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 . . .

Steve Jobs: American iCon

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  . . .

GOP loves Clinton, 20 years too late

It’s a bobblehead world

A tale of turtles, pranks and Manti Te’o

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

Re-run Sunday: The night I spent in jail

Tomorrow’s post will be about the man who attempted suicide up the street from us in an incident that made all the area news outlets. He burned down his house and tried to hang himself amidst the flames. An heroic stranger ran inside and saved his life. When the police got there, they arrested him for arson. He could face up to five years in prison. Josie, 13, asked if I’d rather die than go to jail. I told her the night I spent in jail was one of the best nights ever. Here’s the story of that night . . .

It was only a $15 parking ticket. It had been issued to me on July 3 outside the local public library for parking on the wrong side of the road. Many would have just paid it.

Not me. It didn’t seem fair. There was no sign. It was a holiday weekend on a road between a church and a small town library where my wife had asked me to pick up some books for the kids.

The only way my mission could have been more wholesome was if I’d paused to donate a spare kidney to some sick orphan.

So I took it to the local police chief. We’d never met, but have mutual friends. He looked at the ticket, looked at me, smiled and said, “Let’s let this go with a warning, okay?”

Okay!

I don’t know why I felt so good, but I had to fight the urge to jump up and click my heels together. It continued a run of friendly run-ins with badge-bearing folks from whom I used to instinctively run.

I’ve also become friendly with a Pennsylvania State Trooper whom I’d met at a golf function. We hit it off and and I invited him down to my local tavern where he proceeded to make as loud an ass out of himself as those of us who don’t carry loaded weapons for a living.

We all had a swell time. At the end of the night, he threw an arm around me and shoved his business card in my shirt pocket. I didn’t examine it until the next day. On the back, he’d written: “Chris is a personal friend/golf buddy. Any professional courtesy appreciated.”

I had to practically rub the Twilight Zone out of my booze-reddened eyes. It was a get out of jail free card!

And it’s just such a sad pity that I can’t think of a single circumstance where I’ll ever get to use it.

I don’t know how it happened, but all the menace of my youth has gradually leaked away. What remains couldn’t make a decent puddle.

Somehow I’ve become good and it seems like such a waste.

Where were these powerful friendships during my hell-raising youth? Where were they when I could have really used them?

Like the night I killed my wife.

It was 1987. All the old gang from college was in town and that meant lots of drinking. Inevitably, things got out of hand and one of my buddies, a Cincinnati lad, got busted for drunk and disorderly behavior.

The haze of history, not to mention multiple Ouzo shooters, fogs the details. I think it was an ill-advised game of toss involving empty beer bottles and a nervous valet, but I clearly remember a big steroid stallion of a cop rudely shoving my buddy in the back of the cruiser.

As I was the semi-sober host, I felt honor-bound to take charge. I asked the officer when I could collect the miscreant.

“He’s with us,” was all he said.

“I understand that sir, but when, pray tell, can I come retrieve him?”

We went through a variation of this two more times before he growled, ‘Say one more word and you’re goin’ with him!”

You can beat me senseless and throw my shattered body in a dark dungeon until time runs out. But no one will ever incarcerate my inner smart ass.

I said, “Well . . .”

The very next instant began a lifelong appreciation for the sturdy construction of a well-built American vehicle. He grabbed the back of my head and slammed my chin into the cruiser’s hood.

I’m convinced if had been one of those mid-80’s foreign cars, the force would have collapsed the vehicle and the three of us would have had to perp walk a mile to the two-cell station.

Cell one was occupied by a surly-looking punk. He never even glanced up as they threw the two of us into the cell next door.

I confess I wasn’t unhappy about being there. I didn’t want to go through life without having to endure some imprisonment, if for no other reason than I could feel a kind of kinship with Nelson Mandela.

After about an hour of cellmate giggling -- and it was just giggling -- my buddy broke the ice with unseen Prisoner No. 000001.

He said he was in for a bar brawl, drunk and disorderly. “You guys?” he asked.

“Same thing, D&D,” said my buddy, a fast learner already hip to jailhouse lingo.

“You?” he asked me.

“I killed my wife.”

“You what!”

“Yep. Killed her dead.”

