All that (is) Jazz!

Crucial fact number one: I like Jazz, and Janet doesn't.

Jazz the new variety of Diet Pepsi, that is.

Crucial fact number two: Jazz is pretty much the same color as regular Diet Pepsi.

I brought home a two-liter bottle of Jazz the other night. By this morning, it was more than half gone, so I poured the remnant into a nearly-empty bottle of Diet Pepsi that Janet had left lurking in the fridge. I meant to take my new bottle of Jazz to work, but I forgot it.

Imagine Janet's surprise when she got a mouthful of Jazz.

Keith, Ya Goof!

Tag, you're it. Today's post, I mean.

Nyah, nyah, nyah—I bet you never got the chance to photograph a retail ink tag in your home.

(Unless you're a shoplifter.)

I bought this shirt today and later discovered that the tag was still on it. I'll bring it back tomorrow.

Hey, I got a post out of it, so naturally I won't say to the clerk: Ya Goof!

Unlucky 107

A friend, Matt, told this story at work the other day. He'd just come back from a business trip that included a night in a hotel. He woke up from a dead sleep to find that someone was at the door trying to get into his room. The clock read 1:07 a.m.

Groggy, Matt dialed the front desk. An equally groggy voice answered.

"Hullo?"

"This is Room 180. Someone's trying to get into my room. I think they just have the wrong number, but could you check it out?"

"Me?"

"Isn't this the front desk?"

"This is Room 107."

Matt had called the numbers he'd read off the clock.

Matt, Ya Goof!

1002 ways to goof up (continued)

614. Forget to empty your pockets when putting your clothes in the laundry hamper.
613. Forget to check the pockets when putting clothes in the wash.
612. Leave your turning signal on long past your turn.
611. Leave an important doc
610. Put the end of your seatbelt into the wrong slot.
609. In a furniture store, lean too far back in a floor model chair and knock over some accesssories.
608. Criticize someone before you've walked a mile in their moccasins.
607. Type in the wrong URL.

Take a bite out of charity

Ironically, the apparently-huge hunks of goodness above are called Little Brownies.

They're examples of the newest model of Girl Scout Cookie. And they're sugar-free! I ordered some through a friend, Dan.

Then I got to thinking: beginner Girl Scouts are called Brownies. They sell the cookies, too. So Brownies will be selling Brownies. For other people to eat.

Isn't that just a bit disturbing? Cannibalisitic? Or at least cookie-balistic?

Or am I over-thinking this and do I just need to someone to say: Keith, Ya Goof!

1002 ways to goof up (continued)

619. Shoot milk out your nose.
618. Make someone shoot milk out of their nose.
617. Fail to close your glove compartment completely, so that if keeps flopping open.
616. Driving off with your coffee cup on top of your car.
615. Swim head on into someone else.

1002 ways to goof up (continued)

