How I Discovered My Super Powers

Posted on January 26, 2011 by pegoleg

Here I come to save the day....

When I was a kid I wanted to be a super hero and fight for truth, justice and the American Way.  I secretly knew I must have  super powers – I only needed to  discover them.

Fast-forward 40 years.  My super power has finally revealed itself.

I am the Amazing, Middle-Aged, Invisible Woman!

The other day I was walking down a narrow hallway.  Two young ladies approached from the other direction, talking and laughing.  As we came abreast it was apparent that all three of us could not pass at the same time.  Did they move over, or drop back to single file to make room?  No.  I had to flatten myself to the wall to avoid a collision, leaving a grass-cloth imprint on my cheek that is just starting to fade. 

That was when it occurred to me – I must be invisible!

This is amazing!  Invisibility was one of the powers I yearned for as a child.  (To be honest, at that point it had less to do with fighting crime than with a desire to be able to walk into Kresge’s and take all the toys I wanted without being seen.) 

There were early clues to my future power, though I did not recognize them at the time.  This explains why the cute, popular boys ignored me when I was a teenager. 

Since that moment of amazing discovery, I’ve seen my super power in action several times.

  • At the Social Security office last week, there was an entire room full of employees going through their routines 6 feet away from where I stood, waiting at the counter. Not one of them could see me!
  • I was driving down the road the other day and a 13-year-old boy stepped off the curb in the middle of the block and moseyed across the street.  He looked in my direction, but did not stop or even blink as I slammed on the brakes to avoid killing him.  And if I briefly toyed with the idea that this was evidence of his rude disregard for others, I quickly dismissed such thoughts.  Surely this behavior could only mean I was invisible.
  • I was in line at a trendy coffee shop, trying to get a $5 cup of coffee.  The two high school-age clerks, engrossed in a conversation about one’s chances of getting off work the following Friday, did not even notice I was there.

As amazing as my nascent power is, I’ve noticed it only works on certain people.  There are two main groups to whom my very existence is hidden:

1)  Customer service representatives, with a special emphasis on civil servants.

2)  Teenagers.  The power is strong in me here.

Everything about me is hidden from these special groups; vehicles in which I am riding, my voice, even my phone calls won’t register. 

This explains why every time I call the customer service department of a company, I am unable to get a real person to pick up the phone.  And all the times I thought my 18-year-old daughter was ignoring me, I could not have been more wrong.  Now I see – it’s not her, it’s me!

Though my powers are somewhat limited, I am eager to use them to help mankind.

If an 18-year-old Department of Motor Vehicles customer service clerk should go on a crime spree, send up the Amazing, Middle-Aged, Invisible Woman signal.  I’ll be there in a flash!

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Rodentiation? Who Ya Gonna Call?

Posted on January 24, 2011 by pegoleg

Me & Beeby, taking care of rodent business

This has been a banner year for mice in our house.  We’re experiencing a level of rodentiation that is the stuff of legends.  Future generations of exterminators will speak of it in hushed tones.

*Helpful Definition:  Rodentiation refers to an extreme infestation of mice.  If the infestation involves rats, the term used is exodusical rodentiation.   This describes the mass exodus of people from the afflicted property, with me knocking old ladies to the ground in an effort to be the first one out.  These are technical terms rarely used except by those of us in the VAC (Vermincular Abatement Community.) 

I have a problem reconciling the loveable cartoon image of mice (think Jerry of Tom & Jerry fame or Mighty Mouse) with reality.  Wild mice are dark brown and dirty gray, not sparkling white like lab mice.   I left the “awww, cute” reaction behind long ago.  There’s nothing cuddly about them.

My kitchen counter has become a major mouse roadway, as evidenced by their tiny, black, cigar-shaped calling cards.  They’re getting Stimulus money for infrastructure improvement, like the Bridge to Pantry project.  

