Home-Spam Wisdom

Most of the time I delete them without a second thought. When you see an e-mail from “Georgia Gorganzola Grambling,” it’s pretty clear you’re dealing with spam. But every once in a while, with my finger hovering over “delete,” I’ll let the words of the subject line sink in.

For example, I recently received an e-mail entitled, “Cremation Loudness.”

Whoa. Was this a call to face, if only for a moment, the screaming reality of our own mortality we are often quick to suppress? Was it suggesting that cremation, with its vivid and terrifying imagery of burning, is psychologically “louder”--that is, more traumatic for survivors, than traditional burial?

No; no, it wasn’t. It was an invitation to buy software at deeply discounted prices. Still, it made one think.

Or another: “Your mother has always dreamed of having sweet grandkids.” What wisdom could this subject line impart to me? Do I need to step back and consider more carefully my children's character development? Should I focus more on encouraging them to be kind and thoughtful than on expecting good grades--building that which will remain long after they’ve finished grappling with geometry proofs and book reports?

Possibly. But the sender would be just as happy if I would take advantage of their special offer for two-color premium business cards--sale ends Friday.

This one had a thought-provoking title: “Medication that you need.” Perhaps this was a commentary on the overmedicating of America...do we really need all those pills we’re taking? Are there alternatives available in some cases, whether it be lifestyle and diet changes, homeopathic remedies, or simply good, old-fashioned self control? Which medicines do we truly need?

Well, whatever they are, the sender is more than willing to sell them. Along with a few of the ones we don’t need so much.

So many nuggets of wisdom in my inbox….“Don’t miss that store,” (suggesting, perhaps, that the disappearance of the mom ‘n pop shop due to the “Wal-Mart effect” is an economic reality that will have to be faced and dealt with); “Enjoy the newest but without any results,” (a helpful reminder that the latest technology won’t always make us more productive); “roly-poly acid rain,” (beats me, but intriguing all the same. Plus it would make a pretty good title for a song).

There was a final subject line that caught my attention: “Do you have power?” Well, do I? Do I have confidence enough in myself that I can achieve my goals despite setbacks and nay-sayers? Do I have the moral strength to--uh, hold on a minute. That one was from my mother asking whether we still had electricity after a recent storm. So, yes, I do have power in that sense.

At any rate, the next time you scan your inbox and note the bizarre and often grammatically unsound subject lines, take a moment to consider what truths they may hold for you. Just don’t click on any links--unless the e-mail is from your mom who, no doubt, has always dreamed of having sweet grandkids.

Holiday Basket Case

Grab a beef stick to snack on and head over to McSweeney's Internet Tendency to read my humor piece, "Holiday Basket Case."

Dear Angie: Holiday Helps

Dear Angie,

Is it tacky to dole out gift certificates instead of putting time and thought into selecting a present? I mean, why not just hand someone twenty-five bucks and say, “Go buy yourself a gift. Here’s a little something for your trouble--and keep the change.”

Sincerely,
Card-Carrying Gift Giver

Dear Card,

My, my--I think I know what the “right” answer is here! Sounds to me like somebody thinks somebody else didn’t spend enough time fighting the crowds at the mall.

But in answer to your not-so-subtle question about the appropriateness of gift cards: it depends. For example, a gift card for ten dollars worth of gasoline, while no doubt useful, would probably not hold the same appeal as specially chosen trunk full of rare coins. But maybe that’s just me.

On the other hand, a $100 department store gift card would beat a Peppermint Medley votive candle with faux-crystal holder every time.

But what about unleaded gasoline versus leaded crystal? That’s not an easy one to answer. Is the crystal in the shape of a stylized swan? Or perhaps two swans with necks intertwined? I can think of very few circumstances in which I would choose intertwined swans over a full tank of gas.

If you’re really determined to get the full Christmas gift experience, simply take your gift card to the mall, buy an unattractive sweater that doesn’t fit, then go back the next day to wait in an hour-long line at customer service to return it.

