On Friday there was an article in the paper by Paul Flemming, whom I’ve previously mentioned. He’s the state editor for Gannett’s Florida newspapers and floridacapitalnews.com. Friday’s article was a series of tongue-in-cheek political definitions a la Ambrose Bierce (” A Conservative is a statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.”) Flemming’s article was entitled Be sure to right-size the transparency. The whole article is worth a read and full of laughs; here’s one small sample: “TAXES, n. An expletive not to be uttered during an election year. Alternately the cause of or cure for all evils, depending on party affiliation and what it’s called. See Surcharges, User Fees, Quacks Like a Duck and other euphemisms.”
Speaking of evil, yesterday’s New York Times acrostic was especially so. Actually that would be today’s acrostic, but if you subscribe to the puzzles online, you get to do the special Sunday puzzle a day early. So the final clue (8 letters) was “chrysotile or crocidolite”. Like, is that a noun or an adverb? Crocidolite sounded to me like it should have something to do with crocodiles, while the “–olite” ending sounded like a rock or a mineral. Well, technically, I guess rocks ARE minerals. So I tried in vain to think of some sort of scaly mineral. Mica? Shale? Too short. I’ll reveal the answer at the end of this post, in case you want to drive yourself crazy for a while trying to guess. Geologists and chemists are prohibited from guessing, by the way, as are all employees of the Fakename Blog.
Continuing the evil theme, is it just me and my sister who wake up every single morning of the world with a song in our brains that we CANNOT GET RID OF? Actually, Fakesister has come up with a system: she says if she sings it all the way through to the end then it goes away. That doesn’t work for me, perhaps because I never know all of the song–only the most annoying and repetitive parts of it. I’ve tried to replace the song with a more acceptable one, but that doesn’t work either because the uninvited demon song keeps breaking through my defenses. The only thing that works is when something external intrudes to replace it. Normally this means getting in my car and turning on NPR. It might not be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that the song is invariably one I hate. It could be a song I heard recently, or some TV jingle from 30 years ago. Today’s song, for example, is John Denver’s “I’m Sorry”, for which Davis Whiteman is 100% responsible. I won’t be able to forgive him until I start being unable to get “I’d like to teach the world to sing…” out of my head. Oh NOOOO! What have I just done to myself?
And speaking of definitions, Comcast sent me an email informing me that my “free” virus protection by McAfee would be expiring in May and I would have to download Norton, which I could do at any time. In addition to superior virus protection, it would speed up my browsing experience. Comcast apparently gets its definitions from George Orwell…or possibly from Ambrose Bierce.
Finally, on Friday as I was getting ready to leave work, I couldn’t find my keys. This happens so frequently that one employee suggested I buy them a leash. Usually though, I can find them. On Friday they never turned up after a 45-minute search of every surface, every drawer, every file cabinet, and the entire floor. They weren’t in the refrigerator or the microwave either. (It’s a good thing I looked there, though; I was wondering what had happened to my cell phone.) I looked in the car. Someone else did too. I was dispirited beyond belief. I have an extra car key, but not an extra house key, so I could drive somewhere, but then what? I have a window I’ve left unlocked in the bedroom, but it’s been so long since I’ve opened it I was afraid it would be stuck.
At last I remembered that my friend Judith has a key, from when she used to pet-sit for me before she got so sick. I was about a mile from the office when the blasted keys slithered out from under the driver’s side seat of the car. I was so relieved to see them that I resisted the urge to kill them for putting me through that anxiety.
In closing, the answer is: asbestos.
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