I know the vast majority of city folk are saying “eeew” right about now, and are mentally hopping up on chairs in their slippers and housecoats.  I’ve become somewhat callused about it.  Mice are a fact of life in the country.  When it’s cold outside, they want to be inside.  It’s nice and warm; there are plenty of off-season decorations and important documents to make nests of, and unless I construct a hermetically sealed chamber for a pantry,  there’s plenty of food to munch on.

We caught two of the bewhiskered vermin just last night.  And when I say “we”, I mean Beeby, our cat, and me.  We’re the resident exterminators.

It's not funny.

Beeby comes by her job title courtesy of countless years of evolution.  She and her feline sisterhood have honed their skills until they are unmatched in the animal kingdom as crafty and often cruel huntresses.

As for me, I didn’t sign up for the job, I stumbled into it.  There weren’t any other applicants. 

My hubby is way too macho to jump up on a chair and shriek “eeew” when we see a mouse.  He has a live and let live attitude that I really admire, except that it leaves me in the role of Bwana, the great hunter.  Our two daughters are surprisingly squeamish about mice, given that they grew up in the country.  It seems the expression necessity is the mother of invention means the mother has to deal with all the necessity.  

So it’s up to Beeby and me to take care of (rodent) business.  I’d say we’re about evenly matched in number of kills.

Her hunting and trapping skills are far superior to mine.  But she loses points for ambivalence towards our quarry.   Sometimes she hesitates to administer the coup de grace.  Beeby can’t make up her mind whether the mouse is supposed to be a toy, a present, or lunch. 

I’ve seen Beeby catch one, carry it around gently in her mouth, then release it so she can chase it all over again.  Talk about playing with your food!

Last month, I found no less than 3 mice under the Christmas tree.  Or at least one carcass that clearly had been a mouse, and two little bits that look like kidney beans.   It seems there are certain organs that cats don’t like.  This illustrates two, important facts:

1)  Cats really are finicky eaters, as shown in that commercial with the obnoxious, fat, white cat haughtily deigning to eat out of a champagne glass. 

2)  Our cat understands the true meaning of Christmas.  I hope she wasn’t upset that I opened her gifts early.

 I don’t want to become blasé about taking any life, no matter how small.  So I bait little plastic tunnels with peanut butter and trap the mice live.   I used to take them outside and let them go, until my helpful hubby pointed out that there must be a secret entry into the house that the rodent underground knew all about.  I was likely to be catching the same mouse over and over again. 

Now when I catch one, I set it out on the deck for a couple of days, still in the trap.  The cold weather does the killing, not me.  A fine distinction, I know, but it leaves me my illusions that I am not a cold-hearted killer.

Come spring our problem will be over.  In the meantime, I’ve been thinking I could do some research on the relative merits of various peanut butters as bait.  I could determine whether mice prefer chunky or creamy, natural vs. processed, and if choosy meeces really choose Jiff.

I’m hoping to get some Stimulus money for this important research project.

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Announcing, The Personal Mannequin Persuasion System!

Posted on January 21, 2011 by pegoleg

Do do that voodoo that you do so well

“Has this ever happened to you?” (Announcer with quasi-Australian/tent revival preacher voice is heard.)

“I’ve only got one hour for my workout, and every treadmill is taken!”  (Middle-aged woman in sweat suit stands by rows of occupied treadmills. Her expression shows level of panic usually reserved for involvement in a major car accident.) 

“What will I do?” woman laments, wringing hands. 

(Good-looking, blond voice-over announcer appears at woman’s side, facing camera) “Life is full of problems.  And most of them are walking around on two feet!  Ha ha!  Hi folks, Tommy Stounding here”  (Tommy flashes engaging smile, revealing row-upon-row of unusually large, white teeth)

“Time-wasters, the rude, the clueless, those who are more talented, attractive, or wealthy than you…the list is endless.  What can you do about these people?  Up until now -nothing.”  Tommy says.

