"I believe my right paw is on your left breast."

At least they had the forbearance (no pun indended) not to mention the part where he had anonymous sex with a really ugly female bear.

Human Stupidity: An Example

Part of my official policy re: workplace relationships is "the less info, the better." So when my new coworkers ask where I'm living after relocating to town, my stock response is to cite a particular bridge well known for its extensive and diverse homeless population. The reality is, though, that I'm renting a room from a longtime college friend.

Now, said college friend has her own set of quirky sensibilities that lead to some rather interesting behaviors at times, one of which is that when the yard man whacked the telephone wires on the side of the house with a WeedEater(tm)-brand lawn trimmer, she left her home phone in a non-working state for some nine months while continuing to pay her home phone bill. Too lazy to call the phone company to come fix it—and precious little incentive in that direction when her overly generous employer pays for all her personal cell calls.

Being the good roomie that I am, though, a couple of weeks ago I pulled out a screwdriver and the wire strippers (my very least favorite kind of stripper) and reconnected the phone line. Total time investment: 4 minutes. Money paid to phone company for nine months of non-existent phone service: $576. Stupidity of homeowner: Priceless.

However, the downside of reconnecting the phone is that, well, now it has this annoying habit of ringing—and of course we know in advance that it can't be anyone she actually knows, since all friends have long since abandoned use of the dead-end landline number and simply call her cell. What to do when every call you receive is a telephone solicitation? (I should point out at this point that the brilliantly designed Chinese-made phone she owns has no "ringer off" setting, since apparently phones are so new in rural China that people haven't yet imagined a scenario in which they would not want the phone to ring.)

I struggled with the ringer dilemma for a more than a week—but then a few days ago I impulsively decided to try a new tack. Rather than ignoring the phone, which seems to only cause it to ring again an hour later, presumably with the same persistent party on the other end, I now answer the phone and say hello. The person on the other end then proceeds to identify himself or herself as representing some widget distributor or timeshare company or police charitable organization du jour. My response is, "I'm sorry, you've reached a non-working telephone number," followed by silence.

Number of calls so far: 12. Number of people who've said, "I'm sorry," and hung up: 12. A front-row seat for the parade of human stupidity: Priceless.

One of the Great Ones . . .

Today is a very sad day for those of us who share a passion, not merely a love, for food, wine, and friendship. The grande dame of the American kitchen and the woman who singlehandedly introduced a nation raised on Swanson frozen dinners to the simple glories of coq au vin and pate choux, Julia Child, died Thursday in her sleep at her home in Santa Barbara at the age of 91.

Julia, you will be missed. And just for the record, I never made your last name plural.

How Come Airline Pilots Always Get So Much Pussy?

I'm eternally hopeful that someday we won't have to suffer through at least 10 news stories every day that are about either 9/11, the "War on Terror," Iraq, Halliburton, or some other issue centrally or peripherally related to what an ass-faced fuckwit we didn't elect back in 2000. We got over Watergate, we got over Vietnam, we even got over Crystal Pepsi. Surely we can get over this, too?

Until we do, I had to chuckle at the news du jour on the terror front. First, it seems that poor Mohdar Abdullah, close friend of two of the 9/11 hijackers, is rather highly exercised over having the 9/11 commission talk trash about him. It seems that Mr. Abdullah feels that the commission's characterization of him as "perfectly suited to assist the hijackers in pursuing their mission" is grossly unfair, untrue, and derogatory. I hate to be seen as taking his side, but I feel compelled to point out that the main reason cited in the report for concluding that Mr. Abdullah was just a Koranic verse or two away from hijacking a plane himself is that he "is fluent in both Arabic and English."

Let this be a lesson to all you kids out there: Don't learn to speak two languages! It can only make you seem suspicious later in life. And Mr. Abdullah's take-away from all this should be that you shouldn't associate with lowlifes if you don't want the media to assume you are one, too. Just ask Brian "Kato" Kaelin . . .

And in other news, we see that a commercial flight between Brussels and Vienna had to make an emergency landing yesterday when a cat, who had escaped from its cage and begun wandering around the plane, slipped into the cockpit when the flight attendant opened it to serve meals to the flight crew and scratched the co-pilot rather severely.

Are you listening, Mr. Abdullah? Who needs boxcutters when you can train cats to subdue the flight crew for you! (Forgive me if I just gave Al-Qaeda some ideas.)