All's Fayre

Thought for the day:  Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.  [Erma Bombeck]

Trust me. I'm your doctor.

Once, I made the foolish mistake of letting my husband talk to the doctor by himself. Yeah, I know. Dumb, huh? Weeks later...  after he'd painted our entire fence, gone bowling with his pals, and shot innumerable games of pool in our basement... I heard the doctor tell him it was okay to get out of bed now.

Doggone it, I let it happen again.

This past Friday, Smarticus had a minor in-office procedure done, and rather than sitting around waiting for him, he suggested I get a flu shot. You guessed it. He was in and out long before I got the darned shot. He ended up talking to the doctor by himself, and then strolling over to wait for me.

Told me he was supposed to take it easy over the weekend. Said he could take Tylenol or drink adult beverages if he experienced any pain.

The next day, he only worked in his garage for ... a little while. And he only ran ... a couple errands. Said he felt great, and we should go spend a...  little time at the British Car Fayre. No point in arguing with him. I grabbed my camera, and off we went.

The British Car Fayre, held in our little town every year, features just about every kind of British-made vehicle you can imagine, and plenty of them. Plenty of people to see them, too. There were some four-legged visitors, too. The owner of these little guys assured me that they aren't at all spoiled.

There were a number of the expected motorcycles there, as well as this rather unusual one. Best we could figure, it was like a rat rod of the two-wheeled variety.

One area was filled with Land Rovers, but this was the only one with a tent on top. Looks like a pretty neat way to go camping, doesn't it?

I say... does anyone recognize this dapper fellow?

The old MGs are nice, but dontcha LOVE the old house?

The show isn't ALL about cars, ya know. There's gotta be music, too

Lots of people seemed to enjoy the fish and chips prepared out front of the pub, but I couldn't get past the overpowering smell of cooking oil. (The malt vinegar sure smelled good, though.)

A Morgan, my favorite. These things absolutely ooze class.

Would you believe this little three-wheeler is a Morgan, too? Not sure, but I think it's called a Triking.

Did you realize the ultra-sleek Lotus is a British-made car? I must admit, I didn't.

This is a very early model Lotus race car.

Alas, the flux capacitor was missing.

This is a 1928 Riley Brooklands. (I never heard of them before, either.)

We were just starting to look at the Roll Royces when the sky opened up. I am talking RAIN. Serious rain. We had a big umbrella. In the car, of course. And a couple ponchos. Also in the car. So, like a lot of other people, we slipped into one of the shops until the worst of it passed.






When it rains, I let it.  [113-year old man, when asked for the secret to his longevity.]

After we got home, Smarticus started talking trash about maybe going out to his garage to do a little more work.

So, what can I say?  I had little choice.

Doggone it, it was time for me to take action, people! I decided right there and then the only way I was gonna make his butt take it easy was to ... have a party! That's right. Trip the light fantastic, baby. Invite some friends, fill the cooler with beer and ice, and put the cooler right there beside his spot on the love seat...

                                                  He agreed. Enthusiastically, too.

                                                And we invited a hand-picked thirty-six.

I'm not sure how much fun they had, but it's fayre to say we had a fine time. And he... took it easy.

                               Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

Play it Again, Sam

Thought for the day:  Some things are too much fun to do only once.

Know what THAT means, dontcha? Time for a (ta-DA!) re-run. This post was first run almost a year ago, so lots of you haven't seen it. And for the rest of you, maybe you've seen it, but completely forgot about it. Cool. At any rate, my brain's on strike today  what's old is now new again. When first published, this post was entitled, Bad Day at the Office?
                                                                         *****

So, what's the worst job you ever had?

Most of us have had at least one workday so dismal we're convinced nobody could possibly do worse. Me, I came home from the hospital one day, totally exhausted and sick to stinking death of running lab tests (not number one time, not number two times, but in triplicate!)  most of the day on urine and stool samples. I grumbled about how sick I was of hearing "urine and stool, urine and stool, blah, blah, blah . . . "  My mother calmly said, "Would you rather they called it s*** and p***?" She had a point.

