Bubba’s New Year Resolutions

Posted on January 7, 2022 by Sheila Moss

Some people spend a lot of energy at this time of the year trying to change their behavior. We’ve decided to interview a well-known good ol’ boy and see what he thinks about some of the most common New Year’s Resolutions.

Columnist: A very popular resolution is to drink less alcohol.

Bubba: It’s not drinking that’s the problem – it’s not knowing when to quit and making a darn fool of yourself.

Columnist: Well, what about eating more healthy food?

Bubba: Does that mean no more fried chicken, fried taters, fried catfish, fried pork chops, fried cornbread, fried squash, fried okra, fried green tomatoes, and fried pies? How can it be bad when it tastes so good?

Columnist: It seems a lot of people want to improve by getting more education. Could you use a bit of learning?

Bubba: Experience always has and always will be the best teacher. The more education you have, the more you realize that you don’t know squat anyhow.

Columnist: What about trying to get a better job?

Bubba: Blue collar workers are what made the country great. Learn to be satisfied with what you are and quit making yourself miserable trying to be something you’re not.

Columnist: Lack of exercise is another big problem. Many people vow to get fit.

Bubba: Fit for what? Don’t need to be able to outrun anybody as long as you stay on the right side of the law and pay your taxes.

Columnist: But, don’t you want to diet or lose weight?

Bubba: You’ll just gain it back. With all there is going on in the world, can’t you think of something to worry about besides the size of your own behind?

Columnist: There are a lot of people with financial problems. What about resolving to manage debt?

Bubba: The best way to manage debt is not to make it in the first place. Buy what you can pay for and make do. That’s just common horse sense. What’s the next one?

Columnist: Okay, resolving to manage stress is a good one.

Bubba: Stress comes from trying to do too much. Go with the flow. There’s always tomorrow. Most of what we push ourselves to do could be left undone without hurting a thing.

Columnist: Nearly everyone thinks smoking is a good thing to quit.

Bubba: If we were not smoking, we would be chewing, dipping, or puffing. If that’s the worst thing we do, we are probably better off than most.

Columnist: How about helping the environment by reusing and recycling?

Bubba: Shucks, I’ve always done that. Don’t let nothing go to waste. We save our old cars for spare parts, use our old couch as porch furniture, and sell our aluminum cans and scrap metal by the pound. Anything else can be used for target practice.

Columnist: Would you like to save more money?

Bubba: You can’t take it with you. You might as well spend it while you’ve got it, before the government figures out another way to take it away from you.

Columnist: A lot of people want to travel or take that big trip they’ve put off.

Bubba: Seeing how other people live can help you appreciate how good you’ve got it compared to some. But regardless of where you visit, there’s no place like home.

Columnist: What about helping others more?

Bubba: Yep, always help out your friends and kinfolk. Never know when you might have to call on them, and it’s always better to be owed a favor than to owe one.

Columnist: It doesn’t sound to me as if Bubba plans to do much changing.

Bubba: Do the best you can stop worrying about what you can’t do.

Columnist: So there you have it folks, the lowdown on resolutions from the perspective of a good ol’ boy.

Copyright 2011 Sheila Moss

Posted in Holidays, Humor, Southern Humor | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Interview with Old Man Winter

Posted on January 2, 2022 by Sheila Moss
Old Man Winter

Hello sir, First, we would like to thank you for taking time out of your frosty schedule to speak with us today.

(Question:) How do you like being the personification of cold weather?

Oh, somebody has to do it and I’ve been in charge of the fourth season for about as long as anyone can remember. It can be tough when people are cold and miserable and don’t appreciate me. But look at it this way: If there was no winter, there would be no spring. I am simply maintaining the natural order.

(Question:) So, you try to keep a positive attitude?

Yes, it gets a bit hard at times. I try to do nice things: Bring snow for the kids so the schools will close, and sprinkle the ski slopes with fresh power for the snow bunnies. These winter sports people are some of my best supporters, you know. I love chilling out with those folks.

(Question:) Do you have much time for fun, or are you too busy?

I’m not as busy as in the good ol’ days, that’s for sure. I used to own the world, had my glaciers all over the place. Nowadays, I don’t have much territory left, just the polar regions, and even those are starting to melt.

