On Star, Off Star, On Star, Off....

by Jody Worsham All rights reserved for hieroglyphics translation

We have a tendency to buy a car and drive it until it is ready to fall apart so it was time to start looking. Dr. Hubby called to tell me he had found what we were looking for and was driving it home. "It is really nice and it has several new features that you will enjoy."

That got me to worrying. I have just now learned how to answer "missed calls" on my cell phone and now I have to learn a whole new car? Ok, how many changes could there be in a car in seven years? It's not like it's a computer.

NOT

First, I should have read the manual before I backed out of the drive. When I put it in reverse, a picture of a trash can appeared on my rear view mirror. "Hey, a mini TV. Must be Sesame Street."

That's when Dr. Hubby yelled "Stop". It wasn't a TV, but a TV camera and I just bumped our good trash can down the hill. Well, it should come with those beep beep beep back up sounds. Oh, wait it does, but I thought it was the trash truck coming.

On to Wal-Mart. It was a beautiful sunny day even though the back windshield wiper was swishing back and forth. "That's a nice touch," I said out loud to myself as I searched for the OFF button. You'd think there would be a button labeled rear windshield wiper OFF. Not so.

In fact, there are very few words engraved on anything, which leads me to question the I.Q. and reading level of GMC engneers. As I tried to decipher the GMC hieroglyphics of 2011, I realized that the steering wheel was covered in far too many funny little pictures to be just turn signals, brights, and cruise control. I randomly started pushing pictures.

I'm sure the car behind me thought I could not make up my mind as to where I was going as I was signaling left, right, and flashing my hazards all at the same time while squirting water on my windshields, front and back, and the automatic door locks were clicking open and shut. The windows were going up and down and the side mirrors were angling every which way catching the sun and flashing Morse Code like Iwas some kind of naval destroyer alerting everyone to danger.

That's when I noticed additional picture buttons on my rear view mirror. I pushed those. A strange voice from somewhere overhead said "I detect an uninformed driver in this car. I will commence shutting down the engine and will notify the highway patrol that this car has been hijacked and you may be missing."

Flashes of Big Brother and "1984" went through my brain. Who knew the car came equipped with On Star or Big Mama-in-the-sky? I'm sitting stranded in the middle of North Street with a car I suspect is possessed trapped in a seat belt the car refuses to release. At least the horn is in the same place.

HONK!

Sorry, lady. I see the green light. Ok, my mind just drifted off for a few minutes. Stress, new car.

Later that night under the full moon as I looked out from my bedroom window, I swear that car was staring at me. I looked up at the starry night and I wondered which one was On Star...but more importantly....which one was Off Star?

Computer Gerrr-nomics

By Jody Worsham
All rights reserved to lobby for Medicare for Computers

My computer has been on life-support for the past week. I have visited with several specialists plus a witch doctor I contacted on line at the library plus my financial advisor at Master Card. Here are the results.

Diagnostics for sick computer, local at Staples …….......$9.99
Virus removal …………………………………………………… $100.00
ER visit for hyperventilation …………………………...... $500.00
Stroke Prevention medicine when cursor acts up…. $350.00
Geek Squad diagnostics for cursed cursor ……………........ free
Case of wine to celebrate something free ……………... $43.00
Cursed Cursor remedy plus recommended two years of service due to ignorance .... $200.00
Fine for disturbing the peace at the Geek Squad …… $150.00
I Pad purchased to receive discount for Geek Service $600.00
Sign up for course on anger management before Geeks will fix cursor … $95.00
Hot spot to connect to internet for I Pad, I Pods …………………………… $115.00
Replace Microsoft Office which crashed when Geeks tried to remedy cursed cursor …… $164.00
Straight jacket ………………………………………………….... $125.00
Gas for five round trips to Geek Squad store …….......... $45.00
Continued therapy for eye-twitch due to computer stress ……................ $700.00

Being able to post to my free blog and communicate with my friends…. PRICELESS?
( well, except for the $3,196.99 it cost me to get back on line)

In a Land Phar, Phar....from McDonald's

by Jody Worsham
All rights reserved for non-traceable credit card

In a farm house, far, far from McDonald's no happy meals have been eaten since the Evil Dark Visa sent the print out showing four pages of charges to McDonald's. Now Hans Lo Cal has decreed an embargo on all things Mc including Mocha Frappes.

Princess Phat blames the CEO of Mikey D's for their siren call of $1 drinks and the double temptation of two for one hot apple pies.

All was tolerable until McDonald's unveiled their newest Death Star to Dieters...the McChicken Bites. The bites are so tiny and cute that they easily deceive Princess Phat into thinking they couldn't possibly hold many calories. The cute little Chinese take-out boxes they come in, however, are guaranteed to make you hungry again in one hour.

