The Flockin' Fiber Festival

Ruth wanted to know if I wanted to go to the Flock and Fiber Festival, and I thought, sure, why not? I had to get the car out to go to the flockin' grocery store anyway. So off we went.

The Flock and Fiber Festival, on the Canby fairgrounds, was a celebration of wool. There haven't been so many people spinning in place since Woodstock. There must have been a good hundred people sitting about spinning fleece, including one woman who was spinning while plucking fuzz from a slowly diminishing rabbit. It was a particularly dramatic demonstration of source-to-end product, with rabbit socks being knitted right next door. Technically speaking, of course, rabbits do not bear wool so much as a sleek acrylic blend.

In fact, virtually everything involved in the production of fiber products was on display here, from the animals they shear to the tools of production to the products themselves to books written by my very sister. The only thing missing was a diorama of my closet, where tiny shrunken sweaters go to be perforated by moths. That would have closed the circle.

There was a barn filled with highly decorative sheep and goats; just to see them was to be struck by the bounty of products that might be made of them. Mittens, scarves. Sweaters. Sausage. Maria, my massage therapist.

The most active ones were in a small pen against which

someone had unwisely leaned what had once been a nice leather satchel. Mostly, they were very well behaved, perhaps due to the proximity of the sausage booth. Many of the animals were in competition for ribbons, and I assumed there would be a frenzy of goat-sprucing or sheep-fluffing going on, but it was not the case. You just had to lead them out there with whatever they'd rolled in still on them. In some cases, with whatever had rolled out of them still on them. Consumer alert: steer clear of the fleeces that come with their own novelty sweater buttons.

My companion Ruth has her own weaving studio. Scores of looms are set up in one room, and they look from a distance like naked upright pianos. One large one with foot pedals could have been a pipe organ. She can go in there any time she wants and make music out of wool, because she knows how.

I don't know how, so my wallet is in no particular danger at the Flock and Fiber Festival. Someone was selling salted filberts (sold!) but mostly people stayed true to theme. There would have been no reason for me to come back the next day, but I did. Because when I die, I want it carved on my gravestone that I never missed an opportunity to see a duck-herding demonstration.

A Murmuration Rumination

I guess we're not supposed to like starlings, because they are an introduced species that has edged out the natives and caused a lot of destruction, like white people. Some fellow brought a bunch to Central Park in New York City in 1890, because he had the romantic notion that he would introduce all the critters mentioned in Shakespeare to America. America would have been so much better off if he'd just fired off a check to the local theater company, but that's show business. He was not entirely successful in his efforts, or we'd be seeing a lot more fairies around here. I guess we should be grateful he was not a Mary Shelley fan.

But I like starlings, and not just because a group of them is called a murmuration. They're natty, interesting and have great voices. It's not cool to say it, but some white people are, too.

A good murmuration is something to see. It's always great to watch a flock of birds wheel and turn in unison, and by the time starlings gang up in the range of a kabillion or so, they put on quite the show. They bloom and squirt and pop across the sky like the innards of God's lava lamp. It doesn't seem possible that they don't run into each other, at least a few of them, but they are as well coordinated as if they were a single organism.

I do know why they don't run into each other. It's because they haven't yet assembled at their annual holiday party. That convenes on a single day in December, right here in our yard. They all know when it is; a raft of them will sit up on the neighbor's roof, and another flotilla will land on our roof, and a third batch will take over the big cedar, and they sit there for a while checking each other out. This is because they don't have the technology to send an E-vite, which would allow them to decide if it was worth their while going, depending on who else had signed up. Instead, they have to occupy the roofs and trees and work it out for themselves.

Then, though, they all fly over to our grape vine in a huge mass and the party begins. We don't harvest our grapes, and by this time they have begun to ferment on the vine. The starlings begin to chatter and chirp, and whistle and click, and hang around the punch bowl, each one wearing a spangly holiday sweater. After a bit, the whistling and clicking gets louder and louder, and restraint is thrown to the winds. Things are said that probably shouldn't be said. "I heard Frank and Irma over there talking about stealing a new nest box." "No, you di'n't!" Whistley whistley,clickety clickety. Jerry "Second-Brood" Calhoun does his siren imitation, Babs lets out a shriek, and Connie starts in on that crazy laugh that sounds like a horse going off.

Things really begin to go off the rails then. They pair up and head to the corners of the trellis, trying to sit on each other's laps, forgetting, in their gaiety, that they do not have laps. Then they pitch over and fall into the garden in bunches. The neighborhood cats find this behavior so alarming that they stay well away, heads carefully turned aside, licking their paws in nervousness.

