The scariest Halloween costume

Every year the Chamber of "Commerce" sponsors "Trick or Treat on Main Street," an event downtown that provides a safe venue for the kids to get their candy fix. Otowi Station participates, and this year we handed out about 70 pounds of candy and all our glow-in-the-dark monster fangs, skeletons, and tops. (And what is it with sour Twizzlers? The smell of them made me gag, but the kids snatched them up, and, even more interesting, actually ate them.) We also had dog cookies for the pooches. Pet Pangaea sponsored a Hallow-wiener constume contest for dogs.

One mom dressed as Sarah Palin, and her bodyguard kids were dressed in suits and sunglasses and were wearing earphones. Indiana Jones was out in force, as were men dressed as nuns. The kid wearing the scariest costume of all was dressed as the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

AUGGGGGGHHHHHH!

Let the Crapture begin!

As we approach the weekend and Izzy's visit to help clear out the old homestead, I ask each of you to read my friend Marion's profoundly moving sermon, Crap-free Jubilee. Use it to inspire you; to help you look forward to that great day in which the magazines will have been recycled, the wine-now-vinegar will have cleaned the pipes, our childhood mementos will have been dispersed to the rightful owners, and all the other detritus of the past will have been taken to the landfill; to be able to stand tall and say, "Today, I am clean!"


The family devised a way to get the crap down the front slope to the street.

It's okay. I'm wearing gloves.

I don't know what's happening with food workers in Los Alamos, but it ought to be stopped.

This week I met one of our local authors for coffee at the Coffee Booth. I stepped up to the counter and ordered a coffee in a mug, and the young man got a ceramic mug and inspected it for cleanliness, as the staff there always does. He found a speck of something, and instead of giving me a different mug, he reached inside, scraped the speck carefully with his finger, dumped out whatever was in there, and handed me the mug. I asked for a to-go cup

Several months ago I was standing in line at the Subway next door. The staff there wears plastic gloves on their hands when they prepare the sammitches. The other customers and I watched in disbelief as the young "sandwich artist" scratched her head with her gloved hand and then went back to the customer's order. The customer said, "You just scratched your head!" And the young woman replied, "It's okay. I'm wearing gloves." We went to Ruby K's.

I gave Subway a wide berth after than, but went back about a month ago. This time the young man who was making a sandwich scratched his butt and returned to making sandwiches. The customer said, "You scratched your butt!" The young man replied, "It's okay. I'm wearing gloves." We went to Ruby K's again. (I'm also writing a letter to the president of Subway.)

Michele recalls a time she was at an ice cream parlor in New Hope, Pennsylvania. It was a hot day, and the ice cream in the cone that the helper was preparing began to drip a little. So he licked the drippy part and then handed the cone to the customer. Michele said the only sounds in the place were those of crickets chirping, pins dropping, and tumbleweeds rolling across the deserted streets.


It's okay. We'll put on gloves.

A sure-fire crowd pleaser or death on a cracker? You decide!

Even the mere mention of Velveeta imitation processed cheese-like food product gives BobBIE the All-Overs. This concept, featuring Agnes and her best friend Trout, might send her right over the edge.

Does it bother anybody else that Velveeta is not refrigerated in the grocery stores?

Celebrate freedom of speech with the biggest douche in the universe

Here is the douchiest phone message in history.

Elephants and solid potato salad

One of my earliest memories is that of Dad taking cousin Ricky and me just south of Las Vegas, New Mexico, to see a circus train. I remember that it was raining, and I could see the elephants tethered near the cars on the tracks. The elephants wore red cloths on their backs.

Later, after we had moved to 48th Street, a friend of Dad's, Chain Robbins, took me and his daughter, Pam, to a circus up on Horse Mesa. It was the first time I ever had cotton candy. Pam apparently had had it before, and really dug into it. I took a big bite. Nothing. I tried again. The cotton candy disappeared instantly, leaving only the faintest taste on my tongue.

The other thing I remember was a clown act. A clown was prancing around, and soon he found himself in front of a cannon. Another clown fired the cannon and blew the first clown's head off. The first clown then raced around headless while everyone in the crowd laughed. I, of course, thought it was real, and asked Mr. Robbins, "What's he going to tell his mom when he goes home without his head?"

The experience soured me on clowns. I'm not afraid of clowns. I just don't think most of them are very funny or cool. I'll eat cotton candy just to be polite if it's offered to me, but I don't really care for it.

