Back To The Future, Carwise

I’ve now owned my Toyota Yaris for almost 48 hours, and every time I look at it, I think it looks like a toy car.  It doesn’t feel that way from the inside, but from the outside you think all it needs is a little toy house to park in front of, and a little toy dog and a little toy child to sit in the vestigial back seat. 

But I am no stranger to small cars.  The Camaro is, that is WAS (oh, how I hate talking about it in the past tense) the largest vehicle I have ever owned, I think.  It was at least the longest.  But it took me until today to remember that I previously owned a Toyota.  Not for long. 

It was a Corolla FX, which looked just like this, except it was red: 

I used that car to move from Memphis to New Orleans in the summer of 1992, and in the spring of 1993 it met a spectacular end.  I was trying to cross Elysian Fields from Burgundy Street when out of nowhere I was hit by a speeding Buick Park Avenue, circa 1967 (translation:  tank).  I saw him coming at the last minute and swerved just enough that he hit the left front hood of the car instead of hitting me squarely in the driver’s side door. 

It nevetheless spun the car around 180 degrees and propelled it headfirst into a tree, across three lanes of roadway.  The front of the car accordioned, and was spilling every fluid contained under the hood.  I was stunned, and I don’t mean that in the emotional sense.  I was not wearing my seatbelt, so as I recall, the first thing that happened was that my head hit the roof.  Then I was thrown forward and my head hit the steering wheel.  I remember sort of coming to my senses, after what I think was only seconds, and staring out the windshield at maybe 50 people gathered in front of my car.  Then I got out of the car, and they erupted into applause.  They rushed to tell me to take care, not to move quickly, that they had called an ambulance for me.  But really, I was fine.  I had a bump on my forehead, that was it. 

The ambulance arrived, and I declined care.  Meanwhile, the tank driver was moaning.  Oh, he said, my back hurts.  So get this:  the ambulance the bystanders called for me took away the driver of the car that hit me.  Literally within hours, my insurance company got a call from his lawyer.  I’m happy to report that went nowhere.  In Louisiana, though, you would never want to pass up the opportunity to sue your victim.  It might work.

Weighing In on Breast Cancer

Or at least on the raging debate that has occurred this week.  Warning notice:  I’m about to express some opinions.  Some of those opinions will be supported by “facts” (I place quotes around “facts”, because facts can never be separated from our perception of them–that must be the philosophy student in me rearing its ugly head), but I will not be posting any links for you to check where I got my “facts”.  If you don’t believe me, look it up yourself.  As I am fond of saying, this is a blog, not a term paper.  You won’t find any op. cits. here.  Additional warning:  You can dispute the “facts” all you want unless it concerns my personal body, which you don’t have enough information about to dispute. 

That doesn’t mean you won’t get some links.  To begin with, Thursday’s op-ed column in the NY Times by Gail Collins, always one of my favorites, who pretty much pokes fun at the hysteria the “new” recommendations concerning mammograms has engendered.  “New”, as in, returning to previous recommendations, with now even more evidence to support them.  But the hysteria involves “rationing” and “death panels”.  God, you people (and you know who you are) make me tired.  I suggested to my most rabidly conservative friend that he read her column, and he did, and sent me a message afterwards that I would describe as a diatribe, if I weren’t trying to be kinder and gentler.  In his defense, his mother and many other people he knows have had breast cancer, so it is a very emotional issue for him.  Yeah, well, me too.  In her column, Gail mentions that she had breast cancer herself.  I think she should be cut a little slack for that.  But never underestimate the power of fear, and men fear for their wives, their mothers, their daughters, their sisters, and their friends, and fear is never subject to logic.  It would be foolish to think that only women are affected by breast cancer, and I’m not talking about the fact that men get breast cancer too, which they do.  I’m talking about it affecting the men who love the women who get it.  And if you are the person who has cancer, you feel very much that the situation is out of your control.  As the friend or family member of a person with cancer, you are that much more out of control.  It’s like helpless, then helpless once removed.  That’s why you find people with cancer comforting those around them;  it’s actually worse for you. 

Now we move to the “facts”.  Most breast cancers are extremely slow growing.  It takes years for a tumor to be large enough to be visible on a mammogram.  So two years is not an unreasonable interval. 

Most women develop breast cancer after age 50. 