(Question:) What do you think about people and their negative attitude toward you?

Pardon me for saying so, but they have a lot to learn. They keep getting seasonal weather and global warming all mixed up. Give ’em one cold winter and they don’t believe in global warming. Maybe when they are up to their necks in sea water they will see what I have to put up with.

(Question:) Do you ever think you would like to retire?

I do like Alaska, Northern Canada, and Iceland. But, who knows, weather patterns could change and we could go into another ice age. I like working, doing what I’ve always done, but the world keeps getting warmer all the time. It’s as if someone left the refrigerator door open.

(Question:) So, why all the snow?

A few snowstorms across the South, and a foot or two on New York City and people want to throw in the snow shovel and quit. What if they lived where it is really cold, like Siberia? A little hardship is good for people. Makes them appreciate how good they have it the rest of the time. I’ll admit I mess up once in a while, fall asleep for a little nap and forget to turn off the snow machine. Sorry about that.

(Question:) Do you like being in charge of a major season?

It is a lot of responsibility being the CEO of winter, so to speak. I don’t charge anything at all for my services, so people should really be more appreciative. And if I get tired of watching ice hockey, I can always zap a city with a blizzard and watch the cars run into each other on the expressway.

(Question:) Isn’t that a little cold-blooded, if you will pardon the expression?

Cold-blooded? Of course I’m cold blooded. I can throw a cup of water in the air and have it turn into a snowstorm. I can turn water into ice, fog into frost, rain into sleet. You probably thought it was weathermen who invented thunder snow, didn’t you?

(Question:) But, don’t you want to give people a good impression?

People want to schmooze up to me, be my friend. They like me for a while as long as it is fun, building snowmen, ice skating, sledding. But as soon as they get a chill, they dump me like a bad cold.

(Question:) Do you ever feel like people would rather you didn’t come around at all?

Well, if they don’t like seasons, they can move to the equator and see how they like it there. And that goes for you too. Stupid weather reporters! I should have given you the cold shoulder in the first place.

Well, I believe we’ve been frozen out here. I’m starting to get frost bite anyhow. Back to tomorrow’s forecast now. Keep your batteries charged and your thermostats up, I think we may be in for a storm.


Copyright 2011 Sheila Moss
Roving Weather Reporter

Posted in Holidays, Humor, Weather | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

In a Hurry

Posted on December 30, 2021 by Sheila Moss


Why is everyone always in a hurry? Our favorite phrase is “I don’t have time!”  Can we find time? Can we make time? Time marches on, doesn’t it? 

You hurry in the morning, feeling guilty if you have to take extra time for anything. You need to rush. The clock is ticking. You take a shower because it’s faster than a bath, then grab something from the closet, anything, and put it on so you can go.

The highway is crowded with other people in a hurry. They will run over you unless you hurry. It seems as if the whole world is 30 minutes late.

Rushing to get things done, marking them off the “to do” list so you don’t forget anything. You try to prioritize in case you don’t have time to do everything. You rush though lunch if you have time to eat lunch. At the end of the day, it’s time to fight the rush hour as people in a hurry try to get home.

Meals in minutes, microwave meals, fast food — you have to hurry. Dinner is done and email is checked, it’s time to relax, but who has time?

So, you go to bed and get up the next day, still tired, to do it all again. “Thank God it’s Friday,” everyone says. Friday flies by and the weekend is here. But Saturday finds you cleaning house, buying groceries, paying bills, and running errands.

You don’t have time to watch TV. So you record it to watch later when you have time. But you probably never will.

Life is a rat race, or a hamster wheel.  We run as fast as we can but never get anywhere. We spin our wheels and only dig deeper into the rut. The world is spinning out of control. How do we slow things down?

“Take time to stop and smell the flowers,” the saying goes. You think you saw some flowers at the supermarket, but you were in such a hurry to get to the milk, you’re not sure.

We have deadlines to meet. Life is full of appointments. Run here, run there. Try to be on time. Don’t be late. If you miss an appointment, you are wasting time.

Start your engines. Go round and round. It never ends. You need to hurry as you have places to go, things to do. Life goes by like the rush of the wind. There is no time to look back, only forward. You can’t worry about the past, as you hurry into the future.

