THE SPIRIT OF THE SEASON

Sometimes it takes a simple story to convey the spirit of the holiday season, or as I like to call it, the True Meaning of Christmas (tm).

Some tales are timeless, like the non-Jim Carey/Ron Howard Grinch. As part of a preprinted religous tract stuffed into a Christmas card we received this year, we read another touching story about a woman putting up Christmas lights every year of her entire life along the improbably named Highway 69 (an odd touch for a religious story, I thought), even though--and this was the tearjerking surprise at the end--she had been blind since birth. And in these troubled times, I'd like to offer up one more tale of holiday cheer, courtesy of our friendly neighborhood Bizarro S------. So gather the kids around the fireplace and have a box of tissues handy.

Walking up to the grocery store the other night, I was greeted by the timeless holiday sound of a Salvation Army worker ringing his bell. As I got closer, I heard someone yelling at him.

"Stop doing it that way--you're driving me crazy!" the good Samaritan shouted in a voice more closely resembling a drill instructor than one of Santa's helpers. "Swing your arm up higher so it rings more... more steadily!" Seeing how the spirit of the season is timeless, the fact that the bellringer spoke no English probably didn't matter. The warmth and sincerity of the message needed no common language to be shared.

And--get those tissues ready, folks, because here comes the real tearjerker of an ending--do you know who that good Samaritan was? Santa Claus? A homeless person? A random shopper driven to temporary psychosis by the lack of saleable produce inside the store?

No, gentle reader. It was an employee of the aforementioned store, generously spending his 15-minute break on the sidewalk, yelling at a volunteer bellringer.

I hope this story of holiday warmth touched you as much as it touched me. If not, maybe you should try to find the story about the holiday lights on Highway 69. I just wouldn’t do a Google search for it, if you get my drift...

MY 15 SECONDS OF FAME

Okay, it's official. I'm now a celebrity.

No, my brilliant writing didn't suddenly win me a Pulitzer prize or a six-novel contract from Random House. No, I've bypassed such petty mileposts along the road to immortality.

You see, I've had a food item named after me.

No, really. A friend of mine runs a restaurant in the Shenandoah Valley, and after a lot of back-and-forth on the virtues of the local pallete (i.e., chopped steak), he added the item to his menu. With my name attached.

Sure, it's an honor (though I think my friend, who will go unnamed, meant it as a dig). At the same time, though, it's kind of like naming a double-decker cheeseburger with bacon after the Smiths. Not that I'm a vegetarian or anything -- I'm just not a fan of food items that are typically made up of the scraps of meat not even our Bizarro grocery store would try to package and sell.

Though strangely enough, the Mark Toner(R)(tm) is made of sirloin -- a quality meat item, that. And it's the most expensive item on the menu. Which, as another Right-Thinking American knows, is the true meaning of Quality(tm)(R).

So today, it's a sandwich. Tomorrow, you'll see my name on a skyscraper or two. Just smack me if I start hanging out with supermodels, okay?

SUBTLETY, THY NAME IS KEANE

It's been a while since I've commented on this bastion of Right-Thinking humor, but this Thanksgiving depiction of life within the sad little circle really made me stop and think:

Wow. Call me one to read between the lines, but the American flag in the background makes me think he's alluding to... to something. And in these difficult times, this makes me feel as warm inside as the fuse point of a daisy-cutter. The truly scary thing is that I heard a sound bite on the news from my archenemy discussing the challenges of responding to recent events within the "parameters" of his sad, sick little cartoon universe. Which really surprised me -- after a lifetime of reading Mr. Keane's literary output, I wasnt aware that he knew any four-syllable words.

But wait! Am I too quick to mock the subtlety (or lack thereof) of this seemingly simple panel? Look at the seemingly random assortment of blocks scattered across the floor. I see an O, S and an A -- "Osama did it?" A C, an I and an A -- could this be a hint of a coverup? A P, an A and a K -- Pakistan, perhaps a clue to the Evil One(R)(tm)'s true whereabouts?

We're through the looking glass, kids. If I want to stop the blood from coming out of my eardrums, I guess I need to stick to more simple political statements.

WELCOME HOME

"So, let's have a baby today," was how the doctor's appointment began the morning of Nov. 7. "Wanna have a baby right now?"

Just four hours later, our second daughter, Sara Frances, was born, weighing in at 6 pounds 13 ounces and stretching out to just a hair under 20 inches, for those of you that keep track of such things. She's absolutely perfect, though for the life of us we still can't figure out what color her hair's going to be (so long as it's not purple -- at least not for another 14 years or so).

I was going to start writing about what an amazing thing the birth of a child is, about how no matter how many times you hold a newborn in your arms, it's an entirely new experience. But then I remembered where I'm writing these things and decided to share a moronic, vaguely irrelevant anecdote instead.

With recent events, it's a strange, almost bittersweet time to bring a child into the world. But I take strange comfort in the fact that the big news event of the day that got the most coverage on MSNCNNAOLTBSTNNFOXSPICE Nov. 7 was not anthrax, not Afghanistan, not another idiot waved through airport security carrying more cutlery than a Ginsu salesman trying to make quota at the end of the month. No, it was a nationally televised, low-speed, hour-and-a-half car chase featuring a flaming 18-wheeler, complete with helicopters, police cars and a random deputy trying to shoot at the truck with what appeared to be a varmit rifle.

Sadly, we missed all the fun because we were, um, otherwise occupied. But I take this as a good sign -- if a televised car chase isn't a sign that the country's going back to normal, I don't know what is.

COLLECT 'EM ALL!

At long last, I'll have something to place on the mantle next to my Gulf War-era souvenir lighter depicting Bush the Elder dressed as Rambo standing atop the immortal slogan NO SLACK FOR IRAQ. Check out these fun collectors' cards.

Not only do I love the obvious propaganda value ("Kids need to understand that the President--and his team--will keep them safe and that evil-doers will be punished," says the breathless marketing copy), but I think these suckers will be the biggest eBay bait since people started entombing the tags on Beanie Babies in hermetically sealed plastic to preserve their value. I know I'll be going nuts, buying package after package until I get the elusive "FEMA Director Allbaugh Meets With Bush" and "German Police Search for Clues" cards (no, really -- they're on the checklist, along with the shots of cool jet fighters blowing stuff up that you'd expect).

