Ask Me! Ask Me!

In the Sunday newspaper, a column appears that addresses any number of questions plaguing readers.  Marilyn vos Savant is the columnist whose claim to fame is her astronomical IQ.

Through her columns she often fields questions and introduces puzzles to the average reader under the guise of informing people; she actually winds up demonstrating how uninformed they are, though, and that includes me.

Here’s a puzzle that would be right at home in her wildly popular space:

Q:  What do these things all have in common?

Tables, chairs, wristwatches, boxes, jars, bags, countertops, Venetian blinds, cars, refrigerators, trucks, computers, toilet brushes, flatware, pens, Al Gore, and carpets

Normally, this is when Ms. vos Savant announces the answer “appears at the end of this column.”  I, on the other hand, won’t make you wait.

A:  All these items are made totally or partially from plastic.

And this is where the story begins.

May sainted wife was wiping down the refrigerator when she stumbled upon a secret of mine.  I use the fridge as a filing cabinet.

First up was a calendar affixed to the big fridge door.  “Does this need to be hanging up here?” was her initial silly question.

“Of course,” would have been the answer if I wasn’t drinking hot coffee.

But before the words could sneak out of my unzipped mouth, she asked another question, then another, and another…

Quickly resembling an action-packed game show, I felt I was losing this machinegun-like interrogation.

We’ve been married for about three blessed decades, and have had a refrigerator in our home for all those years.  But suddenly she discovered that it was covered with stuff that wasn’t applied at the factory.  Sherlock Holmes would’ve been proud.

Calendars, baseball game schedules, business cards, lists of prescription pills, are among the precious reference materials, within easy reach.

If it's important, it's here

The reason all this stuff is attached to the refrigerator is that the exterior is made of ferrous metal.

Ferrous metal is a metal that contains iron, which is smelted into steel.  Being ferrous means it will handily hold magnets.  Magnets hold papers.  Hence, you now have a kitchen filing system.  You’re welcome.

Unfortunately, not all people are visionaries.  And since my sainted wife doesn’t read this stuff I write, I am able to tell you the unvarnished truth.

I often give her things – warranty related – to submit and file, for future reference, and all that paperwork winds up in one of those giant plastic bins under the bed without rhyme or reason.  If I should need one of those documents, it takes roughly two or three months to locate.

Ergo, I now file most of my own paperwork on which I will likely need sooner, rather than later.  And that is why the refrigerator was made from ferrous metal.

Now, in the vein of Ms. vos Savant, I offer my own puzzle for you.

Q:  Where can calendars, business cards, baseball game schedules, grocery lists, and prescription lists, be found?

The answer can be found at the end of this column.

A:  On my refrigerator.

Waterboard Me, Please!

My school grades one through eight were spent in a parochial institution of learning for wise guys.  Sure there were girls that attended classes with us, but they, too, were equally guilty of driving the teaching nuns crazy.

Back then we didn’t learn about having abortions or protesting civil matters or demanding action for climate change.  Rather, we studied such inane things as geography, history, arithmetic, foreign languages, art, and English.

We were expected to excel at all of these disciplines with the addition of homework that needed to be addressed at home, hence the name.  The main reason for this was to see how much our parents knew, and whether or not they would help us with these extracurricular assignments.

Two different times required me asking my parents for help; one was for my Polish class, the other was for my arithmetic class.

Since both my parents and grandparents spoke fluent Polish, their help was certainly instrumental in getting a good grade in that class.

It was during my arithmetic class, however, that nerves and familial ties were threatened.

My Dad was a machinist, by trade, who used fractions every day, all day.  My Mom was a housewife who excelled at taking care of the family, but didn’t need to know much about math except for making change and during cooking.

One day, I remember coming home from school with what I, in the third grade, remember like I remember the thorough disciplinary beatings I received from my Dad.

We were trying to get though something called “fractions.”

It seems as though fractions are a way to test the cohesiveness of families, and secretly conduct a comprehensive analysis of the intelligence of a student’s immediate relatives.