“Run, run, as fast as you can.” Don’t fall down. You are afraid to stop. If you do you might not be able to start again. Even vacations go by fast, planning, scheduling, and traveling. Hurry up and have fun. We never see the daylight, much less the sunset.

One of these days we will all wind down and wonder where life went, measured out by the clock’s second hand in busy days, busy hours, and busy minutes. And we can’t see a thing we’ve done, only the things left to do.

We want to slow down, but don’t know how. We wonder why we are always tired. But we don’t have time to wonder about it for very long.

Chow, so long, giddy-up, adios partner, see ya later, gotta run, time’s a wastin’, hurry-up and git ‘er done, no time to say goodbye.

Copyright 2012 Sheila Moss
 

Posted in Health, Humor | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Fat as a Pig

Posted on December 26, 2021 by Sheila Moss

Today I am venturing into a bit of self-depreciation, hoping I can shame myself into getting rid of those extra holiday pounds. I hope you cannot relate.

How do you know when you are fat as a pig?

If your jeans all shrink in the wash at the same time.

If you buy diet cola, diet dinners and jelly beans.

If seats at the movie are getting smaller or your behind is getting wider.

If you fall sound asleep while watching an exercise video.

If stair climbing is not on your list of interesting activities.

If your collection of diet recipe cookbooks needs dusting.

If you never stand in front of a mirror naked as it might crack.

If you are still trying to figure out where you got that extra chin.

If you happen to prefer elastic waistbands in your pants.

If you have tried every diet pill on the market and none of them work.

If you had to lie down and rest after watching an episode of Amazing Race.

If you think ice cream is good for you because it has milk and eggs.

If you have to pin your skirts shut because the button won’t reach anymore.

If going out to eat is your favorite form of recreation.

If your best pair of boots feel too tight on your legs.

If you’ve forgotten how to ride an exercise bike.

If the mere thought of exercise makes you sweat.

If you do most of your shopping from the Woman Within catalog.

If you wear queen size panty hose and pretend you are royalty.

If all of your clothes have a “W” after the size number.

If you buy baked potato chips because you think they are not fattening.

If your health insurance company sent you a personal pedometer for free.

If you don’t want to eat anything with “low”, “lo” or “lite” in the name.

If you wonder why you can’t find a bra that doesn’t cut you in half.

If you go to Weight Watchers meetings and eat out afterwards.

If you like to shop at Walmart because they have electric carts to ride.

If you have an exercise bike or a set of bar bells listed on Craigslist.

If you have the local Papa John’s on speed dial in case of emergency.

If you don’t trust diet pills, diet food, diet plans or candy bars.

If the mirror, the microwave, and the bathroom scales are conspiring against you.

If you have rolls of fat on your body in places you can’t talk about.

If you close your eyes while you are weighed in at the doctor’s office.

If you gain weight eating like you used to.

If Biggest Loser is your favorite TV program because they are bigger than you.

If you wear loose blouses and little jackets to hide your belly fat.

If you gave your “skinny” clothes to charity to make room for more “fat” clothes.

Copyright 2012 Sheila Moss

Posted in Health, Humor | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

If Only Life Had an Undo Button

Posted on December 23, 2021 by Sheila Moss

The “undo” button on some computer programs is a wonderful thing. Backspace will fix a little error like forgetting that the caps lock is locked or typing fdsjkl;ty when you got on the wrong row of keys. But for really big errors, you need the “undo” button.

Sooner or later, nearly everyone who uses a computer tries to do something that doesn’t work. You are clicking along and doing the best you can when something goes terribly awry. You try to fix it only to find that your page has turned into a crossword puzzle. You don’t have the foggiest idea how to fix this because you don’t even know what you did to cause it.

Then you remember that most wonderful of keys on the computer tool bar, the undo button. You hit the magic button and everything returns to normal, just like it was before.

Isn’t it a shame that life has no undo button? I could really have used an undo function in my life this week. It seemed to be a week of evens that caused life to become chaotic and small things happened that were giant annoyances.

In a restaurant a waiter walked by trying to carry three dishes of hot food. Suddenly, without warning, one of the dishes hit the floor and smashed at my feet with broken glass going in all directions. I felt sorry for the guy, but what could I do? If life had an undo button, one click and all the pieces of broken glass would fly back to the tray and reassemble themselves. Instead, the glass and food had to be cleaned up.

