Friday fog is still fastidiously fastened to the front face of our fabulous forested hills. The fog isn’t terrible, being mostly light, maybe moderate in some places… certainly not enough to fret about. It’s about the same as it was yesterday… if you handled THAT fog, well, today will be even easier: same fog, but sharper skills!
Rocks remain rooted on their roosts, refraining from rolling into the road. Ice is insubstantial, and it seems silly to sweat snow somehow. Wind has waned and worries are without foundation, as it’s all wafted wayward. Even rain remains removed from revising your ride… it’s aridly anhydrous.
So, one of the guys at work, a habitual and known mooch, recently strolled on past a co-worker’s desk, and noticed a pile of peanuts in a little dish. He promptly helped himself to a handful, only “asking if it was okay” as he was in the act of chewing them up. Other co-workers nearby snickered and laughed, and even the previous owner of said peanuts appeared to be highly amused.
Upon asking WHY people were laughing, he learned that the woman at that desk simply has a peculiar habit of regularly purchasing chocolate covered peanuts… only, she never actually EATS the peanuts. She just sucks the chocolate of off them and leaves the “clean” peanuts on a plate to discard later.
Oh, the hazards of mooching peanuts… I’ve got my own personal tale of woe. I was at a buddy’s house a while back. I noticed a big, plastic jar of toffee peanuts, about half full, sitting on the coffee table. Well… that was all the invitation I needed. (Little known trivia: legally, any food on a coffee table is free for the taking… ya don’t even have to ask!) So, I accepted my invitation, took a handful, and chowed down.
They tasted a little funny… not as sweet as I’d expected and certainly not fresh. Oh, well… another handful went down the hatch, because I’m a trooper. Plus, you know… free food!
On my third handful, the one which confirmed that there was something just a little “off” about these things, I mentioned to my buddy that his peanuts seemed stale.
He looked at me, looked at the jar, and then explained, “Well, see we don’t actually keep peanuts in that jar anymore. We keep the dog’s kibble in there.”
There was this guy I knew in the Army. See, Army barracks in modern times are more like small apartment units, and typically two or three guys are assigned to each unit. Well, somebody we will call “Joe” (because his real name was “Joe”) had a bad habit of raiding the fridge in the unit that he shared with a guy we’ll call “Mark” (whose ACTUAL name was “Mark”). Mark would tell Joe, “Keep your hands off of MY food!” But, Joe seemed unable to resist the temptation of eating somebody else’s food.
Joe was warned… many times. Yet, he failed to heed these requests and warnings, and even actual threats.
Well, one day Mark had a couple of pieces of fried chicken left over from a meal. He wanted to save them in the fridge… but knew that Joe would surely eat them. So… Mark did what he thought needed to be done. He took the chicken out into the hallway and played street hockey with some of the fellas. Since the latrine needed cleaning, he figured he’d be creative and wipe it down with a couple pieces of fried chicken. He had some personal hygiene issues to take care of, and what’s wrong with, uhhh, “swiping the ATM card” through the slot, when it’s your own ATM card AND slot? Mark got very creative that day, and defiled those pieces of yardbird in ways unsuitable—yes, even more unsuitable than what I’ve ALREADY reported—to mention on this site. I’d bet good money that if it were possible to weigh it all out, that the bacterium, the hair, the bodily fluids, the dust bunnies, the germs, the e. coli colonies, the general gunk and fruitful filth would have outweighed the actual edible content, by the time Mark was done with his crud-crusted culinary creation.
He then put the foul fowl in the fridge… and just to be REALLY fair, he even instructed his roommate NOT to eat that chicken… or else he’d be sorry.
Alas… the chicken was consumed, within hours, by Jerk Joe. On the other hand, this was the one time that food theft came to the great delight of an entire platoon of guys, who were all honestly hoping that Joe would eat that chicken.
From that day on, Joe was known as, “Chicken Man.” It was even explained to him why he had been issued this new designator code, but he expressed disbelief at such a fantastic tale. I really don’t know if he ever changed his evil ways… but the smug satisfaction that Mark got out of hockey puck bird made it all good.
Enjoy your weekend… and remember, always: Query before quaffing, permission prior to polishing off, blessing before banqueting, concurrence before consumption, sanctification before mastication, grace before grazing. It’s not just the polite thing to do, it’s the SMART thing to do. And if anybody gives you some new nickname that you don’t understand, well, think about changing your ways.