“But that was then!” (Tommy does dramatic, 90 degree turn to face camera #2) 

“This is now!  Introducing the Personal Mannequin Persuasion System, by Peg-Co!”

(Camera closes in on what appears to be a small rag doll in Tommy’s hand.)  “Some might think this is just a voodoo doll, but it is much, much more.  It’s a system, because there are lots of accessories that we’ll attractively display by fanning them out on a table.”  

“Give it a try!” (Tommy passes doll to woman in sweats)

(Woman grasps doll and looks over at a gorgeous 25-year-old workout Barbie jogging on a treadmill in the coveted back row.  Camera zooms in on PMPS doll in woman’s hand, which has blonde ponytail wig and skin-tight workout togs, just like target jogger. Woman jabs back-end of doll with patented Persuasion Pin.   Hot young woman suddenly jumps off machine, clutching left buttock, and limps out of the room. Woman (approaching middle age and carrying some extra pounds, but still with a few good years left in her), jumps on newly vacated treadmill wearing expression of devilish glee)

(Tommy spreads hands in expansive gesture)“Think of all the ways you’ll use your PMPS:

1.)    The clerk at the Department of Motor Vehicles shuffling along behind the counter in her bedroom slippers as if she had all the time in the world, when you only have 30 minutes left on your lunch hour to get that license renewed and get back to the office. 

2.)    The pitcher, off his game, who should have been taken out 2 innings ago.

(Camera switches to ballpark.)

Typecast, slovenly sports fan in bleachers yells at pitcher, “You got nothing!  Get that bum outta there!  Come on coach, stick a fork in him, he’s done.”

Tommy Stounding magically appears beside sports fan, hands him small doll in baseball uniform. “How about if you stick a Persuasion Pin in him, instead?”

Fan grabs doll, sticks pin in its arm.  Pitcher on the field hits the grass, clutching his arm.  Tommy turns to camera with rueful grin, his blindingly white, Chicklet-sized teeth sparkling in the sunlight.

 “That’s one prick the pitcher won’t forget anytime soon.”

3.)    The woman in front of you in the express line at the grocery store with 47 items, 32 coupons (half of which are expired) who needs a price-check and is paying in change.

4.)  And let’s not forget the youngsters!  What about the coach’s kid who always gets to play while you warm the bench?  Or that obnoxious mean girl who makes junior high hell on earth?”

      (Camera switches to school gym)

Close up of flat-chested, gawky, braces-clad 12-year-old girl in cheerleading outfit standing on the sidelines. She’s sticking a pin in the foot of a similarly garbed doll.  In the background, human pyramid collapses as remarkably-developed-for-her-age head-cheerleader grabs her ankle and howls in pain.

“The list goes on and on!”

“Your Personal Mannequin Persuasion System comes complete with everything you see here. “ (Tommy’s voice-over is heard while screen shows assortment of items, artfully fanned out on a table.)  “You’ll receive:

   –   3 Personal Persuasion Mannequins in shades of ecru, jonquil and cinnamon
   –   8 wigs in assorted colors and styles
   –   20 outfits with Velcro attachment
   –   10 genuine polypropylene Persuasion Pins.  Note the rich, simulated hand-carved details (close up on 2 inch needle with plastic handle).
   –   Patented Persuasion Pin Placement Guide.     

How much would you expect to pay for this system?  The total package is worth more than $473.99*.  But that’s not YOUR price.  You won’t pay $200!  Or $100!  No, not even $50!  For an amazing, astoundingly limited time, you can purchase this entire system for the low, low introductory price of just $19.99**.   That includes everything you see here!”

(Camera flashes back to sweat suit-clad woman wearing open-mouthed expression of shocked amazement normally seen on someone experiencing an alien encounter or close-up Brangelina sighting)

“But wait!  There’s more!  If you act right now, within the next 20 minutes, and are one of the first 200 callers, we will include, absolutely free of charge***, this valuable Personalization Tool!”  (Camera shows woman using grease pencil to sketch in beauty mark and long eyelashes on doll).  “Use it to customize the write-on/wipe-off face of your PMPS to make sure you hit the right target when you do do that voodoo that you do so well.”