And stop complaining--at least you didn’t get the swans.

~~~~~~~~~
Dear Angie,

I’ve been visiting Starbucks a lot lately for caffeine hits while out doing my Christmas shopping. Yesterday I noticed that I have a growing collection of those hot drink paper sleeves in my car. What should I do with them? Like, just throw them away?

Thanks,
Grande Guy

Dear Grande,

Don’t trash them just yet! Here are some nifty ways to implement your own holiday recycling plan by re-using those paper sleeves:

• Use them to decorate your caffeine-themed Christmas tree
• Sani-Grip: Use them in public restrooms to grip door handles or push the button on the wall drier. Slip one on each foot, and there’s no need for your shoes to touch the floor! Be prepared for some stares, but as long as nobody breathes on or touches you, you should be okay.
• Use them as a banana platform if you can’t afford or simply refuse to purchase a banana tree (due to weight issues, limit two bananas per sleeve)
• Help for the shy: For a great conversation starter, hang one on each ear. When people ask what you’re doing, you can segue into a discussion of current events (for example, you could reply, “Well, whatever their purpose, they certainly aren’t going to help anyone determine a wise strategy for the war in Iraq.”)
• A little embarrassed about the fact that you’re purchasing store brand tomato sauce instead of Hunt’s? No one need know your little secret! Simply place a paper sleeve around the can and enjoy privacy from the prying eyes of other shoppers
• If you are a light bulb manufacturer with a fairly slow-moving inventory, use them to package your product
• Salsa holder if you don’t mind some clean-up
• Travel muzzle for a young crocodile
• Want to show that special someone how much you care? Forget candy, jewelry, or clothing…declare your love with a creative and unique hand-made Christmas gift! Simply write your clever “sweet nothings” on the outside of a paper sleeve. For example, “Bean” with you is simply “Grande!” or Love you a “Latte.”

So you see, Grande Guy, there are so many different ways to re-use those paper sleeves. Oh, here’s one more: using nail clippers and about 2,500 paper sleeves, cut off tiny pieces to create mulch to go around your front bushes. You should have plenty of free time for that project--especially after that special someone finds out she’s getting a Starbucks paper sleeve for Christmas this year.

Pie Crust Prohibition

Hey, New Yorkers: bad news for those of you fond of stopping for a donut on the way to work…artificial trans fat is being booted out of New York City restaurants, just like the smokers. I’m sure the feelings of many can be summed up in these well-known lyrics:

Start spreadin’ the news---
I’m leaving today.
Trans fat’s no longer welcome in New York, New York.

I want to wake up in a city that sells good eats;
To find a cream puff (cheese-filled),
Marbleized meat.

These “handles of love”
May soon melt away…
I’ll make a brand new start of it--me and my fork.

If I can’t eat it there
I’ll eat my cake elsewhere.
Goodbye to you, New York, New York!

Guess that’s what happens when you nickname your city “The Big Apple” instead of “The Big Éclair.”

Remember those “speakeasies” that popped up during the 1920’s prohibition of alcohol? Bet we’ll start seeing that sort of thing in NYC for trans fat social eaters. I can see it now…

The sign on the restaurant reads “Jacque’s French Cuisine Health Haven,” but regular patrons know that if you order the “Les Batons de Pomme de Terre,” you get a mound of french fries loaded with partially-hydrogenated goodness. Ask for “Les Cercles de Bonté,” and you get a plate of trans fat-intensive chocolate chip cookies. And “Le Seau d'abondance” is simply a tub of shortening with a spoon. One day, a wary waiter approaches a table with an unfamiliar face…

Waiter: Bonjour! May I take your order?

Patron: I hear you serve trans-fatty foods.

Waiter: No, Monsieur! Jacque’s serves only heart-healthy foods cooked in light--

Patron: Look, I need a fix, and fast. Gimme a carrot cake with a generous topping of cream cheese icing---easy on the carrots.

Waiter: You are mistaken, Monsieur! We absolutely do not--

Patron: Here’s twenty bucks. Keep the change.

Waiter: You want fries with that?

And don’t think it will stop with trans fat. It won’t be long before we’ll start seeing news stories like this…

City of New York to Ban “Death Drops”

NEW YORK - First it was trans fat; now the New York City Board of Health has set its sights another food danger: peppermints.

New York City restaurants have until July 2007 to phase out these candies which, according to Board officials, pose a significant choking hazard.