After nearly sixty-years, I still recall that day just as if it was hours old.  Sister Agnes began drawing a circle on the blackboard.  As an aside, a blackboard was what us old relics wrote on before whiteboards were invented.

Sister Agnes made that circle nearly perfect before drawing a line straight down the middle; the class carefully duplicated her every move.

She turned toward the class and told us that each side was one-half.  She then turned away to secretly take a sip from what appeared to be a silver hip flask similar to that of my Grandpapa.

More lines were drawn and more sips were taken.  And with each line, the class became more baffled, to the point where we all needed a sip from that flask.

My crude circle with lines made its way home with me.  When my Dad finished his dinner, he asked how school was, and then asked the question for which he was sorry the rest of his life.

“Do you have any homework?”

After a few tears of failure streamed from my eyes, I produced the papers upon which the infamous circles and lines were scribbled.  “Fractions,” I whispered.

My Dad didn’t have much in the way of patience, so I knew this was going to be tough.

Making kids bald after many years

He produced fresh paper and a pencil and began with the circles again.  Again. And again.

He kept drawing circles and lines.  And each circle got larger, as if it would be easier for me to comprehend it if they were more visible.

It didn’t take long before he ran out of both paper and patience.

My tears reappeared and my Dad became more contemplative.

After a break, he returned with scissors and more paper and a magic marker.  The paper became a pie.  He snipped long the lines, and eventually we had ourselves a pie with numerous slices.

As he reassembled the paper pie, the varying slices made more sense as ¼, ½, ¾, and one whole pie.

He even taught me how turn ¼ into 0.25 – fractions into decimals.  After all, that was his job as a machinist.

Success, at last!  But then I was mistaken because my Dad didn’t let me have a sip from his silver hip flask.  Alas.

Up or Down

Good lessons in life are the ones learned.  Falling off a bicycle, for example, is one lesson that will teach you to pay attention to where you are and what you’re doing, or you should just dismount and walk.

There are many more examples that would take too much time and space to address anywhere except the Halls of Congress.

When I was a child, my Dad taught me how to use the bathroom, in general, the toilet, in specific.

It seems as though he got ‘The Lecture” from my Mom.  Being a Johnny-come-lately, I was subject to all house rules without the benefit of any personal input.

Being a quick learner in a house split evenly between testosterone and estrogen, I realized my opinion mattered less than that of the family dog.

I can’t recall the exact date or time when my Mom screamed from the bathroom.  It was something about that mystical device called the “toilet seat.”

People in Canada should pay attention as some good trivia is on-deck.

A toilet seat consists of two moving parts: 1.) The lid, 2.) The seat.

Simplicity, at its best

I called them moving parts because, well, they move.  They go up and down to form a variety of configurations, creating a stool, or a cover to prevent things from going into the toilet.  The seat also moves up and down to accommodate uses for those who sit or stand to perform their duties.

Women, I learned as a youngster, had great difficulty operating the aforementioned seat portion of the toilet.

Again, during my formative years, I learned how to better aim and shoot with each use of the toilet.

Unfortunately, before my aim improved, I was less than stellar at hitting the water inside the commode; it occasionally found its way onto the seat part.

That didn’t bother me too much.  My sister and Mom, well, they were less forgiving.

Still, it didn’t take long for me to learn to pick up the seat at the appropriate times.

Unfortunately, there was a part that was baffling.  When I was done, I left the seat in the “up” position.  Remember, there are only two positions.  No matter how I left it, it was wrong.

Thank goodness a lecture was involved and it was déjà vu all over again.

And, much like bike riding, I brought these valuable lessons into my marriage.

This is where the point of this exercise is revealed.  For decades, it was drummed into my thick skull that women could do anything a man could.  The one exception is repositioning the toilet seat.  There – I said it.

Many decades later, I’m still married and remember how to make the toilet seat function to everyone’s delight.

