SO LONG, BUNDLE STRAPPERS...

A long time ago, I linked to a column I wrote when I first became editor of TechNews, in the hopes of providing an example to future generations of editors of how not to introduce yourself to your readers.

Well, I'm changing jobs, so here's an example of how not to say goodbye. The good news? I won't be writing a column like this at my new gig, for which the world as a whole should breathe a sigh of relief...

And yes, that is me getting out of Dodge. I didn't ask for this, but somehow it wound up as a miniscule, where's Waldoesque part of the cover of my final issue. Could have been worse --- they could have depicted me riding into the sunset on my trusty steed, with the requisite unspoken caption ("... and the horse you rode in on!")

WHEN YOU CARE ENOUGH...

Some of you may have friends who care enough to send you one of those great Maya Angelou cards from the Hallmark collection ("A river, a rock and a tree/Sorry you caught me with the nanny/On our anniversary"). Me, I get cards like this:

So far, so good. But then there's the inside:



Wow. Actually, after looking at this card's high production values, someone needs to say something else: "Your Photoshop Skills Frighten Me!"

For the record, I received this as a joke -- I think. That day's pretty much a blur. The scary thing? These cards were actually printed by my sincere but somewhat uptight alma mater, in an attempt to discourage binge drinking. (The pretty bridge you can barely see is a famous campus landmark, but that's another story for another day.)

But picture distributing a box of these to your average dorm of college freshmen, and imagine the howls of laughter. It's almost enough to drive a well-meaning college administrator to the bottle.

MY FUTURE BROTHER IN LAW

As some of you may recall, my sister-in-law is currently working with the Peace Corps in Tonga. Here's an article about the man I'm convinced she'll marry while she's there. While the story's worth the click just for the opening sentence, you could also simply opt to hear his sultry voice.

Mothers, lock up your daughters!

HAIRBRUSH NOT INCLUDED

One of the great things about being an editor of a technology
magazine? Making fun of your kids' toys in print.

Along with the earsplitting Kiddie Konga drum and a jive-talking Spongebob Squarepants, perhaps the toy I've most regretted giving my four-year-old daughter was a doll. And not just any doll, but a reporter doll.

Her name is Jessica Journalist, and she's one in a series of dolls that's supposed to dispel the whole Barbie stereotype by providing girls with meaningful role models for their future careers (which, as my 401(k) tanks, means I probably should have sprung for Law School Lucy).

It's a nice thought, and Jessie is certainly decked out with all the modern newsgathering tools: a laptop, cameras--both still and video!--notepads and a tape recorder, among other things. But then there's the oversized hairbrush, plus the stylish leopard-print jacket, things I don't recall my female colleagues bringing to the municipal wastewater authority and library board meetings I used to cover back in the salad days.

But as always, I digress. I didn't mention the entertaining book that came with the doll, which featured Jessica Journalist mentoring an aspiring grade-school journalist by driving her around in a convertible and asking senior citizens some really, really softball questions. And at the end of an interview with her grandfather, the girl gives him a kiss on the cheek.

Now as a serious journalist, that's where I have to say something. That's simply preposterous. I always kissed my sources on the lips.

YOUR CHILDREN ARE NOT SAFE

Just when things couldn't get any weirder in these tense, post-September 11, pre-Gulf War, post-market meltdown times, leave it to a completely unexpected surprise to throw everyone for a loop: a sniper.

It's been a freaky couple of weeks here in the DC suburbs--as was the case with low-flying airplanes after Sept. 11, suddenly all these white trucks and vans that no one ever paid attention to have taken on ominous, frightening portents and seem to be everywhere (which, like the airplanes, they were all along). For a while, though, it still seemed a bit removed, even as I watched and wondered about the box truck idling in the parking lot last week. What exactly is a paper shredding company doing making a delivery in a daycare center parking lot, anyway?

Then came the shooting at the Home Depot that I've been to about a zillion times, and then came this note.

