CSotD: Spring Fever
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I’m choosing “or not,” because neither team is holding up licorice.
In fact, it’s really hard to find licorice these days, at least the kind of licorice that would last you through a large part of the movie, or that you could bite off and then spit brown liquid and pretend you were a cowboy with a chaw of tobaccy.
Calling something licorice because it’s gummy is silly. Licorice is a specific plant with a specific flavor. Granted, so is strawberry, but if you think red Twizzlers taste like licorice, well, I guess it doesn’t matter what kind of candy you buy.
And licorice should last. Making licorice-flavored gummy stuff is sacrilegious. When I looked up the definition of licorice, I found references to Good ‘n Plentys, which used to last through the entire movie until some genius screwed them up and made them soft.
Dagnabbit.
Here’s something more cheerful: We’re starting to get some warm days. Not every day yet — the maple sugar people are still getting the cold nights they need — but enough to remind us that spring is coming.
In the field next to the woods where we walk our dogs, there’s a mother fox with six little kits you can see playing in the sun in the afternoon. Fortunately, they’re far enough back that the dogs don’t bother them, and, equally fortunately, there seem to be enough field mice in the area that she leaves the backyard chickens alone, because there’s enough cuteness there to power a small city.
We lost a whole lot of foxes to a rabies outbreak a few years ago, but I guess if you can pop out six kits at a time, you can rebuild the population fairly quickly. Robins and daffodils aren’t the only signs of spring.
You’ll note I didn’t say the foxes were by the dog park, which is farther down river. This park is a wooded picnic area and we’re supposed to obey the sign, though it’s not as specific about the rules. It’s a situation where 99% of people don’t care, but the grumpy one percent do and there are rumors that we’ll see ticketing soon, because of them and because of that other one percent who don’t keep their dogs in control or scoopa da poop.
The world apparently can’t spin without one-percenters.
Bill Whitehead makes the joke I never get to. I get a lot of opportunities, mind you, but when someone says “We lost him” it’s not appropriate to ask if they’ve looked behind the couch. I suppose this cartoon hit somebody at the wrong time, too, but that’s the risk you take when you choose to be alive.
Having cheated death a decade ago, I feel entitled to be flippant on the subject. But I was full of attitude before then as well, so ask me again when I’m dead. (Please speak loudly.)
I’m not hearing as many complaints about self-check as I did even six months ago, and part of that may be improvements on their part, either in the technology or the monitoring, but part of it is what Noth suggests here: They’re more attractive to a lot of people than staffed registers.
No, not because they try to persuade you. But they don’t have to. We now have longer lines at the self-check than at the staffed registers, which is okay because they move faster.
I suppose I should mourn the loss of jobs, but stores are having so much trouble getting help that they’re stocking shelves bit by bit all day long. They’re about this far from making “Now Hiring” a permanent part of their logos.
Speaking of self-service, Rico leaves the disquieting impression that perhaps full-service remains a thing at South African gas stations, or, as we used to call them here “service stations.”
I remember when my roommate was night manager at a Standard station and the mad stories he used to tell of people limping in at all hours. He brought home a couple of cars whose owners had furiously given up and signed them over to him, but he fixed a lot more.
I remember some late nights at service stations, but I guess these days if you blow a water pump, you have to wait until a dealer or a repair shop opens in the morning, because if you are able to make it to a gas station, the best you can hope for is a Moon Pie and a soft drink.
And don’t forget to check your oil, because they won’t.
On a more serious note, I really like Crabgrass and I wish Tauhid Bondia the best in the upcoming awards, but I ain’t buying today’s strip. My experience, both as a parent and as an educator, is that divorce is very hard on little kids unless the absent parent was absolutely beating the crap out of them, and, even then, they’ll find a way to take the blame.
“Magical thinking” is part of being a little kid, and they’ll replay “If only I had …” regrets for years, and maybe for a lifetime if they don’t get some help. Twelve or older may understand what was going on, but the little guys still think the world revolves around them, and they’ll take the blame for everything.
And I have to think that people who bitch about crying babies on airplanes have never had a crying baby on an airplane.
It happens, and it happens in part because babies don’t know to yawn and rebalance the air in their ears as the pressure changes (nursing helps). And it happens in part because sometimes babies cry, and there’s not much you can do about it in an airplane seat.
What can help is a sympathetic smile from someone who understands. What doesn’t help is bad vibes from someone who doesn’t.
You’re not required to have kids, but you are expected to be part of humanity.
For the younger members of the audience, this is how it used to be. Back in the analog days, everybody had a friend who talked about stuff.
Sometimes, they even had it right. Just like a podcast!
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