3^rd Dose of Profound Wisdom and Other Misguided Thoughts---10/03/05

We survived Rita okay around my neck of the woods, just a little limb, leaf and blow over damage with no rain to speak of. The only hardship we faced was loss of power for about 15 hours and having to put up with the talking heads reporting about the hurricane 24/7 for over a week. For the most part they soon became laughable and if it weren’t for such suffering and loss dealt by the storm, I would be telling you about some of their antics here. However, since many of our friends, family and neighbors are still suffering from the effects of the two storms, I’m just going to ask that y’all join me in prayers, positive thoughts and Godspeed for a rapid recovery for all those who suffered and are still suffering the wrath of Rita and Katrina.

3^rd Dose of Profound Wisdom

My plan for y’all to get smart and me to get rich seems to be off to a pretty good start. At least I’ve managed to get 60 “Pearls of Wisdom” onto paper in preceding weeks and at least some of y’all have read them and forwarded them on to friends and family. Unfortunately, so far I haven’t had any offers from them big shot deep pocketed editors and publishers to get me started making my sack full of money, but I’m sure if y’all keep working with me and for me we’ll soon get there.   I’ll have to admit that I didn’t have too many profound thoughts during the hurricane since I was too busy trying to think of ways to save my ass if the storm decided to blow through here---that’s why y’all didn’t hear from me last week, but without further rigmarole let’s get started.

“1000 Pearls of Profound Wisdom” (Continued)

61    Exercise tip. Hold a beer can in both you right and left hand with your arms extended in front of you. Slowly move your arms until they are in the outstretched position. Hold your arms there for 10 seconds and then bring them back to the front. Repeat this daily for a week. Next week try using cans full of beer. (Be careful not to overdo it at first.)

62    Try to remember when you’re on the phone and sitting on hold waiting for the next available operator that, “your call is important to them”. If it wasn’t, they’d make you hold for 30 minutes instead of 15 and would make sure that you get an operator who speaks Engresh as a third language. If this should happen to you, you can assume that your call wasn’t all that important to them after all.

63    Advice for prudent young ladies at cocktail parties: Be careful when drinking martinis, and have only 2 at the most, after 3 you may be under the table, and after 4 you could be under the host. 

64    When handling cats---don’t. You can catch ringworms and all kinds of other diseases too fierce to mention in mixed company. If you must handle one, no matter how handy it may appear, a cat’s tail doesn’t make a good handle. It tends to make them irritated and uncooperative to be picked up by the tail. I’ve heard that kicking them works pretty well if there are no females or PETA folks looking.

65    Always drive very careful in your neighborhood or your hometown, if you’re a small town resident. If the cops stop you, no matter how much you hunker down and try to hide you can bet your ass that somebody who knows you will see the flashing lights and recognize your truck. Even if you’re like me and don’t embarrass easily, everybody you know, from the preacher to the bartender to the man at the feed store, will have to ask you about it for the next 4 days.

66    If you’re divorced, always pay your alimony and/or child support payments first, put back a little beer money, then send your creditors whatever’s leftover. If you don’t pay your creditors you can always go to bankruptcy court or get on welfare. If you don’t pay your ex-wife, you’ll probably be making a trip to jail.

67    No matter how much the bartender may flirt with you, laugh at your jokes or pour you a little extra on a shot, don’t get your drawers twisted or your panties in a knot, it doesn’t mean that they have an interest in any kind of romantic action. ---Can you spell TIPS?

68    You don’t hear about folks getting the grippe, ague, flux, or yaws anymore.  Unfortunately they didn’t find cures for these diseases, they just changed the names.

69    You hear words with your ears; you listen to them with your mind. Sometimes it might not be a bad idea to spend more time exercising your mind.

70    Very few people can pat their head and rub their belly at the same time. They can’t pat their belly and rub their head at the same time either. If you happen to run across an ol’ boy who can, give him a wide berth because he’s probably weird in other ways too. At the very least he’s spent a lot of time practicing so he can win beer joint bets.