“Operators are standing by.”  Tommy points at camera commandingly. “Call now, and tell ‘em Tommy sent you!” 

(Announcer switches from Tommy Stounding to fine-print pitchman talking faster than the human brain is able to register sound)

 “Not suitable for children under 18.

* $473.50 value established by independent marketing consultants via application of sharp-tipped, fletched projectiles to cork-covered pricing matrix.

** “Amazing, astoundingly low, low introductory, limited time-offer” price does not include $45.19 shipping and handling charge

*** “But wait! There’s more!” free offer does not include $26.92 additional shipping and handling charge.

Peg-Co is not responsible for resulting injuries, lawsuits, or retaliatory beatings. Peg-Co is not responsible if use of PMPS on pastor (or other religious leader) to end especially long service, results in eternal damnation.   All sales are final.  Peg-Co is a division of Peg-O-Leg Industries.  Patents (and other litigation) pending.”

Posted in General Ramblings, Peg-Co Catalog | Tagged , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

To Serve Man

Posted on January 20, 2011 by pegoleg

Can I get a towel? @&%! Little help here?

I stopped at a public rest area last weekend.  A sign on the wall read: “To serve you better, this washroom is fully automated”.  

This reminded me of a classic Twilight Zone episode, in which giant aliens come to earth to help the human race. Or so they say.  World leaders are relieved when a cryptographer translates the title of one of their books, and it seems to confirm their benevolent intent.  The book title is: To Serve Man. 

Fast-forward several months.  People are lining up at a way-station to board transport ships for the aliens’ planet.  The cryptographer, who has been working all this time to translate the rest of the book, rushes in.  “Don’t get on the spaceships!” he cries.  As the aliens wrestle him to the ground he gasps  “To Serve Man….is a cookbook!”

I was a bit skeptical as I entered the washroom.

The adventure began with the automatic toilet.  This is a precision instrument.  The slightest shift in body mass sets off the flush feature, resulting in a delightfully cooling splash of public-toilet water on the nether regions.  You are guaranteed no less than 4 flushes while doing your business.  When you’re finished and actually stand up…nothing.

I next approached the automated sink, which looked like a horse trough.   I stuck my hands under a spigot… nothing.  I waved up, down and sideways.  Still no water.  Another visitor suggested the sensor can’t “see” you if you’re wearing white.  Or black.  Or if the moon is in the seventh house and Marilyn McCoo aligns with Mars.   I had immediate results at the next trough, though.  It shot out a geyser from three feet away that drenched my entire front.

The automated soap dispenser was empty.  But I could tell it worked just fine because of the impressive soap stalactite running down the wall to the floor.

Finally, I arrived at the hot-air hand dryers. These have little signs explaining how they’re good for the environment, and “eliminate the hazards of disease transmitted by paper towel waste”.  Riiiiight.  I know the CDC ranks paper towel disease right up there with smallpox as a threat to world health.

I want to save the planet as much as the next guy, but I miss paper towels.  For on thing, you could use them to open the door, protecting yourself from contamination from the last visitor who may have forgotten to wash.  Paper towels also do one thing that hot-air dryers don’t – get your hands dry.

This restroom had the new accelerator hand dryers.   These STILL don’t dry your hands, but now they don’t do it in only 10 seconds.  The force of the air pushes your skin around so you look like an astronaut hitting mach 2. Which is only fitting because they are so loud they break the sound barrier.

As I opened the washroom door with my elbow, I had to acknowledge the one benefit the modern facility has over its old fashioned predecessor.

Now it’s easy to spot the slobs who don’t wash up.

They’re the only ones walking out of the restroom with dry hands.

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Bret Baier Causes Flabby Abdominals

Posted on January 18, 2011 by pegoleg

A real photo of Bret; not a photo of my real tummy. Sigh.