“We’re not talking about those small chalk-like chewy mints,” says Health Commissioner Gary Nayschen. “I mean the red and white hard candy disks. After-Dinner Airway Plugs, we at the Board of Health call them.”

Restaurants are encouraged to consider alternatives to the traditional bowl of peppermints by the cash register. Suggestions include offering raw okra pods, “fun-size” boxes of raisins, or sprigs of cilantro tied with tiny festive ribbons.

“They could even provide finger bowls of baking soda at each table, if patrons are concerned about post-dinner breath odor,” says Nayschen. “Just lick your finger, stick it in the baking soda and ‘brush’ your teeth. Then swish and spit into your table spitoon. Sure, you may feel a little awkward at first, but not as awkward as having a waiter grab you to perform the Heimlich maneuver, I’d be willing to bet.”

Nayschen holds up a T-shirt. “It’s part of our campaign to spread the word about the new ordinance,” he explains. “All of us at the Board of Health will be wearing them tomorrow. It says, ‘No More Peppermints--We’re Not Choking.’”
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So start spreadin’ the margarine, New York--at least while you can. And you might consider stocking up on peppermints. Just in case.

Happy Birthday, Thurber!

And now, my annual tribute to one of my favorite humor writers…

Today is the birthday of American humorist James Thurber, born on December 8, 1894. Thurber’s humorous short stories and essays, as well as his bizarre crudely drawn cartoons, appeared in the New Yorker magazine beginning in the late 20’s and through the next few decades.

He once wrote a piece lampooning a line from an opera entitled “Four Saints in Three Acts” by Gertrude Stein. Here is an excerpt from Stein’s work:

“Pigeons on the grass alas.
Pigeons on the grass alas.
Short longer grass short longer longer shorter yellow grass. Pigeons
large pigeons on the shorter longer yellow grass alas pigeons on the grass.
If they were not pigeons what were they. If they were not pigeons on the grass alas what were they. He had heard of a third and he asked about it it was a magpie in the sky. If a magpie in the sky on the sky can not cry if the pigeon on the grass alas can alas and to pass the pigeon on the grass alas and the magpie in the sky on the sky and to try and to try alas on the grass alas the pigeon on the grass the pigeon on the grass and alas.They might be very well they might be very well very well they might be. Let Lucy Lily Lily Lucy Lucy let Lucy Lucy Lily Lily Lily Lily Lily let Lily Lucy Lucy let Lily. Let Lucy Lily.”

An interviewer once asked Stein about this section. She answered:

“It was the end of summer the grass was yellow. I was sorry that it was the end of summer and I saw the big fat pigeons in the yellow grass and I said to myself, pigeons on the yellow grass, alas, and I kept on writing pigeons on the grass, alas, short longer grass, short longer longer shorter yellow grass pigeons large pigeons on the shorter longer yellow grass, alas pigeons on the grass, and I kept on writing until I had emptied myself of the emotion.”

Ms. Stein could have considerably shortened this “explanation” with “I had a mental breakdown last August.”

And now an excerpt from Thurber’s essay There’s an Owl in My Room, with his own meditations on “pigeons on the grass alas”:

“It is neither just nor accurate to connect the word alas with pigeons. Pigeons are definitely not alas. They have nothing to do with alas and they have nothing to do with hooray (not even when you tie red, white, and blue ribbons on them and let them loose at band concerts); they have nothing to do with mercy me or isn’t that fine, either. White rabbits, yes, and Scotch terriers, and bluejays, and even hippopotamuses, but not pigeons. I happen to have studied pigeons very closely and carefully, and I have studied the effect, or rather the lack of effect, of pigeons very carefully. A number of pigeons alight from time to time on the sill of my hotel window when I am eating breakfast and staring out the window. They never alas me, they never make me feel alas; they never make me feel anything.

“Nobody and no animal and no other bird can play a scene so far down as a pigeon can. For instance, when a pigeon on my window ledge becomes aware of me sitting there in a chair in my blue polka-dot dressing-gown, worrying, he pokes his head far out from his shoulders and peers sideways at me, for all the world (Miss Stein might surmise) like a timid man peering around the corner of a building trying to ascertain whether he is being followed by some hoofed fiend or only by the echo of his own footsteps. And yet it is not for all the world like a timid man peering around the corner of a building trying to ascertain whether he is being followed by a hoofed fiend or only by the echo of his own footsteps, at all. And that is because there is no emotion in the pigeon and no power to arouse emotion. A pigeon looking is just a pigeon looking. When it comes to emotion, a fish, compared to a pigeon, is practically beside himself.”