I'm just a Right Thinking-American, mind you, and not a Madison Avenue marketing guru or anything. But what 9-year-old isn't going to scrimp and save his allowance until he can get his own "Transporation Secretary Norman Minetta" card to put between the spokes of his bicycle wheels?

JUST IN TIME FOR... THE EASTER BUNNY?

Okay, I think it's time to revisit the friendly Bizarro S------y down the street. Besides, I just saw the Easter Bunny there.

Yes, I know it's almost Halloween, but remember -- if it wasn't, it wouldn't be Bizarro S-----y now, wouldn't it?

But I digress. The other day, we had to pop in to get one quick thing on the way out of town, so I pulled into the parking lot. My daughter starts getting really excited in the back seat. "Bunny!" she giggles, pointing to something I can't see. I look over at the front of the store and see nothing.

"Did you see a rabbit?" I asked.

"Yeah!"

"Where did it go?"

"Inside!"

At this point, I chalked it up to a toddler's overactive imagination and walked inside. I'm studying something intently on one of the shelves when I hear what could only be described as a commotion behind me.

"I got a visitor for you," a regular patron I fondly refer to as Geriatric Bicycle Man is telling the people behind the glass in the pharmacy. They're busy filling prescriptions (or, more accurately, filling out little slips telling people they only have 2 tablets of their prescription in stock and will owe them the remaining 98, but that's another story for another day), so he has to repeat it a couple of times. And he does: "I said I GOT A VISITOR FOR YOU!"

And then it hits me: Geriatric Bicycle Man (tm) actually is wheeling the aforementioned bicycle through the store. And sure enough, in a milkcrate affixed to the back axle was sitting the most ratty stuffed rabbit I've ever seen, along with a lot of other stuff I'd rather not associate with stuffed rabbits, or Easter, or anything else wholesome or childlike.

That's when I stepped away from GBM and made a quick run for the registers. And to quote one Right-Thinking American, that’s all I got to say about that.

SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED

So my daughter just turned three, and boy, was I in for a rude awakening. Not because she's, you know, three or anything, but because I thought I still had a few years left before I had to tackle something like this:

The horror... the horror.

Guess who waited to put this sucker together until 10:30 the night before the big birthday party? At that time of night, I especially appreciated the high-contrast smudged brown ink on dark green newsprint. After staring at my 18-inch Radiation King(tm) monitor at work all day, it was just what I needed to push myself over the threshold of legal blindness.

Yep, this says that this little gadget has 31 screws. "Screwed" pretty much summed it up, too.

GRACE(LESS) UNDER PRESSURE

What, with recent events, I haven’t really felt inspired to write in this spot for the past week or so. Call me crazy, but somehow it’s hard to work up a good head of steam about the rotting groceries at the friendly neighborhood supermarket right now (though, as a messy attempt to pick up a banana on Monday proved, they still are).

But, as always, I digress. I have written some serious stuff about what's happened of late -- living less than 2 miles from the Pentagon, it would be hard not to -- but they’re more along the lines of things I’d want my kids to read someday. Besides, most of it’s pretty similar to what other people have already said time and time again in the half-century into which the past week has seemed to unfold.

However, it’s nice to see other folks have put on their thinking caps, and that in a crisis of this magnitude, some people are called to their, um, personal best. Consider this now-notorious commentary, courtesy of The Washington Post:

Television evangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, two of the most prominent voices of the religious right, said liberal civil liberties groups, feminists, homosexuals and abortion rights supporters bear partial responsibility for Tuesday's terrorist attacks because their actions have turned God's anger against America.

"God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve," said Falwell, appearing yesterday on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "700 Club," hosted by Robertson.

"Jerry, that's my feeling," Robertson responded... Falwell said the American Civil Liberties Union has "got to take a lot of blame for this," again winning Robertson's agreement: "Well, yes."

...Falwell added, "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.' "

Luckily, they’re not elected officials. This guy is the elected official:

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. John Cooksey, R-Monroe, told a network of Louisiana radio stations Monday that someone "wearing a diaper on his head" should expect to be interrogated in the investigation of terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and New York City.

"If I see someone (who) comes in that’s got a diaper on his head and a fan belt wrapped around the diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over," Cooksey said.

And here’s more cast-iron thinking from the same guy, courtesy of a Louisiana newspaper:

Cooksey acknowledged Tuesday that some people in turbans are American citizens, and not everyone wearing a turban is Arab, Muslim or a follower of Islam.

"No, but bin Laden does," he said.

"The leader of these groups, bin Laden, always wears a turban, and I think a lot of his followers — if they were not based here and trying to blend into our society — would be wearing them, too."

In other words, we should be on the lookout for people not wearing turbans and trying to blend in. That does it -- I’m turning myself in.

The good news? This guy won’t be in the House of Representatives for long. He’s running for the Senate.

READING IS FUNDAMENTAL

You'd think with my new side gig as an art critic, maybe I had forgotten about my longtime fixation with the friendly neighborhood Bizarro ----way. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth, but as much as it shames me to admit it, it's been pretty quiet of late. There's still the odd funk about the place, but it's a quiet funk.

So it's up to me, I guess, to try and stir things up a bit. Fortunately, the store's book drive provided the perfect opportunity. A couple of times a year, they set up a rusty old cart where they encourage the clientele to drop off old books, which other customers then buy for a dollar donation to various charities.

Given my aforementioned description of the store's portal to East Baltimore, you can just imagine the quality of, um, literature that passes through its doors. Picture lots and lots of trashy romance novels (to call them Harlequins would be an insult to the comparatively great works of literature that publishing house has produced), all with 14-point text and a maximum page count of about 80.

So into this mix I threw my own contribution to the greater cause -- an innocuous little book I found while cleaning out our basement called The Cold Warriors: A Policy Making Elite by John C. Donovan (yes, that John C. Donovan). It's jam-packed with fun chapters like "Beyond Pluralism: Elite Activity" and "NSC 68: The Acheson/Nitze Hard Line," but sadly, no pictures. I don't think I ever read it, but I skimmed its pages and as close as I can figure, it's about... um, an elite bunch of policy makers. During the Cold War. And stuff.