None of your children are safe. It's all too true, but it was true even before this spate of random terror started, right in my own backyard. As I've been telling friends, the only reason that this hadn't happened before was simply because it hadn't.

Strange days, indeed. But you can't spend your entire life afraid, hiding in a basement. Especially not a basement with wallpaper like this.

THE FUTURE IS NOW

To the childless among you, here is a grainy, inkjet-on-fax-paper glimpse of your future. Be warned: It's not a pretty sight.

We have seen our future, and it involves robotic, purportedly musical mice, pizza with the same consistency as wallboard, a palpable atmosphere of youthful euphoria mingled with a tangy dash of grownup despair, and lots and lots of screaming.

Oh yeah, and we went to Chuck-E-Cheese's for the first time, too.

IMAGES

It's funny -- the one image that's stuck to my mind on this sad, strange anniversary is one I never actually saw a year ago.

As this (thankfully inaccurate) crawl flashed on the screen, I was stuck in traffic trying to pick Aimee up from daycare, hearing that and a dozen other equally inaccurate bits of information as I flipped from radio station to radio station. And while the long car drive out to Reston and then home to Arlington wasn't exactly panicked, I couldn't help but look skyward every time I stopped in traffic and wonder what might happen next.

Those are the kinds of things that stick to my mind a year later -- the memory of walking out of a hotel meeting room in Tysons Corner and seeing black smoke billowing up from the horizon as the Pentagon burned. Then walking downstairs and passing by the bar, where at least 50 people were standing there frozen, staring dumbstruck at a TV just beyond my line of sight.

One year later, my one capitulation to Grief Porn, as I called the nonstop coverage in an unguarded moment, was to watch AP's live video feed in a tiny window on my computer. It was mostly static shots looking down at Ground Zero, deserted between morning and evening events. As clouds blew overhead on this blustery day, shadows and sunlight floated across the site, creating a haunting elegy for the cloudless day one year before. At one point, I looked out my office window and saw a tree-planting ceremony in front of a building across the street -- a simple ceremony, a small, almost frail-looking sapling. As was the case a year before, those were the things that left me speechless today--my own memories, my own experiences.

JUST GET MY NAME RIGHT

Hard to believe as it may seem, I'm apparently not just a journalist of some reknown, but a valued font of information, a name in the front of the Rolodex for the movers and shakers of the media elite. Especially the media elite of Akron, Ohio. Check out this legitimate news item from the Associated Press.

Of course, not only did he get the name of my publication wrong (it, of course, should have read "Weekly World News"), the reporter also left out a significant portion of the comment he paraphrased. Guess they're just not ready for the Truth in Akron.

PAGING DR. FREUD!

Based on televised portrayals like The Sopranos and the old Bob Newhart show, it's easy to dismiss psychology as an overly simplistic pseduoscience. We forget that its practitioners spend years in school, learning a science based in fact, in medicine, and in the application of theory in clinical settings.

Then we look at something like this, and we want to gouge our eyes out.

COMMANDER-IN-CASH

With the first anniversary of Sept. 11 right around the corner, it's time to reflect, to remember -- and to buy a bunch of commemorative crap.

Usually home to plexiglass Nascar memorabilia and unweildy Celtic swords, Sunday's Parade magazine featured a stunning two-fer of memorabilia on two successive pages. Just in case you didn't find the resin-based commemorative plate of the WTC framed by an array of bursting fireworks (maybe not the best use of visual imagery) to your liking, you could flip the page and see the sad-eyed, officially licensed Hummel figurine proudly hoisting an American flag (perhaps he immigrated in the '50s to work on our missile program).

Then there's this:

"Every American should have one," reads the breathless copy on the Colonial Mint Web site (official motto: "Money not valid in 51 states").

Note that it's a "Revenge Promisory Note." Note, too, that the denomination would have bought you about five shares of Enron stock back in the heady days of.... well, last year. And above all, note that W. isn't our President, nor our Commander in Chief, but just "Commander Bush."