The value of self-exams has been questioned for forever.  I understand in theory that if you know your own body, you’re better able to detect changes.  Nothing wrong with that.  The problem is that most women don’t know what they’re looking for.  Many women have “lumpy” breasts (sorry to get so technical).  It’s called fibrocystic disease, which is benign (although I’ve recently learned that a history of it is now considered a risk factor for breast cancer), so even if you were to detect a new lump, your response might be “whatever”. 

Mammograms are far better than self-exams, except they aren’t very good.  Collins notes that having just had a clear mammogram, she then found a lump on her own.  In this case, self-exam worked.  The most sensible thing I heard all week was a quote by someone from the Susan B. Komen Foundation who said that this was at least a good debate, since it sheds light on the fact that mammograms are a poor test.  CT scans are much better, but they cost ten times what a mammogram does.  Now there is the debate we should be having:  about why we aren’t doing the best testing available.  Mammograms are crude, and reading them is subject to varying levels of competence by the radiologist.  Of course, so are CT scans. 

Now we get to the part about cutting me some slack too.  In my own case, the tumor was detected by CT scan–a scan I had for an entirely different reason.  Afterwards, I had a mammogram and an ultrasound, but it’s important to note that the mammogram I had was “diagnostic” as opposed to “screening”.  Screening mammograms, which are of the type women have every year, are very general, and I think of them as tests that something has to jump off the screen for the radiologist to recognize.  Between the screening mammogram and the breast exam by a doctor, you hope you will pick up something, operative word here being hope.  Not guaranteed.  Diagnostic mammograms are a lot more detailed (and a lot less fun).  After the CT scan I had, I had that diagnostic mammogram and that’s what I have every year now.  And the results of that first diagnostic were, yeah, there’s something there…not sure what it is….

I will never know for sure whether a screening mammogram would have picked up the tumor first, before I had the CT.  But I seriously doubt it.  My personal advice is, if you can afford it, have a CT scan.  (You have to do that anyway if you have breast implants, I recently learned!)

Finally, for a bit more factual information.  This op-ed article appeared in today’s NY Times and it’s entitled Addicted to Mammograms.  The author explains rather well the history of breast cancer treatment and recommendations, and really, it would apply to most cancers. 

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that I have a friend who is dying of breast cancer that metastasized to bone.  In distress, I once asked our (mutual) radiation oncologist, if you know where breast cancer is likely to metastasize, why don’t you test for it?  To make a long answer short, the answer was, “It wouldn’t do any good.”  Our methods of detection are primitive, and methods of treatment are worse.   

But I have to tell you, it positively insults me to the core to have politicians trying to tell me that the government wants to kill me.  It’s almost too ignorant to dignify with a comment.  If you care so much, give some money to the NIH for cancer research.  Oh wait, that’s a government agency (Government bad, Tarzan good.)  Okay then, give it to the American Cancer Society.  But your grandstanding is definitely not working for me.

Alas…In Fact, R.I.P. Camaro

I recently posted a blog about the impending death of the Camaro, entitled Alas, Poor Camaro. 

What can I tell you?  It died.  Yesterday it began overheating again, and I didn’t even have the option of driving it a few blocks to Jeff the Mechanic, because he doesn’t work on  Mondays.

Not that he would have worked on it..it isn’t like he didn’t warn me at the end of July that the car was not going to make it.  If I had even been able to get it to him I suspect he would have refused.  He does have a reputation to uphold. 

I opted for the plan to take the Camaro home to its driveway. 

It  took me  1 1/2 hours to go 6 miles.  I would drive it a few yards, then pull over into some parking lot to let it cool off before driving it a few more yards and repeating the process.  The irritating part of this was that by the time I reached Stopoff #4 or so, it was dark, so I couldn’t read.  I was almost forced to go inside a Red Lobster to wait.

By the time of my final stop, at the Wal-Mart perhaps 1/2 mile from my house, the Camaro did not want to start.  I guess that would not be the worst possible outcome..I at least could have walked home from there.  But at last it did start, and made an ominously knocking noise for its last half mile.  I’m not even going to insult it by trying to start it again. 

But I needed it to be home.  I needed to empty it of its library books, unopened mail, jackets and sweaters. “green” canvas totes for groceries, various files I can’t keep at work because they are too sensitive, and back issues of Smithsonian Magazine that I haven’t read. 