71    I’ve discovered during the course of my culinary adventures over these many years that there are two things that are absolute necessities when I cook: garlic and beer. The garlic goes in the food and the beer goes in both the food and the cook. I cook very little without at least a hint of garlic and out of habit and pure-dee orneriness; I add a little beer to everything too. Of course, I add a fair amount of beer to the cook as well.

72    Everybody knows that ears need to be cleaned regularly; they get wax buildup and all kinds of other disgusting stuff in there. If you find your ear hole itching, it’s a pretty good sign it needs a good cleaning. This is something that should be done in the privacy of your home using q-tips or other products made for the purpose. It’s considered tacky and in poor form to clean your ears in public with truck keys…especially if they’re someone else’s truck keys.

73    I read on a gee-whiz list somewhere that there are 336 dimples on a golf ball. Whoever spent the time to count them really needs to get a life. Dimples on pretty girls are easier to count and much easier on the eyes.

74    Did y’all know that Marilyn Monroe had 6 toes on one foot? I didn’t either. Hell, back in Marilyn Monroe’s heyday, I doubt I would’ve noticed whether or not she even had feet.

75    I read somewhere that you burn more calories while sleeping than you do watching TV. Somehow I’m not surprised considering the mindless programming that’s available on most channels. They didn’t say how many calories you burn reading drivel like this from the Internet, but I’d hazard a guess that it rates right up there with sleeping.

76    Try to sneak out of work early at least once every week. If you don’t get caught it’s kind of like a present. Friday is probably the best day to leave early because usually all the bosses leave early on Fridays too. ---Of course you’re on your own if you get caught, but remember they’re not allowed to cause you bodily harm.

77    When you are faced with a tough decision you can always decide not to decide unless you decide to change your mind and decide.

78     No matter what you may have heard, cartoon violence doesn’t cause violent behavior in children. If this were true all of us who were exposed to the Roadrunner, Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny, Popeye and all the others would be occupying prison cells right now. And what about all those horse operas we watched at Saturday matinees, without gunfights, fist fights and other acts of violence all we’d have had to watch was 1½ hours of bad dialogue and cowboys kissing their horse. Somehow we managed to stumble through it all and turn out to be pretty fair mamas, daddies, teachers, preachers, cops and church ladies. There are a few of us old reprobates, but we don’t count for much.

79    Be very careful when getting rid of odds and ends. If you happen to wind up with just one, you’ll go crazy trying to figure out if it’s an odd or an end.

80    It’s a good policy to be nice to everyone, but don’t get so wrapped up in being nice that you forget that you have other things to accomplish that are important too. When you forget what you’re there for, it’s not being nice, it’s being stupid. Also, if you’re not nice to assholes it’s okay. They’ve come to expect it and no one else will care.

81    When seeking advice identify your options, but don’t make up your mind beforehand. If you can do that you don’t need the advice.

82    Men aren’t equipped to do laundry so unless it’s a dire emergency and you don’t mind wearing pink drawers, leave it to the folks down at the Laundromat---it’s their job and they’re professionals.

83    Life is kind of like making a pot of chili, you taste it and if it needs something, you add that. Like good chili, you’ll still be adding a little here and a little there when it’s finished.

84    There are lots of things in this world that make good pets, but snakes ain’t one of them. Hell, pet rocks are better than snakes. You’ll find that folks that keep snakes as pets usually are either flat-ass weird or craving attention or both. They often have numerous body piercings and lots of tattoos as well.

85    When you get a hankering to go swimming don’t go in waters that you know are infested by gators. They aren’t supposed to mess around with humans, but gators are really stupid and may not know this rule, so it really ain’t no sense in taking the chance---the same holds true for sharks. Really you shouldn’t swim in infested waters period, you never know what kind of crud and corruption you may come up with.

86    The proper configuration of toilet paper on the dispenser is a subject worthy of much discussion and deep contemplation. To date there has been no consensus, it can be hung to dispense over the top or from the bottom, the choice is yours, but be sure to act wisely. There are folks in this world who form lifelong opinions of you by the way you hang your toilet paper.