Maybe it was still the drunk part of his D&D, but I was surprised to learn he was such a sensitive sort. He was floored and came alive with interest. He asked what made me do it.

“Caught her in bed with a black guy,” I said.

“Oh, man!”

“Well, she’s black, too,” I explained.

He asked what I did.

“Shot her right in the ass,” I said.

“You sure you killed her?”

“I think so. It’s all so confused. All I remember is her rubbing her ass and hollerin' at me.”

I’ve heard stories of men who endure long incarceration. They say they remember the forlorness, the estrangement.

Me, I’ll always remember my buddy trying to stifle all his belly laughs as I spun one of my greatest stories ever, one rich with sordid detail about my criminal life as an outlaw youth.

When they let the two of us go at dawn, we walked past our cell neighbor. He didn’t even look up, too fearful to even fathom an evil so malevolent, so near.

I wonder if even one of Mandela’s nights over 27 years of bitter imprisonment was as much fun as my 12 hours.

I doubt it.

He probably ran with the wrong crowd.

New record "Crayons!" book purchase: 270 to . . .

(903 words)

Two weeks after landing my biggest purchase, I’ve topped it yet again. The new benchmark is 270 copies of “Use All The Crayons!”

But unlike the one for 250 that went to West Virginia University 4H students, I have no idea who’ll be buying these books.

I’m not even sure of the states in which they’ll be sold. It’s because the purchaser is not a group or an individual.

It’s Barnes & Noble.

I’ve had some friends say I need to think about writing a book about how I got this book to become a success, assuming, of course, that it’ll ever become a success.

I’m fairly confident that’s just what’s going to happen. And if that does happen, I can pretty much be sure it’s going to be as thick as a car battery. “War and Peace” will seem like a trifle compared to “Blockbuster or Bust” or whatever title I eventually settle on.

This is taking forever, isn’t it?

I tell people the book is really taking off and it’s just that it’s a really, really long runway.

Remember, it was August 2012 when I got the letter from Barnes & Noble’s Small Press Department in New York informing me they were going to order my book to stock on their shelves, a very rare occurrence for any self-published book.

And they were going to start with 10 copies!

I remember reading that and thinking that had to be a typo. Didn’t they mean 10,000 copies?

I showed the letter to the community relations manager at my local Greensburg store — she’s wonderful — and she was ecstatic.

“Oh, this is tremendous news,” she said. “I’ve worked here for six years and get requests from writers like you about three times a week. This is the first one they’ve ever approved.”

With books like mine, the book really has to prove itself. Those 10 copies were sent to the Greensburg store and monitored to see how quickly they sold.

They sold out right way so they ordered 10 more. Then 20. Then 40.

The average self-published book sells just 100 copies. I sold that many at that one store in December alone.

Those robust sales got the attention of the local district manager who ordered the book sold in all 12 area stores, where they continued to do well. I’d visit each of the stores to say hello and thank them for selling my book.

Soon, thanks to friends and enthusiasts, the book was for sale in stores in Ohio, West Virginia and Connecticut.

Meanwhile, I continued to bust my ass selling it out of the trunk of my car at churches, libraries and civic clubs. 

And I kept hearing from far-flung strangers all around the country. They had to have my book — and they thought their friends needed it, too. Some would order two or three. Some 20.

The best was the woman in Illinois who just had to have 30 signed copies.

Wow, I said. You have that many friends?

“No,” she said, “I have 10 friends, but I want to give 20 to patients down at my local cancer treatment center. I’m sure they’re going to love your book.”

Blew me away.

And you by now must know about the insane reaction to my motivational speeches like the one I gave to those WVU students, one that was so over-the-top I justifiably slugged the YouTube video “greatest author ovation ever!”

So early this year, I thought it was time to re-approach Barnes & Noble about wider distribution. I put together a very snazzy package — similar to one that’s earning interest for my speaking gigs — and requested they consider ordering the book for all 661 of its stores.

Took them about two months to respond in a letter that was practically word-for-word what the 2012 letter said with one exception: The order was 27 times higher than two years previous.

So if they ship three copies to each store that’s 90 new stores across the land. How they arrived at that number I have no idea. I wish they’d be more forthcoming with details, but that’s their business.