709. Drive too close to the curb and scrape your hubcap.
708. Forget to swing up the little flag up on the mailbox.
707. Forget to swing down the little flag on the mailbox.
706. Break the key off the Spam can.
705. Use a little metal manual can opener to try to ... wait for it ... open a can. By punching little intersecting triangular holes around the rim, but then reach a point where there's not enough metal for the can opener's point to grab onto, so that you're reduced to turning the can over into a bowl to catch the stuff that comes out while you try again on the other end.
704. Forget to wind your watch.
703. Over-wind your watch.
702. Break your pencil lead.
701. Miss a rung while descending a ladder.
700. While hiking, let a branch swing back and slap the person following you.
699. Stub your toe.
698. Store a ketchup bottle with a flip-top on the bottom right-side up, which means that the bottle is actually upside-down.
697. Try to serve yourself applesauce by turning the jar upside down rather than spoon it out and end up with most of the contents on your plate.
696. Rub a cat the wrong way.
695. Put the toilet paper on the roll so that the paper comes off the back.
694. You mean so that the paper comes off the FRONT.
693. Back!
692. Front!
691. BACK!
690. FRONT!
689. Enter an argument that you can't win.
688. Take off your swimsuit so that the drawstring knots and you can't get it off without skwunching over and trying to loosen the knot with your teeth.
687. Bite your fingernail to the quick.
686. Let your inspection sticker expire.
685. Open a cereal box from the wrong end.
684. Leave your signal light on way past your turn.
683. Misplace the tickets.
682. Misplace the wedding ring.
681. While driving on a car trip, and while your wife with a hangup about napkins is napping, stop at a drive-through for sandwiches, including one for her, and get back on the Interstate just as she is waking up and asking if you remembered to ask for napkins.
680. Fail to tighten your necktie that last little bit.
679. Walk away from the plate when there are only two strikes.
678. Referee: Blow your whistle accidentally.
677. Forget someone's name.
676. Grab the wrong shopping cart.
675. Flip your canoe.
674. Tip over the garbage can.
673. Change your pants while driving.
672. Forget to pick up the milk.
671. Run out of gas.
670. Bend the top of a banana as you start to peel it.
669. Leave the toilet seat up.
668. Leave the refrigerator door open.
667. Light a match and tilt it down instead of up.
666. Cut in line in front of the Anti-Christ.
665. Flip a half-cooked pancake so that only half is on the pan.
664. Or flip it onto another pancake.
663. Fail to match the password that you just entered while registering online.
662. Enter your password in the wrong field so that the person next to you sees what it is.
661. Let a domain name expire when you actually wanted to keep it.
660. Drop a stitch.
659. Carry (in volleyball).
658. Travel (in basketball).
657. Forget your towel when you go to the gym.
656. Go the wrong way through a turnstile.
655. Pass up Krispy Kreme while the red light is on, to squeeze in a quick trip to Wal-Mart, and then come out just in time to see the red light go out.
654. Leave your bank card behind at the ATM.
655. Leave your cash behind at the ATM.
654. Dial at "9" to get out, like you do at work, while you're at home.
653. Load the printer with special paper but forget to tell other people who are using the same printer.
652. Forget to set your odometer when following step-by-step driving directions.
651. Enter the wrong viewing room at a funeral parlor.
650. Miss your turn to go when four cars are stopped at a 4-way intersection.
649. Sell No-Bakes at a charity bake sale. I mean, would you sell a No-Wash at a charity Car Wash?
648. Take non-drowsy cough medicine when you meant to take the so-you-can-sleep kind.
647. Mix up the spent with the fresh when installing new batteries.
646. Make two appointments for the same time.
645. Overbake cookies.
644. Lose your Walkman while it's holding one of the tapes from a 24-tape audio book you borrowed from the Library.
643. Realize as you're drifting off to sleep that you left the radio on downstairs and can still hear it.
642. Serve to the net (tennis).
641. Blindly follow the crowd.
640. Accidentally drive off without paying for gas.
639. Accidentally leave the supermarket self-checkout without paying.
638. Run with scissors.
637. Make a mountain out of a molehill.
636. Throw out the baby with the bath water.
635. Cut off your nose to spite your face.
634. Fail to watch for falling rocks.
632. Offer to go second in tic-tac-toe.
631. Unless it's against a child.
630. Bark up the wrong tree.
629. Cross a steam vent wearing a flouncy dress.
628. Look a gift horse in the mouth.
627. Eat from the Tree of Forbidden Fruit.
626. Fall asleep in someone's bead after breaking, entering and eating their porridge.
625. Taunt others about how fast you are when you're made of gingerbread.
624. Cry wolf.
623. Prolong a cookie-dunking until the cookie just dissolves.
622. Over-swing your arms while power-walking.
621. Fail to tie your laces tight enough.
620. Knock over a $750,000 vase while touring Frank Lloyd Wright's Taleisin.

Tonight's special: Unforgotten Chicken

I got home late this evening. Janet and Emmett were eating this noodle stuff in the living room, engrossed in a TV show. I got some from the pan on the stove; good stuff. When I was putting my dish back, I noticed that the oven was on. I looked inside, and there was some chicken baking.

The oven timer wasn't on, so my instant assessment was that Janet had forgotten about the chicken, and it was most likely overcooked. I turned off the oven and asked Janet about it.

"Oh, Ethan wanted that. I don't think it's done yet."

I took a closer look at the chicken, and indeed it wasn't cooked yet. Okay, fine, so I had misread the situation.