Let the healing begin.

HEADLINE NEWS

Journalists, as we all know, are the most impartial arbiters of judgement since... well, I was going to make a bad accounting joke here, but I won't in deference to all my college classmates who joined consultancies for, as one of them put it, the fraternity-like atmosphere. Luckily for them, I hear prison's got some of the same ambience.

Har, har. Where was I? Oh, yes -- imparitality. We journalists have it in droves. Sometimes, though, when the hour grows late in the newsroom, in the heated rush to get out the printed product a little morsel -- nay, a soupcon -- of personal opinion manages to sneak into, say, a headline.

It goes without saying that this was not one of those cases.

You gotta love the look on W's face, though -- it's sort of a cross between Speed Racer and Wiley Coyote. GONNA GETCHA, SADDAM!

DEFINING MOMENTS

When I look back at this summer, I think I'll recall a few milestones. Sure, Sara's about to walk and all (and has somehow learned how to escpae from a strapped car seat), but Aimee's made an even bigger leap: at the precocious age of 3 1/2, she's become a consumer.

I'll never forget the first time (of many) that Aimee announced, with a pride belying her few years, "My favorite store is Target, and my favorite restaurant is McDonald's."

Of course, she's no fool, and quickly discovered a potential traitor in her midst. "But Daddy calls Target Tar-geht!" she often continues. "That's not right."

I'm so proud I can barely speak.

HAIRSPRAY

Well, here I am in Orlando, my least favorite city in the world, and I must say that repeated business trips here have not helped the place grow on me. I arrived to a torrential downpour, and my first stop was a grocery store I could get to only by walking through--terror of terrors--Bargain World, this scary chain of souvenir shops. And there's a reason it's called Bargain World and not, say, Mensa--when I walked in, it was pouring, and a giant leak was streaming out of the ceiling right in front of the door. To remedy this situation, some genius decided the perfect fix to collect the water would be--you guessed it--a cardboard box.

And it's all been all downhill since. I returned to my hotel this evening after a long day of work, only to find the hotel lobby and its imaginatively named bar (the Lobby Lounge) full of... hair people.

That's right, Hair People. More accurately, salon workers there to learn more about the quality hair products offered by Redken. I rode up in the elevator with a woman who was obviously not one of the Hair People, and a very drunk male Hair Person ("Hair People," though, seems to be a misnomer, as any reasonable human being who walked into a beauty parlor and saw one of these folks would run out screaming) . The big surprise, and the only pleasant one of the day, was that the HP chose to hit on the woman, not me.

"Come dahn and drink with all of us [expletive] hair people!" he shouted after her before following her off the elevator on some random floor in the concrete-block, vertical slum of a hotel. "There's a thousand of us down there!"

Note to self: Barricade hotel room door and remain holed up inside until the smell of hair gel recedes.

A STUCCOED PIECE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM

Here's a shocker about home ownership -- it took a full three weeks after signing the papers for a buyout program to be announced at work.

Then the local homeowner association's Office of Homeland Security and Stucco(tm) sent us a threatening letter because the back of our courtyard gate, which you can't see because it's always open--and even if it was closed you still couldn't see from anywhere except inside our own house--doesn't match the color of the wood trim on the house proper.

Forgive us, I wanted to say, for we are but simple people from the hills and hollers of Arlington County. We'll rectify the situation as soon as we find a stain that matches our aforementioned chosen paint color of Cracked-n-Peeling Muave(tm).

But that would be wrong.

SO LONG, ----WAY

If it's been a while since I've updated this site, at least I have a good excuse for a change: We moved. And stuff.

Yep, somehow we're now homeowners. There are what a real estate agent would call some nice "features" to the place, though. Here's our lake view. Squint a little, and maybe the water will come into focus (hint: it's browner than the tree branches that obscure it).