Earlier this week, honey and I had a flat tire. We were on the Interstate in the middle of rush hour traffic. An undo button would really have been handy here. One click of the undo button and the hole in the tire would magically heal and we could go on our merry way. Instead, the emergency highway incident truck took care of us and later we bought a new tire.

I could also have used an undo button when I missed my exit on the Interstate and had to go miles out of my way to get where I was going. One zap of an undo button and I could have a second chance to try to do it right. Of course, the exit was off I-40 instead of I-24, which had a lot to do with me missing it. Hopefully, the undo button could cipher that. 

An undo button would be a great thing to have around the house. Smudges and dust that accumulate in a week could be zapped away and I  wouldn’t have to spend the entire weekend cleaning. Wouldn’t it be great to hit an undo button, see dirt fly out the door in a whirlwind, the dishes hop from the sink back into the cabinet, and the beds make up themselves?

I sometimes comment about how elevators have no undo button. It seems that would be a much easier problem for technology than an undo button for life. Press a button on the elevator and you are going to that floor whether you made a mistake or not. Life is sort of the same way.

But even undo buttons have their limits. If you make too many mistakes, undo only will undo a limited number of the most recent ones. If life gets really out of kilter before you notice, you might be out of luck even if life did have an undo button.

Whoops! I need to go now. I’ve spilled my coffee. I tried the undo button on my word processing program, but only it only deleted a comma. Unfortunately, the undo button for life has not yet been invented and I will have to clean up this mess the hard way.

Copyright 2012 Sheila Moss

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Big C, little c: What begins with C?

Posted on December 16, 2021 by Sheila Moss

I couldn’t believe it when I heard myself agreeing with my doctor. “You really need to do this”, he said. “How long has it been? Never? Well, I’m going refer you.”  He had referred me once before, but I conveniently forgot to call and set up the appointment.

“It’s not a pleasant thing, so people tend to put it off.”

I could easily agree with that.

My gynecologist had been after me too. “You are like my mother. She said she would only do it if I did.”

I resorted myself and this time I called and made an appointment. Now I was committed.

“The prep is the worst part,” said friends who had the test before.

The prep apparently consists of drinking 8 ounces of powder dissolved in 10 gallons of Gatorade or Crystal Light and locking yourself in the bathroom for the rest of the day with a large can of air freshener.

The day before the big event, I dutifully mixed my magic potion with orange Crystal Light and started drinking. Actually, it was closer to 2 quarts than 10 gallons. I started to feel nauseated after my first couple glasses, but I have a strong stomach.

As I sipped on the 8th glass, it hit me full force in the stomach. I ran for the bathroom with orange Crystal Light spewing from my mouth. Orange liquid was all over my clothes, in my hair, even in my shoes. So much for my strong stomach.

“What now?” I asked.

“You have to do it again, Mom, you didn’t keep enough down.” said my daughter. So, another 8 oz. bottle was mixed. This time I opted for plain water. It wasn’t too bad, sort of like an Alka-Seltzer.

But I only got to the sixth glass before I was sick again. “I give up! I can’t do this test.”

The next morning I wasn’t sure whether to go or to call and cancel. But I really didn’t want to have to go through this again. I felt empty enough.

The waiting room at the clinic was about the size of a walk-in closet.  One by one tense-faced people were called to the back. The nurse called my name and took me into what looked like an emergency room or pre-surgery ward. I had no idea this was such a big deal.

I put on my backless hospital gown and got on my stretcher while they asked me again all the questions they had asked twice before.

A sadistic nurse poked me over and over in the arm with a 2 foot needle trying to get an IV started without success. Finally, an anesthesiologist did it.

I was wheeled off to another room to meet my new specialist, with a name too close to “whoops.”

“How did the prep go?” asked Dr. Whoops. I told him my story. “I have no symptoms.”

But he didn’t buy my excuses and I was doomed.

“We are giving you something like Twilight to put you to sleep,” said the anesthesiologist. Twilight? The only time I had Twilight before was during childbirth. I hope I’m not in the maternity ward. Boy, are they going to be surprised.

“You are going to feel sleepy” he said, before I could kick him and flee for my life.

“Big C, little c, what begins with c? Cancer, clinic, cold feet, colonoscopy.”  I dreamed in la-la land.