Mine is to approach every sale like it’s solely up to me and no one else. I understand the book must continue to prove itself. I intend to help it along.

I’m spending this down holiday week writing personal letters to store managers all over America. The letters contain copies of the home office notification and requests that they stock my book and consider giving it some flattering prominence.

In short, I’m going to do everything I did in the Pittsburgh area except on a national scale. I think it’ll work.

If you’re so inclined, the next time you’re in your local Barnes & Noble, I’d appreciate it if you’d mosey on over to the self-improvement section and see if the book’s there. If it’s not, tell someone it should be. If it is, thank the bookseller on my behalf for selling it and ask them to feature the book in a place of prominence.

If they decline, offer to mow their lawn, wash their car, or spend the weekend babysitting their children, etc. Whatever it takes.

And if I can persuade even one of you to do even one of those things, then my dubious contention that I’m America’s foremost motivational humorist will enjoy a significant boost.

Related . . .

“Use All The Crayons!” a 10-star review

“Use All The Crayons!” unconventional marketing

Bullies, books & bikers

Arnold Palmer NOT attending my book signing

“Use All The Crayons!” now a modeled book

Tweets of the (last) month!

Some good ones here, yes. I like the one about “Roberto Duran Duran” and “Ancient Grease.” But, really, I should just keep re-running the 70 or so gems I came up with last November. I swear, the philosopher Confucius would read those tweets and wonder, “How does he do it?” As always, any new followers to @8days2amish are welcome and, as always, I’ll make sure readers of the blog always get the good stuff without having to stray.

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

• Don Cheadle was nominated for a 2004 Oscar for his role in "Hotel Rwanda." I love Cheadle but he didn't stand chance. Cheadles never win

• Many of us used to live lives of quiet desperation. Now, thanks to Twitter, all our desperation is at full blast. Let's turn it up to 11!

• Don’t take this wrong, but if you know more quotes from “Art of War” author Sun Tzu than you do Fred Rogers you’re probably an asshole.

• I miss cheap gas, good music and simpler times but I'm most nostalgic for the day when I didn't know your politics and you didn't know mine.

• Just calculated it'd take 600 mph flying Blue Angels 4 mins to fly from Latrobe to Pittsburgh -- and that includes waiting at damn tunnels.

• People who fake sleep to get out of midnight lovin’ are bulldozers.

• Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to be forever berated over their failure by those of us who do.

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

• Hershey, Pa., is a company town that looks like how all company towns would look if companies were run by 6 year olds.

• Garish individuality is so common that conforming is the new non-conformity.

• Would Elvis have ever reached and maintained his iconic status if his folks had named him Todd?

• How come there isn't an '80s tribute band called Roberto Duran Duran?

• How come unicorns aren't called uniHORNS?

• Used to tell well-mannered folks they must have been raised by good parents. Now realize many turn out good by disregarding awful ones.

• I’m thinking of opening fast food restaurant that uses really seasoned vegetable oils for fried chicken, etc. I'll call it "Ancient Grease”

• I’m so pretentious my voice mail ends with, “If this is a real emergency please call 911.” Like others call me to schedule surgery.

• I wonder how many times pretentious erotic film makers have re-done porno "Moby Dick" just to use the line, "Thar she blows!”

• I one day dream of seeing a telephone pole constructed entirely from old telephones.

• Drives me nuts when newscasters declare Cali wildfires out of control. Of course they're out of control! They're not called tame fires.

• Most of our smart phones store so much stupid crap that dropping them down the toilet actually makes logistical sense.

• I’m inexperienced in either endeavor, but I imagine a tame goose chase would be just as exhilarating as a wild one.

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

• Asked daughter, 8, if she'd had anything healthy to eat today. She said her gum was strawberry. I surrendered to her logic

• Due to frequent collateral damage, I propose the military begins distinguishing ballistics by calling some bombs missiles and others hittles

• I wish it was a seafaring tradition that anyone who is called "Skipper" actually moved from place to place by skipping.

• He’s cheerful, polite, and enjoys laughter. Go ahead and tell people the Pillsbury Dough Boy is among the world’s greatest roll models.

Related . . .

75 best tweets of 2012!

November, my best tweet month ever

October, ’11, my 1,000th tweet