Pick up a collection of Thurber stories sometime…you won’t be disappointed.

Santa Letter Like You've Never Seen

Remember the fun you had as a child during the holiday season with a piece of notebook paper, a crayon, and dreams of all the things you hoped to get for Christmas? And how your mother leaned over to glance at your letter to Santa and said, with a smile, “Corvette has two ‘t’s,’ sweetie. But if you think Santa is going to bring you one of those, you must be even more dim-witted than your poor math grades indicate.” Ah, the holiday memories!

But I’ll bet you don’t remember ever getting a reply from Santa. Now, thanks to eBay, your child can receive that letter you never got--straight from the North Pole! Well, Canada, anyway.

One eBay seller from Ontario is offering a personalized letter from Santa with “North Pole Alaska postmark, all enclosed in a larger envelope...giving you the opportunity to read the contents first.” A nice security touch, in case one of those mischievous Canadian elves encourages the child to write back and include his parents’ bank account info.

But the letter is much more than a wonderful way to make the magic of the season come alive for a special child…it’s also a wonderful way to browbeat that child in the name of Jolly Old St. Nick. The item description asks buyers to include, among other things, “your parental wish for a child--wish my child would clean her/his room, do homework first, etc.” You better watch out, Billy, and I’m telling you why: Santa Claus isn’t feeling too jolly about those math grades.

You can even choose what type of letter you’d like Santa to write, including--and I quote:

• Traditional Loving Letter From Santa
• Wonderful Letter from Hi-Tech Santa
• Humorous Letter from Santa
• Letter from Santa with Environmental Concerns

I think we can pretty much imagine the “traditional loving” letter from Santa, but what about the others?

Maybe something like this…

From Hi-Tech Santa:

billy--hey, how r u? b n good? yr math grades r not 2 gr8 i hear. LOL! Try 2 do better, k? c u on X-mas. --the big S

Humorous Letter from Santa:

Dear Billy,

So these three priests walk into a bar---hold on a minute, son, wrong joke list! Okay, here we go…

Knock, knock. Who’s there? Snow. Snow who? Snow way you’re getting that Xbox with those crummy math grades.

Ho, ho, ho! Just a humorous reminder, my young friend, that you should work hard in school--very hard. At least until the Christmas break. (Kidding! Just a little joke for you parents who are pre-reading this letter.)

One more…
Q: Does Santa ever use eBay?
A: No, the elves always do his bidding.

Shaking Like a Bowlful of Jelly,
St. Nick

p.s. Parents: be sure and check out our other auction items!

Letter from Santa with Environmental Concerns:

Dear Billy,

I write to you (on 100% post consumer recycled paper) from the North Pole, where evidence of our planet’s shrinking ozone layer can be seen with frightening clarity. The elves, who this very moment are working on a solar panel to power my entire workshop, are waiting for me to tell them what toys they should make for you. I think they’ll have to wait a bit longer, Billy--at least until we see how you do on that upcoming long division test.

I don’t think I need remind you that your math grades aren’t too impressive right now. If you want something besides grass biofuel pellets in your stocking (I don’t use coal anymore), I suggest you make some quick and marked improvements in that area. Here’s a little math question to give you some extra practice:

Q: If every commuter car in the U.S. carried one extra person, we’d save eight billion gallons of gas per year. How much gas would we save if each car carried three more people?
A: Not nearly enough to stop the horrific and relentless spiral of destruction we are bringing upon our fragile planet.

Have a Green Christmas,
Santa Claus

p.s. About those milk and cookies…please try to make them organic this year.

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Hurry, parents; bidding ends December 11!

Who's Inside Annapolis? I Am!

The current issue of "Inside Annapolis" magazine includes an article about me. It also features one of my humor columns, "'Til Death Do Us Part," which relates the difficult time I had ending a relationship--with a book club.