Allspice is not as useful as it sounds. You can’t just buy a big tin of allspice then pick out whatever spices you need at the time. I think that’s one misleadingly named seasoning.
Jimmy Sturr won the Grammy this year for Best Polka Album for his fine work *Top of the World.*I’ll bet his mom is so proud.
Can you imagine? Somewhere right now (maybe) there is someone uttering a sentence never before put to breath: “Ladies and gentlemen, the Grammy-winning Polka artist, Jimmy Sturr!”
And people will be excited about it.
After the Titanicsank, they built another ship and they called her Betty Lou. The top was painted black and the bottom painted blue. They christened her with beer and she sank right off the pier. It was great when the sad ship went down.
Once upon a time there was a Little Red Hen. She was out one day, doing what chickens do: scratching at the ground, looking for bugs and seeds to eat, hoping for the occasional juicey tick, when she found a bag of grain.
“Yowie zowie!” she cried. She’s a talking chicken, you should be proud of her for saying anything. “Lookit this big ol’ bag of grain! I’ll plant it and grown wheat and then harvest the wheat and then mill the wheat into flour and then make some dough and then bake some bread and then eat the bread! Yeah! What a great idea I have!”
So the Little Red Hen gathered up all her friends, the dog, the cat, the goat, the duck and the cow. (They all have names too, but like “Little Red Hen”, the names are all like “Medium Brown Dog” and “Big Black Cow” so I’m not going to list them all since they don’t show up again in the story. Of heck, I’m halfway there. “Stripy Orange Cat”, “Small Grey Goat” and “Oscar”.) The Little Red Hen asked her friends “Who’ll help me plant the grain?”
“Not I,” said the dog.
“Not I,” said the cat.
“Not I,” said the goat.
“Not I,” said the duck.
“Moo,” said the cow.
“OK,” asked the Little Red Hen, “who’ll help me weed the crop and harvest it?”
“I have an appointment with the hairdresser,” said the dog.
“Would that be a Tuesday? I have class on Tuesdays,” said the cat.
“I would, but I have this back problem,” said the goat.
“What now? I didn’t quite catch that,” said the duck.
“Moo,” said the cow, not really getting into the spirit of things.
“Mill the grain?” asked the Little Red Hen.
“Uh… no,” said the dog, cat, goat and duck together.
“Moo,” said the cow. They were starting to get the idea that that cow wasn’t an anthropomorphic cow after all. Just a regular old everyday cow. It was sad really.
“How about make bread? Can I get any help making the bread?” asked the Little Red Hen, pretty much knowing the answer she’d get.
“You know, I’d like to,” said the dog, “but honestly, I can’t. I have all that barking they expect of me, and I’m just booked.”
“Mice!” cried the cat. “I’ve got a whole barn-load of mice to catch. Sorry, can’t.”
The duck and goat just shrugged their shoulders (which was a good trick really) and shook their heads.
The cow didn’t say anything and just looked sheepish. The rest of them avoided eye contact.
“So… who’ll help me eat the bread?” asked the Little Red Hen.
“Oh yes! We will!” cried the dog, cat, goat and duck.
“Moo-ooo!” said the cow, forgetting herself.
“Oh you think so, do you?” scowled the Little Red Hen. “Well think again! Bastards!” And she stalked off to the coop. She plopped herself down in front of daytime TV and started to eat the bag of grain. She was so lost in her misery, she ate the whole bag. Man, did she get fat.
The next day, the farmer came into the chicken coop and saw the Fat Red Hen and decided she would make a good dinner. So he chopped off her head, and plucked off her feathers, and cut out her giblets and cooked her in the oven and ate her with biscuits and mashed potatoes. There was some left over so he had a chicken sandwich for lunch the next day.
Right now I have a brand new toilet seat. Never been used. It’s like I’m the King of the World!
I hate it when people block the way. Like you’re walking down the sidewalk and there’s some clueless… person just standing there, counting their change right in the middle of the path. Or two people blocking the way, just chatting amongst themselves, oblivious to anyone else. Don’t even get me started on people standing in doorways. It just cheeses me right off.
Of course, I’m much more tolerant of this behavior in myself.
I’ve been eating a bunch of Altoids lately. The cinnamon ones. They are really good. Only they come in these metal containers. (I almost called them “metal tins” but that would be redundant, so I didn’t.) The problem with the tins is that they look useful, but really they aren’t. I keep stamps in one of them, and the rest just sit in a drawer. I should throw them out, but dang it! They do look useful. Maybe I’ll find a use for them sometime. Like make a little fort out of them for a mouse.
-Rue.
