Dogs of C Kennel raises several existential questions, though it doesn’t actually touch on the question of when “existential” became a thing.
All of a sudden, I’m seeing all sorts of people cite such-and-such as an existential threat to their existence, which reminds me of when the Watergate hearings got everyone saying “at that point in time” instead of “then.”
It’s fun to use Big Boy words.
In any case, the question of a flea’s afterlife is more related to Epicureanism, and thus to one of the more rewarding moments of my parenting life.
I used to put my boys through a little bit of Lucretius before buying them a balloon or, in particular, a balsa glider.
“What is the nature of the balsa glider?” I’d ask, and they’d dutifully reply that it was in its nature to break and I don’t know how much wailing it spared us, but they’d get the glider, they’d play with it, it would break as expected and life would go on.
Fast forward 20 or 25 years and a very young granddaughter got stung by a wasp and her great-grandmother said, “Did that bad wasp sting you?” to which tiny granddaughter tearfully observed that the wasp was not “bad” because stinging is what wasps do.
I felt some pride in that a little philosophy had trickled down, which brings us to the issue of what constitutes “badness” in a flea, and it can’t be biting a dog because it is in their nature to bite dogs.
Hence, the dogs in this cartoon must have been bad, because, while the fleas are in Heaven, the dogs are apparently in Hell. Which in turn brings to mind the old story about the guy who dies and finds himself in the company of a gorgeous blonde, only to discover that she is in Hell.
But I’m thinking this doesn’t preclude the idea that he could still be in Heaven.
And dig this: The idea that Heaven and Hell are the same place and it just depends on why you are there suggests that Heaven and Hell aren’t a whole lot different than Life.
Whoa. Pretty damn deep for a Friday Funnies, eh?
We’d better shallow things back a little.
Retail coincides with the fact that I went shopping while I was hungry and picked up a package of Fig Newtons, which I like but which I hadn’t had in several years.
It left me wondering, if I had been buying them all along, if I would have noticed the Incredible Shrinking Newton or if it happened all at once.
While it’s been awhile, it’s not like going back to your old elementary school and seeing how tiny the desks are. It really is smaller, and not just a little. It’s about half what I remember.
Wikipedia says the Newton — you’re not supposed to specify “Fig” anymore — was invented in 1891, which makes me think that, if this shrinkage is a constant, one cookie must have fed two or three people when they were first invented.
It also says that they make a “mini” version, which makes me think you’d better not spill the package or you’d never be able to find them.
As for “fun size” candy bars, don’t make me laugh. I remember when “fun size” candy bars meant this:
Great Expectations
Pickles manages to mine the humor in advanced age without getting into stupid stereotypes.
It only gets into intelligent stereotypes, which is fine with me.
I had expectations that my wife and I would grow old together and that she’d continue to drag me off to various things, and, for as long as things lasted, I have to say that the things she dragged me off to were almost always worth it.
Better yet, when they weren’t, she knew it and admitted it and we’d laugh over it on the way home.
Now it’s just me and the dog and, while he enjoys going to the park in the morning and perhaps again in the afternoon, he’s pretty laid back about things.
When the boys were little, we had high-energy herding dogs and the boys and the dogs would run around the backyard all day.
The boys are grown and gone and I have a hound and we sit on the couch and watch football.
Juxtaposition of the Week
(Off the Mark, Monday)
(Rubes, Tuesday)
They just missed being a Juxtaposition of the Day by 24 hours, but it still gave me that “wait, didn’t I just see this?” vibe.
Ketchup on hot dogs is like the thing about whether the toilet paper roll goes over or under, except that, in this case, it’s not just an issue of how OCD a person is, because there is a qualitative difference between ketchup and mustard.
The purpose of ketchup is to make things taste like ketchup and, given the blandness of American hot dogs, you might as well leave it out entirely and just have a ketchup sandwich. By contrast, mustard enhances what little flavor a hot dog has, and, on a sausage with more character, mustard brings out that character even more.
The ketchup-on-hot-dogs thing is mostly for little kids, at which point you might argue that it’s a good way to get a little protein into them without a squabble, though the argument holds less weight if you have any idea of what is in a hot dog.
However, I will concede that there is nothing inherently wrong with putting ketchup on a hot dog. For that matter, there is nothing wrong with putting Hershey’s syrup on a hot dog.
I have a similar rule that applies in my walks with the dog, which is that anything which goes down has to stay down. I don’t criticize the things he decides are edible as long as he’s right.
But I object to having to deal with it when he’s wrong.
Which brings to mind this 2002 Arlo & Janis and yet another reason to stay married.
Still, as Harry Bliss observed …
Yes, we really did grow up on this
(Dion was the ginchiest!)
And the next generation grew up with “Girl, Youre a Woman Now”. Listening to that song — and others from the same “artist” — are enough to give one the creeps.
Never had a problem with that song, since it came out when I was 17 and right on that border where a girl a year or two younger could get you in a whole lot of trouble. I also was just coming out of a bluecollar community where people were sensitive about the whole “not good enough for you” thing. But it went into the “pop tune” bin with “Down in the Boondocks” and I never thought about it much.
Oddly enough, I went to a mixer in college at about that time and, while casting around for someone to dance with, realized that the poor schlub on stage was Neil-f*cking-Diamond and wondered how on earth he’d sunk so low, since he’d had a few hits in the years before.
Shortly thereafter, of course, he’d picked himself back up and was on top, thanks in part to that song. And a complete remake of his image.
I’ve been on Fun Size bars for a while now, and Fun Size bags for M&Ms. It’s portion control, for one thing. It also prices out lower, so it’s the tightwad thing to do.
Plus, of course, they’re just so damn much fun. I can barely chew for all the laughter some times. (“Woo hoo, it’s small!”)
(Missing information: These bars come in packages of six—sometimes five—for a buck at dollar stores.)
Mike, I was thinking of Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, whose discography is riddled with songs about sex with underage girls. “This Girl is a Woman Now”, “Young Girl”, “Woman”, it just goes on and on.
Check this for a devastatingly funny and accurate deconstruction of “Young Girl”: https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2013/10/secretly-horrifying-song-lyrics-young-girl-by-gary.html
meh. He’s trying too hard to be a cynical Millennial dumping on a time he never experienced.
Puckett recorded that song when he was 24 and I promise you, there were 16 and 17 year old groupies hanging around the stage door who, yes, were capable of dressing and making up to look over 18. Younger ones, too.
He needs to save his disdain for the Stones and Ted Nugent, who celebrated having sex with underage girls rather than recording songs telling them to quit flirting with rock stars and go home.
(Y’know. If you needed more reasons to dislike Ted Nugent.)