This is a sample of the wallpaper in the guest bathroom. If you think it looks bad as a 175x210 JPEG, imagine being completely surrounded by it in a confined space... the walls, the back of the door and even the ceiling. It's pretty much the opposite of a Skinner box -- you sit in the room and feel your brain start to overheat from the extreme stimuli. If I was a soccer hooligan, I would lock myself in here every gameday morning to work myself into a proper rage before heading off to the stadium.

But the saddest part of all, Dear Reader, is that our much-beloved, love-to-hate neighborhood grocery store, the Bizarro ----way, is now in another ZIP Code -- another county, even. Of course, we can always go back to visit (and we will). As John Cusack said in the movie Grosse Point Blank, you can't go home -- but you can shop there.

THE SCARIEST SENTENCE EVER UTTERED

Sometimes, one simple sentence is all it takes to shatter your faith in mankind, to make you question your basic assumptions about human nature.

This is not one of those sentences. But, as uttered by a friend of a friend, it's still pretty frightening (and not for the faint of heart; consider this your Code Orange alert from the John Ashcroft/EdMcMahon dynamic duo):

"Every time I get paid, I buy another sword."

Roll every part of that simple statement around in your mind for a moment. Just don't think about it for too long -- blood will start coming out of your ears.

NOW I’VE SEEN IT ALL

It’s been nearly six months since 9/11, but we can finally relax: all our troubles are over. But don’t thank me. Thank these two Right-Thinking Americans:



Yes, that is Ed McMahon with John Ashcroft. Apparently, calico cats may be the sign of the devil, but enlisting one-half of TV's Wacky Bloopers and Practical Jokes is the surefire way to stop terror dead in its tracks.

But wait, it gets better. The two are announcing that the Neighborhood Watch program is going to shift its energies from stopping burglaries and muggings to -- you guessed it -- fighting terror. Great, you say, but how is that one slightly overinvolved middle-aged guy with the flashlight and the magnetic Neighborhood Watch sign slapped onto the side of his late-model station wagon going to infiltrate a sophisticated cell of operatives trained to blend into society until it’s time to strike?

Simple. There’s a pamphlet, which includes the following useful advice:

Those who should be reported includes anyone "who claims membership in an organization that espouses killing innocent people."

Someone had better warn the Rotary Club.

THE DEATH OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION, CHAPTER 47

While most of the world was watching the Winter Olympics last night, low-rise apartment buildings and RVs everywhere were awash with the comforting glow of another televised sporting event -- the Glutton Bowl, featuring such astounding feats of athleticism as consuming bowls of mayonnaise and whole sticks of butter.

Ah, Fox. Ever since they stopped airing World’s Wackiest Police Chases and Civil Rights Violations on a weekly basis, I was starting to wonder if they had gone soft. I mean, it’s been at least a full calendar year since we’ve been treated to a prime-time animal mauling. But apparently the subtle shift is part of a broadcast strategy that involves devoting TV shows to each of the seven deadly sins. We’ve had lust (Temptation Island), greed (Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionare), sloth (well... just about anything in Fox’s prime-time lineup), and now gluttony. What’s next -- Who Wants to Covet Thy Neighbor’s Mule?

To paraphrase our Right-Thinking president, no wonder I think they’re evil.

But that’s not the scary part -- Fox, after all, will be Fox, and I love them for it. The scary part is that this eating contest is actually sanctioned, by an organization called the International Federation of Competitive Eating, which we can safely assume is kind of like the IOC, only with less biased judges.

Not that figure skating is much more uptown in the grand scheme of things -- remember Right-Thinking athlete and all-around sophisticate Tonya Harding? (Perhaps you’ve seen her mentioned in the New Yorker’s Talk of the Town.) Luckily, NBC opted to wait to air skating until after the Glutton Bowl chugged to its sickening denouement, undoubtedly sparing countless fights over the remote control in trailer parks across the greater Southeast.

