Witty & Wise Ties, Trivia & Lies
Got flannel Tie o’ the Day? Check! Got long-sleeved, flannel shirt? Check! Got flannel cap? Check! Got flannel Face Mask o’ the Day? Check!
I am officially ready for the chilly season ahead. Unlike squirrels, I did not gather and store any nuts during the harvest. But like any jolly bear with a 65-inch tv, I will be recliner-hibernating through the cold days and nights to come, as often as possible.
[It’s time for this re-post from October 2017. Enjoy.]It has happened to us all. You and Tie o’ the Day are cruisin’ in the fast lane on the freeway. Suddenly, you’re stuck behind a car traveling at a speed barely resembling motion. As you pass on the right, you see the driver: Old Man In A Hat! Yep, that guy. He’s also known as Old Man Wearing His Waistband Around His Chest. Tie gets into roady rages at slow-driving geezers. Tie has a potty mouth 🚽 👄, and a bad finger too. 🏎 Bad Tie!
It’s refreshing to once again see the LDS missionaries knocking on doors throughout the neighborhood—with their stylish Ties o’ the Day and Face Masks o’ the Day. These two need to work on their social-distancing though. LDS Conference, over the weekend, must have been inspiring to them. (It certainly was interesting to me.) The missionaries I’ve seen this week seem to have an extra bit of spring in their bike-peddling. The missionaries are always welcome here, and I have yet to see a missionary turn down any type of food with sugar in it.
Split wood Bow Tie o’ the Day and I thought we had read every Dr. Seuss book ever published—many, many, way too many times. Apparently, we missed his book that had this face mask gem of pandemic wisdom in it. Nevertheless, for nearly seven months now, we’ve done our best to live by its prescient COVID-19 advice. 😷 #drseussismyfamilydoctor
As my morning post implied, I ate popcorn for breakfast. I ate ice cream for lunch, like I said I would. Then I made the awful mistake of watching the news. I really do know better than to do that when I want to remain jolly, but I believe—as Thomas Jefferson did—that the worst threat to our representative democracy is uninformed citizens, so I regularly force myself to pay attention to current affairs. But watching the news around election time tends to throw me into a funk of the funkiest of depths.
Fortunately, I am who I am. I have my Tie Room, the closet of which is full of props for silly purposes. It’s also where I keep my Suzanne-made capes and my face masks and my hats, and a bunch of other miscellany. I found my QWERTY keyboard Tie o’ the Day for when I do some writing later today. I made my outfit selections for the day, and dressed up for the purpose of cheering myself while I did household chores. As I always do when I’m cleaning, I sing the Glen Campbell song, “(Such Are The) Dreams Of The Everyday Housewife” at the top of my lungs. You really should stop by and hear me sing it sometime, but bring your earplugs just to be on the safe side.
Sure enough, while choring around in my swell duds, I started to forget about the contentious gobbledy-gook I saw on the news. In fact, I was feeling quite magician-like in my cape as I folded clothes. The doorbell rang in the middle of my choring, and I grabbed a face mask before opening the front door. It was the Amazon prime dudette making her nearly-daily-since-the-pandemic-started delivery to our abode. I stood there caped and cowboy-booted, in all my oblivious glory. The delivery woman commented positively on key aspects of my regalia. In fact, after I explained that Suzanne make all my capes, she asked if I thought Suzanne would make her one. She said I am the reason she looks forward to delivering packages in our zip code. Apparently, she saw me riding my bike around the neighborhood a few weeks ago, pulling the magnificent Skitter in her dog trailer behind me. I am very well aware that after Ms. prime driver drops off packages at our house, she likely gets back in her van with tales to tell her family when she gets home. In small ways like this, I aim to make the planet a bit better place than the news says it is.
A Monday always feel better if you stay in your pajamas as long as possible, perhaps all day. And popcorn Tie o’ the Day suggests you throw some popcorn in the microwave immediately after you drag your sorry butt out of bed. The sounds of popcorn-popping-in-the-microwave help keep you awake, and popcorn is as fine a breakfast as any—as long as you don’t have to set an example for any children who might be in your house. Even better, ice cream for lunch is just around the corner. I love being a grown-up.
