let me begin with a difficult admission. I was wrong last month about soccer.

I mostly enjoyed the World Cup and congratulate Germany for achieving an aspect of global domination that doesn't make history-minded pacifists like me nervous.

I’ll never love soccer the way I do, say, baseball or hockey, but I’m now convinced futbol will surpass football in America within 10 years.

I believe this if for no other reason than soccer lacks commercials, so watching a quality soccer match played by great athletes — and not great 4th grade athletes — was a revelation. Unlike the NFL, the action was non-stop, and didn’t pause every 90 seconds for ads urging me to buy cheap domestic beer, a new truck or suggest it was time for me to dash off to the urologist to express fears my penis is about to become a chronic loafer.

So good riddance, NFL. You’re crass, boring, over-commericialized and increasingly dangerous to many of the lunkheads who used to cruelly bully the hapless band nerds around in high school.

Does that mean in 10 years soccer will be the world’s most dominant sport?

No.

I predict in 10 years the world’s most dominant sport will be splinkton.

Never heard of it? Until last week, neither had I.

But I did a little research — just a lick — and found it has the potential to be the most compelling sport on the face of the earth.

Anyone with a tongue and a stealthy bit of guile can play.

Heck, I played and didn’t even realize I was splinktoning.

I was washing dishes when I saw just a flash of my daughter, 13, race by. Moments later she came back and asked if my right elbow was wet.

I felt and said why, yes, indeed it was.

“That’s because I licked it without you knowing it. You can lick someone’s bare elbow and if they’re not paying attention they won’t know it. Saw it on the internet.”

My first reaction was relief the internet wasn’t around when I was a kid. There was no part of my old man I’d ever wanted to have licked even on a money dare.

“I guess kids are doing it to strangers in parks and stuff.”

I told her if I ever find out she’s licking bare parts of strangers in public the only time she’ll ever leave the house without duck tape across her lips is when she’s scheduled to sing in the church choir.

She promised she wouldn’t.

Still, it set off a predictable round of sneaky elbow licking in the Rodell house. Val and the 8-year-old got into it, too. I was the most frequent target. The girls said it was because I was the most oblivious, but I like to think it was because my elbows are extra tasty.

The whole episode sent me to the internet to investigate elbow licking.

Of course, there’s the predictable elbow fetishists and bunches of stuff about the rarity of humans capable of licking their own elbows. One said about 1 in 100 can do so, but that 75 out of 100 will make an attempt immediately after reading the pseudo-fact.  

Whether any of that is true or not, I do not know. But I can verify that those who do should never snap a selfie doing so. The poser inevitably looks like a dog licking parts of themselves that makes humans either uneasy or jealous depending on their level of loneliness.

Then I found out about splinkton. This is from Urban Dictionary:

"Splinkton is a game in which players attempt to lick the elbow of an unsuspecting player or stranger. It is a little known fact that if you lick someone’s elbow when they're not paying attention they cannot feel it. There are various types of Splinks and amounts of points rewarded for each type of Splink.”

The entry says a splinker can get one point for licking the elbow of a fellow splinker without he or she knowing; two points if you surreptitiously lick the elbow of someone they know who’s never heard of splinkton. 

“If a splinker licks the elbow of a complete stranger who is in a group that watches you lick their friends’ elbow the splinker receives 25 points.”

That 25 is the highest number of points possible indicates a lost scoring opportunity. 

If I were the splinkton commissioner I’d declare 500 points goes to anyone who can successfully splink the elbow of Dick Cheney; 1000 points if the splink is achieved while he’s drunk and out on a Texas quail hunt.

And there’d need to be referees because once splinking grows in popularity it’s bound to attract its unsavory share of perverts who see a snazzy splinkton uniform as a license to publicly lick things other than elbows.

We’d need to be on the look out for cheaters, too, men and women who surgically lengthen their tongues so they could snap out a quick lick on someone reading on the other side of the subway car.

These logistical considerations are all minor and can be solved so splinkton can flourish.

Dedicated splinkers know the only thing they’re better at licking than elbows is problems.

I foresee a huge potential. It’s all people will be talking about.

Tongues everywhere will be wagging.

So bare elbows beware.

Consider yourselves warned.

Related . . .

Why soccer/metrics won’t ever measure up in USA

NFL’s a bore; here are 5 ways to save it

How Dick Cheney can help reduce gun deaths

A galling story on useless body parts

Boning up on lost limbs

Re-run Sunday: A toast to ice

Still not too late to impress your neighbors by planning your 200th birthday for ice next November. Yes, ice is only 199 years old. Not the kind you find in nature. No, the kind you put in the glass. The essential ice.