The trunk of the 1995 Camaro is a surprising place.  It will hold a “rack” of wood—my understanding is that that is 1/5 of a cord.  Not sure that is an official measure.  But whatever!  I loved it that it could be sleek one day, and a workhorse the next.  (Possibly, a metaphor for Fakename herself.)

But good job, Camaro.  You have no idea how much I will miss you.

Worst Places To Live

You may think you have it bad.  You’ve got traffic issues in Atlanta, D.C., L.A., and anywhere on I-95, where tomorrow a semi will run over you in your pathetic little SUV after running over the four vehicles behind you first.  Trust me on this.  Crime?  Maybe you live in Chicago or New Orleans or Miami.  But nothing compares to The Worst Places To Live…If You’re In a Disaster Movie. 

All the credit goes to Fakesister for finding this and sending it to me. The occasion is the upcoming opening of the movie “2012″, which according to the Mayan calendar is the year the world ends.  Gail Collins of the NY Times speculates that had Mayan civilization survived in its original form, they would have come up with a new date once 2012 arrived, and anyway, she said, didn’t we just go through this in 2000?  Ho.  Hum.  Oddly enough, when 2000 arrived, I was living in West Palm Beach and to my disbelief, a computer program I was required to use actually crashed.  Presumably, back in its brain it was still functioning, it just couldn’t tell me so, because it was lost in time.  I did occasionally pass by my computer and think I heard faint cries of “Help me!” 

Returning to the issue of Worst Places To Live, I completely agree with them about Tokyo being Number One, since it is routinely trashed by giant monsters.  Fakesister liked Number Two (Los Angeles), because in spite of the many threats it faces, you can wear short sleeves there in February.  “People really will put up with a lot for decent weather.” 

 

Fakename’s Animal Planet: Bufo Marinus

It’s been a while since we visited Fakename’s Animal Planet, which is populated by some of the more bizarre creatures on Planet Earth.  Recently a visitor from the UK commented on my post about Muscovy ducks, and re-reading that post, I realized that I had promised to discuss Bufo Marinus.  Its common names include Giant Toad, Cane Toad, and Marine Toad.  “Cane Toad” comes from its success at eating sugar cane beetles.  Native to Central and South America, it’s been introduced virtually everywhere sugar cane is grown.  This falls into the category of  “Be careful what you wish for”.  (See:  nutria; kudzu.)  They also eat birds, other frogs, rodents, and small children left unattended.  “Marine Toad” came from the mistaken idea that they live in water as well as on land.  In fact, besides drinking water, the only time they venture into it is to lay eggs–8,000 to 25, 000 at a time.  Wow!  Going into labor must be quite a bitch for the female Bufo.

So technically, “Giant Toad” is the most accurate of its common names.  To illustrate that accuracy, consider this photo for perspective: 

I first encountered this creature on the pages of the Palm Beach Post, which ran an article about Bufo no doubt as a public service to Florida newbies such as myself.  Be on the lookout, it said.  Because on top of their distinct unattractiveness and intimidating size, they are poisonous.  They can kill dogs.  Oh great, I said.  Not only do I have alligators in the pond behind my house, a family of rats living in my attic, and mosquitoes the size of Cessna 150’s, now I have to worry about giant poisonous toads?  Welcome to Florida, Fakename. 

As luck would have it, no more than a week later at around dusk, my two dogs erupted into a big racket which, translated, meant, “We’ve cornered something!”  “Cornered” was not exactly the right word.  There in the back yard, squarely and unflinchingly facing the two dogs, was a noble member of  the Bufo species.  I recognized it from its picture in the newspaper.  Um, “Shoo!” I said.  It either couldn’t hear me over the din the dogs were making, or it didn’t speak English.  In hindsight, I’m glad it didn’t run.  I mean hop.  Because then the dogs would surely have chased it, with possibly lethal results. 

I wasn’t about to touch it, since it’s the skin that is toxic.  They have glands which secrete a poison called Bufotoxin, one component of which is Bufotenin, which is hallucinogenic.  I mention this only in case you would like to engage in the practice of  toad licking.  So I came up with Plan B, which was first to get the dogs inside the house.  Then to encourage Bufo to move, with the aid of say, a broom.  I did not have to ask it twice.  Once the dogs were inside, in fact, it wasted no time in trying to hop its way out of Dodge.  I did have to open the back gate for it, since it was not quite yet tall enough to unlatch it on its own. 

