How I Never Learned The Four Step

There’s a new product on the shelf at our local grocery store. Goat Milk. It says so right on the side of the carton in big letters so no one can claim confusion when they try it later for breakfast and wonder why their cereal tastes funny. Goat milk isn’t like the stuff you get from cows. It tastes, well, goaty. I know. I used to have a goat when I was a kid (no pun intended) on the farm. And I had to milk it.

I got a goat because I thought they looked kind of neat with their floppy ears and small beard. My goat, though, had no interest in being a pet. It wanted to be a free range farm animal and although it had recently weaned a kid it had no interest in being milked.

Milking cows was fairly easy by comparison. You bring them into the barn, lock their heads between two sturdy staves and feed them some corn to keep them occupied while you grab a bucket and stool had have at it. Most cows you can milk in minutes.

Goats don’t work that way. For a reason I never understood you have to lift them onto a platform several feet off the ground. It was supposed to keep them calm while you milked them. It didn’t calm mine. It made her want to dance. The Irish River Dance people had nothing on my goat. She never left the platform but she had a four-step routine that made it hard to squeeze a teat and hit a bucket with a stream of milk. I mostly managed to lather the stage for her next number, which was often wilder than the initial warm-up she performed and by the end of her set I was exhausted.

I didn’t have much luck with the goat and never got enough milk from her to develop a taste for it. All I remember is that it tasted goaty. Somewhere, though, someone has learned to dance with a goat well enough to fill cartons with goat milk. They’re selling it at the local store. I’m going to pass on it.

Playing Tag

A while ago I wrote about the Powerball lottery. Twice a week I buy a ticket with two numbers. They’re numbers Pat picked out using some mystical numerology consisting of immigration dates, birthdays, etc. She thought these would be better than the Quick Picks I used to get every once in a while. So far they haven’t been and I’ve been doing some thinking about that. It occurred to me I’m taking the wrong approach to keep this fun. I’ve adjusted my thinking.

With most lotteries you get numbers and hope it matches up with the winning numbers. That works well on a Quick Pick where a ticket holder’s numbers are chosen at random. Our numbers, though, are the same every time and I’ve realized we’re on the other side of the game. The Power Ball has to hit us. It hasn’t. Now it’s like playing a game of tag and, so far, I’m not It.

And Next On The News

We had a news flash the other day. There’s been a break-through in toilet paper technology. Apparently Northern Tissue has figured out how to make a 3-ply paper that is stronger, softer and more absorbent than the 2-ply they’ve been selling for years. I called this a news flash but actually the local station devoted an entire segment of the news to this development. They did some in-depth reporting on fiber bending, twisting and bonding that made this break-through phenomenal. We were spared film footage of the test trials.

I expected the next segment to be about the newest development in toe jam remover technology but they went on to Weather and Sports.

I don’t mind when there’s enough right with the world that there’s a slow news day but I wish they’d tell up front that nothing happened worth reporting and we’d probably have a more enjoyable time flipping stations to a Seinfeld re-run. They won’t. It’s a ratings thing. But I wish they would.

Clearing The Clog

I went with Pat to walk our Wheaten Terriers this morning. Usually she does it alone in the morning and we go together in the evening but this morning I went. It was crisp and clear, not much moving except the garbage trucks making their Friday rounds in our neighborhood. We went past one at the start of an alley and I’m here to tell you that there is not a medication on the market that can clear morning sinuses faster than garbage truck aroma. It probably helped that we were downwind so we could take full advantage of the effect but I think even upwind there would have been a benefit, it just wouldn’t have stayed with up for the next half block.

That was about an hour ago and my sinuses are still clear. I came on this treatment unexpectedly and thought I should pass it along in case you have sinus issues. For relief all you need to do is chase down a garbage truck and take as much of deep breath as you can handle. It’s free and it seems to work just fine with no side effects except, maybe, a decreased appetite. And you may want to shower and change clothes before heading off to work. But your sinuses will be fine.

Using A Life Lesson

I went past an athletic field a few days ago. There was a team on the field at soccer practice. The coach had the players in a scrimmage and was teaching them to move the ball up the field against opposition. When opposing players approached the kid with the ball the coach would yell, “Dribble Through!” Sometimes it worked but when it didn’t they would try again. Dribble Through.

I watched for a while and got the feeling the coach wasn’t teaching them soccer so much as a Life Lesson. Studies too hard, a mid-term coming up in your worst subject, you feel the pressure building? Dribble Through. If it doesn’t work you can try again. It’s a lesson that can carry through for most of life’s problems.

While doing laundry Pat asked how I managed to get coffee stains down the front of a shirt. It was one I’d worn to the dentist. Coming home I wanted a cup of coffee. It’s hard wrapping novacaine-numbed lips around a coffee mug but I managed to drink some. For the rest of it, I just dribbled through.

And We Haven't Hit Bottom Yet

I’ve seen girls do stupid stuff but I don’t think they can hold a candle to the level guys can take stupid to. It’s to the point that I’m periodically embarrassed by my gender. I wish we’d quit but I don’t think it’s in the DNA. Over the weekend Jeff told me about a new level we’ve gone to.

Jeff’s roommate had gone a friend’s house few nights before with a couple of other guys and there was some drinking involved. (I’ll say here that alcohol isn’t necessary for guys to do stupid stuff but sometimes it helps us get over the threshold.) The friend (I’ll call him Barney) had his dog’s shock collar lying on a counter. One of the visitors asked how well it worked and Barney decided to demonstrate it for him. Barney put the collar on, strapped it in place and handed the visitor the remote.

“Go ahead,” Barney said. “Push the button. I can handle it.” The friend pushed the button on the remote. Nothing happened. They checked the remote and the collar. Both were in the off position. They flicked the switches on and tried again. Again nothing happened.

“Damn,” Barney said. “The thing doesn’t work.” And Barney got shocked. It turned out Barney wasn’t wearing the shock training collar but the shocking bark collar and “work” sounded enough like “woof” that the collar shocked him.

It could have ended there but when it shocked him Barney yelled “AAAHHH!” and the collar shocked him again, To which Barney yelled “AAAHHH! again. This set up a pattern of Shock – “AAAHHH! – Shock – AAAHHH! that went on for about a minute before Barney passed out.

The friends got the collar off before Barney came to, made sure they were switched off and put them away. Barney, when he woke up, decided that after such a harrowing experience, he should calm his nerves with another drink.

Barney probably won’t make the Guiness Book for stupid things done but he should be in the runner-up category.

Making Sure We Can Still Get There

There’s a billboard by the freeway near downtown Minneapolis that has a caption:

“Oil Is The Alternative To Ethanol”

It’s good to know somene is planning ahead for the day when we use up the last of the corn crop.

Something To Get Pumped About

There’s a machine at our drug store that measures blood pressure. Your drug store probably has one, too. You slip your arm through a cuff and push the button. Air pumps in and cuts off circulation for a while then releases and numbers pop up to tell you what your blood pressure is. There’s a chart on the machine to tell you what the numbers mean. I don’t remember what the categories were but it took me three tries to get to get to what the machine considered healthy. It’s an hour later and my arm’s still a little tingly. I think the blood’s finally finding its way back to my wrist and fingers.

I did much better that the lady who got on to the machine after me, though. I waited until the cuff had a firm grip on her arm then stood behind her and said, “Boo!” She jumped in the chair and a warning light flashed on the machine that said she should see a doctor immediately. I think she wanted to chase me down but the cuff still had her arm. It wouldn’t have mattered, though. We healthy people can run pretty fast.