About twenty minutes later, I realized that I hadn't turned the oven back on.

Sorry, Ethan!

And, I might add: Keith, Ya Goof!

The grill of it all

Mmm. Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. That's what I was in the mood to make for dinner last night. Three orders coming up (Janet was working late at the library and would have to fend for herself).

I had only gotten as far as getting out the cheese and bread and heating up the pan and applying some cooking spray when Emmett called to get picked up from the church. Ethan was in the kitchen.

"Keep going," I said, gesturing to the stove.

"But, but ..." This translates as: "I don't know how to make grilled cheese sandwiches." We're talking a fourteen-year-old honor student here, so I just kept moving toward the door.

"Put on the bread and keep going," I said. "It's not rocket science."

When Emmett and I got back about seven minutes later, two pieces of bread were indeed on the grill. Side by side. No cheese on top of either piece of bread. Thankfully, the stove burner had been on low, so the bread wasn't burned. Ethan was still in the kitchen, reading the sports pages.

I made a sound that I don't know how to spell. Sort of a release of breath from inside the throat. This translates as: "Why in tarnation aren't these sandwiches farther along?"

In response, Ethan said: "You just said to put on the bread."

"'And keep going,'" I said, quoting myself from earlier.

Ethan threw up his hands. "Well." This translates as: "I told you I didn't know how to make grilled cheese sandwiches."

Then ensued a conversation about being able to deduce how to make a grilled cheese sandwich simply from having eaten them with regularity. But I don't have the strength to transcribe it.

Ethan, Ya Goof!

By George!

Once in a while, I manage NOT to goof.

Today, I was about to head off to the vending machine with a dollar bill from my wallet, which I keep in a top-secret location all day rather than carry it with me.

Then I remembered a lesson I've learned the hard way. I turned around and took along ALL the singles from my wallet. Vending machines like some dollar bills better than others. So I potentially save myself a wasted trip.

I'm so proud that I don't have to say to myself: Ya Goof!

1002 ways to goof up (continued)

718. Digitally record a TV program so you can save time by skipping commercials, but then fool around enough that it actually takes LONGER to watch the program.
715. Lose your bookmark.
714. Forget to take off the foil seal before squeezing out the mustard.
713. Suffer a paper cut.
712. Walk into a glass door.
711. Double-dip a chip.
710. Double-dribble.

Somebody save me! Fill in this blank!

Is it possible to listen to a song over 90 times and not know the words?

No, wait, is it possible that four people wouldn't know the words to a song that they've listened to over 90 times?

Answer: Yes.

Our family realized this was the case tonight when we sat down to watch a recording of Smallville. As all of you Smallville fans know, it's got a fabulous theme song.

Ah, but do you know the words?

Emmett raised this question when he said, "Does that say 'Let your organs break right through?'"

"'Let your organs break right through'?!?" Ethan responded very ... er ... ethanistically. Which is to say, like a big brother making a little brother feel very much like a little brother.

"Well, what does it say, then?"

None of us knew for sure.

It turns out that the great and powerful Internet doesn't know, either! '

Different sites give different versions of the lines that we can't understand. Mainly these two:

Let your waters break right through ...
Let your warm hands break right through ...

"Warm hands?" Emmett said.

"Yeah," I said, "'cause on the show, Clark is always breaking through walls and stuff."

"But why 'warm'?"

Good question. The kind of question that we just never thought to ask through 90 other episodes.

Emmett: Good job raising the issue. In recognition, this is addressed only to the rest of us: Ya Goof!

Ever find yourself pretending you're not yourself?