Fast forward five or six years. We went to the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus at Tingley Coliseum in Albuquerque. In a parade of all the performers, everyone marched around the coliseum and through a canvas tunnel, where they changed costumes so it would look more magical, I guess, and be a feast for the eyes.

I decided to watch one person circling the arena, and picked out an Asian woman on an elephant. Every time she passed, she looked bored. She was riding an elephant, for crying out loud! In the circus! The hopes of every kid in the place were riding with her on that elephant, and she looked bored! I would have loved to ride that elephant, and I would have been smiling for all the world to see. (I still would like to ride an elephant, or just pet one or feed it something nice.) I was so disillusioned: riding an elephant was just a job for that woman.

And that experience mostly soured me on the circus.

Fast forward to last week, when I found this video clip from Broadway Rhythm 1944. I certainly appreciate the athleticism, strength, and artistry of the Ross Sisters, but I will not be watching women's gymnastics in the Olympics this summer.

Feel free to drop me a line c/o the Algonquin

Yesterday was one for the charts at the store. My thoughts ranged from the exigent but really dangerous (chopping up all the broken down cardboard cartons to make a fire in the workroom so we could stay warm) to the illegal (whacking a customer upside the head with The New Variorum Edition Of Shakespeare, all 86 pounds worth, which would certainly redefine the expression "giving her the Works"). My nobility of mind and fear of arrest stayed my hand.

One of the hot sellers at the store is mood rings, which change color according to your mood or body temperature. Kids like them a lot, and adults who were kids in the seventies get all nostalgic and weepy when they see the rings.

Because our landlord figures it's more cost effective to cool the place when it's cold outside and to heat it in the middle of summer, the air conditioning was going full blast yesterday because it was 37 degrees with winds gusting to 40 mph. Becky came into the office with the tray of mood rings and said, "Call the landlord. It's so cold in here that all the mood rings are black."


Black: stressed, tense, harried, freezing your ears off.

The day was slow but steady. When I left for a while at 2:00, about a dozen guys on vintage Indian motorcycles were in the parking lot. Although they looked gnarly on their bikes, I bet they were all accountants and insurance actuaries. I wish I had asked them to line up nicely for a picture.

I went back in at 6:00 to help Perry. A woman and her two children came in shortly after I arrived. The two girls were about 8 and 10 years old, and they and their mother were grubby in a long-standing, sticky way. The mother seemed vague and abstracted as she wandered around. The girls, on the other hand, were having a good old time in the toy section, where they examined everything and commented loudly on all the products. The older girl asked if we had a public bathroom, and I said no and directed her to the museum next door, which was having an event and was open late. We don't usually let people use the bathroom in the store because we store household chemicals in there, and they have to pass through the workroom, which houses box cutters, tools, the paper cutter, sensitive information, and the staff's personal stuff.

The kids didn't go to the museum, and continued their loud discussion. The older girl read selections from various books to the younger one. They kept racing back and forth between their mother and the toys to tell their mom what they had found.

The older girl came back to the counter and showed me some magnetic earrings. "If these are half price," she asked, "how much are they?" I said, "They're regularly $2.50." I showed her the price tag and asked, "How much is half of $2.50?" She knitted her brow and was silent for a few moments. I tried to help by breaking the problem down. "How much is half of two?" She knitted her brow. I held up two fingers. "If the earrings cost two dollars, how much is half of two?" "One?" she asked. I figured if she had trouble dividing two by two, dividing 50 by two would be impossible, so I said, "These are $1.25." "Sweet!" she said, and went to show her mom. The younger one found a bird call.

Bird call: Here, birdy, birdy, birdy.

Finally, after an hour, they all hove up to the counter. They had found the bird call and the earrings. The mother handed me the laminated easy-fold roadmap of New Mexico and said she didn't want it after all. They paid for their purchase and left. As they walked to the door, I saw that the pants of the younger girl were sopping wet. I thought, you don't suppose she . . . .

I went around to the front of the counter, and there it was: a puddle of urine. I was really steamed because the kid had peed her pants on our carpet; the mother was apparently so oblivious that she didn't notice the wet pants, and if she did notice them, she didn't wonder how they got that way; and if she did know how they got that way, why she didn't offer to clean up the puddle.

I got out the Lysol disinfectant and carpet cleaner and started mopping up the puddle. Perry, who had been training a new employee, asked, "Do we have a biohazard?"

After a while my anger at the mother abated. Now I just feel sad for them.