FUN WITH FOOD

Living with a three-year-old has its moments. Here's the dinnertime conversation the other night:

"Aimee, try some meat."
"I don't like meat!"
"Aimee, try some vegetables."
"I don't like vegetables!"
"Aimee, try some food."
"I don't like food!"
"Aimee, try some cookies."
A pause. Then, hopefully,
"I like cookies!"
"Just checking to see if you were listening."
"I'm listening."

This followed a trip to the grocery store a week or so back where every item I tossed into the cart was greeted with a "I don't like [insert name of food item here]!" You can almost imagine the running commentary:

"I don't like bananas!"
"I don't like chicken!"
"I don't like Richfood Value Select Bargain Corn Niblets(tm)!"
"I don't like Richfood Value Select Bargain 10-Gallon Trash Bags!(tm)"

And this is also all by way of explaining why we decided to go out to dinner by ourselves for Valentine's Day.

VEERING TO THE RIGHT?

Here's another reason to be on a state of heightened alert. Apparently not even the staple of right-thinking American publishing, Reader's Digest, is free from subversive thinking.

According to an article in the Washington Post, the fun-loving folk at the National Review are blasting the magazine's current editorial team, claiming it lacks the proper conservative credentials. By the way of evidence, they point to a story about an all-girl rescue squad in Alaska as proof of 'low-grade feminism' creeping its way into the magazine.

They also sneak in some silliness about the red state vs. blue state dynamic (based on the states that voted for Bush vs. Gore, respectively), claiming that Reader's Digest, by some massive oversight, somehow let some people from the dreaded blue states start working for them. Personally, I'm more scared about the fact that I live in a red state -- does that mean I have to go to work for the National Review?

But let's ponder the sacrosanct Reader's Digest -- is nothing sacred, not even Life in these United States? Will It Pays to Enrich Your Word Power start including words like 'Naderesque' and 'Clintonian?'"

(UPDATE: This blog goes wide -- well, sort of. I submitted this little rant as an item for Plastic.)

FLY THE PHONY SKIES

We're all incredibly proud, and a little bit sad, because my sister-in-law just left for a two-year Peace Corps stint in, of all places, Tonga. To my credit, when she first told us she was assigned there a month or so back, I actually had a vague idea of where Tonga was (the South Pacific, if you're playing along at home). Of course, since my first question to her was "Wow. Do they have cable?" maybe my understanding of global cultures isn't all that it should be.

But I digress. Thanks to this wonderful pre-goatee Al Gore invention called the Internet, I can learn all about Tonga. Though I wonder -- if a country has access to the Internet and top-flight Web design, do they really need volunteer assistance?

Oh, wait. I see now -- they desperately need help with Photoshop. I'll be on the 4:45 Royal Tongan Airlines "Concorde." Hey, it may not be real, but it couldn't be any worse than Air Dukakis, after all...

FLY THE @$%&!ED UP SKIES

If you want to have a good time, follow me onto an airplane sometime. Over the past couple of years, I've been lucky enough to be seated on flights where fistfights have nearly broken out -- during takeoff, no less -- where surly passengers bumped from first class have made such scenes they've actually pulled the plane back up to the gate to let security officers board, where I've actually seen pilots get out of the airplane, walk under the wing and yank on the flaps, presumably to get them unstuck. And this was all before Sept. 11, when scenes of this ilk were just bizarre, not utterly terrifying.

So it was with some trepidation that I took my first post-Sept. 11 flight a few weeks back. And boy, it did not disappoint! Thank the fine, hardworking folk at a certain airline which I won't mention, but has at least one plane literally slathered with Arizona Cardinals logos -- which probably should have been my first warning to try and cash my ticket in for a Greyhound fare. I mean, the only thing that could possibly have been worse is if they had a silhouette of Michael Dukakis painted on the tail.

[long-winded rant]

Believe it or not, I'm not one to complain about long airport lines and flight delays -- I typically save my vitrol for things that really deserve it, like supposedly wholesome family comics and grocery stores that keep cutouts of beheaded pharmacists standing around for months. But I think you'll agree this was a particularly entertaining experience.

