Monday Ramblings from the Byrd Nest

I promised myself this Monday I am not going to rant about bad drivers. Instead, I'm going to start with a little humor for the day.

Three moles were traveling through a mole hole. The first mole says, "I smell sausage." The second mole says, "I smell pancakes." The third mole says, "I smell molasses." Now if you don't get it, I'll give you a hint at the end of the article.

I was flipping through stations on the TV the other night when the local news announced an upcoming headline just before commercial: "Coming up, two shots fired and three people hurt during shootout." So I'm thinking how can two shots wound three people? I must say I was hooked. So I sat through at least five minutes of mind-numbing commercials dealing with everything from cell phone with numbers the size of quarters to those tiresome scare tactics used by lawyers to drum up business. Finally, the reporter started telling us how two people on the scene had arrived with guns and actually shot each other. The third man was injured because he took off running, fell down and broke his leg. Truthfully, three people were injured during the shootout. I felt once again I had been duped by the news.

Another interesting news tidbit lately was about two crooks who broke into a house to rob the place. Their first stop in the house was the liquor cabinet, where they helped themselves to the booze. Apparently, one enjoyed himself too much because when police responded to the break-in, they found him asleep in the chair. His friend had disappeared. It wasn't long, though, before he spilled his guts, and who knows what else with that much Jim Beam in him, to the police. Now, here's an important point in the event that you plan on committing a crime. Do it alone. The other guy will give you up every time.

Will somebody please tell me how or why it is so difficult to get a catalog order correct? I order certain items for my hubby's business. I find the website, locate the item, fill in the item number and quantity and form of payment. I receive items in three days. Remarkable, right? Wrong. I order two sets, but I only get one set. Go back to the website, send email describing problem, company responds and ships another set. I receive items in three days. They sent wrong set. Now, I don't trust the person sitting in the website chair, so I pick up the phone, dial the number listed on the website and talk to the owner of the company. His response, sorry, will fix the problem. I send back wrong set, and get new set in three days. Wrong. After second week, I call the owner back and say still have not gotten correct set. I get another "sorry" and will immediately send another set. I'll let you know what I get this time if they ever arrive. Come on, people, it's not rocket science.

For those keeping up with the deer hunting being allowed in the city limits of our town, the latest event in the saga is that the hunt has been suspended because the state wildlife people say they only issued a hunting permit for the golf course and a couple of other specified areas. I guess the newly-elected mayor took the word of whoever handed him the document, and apparently the lawyer who works for the Board of Aldermen has a problem interpreting legal documents. The deer are having the last laugh, though, because if they stay off the golf course, they should be safe.

It's getting close to cotton picking time in Mississippi. Every year as we drive by a field of white cotton bolls topping of the green plants, oftentimes there will be tourists standing out close the field taking pictures. I was thinking the other day that the farmers could probably get their cotton picked and make a neat little profit if they would run the cotton farm like a dude ranch. Let tourists pay an exorbitant fee for the opportunity to come stay on the farm and pick the cotton. The fee would have to be large enough to attract those people we all know who think if something isn't expensive, they don't want it. The farmer could throw up some little shacks for shelter, ring a bell so they'll know when to come out of the fields for meals, and even provide each one with their own monogrammed cotton sack. It'd be just like those "good old days" people seem to miss so much.

Well, Happy Monday to everybody. Thanks for reading.

(For those who need it, the answer to the joke is to read the last line real slow.)