But as always, I digress. I lovingly placed the book on the cart next to the next most serious-looking book (The Brother's Wife, which I'm sure is appropriately shlocky but lacks the pictures of shirtless men and taffeta-bedecked women typically found within the genre). Anyone care to place bets on how long it takes The Cold Warriors to find a new home?

Speaking of cold, my guess is about the same time that hell... oh, never mind.

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

One of the great things about renting a beach house is getting to experience another person’s aesthetic sense (or lack thereof). And the place my inlaws rented for a week this summer was a veritable Louvre of quality art (if by quality art, you mean unironic pink flamingo stained glass in the bathroom and purplish seascapes that looked like they were pained by R. Crumb in the midst of a Prozac binge).

And like in the great museums of the world, proper placement and setting really enhanced our studied consideration of the great works on display. Consider the enigmatic riddle suggested by placing a portrait of Robert E. Lee and a crucifix on the same wall (answer: both the South and Jesus, it seems, will rise again).

Then there are individual works that merit hours, if not days, of careful study. Consider this portrait of a wisened sea captain that hangs in a place of honor over the television (I realize the picture is a tad on the underexposed side, but perhaps that’s because the sheer artistic triumph of this grand oeuvre was just too much for the camera lens to handle).

Give yourself a moment to take it all in. If you close your eyes, you can almost smell the salt in the air, the wisp of his pipe, all tinged with the scent of the artist’s desperation after many an hour studying the legend to the paint-by-numbers kit.

But wait, there’s more. Consider the following details -- I didn’t go to art school or anything, but I still know that details are what make a piece of art a Piece of Art.

Note this will-o-the-wisp thing in the background. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be St. Elmo’s Fire (and if it is, what explanation do we have for the conspicuous absence of Rob Lowe?), but the colors would change subtly as you walked around the room. Spooky.

Again, I’m no artist, but I do know that it’s tough to draw a beard so it looks like a really cheap, fake clip-on beard -- impressive. Also, note the scale of the cap’n’s hands in relation to his pipe and his face. A symbolic message that he’s capable of steering through any storm? Perhaps. A sign he’s afflicted not only by bad weather, but also Marfan Syndrome? Almost certainly -- an artist of this caliber wouldn’t have problems with something as elementary as three-point perspective, after all.

As for the pipe? To quote Freud, sometimes a pipe is... well, just a pipe.

UM, NICE WEATHER WE’RE HAVING

Ever overhear a conversation so awkward you wish you could spontaneously combust to create a distraction?

The other day, I was trapped in an elevator with two people who obviously worked together. With a big toothy grin, one said to the other, “When I saw you in the garage just now and honked my horn, you jumped so high I thought you would hit the ceiling!”

“Well,” the other person replied, “I was hit by a car when I was 18. I was in traction for months.”

“Oh.”

It's never taken so long to ride up five floors.

‘I KNOW KUNG FU’

That’s my favorite line of dialogue (or come to think of it, it may be the only line of dialogue) from the overrated piece of dreck better known as The Matrix (which, as I describe elsewhere, is really just Tron without the day-glo suits).

But I digress. I mention this only because I got an e-mail from my own would-be Neo this evening, and it was so compelling it once again prompted me to lift my self-imposed ban on sharing spam messages:

Do you want the prestige of becoming a Certified Kung Fu Blackbelt??

Can you handle the respect that comes with the rank of Blackbelt??

IF YOU ANSWERED, "YES" TO BOTH OF THESE QUESTIONS, YOU ARE ONLY ONE PHONE CALL AWAY FROM ACHIEVING THE RANK OF KUNG FU BLACKBELT.

Hi, my name is [name withheld], and I am a 3rd degree Blackbelt Sifu Instructor. I have been a martial arts instructor my entire adult life. I am a decorated combat Vietnam Veteran and I received a purple heart for wounds received in combat. I currently own and operate a professional bodyguard agency for wealthy clients outside Orlando, Florida.

After years of study, I have developed a unique, easy to learn home study program. All you need to perform are the following stances:

1. Crane
2. Leopard
3. Praying Mantis
4. Dragon
5. Serpent

After performing the five animal stances and your fees processed, you will be awarded:

1. A FIRST DEGREE BLACKBELT in Kung Fu.
2. An official BLACKBELT CERTIFICATE with authentic seal with my original signature and the original signatures of two other Blackbelts.
3. A notarized certificate of authenticity.
4. A copy of my 3rd Degree BLACKBELT SIFU INSTRUCTOR CERTIFICATE, signed by a World Champion Grand Master, authorizing me, to certify you.

Simply purchase my course, learn five moves, and verify you can perform these stances by emailing me (ON YOUR HONOR) that you have completed the course and I WILL CERTIFY YOU AS FIRST DEGREE BLACKBELT...

To quote the Shakespearian thespian Sir Keanu Reeves, “Whoa.”

Fortunately, I think I’m ready for the respect that comes with the rank of blackbelt -- I mean, look how far it got Elvis. So here, in front of the entire world, I’m prepared to demonstrate my mastery of the five stances:

1. Crane (“Pay...”)
2. Leopard (“To...”)
3. Praying Mantis (“The...”)
4. Dragon (“Order...”)
5. Serpent (“Of...”)

Whoa, indeed.

TODDLER TOYS

The Three Year Old: Friend or Enemy book that Aimee picked out for us a few days back has been one of the biggest sources of unintended comedy we’ve found in some time. Along with the aforementioned clown-burning advice, we’ve now found a helpful list of toys appropriate for 3-year-olds. And it’s as helpful as you might imagine: I never, ever would have figured out for myself that a ball would be an appropriate toy for a three year old. An astrolabe, maybe, but a ball?