Not sure if it’ll be warm where you are this week, but here from summer 2012 is a story about the genius who in 1815 invented ice as we know it.

Mark your calendars for November 2015. That’s when ice celebrates its 200th birthday.

The declaration will no doubt startle those who revere the literal word.

How could ice be only 200 years old when earth endured what is known as “The Ice Age” 20,000 years ago? 

Let me to explain.

Prior to 1815, ice was a substance that inspired one expression: profanity. It was slippery. It impeded motion. It made drinking water without a campfire difficult.

Sure, there may have been some Nordic types who reveled in ice, but that’s only because they had no choice. Guaranteed, go to Disney World this February and I’ll wager you dollars to lutefisk you’ll spend at least an hour standing in line with folks named Sven and Olga.

No one in their right mind chooses to live in landscapes dominated by ice. In fact, the only species that seems to do so is one the one famously ill-suited for any kind of mobility. That is the penguin.

It can’t fly, its webbed feet make migration impossible, and its lack of thumbs rule out the hitchhiking option. They seem like agile swimmers, but that can’t be or else they’d have long ago colonized places like Key West.

So we can all agree ice is a menace to hospitable living, right?

Wrong. And that’s why 1815 is a year to commemorate.

All hail Frederic Tudor!

He is to ice what Benjamin Franklin is to electricity. He didn’t invent it, but he realized its potential and harnessed it.

In fact, you could draw a line through history right at Tudor and 1815. On one side is barbarity, the other side civilization.

Tudor is the visionary who in 1806 gazed upon frozen New England ponds and saw gold.

Perhaps I’m drawn to celebrating him and his achievement because he seems like exactly the kind of guy with whom I could sit around and enjoy a cold beer.

And that was precisely the problem.

Cold drinks were an unheard of luxury back in the 19th century. No one ever dreamed ice had a utilitarian potential.

No one but Tudor. The third son of a wealthy Boston lawyer, he was a renown family layabout who’d skipped going to Harvard, as was his privilege, because he reasoned excessive study would bore him.

Sensing a kinship?

One day he and his rich brothers were enjoying an afternoon idyll with ice cream -- I like to imagine hammocks and really, really early Jimmy Buffett songs were involved -- when the oldest brother casually remarked what a pity it was that people in the sunbaked climes would never know what it was like to experience a chill.

The speculation immediately brain barnacled in the young Tudor’s head.

Why not, he wondered, take the chill to them?

It’s interesting to wonder if he considered mass moving equatorial people north in what would be a racially charged version of Make-A-Wish. Probably not. Taking ice in the other direction made more sense.

He’d spend the next six years and thousands of dollars in other people’s money trying to make that happen. 

With borrowed money he bought a freighter and set sail on a 1,500-mile journey with a cargo preposterous enough to earn ridicule from the Boston Gazette. This from the paper’s February 10, 1806:

“No joke. A vessel has cleared the Custom House for Martinique with a cargo of ice. We can only hope this doesn’t prove a slippery speculation.”

Who knew smart ass bloggers existed 200 years ago?

His early efforts were uniform failures that led him to long stretches of debtor’s prison. The ice kept obeying basic physics and melting from solid to slush to liquid then being too tuckered from the exertion to turn to steam.

My favorite part of the story is imaging him trying to explain to baffled islanders why he kept showing up on their shores with boats full of warm water.

A restless self-promoter, he’d carry a cooler of ice with him to restaurants to add to the glasses of fellow diners to create demand where none previously existed.

He never quit and history shows that on Nov. 1, 1815, Tudor succeeded in delivering 150 tons of ice to the Caribbean, a region that today is difficult to fathom without frozen pina coladas and other cocktails to slurp.

I suppose I’m drawn to his story because it so contrasts with mine. He never had access to cold liquor and changed the world.

I have access to plenty of cold liquor and rarely bother to change my profile picture.

I bare him no historical grudge. I can’t imagine enduring these forecasted scorchers without access to ice for my bourbon or to add refreshing chill to beer-filled coolers.

He’s a man who should be memorialized.

Anyone think a big ice sculpture is too obvious?

Sounds cool to me.

Cheers! My bartending stint is over

(692 words)

Well, cancel the tour buses bound for Latrobe. Tell TMZ they’re too late. The great Chris Rodell Bartender experiment is over. My brief tenure has come to an abrupt end. They were six of the best nights of my life.

Well, six of the best sober nights of my life.

How did I find out? Did a co-worker spill the beans?

No — and Pond beans, by the way, are the best damn beans in town!

