Posts Tagged ‘Observation’

Someday, your Prince won’t come

Saturday, April 30th, 2011

By Tiber

I’ve been through this before, ladies, but obviously it bears repeating. No, you do not want to marry a Prince, so quit holding out for one.

I know many of you still think that becoming a Princess means you can sit around all day wearing a sparkly tiara, while your favorite singer serenades you, a servant does your nails for free and another one feeds you tiny chocolates in the shape of peasants who now have to bow down to you and hand over all of their high tax money.

Well, that last part may actually be true. I don’t know.

The reality is that no matter how awful you feel or how desperately you want to see your friends, instead you’ll be forced repeatedly to get up at an ungodly hour to unveil, open, christen, reveal, applaud, and delight in every plaque, megastore, ship, statue, amateur folk-dancing group and new waste-management facility in the country.

Until you die.

Plus, you’ve heard that royals never carry money? The reason for this is that because they’re forced to shake so many hands, soon their fingers stop working entirely and they’re not even able to pick up a coin.

So, girls, go for the nice male who’s a prince of a guy without being a Prince of the Realm.

You may have to watch more football but at least you won’t have to wave at it for three hours.

And afterwards, your time will be your own without your having to go and be the Patron of the Flounder Museum.

Crow que, anyone?

Saturday, April 9th, 2011

By Tiber

Is it crow mating season?

I noticed a big crow sitting up on a wire, surveying his territory below when a smaller, clearly female crow flew up and landed on the same wire about a foot away.

Since the male didn’t fly away, evidently the female took this as a signal to come on by.

Taking tiny, expert steps, like a tightrope walker, she sidled over right next to the male.

And then, it looked as if she started to groom him.

I know monkeys do this with their hands but birds obviously don’t have this advantage. The male crow still didn’t leave but he started getting more and more hunched over and tense the whole time the female was fixing him up.

I hope he was getting something out of it. Maybe he just liked the girl and was trying to be polite.

I kind of felt sorry for him. I’ve had a lot of crappy dates. And even though some of them wore stiletto heels, I will say this for them. Not one of them ever tried to comb my hair using her stiletto beak.

A Short History of the Ice Cream Truck

Saturday, May 22nd, 2010

 By Tiber

An ice cream truck started driving round and round the neighborhood today and it was playing so many songs, I got caught up in trying to identify them. He was hitting Mozart to Mos Def. Some were easy to recognize like “Happy Birthday” but I soon realized the truck was also playing Christmas carols. Since we’re nowhere near Christmas, do they think this will make people feel festive again? It just made me feel uncomfortably lost in a time warp in winter and the last thing I wanted was some ice cream.

It took me even longer to figure out their weirdest musical selection. But finally, I realized that the ice cream truck was playing, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Yes, that’s right. A song that brought grown men to tears during the American Civil War is now used to try to sell children “zootie-pops.”

Here, again, though, I didn’t see that much product being sold. Instead of buying, you really are just standing there, trying to I.D. all of the music.

When I was little, ice cream trucks only played one tune, over and over and over again. I guess those days are gone but, frankly, as a pure business model, my guess is this was much more effective. I know from personal experience that Dad would sometimes give us money just to “please, please, make that damned song go away.”

Some of this new truck’s tunes also included old folk songs that I was actually able to sing along with. The funny thing is, I don’t ever remember learning any of these lyrics. Maybe we’re all singing away in nursery school and we just don’t remember. Was a familiarity with these songs good for sales? I guess it helps some.

In the future, though, I imagine they won’t risk just hoping that you’ll feel fondly about something you learned as a child. Instead, your purchasing choices will already be locked into human brains at birth. Then, whenever an ice cream truck is anywhere within five miles of your kid, his eyes will glow and he’ll suddenly start to chant in your own home,

“It’s Saturday. Buy me 12 “Nicey-Iceys.” It’s Saturday. Buy me 12 “Nicey-Iceys.” It’s Saturday. Buy me-”

“All right!!! All right!!! Come on!!! Let‘s go!!!”

It’s gotta be a sign

Sunday, May 9th, 2010

By Tiber

I was stopped at a traffic light today and I noticed a sign for the “Titanic Driving School.” Now, obviously, I know that “titanic” just means “of great size.” But still, this isn’t your first thought whenever you see the word, is it? Are the driving school owners historically ignorant? Or maybe they know about the big ship and they just don’t care.

“Hey, none of you students are ever gonna run into an iceberg anyway, are you? So shut up!”

I don’t know, though, it does seem to me, that if you were running a driving school, you’d want to avoid the image of anybody crashing into anything.

This got me to thinking about other shop signs and I was reminded of one that I really loved. We had a new dry-cleaners open up in the neighborhood and the owners didn‘t speak English all that well. I guess they wanted a catchy slogan and when they finally found a saying that had something to do with their business, they snapped it up and emblazoned their window with the words “Bring us all of your clothes and we’ll take you to the cleaners!”

I wanted them to keep their slogan forever but either somebody told them what it really meant or else their business stopped completely and they asked, but in any case, that sign soon disappeared.

Another store sign I drive by occasionally just sort of baffles me. The shop is called “Darts and Things.” Obviously, the “things” part of “Darts and Things” would probably include dartboards. But what else? Are there dart gloves? That’s still not enough for a whole store, is it?

So what are the other things? They could be as common as shampoos or as esoteric as, I don’t know, robot clothes. But how would you know without stopping?

I could go in and see what  they sell for myself. But that would probably spoil it. As it is, I like to imagine what all is in there. Well, darts, we know that…but I also think they have gleaming rows of Zambonis, remote-controlled waffle-makers, aquarium furniture, flying carpets, invisible inks, video games from the future, self-filling beer bottles and bear repellant.

Why can’t a woman be more like a cat?

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

 

By Tiber

I walked by my sister Iris Nell’s bedroom and heard such a loud rumbling, I thought for a second she was riding around on a power mower. Of course, the fact that I even considered this as a possibility proves how weird this family is.

It turned out it was just Paracelsus, our cat, who loves Iris Nell so much, that his purr box was revving on high.

And I got to thinking, why can’t a woman be more like a cat?

The thing about cats is, they give off very clear signals – so wouldn’t it be great if women could purr too?  Then, whenever they liked something, you’d be spared a 1500 word monologue on the topic because they’d just start purring and you’d know!

And how many millions of men could have avoided the humiliation of being rejected when they stopped and  delivered their best pick-up line? If it was going to be a “no,” before a dude even got there, a cat-woman would hiss and bare her teeth and all of her hair would stand up on end, allowing the guy to just keep on moving right past, as if he was just heading to the bathroom, his dignity intact.

I’d also be fine with the lap-sitting. And clothing-wise, what guy doesn’t like a good cat-suit? Now that I think about it, though, that’s not really an inheritance from cats, is it?  Actually, if you saw your neighbor’s cat constantly sporting a cat-suit, I really think you might have to call PETA.

Anyway, a cat-woman would also really help me out right now in the “short of cash” department. It would save you a lot of money to date someone who, instead of wanting dinner and a movie, would be just as happy enjoying dinner and a piece of string.

Of course, it’s true that she might cough up the occasional furball in a restaurant. But I think most people know the Heimlich maneuver by now, so my guess is, we would both be just fine.