Anyhoo, here’s a fun way to test your parenting skills. Some of the items in the list below are from the book, others are not. See if you can pick them out:

• Balls
  
• Blunt scissors
  
• Cards with holes punched in them
  
• Clowns, scary
  
• Felt pens
  
• Glass, shards, multicolored
  
• Housekeeping toys (carpet sweeper, broom, dust mop)
  
• Hookah
  
• Kegs
  
• Kegs, pony
  
• Musical instruments
  
• Medical syringes, used
  
• Nature specimens, such as fish, turtles, salamanders, rabbits, guinea pigs or plants
  
• Nail guns
  
• Small child-size hammer, large nails, soft wood
  

Okay, okay, so maybe I made this too easy. After all, who would give their child a guinea pig?

WHAT A WAY TO GO

Well, no... actually I feel just fine. But apparently, at the Bizarro ----way down the street, I'm a goner.

Let me explain. Like lots of places with pharmacies, the store has a self-service blood pressure tester. A week or so back, I had a few free minutes to kill (and had just put a container of butter into my cart), so I figured why not give it a shot.

The cuff clamed onto my arm--hard. And then it got tighter. As I listened to some canned recording about heart disease, I felt my forearm throb a little, then go completely numb as the cuff kept clamping down. The recording stopped, but the cuff didn’t let go.

That’s when I realized I might actually be trapped inside the cuff, inside the Bizarro ----way. They’d turn off the lights after closing, leaving me to the rats or whatever else lives in the elaborate tunnel system they clandestinely built a few months back.

There are probably worse places to be locked up, I’m sure, but none came to mind while I was standing there.

After another long moment, the cuff released me, leaving me to ponder my blood pressure.

It was 0/0. In other words, no blood pressure at all. I didn’t go to med school or anything, but I’m pretty sure that’s Not Good.

Some grocery stores might accidentally shortchange you at the cashier. Others might leave the milk on the shelves a day or two too long. Mine declares me legally dead.

SEND IN THE CLOWNS

So what does it say about us as parents when our two-year-old daughter brings us copies of parenting books when we go to the library?

No, really -- this actually happened on her last visit there, and Sally brought home the copy of Your Three-Year-Old: Friend or Enemy that Aimee dumped on her lap before heading off in search of more George and Martha books for herself.

That's not the scary part. Consider this letter from the book. It isn't signed, but it's safe to assume it's from a Mensa Parent of the Year award winner:

Dear Doctors:

I have a problem of fear in a usually fearless boy who is just three. When he was about a year old we gave him a clown that rolls back and forth, with a very realistic face and eyes that roll. At first he seemed a little afraid of it, but soon he seemed happy enough. In fact, for a time he liked it so much that he carried it around.

A few evenings ago we saw a TV program about a circus. There was some violence in the picture. A knife thrower was trying to kill some other man, and although he wasn't dressed as a clown, there were clowns in the play.

I don't know if that caused it, but the next evening, our son said, "The clown is going to hurt me." His daddy told him no, the clown was just like any other dolly. This morning, the first thing he said was something about the clown.

I thought about burning the clown before his eyes, but perhaps that would be too dramatic. We are going to leave soon for a vacation with his grandma. Would it be best to take the clown along or to leave it at home?

Wow.

To the authors' credit, here's the first sentence of their response:

You seem to have made several mistakes.

They go on to point out that a clown "seems a somewhat dubious choice as a play object for a little boy," that perhaps the choice of television program was a bad one, and that -- and I never would have figured this next thing out -- "burning the clown would indeed be too dramatic. It might lead to a fear of fires as well as a fear of clowns."

Not to toot my own parenting horn or anything, but this was Aimee's reaction to seeing a life-size Ronald McDonald sculpture while stuck during an interminable layover at the Dublin airport:

"Creepy man! Aimee wants to see the creepy man!"

I couldn't be more proud.

A SORT OF HOMECOMING

Well, again it's been a while since I've written here, and once again I'm going to claim travel as an excuse. This time it was for pleasure, a great two-week jaunt to Ireland and France, vignettes from which I'll describe in more detail later.

First, I want to relate the wonderful homecoming we received upon our triumphant return (not the least of which was the in-depth, 10 o'clock news story about -- and this shocked and amazed us after being off the media grid for a fortnight -- the dangers of microwave ovens. Apparently they can get things, like water, "very, very hot," in the words of the reporter. That's the kind of pressure cooker, tell-it-like-it-is journalism you don't get in those wimpy European countries).

But as always, I digress. Returning to an empty house, we naturally had to make a trip to the Bizarro ----way down the street. Sally lost the paper-rock-scissors game, so she was treated to the following odd vignette while standing in line at the checkout late on Saturday night (as a rule, the only time when the clientele manages to outweird the store itself).

"Ow! Ouch!" the guy standing in line behind her suddenly said, flailing wildly for no apparent reason.

"Yikes," Sally replied. "Are you going to make it?"

"AAAH! SPASM!" came the reply.

Sniff... God bless America.

XTREME JUNK MAIL

So when I get home from work, there's this strange box waiting from me, with the name of a certain Xtreme sport utility vehicle I may or may not drive (but don't worry, it's electric).

I'm not expecting anything in the mail like, say, another SUV, so I'm immediately suspicious. What could it possibly be? A random piece of car innard, with a note scotch taped to it reading, "Sorry, but Earl and me forgot to put this in your car at the plant in Smyrna. Just stick it between the solenoid and the chrome muffler ball bearings?"

No, it was worse. I open the box to find a decidedly extreme looking square of cloth, emblazoned with the logo of the electric, earth-friendly vehicle in question. Fortunately, there was a tag attached pointing out that it could be used as a bandana "in emergency situations." The helpful marketing survey that came with it then asked if I was a member of an owners club.

Yeah, I go to the local Y every Monday night and swap tales with my fellow rough-and-tumble club members about my xtreme commuting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Beltway. Sometimes I even exaggerate a bit when I tell the story about the time I almost put the truck in 4WD on an off-ramp during a light drizzle. And best of all, now I have something to wear when I bring the SUV into Jiffy Lube for its xtreme oil change.

OCD AT THE GROCERY

Okay, so it's been a while since I've shared any tales about the Bizarro ----way down the street. Believe it or not, since the not-so-massive construction project a while back, things seemed to improve. At least a little, and at least for a while. We even saw some young turk of a manager wandering around, apparently eager to earn his wings, or golden grocery cart, or whatever, by cleaning up the joint.

