Friday night leftovers

What did Mr. A, my ten-year-old trash picker, bring home this week? Wooden shelves removed from a throwaway bookcase.

What did he do with them? He laid one over two baseball bats to make a sliding balance board, something to fall off and break an arm.

He used the others to make a rabbit hutch for the rabbit that he is NOT getting. The rabbit hutch for the rabbit he's not getting  sits next to the guinea pig cage for the guinea pig he's not getting, which is next to the homemade gerbil cage for the gerbil he's not getting, which is next to the chickenwire canary cage for the canary he's not getting. Do you see a trend here?

The tadpoles that grew into frogs and lived in a terrarium for two months have been set free at the pond near our house. E-Grrrl's pet beetles are also out in the big world making compost.

We currently have five giant grasshoppers, one sand lizard, one hamster, two fish, a Venus fly trap, a pitcher plant,  and a cat.

***

Mr. A visited the pet store with his dad to pick up crickets to feed his lizard. When he returned, he told me about some mice he saw there.

"Oh Mama they were so cute! All gray and fluffyy and making nests! There were three of them, and the sad thing is they were going to be fed to a big snake."

"If they were my mice I'd name them Betty, Billy, and Bob," he said wistfully.

"Really A, I think it would make more sense to call them Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner."

***

My blogger pal Ashleigh is an English-speaking expat from Zimbabwe who lives in the Netherlands.  English-language magazines cost a fortune where she is (about $10 an issue) so I offered to send her some of mine. Two issues of InStyle and one issue of Real Simple were dutifully packed up and taken to the Belgian post office where we were informed it would cost nearly $30 to mail them!

***

A while back, I bought a bottle of cologne for a friend's birthday, forgetting that due to overseas postal restrictions, I can't mail it back to the U.S.  Sigh. It seemed the perfect gift.

Then I remembered E would be in the U.S. this month on business. He could carry it there in his suitcase and then mail it to her from his hotel. Hurray!

All was well with this plan until the latest anti-terrorism efforts made it next to impossible to get any liquid onto a plane leaving from Europe and heading  to the U.S.

I wouldn't want E delayed by  suspicions he is carrying a Lancome fragrance bomb in a pink bottle with a label that says So Magic!

***

Sometimes I think we give the murderous maniacs in the world a backhanded compliment by calling them "terrorists." That word gives them so much power.

Why don't we just call them what they are? Assholes with a capital A!

I'm sure it would be easier to rally people behind a War on Assholes, don't cha think?

August 11, 2006

Comments

[Annie]

Down with Assholes! I'm with you on this one. It would make for much snappier posters and bumperstickers.

Mr. E could put the perfume in his checked bag. It's just carry-ons where you can't have liquids. I suspect it is only a matter of time before they do away with any carry-ons whatsoever. Which will be a real drag on international flights.

[Lisa]

Re: War on Assholes - Amen! *lol* But then you'd be targeting a good deal of the government, business, and the postal system, so... ;)

[Shirley]

How about ASSHOLES in all caps?!!! Even when their plots are foiled (and believe me, I am very, very grateful for that), they succeed in changing our way of life a little more each time. I am really bummed that I can no longer carry my bottles of water with me on the plane. (I hear now this change is likely to stay.) I get majorly dehydrated and there's no way the flight attendants will be able to satisfy that need with the token cup of water. Yet, I know that is whining compared to what so much of the world faces.

Yes, E should be able to take your cologne for you in his checked bag, but yes, you'd wonder if it was worth it and we all know that different inspectors have different rules no matter what the one approved set of rules says ... plus going from Europe to the US, he'd probably be going under more than one set of rules.

You have to admire Mr. A's diligence and devotion to petdom! I do think you have enough pets in the household at the moment though.

I have heard about the cost of mailing in Europe, but $30 for three magazines--ouch!! Is there another cheaper ground carrier in Europe? Hope there's an alternative ... certainly of the things I'd miss the most in a foreign country would be the written word.

[amber]

Maybe you could return it, and then call a department store stateside, and have them charge it and mail it to her. We have So Magic here. Try Gottschaulks, in California. I know they do 'charge-sends', as they call them. ;)

Hope you hubs is not too held up at the airport when he goes. Yucko. They ARE Assholes! Perfect. ;)

:)

[Angela]

I'm all behind the War on Assholes. Pun intended, of course.

[Ash]

This whole Asshole/Plane thing has made me wonder. I think if it was really going to happen it would happen, and there's not a lot one can do about it.

Perhaps its fatalism on my part. Perhaps their real power comes from the pure disruption that these kind of scares cause in our lives and not from any real 'threat' at all.

Hmm, if I lived in some remote place I might start believing conspiracy theories about how this is all engineered to make us do certain things (like the rodents in cages we obviously are). Apply a stimulus and watch for a reaction.

And the water on planes - that SUCKS! I always carry a 2 litre bottle of water with me. We won't be flying any time soon. Thank god we have the car now and can drive.

Thanks for trying with the magazines :)

[mamatulip]

The War on Assholes -- you got it, girl. Bang-on.

[Mignon]

V-Grrrl, that's the best thing I've read wrt terrorists in a long time. I'm going to quote you on that, if that's alright?

Sounds like Mr. A is training to be Jim. (I wrote "my husband" but that didn't sound right at all.) Right now he's downstairs putting together a huge terrarium. We have no fish or aquatic reptiles and I'm not planning on getting any...

[V-Grrrl]

I love visualizing Katie Couric solemnly reporting on the War on Assholes and Anderson Cooper doing an episode on Assholes: Who needs them?

Just think of the graphic possibilities

[Cissy]

Definitely a war I could get behind. And, yes, they have definitely ruined my travels. I heard this one guy on the news telling women to hand over their make-up. I think not! Does he have any idea how much that cost to replace? Assholes.