POPCORN

By Jim Szantor

Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric and whimsical observations 

about the absurdities of contemporary life

• You know you were living a humdrum existence if the stay-at-home orders just validated your regular lifestyle.
• Not too long ago, somebody would have called 911 if you entered a store—or especially a bank—wearing a mask.  Now you could be physically attacked (or even arrested) if you aren’t wearing one.  
• jimjustsaying’s Party Ice-Breaker of the Month: “Say [actual partygoer’s name here], did you know that the earliest pandemic on record occurred during the Pelopennesian War in 430 B.C.?  It was believed to be a form of typhoid fever."
• Speaking of World Topic A:  Hardly a day goes by in hearing or reading the latest political blather that I don't recall the sage words of H.L. Mencken, who said:  “For every complex problem, there is a solution that is neat, simple and wrong.”
• 
  
• Once baseball starts, why don’t they put the “coaches' boxes” where the coaches actually stand? For whatever reason (not to be clobbered by line drives?), they are rarely anywhere close to them.  (Same goes for the batters who seem to remove the batter's box outlines with impunity.)
• 
  
• Baseball without fans In the stands is a plus in my book.  Think of all the images we are spared of obese, besotted guys with team logos painted on their torsos!  Of all the cheesy, misspelled signs we won’t have to see . . . not to mention the goofy hats or the sight of “fans” with their heads down on their phones oblivious to the action or taking pictures of their nachos.
• Soccer, now that’s different:  I could never understand why there were any fans in the stands in the first place.
• Drudging Around:  New TV show sees 15 men compete to impregnate 41-year-old woman . . . Dean Martin to return as a hologram? . . . Colombian company creates bed that can double for coffin . . . Sex and dating to get even more complicated as lockdown continues . . . Virtual Biden campaign speech drowned out by honking ducks . . . Cops: Thieves wore watermelons on their heads as disguises . . . Incredible dog can perform CPR after being taught by owner . . . Study: People happier making major life decisions on a coin flip . . . Ruff Years: Canines go through “teenage angst” just like humans . . . Back to normal: Couple caught having sex on vacant New York City subway platform . . . Sex robot shop can’t keep up with lockdown demand . . . Corpse lay on street in Rio for 30 hours . . . Artificial intelligence can guess personality from “selfie.” . . . SNAP: Man stabs father to death in front of 20 people on video chat . . . Planes spray city [with coronavirus] at night: Conspiracy theories in Mexico. (Thanks, as always, to Matt Drudge and his merry band of aggregators for these recent nuggets.)
• jimjustsaying’s Newspaper Obituary Headline of the Month: Lucky. As in Michelle ”Lucky” Schweiger, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 21, 2020.
• jimjustsaying's  Lifestyle Tip of the Week:  Never enter a relationship with someone who has his bail bondsman’s phone number tattooed on his wrist!  
• Strike up the bandwidth! Not only has our dollar slipped along with our world standing, but we rank 22^nd, at last account, in the world in Internet connection speed. Deplorable. (And probably worse than that in rural areas.)
• You can tell you're an old-timer if you sometimes refer to a train as "the iron horse." Or a jail as “the hoosegow.”
• Does Larry The Cable Guy show up a day late for his concerts? 
• I consider myself the poor man's Joe Piscopo.  My best impression is Frank Sinatra Jr!
• Confession: I was born without the dancing chromosome. When I have to go somewhere where dancing might break out, I always take my personal-injury attorney! That way we can negotiate a settlement right on the spot.
• Redundancy patrol: "Continue on," "convicted felon," "pre-order."
• Redundancy patrol, TV Meteorologist Division:  “Rain event,” “evening time,” “sunshine” and “drop down” (as in “temperatures will ’drop down’ into the 20s.”)
• There will never be a Mitch McConnell Lookalike Contest.
• Favorite T-shirt message from the What on Earth catalog:
• "I only do what the voices in my wife's head tell her to tell me to do."
• How come you never see anyone with a pencil behind his ear anymore?  (One possible reason: Harder to do it if you’ve shaved your head and have no hair to help keep it in place.)
• Why is it that a woman can wear any piece of men's clothing (pants, suits, ties, pajama tops, whatever) and nobody bats an eye . . . but if a man wears any article of women's clothing, people think he's deranged? (I'm just sayin'.)
• jimjustsaying’s Word That Doesn’t Exist But Should of the Month: Keyfruit. n. The one apple, pear or tomato in the pile that, when removed, causes all the others to tumble forward.--"More Sniglets," Rich Hall and Friends
• “Dogs may be left without muzzles for ten days after having been vaccinated against rabbis.”—from “Still More Press Boners,” by Earle Tempel
• Today’s Latin Lesson: Si hoc signum legere potes, operis boni in rebus Latinus alacribus. ("If you can read this, you can get a good job in the fast-paced, high-paying world of Latin!")