It all started at BWI airport, where I was inexplicably directed to the "international pier," which was neither a pier nor international, since I was flying, not sailing, and to Phoenix, not Poland. But the plane was at the gate when I got there, which is always a Good Sign. Except, of course, when the helpful ground crew gets on the mike and announces that there's something wrong with the plane, so the flight's been canceled, so please walk back to the main ticketing area to be rebooked on another flight and have a nice day.

A lot of grumbling. A long walk. A long line. And one surly employee doing anything and everything but rebooking anyone on any flight anywhere. After about 20 minutes, another employee of what for simplicity's sake I'll just call Dukakis Airlines gets in front of us and says the following highly reassuring sentence: "We think we'll be able to fix the airplane, so grab your stuff and go back to your gate. The flight's still on."

A lot of grumbling. A long walk. A longer line at security, punctuated by the fragrant aroma of shoe inspections. Back at the gate, the plane's still there, and still pitch dark. No one's in it, no one's around it. And the gate crew's still insisting that it's leaving in 20 minutes. That 20 minutes stretches into an hour, maybe even two, and they're still claiming the plane's going to be fixed. Of course, it's still as dark and vacant as a cave in the Tora Bora suburbs. No matter, they claim, you're still set... but could everyone that was connecting on to San Francisco report to the counter?

So that handful of doomed souls wanders off in search of another flight, and still we sit. Meanwhile, at the gate next to us, another Dukakis Airlines flight is boarding -- pay attention here, because this becomes important in a minute. They finish and close the door. And still we wait, staring out the window at a dark plane that's supposedly being fixed.

Then suddenly, they announce that they're boarding the flight to Phoenix -- again, this is an important detail. So they open the door to the gate and lead us down the skyway. I'm maybe the second or third person in line, so I have no idea something's amiss until I see the people in front of me stop and demand, "We're going WHERE?"

Not really wanting to know what the problem was, I wander past them onto the airplane, which I notice happens to be almost completely full, even though I'm the first in our luckless contingent to board. A flight attendant greets me by staring at my outstretched boarding pass as if it were a cute and furry but very dead animal.

"Why are you trying to get on this plane?" she asked, wrinkling her nose.

And it hits me: They tricked us into boarding another flight without telling us. Worse yet, they didn't even bother to tell the crew on the plane they were herding us onto what was going on. And no, I am not kidding.

Long story short, it turns out the flight was heading to Vegas, which give or take 500 miles, is pretty much like Phoenix, only with gambling and hookers. There were whispers that there was a connecting flight to Phoenix there, but the flight crew decided to take the lack of notice out on us by loudly announcing that they wouldn't answer any questions about connections. They even joked about it during the pre-flight announcements, wishing us a "fun-filled 5 hours and 23 minutes to Vegas."

At this point, I'm convinced that it's probably illegal to board people onto a plane without telling them where it's going. But I'm willing to let bygones be bygones. Then as the plane descends into Vegas, the cap'n gets into the fun. "Well, for those of you trying to connect, I have some information for you," he said. "Those of you who were hoping to ultimately get to Los Angeles, there's a flight leaving in 5 minutes. But they've decided not to wait for you, and we're parking on the other side of the airport, so..." As for us doomed souls heading to Phoenix, another flight was leaving in 5 minutes, too, he continued, but the "good" news was that it was boarding right next to our arrival gate, so we'd "probably" make it.

"Probably." Not if the ground crew there had anything to do with it.

Because the aforementioned stew had barked at me to sit down immediately when I boarded the plane, I was right next to the bulkhead and one of the first people off. I sprint through the skyway and see them getting ready to close up the gate for the Phoenix flight, so I race to the gate, only to be stopped by a pimply-faced security guard who might--might!--have been 14. (Since this was Vegas, he presumably was too young for a casino job, so airline security was his last resort.)