Then a nurse said it was over.  Liar. So, where is my baby?

Dr. Whoops came in. “Everything is fine,”  he said.  “You don’t need to come back for 10 years.”

No big C for me, only a little c. 

“It’s over? I can go home?”

I’m not sure if I will do it again in 10 years or not.

But I am certain I will never, ever drink orange Crystal Light again.

Copyright 2012 Sheila Moss

Posted in Health, Humor | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments

To the Mattresses

Posted on December 9, 2021 by Sheila Moss

“We are having a four-day sale. Everything is on sale,” says the mattress man. Why is that mattresses are always on sale? Could it be because they are always overpriced? He went into his speech about foam mattresses

Who wants to buy a new mattress, especially when you have a perfectly good mattress, only 20 years old. Well, maybe it is not perfectly good. How long is a mattress supposed to last anyhow?

The thing is, I’ve been waking up with a terrible backache every morning. I tried the old put-a-board-under-the-mattress trick. It didn’t help. I know I’m getting older, but I prefer to blame my aching back on something else.

I looked up “buying a mattress” on the Internet. Honey wants a “Sleep Number” bed, so I read up on them. I’m not sure I really understand the concept, but it seems the mattress is filled with air and the user can adjust it to be harder or softer, according to preference.

I skip over the advertisements and go to the customer reviews: “Hard to put together, high price, leaks air, don’t last long.” The fact is, I don’t want a bed that does tricks. I don’t want an air bed, a water bed, a foam bed, a latex bed or a bed that becomes a chaise lounge. I want a plain, regular bed, the kind with springs and padding, a bed inspired by the innerspring in car seats, according to what I read.

There are so many different mattresses on the market that it is confusing. Mattress manufacturers want it that way: Perfect Sleeper, Memory Foam, Posturepedic, TempurPedic, Beautyrest. They even call the same mattress by a different model number to prevent comparison shopping.

It seems that once you decide on the type of bed, the rest would be easy. No, there are all sorts of innerspring mattresses. The mattresses basically consist of two things, springs and padding. There can be more coils to give support or fewer coils that are made with heavier wire. Number of coils doesn’t really mean much.

As far as padding, there is cotton, acrylic, memory foam and combinations. The best way to decide is to lie down on the mattresses and see which feels better. Just like Goldilocks and The Three Bears, “This one is too hard, this one too soft,” until you find one that is just right.

The store looked like trampoline heaven. I resisted the urge. “I want a mattress with coils.”

“Well, if you are sure …” He went into the speech about numbers of coils. I didn’t tell him I had been reading Consumer Guide.

“Do you like firm or soft,” he asked. Why spoil the fun? “Both,” I said.

Finally, he said, “Well it really is up to what feels comfortable to you.” Eureka! I thought he would get to that sooner or later.

This mattress was too soft, that mattress, still too soft. It seems I am a firm mattress sleeper. We finally found the mattress of our dreams — literally — a hard mattress with enough memory foam padding to make it bearable.

“We can deliver it today,” said the salesman, not wanting to take any chances. So, I signed on the dotted line, handed over the plastic card and the new mattress was mine.

It felt pretty hard the first night. “I hope I’ve not made a terrible mistake,” I thought. But, I slept through the night without waking up for the first time in ages. After about a week, my back is starting to feel better too.

It is hard to replace something that you already have. I’ve decided that I deserve to be comfortable, and if it makes my back feel better, it’s worth whatever it costs.

All this mattress talk is making me feel very tired. If you will excuse me, I think I’ll turn in.

Copyright 2012 Sheila Moss

Posted in Humor, Shopping | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Tornado Warning

Posted on December 7, 2021 by Sheila Moss

Storms again today. Why are there so many tornadoes lately? I don’t remember ever having this many tornadoes, about twice the normal number.

All day long we heard how they were coming. Severe weather warnings, pictures of big red weather blobs on the radar screen. Gosh, if this storm is half as bad as it looks, we will be reduced to splinters.

“It will be here at one o’clock,” said the weatherman. How do they know what time it will be here? Apparently, they don’t.  At one o’clock the sky was blue with fluffy clouds. We began to wonder if they really knew what they were talking about or if it was another futile weatherman’s rain dance.