The cats won't be having their own holiday party until much later, after dark, as soon as we've all finally dropped off to sleep.

Happy Holidays From The Drabnitz's

Merry Christmas! It's been "another" jolly year for the Drabnitz's!

So many blessings! Little Megan is all grown up now, it seems like only yesterday she was lifting her little frock above her head in the choir loft! Ha! Ha! She has always had that knack for entertainment and we know she'll go far. She still enjoys her job down at the Boom Boom Room, and in October they moved her right up to the main stage. We didn't think we could be prouder, but then she was able to "pull a few strings" and get her sister Becka a job there too. They've always been poles apart, Megan is our little athlete and Becka loves cheese. But we hear the "sister" act is a big hit and both girls seem to be rolling in cash. In these uncertain economic times we are grateful they have found their niche. Ho! Ho! Ho!

Little Dickie is doing well, isn't he special? you will remember all those shows he used to put on in the back yard, so no surprise he's grown up to be the star in the Wally Shore Chevrolet production of South Pacific!!! We've had the whole troupe over here for a sleepover in the rec room, he has always had the nicest friends.

What can I say about Big Dick! Just as ornery as ever, he can go all day without saying two words, but like he says, Lurleen, he says, you talk enough for both of us. Ha! He was able to buy himself that backhoe he always wanted this year, he calls it an investment, but just between you and I, it's more like his toy! He's still working hard, lots of times doesn't even get home until the middle of the night, and then he's got that thing clanking away in the back yard, good thing we live in the boonies! but guess what? its working out for me after all, he has been pouring concrete back there bit by bit, and in a few months I'll finally have me that patio I've been bugging him about! LOL!!!! Plus he's taken over doing all the laundry around here. I am so lucky!

And that leaves our littlest, Timmy, that's our little scientist. He's still awful quiet, but maybe that's a blessing too, ha! He always used to like to take things apart, and we worried he didn't seem to have many friends, but like I was just saying, some kids are just different from the get-go, aren't they? Anyway he's always just been so darn interested in the natural world, What makes this go? What's inside of that? You never know just where that little mind is going, now he's taken over the shed for his little dissection projects. He can keep it now! Ha! Ha! Mark my words, that boy is going to make some big news some day...

Some of you might remember Dick's brother Dwayne Ray, he's been away for a few years, but now we're so pleased to have him back for Christmas this year...he's staying with us in the

basement for a little while until he gets back on his feet again. Luckily he's not supposed to move too far away, so Timmy will have a chance to get reacquainted with his good old Uncle Dee again. He always doted on the boy so!

The only sad note all year was the loss of our sweet Scamp, who just plumb disappeared one day, and then right after so did his littermate and constant companion Bozo. We were heartbroken, and Timmy especially has been after us for a new puppy, so maybe Santa will have a surprise for him under the Christmas Tree! Ha! Ha!

Well that about wraps it up, from the whole Drabnitz clan to all of you, have a great holiday and maybe we'll see you in the new year! Can you believe it's almost 2010 already? We still have cans of beans left over from the Y2K thing!!! Ha! Ha!

Stamping Our Feet And Demanding Our Cake

The leaders of the world have come and gone and we're still getting nowhere with this global-warming business, and I totally blame Rudolph.

Here in Portland, we've had this big uproar over a large neon sign downtown. There's a white stag on it from back when it was owned by the White Stag clothing company. At some point, someone plonked a red bulb on its nose for the Christmas season. People loved it; they went all gooey inside over it. When the sign changed hands, the new owners were prevailed upon to keep the stag, even though they sold china, just so Portland could still have its nose. I mean, folks were getting upset. This was messing with tradition. The stag stayed. Then a few years later the sign changed hands again and holy hell broke loose over the possibility that the stag would be lost. A city commissioner, taking a break from that tiresome schools-funding issue, proposed that the city buy the sign for $65,000 just so that Portland might never suffer a lack of seasonally adorned deer. Because it's always been there.

Well, actually, the stag dates to 1969, when it replaced a White Satin sugar sign. I still remember the fuss when the china people bought the sign. Perhaps I'm in denial, but I find it sort of annoying that anything could be thought of as a sacrosanct tradition that isn't even as old as I am. But that's the nature of people. We believe in our traditions so strongly that we'll eat stuff we don't even like as long as it's traditional. Norwegians scarf down lutefisk at Christmas as though it didn't taste like something a crab would spit out. They say they like it, but they couldn't possibly mean it.

