I drink entirely too much coffee, and if I don’t be sure to drink plenty of water on top of it I’ll get constipated. It’s almost like the coffee dries me out or something. I had a chemo nurse tell me how important it was to stay hydrated during my treatments and when I told her I drink several cups of coffee a day, she scolded me and said In that case, I need the water even more. I followed her advice and since then I’ve gotten more regular. I used to think it was just normal for me to crap once every three days, but now I go every day and feel better too…

actually now that I think back it was the water pump that regularly went out at 45k, and it was run by the timing belt. The noise coming from the water pump is what usually alerted me and I was able to replace it and the belt at the same time, which spared me from ever losing the motor. I drove that thing til it had over 160k on it, which was a lot for one of those…

I had an '82 Ford Escort. Those things were notorious for lunching the motor if the timing belt ever broke (which they did every 45,000 miles like clockwork) while you were traveling down the road. The valves would stop in whatever position they were in at that instant, and then the momentum of the car would keep the pistons moving up and down, bashing the piston tops in to whichever valves were unlucky enough to still be open, ruining pretty-much everything. At the same time I owned that car, my best friend owned an '82 Chevy Cavalier. We were constantly one-upping each other over who owned the biggest turd…

Back in about '89-'90 I was the assistant manager at a fast oil change place, and we had a regular customer with a maroon '76 Aspen with a bullet-proof slant-six who got his oil changed with us regularly. I could hear him coming. I’d know it was him without even looking because of the distinctive TAP-TAP-TAP -TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP. We’d pull him in and he’d tell us to just change the oil and filter and don’t bother checking all that other stuff, so that’s what we’d do. We’d pull the plug and if more than a half a quart drained out we’d be surprised. After a filter swap, we’d fill it back up and restart it and it would go TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP-tap-tap-tap-ta-ta-ta-t-t-t-t-t-t-t- etc and he’d smile and pay and be on his way. Of course, we’d see him again in about 3 or 4 months, same thing, rinse and repeat. The tapping was his signal to get it changed. Fast forward to '97, after working as a manager at other locations I came back to that same station as the manager there and I’ll be damned if that same guy in that same '76 Aspen didn’t pull in for the same service with that same oil-leaking loud-ass tapping slant-six, still hanging in there…

he’s just sticking to his marching orders, leading by example and showing what a good little brown-shirt he can be.

I accomplish this by keeping a weed pen in the pocket of my robe hanging within reach of the toilet…

I know at least one in our town that’s turned into a cannabis dispensary. Seems to me a smart business man would figure out how to combine the two…

pronounced “shzitter”

and slip in his own piss puddle on the way out…

Back in the late 70’s, my dad ran the local branch of the Humane Society, which, at the time, was responsible for all animal control duties within the city limits of our town. During that time, our area had a big influx of Vietnamese immigrants settling in. The amount of calls that came in accusing our new immigrant neighbors of stealing and eating dogs was unreal. Dad was a special deputy tasked with investigating animal cruelty cases, so he would look into these at first, but there was never any solid evidence that it ever actually happened, and they eventually just started ignoring the calls. I have to imagine that a lot of them were probably just racially motivated attempts at harassment…

I went through the US Navy’s damage control and fire-fighting training back in '81 and we trained with their oxygen breathing apparatus (OBA). I remember we’d have to pull a pin like in a grenade to light them off, and when we were done we’d have to release the canister into a barrel of water because they were like super-hazardous…

She’s Generation Jones. So am I (b. 1963)

Damn, they even have her picture on the page 😆

Generation Jones is noted for coming of age after a huge swath of their older siblings in the earlier portion of the Baby Boomer population; thus, many note that there was a paucity of resources and privileges available to them that were seemingly abundant to older Boomers. Therefore, there is a certain level of bitterness and “jonesing” for the level of doting and affluence granted to older Boomers but denied to them

“trusted bank”

lol

When my wife was pregnant with our first-born, my mother went with her to her first ultrasound appointment. To add a little back-story, I had a baby brother who was born when I was about 4 (1967). He had multiple birth defects and so many things wrong that he only lived 16 days. Needless to say, this affected my mom deeply. My wife told me that my mom cried while seeing her soon-to-be grandson on the screen and told her that if that technology had been available when she was pregnant with my brother that she would have terminated the pregnancy without a second thought. When I think of the pain and depression she lived with for pretty much the rest of her life, and then think about how the repukelican party want’s to force other women to go through that same agony too just makes me want to start hurling molotov cocktails into a trump rally…

Yes. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t implying homosexuality, but talking about general partying and gallivanting around, promiscuity, etc. I don’t think “gay” came to mostly mean homosexual until later in the 20th century. I believe Everett is just telling him he doesn’t want to hear him bragging about his immoral lifestyle or gossiping about someone else’s. There were a lot of prudes back then. That’s my take, anyways…

Here you go… Library of Congress collection. I like the one’s where his wife teaches him…

pretty much just amounts to a congressional “swear jar”

We have friends who had an African Grey, and that bird had an insane range of sounds and phrases, etc that she would mimic. Not just repeating words and phrases but impersonating the voice of whomever would say it to her. Like the AOL “You’ve got mail” voice when she’d hear the modem sounds. If we were smoking weed, the bird was having a coughing fit and dinging a pipe on an ashtray. If we were laughing and talking, the bird was over there laughing it’s ass off too. From calling the dogs, to having one-sided phone conversations, to setting off a car alarm whenever anyone would leave, her repertoire was seemingly endless. And then there was the smoke alarm. She liked to pull that one out if she wanted attention, and it would split your eardrums…

I had a love-hate relationship with Sears for a long, long time. We’d always shop around for larger purchases, and quite often Sears would end up getting the sale, and then I’d have to put up with the salesperson bugging me about opening a Sears card and buying an extended warranty, and then being obstinate about taking NO for an answer. Of course, this was back when Craftsman Tools and Kenmore Appliances tended to be better than average. Hell, about 6 months ago we finally replaced a Kenmore refrigerator that we bought in '99. It’s currently cooling beer in my bro-in-laws garage. I’m still using Craftsman tools I bought 30+ years ago.