POPCORN

BY JIM SZANTOR

Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric and whimsical observations about the absurdities of contemporary life:

• Is it a federal law that every garbage truck has to have screechy brakes?  If so, then everyone seems to be in full compliance!
• Good thing Mitt Romney didn't win--there are no car elevators in the White House.  (I have a vision of him holding press conferences in a smoking jacket, which probably isn't all that far-fetched, now that I think about it.)
• Speaking of which, does the White House have a West Room?  We're always hearing about the East Room.  (Maybe the West Room is the . . . Rest Room? Which would explain why it doesn't get much press.)
• I don't recognize most of the songs on the Oldies stations, so I'm not sure if that means I'm too old, too young--or just out of it!
• There are two types of people in the world:  Those who like dark chocolate and those who don't.
• Incompetence runs amok:  A dentist reports on the Daily Beast site  that has received three renewal notices from Newsweek in the weeks since it announced its demise.
• (Memo to Newsweek circulation department:  It's over.   Done.  Kaput.  Finis.  I read it in Time magazine.)
• It's easier to find a $100 bill on the street than to find someone who knows how to play mah-jongg..
• Channel surfing:   Some of the programs on the TV grid for a recent evening:  "Secretly Pregnant" (Discovery Health), "Mothers Who Kill" (Biography), "Kids That Kill" (Biography), "Tattoo Nightmares" (Spike), and, also on Biography, "My Little Terror" (Synopsis:  "The true stories of children with extreme rage issues, children possessed, and evil geniuses").
• The FCC's Newton Minow famously called TV "a vast wasteland" many years ago.  Methinks he'd use stronger words today.  A lot stronger words.
• How often have you ever had your money “cheerfully refunded”?  (About the same number of times you've heard the words "No restrictions apply.")
• Newspaper Obituary Headline Nickname of the Week:  "Snowshoe."  As in Lloyd W. "Showshoe" Rogers (Green Bay Press-Gazette obituary, Nov. 1, 2012.  R.I.P. Mr. Rogers.)
• Pompous Ass Candidates of the Week:  People who use the verb "posit" every chance they get.
• Three things you can't wear out:  A spoon, a thermometer and a hammer.
• Candy Nugget of the Week:  The Snickers bar was named for inventor Frank Mars' favorite horse.  
• And the Milky Way bar, Mental Floss magazine also reports, was named not for their home galaxy but from a type of malted milkshake that was popular in the early 1920s. (Kind of hard to work into a conversation, but there you have it.)
• Do kids still play with pipe cleaners, or has that been outlawed too?
• Speaking of kids, did you know that the voting age in Argentina has been lowered to 16
• Jimjustsaying's "That Should Be A Word "of the Week (by Lizzie Skurnick):   Martyrmony--(MAR-tur-MOAN-ee), n.  1.  To stay married out of duty. “Four kids and constant bickering had turned Jeanine and Henrique’s romance into mutual martyrmony.”  See also:  Boudwar (dispute originating in bedroom).
• Time magazine's Word of the Week:  Micropolitan (adj. small but regionally important population center of 10,000 to 50,000 residents . . . examples:  Hilton Head, S.C., and Wooster, Ohio, don'tyaknow.)
• The world is moving so fast these days, precious few people can remember more than three sex scandals ago.
• Does Campbell’s make a Russian alphabet soup?  (I called and was transferred to the New Product Development department, where I got a recorded message. I’ll get back to you on this if they ever get back to me.)
• When did people stop referring to births as "the blessed event"?
• People who shine deer are a most pathetic lot--and that's being extremely kind.
• I never heard a woman say "I don't know how to dance."
• People who run scams from prison (no, I'm not making this up) have way too much time on their hands.  Speaking of which, whatever happened to "30 years at hard labor"?  You don't hear that anymore.  (The ACLU strikes again?)
• Today's Latin Lesson:  Is est ferreus reor callidus editio ut reddo sulum mensis.  ("It's  hard to think of a clever statement to translate every month.")