Echoes from the Loafers' Club Meeting

"I got a new hearing aid and does it work great. I can hear everything clearly."

"What kind is it?"

"It’s about half-past seven."

Driving by the Bruces

I have two wonderful neighbors — both named Bruce — who live across the road from each other. Whenever I pass their driveways, thoughts occur to me, such as: when someone says, "How stupid can you be?" I take it as a challenge. 

I've learned

1. A child learns that silence is both golden and suspicious.

2. Weight snacks up on you.

3. I’ll lose a tube of lip balm before I use it up.

The news from Hartland

Dog denied entrance to Down Boy Obedience School due to low SIT scores.

Local resident puts wall-to-wall carpeting in his bathroom. He liked it so much, he ran it to the house.

The ASPCAC (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Alarm Clocks) forms.

A good deed done

Two teenage gymnasts were flying from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Houston, Texas. They were seated one ahead of the other on the plane. Another passenger offered to change seats so that the two might sit side-by-side. The move was completed to the delight of the girls.

"You are awesome!" said one.

"I’m so happy to be awesome," was the reply.

£*! storm

The Weather Channel is naming winter storms. We've named them for years. I’ve heard bad ones called many names. Names give storms a personality. The worst storms should have scary names like Dracula. Milder storms should carry monikers like Bob. One year, snow covered our house at such depth that we couldn’t get out the door until July. I can’t repeat what that storm was called.

When cashews taste like earwax

Karen Daniels, a friend who lives in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, wears hearing aids. One night, Karen was eating cashews as she watched TV. She had one hand filled with cashews and in her other hand, she held a hearing aid that she planned to put in her ear. What happened next is up for speculation. Karen might have momentarily confused her left for her right or forgot the exact locations of her ears and mouth. What’s certain is that Karen popped the hearing aid into her mouth. She chewed the hearing aid. It didn’t taste like a cashew. She spit out the bits of a no longer functioning hearing aid. She'll make do. She’ll label the ear housing the surviving hearing aid as the "good ear."

Life in a small town

Bob is 92 years old and lives in a small town. Not long ago, he ran over a traffic cone downtown. The neighbors like him, but they don’t want him driving. One neighbor solved the problem by pushing a pile of deep snow behind Bob’s truck so that it’s impossible for Bob to get his truck out of the garage.

A fried chicken hound

I stopped in a fried chicken place in South Texas. I sat down to two pieces of chicken, mashed potatoes, and unsweetened iced tea. It might not have been a meal fit for a king, but it was more than sufficient for the likes of me.

A number of crickets chirped near me. They weren’t real crickets. They were ringtones. Cricket wireless stores proliferated in the area. 

A phone at the table next to me chirped. A woman answered it with, "Hello. No, we’re shopping at Wal-Mart."

I wondered why she wanted her meal at the fried chicken place kept a secret. Maybe she was dieting.

As I listened to one side of that conversation, my gaze moved to the window and the parking lot beyond it. There, lying forlornly on the pavement, was a dog. The hapless hound was not without hope. I saw her jump up and beg for food from people exiting the restaurant. I thought they might have been her owners. They were not. They got into their car and drove off. The dog appeared to have been a mother of young puppies.

I ate the mashed potatoes. A dog ate my chicken.

Nature notes

Hummingbirds migrate to exploit brief windows of opportunity in habitats that cannot support a year-round population. Photoperiod (the amount of daylight) triggers their migration. As flowers bloom and insect populations swell in the spring and decline in the fall, the birds follow the food chain. Hummingbirds migrate north to take advantage of the bounty of blooms and insects that spring brings. These provide the food and energy required for courtship, mating, nesting, and raising young.

Meeting adjourned

A good deed is a payment in kind.