87    The proper position for milking a cow is to squat on a stool at her right flank. Really, you don’t have to worry about positioning, if you’re wrong the cow will let you know…often painfully. If you’re a pure-dee green hand and don’t know the first thing about milking a cow don’t let anybody tell you that you can get milk by standing behind the cow and pumping her tail. If you get any results at all, it sure as hell won’t be milk. Plus, this could prove dangerous in more ways than one.

88    We’ve all heard that old saying about “look before you leap”. This is a pretty good idea, especially in high places. If you really feel you must leap, just kind of peek over the edge and if you don’t see any dead bodies or wreckage down below, it might be okay to go ahead and leap just a little bit, but it’s probably better not to leap at all in such a precarious position.

89    If your favorite beer joint starts having silly contests like eating a bunch of hotdogs, oysters or cockroaches in a certain amount of time, or pushing peanuts with your nose or racing tricycles, don’t enter. Folks won’t remember that you won, but will remember how stupid you looked doing it. The one place this advice doesn’t apply is for young ladies entering wet tee-shirt contests--- now that’s good, clean All-American fun, I don’t care who you are.

90    Don’t ever mess around with electricity. Those red, green, black and white wires each mean something in color code, but it’s secret and only electricians know the code and if they tell you they’ll have to kill you. If they don’t tell you, the electricity will kill you. That’s why electricians make so much money. Plumbing isn’t color coded, but I don’t think I’d mess with it either if I were you.

91    When sitting on a pier or a bridge over gator infested waters don’t dangle your feet. Gators just love dangling feet. The same goes for shark-infested waters, but sharks aren’t as bad about jumping up and grabbing feet as gators are.

92    It doesn’t hurt to go without underwear every now and then, it lets your business air out and stuff and you don’t have to worry about serious wedgies or getting your panties in a knot. Don’t go around bragging about it though, because folks will think you’re some kind of weird pervert.

93    If you can tell the difference between intelligence and “common sense” you’ll probably be in great demand as a consultant. You often hear folks say, “He’s got a genius IQ, but he ain’t got enough common sense to pour piss out of a boot”. It’s been my experience that folks with that kind of an IQ not only can pour piss from a boot, but can do it blindfolded, but usually they have someone with a lot of common sense do it for them.

94    For those of you who think that Elvis is still alive and hiding out in Cut-n-Shoot or Splendora or Pigeon Forge or somewhere, I’ll pose this one question, as a true Son of the South, don’t you think he’d have made his presence known when his only daughter was messing around with that Michael Jackson scumbag? ---I rest my case.

95    Once you discount all those talking heads on TV and the Hollywood weirdo types, there has been an alarming increase lately in things that most people know nothing about. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

96    Try never to say mean, cruel or tacky things about folks even in jest because it’s impossible to unsay anything. There ain’t no undo keys or ctrl,alt,delete keys in life.

97    If you happen to go into a beer joint where everybody is cuttin’ up and actin’ rowdy, chunkin’ bottles and stuff and the bartender tells you to relax cause they don’t always act this way, it’s probably a good idea to go ahead and leave because what he means is usually it gets worse.

98    Everyone’s heard the old saying: “It’s always darker just before dawn”. You might want to remember it when you start thinking about sneaking home after a hard night’s partying, so all the church ladies in the neighborhood don’t notice and get their tongues a-waggin’. It’s gonna be bad enough dealing with your wife.

99    Another thing I learned from one of those “gee-whiz” files that come across the Internet: A tiger’s stripes aren’t only on its fur; its skin is striped too. I’m just gonna take their word for it. I sure as hell ain’t gonna be shaving no tiger’s butt to find out. If you decide to check it out and survive, be sure and let me know for sure.

100 Well, we’re almost a tenth of the way to completion. To mark this milestone I think I’ll share with you a plethora of pearls from Rudyard Kipling in the first verse of his poem that many of us memorized as schoolchildren, “If”:

 If you can keep your head when all about you,

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise…

And Other Misguided Thoughts

My Pledge:

It’s time to put a –30- on yet another futile attempt at reaching mediocrity. As usual, thanks to y’all for riding along and putting up with my BS and drivel along the way. Be sure to hug somebody that needs one and do a random act of kindness this week. Remember when you start thinking that nobody cares---I do. God bless you and God Bless America!

Newt Harlan

-30-