Text 2453, 199 rader
Skriven 2005-09-05 07:47:26 av Greg Sears (3:633/104)
Kommentar till en text av George Pope
Ärende: Re: The Dangers of Aging
================================
George Pope was saying F unny stuff to all
GP> Will this be how we end up in years to come?
QUIPS & QUOTES
I see morning has broken ... and, come to think of it ... I don't feel
so good either. (Jeff MacNelly, Shoe)
If it was necessary to tolerate in other people everything that one
permits in oneself, life would be unbearable. (Georges Courteline)
Not all chemicals are bad. Without hydrogen and oxygen, for example,
there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer. (Dave
Barry)
Practice doesn't make perfect, nor is it supposed to. Practice is about
increasing your repertoire of ways to recover from your mistakes. (Joann
C. Gutin)
Always buy a good bed and a good pair of shoes. If you're not in one,
you're in the other. (Gloria Hunniford)
You go to your TV to turn your brain off. You go to the computer when
you want to turn your brain on. (Steve Jobs)
Flattery is comparable to suntan lotion or ski wax. It cannot be too
often or too recklessly applied. (Lewis Lapham)
Sign on a deli snack-bar jar in Santa Fe, N.M.: "Tips. Support counter
intelligence." (Paula Hassler)
It's a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us
occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and
what is sand. (Madeleine L'Engle)
The characters in these books, and plays, and so on, and in real life, I
might add, spend hours bemoaning the fact that they can't communicate. I
feel that if a person can't communicate, the very least he can do is to
shut up. (Tom Lehrer)
In matters of the heart, love plus hate always equals hate. (David A.
McLean)
I think role models should be extremely flawed. So then people who are
striving, they don't have to strive for perfection. (Christina Ricci)
Collected By Keith E. Sullivan
> OBjoke: our Moderator and all-round friend/servant
NOT ALL PIT BULLS
Lynn, Mass. -- Here's proof that not all pit bulls are bad. Police
entered the home of a suspected drug dealer. The man ordered his pit
bull to attack the cops. The dog refused, whereupon the owner himself
bit a policeman.
> OBjoke: <+]::-{(} ("Cyberpope")
PIT BULL PULPIT
By Tony Kornheiser, The Washington Post, April 12, 1998
In recent weeks I have been dealing exclusively with other people's
domestic affairs. On a spiritual level it has been rewarding for me to
try to heal the nation, but the time has come to move on.
I've got domestic problems of my own, gang.
One of them involves a pit bull -- and I don't mean Kenneth Starr.
Last week the D.C. government began removing pit bulls from public
housing. I want this policy extended to private housing, too. A few
weeks ago I was shocked to discover, in my two-Volvo neighborhood, a
one-pit-bull home.
My sweet but hopelessly incorrigible Brittany, Maggie -- there have been
reports in this space about her eating freshly used tissues, sponges and
$120 in cash -- was attacked by a pit bull. The dog, which was not on a
leash, spied her and immediately thought, "buffet!" It fastened on
Maggie's back, terrifying her so that she wriggled out of her collar and
bolted hysterically to save her life. The pit bull chased Maggie all
the way back to our house, chomping on her like a chew toy, causing six
puncture wounds.
As we chased helplessly after the dogs, I asked the pit bull's owner,
"What the heck kind of dog do you have there?"
"A Jack Russell terrier," he said.
"If that's a Jack Russell," I said, "then I'm Jackie Onassis."
We ran and ran, calling out for the dogs.
"Maggie!" I yelled.
"Lovey!" he yelled.
Lovey?
Fortunately we were able to separate the dogs, and I called the police
to report what had happened. The pit bull was taken away for
evaluation. (I suggested the dog be forced to write an essay: "Why I
Shouldn't Eat My Neighbor.") A couple of weeks later I was informed
that the pit bull would be allowed back into the neighborhood because an
animal psychiatrist had examined it and decided it was not aggressive.
"Great news, Maggie," I said. "The dog shrink says Lovey isn't
aggressive. So I guess it was all a misunderstanding. Oh, I'm sorry,
Maggie, I forgot you can't hear well anymore since half your ear was
bitten off. Let me say it louder: LOVEY ISN'T AGGRESSIVE!"
I wish you could have seen Maggie. The veterinarian shaved much of her
hair, inserted four drainage tubes into her back and fitted her with one
of those Elizabethan collars. She looked like a topiary lampshade doing
a van Gogh impression.
I'm sure pit bulls have helped buy a lot of new homes for plastic
surgeons, but I was unaware of the booming animal psychiatry specialty.
Where exactly would a person go to school to become a dog psychiatrist,
the University of Labrador? (Excuse me, doctor, what was your major
before you switched to animal psychiatry -- in-terrier design?)
Anyway, I'm out $200 for vet expenses and nervous about the impending
return of Lovey. But that isn't my only domestic problem. My lawn is a
nightmare. It is wildly out of control. It knows no bounds. It is a
disgrace.
If my lawn were president, it would be impeached by now. Okay, maybe
not. (But wouldn't it be fun to see the special prosecutor in a Lawn
Doctor uniform?)
My grass grows a foot a day. There was a front-page story the other day
saying one out of every eight plant species on Earth is now threatened
with extinction. Not in my yard. I'm incubating a rain forest. I'm
growing anacondas. I'm waiting for some kid to come by and trade me a
cow for magic beans and a shot at climbing my rose bush.
Because I'm getting so old, I decided to get someone to take care of my
lawn. (My kids? Hahaha. You must have my children confused with some
other boy and girl who actually help their parents with household
chores, as opposed to barricading themselves in the TV room and turning
the volume up so loud that the only way you can get their attention is
by hurling tear gas in there.) So I signed up a fellow who offered to
clean my yard, fertilize it and mow it.
It's a sizable yard, so I asked him, "You think you'll be able to do
this all by yourself? Might you need some help?"
He said, and I'm quoting him exactly: "Sometimes when I need help, I
get outpatients from mental hospitals to work with me. Would that be a
problem for you?"
I stood there mute. I could have been a mime.
"Don't worry," he said, "they're on medication, they're fine."
He must have realized I was having difficulty processing the
information, because he said, "I always ask my customers about this
first. And if they mind, I understand."
"Please don't think me callous," I said. "But the idea of a mental
patient running around my back yard with a chain saw might take some
getting used to. I mean, it's a wooden house."
"They're fine," he assured me.
In the few minutes we were talking my grass grew another six inches. It
was now brushing my knees. By the morning it would cover Gheorghe
Muresan.
"I'll try it," I said. "But nobody in a hockey mask, okay?"
A few days later he brought over a huge supply of fertilizer and mulch
-- hundreds of bags, enough to cover Montana. And they sat there.
After a week I began to get nervous because I knew that commercial
fertilizer is a key component in homemade bombs. Add some heating oil,
and for all intents and purposes, I was just a beaker or two away from
blowing up Chevy Chase.
Pretty soon I'd have myself a tidy little terrorist compound, complete
with a perimeter of FBI sharpshooters trained on me. Which seemed okay
to me -- at least Maggie would be safe from the pit bulls.
© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company
Cheers,
__o o__ o__ o__ o__ There's one
_ \<,_ _.>/ _ _.>/ _ _.>/ _ _.>/ _ in every
(@)/ (@) (@) \(@) (@) \(@) (@) \(@) (@) \(@) crowd....
...I C E-man.
... George, better find your aim in life before you run out of ammunition!
--- EzyBlueWave V2.01b006 00F90257
* Origin: Afraid of the competition? We ARE the Competition! (3:633/104)
|