I don’t know who invented these wonderful implements, but I am greatly indebted to them. Tweezers come in very handy, especially now that I am approaching the age where pesky hairs appear in places you don’t want to know about.  If I didn’t have a tweezers in my arsenal, I definitely would be looking like Vincent Van Gogh within a week.

I actually owe my life to a tweezers. (Well, not really; that was supposed to get your attention so that you read on!)

Many years ago, before the dawn of our children, Allan and I were upstate on vacation enjoying a dinner in a restaurant. I decided to have the turkey with all the trimmings and was eating it with gusto when suddenly a bone got stuck in my throat. I kept trying to dislodge it with bread to know avail, so I finally said to Allan “I think I have a bone in my throat…let’s go.” We went back to the car and he got the flashlight and looked down my throat. “Yes dear,” he calmly stated, “You indeed have a bone like a Lilliputian arrow stuck on the side of your throat.”

Now up until this point, I was talking fine, but once confirmation was made as to the bone situation in my throat I immediately scream whispered “GET ME TO A HOSPITAL.” Allan mused to himself “If I only had a tweezers”. Now I’m thinking…great…fine time for him to be thinking about shaping my eyebrows, but then a real sense of panic came over me as I realized what he wanted the tweezers for. Knowing that the man had obviously gone mad, I repeated my whispered plea, this time with teeth clenched, “GET ME TO A HOSPITAL”. But we were in a town God knows where, and it was dark. Where is a hospital when you need one? Allan says again…”If I could just get a tweezers”. With that, he starts the car and within a few blocks, he sees a 5 and 10 cent store. He jumps out, but they had just closed. He’s banging on the door saying ” My wife has a bone in her throat ” (quite dramatically, I might add) “and I need to buy a tweezers”.

Now I’m in the car thinking the man has gone over the edge and I’m seriously thinking of climbing into the drivers seat and taking myself to the hospital, but the thought of leaving him at the door of the store and having him possibly be taken off to a nut house by the 5 and 10 cent staff kept me glued to the seat. The people mercifully unlocked the door and let him in to buy the tweezers. They made him pay for the tweezers right away, too, obviously not realizing the direness of my situation. Now mind you, they had to find the key to the register, unlock it and fire it up. Newspaper headlines began to run through my head “Women Succumbs To Bone in Throat As Husband is Delayed at Cash Register Paying for Life Saving Tweezers”.

He eventually came out with this long, pinch-nosed deal and said “Open wide”.. like he’s a dentist or something. I’m thinking, I hope this works or I’ll be at the hospital with a bone AND a tweezers protruding from my throat. Try explaining THAT to the hospital staff!!! But, Allan, without hesitation, deftly put that tweezers down my gullet and plucked that bone from my throat. My hero!!

It was quite awhile, however, before I stopped pulverizing my turkey at family Thanksgiving celebrations and tweezing my eyebrows on occasion can still gives me the willies!

When Allan and I were first married and living in an apartment in Floral Park,  I had an encounter with a dishwasher.

Growing up, the only dishwasher that my family had was me. I would stand at the sink in our kitchen and wash and rinse the dishes and stack them in the drainboard to be dried later. I knew nothing of the workings of an automatic dishwasher, so you can imagine my elation when we moved into our little love nest and I realized that I now had a machine to do the dirty work. It was a top loader and it rolled out from under the counter top whenever its services were required.

A number of months went by and one Saturday while on a cleaning binge, I thought to myself “Gee, I guess it’s time I cleaned the dishwasher”. DUH!! I was obviously not the brightest newlywed on the block – about as sharp as a marble to be precise. I mean really, doesn’t the dishwasher interior get “clean” every time you hit the “Start Cycle” button? And to further prove that I was indeed not the sharpest knife in the drawer, I decided that it needed to be cleaned with DISH detergent. That’s what I had used all those years to make dishes sparkling clean, so why not use it to clean the inside of the dishwasher?

Exactly how much dish washing liquid a village idiot should put into a dishwasher to have the inside come out sparkling clean, no one knows. Suffice it to say, I obviously used a tad too much; a little bit of that stuff goes a long way. And of course, since I wanted the dish washer to be super clean, I probably added a decent amount. And maybe a touch more after that.

Things were going well at first. The dishwasher filled with steamy hot water and started the cycle. Then suddenly, after about 10 minutes, froth started to ooze from the top of the machine. Then bubbles started coming out even faster, cascading down the front, streaming down to the floor and making their way to the side door. “I Love Lucy” episodes had nothing on me.

I hit the “cancel” button, but alas, it was too late. Upon opening the door of the washer, bubbles literally exploded all over and they kept coming, and coming, and coming.

I yelled for my dearest who ran in and practically knocked himself out navigating the slippery floor. We grabbed some pots and started scooping bubbles (which were now about a foot high) to deposit out the door of the house and onto the patio. Now we not only had bubbles all over the kitchen…the suds were starting to fill up our patio.

And still the bubbles kept coming. Did you know the more you try to add water to bubbles, the soapier the situation becomes? Yeah, well I didn’t know that and as I tried to rinse out the dishwasher and douse the floor with water to defeat the foam, it just made matters worse.

I’m sure Allan was rethinking his spousal choice by now, but at least he couldn’t say he married a slob. We had the cleanest dish washer, kitchen floor and cement patio on the block.

Little did he know way back then, that the adventures with his bride would continue for all these years. And that’s why our blog is titled “The Escapades of Pookie and Allan!”

Today I had to call Viking to get clarification about a trip we have scheduled.  The young man that I spoke with, Derrick, was very knowledgeable and answered all my questions to my satisfaction.

