In an hour or so, my wife, Leesa, and I motor to my son’s home at Newport to commune with him, my daughters, their families and grandchildren. Since they’re a far-flung lot, it’s extraordinary to find them all under one roof. I need the company, if I’m being honest. With the museum at which I toil reduced to winter hours and Leesa back at work, my days are quiet. I’m wading through a 700+ page biography of Woodrow Wilson - only 380 pages to go - so if you’re interested in Congress’s 1916 struggles over tariff legislation, ring me at 001.203.206.0208. The other consequence of my having no adult supervision is I perseverate on things. To wit.
If it were invented today, there’s no way skiing would be legal.
“Hey, I got this idea where you hurtle down an icy mountainside at 50 miles an hour on skinny boards in the dead of winter!” the inventor would say. No HMO, insurance company or medical practice would allow it. Mothers across the world would rise up in righteous indignation.
I remember flying back to London from Zurich one winter day. You couldn’t get to the loo because the aisle was blocked with legs in casts flung out from every third seat or so. “Madness,” I thought. If there was no skiing, Sonny Bono would be alive today.
Three years ago, British retailer Marks & Sparks had a special doughnut/bagel hybrid on offer for Christmas. The name of this holiday taste treat - and this is true - was “Santa’s Yumnut”.
Santa’s Yumnut melted in your mouth and was perfect for hurling at relatives during whisky-fueled affrays. Thank God for the American FDA is all I can say.
Hot air balloon rides are annoying, too, because of power lines and the fact that guy who pulls the rope is - incredibly - called a pilot. Other things that annoy me are American football/Taylor Swift, styrofoam, Cheetos, seat backs, tray tables and the word deplane.
Oh, and polyester’s now “performance fabric”? Don’t get me started. Just finish your Yumnut, will you? Happy effin’ New Year.
<<Other things that annoy me are American football/Taylor Swift, styrofoam, Cheetos, seat backs, tray <<tables and the word deplane.
You forgot to include the movie _The Blind Side_ in your list. Or is it because you consider this cinematographical masterpiece in a league of its own?
Secondly, I would like to point out that an erudite, well read, highly educated, urbane and accomplished scribe such as yourself should give non-native English speakers such as Hervé Jean-Pierre Villechaize, who had the further handicap of having to learn English from American television, the benefit of the doubt when he confused an intransitive verb for a determiner and following noun phrase which has previously been defined.
I just ruined my iPad screen attempting to lick the Yumnut which resembles a Cronut. That particular confection: cross between croissant and donut is equally ridiculous. Why would one ruin two perfectly decent sources of mega-carbs by combining them? Yuck!