But that ominous red storm front was still pulsating on the radar, surrounded by yellow and green.

At about quarter till four, the tornado sirens went off. Then the emergency alarms sounded and the intercom told us to go to a safe place in the building. Safe places are stairwells, conference rooms, and offices without windows.

We do not argue too much about moving to shelter when there is a tornado warning. Many of us were working downtown when a tornado hit the city years ago. We remember the chaos, how people didn’t take warnings seriously and were caught in flying debris and glass from broken windows.

About that time my cell phone rang. It was honey calling. I thought he wanted to warn me.  How sweet. But no, he wanted to go home.

“Are you crazy? There’s a tornado coming. It isn’t safe outside.”

“We will be safer at home,” he argued. “They said we can go.”

I can’t believe this man.

“No, we are safer right here, in a concrete building with steel reinforcement.”

He continued to argue. By then it was raining and wind was blowing about 60 mph.

“I’m not going until this passes over,” I said.

Finally, he gave up. “Well, call me when you are ready to go.”

Remembering the last time, I knew phones could go out, and cell phones went first.

“We need to have a meeting place, in case phones don’t work.” Finally, we agreed on the parking garage as a good place.

By now you couldn’t see out the windows it was raining so hard. Even the brave hearts decided to come to the conference room.

“What’s that noise?” asked someone. We could hear the rain and wind as it passed over, but if there was a tornado in the storm, it did not touch down.

It was moving fast and was over in a matter of minutes. Eventually, the all-clear was issued, and we ventured out of our holes.

I called honey and told him I was ready to go home now. 

On the way home he told me he had watched the rain and the hail bounce off the roof of another building.

“I told you to stay away from the windows.” 

As it turned out, the people in his office did not go home. They had more sense and waited it out too.

“If we had left when you wanted to go, we would have been caught in the car in the hail,” I told him.

“No, we could have made it.” he insisted.

No point arguing with a man so hard-headed he thinks he can outrun a tornado.

So, we dodged the bullet, but a lot of other places didn’t.  You can read about it on the news.

I don’t know where all this terrible weather is coming from. Tornados happen in Kansas, Illinois, and Indiana – not in the hills of Tennessee.

Would someone pass that message along to the weather makers?  It’s thundering again and I’ll talk to you when it’s over.

 

Copyright 2012 Sheila Moss

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Hate Mail to I-24

Posted on December 4, 2021 by Sheila Moss

Dear I-24,

I know it is probably a shock to find out that not everyone likes the Interstate Highway system, but some of us are getting sick of your consistently bad behavior.

I hate your dark asphalt and your multiple fast-moving lanes. No one seems to be able to stay in one lane. They keep switching lanes and passing. Why don’t they realize we will all end up in the same place sooner or later?

I travel on you almost every day, not because I want to but because there is no other way to get where I’m going. Commuters have become so dependent on you that alternative routes seem impossibly slow. Local roads are neglected and their numerous stop lights uncoordinated. The focus is now on you and not on alternatives.

I hate the way you intersect with other Interstates. There are never enough funds to build elaborate interchanges. So, I-24 and your good buddies I-40 and I-65 come together in a haphazard fashion that could drive any highway engineer insane. The Interstates merge and crisscross, another of your five-lane nightmares.

I hate the overhead electric signs flashing the number of fatalities. Can’t you be more positive? I especially hate your billboards that do nothing but make some advertising company rich at the expense of drivers’ attention. The most hideous signs are the electronic billboards, flashing several different ads in sequence. How are we supposed concentrate in this billboard jungle?

I hate your monstrous traffic jams. When a wreck happens, traffic is backed up for miles and miles. Actually, it doesn’t even take an accident to stop the traffic flow. A traffic stop or flashing blue light can create enough of a diversion to slow traffic to a crawl while drivers’ rubber neck.

I guess you are in a hurry to get where you are going, I-24: From Illinois, to Paducah, to Nashville, to Chattanooga, to Georgia. You are so hard-surfaced that you don’t care how frustrated people are with you in the cities you pass though.

I hate every pothole and every patch of you. You are not nearly as smooth as you seem to think you are. You are only out to give people a ride. I hate life in the fast lane. I hate your HOV lanes for vehicles with two or more passengers. That’s really not enforceable, is it?

