My last post ended with an open question: Who is Ogden Nash? His name came up in one of the lines in the poem that was featured in that post : “…Rugged individualists trying to mimic Ogden Nash, the only difference being: he traded words for cash…”.
The Department of Rugged Individualists, consisting primarily of me and Spencer (a stuffed plush seal) hates leaving alert readers dangling, so as threatened, I’ll give you the scoop on Ogden Nash. But first, another poem:
Spencer If he weren’t stuffed with foam, Spencer would be denser.
Many people have already been through one or more quarantines since this Covid business started more than a year ago. It can be very challenging to be cooped up alone indoors for two weeks, especially if you don’t like the company. Fortunately there are loads of sites you can go to for help. As VP of the Altruism and Trivia Division of the Lateral Thinking Department, I decided to make a contribution to the Covid cause, so I thought up some suggestions to help people avoid going stark raving bonkers while quarantining.
Full disclosure: I watch one Pro Football game a year. That would be the Super Bowl. This year, I was swept up in a tide of confusion trying to figure out if the NFL had missed the class on advanced Roman Numerals, back in Grade Whatever.
All of us who passed Grade Whatever know that LIV is fifty-four in Roman Numeralese, right? So why did the NFL make the Super Bowl Fifty-Five logo so that it looked like it was the logo for Super Bowl Fifty-Four? And since you brought it up, why did they go and stick that football-on-an-obelisk thing in the logos for Super Bowls Fifty-One, Fifty-Two, Fifty-Three and Fifty-Four?
People have been walking around in early February for each of the last five years, scratching their heads and saying, “What the hell Super Bowl IS this, even? That dang logo doesn’t make any sense. Is that pedestal thing supposed to be the letter “I”? Is it one of the Silver Surfer’s high school football trophies? Or what?”
Mrs. Norrin Radd, spouse of Silver Surfer:
“Norrin! Put that trophy in the garage right this century! If I’ve asked you once I’ve asked you MMDLIX times! It’s been like 500 million years since you went to high school. Just because you’re an immortal humanoid alien who can throw a football several parsecs through space with pinpoint accuracy, it doesn’t mean you can leave your old crap lying around everywhere for the rest of eternity. And why are you even in the kitchen right now anyway?”
Norrin Radd (aka Silver Surfer): henpecked immortal humanoid alien football star/defender of the Galaxy
Here in the Department of Keeping Tabs On The Universe we note that there’s a lot of stuff going on: gravity waves, stars that explode and jet out opposing beams of pure iridium, planets moving in and out of conjunction and now, rays of light that are shooting up from the sides of the reflecting pool in the National Mall in D.C., rays that are regarded by at least one commentator as “extensions of President Joe Biden’s arms” shooting up to metaphorically embrace America.
Sadly, I immediately forgot all about answering that question. Months went by. But then, a few weeks ago, I ran across an unusual headline emanating from Florida. Happily, the headline jogged my memory about the Florida Man game. Sadly, I soon forgot all about the unusual headline and also my failure to write about the Florida Man game. A couple of weeks went by. I happened to gaze at a map of Florida. Happily, I suddenly remembered the unusual headline and my failure to write about the Florida Man game. But sadly, I had forgotten about an appointment I had to go to. Happily, I made it to the appointment, remembered where I lived, was able to return home where I immediately recalled the unusuaI headline, my inability to write about the Florida Man game and the fact that since my last post was on November third I needed to get my ass in gear. I began to type feverishly…
About a year ago I was leafing through a Signals catalogue (Motto: “Gifts that inform, enlighten & entertain” ) and I came across these DIY Miniature House Kits made by a company called Robotime. (Somewhat Opaque Motto: Fun time together. Best hobby forever.)
Thinking that pretty much everyone needs a hobby these days and that pretty much everyone wants to be informed, enlightened and entertained and because I didn’t have any better ideas for a birthday gift for my daughter, I went ahead and ordered the “Sam’s Study” kit.
In the aviation world, trying to avoid detection is called “flying under the radar”. We did this in school all the time when we didn’t have the faintest idea what the answer was, to the question the teacher had just posed to the class. We would basically sit there immobile, trying to look as nonchalant and inconspicuous as possible, hoping to be mistaken for a store mannequin or maybe a piece of furniture. Or maybe even a young woolly mammoth that was somehow flash-frozen by a super-hurricane like the ones in that cool (!) movie: The Day After Tomorrow.
Super-hurricanes aside, in a sublime moment of cosmic quirkiness, an ordinary housefly barreled fearlessly into the heart of the storm that was raging in the Vice Presidential debate the other night. The first thing I thought to myself was “Holy Kadoda! This is the Chuck Yeager of flies!” (Chuck was an iconic, fearless test-pilot profiled in that old astronaut movie: The Right Stuff.) Anyway, this fly bee-lined (!) directly for Mike Pence’s head. And stayed on it. For quite a long time.
Spoiler alert: the featured image is highly misleading. That thing staring at the cat is a Cambropachycope, a sea-dwelling arthropod which lived hundreds of millions of years ago. Housecats, on the other paw, arrived on Earth about 3.4 million years ago, from a distant star system but by that time the Cambropachycopes were long gone, having evolved into bureaucrats. Plus, at 1.5 mm, they (the Cambropachycopes, not the bureaucrats) were basically teensy. Not to mention underwater. So there’s no way a Cambropachycope could have gone compound eyeball to eyeballs with a cat. I just put that image out there to get your attention.
I have to confess that I was going to entitle this post: The Ketogenic Blues. Then I starting thinking that I should add The Ketogenic Blues to my list of suggested names for bands until I realized that it sounded too much like The Moody Blues (which is a real band-as approximately half of my 27 readers know). But I overcame my reluctance and added The Ketogenic Blues to my list just the same. Here is the up-to-date list:
I guess the first question that pops into my mind at this point is: why would you want to weigh 25,000 penguins? This question is closely followed by a second question which is: what could any of this possibly have to do with the beloved author of books for children of all sizes, Dr. Seuss? Last but not least: do I have even the slightest idea where this column is headed?
The Department of Lateral Thinking 
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