What happened was I walked in to pay Dave my rent and back behind the bar was a beautiful young girl in a pretty dress.

I took one look at her and understood I never had a chance — and not just because it’s been years since I could fit into a dress like that.

I know this girl. She’s been to my house. She used to babysit our daughters.

Now, there’s a chance she’s gonna be babysitting me!

And I thought I had a disorienting career trajectory.

She’s the daughter of Dave’s girlfriend and has for years tended bar at another joint to pay for her nursing tuition. A dispute with her crabby boss led her to ask Dave if she could work some nights here at The Pond.

She’s a great girl and I’m very happy she will be in there to inebriate me and my buddies. Her boyfriend is going to be working some nights, too. It’ll completely makeover the bar’s personality and give it a welcome injection of friendly new blood.

It’s been the most tumultuous summer I can remember at a place I go to seek sudsy serenity.

A good friend of ours suddenly quit after 12 years. Dave asked if I could step in to help. Even though it’d been 27 years since I’d lasted tended bar, I said yes right away because saying no to Dave in that situation would have been like Rudolph saying no to Santa.

What will I miss?

• Telling my wife and kids I was going out to spend the night at the bar and knowing they’d look at me with a sense of pride, rather than typical shame.

• Tips. I don’t care how much dough you make, a job where you walk out the door with your pocket stuffed full of cash always leads to a bounce in your step. 

• Telling people I had a job. Telling people you’re a bartender is so much more concrete and respectable than saying you’re a writer, a job description that immediately makes most decent people suspect you’re either a snob or a scam artist.

• Anticipating how much more interesting "Take Your Daughters to Work" day was going to be for my girls.

• Free food and drink during work hours!

What I won’t miss:

• Standing. Second to any movement, standing is the least natural human posture. For me, standing behind the bar for five or six hours was very taxing and another reminder why it’d never be a good idea for a guy like me to enlist in the armed services.

• Trying to remember customers’ names. I wish I could remember names the way I remember lines from funny movies. I can quote verbatim the entire dialogue from movies like “Slapshot,” and “The Naked Gun,” but can’t remember the names of a friendly couple ten minutes after they’ve ordered their pizza. It’s especially embarrassing working with Dave and everyone else seems to excel at remembering names.

• Watching my friends go out to another bar without me. On Friday nights, a bunch of us like to go down to DiSalvo’s Station, a fancy restaurant with a cigar bar, and have a good smoke. I was crestfallen the last two Fridays to hear my friends say they were going to go to have fun without me. Yeah, right. As if.

• Thinking about the bar more than I think about the blog. This is the sixth bar-dominated blog post in four weeks. That’s way too much. But I found many of the topics too compelling to ignore. I hope you agree and thank you for your indulgence on the topic.

So, tonight the natural order will be restored.

I’ll be in the bar, not behind it.

That’s The Pond, a place where everybody knows your name.

Everybody but me.

Related . . .

About those rumors I’m buying The Pond

“Sing me a song, you’re the bartender”

How I nearly quit my bartending job after Day 3

The Pond’s new bartender: me!

Regular bar patrons need personal seat licenses

How green are my Apples? My new iPhone

(770 words)

I recently tweeted the line about my hopes that one day I’d live to see a cellphone tower constructed entirely out of old cellphones. 

It bugs me that our phones have become like e-Kleenex. We use them momentarily and then discard them.

So I’m feeling especially guilty this week since both my daughter and I got new iPhones. Josie’s earbud portal on her 8-month-old phone was busted and they chucked her a new one. Just like that.

Me, I succumbed to lazy convenience marketing.

My old phone was a 4-year-old 3G — anymore a truly “old” phone. I didn’t really need the new one. It still performed its primary function of reliably connecting me with area pizza joints, but the GPS was becoming increasingly erratic and that can be troublesome.

That was on my mind as I entered the South Hills Village Apple store yesterday to have an unrelated computer issue resolved.

My MacBook Pro is five years old, by the way. I consider my eagerness to possess material goods long after their commercial trendiness has passed to be a virtue.

But there I was in the Apple store, that great pagan temple of wanton consumerism, and I had a fresh $100 in my pocket. I’d had a successful lunch presentation at the Bethel Park Rotary and sold 10 books to 14 people and I was feeling prosperous. 

So while we’re waiting for the computer to reboot, I asked what a new phone would run me.

“It’s free,” he said. “Yours is so old you’re entitled to a free upgrade.”

Free? Well, what would the next version cost?

“It’d be the $99 5c.”

What’s the difference?

“Better features, much faster and you can choose between five different colors. What do you use your phone for?”

