Friday, March 4, 2011

The Olympian

"I can't really remember if I was in the Olympics ever."  By randomly raising that point to my wife, I made her giggle for a while...not sure why.  I try to make cashiers giggle.  Sometimes successfully.  I've gone to Wal-Mart and with a flat affect and kinda stupefied look on my face, handed the check out person my Chopper Shopper or Pet Food Savemart cards.  When they inform me that the cards won't do me any good, I put a hurt look on my face, pay and leave.

I've messed with fast food drive-through cashiers too.  When sticking my credit card towards their window, as they try to grab it I slightly jerk it quickly around so they miss it a few times, as if I have the shakes.  After a few seconds I unveil a playful looking countenance and they usually laugh.  A little levity never hurt me until a couple of weeks ago.

I was in one of those desperate, I'm in a hurry, "Oh look, here is a conveniently located Taco Smell" quandaries.  I did my silly little credit-card jerking performance, but it was obvious by the look in the eye of the young lady who had greeted me in broken English that she did not see the humor in it (there WERE 4 or 5 cars behind me).   Further, I think my, "Hey, I was just playin'" got lost in translation.  She went in and I saw her say something to the person preparing my 3 tacos.

Later, I discovered that each of the taco shells was in ten or twelve broken pieces.  Hmmm, I guess my truck needs new shocks...and no, this is not going to morph into a country music song.  I was raised in the country and I don't think in my entire childhood I heard my family of seven utter words such as pickup-truck, coffee or honkey-tonk as much as you would hear in a week on a country radio station.   

Anyway, back to the Olympics...is it anyway or anyways?  If you can go anyway, isn't the implication that there are many ways you can go or wouldn't we just say oneway instead of anyway?  The assertion is obviously the plurality of choice available to the way chooser...isn't it?  But please, whichever way you choose to go, wake me up before you go-go 'cause I don't plan on goin' solo...Wham! 

Adding an "s" to an already plural verbal image is gravely similar in severity to a double negative in mathematics, but trust me, there's not a dang thing positive about jackin' with human language like that!

Anyways...I was going to talk about the Olympics but the Nathanielator is crying for his bottle; it's been 3 and a half hours.  He's gone from 6 to 9 pounds his first month out of  the womb.  Thrive baby, thrive!!  Huh, uh, uh uh I just said womb.   I did not say "first month on the earth" because that was ten months ago, silly, at the time he was conceived...in his mother's womb.

Hmmm....I may have to get something off my chest tomorrow and it won't be the Olympics.  I don't think I was ever in them anyway.