It occurs to me that I may be a little rigid about my workout routine.

A trainer at the YMCA set it up a couple of years ago, and I haven’t changed a thing.

The resistance machines are first.   I start on the left side and continue along the front row.   Then I do the 2 thigh machines in the third row, and 2 sets on the sit-up machine.  I finish up with 22 minutes on the treadmill and a 5-minute cool-down. 

I’m on a very tight schedule.  If I leave the office at 5, I have barely enough time to get to the Y, get through the weights and sit-ups and get to the treadmill (one in the back rows with its own TV) no later than 5:40 central time. 

I can’t miss Bret Baier’s All Star Panel discussion on Fox News. 

If I’m running late, something’s got to give so I can be in front of the TV by 5:40.  The sit-ups are the first to go.  If I weren’t rushing to watch this show, I’d be doing lots more sit-ups and I’d have rock-hard abs. 

I hold Bret Baier personally responsible for the flabby state of my abdominal muscles.

I’m open to many political opinions – right, left and center.    While I find Fox’s endless erectile dysfunction commercials somewhat off-putting, it doesn’t matter.   I’m hooked. 

I don’t even watch the whole show, just the panel discussion.  They have a rotating pantheon of experts and most of them are good.  If I’m being honest, it doesn’t matter who else is on the panel.  I watch the show mainly to see Charles Krauthammer.

I have a bit of a thing for him.

It’s much more than the usual girl/boy crush – I admire Charles for his mind.   His analyses are well thought out and succinct.   Whether delivered with the sternness of a judge or a wryly self-deprecating smile, his opinions are generally spot-on.

I think he’s married, and I’m sure his principles are much too lofty to allow for any fooling around.   Oh, and mine, too.  My principles are really, really lofty, too.  I was thinking of a more cerebral coupling, something along the lines of the Vulcan Mind Meld.   I just hope the purity of my intentions keeps this out of Jimmy Carter’s “already sinned in my heart” category.  

I am not delusional.   I know this relationship is going nowhere, but a girl can dream.  Perhaps, someday, Charles and I will meet, if only in writing.  We’ll trade witty, yet profound, commentary on the state of society.   I will be an acolyte, sitting at his cyber feet.  He’ll chuckle at my blog.   I’ll cherish every communiqué. 

Until then, I’m going to try to be a little more flexible about my workout.  Maybe I should start with the treadmill, then go to the weights and finish with the sit-ups.  I could add ½ hour to the workout, cover everything, and really get this body in shape!

Nah.  See you tomorrow, Brett, Charles. 5:40 central time.

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

The Flower Duet

Posted on January 17, 2011 by pegoleg

I just heard the most beautiful sound ever made by humans.

I’m talking about The Flower Duet from the opera Lakme.  I don’t know much about opera, but it’s apparent the composer, Delibes, overheard two angels singing and stole the music.

Whenever I hear it, my eyes close.  I can feel an intent, slightly pained expression taking over my face as I shake my head slightly, dreamily from side to side.  It probably looks like I’m having an attack.

As the two voices climb the scale, my eyebrows climb also until they are all but hidden under my hairline.  At the crescendo, a shiver runs up my back.   I usually cry.  Not a lot – just a little bit of welling.  But still.

I try not to listen to The Flower Duet too often.  I don’t want to get desensitized – like a drug addict who needs more and more to get a fix.  I learned this lesson the hard way.  I used to have it on tape, but I abused it.  I don’t really want to talk about it.  Now I know my limits.  I can’t own it – I just visit the song on rare, special occasions.

I’ve provided a link to a version of The Flower Duet on YouTube.  Just a few words of warning.  Do not operate heavy machinery while listening, in case your eyes close involuntarily.  And if you’re in the presence of others, assure them that you are not having a seizure or a severe gas attack. 

You’re just enjoying art.

http://youtu.be/8Qx2lMaMsl8.

