Lips and Lagers

My walks down life's roads have taken me many places. I lived on a kibbutz in Israel and harvested grapefruit when I wasn't shoveling out chicken houses. I was in the Philippines in the Air Force, spent my freshman year of college in California before graduating from the University of Iowa, and worked in an officer's club in Germany. I've hitchhiked all over the country, I milked an English Bulldog once, and also hit myself in the head with a baseball bat.

So just a couple of days ago I found myself in Florida having lunch at a joint call "Squid Lips," and I thought, how did I end up here?

I found myself accidentally stumbling into introspection there at good ol' Squid Lips, and then I fought that off. Introspection slows me down. And I was left with deep philosophical questions as I sat there, namely: why do my cars' windshield wipers always wear out on the exact sight line that I need to see clearly, and why do birds of all varieties always crap on that same sight line?

And then I ordered another Sam Adams Boston Lager.

Nanny-nanny

The weather's been a bit blunt lately, not only in the north, but here in the Upstate of South Carolina as well. All the blizzards remind me why my long-suffering wife and Ivacated Iowa when we finished school up there. We made our decision the morning we let our Bulldog (Dudley) out and, when he didn't come back as usual, we looked out the front window and saw him frozen to a fire hydrant.

Which brings me to the nanny-local-weather and the nanny state we live in. They tell us to dress warmly when it's cold, take an umbrella when it's raining, don't shovel too much snow when you're trying to dig out from a blizzard, and don't get wet when the weather's bad. I appreciate the advice. I mean, I would never have figured any of that out on my own. I did figure out not to put my tongue on the flagpole when it's -15 degrees. And I remembered not to ever do that again, and I learned that independently. Once was enough.

What's next? Well, I suspect the gummint will start fining people for not listening to them. Heart attack from shoveling heavy snow? Big fine. Out in a misty morning without an umbrella. Medium fine. Not dressing warmly when it's cold out (THEY will decide what's cold out), maybe just a warning. Seriously, if the feds can tell us what kind of light bulbs and commodes we can have . . .