And yes, I, er Princess Phat fell off the diet wagon and went slipping and sliding up and down the golden arches taking tiny bites out of her diet as she went.

Curse you Dark Visa for printing out her transgressions. Next time, she'll use cash.

Tips for Over Worked Parents and Underworked Children

l-

By Jody Worsham

All Rights Reserved for tip jar!

Over the course of some odd sixty plus years, I have learned a few things, mostly by trial and error, heavy on the error part. It is my sincere hope that through my tips you can avoid some embarrassing moments with your neighbors/local law enforcement and possibly keep your name off the school's "Minimal Parenting List". Please tell me your school has one of those and it's not unique to my kid's school. Here are some tips for overworked parents.

1. Now while you may think putting your toddler on a Sit-N-Spin and squirting him with a water hose constitutes doing the laundry, it doesn't work that way … at least not the second time. What does work is to have a different colored laundry basket for each room in the house. Instead of folding clothes, toss items in the appropriate basket. Each person can then be responsible for folding and putting away his "room".
   

1. Children cannot live by bread alone; they must have peanut butter and jelly and sometimes a vegetable or two. To avoid Corn Dog Prone-itis and frost bite fingers, find five good crock pot recipes and keep the ingredients stocked up in your pantry. Post the recipes in a prominent place…like where you keep the chips and chocolate. Dinner can be assembled in the morning and ready to eat by supper time. Invest in those crock pot liners for fast clean up.
   

   
   

2. What parent hasn't made a mad dash to Wal-Mart at 10:00 at night for supplies for a school project due the next morning? Ok, six times six kids for me but by the seventh kid, I learned. When school starts in the fall buy extra folders, markers, poster board, paper, glue, brads and hide them where the kids don't often look, like under their beds. It's cheaper than paying speeding tickets for those late night dashes; I speak from experience.
   

   
   

3. If you are or ever have been the parent of a third grader, then you know what it's like to be scrounging around after dark with a flashlight in your neighbor's back yard; then trying to explain to the nice policeman that you are looking for twig "logs" for a pioneer log cabin due by first period the next day and not attempting burglary. I suggest you buy stick pretzels while you are at Wal-Mart. They come in various log sizes and when glued to a cereal box, look just like logs…sort of…from across the room. At least it might keep your face from being plastered on every street sign by the Neighborhood Crime Watch.
   

   
   

4. While you are at Wal-Mart stocking up on extra school supplies, colored laundry baskets, and pretzel logs, you may as well grab a couple of generic birthday presents for the birthday party you forgot or was told about an hour before the party. Puzzels are good as are Frisbee's and card games. Beats embarrassing the Birthday Child when he tries to cash a hot check.
   

   
   

5. Oh, and my final tip for this time concerns travel. When you've had enough laundry, school projects, crock pot meals, log cabins, instant birthday parties, and you can't take it anymore,
   

   take that brown/black suitcase and wrap bright colored or decorative duct tape around the suitcase just below the zipper line. You will be able to spot your luggage coming off the carousel right away, even among other brown/black suitcases, thereby making a quick get-away before you are caught…or guilt sets in.
   

   
   

If you find these tips useful or even semi-humorous, I will have a tip jar out by the mailbox. Feel free to contribute.

Cookie Monster Time!

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved to pay off Girl Scout Collection Agency

In any other country if we saw little children peddling chocolate bars door to door so the band can march in the Miss Black Eyed Pea Festival, they would become the new poster child for ending child labor.

Selling products to make money for your child's school has somehow escaped the child labor laws of this country. How many times have we been met at the door by a big eyed waif and the bedraggled parent waving a catalogue of chocolate covered nuts, popcorn, gift boxes, and soap on a rope, all pictured in bright colors and ten times larger than the actual objects? And who wouldn't want to help the school band make it to the Black Eyed Pea Festival?

We never stop to ask and "What percentage of this outrageously priced chocolate bar actually goes to the Black Eyed Pea transportation fund and how much goes to pay for the CEO's condo in Maui?" But now I do.

One time I tried to figure how much the "proud partner with schools" corporation was making off the backs and strollers of school children and their parents. There is no minimum wage paid to the little sales people. The "sales force" is paid in glow-in-the-dark key chains, Frisbees, and stuffed animals, all made in a foreign country. And not every sales child gets one. Most have to sell a quadrillion items to qualify for the stuffed animal. Or, the latest ploy "every child who sells even one item has their name entered in an electronic drawing with the rest of the world for an AM hands-free radio." At least the Boy Scouts let you know up front what percentage of the popcorn sales is going to their troupe.

And now it is time for the annual Girl Scout Cookie Sale. I now understand why Sesame Street has a Cookie Monster. Must have missed the Girl Scout Cookie quota!