You may be asking yourself, why didn’t Fakename kill it?  My reply is, with what?  No seriously, Fakename does a limited amount of killing.  Her killing is confined to very small univited creatures inside the house, like tiny spiders.  If you live outside and stay there, Fakename is perfectly happy to let you.  Plus toads, even poisonous ones, are one of the best pest control systems around.  I mean, I personally could not bring myself to eat a Cessna 150, but Bufos love them. 
 

Some Thoughts on Political Words

And their relationship to ideas (or lack of them).

1. Patriotism.  This is a word I have truly grown to hate.  It’s used as a bludgeon.  In recent memory, anyone in the U.S. who criticized George W. Bush was unpatriotic; now anyone who supports Barack Obama is unpatriotic (as is he himself, it is said.)  The Republicans criticize the Democrats, conservatives criticize liberals (note, Republicans and conservatives and Democrats and liberals are not always the same animals) for being “unpatriotic”.  Find me one example of Democrats and/or liberals who accuse Republicans/conservatives of a lack of patriotism when they disagree. 

I was pleased to find a Wiki article which provides a quote from Socrates (!) defining  patriotism.  Patriotism, he says, “does not require one to agree with everything that his country does and would actually promote analytical questioning in a quest to make the country the best it can possibly be.” My sentiments exactly. 

But the U.S. version of patriotism, for many years now, is merely nationalism.  We are the best, and can do no wrong.  We deserve to rule the world.  If you want to make specious comparisons to Hitler’s Germany, there you have it.  And now I’ve done it…proved the truth of  Godwin’s Law.

2.  National Security.  Okay, that’s two words.  But like patriotism, its meaning is open to debate.  Everyone agrees that we should take action, including military action, to protect our national security.  But what does that mean?  Should we take action only in retaliation for physical attacks against our country (e.g. Pearl Harbor, 9/ll)?  Our invasion of Vietnam was based on a remote interpretation of our “national security” being at stake; more accurately, it was based on a faulty philosophy–remember the Domino Theory?  Our invasion of Iraq was simply based on lies.  Our invasion of Afghanistan was justified by the above definition.  The question now before us is whether we have irreparably botched it (due in large part to our invasion of Iraq), and whether or not our continued presence is relevant.  My personal opinion:  as angry as it makes me for our country to have uselessly invaded Iraq, I do not believe we can say “Oops!  My bad!  We made a mistake!  See ya!”  You do not go in and blow up someone’s country, and then abandon them summarily. 

But to say that we should intervene only in retaliation is too simplistic, in my view. 

3.  Politician.  This term is now synonymous with “liar” in  the U.S.  “Compromise” is likewise a dirty word, equated with “compromising your principles”.  Apparently we expect our politicians to be models of purity and inflexibility.  But “compromise” is how we exist socially.  We do it at work.  We do it in marriage.  We do it with our friends and families.  We do it with other (imperfect) countries.  Standing firm and never giving an inch of ground may be workable in the movies, but it’s no more realistic or believable than Cinderella being picked by the prince because her foot is the only one that fits the glass slipper.

More Reading With Fakename: Ziegfeld, et al.

I’ve never been to New York City (Fakename will now pause for the collective gasp), unless you count changing planes in one of their three major airports, one of which is inexplicably in New Jersey.  I feel sort of like an ad for Pace Picante Sauce.  Remember them?  Some cowpoke types are examining their bottle (bottle?  how authentic is that?) of picante sauce, when one of them says, This picante sauce was made in NEW YORK CITY!  Oh Holy Mother of God–anywhere but there.  Real picante sauce has to be made outside of NYC.  Possibly New Jersey. 

Therefore, I’ve never seen a play on Broadway.  (Oh, quit your gasping.)  I have at least once, and possibly twice, seen a touring play.  The for-certain play was Evita, which, by the way, I thought was supremely awful.  The possible play was Zorba, which may or may not have been good.  The important thing was that Anthony Quinn was there in person and at some point threw a rose into the audience, directly to me.  I kept that rose until it reverted to sub-atomic particles. 