But, of course, it could only last so long. The produce has started looking questionable again of late. With the onset of hot weather, the air conditioning doesn’t seem to work (though it cuts on with a shriek that could wake the dead all the way back to East Baltimore). And the aforementioned young turk has since disappeared, idealistic dreams of a career in grocery management dashed like so many rotten cantaloupes prematurely ripened by the broken air conditioner.

Still, hope springs eternal, even in the face of such painful metaphors. Plus, I’ve noticed a few bright-eyed new employees that have yet to be crushed by the ----way machine. Of course, at least one of the new guys looks like he’ll fit into the whole milieu quite nicely.

You see, every time he finishes scanning up a customer's purchases, he produces a filthy paper towel from his little store-issue apron and gives the scanner a good wipedown--a really good wipedown. Then he stares at the dirty paper towel for a long, long moment, as though it contains the mysteries to life itself (or maybe it was his resume, to offer up another incredibly painful metaphor) before stuffing it back in his apron and devoting his full attention to the next customer.

Granted, sometimes those scanners need to be wiped down, especially after someone comes through with a leaky jug of milk or seven. But this guy does it every freaking time, even if the only thing the happy patron has is a box of Chiclets. Which happens a lot, since in the infinite wisdom of store management, he works the freaking express lane.

Just remember -- you can’t spell “grocery/deli” without OCD.

OH, PLEASE.

I know the fact that I'm not this cartoon's biggest fan is well documented, but really:

Tell me he's not just phoning them in these days...

NIGHTMARE ON BOURBON STREET

So I haven't written for a while -- writers write, as the old saying goes, but journalists desperately try to put the whole nasty business off.

I've actually been busy, covering a trade show in New Orleans. And if there's one thing that makes me less homesick for my daily newspaper days, it's having to start one up from scratch and run it for three days. I even had to come up with a crossword puzzle (and finding clues for "bundle strapper" is no walk in the park, believe me).

But as always, I digress. It's 1 a.m. one night in New Orleans, and I'm walking down Bourbon Street after a late dinner with some coworkers, enjoying the view of shirtless guys sitting in pools of their own essence and the ambulances cruising up and down the cross streets, in search of people on which to perform drive-by stomach-pumpings. Y'know, ambience 'n stuff.

Anyway, I look up and notice this woman making a beeline for me. She looks kind of familiar, but I don't really remember her. But boy, did she remember me. She grabs me by both lapels of my jacket and shouts, "I KNOW YOU!" Before I could escape, she continued, "YOU WORK FOR... FOR..." and then mentioned the name of a rival publication. As I was stammering something about her being close, I realized that I interviewed her for about five minutes about five years ago -- more than enough to warrant a tearful Bourbon Street reunion. In the meantime, she's yelling, "YOU NEED TO GET THAT JACKET AND F-ING TIE OFF AND SMILE, BECAUSE YOU'RE ON F-ING BOURBON STREET!" The whole time, she's shaking me violently and I'm starting to wonder how I'm going to gracefully escape. Fortunately, just then her boyfriend, or spouse, or whatever, picked her up like a cord of wood and carried her off in the direction of more wholesome French Quarter fun.

So that was New Orleans.

THE FIRST SWALLOW OF SPRING?

Well, maybe not. But this past weekend, I did see another annual rite of spring -- the first drink shirtless guy sitting in an idling Trans-Camero-Firebird in the fire lane of a certain retail establishment I've mentioned in this space from time to time.

This was during a typically bizarre shopping sojourn, during which I stood behind this bickering couple in the checkout line. You see, the guy had just given the girl a chocolate rabbit as a present, conveniently just a month or so after Easter. (Who knows -- maybe it was a Whitmonday present?)

But I digress. Anyway, they were asking the cashier whether he thought the gift was weird.

Well... no. No weirder than usual.

DEATH IN A SAD LITTLE CIRCLE

Okay, so maybe I fixate on this one stupid cartoon, but study last Sunday's offering below:





I realize that not all cartoons have to be funny, but doesn't this seem like the lonely ramblings of a desperate old man, bitter and estranged from his children, realizing the tragic futility of his existence as death whispers in his ear a little more loudly, a little more clearly with each passing day?

On the plus side, the Marmaduke cartoon that ran just below it was a real hoot.

CONSTRUCTION, CONSTRUCTION... WHAT'S YOUR FUNCTION?

I'm sure regular readers of this log (thanks, Mom!) have been waiting with bated breath to hear the fate of the mysterious midnight construction at our friendly neighborhood grocery store last week. The work site itself was apparently a pretty impressive sight -- a neighbor told us it was noisy as hell, and when we drove by the store the night the work was being done, there were these ominous giant crates sitting in the parking lot. Were they full of groceries.. or pod people? You be the judge.

So a few days later, I walk in, eagerly anticipating an entirely new, but still freakishly odd, grocery store. Boy, was I in for a surprise. A casual walk around the store revealed... well, nothing. Nothing, that is, until I wandered into the store’s notorious produce section -- so frequently stocked with rotting fruit that even employees fear to wander its aisles. I once heard two checkers getting into a fight over whose turn it was to do produce duty, but that’s another story for another day.

But I digress. It turned out that they replaced all the metal, vaguely communist-looking stands upon which they place the aforementioned rotting fruit with these newfangled plastic stands (with fake, unpainted wood grain -- classy!) As a side effect, they apparently threw away all the old fruit because everything looked relatively edible.

However. The changes I saw don't reflect the size and scope of the machinery I saw in front of the store on Tuesday night, nor the loud noises our neighbors reported. So I suspect something more nefarious is afoot. Maybe they dug an underground tunnel to a nearby store from a competing chain. That would certainly explain the assortment of suspiciously fresh fruit. Or maybe it has something to do with the odd connection to the Canadian military (which I’m still not prepared to discuss publicly in this space, out of fear for the well-being of my loved ones).

More frightening yet, I was back the other night, and I heard an announcement over the PA that made my heart stop. The store was closing early for... more construction.

The plot thickens.

ALL IN THE FAMILY

Looks like I'm no longer the only family member who's been written up in The Washington Post. Believe it or not, this guy's actually my cousin.

