Wait a second, Wintermute - was that a cheap shot?? 
Not only do I not remember Dr. Sunggles, but the mere name leads me to believe this is not something I’d want a child to watch! It brings to mind a sick clown luring children into the bushes. I think it’s the “Dr.” part; Mr. Sunggles is nowhere near as disturbing to me. Mr. Sunggles would be a sort of elephanty kind of creature, but furry.
Now I’m disturbed. 
Well, that depends on whether and how much anyone’s willing to pay me for it.
I’ll open the bidding at 5 smilies.
Before Winnie winds up in the Slave Pits of Daakken IV…
Dad always had to sit at the head of the table. That was his seat. Except at Grandpa’s house. Dad got trumped at Grandpa’s because Grandpa was Dad’s dad (duh) and you don’t jump up in line like that.
Only I don’t sit at the head of the table at my house. I sit on the side. I figure this is a better seat anyway since I can reach all the food that way. It just makes more sense to me.
Although if you look at it from another angle, I do sit at the head of the table. My table is just really wide and kinda short.
…and the pilot brought the plane down on the runway and they were getting near the end and he slammed on the brakes RrrrRRrrrRRrrrRRRRrrrrRRrrrttt!!!
“Wow! this is the shortest runway I’ve ever landed on!”
“Yeah,” said the co-pilot. “And the WIDEST too!”
-Rue. (jocular)
At FairyChatEstates, we generally eat at the island in the kitchen. I sit on the end with easiest access to the sink and stove. The kid sits next to me, and spousal unit sits at the far end. I suppose it qualifies as the head of the island.
When we have company and dine in the dining room, seating is pretty haphazard, except that I always have the seat nearest the doorway to the kitchen, again for easiest access. Everyone else sits where they want. I can’t be bothered with petty details…
Oh, and no turtles are allowed at the dining table. It’s an unwritten rule.
When FCDad is “the head of the island”, do you have to call him “El Presidente”? You should.
Rue, darlin’, you’re outta your mind! El Presidente? :eek:
What I do call him shall remain a secret… 
I used to sit at one end of the table, and Mom at the other. (Does it matter which is the head and which is the foot? Are we not all equally able to be both first and last, head and foot? Must we shackles ourselves with these linquistic chains?) However, I was displaced by my neice and her husband, who are willing to sit very close together and therefore both be on the end and thereby allowing 11, rather than 10 people to sit at the table.
To the best of my recollection, we have never had a turtle at our table, although we did own a turtle at one point, so the possibility exists. We did, however, have a cat that taught the dog how to climb onto the table when no one was home, allowing them to lie down and still be able to watch out the window. They generally laid in the middle of the table, no head or foot for them. Well, they had heads and feet (two and eight, combined), but the section of the table was not an issue for them. Them being on the table was an issue for my Mom, regardless of where they laid. She’s funny that way.
Why is it “head” and “foot” of the table. It makes sense in a bed since your head is at the “head” end of the bed and your feet go towards the “foot” end. Unless you sleep different. You could sleep reversed if you want and it wouldn’t make any difference. You could sleep diagonnally too, as far as that goes. You could sleep at right angles to the generally accepted orientation, but then that goes back to my pilot joke.
If you take the same system and apply it to a table, the “head” end would be the top and the “foot” would be where your gum goes when your Mom tells you to stop chewing gum at the table. Or some such.
A coin doesn’t have a “foot”. It has “tails”. Plural. It also has plural “heads” even though I’ve never seen a coin with more than one head on the obverse side. Maybe I haven’t seen a fair sampling of coins though. And the Buffalo nickel has a head and a tail both on the one side. It’s all very odd.
You could call it the “head” of the table since the “head” of the family sits there. (In theory anyway.) But then that would make my Mom the “foot” of the family and I don’t think she’s like that. It’s still a little better than being the “tail” of the family.
-Rue. (the flank of the family)
And another thing–why is it “when pigs fly”? Why not cows? Or horses? Or sheep? Think about sheep flying across the sky–little puffs of fluff. Though they might be confused with clouds, thus making it rather common to see sheep fly and therefore not really in keeping with the saying. Ok, goats then. I’ll change my mind when goats fly. Goats will fly before I work for that guy again. See, it works.
Why should pigs have all the fun?
Tourist: Uh…those ARE sheep aren’t they?
Shepherd: Yeh.
Tourist: Hmm, thought they were. Only, what are they doing up in the trees?
Shepherd: A fair question and one that in recent weeks ‘as been much on my mind. It’s my considered opinion that they’re nestin’.
Tourist: Nesting?
Shepherd: Aye.
Tourist: Like birds?
Shepherd: Exactly. It’s my belief that these sheep are laborin’ under the misapprehension that they’re birds. Observe their be’avior. Take for a start the sheeps’ tendency to 'op about the field on their 'ind legs. Now witness their attmpts to fly from tree to tree. Notice that they do not so much fly as…plummet.
<Baaa baaa… flap flap flap … whoosh … thud.>
From: Flying Sheep
The Clan 309 Family Tradition:
Ragging my four-day-older cousin for getting a tattoo in a prominent place without finding out what it meant first.
Seems my dear, sweet, homophobic cousin has a gay pride tattoo.
We don’t have silly conventions about seats in the welby household. Mainly we have traditions concerning competitions. In my family every year at Thanksgiving and Christmas the family gathers around the table, stuffs itself, and then retires to various parts of the house to compete. We take the competition seriously. There are four competitions:
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Ping Pong - singles and doubles. You can’t partner with a spouse ever since my aunt and uncle got in a screaming match about who lost a point. The coffee cup that missed my uncle’s head by about an inch left a mark that survives ont he wall to this day. (Did I mention that we take the competition seriously?
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Risk - No teams, no one can help, all dice must be rolled from a dice cup. New armies are counted out by the player to your left.
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Scrabble - Standard rules apply, though anyone who helps a player is banished to the kitchen to clean up. If more than four play, then it becomes a tournament, and you are required to finish the tournament, no matter how late it goes.
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Poker - Chips are M&M’s, various colors for various denominations of money. Anyone caugh eating the chips must clean the kitchen.
If you don’t want to play, you are ridiculed and put to work cleaning. Not nice, family friendly ridicule either. It gets nasty. “Hey Carl, scared of a little poker this year since I smacked your ass last year and left you chocolate free? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
I usually get in on the Scrabble and Risk, poker if I can. Anyone that doesn’t know the rules of a given game must clean. As my grand dad put it: “Learn to play on your own time! I’m not your tutor!”
I decided it was cold enough to mull wine, so I threw some red wine in a pan with a bit of sugar, a cut up lemon and some spices. I am drinking it while listening to Mr. Lissar beat up one of our closest friends. They’re right behind me.
So yeah, this is pretty darn good wine.
I’m sure the friend will be fine.
Care to share a little of that wine? I just got back from a run to my kid’s place of employment - she forgot something. It’s just about 3 miles from here, so no biggie.
It’s a roller rink. Tonight is an all-night skate - for 15 and under only. The kid is DJ tonight. I went in and could hardly make my way to the DJ booth. There were adolescents all over the place. And loud, obnoxious noise that passed for music (yeah, I’m geezin’) and flashing lights and loud voices. I was in there maybe all of 30 seconds * <shudder>*
She gets off at 1. Four more hours. Obviously a job for the young.
Now, about that wine…
Sure. There’s some left. pouring noises
It’s got run in it, too. The recipe said to add rum.
Here you go.