The Once-in-a-While
Daily News
2 It stems from the wacky weather and mucky yards of late.
3 If I walked out back to check on things as one does in the Spring, I find that the muck tends to cake onto my shoes. No surprise.
4 So everything goes in the wash, constantly. I'm also giving the heave-ho to lots of old, broken lawn furniture, what I like to call "My Wild, Irish Patty O' Furniture." It wasn't originally green. Just sorta turned that way.
5 So there's that.
6 But I've seen odd creatures flying about. Bugs that are red. Millipedes. Things with hundreds of legs.
Eystocheir dissecta, retrieved from
Public domain
Public domain
7 And then I saw someone post a nice peaceful way to rid the house of them. What you do is you use some of those thin cards you get every day in the mail, and a beat-up glass.
8 Next, you locate the red bug, or the millipede, or whatever that other thing is with a hundred legs, and you treat it kindly.
9 As it sits peacefully freaking you out, you slip the card under its legs, however many it has, and then delicately place the glass over it.
10 It then becomes a simple matter of walking outside and releasing the delicate little thing.
11 Never mind that if you drop the card and the creature scurries that it could be pregnant, and that it could release a bazillion offspring who could scatter to every crack and hole you never glued up.
12 Anyone who knows me knows I'm a delicate soul. I wouldn't think of stomping on something with eight-billion times the legs I have, which is only two.
13 And the wimminz scream when they see these milli-critters.
14 I won't name names, but that would be...uh...every woman I ever met. Except for two. And you know who you are.
15
16 Anybody lookin'?
17 All six of you who read this know who you are.
18 "Oh, he means me."
19 Let's just say, "Yup!" and carry on.
20 I confess that on one or two occasions I have pulled off a sandal and smashed some of these creatures to smithereens.
21 Ever wonder just what smithereens is?
22 <basketball buzzer>
23 Why, it means "small pieces" or "particles."
24 Did you know it is an Irish word?
25 Let us hop over to the Dictionary that somehow has become THE Dictionary of the new millennium: Dictionary.com. I give to you smithereens. For the record, this is exactly how it appears in Dictionary.com:
26 Word Origin and History for smithereens
n.
"small fragments," 1810, smiddereens, from Irish smidirin, diminutive of smiodar"
"fragment," perhaps diminutive ending as in Colleen.
27 "Useless facking informyshun."--Mick Jagger right after he mentioned to a Candlestick Park crowd that the Beatles played their last concert there.
28 I don't like beetles, by the way. I smash them with sandals too.
29
30 And to my daughter Coley: I loved that your middle name appeared in Dictionary.com. And that it emphasizes that smithereens is an Irish word.
31 I'll be back. I've some laundry to throw in.
32 <goes>
33 Ah, the clunk of an old washer. No kinder sound.
34 Over-laundering.
35 What causes over-laundering anyway?
36 I don't know. Ask Howard Hughes.
37 <germs>
38 When you are around babies constantly, the talk inevitably rolls around to <germs>.
39 You not only over-launder, you eventually believe you have a super power that can annihilate <germs>.
40 So. I change my own clothes the same way mothers of babies change babies' clothes.
41 My phone booth for changing is my laundry closet.
42 It's about the size of a traditional Clark Kent phone booth.
43 If I even THINK I have a germ, I dash into the booth, open the dryer, and change to a fresh, clean uniform.
44 I then take to the skies to protect all babies from <germs>.
45
47 Anybody lookin'?
48 I shouldn't think so.
49 It's all balderdash.
50 Yet in some ineffective way, dashingly idiotic balderdash.
51 Something to think about.
52 And if you take advice from retired geezers with nothing better to do than to hammer out balderdash, you might get inspired.
53 Moving On, Part One: They JUST took the treadmill.
54 If you have followed this nonsense, you know of my endless attempts at getting rid of an old, excellent-condition treadmill.
55 I'm pretty sure someone will read this and say, "I would have taken it!"
56 Sorry old bean.
57 "They" have taken it.
58 Every now and again I have to break a few hearts.
59 Sorry it had to be yours.
60 I REALLY gottago.
61 See you again.
62 Have a GREAT day.
63 Live life.
64 Love life.
65 And don't let the bedbugs bite.
66 Hope somehow you smiled somewhere in all of this muck.
67 REALLY gottago. Been fun.
68 Peace.
~H~
fin.
No comments:
Post a Comment