Even a child as young as three is capable of claiming traditions, stamping her feet and insisting on the same birthday cake she's had her whole life. Our perspective tends to be limited by our own experience entirely. The actual song Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, for instance, is older than me by four years, so that's a solid tradition. Because--write this down--history began when I was born.

That's where the global warming comes in. We are either faced with the likelihood of a man-made cataclysmic change in climate which can only be averted by a serious global application of political will, or it's all a bunch of hooey concocted by a conspiracy of 99% of the world's scientists who don't think they could get a grant otherwise.

That is the view promoted by James Inhofe (R), a petroleum-based senator from Oklahoma, who reminds us that just a couple weeks ago we were all complaining about how chilly it was. In other words, this is just another he-said, everybody-else-in-the-world said situation. And if so, who should we believe?

Here's an even better question. Why would scientifically illiterate people bet the ranch--all the ranches--that the world's scientists are collectively goofing on us?

We living things are all bundles of stored energy, although just between you and me, some of us are dimmer than others. But let's say we pile up mountains of organic material, just like us and maybe several continent-sized expanses of swamp; say we do that for thousands and thousands of years, and then say we press it into a concentrated sludge for a hundred million more years. Now, what say we then suck it up and set it all on fire in a few decades. Why wouldn't we think this might have an effect on the atmospheric status quo?

Why, because all we know is that for our entire lives--forever, in other words--we've been able to get in our cars and roar off to the grocery store five blocks away and buy a banana that grew halfway around the planet. It's natural. Isn't it? Two hundred years after Lewis and Clark, we stand in line preparing to take a cross-country trip that will last six hours and whine about having to take our shoes off. In fifty years, some kid will be waiting inside the human teleporter and he'll smack the side and say "Come onnnn." That's how we are. We have no concept of how unusual fossil fuel is and how special our tiny sliver of history is. Nope. All of this is totally normal. Not only that, but it's our birthright. If we were not meant to sit around in shorts and a tube top watching TV in the middle of the winter, God wouldn't have put all that oil and coal out there for us.

And we feel it is somehow our due that, after another terrific scare, the nose on the White Stag sign lit up once again this year according to sacred tradition, right on time, a week before Thanksgiving.

A Pile Of Doe

The bad neighbors have been evicted and they're gone, yes indeedy spank the Lord and praise my fanny they're gone, and now, as I gaze on the detritus left behind, I've become more contemplative about the nature of neighborliness. It's a liberal thing. I mean, I never went over there with a plate of cookies or anything. By the same token, they never offered me any of their crack. But they never actually set anything on fire, and they were real quiet until noon most days. It could have been worse.

As it is in Pennsylvania's N. Buffalo township, for instance, where the neighbors of Mr. Randy Good are pondering their next move. Mr. Good has a contract with the township to scoop up all the dead deer on the highway and haul them to the landfill, and what with one thing and another, he's been stacking them in his back yard instead, where about two hundred of them are piled ten feet deep, before settling. Even in cold weather, this has had a deleterious effect on the atmosphere, and the neighbors have taken to burning candles in order to deal with it. Candles, torches, whatever.

I don't think this is sanctioned official procedure. In the post office, they frowned on us letter carriers taking our work home, especially those of us with garages or basements. But even for those mailmen who did get involved in home mail storage, the storage system itself would not have been a nuisance to the immediate neighbors. Anything of an olfactory nature was more likely to be emanating from the mailman himself. It's a whole different kettle of fish with deer.

Apparently, you can compost dead animals as though they were turnips, and in some locales, that's what they've taken to doing. It works the same way as yard debris, and involves a large enough pile to really heat up, some water and a means of turning the heap. Mr. Good might well have had a successful composting program going there eventually. He would have needed something to turn his pile with, a source of water and enough roadkill to really get it cooking, which would probably take several more weeks of collection, by which time, of course, he would have discovered himself murdered.

The whole scenario puts me in mind of a dreadful incident from many years ago right here in Oregon. In 1986, Sheridan poultry farmer Larry Mohler lost 26,000 chickens at once during a heat wave when the fans in the coop broke down. It was a tragedy all around, but Mr. Mohler did the right thing and plowed his chickens under right away with a front-end loader. All was quiet for a few days until the bacteria in the chickens' guts kicked in, digesting tissues and producing gas. According to eyewitnesses, the very dirt itself began to rumble ominously and bubble up and then all at once the chickens, all 26,000 of them, just blew sky-high. "It looked like a little Mt. St. Helens out there," Mr. Mohler mourned, as well he might. I know I was moved to tears when I pictured it. And what is a poor chicken farmer to do under the circumstances?

