I Like People, Places and Things… Number Four Essay October 22, 2018

I don’t understand why ‘slim chance’ and ‘fat chance’ are the same thing…but I like it.

I like people who yawn so loudly that they shake… usually with a “HOH…OH…OH…HOH”, then shake their head back and forth. I like them.

I like the honesty of the babies who, when they wake up, they cry. I mean, deep…deep down… when you wake, don’t you want to just cry. Or, “bawl” your eyes out? I like that word: bawl.
It can be used like this: She was so mad she just bawled me out in front of everybody and their dog. Or: Man, alive, he called me into his office and bawled me completely out.

I think of calves. Don’t they stand at the fence and ‘bawl’ if they are separated from their Momma Cows?

I like big umbrellas… never understood those tiny compact umbrellas which are more just a rumor of an umbrella than one and of itself.

I like the cheer, “Rah Rah Sis Boom Bah”, but have never heard it used.

I like Sally O’Mally (I’m FIFTY… and I can stretch, and I can KICK!)… I like that Sally O’Mally’s quote can be changed to SIXTY….

I like opportunities to tell myself, “I’m not THAT bad”… Few and far between… oh, and I like to hear, “Few and far between”.

I like manners, like to unbutton your suit coat when you sit; and button it when you are standing/walking.

I like paper airplanes—both the single prop and the jet engine kind. I like razors and have no idea why they are so very expensive now. I like the feel of a new toothbrush (Colgate 360) and prefer water pic to flossing and/or any kind of tooth pick, wooden or otherwise.

I like varieties, but it has gotten out of hand. Olden days, we had Oreos. Now, the Oreos varieties take up an entire aisle: double stuff, no fat, lotsa fat, vanilla, banana, double stuffed… and many more. I only like Oreo’s when the package is first opened… that day when the cookies are all crispy and the stuffing is fresh and not all moldy. Well, moldy in my imagination.

I like ‘bump gates’, the pulley bone (still think a chain of Chicken Pulley Bone Wishbone Franchises would do better than Wings…)

I like when old people refer to toys as ‘play pretties’… I like oil cans and old milk bottles. And metal coffee cans, not plastic coffee cans.

I like glass glasses. And coffee mugs, not cups. I think the most useless thing—other than a teat on a boar hog—is a coffee cup saucer…those were created just to make men with big hands feel awfully ill-mannered. I have big hands. I drop things. I can’t find gloves to fit. “Fit like a Glove”—well, that hasn’t been my experience.

I need a tenacious attorney and a sympathetic technology tutor. But, then, don't we all?

If something bothers you after 40 years, should you give it your attention—or forget about it? I have not figured out which would settle the soul yet. I want to sue everyone who has ever done me wrong and make me pay money for it. I'm told, "you won't enjoy that money" but I'd like to damn well give it a try. Those old mean-ass rich people...

I like people who use words like, “fetch” (Not in the Mean Girls movie sort of way but in the ‘I’m fixin’ to go fetch them kids from school.)

I like the term, “wall to wall carpeting” because it reminds me of people who were classy when I was a child… they always had “wall to wall carpeting”…

I like weird words like, “carrions” … (The dog stinks since he has been wallerin’ in the carrions beside the road.) I like the word, “ecumenical” because it means inclusive of all religions and not paying more attention to one than any other. Equal religion—nice concept.

Well, if I see someone yawn, I must yawn.

If I see someone sneeze, my nose twitches.

If I see someone with a snow cone, I must have one, too. I’ll tell you the story of the rodeo, the snow cone, my white cowboy shirt, and the bull whose tail had been cut off an inch just, so the cowboy would have a better, wilder ride, sometime. Cut to the chase? The bull tail swung bull blood across my snow cone (which I had gotten when I saw another little boy with one…) and my white cowboy shirt… and I screamed at the bull rider for much more than 8 seconds; longer than his wild ride.

If I see someone vomit, I gag big time. But, I have not vomited since 1988 which may be a record. I’m discounting the time I had a foreign disease from (?) Morocco and was vomiting blood… that doesn’t count and will not keep me from a record of no up-chucking. (Kim Walker Smith)

I like the word, "blimey", but have never used it. Wait, I just did. Blimey.

I like that the ‘world is my oyster’. I like space heaters and oscillating fans. I have slept with a fan going since pajamas with feet… I have taken my sleeping fan with me to all seven continents—and have spent a ton $ on the right plug in elements for the sleeping fan.

I like when people refer to the trunk of the car as ‘the turtle.’

I like dogs. I like cats. Some call me Animal-dexterous.

I begin many sentences with, "Well... blah, blah..." I have no clue as to why I do this, but it is a habit and I'll just say it is endearing and continue to do that. In high school, for some reason, we said "Welp"... I thought it was just me, but I still see it from people of my generation. We were the "Me Generation" and that is unfair. But, true to form, one must love oneself before one can love one another. Well?

One of my favorite movies of all time is called "Junebug" and there is a scene that will break your heart--the girl's husband played by Scot Wolf is trying to VHS record a TV special about lemurs because he knows she loves lemurs and cannot tell her himself how much he loves her. It's one of those, "The more you want something, the more nervous you become and frustrated at not being able to get what you want." Hands down, he should have been awarded by the Academy, but the actress playing his wife was nominated instead.

I like the story of a teacher who was talking about farming and he mentioned that the people in the field were using their hoes. He called the people who used hoes as “hoe-ers”. I like the fact that the students tried harder and harder NOT to laugh; and that the business professor kept using the term OVER and OVER… “Well, are you going to pay the hoe-er’s more?” It was a business policy course and the students kept suggesting we pay the ‘hoe-ers’ if they did a good job. I bet the business professor was in on the joke—educated man like him would get the joke.

And if not, I cheer him: Sis-Boom-Bah…Rah! Rah! Rah!

(Note: I like folks who edit, and I aim to learn how this week. Sorry such a long post, but I LIKE so much… and you don’t want to get me started on things that I don’t like…it would be like ‘War and Peace’, ten volumes…)