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Writing VS Lying On the Floor At Wal-Mart, Kicking & Screaming

Posted on January 14, 2011 by pegoleg

Literizing and it feels so good!

 Why did I start a blog?

 

I’ve read a number of helpful pieces on writing, blogging and the creative process.  On WordPress alone you can find lots of articles on grammar and theme development, how-to posts with writing exercise topics, etc.

This is all good stuff. But to someone like me, who is pretty sure that Strunk & White was a singing duo with a disco hit in 1978, writing is a lot more elemental.

I write to avoid doing hard time.

Writing, and by extension blogging, acts as a coping mechanism.  That is psychobabble for a way to handle stress that doesn’t hurt anyone, and keeps my picture off the front page of the local paper.

I blog about stuff that makes me angry, or strikes me as absurd: the comedy/drama of everyday life.  Often the topics are things that would have me crying if I didn’t choose to laugh.  Cloaking my responses in humor helps mask the fact that I am actually a self-doubting, overly emotional, critical witch.  (By the way, is that disguise working?)

There are several ways I could have handled each of the following situations:

1) Idiot cuts me off in traffic.
     a) Flip him the bird
     b) Crash his car off a cliff
     c) Write about it

2) Kids trot off to college, abandoning hubby and me.
     a) Curl up in fetal position and cry
     b) Move with no forwarding address
     c) Write about it

3) Can’t move at Wal-Mart because of all the clueless zombies milling about.
     a) Check out their Guns & Ammo department with an eye toward an immediate purchase
     b) Lie down on the floor, right next to the Express Check-out, and commence kicking and screaming
      c) Write about it

4) Cannot resist Christmas tree-shaped Little Debbie snack cakes calling out to me.
     a) Start a website featuring photos of my rapidly expanding gut
     b) See Option 2a above
     c) Write about it

In each case, I chose Option c – write about it.

Wait a minute.  Nope.  I didn’t write a post about the first situation.  May have gone with Option 1a there.

Writing allows me to wrangle daily life into some semblance of manageability.  To wrestle with reality, put it in a headlock, tie it up and leave it, bloody and dazed, on the ground at my feet.

How’s that for a metaphor! 

Or is it a simile?  I always get those confused.  I don’t think Metaphor Is Like A Simile was on my Strunk & White record.  Must have been on their Greatest Hits album. 


 
 
 
 

 

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R.I.P. “Bunny” Bixler

Posted on January 12, 2011 by pegoleg

She stepped on the ping-pong ball

Friends and family today paid tribute to New York socialite Laura “Bunny” Bixler following her death at the age of 75 from complications of jaw surgery. 

The cooking-oil heiress was perhaps best known for her expose of the country club life of New York’s privileged young in the late 1950s.  Her book:  “Just Ghastly: What Happened At The Game-room Closet.” enjoyed surprising success when it came out in 1962.  The book is held to be at least partially responsible for halting what many thought was a dangerous tendency toward inter-breeding among the social register’s top families.

Muriel Puce said of her long-time friend: “Bunny never really got over that ping-pong ball incident at the club when we were all at the Upper Richmond Girl’s School. It kind of haunted her. And Gloria (Gloria “Little Glory” Upson) was forever telling the story, everywhere she went – every party!   We were all sick of hearing about it.”  

Bunny, who lived at her family’s apartment at Park Ave and 71st, succumbed to a massive heart attack while undergoing temporomandibular joint surgery last week.   She had suffered chronic jaw pain for most of her life due to the clenched-teeth style of talking preferred by east coast debutantes. 

Mourners described Bunny as “really, top drawer.”

(Gloria explains the “ping-pong incident”, as it came to be known)

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , | 55 Comments

Bottled Ghosts Sold in New Zealand

Posted on January 10, 2011 by pegoleg

Ghostly catch & release program.