Credit my co-worker, John Curry, for the answer. "Put a sign out on the highway," he said. "Chicken Nuggets. You Pick."

The Music Of The Spheres

So I had my first colonoscopy right on schedule a few years back, and evidently I passed it with flying colors. Lord knows something passed with flying colors. And now they've started asking me to take more of a personal hand in my routine testing. This is why I was sent home from Kaiser with a small envelope containing everything I would need to collect my own stool sample and send it through the mail. I'm always getting shit in the mail, so it's sort of a novelty to send some back.

The thing is, this is one of those areas I've always preferred to leave to others. Maybe it's because I've never been a mom or a janitor, and I have been a baby--but if someone has to deal with what lands in the toilet, I'd rather it were someone else. The colonoscopy, for instance, didn't require all that much of me. My only role was the night before, and that wasn't really any big deal. You just do what comes naturally, only louder and with more pep. Once you've gotten to the clinic and have your gown on, your part is pretty much over with. In my case, I did come to, at some point towards the end of the procedure, and was able to watch some of the goings-on on a TV monitor and recognize what I was looking at. But I could tell I wasn't entirely back to normal because normal people do not blow "Oklahoma!" out their ass in a crowded hospital corridor. I recognized the opening note right away, and I discovered that if I exercised a little sphincter control--I believe trumpeters refer to that as "embouchure"--I was able to replicate the tune pretty well. I held onto the "O!" for as long as I could, and by the time the wind came sweepin' down the plain, I'd like to think I had everybody's attention.

The home stool sample kit comes with instructions that are pure literature:

Unfold and put the large collection tissue paper inside the toilet bowl on top of the water. (Don't use the small absorption pad included in the return envelope--you'll need that for something else later.)

Gripping! See how that keeps you on the edge of your seat? It's a page-turner.

Have a bowel movement so that the stool (feces) falls on top of the collection paper.

The paper takes up the entire interior of the toilet bowl. If you miss it, you were way too close to the edge of your seat.

Take a sample of your stool (feces) before it touches the water.

Fortunately, they don't mean in mid-flight. But frankly, seeing your stool plated up like an entree and twirling a spoon in it sort of cancels out the entire beauty of having indoor plumbing. The instructions go on to say you can flush, and to ("please") wipe off the sample bottle if some sample has gotten on the outside. As a former mailman, I can endorse that request.

Dave got a kit at the same time I did, but he's just practicing for now. He's doubtful about the collection tissue paper and is pretty sure he can sink it in one shot. I think he can, too.

One Hundred Cheers Of Jollitude

Grab yourself a little piece of that cake over there, and make sure you have a glass of champagne. This here is my 100th post in Murrmurrs! No one is surpriseder than I am. When I started, I would have sworn I didn't have a hundred ideas, total, lifetime. But here we are. My head is jammed full of stuff. As Dave likes to point out, it's really dense in there.

You should have a purpose in mind when starting a blog: to educate, to chronicle, perhaps to provoke. My goal is to cause a leakage of bodily fluids in my readership. If I can make you have to change your underwear or wipe something off your screen, I'm happy. That's where the cake and champagne come in. Everything reminds me of something else, and there's usually no more than one or two degrees of separation before you hit funny. So I think of something, and that makes me think of something else, and that makes me think of something else, and if I can remember what I started with--by no means a sure thing--why, I'm off and running.

I wrote my first post on December 27th, 2008, and my second a day later, and the Blogger template made it look real purty so I went ahead and told both of my friends, and then I settled into a comfortable twice-a-week schedule. Now, there's a lot of information out there about having a successful blog, and one thing everyone agrees on is that you should post at least three times a week. Call me a crank, but my thought is that no one will look at a blog three or more times a week unless it's entertaining. I searched my heart and decided I could only be funny twice a week, and you don't even want to be around me those other days.

Actually, I'm fun to be around slightly more often than twice a week. I began to accumulate blog posts which I confine to a little kennel on my computer. I have a pack of at least fifteen of them ready to let loose. At any given time a few will be under construction, and about three of them will be told to go to their crates until they funny up a little more. I worry when I put out a post that I think is pretty funny but not very funny. I always think: well, there goes my audience. Same thing applies when I put in one with a political or religious theme, which I seem unable to prevent myself from doing. "That one will drive people away," I fret, but then I think: No. My readers are smart and delightful and agree with me on every last thing. Right? Right?