Actually, I've liked every job I ever had. Ironically, the leadership position I held with a volunteer organization was the only one I ever had where I had to "fire" people. Yeah, fire volunteers. Fancy that. Although I loved that job overall, I hated having to let people go. But other than that, I've been pretty lucky.

I never had THIS job.

or THIS one.

So, what ARE some of the world's worst jobs? Surely, catching elephant poop in a bag and sniffing armpits for a living have to rate as pretty lousy, but what do the people in the know say? Popular Science comes up with a list of the ten lousiest jobs every year, and here are this year's . . . uh,  winners?

• Hazmat diver - Um, these guys swim in sewage. 
• Oceanographer - Studying the dual problems of overfishing and diminishing coral reefs can't be the world's most cheery job.
• Elephant vasectomist - Highly unsemenly!  Right up there with catching his poop in a bag. Maybe worse. Takes a lot of, um, testicles to take on this job.
• Garbologist - This is an archaeologist who picks through ancient garbage. (Indiana Jones in a dumpster?)
• Coursework carcass preparer - Well, somebody has to kill, pickle, and bottle critters for school kids to dissect. ( Just think how hard it must be to get rid of the stench of formaldehyde.)
• Microsoft security grunt - Popular Science says it's like these poor guys wear a big sign that say, "Hack me."
• Gravity research subject - These folks have to lie still for weeks on end to approximate the effects of gravity . . .  like atrophied muscles and degenerating bones. Fun, huh?
• Olympic drug tester - No, these guys don't get to sample the drugs, silly. They get to watch athletes tinkle in a cup. What fun. Bet their popularity doesn't go up when they catch a doper, either.
• Forensic entomologist - These guys get to help solve murders by (gag) studying the maggots found in corpses.
• Whale feces researcher - They scoop up whale poop and study it. (Suddenly, those stool samples I worked with don't seem so bad . . . )

Those who have jobs stuck behind a desk all day, especially during drop-dead gorgeous weather, often envy those who get to work in the great outdoors. Fresh air, sunshine, and wow, how about in the water? What's not to love, right?

The following first hit the Internet in the late '90s, and allegedly, is an actual email from a poor schnook named Bob. He's supposedly a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana, and his job is to do underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. When his sister received his email, she sent it to an Indiana radio station, which happened to be holding a worst job experience contest. Which she won. Whether or not it's true, it sure is funny. 

Hi, Sis.

Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office.

I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I'd share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after all. Before I can tell you what happened to me, let me bore you with a few technicalities of my job. As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It's a wet suit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is this: we have a diesel powered industrial water heater.

This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose. Now this sounds like a darned good plan and I've used it several times with no complaints. 

What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wet suit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi. Anyway, everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds, my butt started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was already done. In agony I realized what had happened. The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now, since I don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn't stick to it. However, the crack of my butt was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into my butt crack. I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers, were all laughing hysterically. Needless to say, I aborted the dive.

I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry compression. When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet.

As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on as soon as I got into the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't use the can for two days because my butt was completely swollen shut.

****

                                     So, how about you? Had any jellyfish bad days lately?

                                    Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

Let's Hit the Road

Thought for the day:  You don't need a parachute to skydive, but you do need one to skydive TWICE.

Hey! Looks like our pal Chopsticks is enjoying another road trip. Ready to join him? If we hurry, maybe we can see what's making him grin like that. Oh yeah, it's gotta be those signs. You know... the funny ones that have a way of losing (or gaining) a little something in the translation.

[Again, a sincere thank you to the friendly webmasters at engrish.com for granting me permission to share their images with you.]









 Need a little bit of traveling music to enhance the experience? Here ya go. Have some Willie
.

                                                 Okay, ready? Tap your toes, and away we go...

I hope y'all found something in this batch to make you smile. Me? Before I head for that bitch festival, I think I'll grab a quick lunch of pimple soup, chicken ass, and lousy beef ... with a side order of fresh herpes.

                                                                Or not.

                               Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.