My shattered-look wood Bow Tie o’ the Day and I had a hardware store list. Suzanne had her own hardware store list. We always have all kinds of lists going, and whenever our lists get long enough that it’s worth the trip to go out into the pandemicky stores, we go. And so it was, for our hardware store lists. We headed down the road to our local Home Depot.
I needed screws for my new license plates. After 13 years of holding the old plates on my car, two of the screws’ heads popped clean off the screwy part when I tried to loosen them. Two others were rusted and stripped by the time I was able to wrest them out of their holes to replace my plates. Suzanne even had to come to my rescue with one of her drills. Now that’s a frightening sight. If Suzanne is wielding a drill, stand back and don’t talk. Just let her work. She successfully got the decapitated screws out of their holes, sure enough. After the old plates were off, I went directly to the garage closet, where we had every size o’ screw ever manufactured—except the one size I needed to properly secure my plates. That’s how screws got on my hardware store list.
While at the Home Depot, I noticed Suzanne had “bulbs” on her list. You have to understand that I am the Light Bulb Stocker. I make sure we always have plenty. They are on a shelf in the garage closet, right by the mountain of toilet paper and paper towels I keep well-stocked. As I asked Suzanne what bulbs she needed me to get, I myself yelled “OOPSIE!” inside my own brain. I had skipped breakfast and lunch, and my thinking was two beats behind. Suzanne needed bulbs for planting in the garden. Yeah, that kind of bulb. Duh!
Another item I needed was a pack of razor blades. Plain old razor blades. I’m scraping off my out-dated bumper stickers, so I can plaster my vehicles with new ones. For whatever reason, single-edge razor blades have never been a product I keep stockpiled. But as I walked my masked self down the aisles of Home Depot in search of the razor blade section, I realized I could be buying razor blades for the last time in my life. It occurred to me that I am “at that age” when I can start saying that about certain products, and never have to put them on a list again. It was a liberating and exciting moment for me when I saw the 100-pack of razor blades staring right at me. I cannot picture a scenario in which—even if I live forty more years—I could possibly need more than 100 single-edge razor blades. For $7, my utility razor blade needs are met for life and beyond. I crossed that item off my list for good, with a bigly fat grin on my face. What a weight off my overburdened shoulders that is. 🤡
Unfinished, unadorned, speechless, wood Bow Tie o’ the Day is here to say absolutely nothing about that two-ring circus that was misnamed a “presidential debate” Tuesday night. Bow Tie isn’t looking to begin a political discussion. It is especially not taking sides. It is simply mute in the face of the debate’s incivility, bluster, and mendacity. It is glad it’s a bow tie and doesn’t have the right or responsibility to vote in the 2020 elections.
As far as my own “speechless” response to the debatable debate, I offer a poem by the incomparable poet, Mary Oliver, which she first published over a decade ago. In every election season since I first read it, I find myself mumbling its lines in my head as I see the various spectacles and hijinks perpetrated by many—but certainly not all—of the candidates for various offices of public service, who say they will represent us, but almost never actually do.
End of literate, peaceful rant.
As I’ve mentioned on TIE O’ THE DAY before, Suzanne has been nagging me for a couple of years to get a new vehicle. It’s nice of her to want me to have a new mode of transportation, and I sometimes muse on the idea of driving around in a ding-less, scratch-less, rust-less auto. But my jalopy truck—my Isuzu Hombre— is only 22 years old, and it still has a few sections of metal that haven’t yet rusted. Who cares if the keys no longer open its door locks? Who cares if the driver’s window refuses to roll down/up sometimes? Who cares if I have to sit on a pillow while driving it because the metal seat frame pokes up through a bigly hole in the seat upholstery? My car—Vonnegut Grace Pontiac Vibe —is only 13 years old, and still gets the same 34 MPG she’s gotten since day 1. Who cares if it rides like it’s always driving on a gravel road—despite regular balancing and alignment? I just don’t yet see the need to abandon my old horseless carriages yet.
I decided to compromise with Suzanne on this issue: I got new license plates for Vonnegut Grace Vibe, and they showed up this week. I tossed around a few different ideas before ordering my vanity plates. According to the DMV website, somebody in UT already has BOW TIE, so that was out. I settled on BOWETRY, a combination word in honor of my two passions: bow ties + poetry. It is pronounced to rhyme with the word “poetry.” And the license plate really does make my car look like a brand spankin’ new classic car. A little.