But even though I have a group of posts just yipping to be let out, I decided not to increase the output to three times a week. That would be more pressure than a retired and, frankly, slothful person should be expected to bear. Especially one who isn't getting paid.

That getting-paid thing has been an eye-opener. I started the blog to develop an audience, which you need before anyone will publish your book. I'd still like to get a book published, but I discovered that having an audience was most of what I wanted. It's almost as if my readers are the people standing in the forest with their ears peeled, and I'm the tree that falls down. If they weren't there, would I make a sound? I'm not at all sure that I would. So you people are drawing out my work, and that energizes me and makes me very happy, for which I thank you all.

Wherever you came from. I haven't hit the big time, but I do have more readers than I have friends, so something's going on. Now, a person could conceivably trip over my site just by Googling the right thing. For instance, if you type in "ferret snot," I'm right there in the number-one position out of 400,000 hits. (Dave Barry is number three, people.) Most of my readers live in Oregon, which tells me they're my friends or their friends. But a goodly percentage, when I dig into it, are birders. This means my friend Julie Zickefoose sent them. Which brings up another thing:

I didn't know much about the so-called blogosphere before I began bobbing around in it. But here's one thing I found out: it's got friends. I now have friends I've never met, but friends they are. My head says "those are just names on a screen," but my heart, a much better judge of such things, has already brought over a bottle of wine, checked out the fridge, and curled up under an afghan on the sofa. It's the real thing.

Regular readers will have learned a lot about me. I'm muddle-headed, I tip over a lot, and I live with a cat and a large man, both of whom are total goofs. I like beer and flowers and salamanders, I'm a big chubby liberal, and I'm probably going to hell. That's me in a nutshell.

I always thought I'd be a writer. I wrote a lot of bad poetry in school and some exceptionally bad fiction. After that, I didn't write much of anything for over thirty years. They say that you need to live a little to have something to write about, and I think that's true. What did thirty years of living prepare me to write about? Poop.

I checked back, and at least eighteen of my posts are either about poop or mention poop (in passing). I've written about lizard poop, and bat poop, and raccoon poop, and sandhill crane poop. Possum poop, people poop and the poop of the potoroo. Hamster doots. Quark shit, for crap's sakes. I don't know what this says about me, but I will report that my poop posts get a lot of commentary. However, the post that got the most comments of all was about erections. That says a lot about you.

Here's a little primer about comments, for those of you not in the know. You can click on the little "comments" line at the end of every post and put in a comment. It will ask you how you want to be known, and you can be anonymous. But if you wanted to create a Google account, and have your name and picture and everything right there, I'm here to tell you that it's free and easy and no one seems to hound you about anything afterwards, so go for it. Also, if you want to send a particular post to somebody, you can click on "share this." I won't stop you. If you want to email all your friends about Murrmurrs, I will encourage you while blushing at the same time, which is all the multitasking I can handle without tipping over. If you want to put a link to Murrmurrs on your Facebook page, I will lick your feet and bake cookies.

Thank you all for coming. In the spirit of the season, Post #101 will be about poop.

Here are a few of my favorite posts, excavated from the archives, which you can find at the left:

We The People

Loved Ones, With A Side Of Lefse

Requiem For A Biology Degree

Speaking Phlegmish

A Beagle Too Far

If we are to address a challenge as daunting as global warming, it will require unprecedented political will. It will require unflagging energy and dedication and determination from the grass roots on up. And we've got that, people, we do. Unfortunately it's being used to fight gay marriage, but at least we've got it.

I'm not sure why people get so fervent about stuff like this, but I have been trying to put myself in the shoes of the righteous to gain that understanding. I am doing that because I am a liberal, and that's what we do. We try to understand, to empathize, to see all sides, and that, my friends, is why we never get anything done.

But my exercise proved fruitful when I realize how similar the anti-gay-marriage sentiment is to my own aversion to the Humane Society, an outfit that is only growing in strength and power. Now this is an entity with an agenda. They don't try to hide it, either; it's right there on their website for all the world to see. And I will do everything in my power to expose the Humane Society for what it is and what it hopes to accomplish, because if they are allowed to thrive, they're going to force me to adopt a beagle, and I don't want to adopt a beagle. Once they make everyone adopt a beagle, there will be beagle drool everywhere, and there will be no

putting the rabbit back in the hat. Oh, I can hear the beagle advocates now, insisting that beagles don't drool as much as other dogs, which may be true, but it doesn't make it right. And it would be one thing if they just drooled in the privacy of their own crates, but I shouldn't have to see it.