I hate the large trucks that think they own the road. They are supposed to stay in the two right-hand lanes, but they can’t read the signs as they are going too fast. Little wonder that one of the most dangerous stretches of highway in the country is a steep grade between Nashville and Chattanooga.

I hate your orange barrels and construction zones. I hate the way they close you down on the weekend to resurface you. Of course, you do need a face-lift, especially after they scarify you to make the asphalt stick. The construction seems to go on forever. Will you never be finished?
 
There is hardly a day when I travel on you without seeing something that should be called in to 911: road rage, an animal on the roadway, a broken down motorist, a speeder who imagines he is a NASCAR driver, a road hog refusing to allow cars to merge, tailgaters two inches off someones bumper, and white-knuckle drivers that are afraid to drive. You seem to bring out the worst in people.

I just wanted to let you know how I feel, I-24. I know you are hard-hearted and don’t give a whit about the incidents that take place because of you. So, you just go on thinking you are the king of the roads, but one day you will find that life has passed you by and a new bypass will take your traffic. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving highway.

Copyright 2012 Sheila Moss

Posted in Automotive, Humor, Rants, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Ode to Coffee Mugs

Posted on November 30, 2021 by Sheila Moss

I like my coffee in a mug. Coffee demands a large cup that you can hold with more than one finger. That being said, I seem to have overdone a good thing. While cleaning the kitchen, I realized that I had accumulated more mugs than my shelf could hold.

Why would anyone need so many mugs? After all, you can only drink out of one at a time.

Looking over the mugs, I realized it was not a collection at all, but more of a miscellaneous hodgepodge of cups, most of which had materialized in my cabinet without me noticing.

I have a couple of mugs that have advertisements on them. There is one with a dot.com ad on it that could probably be disposed of, but I haven’t. There is one from Gateway that came with a computer I bought years ago. The cup outlasted the computer, which long ago became an electronic dinosaur. 

There are souvenir cups that came from conferences, one that says “Columnists do it write” and a couple of navy mugs that say, “I secretly like Nancy Grace.” I’ve not been able to bring myself to drink from the cup of Nancy Grace, so those just sit on the shelf. 

There are souvenir cups from other people’s vacations, like the one that says Bahamas. I don’t know why I need cups to remember other people’s vacations. There is even a cup that says Nashville on it. Why would I have a souvenir of my home city?

I have cups that were gifts, like the one that says “Well done.” I don’t remember what was well done, but I have the cup to remind me that I once did something well.

A few of the cups were gifts to someone else, like the one that says “Dad” and has a picture of my granddaughter. There is a tall mug that says “Coffee”. It probably came packaged with a gourmet beverage inside.  I don’t like it because it has the one finger style handle.

Some cups are seasonal and celebrate a holiday like Halloween or Christmas. I have a a scarecrow mug, and several for Christmas. Of course, those can only be used at the right time of the year, preferably with flavored beverages.

Some of the mugs I actually purchased, for instance, those two, red, Angry Birds cups. I bought them for gifts and then decided they were too stupid to give to anyone, so they ended up in my cabinet.

One pretty mug with a large blue heart is the lone survivor of a matching set of four. I remember how angry I was at a friend who borrowed a mug from my new set and never returned it. I can’t use that mug as it makes me mad all over again.

Another mug is too faded to read but was purchased at the Corvette Museum and said “Get your kicks on Rt. 66.” Actually, there once were two of those. I don’t know what happened to the other. It apparently had enough kicks and faded into oblivion.

One extra large mug has an ad for 1887 tobacco. I have no earthly idea where it came from or why I have it.  I’m not sure what 1887 tobacco is for – smoking, chewing, dipping or sniffing. The cup could be for spitting for all I know.

My favorite mugs ever were stoneware with a Pennsylvania Dutch design. I hated it when the last one broke. I tried to find more, but never could.

There are mugs with flowers and mugs with teddy bears. I don’t know why I don’t throw away this ridiculous assortment and buy a set of pretty matching mugs. But, they are like old friends; each has a personality and a story. They are mugs with character.

A new set would soon be broken and miscellaneous cups would creep in unnoticed to fill the empty spaces. I might as well keep the ones I have.

Copyright 2012 Sheila Moss

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