“Bottled Ghosts Sold in New Zealand”

This actual news headline caught my eye last year. It seems a couple of ghosts moved in with a woman in New Zealand. They were not good houseguests. The homeowner had to do her own extermination – spectral vermin being outside Orkin’s area of expertise. She claimed to have exorcised the phantasmic squatters by trapping them in 2 little bottles. The ghosts’ essence, which resembles blue Powerade, was then sold on the internet. The buyer was someone in need of bottled ghosts.

This is an amazing breakthrough!

We all have ghosts. They haunt our lives: clinking, clanking reminders of our past choices. Think of the time and money spent at the therapist’s office trying to wrestle these wraiths into submission. Now we learn that a metaphoric exorcism is not the only option. Ghosts can actually be trapped, capped and discarded – sometimes for a profit.

While the news story was frustratingly free of details on the mechanics involved, one thing is clear – a bottle is required. And not just any bottle. I’m sure it must the right one for each particular ghost.

I’m determined to start my own exorcism as soon as possible. Here’s a partial list of my ghosts and the bottles I’m assembling:

Junior high school: It was a life-or-death scramble for the top of the social ladder. The betrayals still haunt me. The whole experience should be stuck in a bottle of Elmer’s Glue.

One night in college: The details are a little hazy, but I’m pretty sure I made a very bad decision. A bottle of Jack Daniels might drown this ghost.

Old loves: These fall into 2 categories.

1. The one that got away. In retrospect, he had every fine quality I could ever ask for, but was too blind to see at the time. This ghost should be stoppered in a rose-colored bottle.

2. The one I should have let get away, but didn’t. My inner voice said the relationship was going to be crap, but I blocked it out. Flush all that wasted time with a bottle of Drano.

Bad jobs: Seduced by the lure of (pick one):
1. money
2. excitement
3. personal fulfillment,

I took the job with the (pick one):

1. lunatic boss
2. lousy pay
3. built-in guarantee of failure,

thereby derailing my career. Cover with a bottle of White-out.

Adipose: I’ve wrestled this specter for most of my life. Occasionally laid to rest, it always comes back. Smother it in a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth’s Syrup.

Lost youth: I believe in surrendering gracefully the things of youth. In theory. In reality I’m dragged, kicking and screaming, away from every year. Color my memories with a bottle of Nice ‘N Easy.

The road not taken: When standing at the crossroads in that yellow wood, I never doubted I could come back to try the other path. But that rarely happens. Gently submerge in a bottle of Angostura bitters.

Now that the supplies are lined up, I’m sure I’ll have all my ghosts vanquished in no time. Look for them on Ebay soon in the newly created “Casper” category. All offered with no reserves.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I must reveal that this has been posted before. But that was in the first months (October) of my blog and on another site.  Then I saw the light and came over to WordPress.  It had exactly one view – thanks sis!

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

CDC Health Tips: Cut Down On Veggies and Frozen Rodents

Posted on January 6, 2011 by pegoleg

(The mind-boggling truth that tofu dealers DON’T want you to know!)

**Shocking Expose**

No more Ratsicles before dinner - you'll spoil your appetite!

According to the Centers for Disease Control, the top food items that made people sick in recent years involve health foods and frozen rodents.  I am not making this up. 

My journey towards the truth began when my sister-in-law, Jane, sent a helpful email detailing what is REALLY contained in fast-food burgers.

The article said that everything remotely connected to the cow is tossed into the mixing bowl (everything but the “moo”).  Then the resulting “meat product” is blasted with ammonia gas to kill e-coli and salmonella.  A little more processing, a little bit of cooking and the patty, containing cow eyelashes and half the periodic table of elements, is ready to be shoved out the drive-through window at me.

As a technique by my health-conscious sister-in-law to get me to lay off the fast-food, this was pretty effective.  But I am not fainthearted.  It got me to thinking.

It seemed to me that most of the salmonella outbreaks I’ve heard about recently have to do with sprouts, lettuce and certain farm workers’ bathroom habits.  Rather than abandon the fast-food industry, or rely on my poor memory, I decided to do some actual research.