Worse, if we let this go too far, our children will think beagle adoption is just fine and dandy, just another choice. I don't want this for your children, and I don't want it for my children either, if I had any, which I don't, because I was unclear about that being the whole point of heterosexuals getting married, and now it's too late, and here I am with a bunch of legal benefits and no one to help me with my computer. But don't tell me I have a phobia. I do not fear beagles. It's just that some people are born with beagles, some achieve beagles, and others have beagles thrust upon them, and that's where I draw the line, right there. As long as I have freedom of speech and a vote to my name, I will fight against beagle-thrusting.

The more I think about it, the more I see the logic behind maintaining marriage inequality. Still, I can't get behind the movement. I'd like to feel that fire in my heart, but I'm hampered by, oh--my life experiences, friendships, the evidence before my own eyes--you know, "reality," which is just another burden that liberals suffer under. So I do my best to advance the cause of full civil rights for gays, because nothing in my experience speaks against their right

to marry, raise children, grow gradually more annoyed at each other over little foibles they were willing to overlook in the courting phase, drift apart emotionally and eventually divorce, just like regular people.

And I believe I hold the key to resolving this issue. There is a growing movement among fundamentalist Christians to further the cause of Zionism, arming and aiding Israel so that--true to prophecy--Armageddon will arrive as soon as possible, and true believers can be vacuumed up to Heaven and get their personal show on the road. Since

the same factions probably believe that tolerance of homosexuality also portends the end of the world, I believe we can persuade them to encourage gays in every way they can, including supplying them with marriage certificates and surface-to-air missiles. This will hasten the End Days, the time that the world will be purged of religious fundamentalists, and those of us left behind can get on with our lives. I hope they rapture the beagles, too.

Without A Thong

The day before I bought my first washer and dryer, Dave explained why he never minded going to the Laundromat. "There are always a lot of women in there," he said. "And a whole lot of them are completely out of underwear."

They are marvelously convenient appliances, but I'm well aware that the dryer is an energy hog. So when it was stupid-hot this summer, and I was already pissy about it, I realized I would be damned if I was going to turn it on. I whined about wanting a clothesline to Dave, and whined and whined and stamped my feet, and he got out a rope and strung it up outside. Probably for the clothes.

It was grand. I found a bag of clothespins, my actual childhood clothespins, and I happily began to string up a load of wash. The rope wasn't really long enough, but by the time I'd gotten to the end of it, in a hot wind that could only have come from Hell or California, the first items were bone dry and ready to peel off. I loved the whole process. I loved how the towels came off stiff. It reminded me of my youth. Mom used a wringer in the basement, and then the clothes went outside to dry. There was a big mulberry tree in the neighbor's yard with plump purple fruit. Dad liked it because it attracted birds. Mom hated it because it attracted birds. I remember how she used to dry the white sheets and iron them before folding them up just so. Her kids all learned to bake bread like she did, but sheet-ironing died with her generation. I can't even fold sheets. I'm a wadder.

So I thought our array of drying clothes was rather jolly, but Dave was a little less fervent.

"Great," he muttered, "there are all our tighty-whities and granny panties flapping out there for all the world to see."

Honey. Ain't no one in the neighborhood going to be surprised at our tighty-whities and granny panties. They've assumed them for years.

"Am I on Craig's list? Can I see a copy?" Granny panties.

"The computer needs more memory. I keep forgetting where I put my files." Tighty-whities.

"I don't mind if the neighbors have a little party every now and then, but Jeesus Peezus, it's eight-thirty." Granny panties.

"Look at that guy walking around with his ass hanging out of his pants. Hey buddy! Ever heard of a belt?" Tighty-whities.

"Four bucks for a cup of coffee? Are they kidding me?" Granny panties.

"I must have gone ten miles without seeing a pay phone. I don't know what they expect people to do." Tighty-whities.

"Could you come in here and do that pingy thing with our computer? It keeps freezing up no matter how hard I click on it." Granny panties.

"Have you seen my, oh, what the hell is that, you know, my..."

"Your..."

"That thing, that thing that you do that thing with, starts with a G..."

"Pipe wrench?" Tighty-whities and granny panties.