Good thing I'm already married -- if I wasn't, something tells me I wouldn't get access to the Rose Garden to pop the question. Of course, I could always pull the ring out of a piece of rotten fruit in a certain grocery store that's enjoyed a few mentions in this space.

AT LONG LAST, A REASON TO GO ON

Finally, a longstanding void in my life has been filled. Drop by, and help fight the real enemy.

LET THE SHOW BEGIN!

So it's been a few weeks since my last report on the friendly neighborhood grocery store-turned-performance-art-piece (and one of these days when I walk in, I'm going to shout at the top of my lungs, "LET THE SHOW BEGIN!") Aside from an invasion by advance troops from the Canadian military (which I'll write about once I recover from the shock), Bizarro ----way's been a bit quiet of late. Normal, almost.

But as they say in the movies, trouble's afoot.

The subtle clue? A tiny sign taped to the front door saying the store would close two hours early Tuesday night... "for construction." Yes, construction... construction that begins at 10 in the evening and presumably is finished before the store reopens the following morning. I can't quite shake the mental image of little gnomes, or dwarves, or something, tinkering into the wee hours of the night.

Of course, Occam's Razor applies perfectly here. The most logical explanation? They're going to burn the place down for the insurance money. I mean, I would if I owned the place, though that might disturb the previously mentioned portal to East Baltimore. And who would want an angry Egg Man on your doorstep at 10 at night?

DEAL OF THE CENTURY

I know ragging on spam e-mail is just about as old as the Internet itself, but once in a blue moon I get something that surprises even jaded old me.

Consider this message that found its way to my work e-mail address (natch, since it's a Serious Business Opportunity for Serious Businesspeople):

> From: Lisa --------
> To: -----------
> Sent: Thursday, April 5, 2001 1:14 PM
> Subject: www.AirbrushingEquipment
>
> airbrushingequipment.com is for sale.
>
> The price for this domain name is $499.
>
> This is a limited time offer. Available on a first
> come first served basis.
>
> Sam ------
> 708-XXX-XXXX

>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail.
> http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/?.refer=text
>

Lucrative, yes. And to clinch the deal, nothing says "professional business opportunity" like that plug for free e-mail at the bottom of the message.

Fortunately, even though the message is more than a month old, I checked and the URL is still available. But be warned -- if you want the domain name, brace yourself for a bidding war. I'm prepared to go as high as $499.01 for it.

REVIEW HAIKU

So I'm flipping through The New York Times, and I stumble across what's got to be the world's best writing gig -- unless it pays by the word.

Along with times and channels, the Times' TV grid includes short, staccatto bits of commentary that manage to convey in a handful of words what takes most writers 1,500 words of tedious plot summary and half-hearted criticism. It's almost like haiku -- dissonant words that add up to more than the sum of their parts. More importantly, they're bitchy as hell.

Consider the following mini-reviews:

Armageddon, one of approximately 45 killer asteroid movies that came out a few years ago -- "Not a believable moment in it."

Wild Wild West, the Will Smith masterwork -- "Acid indigestion for the soul."

No Time for Sergeants, a 1950s-era Andy Griffith comedy vehicle -- "One belabored joke."

Big Momma's House, a showcase for the talents of master comedian Martin Lawrence -- "Not much here."

Air America, some feel-good '80s movie about the CIA and the contras, or something -- "Muddled bore."

And perhaps my favorites, for Pyromaniac's Love Story, about which I know nothing except that it stars one of the off-brand Baldwin brothers -- "Dreadful." Better yet, the comment for Nightwatch, some lame thriller -- "Preposterous."

Sure, It Pays to Enrich Your Word Power (tm). But sometimes it's the simple, thesaurus-free Everyman approach that works best. Consider the mini-review for the Kevin Costner epic The Postman -- "Truly awful."

Of course, to be fair, they don't hate everything. One of my all-time favorites, Airplane, gets a compacted rave -- "Hilarious Spoof. Truly."

I think I have the critical chops to make these kinds of gutsy judgement calls (that, or I'd just program a Word macro that spits out the phrase "festooned with manure.") But look at the average length of these weblog entries. If I did this for the Times, the TV grid would be longer than the Sunday magazine.

IDA KNOW!

As anyone who's read my earlier rants about such vital concerns as the neighborhood grocery store or obscure political conspiracies would know, I'm not the kind to fixate. Well, at least until I flip through the paper to the comics, where the nefarious Family Circus (to quote the movie Go) "is just sitting there in the corner, waiting to suck."

Friends have called the cartoon's treacley, octogenerian author, one Mr. Bil (that's with one "l") Keane, the "anti-Toner" -- perhaps the highest complement I have ever been paid.

But I digress. My favorite Web site for many years was the Dysfunctional Family Circus, which let the well-balanced, emotionally healthy populace of the Web rewrite the cartoon's captions -- with predictable results, right down to the spelling ("daddy i poopd on the flor"). But as the Internet was transformed into the strip mall it is today, the lawyers shut it down with equally predictable speed, leaving concerned citizens like myself to digest the following cartoon alone:

Let's stop for a moment to consider this tableau. Bil looks like he hasn't slept in days (the black-and-white version that ran in the paper shows a nice growth of stubble). Judging by the stains on his clothing, he appears to have awoken in a pool of his own essence. He's holding a crumpled bag, which appears to conceal a bottle or other cylindrical object.

Questions... questions. Why are he and Dolly (yes, I know the random kids' names) wandering out of an alley? Did Thel, awakening from her own herion-induced stupor in an empty bed, send her daughter downtown to check the dumpsters for Bil's naked corpse? And who is this mystery Mrs. Clarke, and why exactly does Dolly want her to meet her father?

The mind boggles. Maybe there's more to Mr. Keane’s "art" than initially meets the eye. After all, art imitates life, and in life there are no easy answers. We've all awoken in a pile of our own sick (metaphorically speaking, of course), and we all have our Mrs. Clarkes that we'd rather not see in our moments of weakness.

Or then again, maybe Bil's just a really crappy artist.

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?

So I get a roll of film developed, and while flipping through the pictures, I come across one I didn't recall taking (probably because I, in fact, didn't take it in the first place):

Good times! (Obviously, I need to get out more.)