Therefore, I thought maybe I could learn something by reading the book Ziegfeld:  The Man Who Invented Show Business, by Ethan Mordden.  I can’t really explain why I finished it, other than a sort of obsessive-compulsive need to finish a book once I’ve started it.  I did sort of speed through it, hoping I would eventually get to the good part, which never materialized.  As a history of Broadway shows of the era, and if you’re fascinated by who did the lyrics, the set design, the costume design, the choreography, etc. , this book is for you.  Ziegfeld himself was apparently a very private man, so the author didn’t really know much about him.  I wish he had said so in the first sentence.  That way I could have turned the book back in to the library before I ever got out  the door.  I thought I was getting a biography.  Instead, I got the Encyclopedia of Broadway shows from, say, 1900 to 1940.  Actually, not even that.  I got the footnotes for the encylopedia article.  In other words:  don’t read this book.  Fakename considers that as much reading as she does, she has earned the right to be a book critic. 

Now I have gratefully returned to my fiction roots, reading a book by Jeffrey Deaver called Roadside Crosses.  Deaver is in my Top Five, sharing space with Robert B. Parker, John Sanford, James Lee Burke, and Nevada Barr (a nom de plume if I ever heard one).  I wish they would all put out a book a week.  In the scheme of things, I guess they are somewhat middlebrow.  Dostoyevsky, they are not.  But did you ever try to read Dostoyevsky for fun?  I don’t, at least, do lowbrow…like, say, Danielle Steele. 

Now take this journey with me:  on the inside flap of the book cover (I’m sure there’s a name for that) of Deaver’s book, it says:  “  The Monterey Peninsula is rocked when a killer begins to leave roadside crosses beside local highways–not in memoriam, but as announcements of his intentions to kill.  And to kill in particularly horrific and efficient ways:  using personal details about the victims that they’ve carelessly posted in blogs and on social networking websites”.

Oh shit.  I could say more, but I have to log off now.  Just forget you ever heard of me, okay?

Reading With Fakename: The Bin Ladens, Part 2

Since I last posted about this book by Steve Coll–October 16th, only 15 days and it seems like a lifetime ago–I finished it, read a novel by an Irish writer, read a sort-of biography of Florenz Ziegfeld, and am now halfway through Jeffrey Deaver’s latest novel. 

The question I posed last time is, How do you become the world’s most evil man?  Hitler still trumps Osama Bin Laden, but Osama is at least a close second.  I also stated that I don’t believe you get there by ideology alone, that there are serious psychological issues at play, and I stand by that contention. 

Apparently the Koran says that a man cannot have more than four wives at once.  But a man can divorce a woman for any reason at all (such as, I’ve got four wives, and one of you has to go because I want to have sex with someone else, which means I have to marry them.)  The man is still expected to take care of the woman if she has a child by him;  not sure what his obligations are if there are no children, or if the woman is free to remarry if there are no children.  The man is required by the Koran to give a woman thirty days’ notice before he divorces her, which is the Koran’s version of “fairness”.

So Osama’s father, Mohamed, married Osama’s mother when she was 14 years old (approximately, since as I mentioned earlier, births are not celebrated in Islam, or at least in its extreme form).  Osama was born a year later when she was 15, and Mohamed divorced her before she was 18.  She and Osama lived in a huge compound with all Mohamed’s other wives and children, but held a lowly status. 

Osama seems to have worshipped his mother.  I can picture a scenario where it was the two of them against the world, so to speak.  Isolated and out of favor.  There is a particularly spooky quote, where someone says that Osama used to sit at his mother’s feet and “caress” her. 

Many of Osama’s older half-brothers, and even some of his half-sisters, were sent away to boarding schools all over the world–the U.S., Britain, Lebanon (considered the most “liberal” of the Mideast countries).  Osama went to boarding school too, but it had to be in Saudi Arabia.  It’s there, at approximately 15, that he came under the influence of a teacher who was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.  In my opinion, it’s then that his rage and resentment and feelings of neglect came together under the cover of an idea.  The ideology never comes first–the aptitude for it does.  He was ripe for the picking. 

He later said himself that from 15 to 21 is the best age from which to choose people to wage jihad. 

His ideology is not at all uncommon in the Middle East.  Blaming Jews and the U.S. for all ills is rampant.  The difference is the lengths to which Osama was willing to go.  The Koran specifically prohibits killing women and children, for example.  When he was questioned about 9/11, which did just that, he was forced to weasel.  On one hand, as the upholder of “pure” Islam as he fancies himself, he couldn’t say the Koran was wrong.  And he couldn’t say the killing of women and children was accidental.  He had to say, Well, they are killing our women and children, aren’t they?  He is not a great, nor logical, thinker. 

In the end here, what you have is a curious combination of insecurity and megalomania.