I told him President Obama asked me to store the nuclear launch codes on it and that once in a while I like to send pictures of my weiner to my wife in the hopes it’ll make her horny next time we dump the kids off for a day at the pool.

But I hadn’t bought a new phone in four years, the price was right and I had the dough. Plus, I had $21 on a gift card from a previous exchange. Really, I couldn’t afford NOT to get a new phone.

Sold! I got the blue one.

For the sake of environmental irony, I guess I should have snagged the green one. 

These are truly remarkable devices, ones that we all take for granted.

It is said — and, remember, just because it’s said doesn’t make it so — the average human uses just 10 percent of his or her brain.

If that’s true, then I’ll bet we use just less than 2 percent of the typical smartphone’s potential.

That’s why I felt kind of bad saying goodbye to the old one. It’s been a useful and faithful servant for many years. I used it to receive and convey so much good news since 2010. I took happy pictures of my children and selfies of me enjoying many soulful adventures.

I felt like I should have given the phone a little retirement party.

Instead I just stood there while another Apple tech transferred all its contents to the new one. I asked her what would happen to it.

“Oh, Apple’s an industry leader in recycling,” she said. “The parts will be broken down and re-used or disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner.”

The only way she could make it sound more soothing is if she said the process was overseen by gossamer-winged fairies.

To me, it’s the environmental equivalent of a placebo, something she says to make those of us who care about the environment feel better without really doing anything substantial.

If Apple and other companies really cared about the environment they would design devices meant to last more than 18 months rather than devoting so much time to agitating our impulse to buy each shiny new version.

Maybe I’m cynical because I remember seeing a “60 Minutes” report about what happens to all our “recycled” electronic devices.

They’re shipped overseas for incineration in impoverished Third World villages where poor children breath in the toxic fumes.

I can only hope the air from all these concentrated smart phones will somehow make these children super-intelligent and that they’ll one day find truly green solutions to problems that come from all our parasitic behaviors.

The breakthrough will earn them millions.

I’ll be green with envy.

That’s fine with me. I guy like me can never be too green.

Related . . .

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I miss when phones were phone shaped

Smart phones, stupid people

My 1-man neighborhood trash crusade

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Space needs more, not less junk

Avoid unnecessary upgrades; smart phones smart enough

The i’s of my Apples

About those rumors that I'm buying The Pond

(749 words)

I was standing in one bar on Independence Day when I heard I was the subject of a rumor involving another.

“Is it true you’re buying The Pond?”

Huh?

“Yeah, my wife said she heard you were buying The Pond and that’s why you started tending bar there,” he said.

Me buy The Pond?

There have been many times over the last five years when me buying a single $2 draft at The Pond seemed preposterous, so the rumor of me buying the whole building seemed like something I should probably encourage.

I said, “Tell your wife I’m not at this moment interested in buying The Pond. But it’s only 11 a.m. I could change my mind once the holiday parade is over. The sight of thousands of shiny firetrucks always leaves me feeling impulsive.”

It’s been years since I’ve been the subject of a really great rumor. 

There were many from when I quit my last job back in 1992. The surprising departure coincided to the day with when Val and I began what would be a three-year shack up so I was at the time very topical.

My favorite from back then was the rumor I decided to quit newspapering because I was convinced I had a promising future shooting billiards in dingy pool halls.

I did shoot a lot of pool back then and I was adept enough that I could beat most everybody in Latrobe — but for only about 90 minutes each night. And those 90 minutes occurred usually between my fourth and sixth beers.

If you caught me prior to the consumption of the fourth beer, I hadn’t built up the necessary nerve to execute the really tight shots. And if I was on the table after the sixth beer I was either too unsteady for precision or so ultra-steady — steady to the point of immobility — that my opponents had difficulty getting me to approach the table when it was my time to shoot.

So my window for excellence was narrow and fluctuated throughout the week depending on what time we started our then-daily guzzle.

I sometimes wonder how different my life would be if, as the rumor had it, I’d pursued a life of professional pool shark.

I guess I’d have wound up spending endless hours in dark taverns, associating with seedy people and living a dissolute life of wanton disregard for any meaningful purpose.

So I guess it’d be a very similar to what it’s been like freelance writing except I’d have more confidence when it came time to bank the 8 ball.

Many people are often the subject of rumors involving their health. It’s rumored they’re drinking too much, they’re hungover, that they were seen looking like they’d been without sleep for long stretches of time.

None of those rumors have ever been applied to me, although I do remember hearing one rumor many years ago that I once looked well.

Back when I was single, there were many wild rumors that I was screwing lots and lots of women. There were rumors that I’d been with married women, single moms, waitresses, cleaning ladies, professional women, and one particularly hot local weather girl.