First of all, let me say that I am not, by training, a scientist.  Although I did complete several rigorous years of high school study under the tutelage of esteemed academician, Mr. John West.  

It took whole minutes of backbreaking research on Yahoo to find the Centers for Disease Control website.  The following is an actual reprint from their site of the causes of the biggest, multi-state salmonella outbreaks for the last few years.

Kind of a Vomit Top 10 List. 

Salmonella Outbreaks

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

Do we notice a common thread here?  What do most of these foods have in common?

Most of these foods are what we would call HEALTHY!

Let’s classify the contamination sources by food type and examine the evidence.

1)      Pet food: Kind of self-explanatory

2)      Not food:  Turns out Water Frogs are food to neither man nor domesticated beast.  People were contaminated just handling these little critters for their aquariums.

3)      Food for thought:  Frozen Rodents?  I consider myself something of a connoisseur of quintessentially frozen confectionary treats, and I must confess I have never seen Ratsicles in my grocer’s freezer case.  Dove Bars are my favorite.  Perhaps naively, I always assumed that was a figurative name having to do with peace or lightness or some such euphemism.  It didn’t occur to me that actual doves might be involved. But given the frozen rodents thing, one has to wonder.  Gulp.

Further study of the CDC report reveals that this contamination was due to  “association with frozen rodents used for reptile feed”.  Most of us are safe on this one. 

4)      Unhealthy food:  I think we would all agree that Banquet Pot Pies, Cheesy Chicken Rice Frozen Entrées and Restaurant Chain A offerings are not going to be healthy foods.   All are sure to contain tons of fat, sodium and more fats.

For the Restaurant Chain A outbreak, the CDC couldn’t pinpoint the specific ingredient, or even the menu item, that caused the barf-o-rama.  That leaves me free to interpret the results in a manner most likely to support my position.  This is a time-honored scientific tradition (reference climate change research manipulation by distinguished U.K. scientists).  I hypothesize it was the lettuce or sprouts.

Pot Pies and other Frozen Entrees always contain some sort of vegetables as a sop to our consciences.

So all three of these apparently unhealthy food-caused outbreaks were actually due to the veggies hiding among the fat.  They can be reclassified under Health Foods.

Even more intriguing, I want to know why the CDC appears to have it in for Banquet.  They are identified by name, right on the list where all 17 of the people who will read these statistics will see it.   You have to really dig, something nobody else is likely to do, to discover that Marie Callander was the manufacturer of the Chicken Rice dish. And Restaurant Chain A is never identified by name in the data.  It is described as a “Mexican-style fast food restaurant chain”.  Yeah, we have no clue as to who that might be.

Makes you wonder if Banquet neglected to send over a few comp dinners for the CDC break room.  Not the pot pies, though.

5)      Health food:  Every one of the remaining salmonella outbreak causes could, conceivably, be classified as healthy food.  (I did say conceivably.  I realize that some might not agree that all the rest are healthy. But those of us in the scientific community realize there is never 100% consensus.)

That means 75% of the 20 major outbreaks in the last 5 years were caused by healthy foods.  That’s not counting the previously identified and reclassified Unhealthy foods.  That’s an alarming percentage! 

 And it is incontrovertible proof that health food is unhealthy for you.

By the way, if you’re like me, and I know you are, there were two items on the list that really caught your eye.  One was, of course, the Frozen Rodents.  The other was the Veggie Booty.  I won’t tease you.  This is described in the article thusly: “Robert’s American Gourmet brand Veggie Booty is a snack of puffed rice and corn with a vegetable coating”.  Yum!

After a hard day’s work in the vineyards of truth, toiling for the people, it’s time for me to head home.  I think I’ll pick up dinner on the way.   Since “two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun” didn’t appear anywhere on the CDC’s list, I’m going to take my chances with the ammonia burgers. 

But to show Jane that I care about my health, I’ll ask for a side of Veggie Booty.

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