What I Did When I Was Gone

     As reported by Reuter’s Dan Whitcomb, a parrot left home (or at least the place where he was incarcerated), and then came back four years later. This parrot had an English vocabulary when he left, but now he’s speaking Spanish. Interesting? Well, maybe just a little. When they find an interpreter, they’re going to ask the parrot where he’s been, what he was doing there, why he’s come back, and then the big one, ¿por qué estás hablando español?
 

You’re Going To Send Them What?

The other day I heard an ad on the radio for some organization in Bend. What they were trying to do was save the local trick-and-treaters from a sugar overload on Halloween. The ad listed all the negative things this sugar would do to them, like make them hyper then leave them sluggish, slow down their little brains, give them cavities, plus some really bad stuff.

     The kicker was that if the kids turned in this candy, this organization would pay them so much for each pound surrendered. But the absolute topper. The organization was going to ship all this candy to our fighting men and women overseas. “What?” I thought, “Who’s side are you on anyway? You want our soldiers going into dangerous situations, suffering all the ill effects you just warned the kids about?” I hope that I’ll hear this add again and find out who these people are.

    

Grease

     In Florida recently someone stole 18 tons of Crisco sticks. That’s a lot of grease. The question is, what is somebody going to do with all this grease? Is there an active underground market for this stuff? Does somebody go from fast food joint to fast food joint saying, “Psst, wanna buy some hot Crisco?” Then if the answer is in the affirmative, this thief unloads another 25 pounds of the gooey stuff. He would at least have job security. (Think about it.) Maybe it will get smuggled out of the country to some Third World location that does not have the luxury of this artery-clogging product. This is the kind of information the public, at least me, needs to have. Who cares what the Kardashians are doing. Just tell me what to do with 18 tons of Crisco.

Dog is Man’s Best Friend?

This Dog Owner Wants a Second Opinion.

      In Alabama the police came to a man’s front door. The police officers had a warrant. They were looking for drugs. As they knocked on the front door, this man left via his back door, and scampered away into the tall grass. The police came in, found his dog, pointed out toward the grass, and told the dog to find his owner. The dog promptly complied.

      The dog ran up to his owner, wagging his tail, sure he had done something exceptional. The owner did not agree with that at all.

Hello  AT and T!!

      Today I got the bill for my wireless phones. I was looking at it and noticed a $2.99 charge. The explanation on the bill meant nothing to me so I called AT and T. What with the menus, getting shuffled from those who couldn’t help to those who didn’t have a clue took only 30 minutes of my life. Then I got a guy who knew what the $2.99 was for. I told him I didn’t want that optional service and please take it off my account. He putzed around for about ten minutes then told me I would have to go in and remove it myself.

      I followed his link and found I needed to set up an account. They didn’t like the password I chose so I had to adjust that a couple times until they were satisfied. I mean it’s a small phone bill, not Fort Knox.

      That took another twenty-five minutes of my life. After establishing an account, I started to zero in on the $2.99 charge. They must have instinctively known what was on my mind because they were very reluctant to let me see that particular charge. Finally, I found it and they even explained what it was for.

      Now to get rid of it? At every stop on this web side they were flogging additional service and features. To add additional programs or features was as easy as a click of my mouse, but to drop something was obviously very complicated. They just didn’t want to deal with anything negative. That might be a good attitude anyplace else, but this was my $2.99 we were talking about.   

      By now I was losing interest in the $2.99 and was more interested in how much more perverse this AT and T website could get. After another twenty minutes, I’d developed a slight tremor in my mouse hand, and foam was gathering at the corners of my mouth. I would have been pulling out hanks of hair if I’d been able to find a hank.

      Lorraine walked into the office, took one look at me, promptly turned, and bolted out the door. Smart girl.

      To make a long story short, I never got that $2.99 service removed from my account.

      I added up the value of my time, then compared it to the savings I was trying to acquire and figured if I had gotten rid of that monthly charge, it would have taken about five years to break even.

      Thank you AT and T. I would really like to reach out and touch someone right now, preferable you.