Things I Know

  • The injuries an enraged adult chimpanzee can inflict on a human being are horrifying, literally horrifying.  And because that’’s so, I do not want to watch, listen to or read news that goes into gruesome detail about what happened to Charla Nash.  Saying what happened to Ms. Nash was and is horrific is quite true and quite enough.  And when radio and TV stations broadcast a recording of the 911 call from the owner of a chimp that went berserk in Connecticut the other day, I tuned to something else.

  • It’’s generally a bad idea to give a little kid an opportunity to lie.  Let’’s say you hear a crash and walk into your living room.  In the room, there’s a five-year-old kid and a broken lamp.  If you ask the kid, “”Who did this?”” is the kid going to say, “”I did!”?”  Not unless the kid is George Washington and the lamp is a cherry tree.  Same thing, although he’’s no kid, with NY Yankee super star Alex Rodriguez.  Did he cheat?  Is he still cheating?  If the answers are yes, and no, in that order, it’’s all we should expect.  Asking for the gory details is creating the opportunity for Mr.  Rodriguez to lie and the general consensus is that he hasn’’t been entirely truthful since word leaked out that he used steroids.

  • I’’m going to miss the division of General Motors that came up with the GTO.

  • You do not have a constitutional right to go through life un-offended.  Nobody does, but a lot of people seem to think they do.

  • People who live in California don’’t eat pretzels so much.  I’’ve been to several stores in the Sacramento area, including the ubiquitous Arco gas station, where you could buy beer and soda, but they didn’’t sell pretzels.  If you ask me, beer and soda without pretzels seems contrary to the Natural Order.

  • If you have a brick-and-mortar business and a website, you should put the address of your business on your website—on the home page.  The phone number too.

  • Unique doesn’t mean rare.  It means only.  So, the expression “”very unique”” has been very high on my list of pet peeves for a very long time.    Incidentally, if I ever own a dog or a cat, I think I’’ll name it Peeve.   I had a dog as a kid for a short time.   The dog’s name was “Socrates of Hicksville.”  That always seemed unwieldy to me.  We called him Socks because he had four white feet.  I liked Socks, but I didn’’t like taking care of him.  So I gave Socks away rather than take care of him which I didn’’t want to do or have him be neglected which I didn’’t want either.

  • Perhaps my favorite color is plaid, but I’’ve decided I’’m over-using the phrase. ““’I’’m of two minds.”” and I hereby resolve to knock it off.  Or maybe not.

  • You can buy one share of common stock in the company that owns the New York Times for less than it costs to buy one copy of the Sunday Times.  Except, of course, the news stand doesn’’t charge broker’’s fees.

  • I’’m planning to live forever and, so far, that’’s working out.  So, I don’’t want to receive any money from the government’s economic stimulus cargo (it’’s too big to be a package) because I don’’t want anyone to think I’’m a shovel-ready project.

  • I’’m trying to introduce a new expression into English.  You know that ASAP means ““As soon as possible,”” right?  Well my new expression is MSTHP.  It means “”Much sooner than humanly possible.””  For the sake of brevity, I’’m willing to accept MSTP, “”Much sooner than possible.””  Use it.  Pass it on.

Author: Tom

I know my ABC's, I can write my name and I can count to a hundred.