Gas hysteria

Human corpses are floating through the streets of New Orleans and Atlantans are concerned there will be no gasoline. I feel like I am in one of those picture puzzles from Highlights magazine -- the kind where you had to find what was missing from the picture. Only now what's missing isn't a rear wheel on a bicycle or a scoop of ice cream from a cone. It's compassion and sense. Does our burning desire to fill our tanks really override the concern for our neighbors three states over? Have we forgotten how stupid the apocalyptic people looked on January 1, 2000 when they all had to report back to work on Y2K+1? Is our memory span really this short? Sheesh!

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Testing testing 1...2...P

A French lab claims a urine specimen Lance Armstrong provided in 1999 has tested positive for steroids. Results of this test aside, does anyone else find it gross that the French leave old frozen urine samples lying around? I can see freezing sperm, embryos or even your body if you're into cryogenics, but what good is frozen urine? Come to think of it, the Metro stations around the seedy Pigalle district in Paris smelled pretty pungent when I was there, but I always thought the assailants were local. Has anyone tested to see what those yellow cancer bracelets are made of? I suppose nothing says refreshment like an ice-cold pee-cicle on a hot summer's day.

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Large Ladies

Apparently there are two women's bathrooms where I work and one is bigger than the other. Recently on the communal printer I found a memo that read "BLUE EARRING FOUND IN LARGE LADIES RESTROOM." I paraded the memo around and asked people why plus-sized women got their own bathroom. Few found this as amusing as I did.

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Don't drink the Kool-Aid

Some people market products. Others market skills. The people who most amaze me though are those who make a living marketing themselves. The motivational speaker is the first guy that comes to mind, but really several types fall into this category: politicians, religious leaders, philosophers, etc. Instead of producing a tangible good or provide a service people would rather pay for than do themselves, these people do little more than employ the gift of gab. Those who can't rely solely on their personality offer us a carrot. They may have a small line of products available for purchase, or they may offer the secrets to getting rich. Some have both, but they usually pester you to buy something from their catalog.

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Monolingualism can be cured

Today I ran into an old college classmate from a French course I took fifteen years ago. Oddly enough, I was conducting a children's program in French when she spotted me. We tried to think of people we knew in common. The only people we could come up with was a French family we each had lived with as exchange students. It got me to thinking of what opportunities I have been afforded simply by knowing another language. Not only have I had the opportunity to live in another country, but I've also taught the language. The impact I may have had on those children's lives pales in comparison to what they gave me. I befriended a Cameroonian refugee a few years back who spoke no English. French was our common language. He's since gone on to immigrate and owns a moving business. French has also served as a common thread in some cases. I hired a contractor who spoke French with a heavy Brooklyn accent -- his mother was from Bordeaux, and a Chinese guy who replaced our windows had worked as a waiter for a couple years in Luxemburg. Imaginez!

Languages are all around us and yet the dominant monolingual culture remains steadfastly just that: monolingual. Our newly ranked largest ethnic minority hails from Spanish-speaking descent, yet most Americans insist on pledging allegiance to the language, indivisible with liberty and English for all. A French proverb says that a man who knows two languages is worth two men. If that's true, I wonder what will happen to the now-dominant English-only speakers who are quickly being encroached upon by bilinguals. Something tells me those who choose to succeed will learn a second language. Those who don't will continue to argue over something so trite as [ask] versus [ax].

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Stranger danger

Most children won't hesitate to sit on Santa's lap or offer a hug to a theme park cartoon character come to life. I remember being at the grand opening of a Burger King years ago when the Burger King himself invited a group of us kids to come up on stage. His magic had been sub-par and his exaggerated beard and mustache were so artificial looking that they weren't so much accessories to his costume as they were impediments. Nonetheless I, like most kids, jumped at the chance to do his bidding.

The exception to this is the kid who immediately starts crying and clinging to Mom or Dad for fear of being handed over to whatever super-human cretin is before him. Those kids I always saw as immature crybabies, overly paranoid and underloved. Now I wonder if they aren't the smart ones. After all, what doofus runs up to an oversized plushy he doesn't know from Adam? Maybe these kids weren't so afraid of the character as they were of what would become of the mindless masses rushing up to it. Looking back, those screams were probably the prophetic cries of a kid who foresaw the eventual demise of kinder-civilization as we know it. Good times. Good times.

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Betcha can run fast in those

I came home this evening to find that my wife had bought me a new pair of shoes. Putting them on brought back memories of buying shoes as a kid. It always happened around the first of the school year. The shoe sales weasel would press on the shoe and ask how it felt. I don't know why as a kid it never dawned on me to say, "It feels like your mashing on my toe," but I didn't. Instead I would perform the routine geek-walk up and down the aisle of the shoe store. If they were Red Goose shoes I got a prize-bearing golden egg from the campy goose egg dispenser by the register. Any familiar adult I ran into for the next week would say the same thing: "Ooh, new shoes. Bet you can run fast in those?"

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On the road again

Far be it for me to begrudge someone his political affiliation, just cause, or Nascar preference, but do we really need to use our cars as sounding boards for these things? Roadways that were once sprinkled with the occasional "Baby on Board" or "I [heart] my dog" bumper sticker are now littered with W's, fish, and a countless array of colored ribbons. Yesterday I had to avoid rear-ending a van sporting a ribbon made of red and blue puzzle pieces. On it were the words "Autism Awareness." I was already aware of autism before this jamoke cut me off. And had I not been aware, this ribbon wouldn't have made me any more aware. I'm seriously considering coming up with my own ribbon. I haven't decided on the color, but I want it to say "Pointless Zeal Awareness."

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Don't touch that dial

I cannot fathom the amount of my childhood that I whiled away in front of a television. I got to thinking about it after discussing old tv shows with co-workers yesterday. Being mostly in the same age cohort, we all grew up with the same 80s milktoast programming. Girls swooned over Alex of Family Ties or Chachi from Joanie Loves Chachi. Guys liked action shows such as The A-Team or The Fall Guy. No one mentioned educational shows unless MacGyver counts as an educational show.

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