I occasionally catch myself in the midst of a random thought. If it’s fleeting, I might simply forget it, or act spontaneously because of it. Sometimes the thought transforms into a greater idea – thinking through options, considering and planning actions.
While they might seem random, one or more of our senses triggers the thought, consciously or subconsciously. The aroma of a bakery, for instance, might trigger a thought about the rolls your grandmother made when you were young. A song you hear playing in the car next to you at a stoplight. Flavor in a restaurant meal reminds you to stop at the grocery store for a missing ingredient for your next meal. A t-shirt whose message resonates with you.I enjoy reading t-shirts – they express something from and about a person. At this point, I suppose that many of my random thoughts were stimulated by some type of t-shirt, but others come from bumper stickers, books/magazines/online news feeds, and so on. Whatever and wherever, I’ll be brief (at least brief in my way of thinking).
How could I proceed if I don’t begin with an alternative to t-shirts! As I typed “at least in my way of thinking” to end the preceding paragraph, I had a random thought of common and idiomatic phrases. A very short internet search led me to Bored Panda. The first on their list is “Cat Got Your Tongue.” When I married Nancy she came with a cat, and as ornery as it was, it never got my tongue! Here’s what Bored Panda had to say:
Meaning: Said to someone who remains silent when they are expected to speak.
Origin: There are two stories on how this saying came into being. The first one says that it could have come from a whip called “Cat-o’-nine-tails” that was used by the English Navy for flogging and often left the victims speechless. The second one may be from ancient Egypt, where liars’ tongues were cut out as punishment and fed to the cats.
Yikes! I’m glad Nancy’s cat never got my tongue!
For some reason, I was reminded of this t-shirt. That’s the opposite of how it normally occurs: I usually see a t-shirt that causes me to think of something; in this case, something has caused me to think of a t-shirt!
I suspect each of us has days like that – I know I do! You begin the day with a clear plan, yet you’re slapped in the face by a series of unanticipated events. At the end of the day, you’re exhausted from dealing with all the distractions, and when you assess your day, you realize that you were so absorbed in addressing the unanticipated that you accomplished nearly nothing on your plan!
The developer is building out the last lot in our subdivision. It’s close enough that we can walk over to the lot and watch. A guy with a bulldozer dug the basement in about three days. It would have been quicker, but he didn’t have enough space for all the dirt; he had to load it in dump trucks that came 10-15 minutes apart for the better part of two days. I marveled as I compared what he was accomplishing by himself with machinery to some of the phenomenal construction projects completed before things like bulldozers existed. How did they accomplish those feats with human power and simple physics like leverage?
Talk about a random thought! Were Raghav and his buddies sitting around playing drinking games one evening? What are you smoking that this question even comes up? “I’ll bet you a dollar that vending machines kill more people than sharks do.” “I’ll take that bet!”
Honestly, I didn’t try to follow all the statistics he used, but the bottom line is that, indeed, vending machines do kill more people. Some things to consider: I, along with far greater than half the other people in the world, live nowhere near an ocean beach (there haven’t been any shark sightings in the small midwestern lake I frequent!), yet vending machines are pervasive, exposing most of the world’s population to their deadly ways. And Mr. Mittal is only dealing with deaths. Try to remember the last time someone died because of a shark bite; they usually are just maimed, so the mortality rate is low.
Shark attacks are gruesome events, and since the success of Jaws, they receive a lot of media attention. Beaches are closed; helicopters fly around looking for more sharks; panic ensues. Vending machine deaths – not so scary – no building evacuations, no helicopters, just some poor vending machine operator wondering about his liability insurance. Most occur because someone was trying to rock or tip the machine while attempting to obtain a snack or drink, often illegally. My advice: use extreme caution if you’re at a beach with nearby vending machines!
I have an addiction. I got hooked on Solitaire early during the Covid shut-downs in 2020. After wearing out a deck of playing cards, I switched to playing online. I had stepped away from my obsession last spring. Vaccines were available, the weather was warming, I could get outside more. I resumed this fall. It’s like smoking. You haven’t had a cigarette in so long you tell yourself you can have one, perhaps just to prove you don’t want or need them anymore. Next thing you know, you’re a pack-a-day smoker! Honestly, I don’t know why I do it. I have better things to do, but they require thought or action. Go figure. (Be sure to watch the card trick in the accompanying video – amazing!)
We rescued a Miniature Australian Shepherd last spring. She’s certainly a sweet and entertaining dog. She wasn’t a pet, however, for her previous owners; she was intended to be “breeding stock.” She lived in chaos. The family had four children under the age of seven. They had a Golden Retriever they kept breeding. The mother in the household didn’t like dogs. They kept her in a shock collar 24/7, and would shock her indiscriminately when she did anything they didn’t like. The poor dog has PTSD.
She’s a pet to us; a member of the family. We took her with us to Breckenridge in June. Light, sudden rain showers are common in the mountains. We were caught in a downpour one afternoon. While I seized an opportunity to trot back to the truck of our rain gear, Nancy stayed with her nephew and niece, and together with our new dog, attempted to find shelter.
They found a restaurant, but Nancy knew a dog would not be allowed. The server, recognizing the conundrum and knowing the restaurant was virtually empty during the mid-afternoon slump, assured Nancy that she could bring the dog in with her, as they allowed service animals. Nancy pointed out that Lexi was not a service animal, to which the server more emphatically explained that service animals were permitted.
After that experience, Nancy said I should have Lexi designated to be my service animal. The little dog has PTSD. I explained that I would need to be designated as Lexi’s service animal!
Mike's Fountain Pen 