105 Ways to Give a Book

Odds and Ends, Only One Book-Related

I was bleary-eyed this morning in a haze from allergies and not having my cup of coffee, and saw a book review of Vulnerable in Hearts: A Memoir of Fathers, Sons and Contact Bridge. I never thought of bridge as a contact sport. What the hell? Oh, it’s contract bridge. Ohhhhhh.

But speaking of hell, driving to work today I saw one of those signs in front of a church. You know the kind, with something clever and wise to say. This one, however, said “Friends don’t let friends go to hell.” I almost stopped to let the clergy know that they had missed the point of both these adorable little boards and the quote itself. “You see,” I would say, “these cute signs are supposed to be funny, yet wise. This statement you have is neither funny nor wise. Also, it is an adaptation of the original ‘Friends don’t let friends drive drunk.’ That was a serious message. Then it was taken over by the parodies, like ‘Friends don’t let friends vote Republican.’ Hah. That one still cracks me up. So, you see how your parody of the original isn’t really funny. Disturbing, not funny.”

Speaking of funny, I noticed that security guards at Target are called Asset Protection Specialists. They look like police with badges and everything, but with a new odd little name. Are we supposed to be reassured by the name? They’re not guards, you see, they are specialists in protecting assets. I laughed my asset off.

Speaking of assets, apparently my uncleanliness has its merits. A new study noted in The Washington Post finds that children who live their early years around more dust have less of a chance of developing asthma. The article title is “Drop that Vacuum.” So, maybe I did better for my children vacuuming bees than dirt. Who knew?

3 comments:

Daniel said...

I'm sure that Bill has mentioned it to you, but I want to broadcast it to our mutual readers: on the way to John's wedding, we saw a great bumpersticker:

REPUBLICANS FOR VOLDEMORT

I'm scanning every ephemera outlet in town.

*hehe* "Asset Protection Specialists" ...!! Corporate psychobabble has reached a new low (high?). I find this sort of thing amusing, but disturbing. In our national attempt to hide the unpleasant by applying vague or misleading names, how long will it take for us to "happy" ourselves out of any linguistic sense?

Steve said...

Asset Protection Specialists? Hysterical. Does that make us Online Messaging Distribution Consutlants?

btw, a friend of mine worked at The Advisory Board Company with Bill. Unfortunately, I don't know your email, so buzz me at recaps-at-hygienechronicles-dot-com and I can pass on the Kevin Bacon-like connection.

Kelly said...

I noticed the Asset Protection Specialists (ASPs) on my last Target trip too. Weird.