But I was in the doctor’s office yesterday, and I needed to use the bathroom.  I opened the door to the unisex facility and broke out into a cold sweat.  There in the corner was a toilet with the seat in the down position.

My mind began spinning like wheels in a slot machine, searching for an answer to a long-solved question.

I picked the seat up and did my business.  I didn’t put it back down because of consideration to the next man who wouldn’t have to lift it.  I was also thoughtful so as not to leave the seat down and possibly damp.

If you were next in the bathroom cue, you’re welcome.

Misplaced Punishment

During the presidential debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, Carter accused Reagan of opposing Medicare and Social Security.  Reagan simply said "There you go, again."

That was a defining moment in the debates, thereby giving a distinct edge to soon-to-be President Ronald Reagan.

It was truly the same ol’ smoke and mirrors foisted upon the country by disingenuous Democrats attempting to create and maintain a firm hold on its subjects.

As an example, this morning’s television news aired a story about the dangerous world of “vaping.”

Although available for about a decade, vaping is something that has seen a meteoric rise to attention over the past few months because of vaping-related deaths.  Maybe. 

Cigarette smoking is a dangerous activity.  But vaping has been used by many – including myself – to stop using tobacco products.

Cigarettes contain many, many chemicals that are satisfying, and addictive and poisonous.  In one word, tobacco is B-A-D.

But in case you missed that addictive part in the previous sentence, tobacco is said to be every bit addictive as heroin.  Through experience, I believe that statement.

The self-righteous among us forced smoking Americans into all sorts of compromising places and weather conditions to get people to stop smoking.  Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple.

Try to lose weight by simply not eating.  It doesn’t work.  And just like smoking cigarettes, shaming and berating will not convince anyone to modify their behavior.  Period.

Vaping uses an electronic cigarette-like device that turns additives and flavorings into water vapor; this process emits no odor or dangerous chemicals into the environment, unlike cigarettes.  Marketers-being-marketers, discovered a way to add nicotine to these vaping devices.  Most of the killer ingredients found in ciggies are not found in vape pens.  This created a safer alternative to smoking tobacco products.  Yeah!

However, marketers-being-marketers realized that since vaping was a safe alternative to cigarettes, they could market these money-makers to kids.  And kids-being-kids jumped onto the vaping bandwagon, much as they did with Beanie Babies, Pogs, fidget spinners and cigarettes.

Today’s kids are more informed than I was as a kid; they are not necessarily smarter, though.

Although feeling invincible, today’s kids have been vaping, something I’ll bet would go the way of Beanie Babies, Pogs, and fidget spinners.  But, we’ll never know.

Marketers-being-marketers realized keeping kids using their products would be financially beneficial to the companies marketing vaping products by introducing flavors kids like.  Bubble gum, mint, and watermelon, are just a few of the more popular ones available.

Of course the inventive among us realized that adding THC oil to the vaping system could make you high.  Not tall, but stoned.

Tetrahydrocannabinol, otherwise abbreviated as THC, is the active ingredient in marijuana. Marijuana is the drug that psychologically alters your mind to affect thinking, pleasure, time perception, and pain management.

Now THC is being illegally added to vaping devices to expedite that high.

Yes, it seems as though about 25-people have died from vaping THC, as of this writing.  So those phony politicians, who have everyone’s best interests in mind, are making vaping illegal, while ignoring legal vaping products.  Other politicians are trying to hold vaping device manufacturers liable for any, and all, deaths associated with their products..

Now it would be sensible if those politicians made cigarettes illegal, but they won’t.  And that reason is because cigarettes are taxed, and taxed heavily.  NYC collects $4.75 per pack tax.  There are 20 coffin nails in a pack, for your information.

That’s a lot of wealth for greedy politicians to leave on the table; damn smoker’s health.  Keep ponying-up taxes for your sins, and all will be forgiven, which is exactly why marijuana is being made legal.  Maybe marijuana users will be shamed to quit, someday.

There you go, again.