So I have revised my opinion as to what we should do about him.  Like many if not most Americans, I’ve held that we should hunt him down like a dog and kill him on the spot.  Now I think that with any luck, it will be the Pakistanis who catch him.  Or the Egyptians, or the Saudis.  Preferably the Saudis.  If we do it, he will only become a martyr, which is what he hopes for and expects. 

It’s the Arab nations who should repudiate and humiliate him.  So he needs to be captured. 

You know, I have a little dog, a Basenji.  Basenjis are African hunting dogs, and classically, they are used in packs to drive small game (e.g., rabbits) into a net, previously strung by the hunters.  That’s what the U.S. needs to be now:  the Basenji.

Death to the FDA! Or Maybe Not…

The occasion for this hysterical reaction on my part was the following headline in today’s local newspaper (an AP feed, of course) FDA to ban sale of raw oysters from Gulf of Mexico.  When did this happen?  Why was I not told? 

It turns out my hysteria, as so often happens, was premature.  What the FDA is saying is they plan to ban oysters harvested from the Gulf in the warmer months, unless they’ve been treated to kill the bacteria Vibrio vulnificus, which kills about 15 people a year. 

Okay, I still have so many problems with this issue.  It kills 15 people a year.  Usually people with compromised immune systems…who in my view should have better sense than to be eating raw oysters from the Gulf in the summer.  (Rebuttal:  as the advisor to the FDA said on NPR this afternoon, 15 deaths is too many if they can be prevented.  They can be…see my last statement.) To underscore, here is a quote from the article:  

“The FDA is promoting a ban because high-risk groups are not heeding warnings about raw oysters, and millions of other people may not know they are vulnerable.”  Well, whose problem is that? 

The problem is the treatment, which oyster people say destroys the taste and texture of the raw oyster.  The treatment, according to the article,  involves mild heat, freezing temperatures, high pressure, and low dose gamma radiation.  I’m picturing a raw oyster with nothing left but the pearl.  Well apparently they don’t do all these things at once to the oyster, they are individual alternatives. 

Now then, for the oyster people, in my opinion, oysters do not really have a “taste” except for whatever you might put on them…lemon juice, hot sauce, horseradish, etc.  Oysters are more of a sensation than a taste.  Mostly a sensation of coolness, rivaled only by the cucumber.  I object to the article calling them slimy.  They are smooth.  But if the treatment process interferes with that (which I consider a “texture” issue), that would be bad. 

But so…I don’t get to have big fat, perfectly delicately salty oysters from Appalachicola Bay year-round (except for the algae bloom periods, of course.)  I have to eat scrawny little oysters from like frigging Massachusetts? 

Is Fakename about to have her first revelation about “government interference”?.  This is truly ridiculous in my opinion.  Where was the FDA when it was about spinach?  I’m suspicious that the FDA has latched onto an industry think they can cower into submission in order to resurrect their tarnished image.  In order to have a worse reputation in the Gulf, you would have to be FEMA. 

The ban is not supposed to take place until 2011, and I’m hoping it will never happen.  I don’t actually think it will.  Oyster People, Unite!

Grocery Voyeurism Revisited

It’s been a while since I shared any grocery voyeurism.  To refresh your memory, this is a game wherein you guess what the person in front of you in the 10 Items or Fewer line plans to do with six cans of tomato sauce, a bunch of celery, and one can of Raid.

This however, is a new variety of grocery voyeurism, actually involving a conversation between the person in line behind me and his son, who appeared to be about 7 years old. 

Dad:  No you cannot have a Coke. 

Son:  (Whine.)

Dad:  Okay, you can have a Sprite. 

Son:  (is heard to be opening the door of the cooler before Dad changes his mind, but he was too late.)

Dad:  You know what, never mind.  Get a water.  There’s just too much sugar in soft drinks.

Son:  (Whine.)

Dad:  No, get a water.  Now go pick out a bag of M&M’s.   

I actually did not invent this game.  When I lived in Memphis, I knew a writer named John Ryan, who was constantly jotting down things he overheard to use in his books (the most famous of which is The Redneck Bride). 

He once told me that his favorite overheard line ever occurred in a grocery store, when the cashier complimented a woman in front of him on how cute her baby was.  “Well, thanks”, said the mother, “But do you know this baby is 8 months old and still won’t eat crowder peas?”  Now there is grocery voyeurism at its finest.