"I need to do a random security check, sir. Take off your shoes," he said, voice cracking ever so slightly. As I politely explained that I had just gotten off a connecting flight and had already cleared security -- twice -- that evening, the growing line of Phoenix-bound people from my flight forming behind me start yelling at him. So he abruptly stops waving a wand around my extremities and waves me on, and at this point, I'm wondering what was worse -- that the people behind me were yelling at the prepubescent security guard, or that he actually decided not to search me because people were yelling at him. ("Yes, sir, I realize he was clutching a flight manual and was foaming at the mouth, but people were raising their voices!")

Anyway. I step back into my shoes and am promptly stopped again, this time by an Air Dukakis employee who started calling me "honey" a lot (and even though I'm happily married and have a spouse and two children who presumably love me, trust me -- I'm nobody's honey), and once again, examining my boarding pass as if it were some sort of toxic effluvent.

"What's this?" she asked, wrinkling her nose. After explaining our little journey, she shook her head. "No one in Baltimore told us anything about this, honey. Don't think you can board the plane." As the people behind me in line again began yelling at her, she disappeared with my boarding pass -- again, a seemingly insignificant detail that becomes important in a moment.

As it becomes clear they've got an angry mob on their hands, the ground crew relents. "Okay, if you can find a seat, you can fly to Phoenix!" they announce to the mob, and whoever else might have been walking by at the moment. Or words to that effect.

"What about my boarding pass?" I ask back.

"Your what?"

"You have my boarding pass!" I reply. They shrug and point at the gate, so I go ahead and board yet another airplane with no documentation whatsoever -- and boy, combined with the aborted security sweep, does that ever make me feel safe about flying. And once again, no one had bothered to tell the stews on board what was going on, but it was now well past midnight local time, so they just rolled their eyes and told everyone to find a seat somewhere. Mine was on the wing, I think.

No, no, just kidding. And then, as the plane took off for Phoenix, a final insult to my shattered nerves. The woman in the seat directly behind me starts muttering -- just loud enough for me and nobody else to hear -- "Oh, God. That's a weird noise. The plane's going to crash. Oh, God. That's a weird noise. The plane's going to crash. Oh, God..."

[/long-winded rant]

So that was that. But when I finally got back to Northern Virginia, it was all I could do to keep from sprinting to the Bizarro ----way and kissing the first disinterested employee I saw on the lips.

SO IT'S FINALLY COME TO THIS: HAIKU

So, one of my neighbors and fellow victims of the friendly neighborhood Bizarro ----way surprised me the other day with this unsolicited haiku e-mail:

Pharmacist peers out
Across mounds of slick, brown fruit.
He's got your number!

Imitation being the most sincere form of flattery, I responded in kind:

Brown, black, puce, ochre
Misshapen mounds of produce
Bring your ----way card!

and then, in honor of the beheaded cardboard cutout...

No shoes, no T-shirt?
Then no service, warns the sign.
No head, though, seems fine.

The problem with haikus, of course, is that like crack and reality television, once you start doing them, it's often hard to stop. My friends responded with these gems, including a rare double haiku:

Winged insects swarming
Inside a bag of brown rice
Make crunchy pilaf!

A pumpkin so soft
A toddler inserts a straw
And extracts brown mush.
"Brown ice cream!" she laughs.
"Can we take this pumpkin home?
It would be tasty."

Which led to this round of poesy:

Crunchy, chewy -- yuk!
What's this squirming sensation?
Larvae in my rice.

Choose a banana,
Finger goes right through the peel.
Time for a refund!

Even my wife, who has actually written some actual poetry that doesn't even rhyme, couldn't resist the hypnotic lure of 5-7-5, particularly when considering current events:

Sorry, Mister Prez,
Those ---way special pretzels
Were too much for you.

Speaking of which, I must say that I'd hate to see a major setback in the war against terruh caused by, of all things, a salty lump of dough (though I suspect retaliatory airstrikes against Hanover, Pa., will begin within days and not stop until the evildoers from Utz are smoked from their caves). Imagine what that would look like on a trading card!