Suffice it to say I don't know how these people are or where they live, but I suspect we're not looking at the latest charity fete at the Guggenheim.

But as always, I digress. I checked the back of the two errant prints, and sure enough, they came from someone else's roll. Which means they probably got an errant print or two of mine. And what would they think of my stunning photography (these days, mostly blurry pictures of toddlers)?

I think the reaction of the woman in the picture probably says it all.

SCARF FACE

Time for another update from our favorite neighborhood grocery. You may remember my earlier rantings about the life-size cutout of a friendly neighborhood pharmacist that was beheaded, taped back together and ultimately pushed to the back of the store.

Well, he's back. Back with a vengeance, in fact, front and center near the "best-sellers" rack (whose contents suggest that the best-sellers list comes not from The New York Times, but the Weekly World News).

Sure, the cutout still looks like it was the recipient of a Columbian necktie (which, come to think of it, must be the dramatic end nebbish pharmacists the world over dream for, like accountants who secretly dream of going to an audit armed with ninja-style throwing stars). But in an effort to soften the effect, or at least not frighten small children, a thoughtful store employee placed a tasteful lepoard-print scarf over the badly-taped trach job. So, as the kids today like to say, it's all good.

WHATSUNDAY?

So I'm looking through my planner the other day, and I notice a couple of holidays I've never heard of before -- Whitsunday and Whitmonday.

At first, I thought maybe it was one of those wacky Canadian holidays, or one of those random bank holidays they like to take in countries with long dole lines. But since I subscribe religiously to Reader's Digest and all it's fun right-wing theories (plus the College Chuckles are a laff riot), I know it Pays to Increase My Word Power (tm).

So it's off to Google to search for Whitsunday; I get mostly links for some resort in Australia. So I start looking for Whitmonday and get the following helpful definition:

The day after Whitsunday.

And who says that dictionary editors have no sense of humor?

PS. I finally found out that Whitsunday is apparently the same thing as Pentecost. If it makes it easier to remember, just think of it as the day before Whitmonday.

BIZARRO UPDATE

Just a quick update from my last report from the front line of the grocery wars -- the headless pharmacist was temporarily fixed with some clear electrical tape. Then it got moved to a spot of shame, near the back and next to a display of vaguely suspect bananas and the swinging doors leading to the back of the store.

But now it's gone altogether. Maybe behind that "employees only" sign is some sort of elephant graveyard, where defaced promotional cutouts go to die.

Or maybe there's just more rotting bananas.

BACK TO BIZARRO ----WAY

Okay, back to the original point of this sorry excuse for an edgy, postironic log -- namely recording for all posterity the strange goings-on at our decidedly creepy neighborhood grocery store.

So it's Saturday night, a few minutes before close, and I'm wandering the aisles of the store. And I come upon one of the many life-size cardboard cutouts of pharmacists they've scattered throughout the Bizarro ----way. Presumably the idea is that when you're standing in the crackers aisle, trying to decide whether the Triscuits are worth 89 cents more than the house-brand Woven Wheat Thins(tm), you see the pharmacist cutout out of the corner of your eye and suddenly remember, "Oh! Almost forgot to pick up a spare refill of Prozac." It's what they call the "impulse buy" in the action-packed retail world, and let me tell you, nothing screams "impulse" more than federally regulated medications that require a prescription from a licensed medical professional.

But as always, I digress. So I catch the cutout out of the corner of my eye, and I notice one little thing, no big deal: It doesn't have a head. Okay, so maybe I'm a grownup and that shouldn't freak me out. But then, you haven't been in this particular store a few minutes before close when the only other person in the store is standing in front of the wine section, jaw agape, and hasn't moved in about 5 minutes.

All in all, it was about par for the course for a Saturday night.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

Who says you can't learn anything from the 'Net? Here's an excellent example of a piece of business correspondence. Note the opening and closing sentences, which I plan to append to all of my voluminous correspondence with the Columbia House Record Club and other financial interests.

ERRATA

A while back, I offered a link to an architect’s drawing of the eerily phallocentric Clinton library. It’s been brought to my attention that a number of revised architectual sketches have since been posted [1] [2].

We regret the errors.

EH-OH.

Um... I'm not saying I did this or anything, but this site has been updated a bit.

FWD: FWD: PERSONAL TRIVIA

Okay, I generally don't forward these suckers, but there's enough of a
personal (read narcissistic) element to this that I'll break my own rule.
---

Subject: Okay, here's what you're supposed to do. COPY (don't forward) this
entire e-mail and paste it onto a new e-mail that you will send. Change all
of the answers so that they apply to you. Then, send this to a whole bunch
of people you know, INCLUDING the person who sent it to you. The theory is
that you will learn a lot of little known facts about your friends.

1. LIVING ARRANGEMENT?
Rented townhaus, though the rats in the backyard are free. We keep trying to
move, but there appears to be a global conspiracy to keep us put.

2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
Didn't you know? I can't read.
Happily, a volunteer trying to fulfill their community service obligation is
reading me The Professor and the Madman and Confederacy of Dunces (for the
third, maybe fourth time).

3. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
I use a Powerbook G3 laptop, so no mousepad.

4. FAVORITE BOARD GAME?
Don't think I have one.

5. FAVORITE MAGAZINE
TechNews, the NAA Magazine of Newspaper Operations. The cartoon in the
back's always a hoot.

6a. FAVORITE SMELLS?
Napalm in the morning. Alternately, gingerbread.

6b. LEAST FAVORITE SMELLS?
Gingerbread. Alternately, napalm in the morning.

7. FAVORITE SOUND?
"Mark, they optioned your novel!"

8. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD?
Dealing with people with no sense of humor.

9. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING?
"Is this the rapture?"

10. FAVORITE COLOR?
Silver, which come to think of it is kind of an absence of color. That
probably speaks volumes about me.

11. HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE?
Yeah, right. Like anyone ever calls me.

12. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME?
Junior -- and not "Mark Toner Jr." but "Junior Toner."

13. WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT IN LIFE?
Sharing laughter with friends and loved ones (cue cheesy music).