Mike, Mike and Danica

I'm a big fan of "Mike & Mike," the morning show on ESPN radio. Ethan and I often catch a bit of it as I'm driving him to school. This morning, Mike Greenberg (not to be confused with co-host Mike Golic) shared this story about a recent vacation (the text below is lifted from the site Mike-Greenberg.com):

I want to tell one quick story about my vacation. When Golic gets back tomorrow, we’ll tell some more stories about our vacations, but here’s something that only I could do. I was on the island of St. John in the Caribbean on my vacation - beautiful, by the way, I could not recommend it more - and my family, we went to the beach away from our hotel. We were staying in one hotel, a resort, that had its own beach, but there’s a beach there called Trunk Bay, which has been voted one of the ten most beautiful beaches in the world. So we packed up the family into the car and we drove over there. We’re at the beach, which is as far away on the island as you can be from your hotel, but it’s a very small island, so it’s not that far. So while I’m there, I’m playing with my kids, and a guy comes over to me, friendly, very friendly, nice as can be, and says, did anyone ever tell you you look just like that guy from ESPN, Mike Greenberg? Now, had he said, “Are you Mike Greenberg?”, I would have just said yes, and shaken his hand, and gone on with my day, and that would have been the end of it. But somehow in that moment, I just said, no, I’ve never heard that before, and he just sort of nodded and walked away. I figured, alright, whatever, it’s a moment that is not going to be that significant to either of us. I went on about my day, and he went on about his. This is, mind you, our second day on our vacation. Later that day, we go back to our resort, where we’re spending the entire week, and the guy is sitting at the table next to me having breakfast. The guy is sitting there, so now I have to duck this guy the entire week! The entire week I have to stay away from this guy, or he’s going to think, “what a jerk this guy is! I went over to him on the beach, and he refused to acknowledge who he was.” It ruined four days of my vacation, until his family finally left. This is the kind of thing that could only happen to a doofus such as myself.

To Mike Greenberg we say "Happy New Year!"

And, of course: Ya Goof!

She's seein' red

We're watching the Fiesta Bowl as I type, and the PSU alumna in our household has this to say to whomever applied the Outback logo to the field for today's Penn State-Tennessee football game:

"Notice that the Tostitos logo is not bleeding all over the players!"

And she vigorously adds: Ya Goof!

Happy New ... Yikes!

Does our family's January 1 indicate how this year will go for us? I kinda hope not ...

Janet and I went out today looking at couches. For references, we brought along one of the arm covers to our current couch. Guess what we forgot at one of the stores. We think we know which store it was.

But that was just a minor matter compared to the goofs connected to our basement laundry area. Sigh.

The cement floor in our basement is quite rough and uneven, and it's always been hard to keep our washer and dryer level. Heck, sometimes the spin cycle sounds like a manic drummer. So I'm using this half-plastic/half-plywood stuff called DriCore—and a whole bunch of strategically-placed shims—to create a level area. After a lot of fiddling, it looks like it might work. But along the way ...

While helping me briefly, Emmett got some paint on some of his school-worthy pants. I painted the walls in that area yesterday, and it's cool and damp, and in some spots, the paint had to go on pretty thick because ... oh, just take my word for it. So I had to break out the Oxi-clean for some jeans-soaking.

And I had to make an unscheduled run to Home Depot because I hadn't bought quite enough DriCore.

When I unplugged the washer and dryer to move them, I didn't realize that I also unplugged our basement freezer. I discovered this about 24 hours later. We're talking some soft ice cream here.

And when I was wrestling the dryer into final position, I noticed that I'd put a fresh kink in the copper gas-supply line.

Matter of fact, that kink might be a puncture, I thought.

Then: Do I smell gas?

I ended up calling the gas company, being told not to turn any electrical switches on or off, and sending the family out of the house where I wouldn't have to worry about them turning any electrical switches on or off. They went to Wal-mart to buy underwear—because with the dryer down for the past few days, it seems that Ethan had run out of clean boxers. The gas company man came and showed me the gas-line shutoff that I hadn't been able to locate. He advised installing a new kind of hook-up to the dryer.

I left a phone message about that with our neighbor/electrician/plumber, Tom. Later, I left Tom another message, after discovering that I found that in putting the washer back in place, I had also pulled a drain pipe out of its joint.

Oh, yeah. 2007 will be something. When you wish me Happy New Year, feel free to add ... Ya Goof!

1002 ways to goof up (continued)

724. Forget to skip commercials when watching a digital video recording.
723. Miss the bottom step when going downstairs.
722. Throw a piece of popcorn up in the air and fail to catch it in your mouth.
721. Tear open a bag of chips and have all the chips go flying.
720. Forget to turn on your microphone.
719. Forget to turn off your microphone.