These rumors were all started by me.

As I went years and years without getting any action, I thought it might be fruitful if people at least thought I was getting some.

What’s funny to me in hindsight is my recollection of how authoritatively these rumors were knocked down by my rumored counterparts. Their reactions ranged from angry denial to hysterical laughter.

As a group, these women could have taught Bill Clinton a thing or two on how to effectively deny having sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.

So I think I’ll let this Pond rumor play out.

Yeah, that’s right. I’m buying The Pond!

I’m buying it ‘cause I’m loaded with dough and my savvy financial team said it would make more sense to spend it all in one lump sum instead of drizzling it out $20 a day in draft beer and fried fish specials.

I’m keeping the staff and giving everybody a big raise! And I’ll finally be free to make the one crucial capital improvement that Dave’s always resisted because he says it’s a stupid idea.

Yes, The Pond is finally getting a milkshake machine!

I’m doing all this because I’m loaded, have a sound investment plan and just because I’m such a sweet guy.

Or so rumor has it.

Related  . . .

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The attempted suicide on Solomon Temple Road

(713 words)

It’s right there on page 95 of my book. It’s just one of 501 items I jotted down to add color or soul to your daily life. It’s kind of innocuous, not one I ever talk about much.

But I’m proud enough of it to point it out to our daughters whenever the situation arises and arise it did the previous Sunday with unholy vengeance.

No. 305: “Say a small, fast prayer anytime you hear a siren running on a speeding police car, fire truck or ambulance. Chances are somebody’s in trouble and somebody brave is going to help. And that’s what prayer is all about.”

We live on Solomon Temple Road, a rural township stretch of pavement that has neither Solomon nor temples. It does have lots of snakes, one reason why I’m pestering township officials of the need to change the name from Solomon Temple to Copperhead Road.

Plus, I’d prefer to have an address that recalls a really cool Steve Earle song than one known for profound Biblical wisdoms.

The previous Sunday the sirens outnumbered the snakes.

Val counted 20 firetrucks, four state police vehicles and a trio of ambulances that went roaring by in 15 minutes.

All hell was breaking out on the upper part of Solomon Temple, a nearly four mile road that can be divided into two sections: we live on the sparsely settled climb up the hill with about five other homes; there are about 20 on the upper flats.

I told the girls to say their prayers because someone was in trouble and a whole slew of brave men and women were on their way to help.

They didn’t get down on their knees or start speaking in tongues — thank God for that — but I like to think the girls, 13 and 8, said some simple little prayers during the commercials that run every eight minutes between Disney Channel airings of “Sam ’n’ Cat.”

Here, according to news and police reports the next morning, is what happened. 

A 26-year-old homeowner I’ve never heard of got into a Sunday evening fight with his girlfriend. There was a profane shouting match on the lawn that drew all the neighbors to their windows. 

The girl left with a friend.

The distraught man siphoned all the gasoline out of two vehicles in an unattached garage and set them on fire. He then took more gasoline into the house, poured it everywhere and set it on fire.

As the flames rose all around him and his faithful dog barking nearby, he fashioned a noose out of some cords and secured it over a rafter.

This was probably about the time neighbors alerted 911.

I’m guessing this was right about when my daughters said their prayers.

At this exact moment, an unidentified 70-year-old man was passing by and saw the flames. At considerable risk to his own life, the senior citizen ran into the burning home and pulled the young man down and dragged the him to safety. The dog, too, escaped unharmed.

It was an incredible human drama that still has all the neighborhood talking.

Me, I’m more interested in the otherworldly aspects, like did my daughters’ prayers save the man’s life?

It’s important to me because as soon as the police got there they arrested the poor bastard for arson and reckless endangerment. He could face up to 10 years in prison.

It’s very ironic, isn’t it? A man determined to die is miraculously saved and now faces the likely prospect of a life that sucks even worse than the one he’d been bound to end.

I now wonder about the wisdom of reflexively saying prayers when some people are so desperate to die. Maybe we should have said a prayer that any senior citizens with heroic bents would just mind their own damn business.

Of course, I hope one day to report that the man was freed from prison, that he and his girlfriend reconciled, had a baby and that baby grew up to invent maybe a cure for male pattern baldness or something equally beneficial to mankind’s endless struggle.

Or maybe there’s something I’m overlooking.

I’m going to have to ask the girls if they were just saying their prayers for the pets.

Related . . .

Piranhaconda on Copperhead Road!

The Suicide Pill

National No-pray Week

Let’s make today National Family Fire Drill Day