Thicker Is Not Better

By wr jones

You can tell by the expression of this young lady, unless you are an idiot, that she is fed up with plastic packaging.  I am too.

She is missing her left arm which was lopped off in a chain saw accident while trying to open her new toaster.

All this talk about “Green” is a huge pile of whiffledust.  We keep pouring more and more plastic into the environment.   I don’t really care about the coming ecological disaster, I will be gone.  But someone, say around the age of 3, should be near panic.  If they were smart they would write their congress person to complain.  Assuming, of course, the 3 year old could remove the thick damn plastic from the new pen.

I bought some batteries the other day.  Spent 30 minutes trying to get them out of the pack.  Missed the show I was needing the batteries to watch.  I looked high and low thru the house for an implement to cut through the very hard thick plastic package.  Finally used those chicken scissors that are part of a cutlery set.  Even then it was a struggle.  I expect the next step in the package industry vs consumer war they will move toward a steel box welded shut to hold those paper clips you need for the office.

I can understand this vault type packaging would cut down on the shoplifting of small items.  Hard to hide that watch battery entombed in a body size package you can barely get to the counter with a large cart.

I May Need A Keeper

By wr jones

I’m gonna need some help.    Today in the lab I told some people I had to leave an experiment we were doing  to attend a 10 o’clock meeting.   “Well why do you have to go now?  You have 15 minutes.”   “I have to figure out how to use that meeting place software again.”   A couple of people hurt themselves as they fell off their lab chairs in laughter.   “Well, it’s pretty complicated”, I says.  ”You have to punch in a lot of numbers and then you have to remember your password.  That takes me some time.”

Sure enough I pounded those numbers into the keyboard and was told it was an invalid meeting number.  I pounded the same numbers in over and over in desperation.   Expecting different results each time is truely a sign of derangement.   Finally in panic (this was an important meeting) I left my area to seek another engineer who I knew would be calling into this  meeting.   He had his headphones on and was talking.   Damn, he is already in the meeting.  I coughed to get his attention, nothing.   I coughed louder and waved my arms, nothing.  Finally I threw a staple remover at his head.   That worked.  He said, “WHAT?”   “Are you in that meeting?   I can’t get the proper ID so it doesn’t let me attend.”   “What meeting are you talking about?”, he asked.   “About the RAM.”  ”That is on Wednesday, no wonder your ID doesn’t work!”  ”Well, what day is today?”   “TUESDAY, you drooling twit!”  ”Oh.”

I was down for the confusion for a moment then thought to myself  7 days in a week is a lot to remember and keep track of.  No use getting bothered over losing a day or two.

I left work early to get my wife a birthday present for tomorrow, her birthday, (I think).   Bought some perfume.   She doesn’t want it I know.  She told me she wanted a diamond and ruby bracelet.   Apparently she thinks I’ve been hit in the head.  Instead, I got the perfume, thereby greatly increasing my chances of actually being hit it the head.

I don’t understand this smell business.   A tiny little bottle cost the same as a much larger bottle, which costs twice as much as a larger yet amount of body cream.   They all smelled the same to me.   I like the smell.  If she doesn’t like it I will use it.   Once, getting my haircut, the lady told me I smelled femine because I smelled like vanilla.   I didn’t know there was a sex related to vanilla.   What is the difference between a male and female colone/perfume?   Is a real man suppose to smell like sweaty ox balls?   I could never get to that point.  Once I start feeling sticky I think I’m getting too much exercise and sit down for a few hours.  OK, lay down.

Well, I got the perfume and went to a card store to get the birthday card.   Picked out a card and walked back to my car on the other side of the mall.   As I’m signing the card I realize it says “Happy Anniversary” not “Happy Birthday”.  This really confused me.   I called our daughter to ask if her mom was having any type of personal event in the near future, and if so what was it.   Doggone it – it’s a birthday.   I’m not walking all the way back across that mall to exchange cards and I’m into green so I’m not throwing it away.   I crossed out the Anniversary and wrote Birthday in my neatest script, which with these shaky hands is not all that neat.   What the hell, waste not want not.

Happy Birthday, Dear.

I may be gettting a divorce tomorrow.

Bugs – A Conspiracy

By W R Jones

    Did you ever want to dip your spouse into a vat of boiling oil?   Ya, me too.  One Friday evening my wife told me she was going to go shopping the  next day with a new friend.   The new friend had a husband.  He would be spending the day with me.  Huh?  Why?  He has some sort of electronic device that doesn’t work and since you are an engineer, I told them you  could probably fix it.

    Son-of-a-bitch;  maybe I should volunteer your services to iron for a family of 18.   The friend was a beautiful Mexican woman.  She had married a gringo when he came to Mexico to find a wife.   The man was a big fellow.  An owner of a gym he was a body builder.   He was/is proof positive that working out the body does not help functioning of the brain whatsoever.   Apparently he had to go to Mexico to find a wife because if the woman spoke ANY English she would recognize a total loser the moment he opened his mouth. 

    He sat at the kitchen table and put a bread box sized device on the table in front of him.   He looked at me a moment then,  “I’m going to have to ask you to keep this conversation a secret.”   “No problem, no-one has shown any interest in my conversations since I was born.”

    “I have a device that very few are allowed to own.   They did a background check on me before I was allowed to purchase it.”   “What is it?”   “You take a picture of a field and put the photo in my device and it sends out signals that kill all the bugs in the area.”   “Really?”   “Yes, the reason only a select group can own it is because you could use it to kill people.   If you take a photo of a person in Las Vegas and put it in this box that person  will die.”

    Oh, my Lord, I’m sitting across from a very large whacko.  Is he going to kill me or just ask me to invest?   I asked him how much he paid for such a wonderful instrument.   $5000, was his answer.   Then I ask has he tried it and did it work?   He  replied it did not work.   No shit?   For $5000 you  would expect it to work.   Why don’t you just ask for your money back.   He couldn’t do that for some dumb reason or other.   He wanted me to fix it. 

    What he had was an ordinary amplifier, albiet an expensive one.   When I tried to explain this would not work his answer was that I was one of those “science” guys who didn’t understand.   So I  say, hey if you bought a car and it didn’t work wouldn’t you take it back to the dealer?   Yes, but this was a special case and only special people were allowed to buy (read only simple minded idiots).  

    I wondered out loud why such an incredible boon to farming and mankind had not been announced on TV.  A conspiracy was his reply.   The insecticde manufacturers pay off the media and government.   Well, nuts, this was going to be a long day.

    He left at the end of the day convinced, I’m sure, that I was one of those “science” types who could not repair a real instrument if his life depended on it.   

    Time passed and I got an opportunity to talk alone with his wife.   I was able to get a confession out of her that she realized he was an idiot but she wanted the green card enough to put up with it, for awhile anyway.

    And me – I’m out it the back yard taking pictures.    I will give it another try to see if I can rid myself of these pesky mosquitoes.   Maybe you just need to turn it to face Mecca.