I am not surprised that in keeping with the shrinking dollar, so have the size of the cookies and the number of cookies in a package. Still, like eating turkey once a year at Thanksgiving, we will purchase our annual fix of Girl Scout Cookies if for no other reason than to help that little Brownie or Girl Scout earn her cookie badge and to try for the coveted "charm" for most cookie sales by a girl scout. Still, it makes you wonder how little Angelina Marie, age 6, could manage to sell 2,573 boxes of cookies all by herself and still go to school five days a week. Me thinks there may be family connections there, selling cookies on behalf of little Angelina Marie!

I know the rationale behind selling cookies: teaches confidence, business sense, advertising, teamwork, money management, targeting audience, tracking inventory, profit margin, but I believe I learned all that with my Kool-Aid stand and I only charged 5 cents a glass.

After applying all my business sense, figuring gas mileage, time spent, and interest paid on my Bass Pro Shop issued Visa credit card, I will come out ahead if I buy 8 cases of cookies myself. Then I can teach my Kool-Aid business skills to my ten-teen by setting her up a stand on the side of the road to peddle her Girl Scout cookies.

Course it will be just like the government to ask for a business license, health certificate, IRS WD 40 form, building inspection, and permit to operate a business in a residential area.

But I won't be guilty of violating child labor laws!

Books I Haven’t Written
By Jody Worsnam
All rights reserved to reserve all rights
In planning for the forthcoming Erma Bombeck Writer’s Workshop, I have become hyper motivated to the point that I have hurled myself into the book I haven’t written “Procrastination Can Wait Till Tomorrow.”
Not only that, I have twenty-one as yet unwritten sequels to follow. In no particular unfinished order they are:
“Laugh-er-cise”, Reduce stress, burn calories without breaking a sweat by reading this book.
“Laugh-a-robics”, for those needing a more intense workout for abdominal muscles than Laugh-er-cise”.
“Low Calorie Humor”, the premise is if you are laughing, you are not eating.
“Laughs for the Road”, a manual for avoiding road rage
“Traveling Down the Funny Highway”, especially written for those living in Arkansas and Louisiana
“Humor, Me” an autobiography written by my daughter.
“Granny Grins and Groans”, stories from my mother. What you thought that was me?
“Prime Timer Laughter”, stories to read when TV re-runs start, usually four weeks after the first episode.
“Senior Snickers”, a mystery book to determine who dun it.
“The Joy of Not Cooking”, a guide to the frozen and canned food section of major grocery chains.
“Drive by Laughter”, targeted for the ghetto neighborhood
“Drive Through Humor”, fast food that makes you laugh.
“Drive-In Funnies”, quick comebacks for when your order comes back wrong.
“Cooking and Other Humorous Events” Stories of when the cakes don’t rise, the soufflé falls, and there’s no dough in the middle.
“Organized Humor”, stories catalogued for those wearing Depends, drinking hot coffee, coke, or stuck in boring meetings.
“Yunnf R sU”, humor for dyslexics.
“Humor-roids”, for people who would rather stand and laugh than sit and groan.

Hurry, these books won’t be on sale any time soon. Shipping and handling included.

If China Owned U.S.

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for Chop Stick Lessons

With the impending bankruptcy of Hostess, another American icon slips from our grocery shelves and Indian owned convenience stores soon, no doubt, to be bought up by the Chinese to satisfy their yen for all things American. Twinkies, 100% unnatural preservatives and sugar could be replaced with a centuries old recipe of herbs, spices, and rice called Wing Ding Dongs.

This lead me to thinking of other American businesses and what would happen to those mainstay products of American life should the Chinese acquire them.

Would Kentucky Fried Chicken replace their grilled, original, crispy chicken with Chee Kin Don Wong?

Would ExLax become Ma-Ka-U-Go and Pepto Bismal become Ma-ka-U- No-Go?

If they bought out all the pedicure salons, would all pedicure franchises be sold by Mee Doo Toe?

I could see them consolidating Dish, Direct TV, and the cable companies into Moo Goo Fa U Brains.

McDonald's, being such an international company might keep its name, but the menu might feature the McChang Double Decker Duck Tongue and nobody would want to know the ingredients in the secret sauce.

Would Wal-Mart become The Great Wall- n-Cart?

Would UPS become U Pick-up Self or Unicycle Pick-up Service?

Would the American acronym CBS become the Chinese Buying System?

Once all businesses had become Chinese owned, might they then take on education and introduce their very successful program in mainland China, No Wok Left Behind?

I'm sure our government would bail out Hostess if they could get another loan from China.

In the meantime, I am going to do my part and support Hostess by scarfing down as many Twinkies, Snowballs, Wonder Bread, Ding Dongs, Mini-muffins, and cupcakes as my stretch jeans will allow! It's my American duty.