14. FAVORITE FOODS?
Sushi. Gnocchi. Just about anything else that ends with an "i" (except maybe
kimchi).

15. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA?
Sure.

16. DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST?
Yep. And upside down, too.

17. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?
Depends on whether Aimee's decided to stack all of hers in our bed that
evening.

18. STORMS - COOL OR SCARY?
Cool.

19. WHAT TYPE WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?
1980 Ford Mustang, with bitchin' mag wheels (not my choice, but hey --
chicks dug 'em)

20. IF YOU COULD MEET ONE PERSON DEAD OR ALIVE?
Maybe James Joyce. Maybe David Letterman. Definitely Werner Klemperer (may
he rest in peace).

21. FAVORITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK?
A good Oregon pinot noir. God, that sounds pretentious.

22. WHAT IS YOUR ZODIAC SIGN?
Taurus. But as they used to say in the 70s, I was "born on the cusp," baby.

23. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI?
Anything that George Bush the Elder doesn't like couldn't be half bad.

24. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB YOU WANTED WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Game show host.

25. IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOR?
Purple. I wouldn't want to be conspicuous.

26. EVER BEEN IN LOVE?
Yep. (cue sitcom-like "Awwwwww......")

27. IS THE GLASS HALF EMPTY OR HALF FULL?
What glass?

28. FAVORITE MOVIES:
Movies? Is that where you go in the big dark room and they show the pictures
on the wall?
Sorry -- having a toddler can do that to you. Let's see... Raising Arizona,
Heathers, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (my Geek Trilogy). More recently
("recently" being a relative term), the Opposite of Sex, Waiting for
Guffman, Run Lola Run. Classics? Patton, Citizen Kane, Fritz Lang stuff, and
I'm probably forgetting about a million others (again, credit the
toddler/short-term memory thing). And Tangerine (though only Sheila will get
that one).

29. DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS?
My coworkers are convinced I type with my fists -- I manage to be noisy and
inaccurate at the same time.

30. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED?
My clown suit and art supplies.

31. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER?
INT (a*b)2 + cos(pi)2, to the 14th decimal place

32. FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH?
Live, curling. On television, women's billiards (on very late at night on
ESPN2).

33. SAY ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU:
Sheila -- for a lawyer and a Reston native, she turned out alright.

34. PERSON YOU SENT THIS TO WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
fifi@bustynuns.com

35. PERSON YOU SENT THIS TO WHO IS LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
president@whitehouse.gov

36. FAVORITE THING TO DO IN YOUR SPARE TIME.
Fill out and forward chain e-mails to my friends.

37. LAST BIG TICKET ITEM YOU PURCHASED
Big honkin' SUV. I'm embarrassed by this, but with W. in power it won't be
long before we have another Gulf War and gas prices plummet again. Then I'll
be driving to national parks and leaving the thing idling for weeks at a
time.

38. FAVORITE PLACE YOU'VE VISITED.
Paris. I hear the one that isn't in Nevada is nice, too.

39. FINISH THIS STATEMENT. I KNOW I'M GETTING OLD WHEN.......
...I actually take the time to fill out and forward chain e-mails to my
friends.

BEER AND TP

So we're supposed to get a monster snowstorm here on the East Coast, and as usual the local TV stations are tweaking it up, interrupting their regularly scheduled programming for what I call the "beep of death," a high pitched series of beeps followed by a crawl that says something like WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY -- SNOW IS IMMINENT -- 40 PERCENT CHANCE OF HEAVY WINDS, DRIFTING AND CRACKS OF MOLTEN LAVA FORMING IN THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH. 30 PERCENT CHANCE OF DOGS AND CATS LIVING TOGETHER, END OF HUMANITY AS WE KNOW IT. STAY TUNED FOR DETAILS FOLLOWING "WILL AND GRACE."

So I'm sure when I go to our friendly neighborhood Bizarro ----way later today, there might actually be more than a half-dozen lost-looking souls wandering the aisles. Of course, I half think that one of the reasons people flood the stores right before a big snowstorm is because somewhere in the back of their minds, they think they might get to be on TV. After all, back in the unenlightened days before reality programming, just about the only way to become fleetingly famous was getting filmed standing in line at a grocery store, arms filled with bread, milk and toilet paper. Well, you could also take your shirt off and hope for a guest shot on "Cops," but that's more of a long shot.

And what an opportunity to share your unique worldview with your fellow global citizens. Here's a quote from a pre-snow grocery store interview a month or so back -- "We got beer, and we got toilet paper."

Hmm. Why not just tell the world, "Hi! We're going to drink, and then we're going to crap."

Paging Dr. Freud

Okay, I'm getting used to this genius style of writing... and who doesn't like beets? Charlene Tilton is a marvelous actress... I say that George W. is coming into his own... I could watch reruns of Who's the Boss? all night and all day, if sleep wasn't a biological requirement.

Enough, enough. Just a random thought about our lately departed president. Say what you will about the man, but he's got some giant cojones -- and I mean that literally. Check out the architect's drawing for his proposed presidential library.

Distinguishing characteristics, indeed.

Bizarro ----way

One of my reasons for doing this blog (and I have to come up with a better term for it, since to me a "blog" sounds like an intestinal dysfunction) is to archive the various attrocities that take place at our friendly neighborhood grocery store -- which is neither friendly nor, in the true sense of the word, a neighborhood place.

Let me explain. The people who shop there aren't from our neighborhood -- or any neighborhood on this side of the culture gap. And the, uh...amenities offered by this particular store doesn't exactly prompt people to say, "Honey? Let's hop in the car and drive across town in bumper-to-bumper traffic to get a gallon of milk." Which is good, because on the average day, they'll be completely out of milk. Or all meat. Or, say, all canned items with a picture of a tomato on them.

Between the grocery store's lack of... well, food, and the bizarre clientele (we joke that there must be a portal leading directly to some East Baltimore neighborhood), it's a pretty singular experience. We've taken to calling it Bizarro S---way ("ungh! Me no want food! Me go shopping!") and view our regular trips there as a sort of performance art. I'll start sharing stories soon.

Consider yourselves warned, especially if you're faint of heart -- or stomach.