As we were ending the call, he asked “Is there anything else I can help you with?”   I said, “Yes…the laundry!”

Derrick laughed that little laugh people laugh when they don’t know whether you’re serious or not…

…and then he probably made a little notation in my file.

Whose idea was it to put an “s” in the word LISP??!!??

When we lived in North Carolina, we would attend “Dessert with the Doc” seminars, given by local doctors on a wide range of medical topics. One time, the topic was “Your Poo and You.” Honestly, the doctor that gave the seminar could have been a stand up comedian. But then again, the subject matter was pretty conducive to jokes.

We laughed our way through some of the highlights of the topics he addressed: “hanging chads”, “the Hershey squirts”, “racing stripes in the toilet” and “floaters vs sinkers”.

And he could hardly keep a straight face, during the question and answer period, when a lady in the audience confessed she was plagued with gas whenever she flew in an airplane and questioned the doc about what she should do about it.

“Encourage fellow travelers not to sit near you would be my first advice,” he said barely able to get out the words. And then he offered another pearl of wisdom.

“There is a new product on the market,” he sputtered. “They’re called…” (stopping to wipe the tears from his eyes from his laughter ) “Farty Pants,” he finally blurted out.

It seems that people who have a flatulence problem need not be embarrassed anymore. They can buy  Farty Pants, underpants that have a charcoal liner embedded in the crotch that renders harmless the noxious gases emanating from a person’s bowels. And no one is the wiser except the wearer.

The underwear makers swear they work…and the liners last for a few weeks. They are washable…but the company advises that the occupant not use them in a hot tub or swimming pool. (Personally, I think someone who has this problem shouldn’t be in a hot tub or a swimming pool in the first place. The bubbles could give them away!)

After the hour of laughter, we were asked to write down our thoughts and comments on the doctor’s presentation and how effectively he gave enlightenment on the subject.

I wrote “He was POOsitively wonderful!!!”

We were putting away all of the decorations from Christmas when suddenly…we heard a loud crash.

It seems that Pedro the Christmas turkey, (who does a nice rendition of Feliz Navidad), distraught that Christmas was over, flung himself from the shelf where he was perched all through the holidays, and had a temper tantrum.

I won’t go back in the box!

I’m not listening! I SAID NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Well, alright.  But only if I can take some leftover candy canes with me.  And some rum balls. And that cute little angel on the top of the tree.

You can’t make this stuff up, folks.

The word “awesomeness”, which isn’t a word according to the dictionary, absolutely should be.

The word does appear in the Urban Dictionary…and let’s not forget, I did come from Queens, NY so that’s probably where I picked it up. Those streets in South Ozone Park can be rough and some of the language…whoa!!

Anyway, it might not be a bona fide word according to Merriam-Webster, but I think it should be. The awesomeness of a sunset….the awesomeness of witnessing a birth….the awesomeness of my kids and grandkids….the awesomeness of the Grand Canyon…the awesomeness of God.

New words are being added to the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary as I type this. So one has to ask… how DOES a new word get into the dictionary? The answer is simple: USAGE! Apparently the editors of the dictionary read all kinds of publications – books, magazines, news articles – searching for contemporary words. Once a potential word is found, it is stored in the computer system as a “citation”. The word makes the jump from the citation area to the dictionary by having enough citations to show it is widely used. According to John Morse, president of the Springfield, Massachusetts based dictionary publisher, “A word has to be more than a flash-in-the-pan. It has to have staying power”.

This year, some new words that made it to Merriam-Webster so far this year are magnetic fishing, dawn chorus, sponcon, yeet, yanky, and adorkable (awwww…).

So here’s the deal. Start using the word “awesomeness” in your everyday interactions with people. Maybe in the year 2030 it will make it to the pages of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary.

And in actuality, “awesomeness” is used in an article by Umair Hague from Harvard Business Publishing, a subsidiary of Harvard University, entitled “The Awesomeness Manifesto” written September 16, 2009. If I didn’t know any better, I would have guessed that Mr. Hague was referring to my blog!!

The women from Gotopless.org decided that men shouldn’t be the only ones allowed to strut their bare chests and have all the fun.  So they staged a nationwide demonstration a few years ago for the right to go topless….and their bosom buddies from Asheville, North Carolina were right there joining the protest and proudly baring their breasts.  “It isn’t against the law in North Carolina for women to walk around topless since the law only bans indecent exposure from the waist down,” said Wally Welch, a spokesperson for the Asheville police.

Livienne Love (really???? Livienne Love???), the local protest organizer was quoted as saying, “We just want to raise awareness about this inequality”.

The event planning committee, however, didn’t take into account that the Gateway Christian Community Church would be holding their Sunday services at the same time the topless demonstration was to take place.  “They’ll be some distance apart,” said Jon Fillman, the city’s outdoor special events coordinator.  And a spokesperson from the church added that if necessary, “they’ll completely turn their event so they’re facing the other direction.”

Wouldn’t it be a hooter (pun intended) if the Bible reading today was from Psalms 119…”Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things…”  And, if it wasn’t, you can bet your sweet cupcakes those Christian men were on their knees praying it!!

Today the phone rang and my caller ID said “Dr. Chuck Noonan”.  I don’t know any doctor named Chuck Noonan, but since I had just been for some routine lab tests, I answered, thinking it might be someone from the lab.

I picked up the phone and a cheerful voice announced “Dr. Chuck Noonan calling!”

When I didn’t answer right away he went on to say…”Uh..the veterinarian!”

It is always tempting to mess with a wrong number caller and say something rather glib…but I never do.

I should have said, “Are you located next door to the taxidermist?  Because either way…I’d get my parrot back!”

I’m just saying…