As we’re passing a watch shop in the Buffalo airport, my son, age 15, says, “That reminds me — I need a new watch.”
I say, “Why do you need a new watch? When we were getting my watch, you told me you already had a cool watch.”
“When was that?”
“I don’t remember but it wasn’t that long ago.”
“I didn’t say my watch was cool,” he says. “I just said your watch was lame.”
My wife’s explaining to our boy how she managed to pass a driving test and get a license without ever taking a driving lesson:
“I drove in Thailand and when I came over here I just took the test. I’m pretty charming. People like happy, smiling people. And when I was young, I was cute. The examiner just said, ‘okayokayokay.’ I hate to say it, but when you’re good looking, you get the benefit.”
Our flight out of Buffalo was delayed by gusty winds so we ducked into Anchor Bar at the airport for an order of buffalo wings. The Anchor Bar wings come with five sauce options: mild, medium, hot, spicy bar-b-que or suicidal.
I asked the waitress, “The ‘suicidal’ wings — who’s responsible if they result in my actual death?”
“Oh they’re not like that,” she said. “There’s other places in Buffalo that serve wings a lot hotter. Oh my gosh, if you actually died?”
“You could use that in your advertising: ‘A guy actually died eating these wings!'”
“I’ll keep the defibrillator handy.”
We gave the suicidal wings their day in court. We liked them. Like the waitress said, they actually weren’t as hot as the wings I’ve had at some other places, despite the small kernels of red and black pepper that are actually in the sauce and on the wings.
My pulse and respiration may have been slightly elevated but not to a life-threatening level . . .
I have to say, it has been nice to watch Griffey’s career unfold in an old-school, pre-PED way; instead of belting 57 homers at age 39, he’s barely hanging on to a job. It’s refreshing. It’s the human body doing what it’s supposed to do at that age: fail. Thanks for sucking, Ken Griffey Jr. And I mean that in a completely genuine way. I swear.
California’s fiscal crisis has left the US state without courts and some administration offices were ordered to close on Friday.
A predicted 24 billion dollar budget deficit over the next two years has forced Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to order massive cost-cutting measures.
There is no more new frontier
We have got to make it here
All the economic news from here in California is bad and unfortunately the cry heeded by our forbears — “Go West!” — is no longer an option . . .
Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton has been forced to pull out of part of the band’s summer tour as he recovers from surgery, according to their website.
What kind of surgery? A hip replacement?
Earlier this summer, the band postponed seven shows after Steve Tyler, 61, injured his leg at a gig in June.
I’VE FALLEN AND I CAN’T GET UP!
News flash, boys: You’re old. Do you have those motorized carts that old people ride around on?
If not, have your attendants push you out on stage in your wheelchairs and maybe nobody gets hurt . . .
The United States is declining as a nation and a world power, with mostly sighs and shrugs to mark this seismic event. Astonishingly, some people do not appear to realize that the situation is all that serious.
After a visit to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, we stopped by a Subway where an Asian woman with a strange accent made our sandwiches.
“Have you been to the Hockey Hall of Fame up the street there?” I asked her.
No answer.
“It’s great!” I said. “We came all the way from California to see it.”
“I came from Buffalo,” she said.
“Really? Where’d you come from before Buffalo?” I asked.
“I saw Niagara Falls,” she said.
Downtown Toronto looks pretty much like downtown anywhere else, but it is the first place I’ve ever seen a street performer playing a set of bagpipes . . .
As we’re waiting for the plane to leave the gate, my son’s looking over the airline safety brochure, which shows multiple scenarios of people sliding to safety out of a downed plane — onto grass, into water, etc.
He says, “None of these things is going to work if the plane is going–” here he makes a plummeting motion with his hand, along with a plummeting sound effect.
“The plane is on the ground in those pictures,” I say. “You’re not supposed to slide out of the plane while it’s still in the air.”
“I know. I’m saying there’s no solution if the plane actually crashes.”
“That’s right. Do you want to get off?”
I already knew that, but one of the TV stations at the hotel seemed to be showing nothing but ball hockey — no skates, just guys running around with sticks trying to hit a ball into a net.
I asked a Canadian: “What’s up with all the ball hockey games on television?”
“It’s the playoffs!” he explained.
My owner and his boy are back! I am so happy!
My owner’s wife let me sleep on the bed while they were gone. Usually I sleep on my own bed downstairs. When someone says, “Lightning, go nite-nite,” I used to go and lie down on my bed. But now when someone says, “Go nite-nite,” I run upstairs to the bedroom. I’m a fast learner!
I sniffed my owner’s clothes when he was gone because it made it seem like he was close by. And I went into the boy’s room sometimes to see if he was back yet.
I’m going to be an extra good dog so they won’t go away any more . . .
— Lightning 
Our hotel room in Canada had a king-size bed, which I slept on, and a pull-out sofa that my son slept on. The first night we were there, I picked out my side of the bed and went to sleep.
It wasn’t until the second night that it occurred to me: Hey I could sleep right in the middle of this bed if I want to! There’s nobody else in it!
“I still slept on my side of the bed when you were gone,” my wife said later.
Our hotel room had a fridge, so we went to the market to stock up on a few drinks and snacks. We weren’t planning to buy a lot of stuff so instead of a cart we just put the items in a hand basket.
At the checkout line, the girl asked me, “Do you want bags for this?”
Am I missing something? “How else are we going to get it to the car?” I asked.
“I’m going to charge you for them,” she said, “so I have to ask you if you want them.”
Plastic grocery bags in Canada will set you back five cents apiece . . .
I handed the girl at the McDonalds drive-thru a Canadian 5-dollar bill and asked her, “Who is that guy?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I only came here three years ago and I’m not really into money.”
When we got back to the hotel, I asked the guy at the front desk the same question. He had no idea.
I was dumbfounded to discover that Canadians don’t know the people on their money!
By googling “canadian 5-dollar bill,” I learned that the gentleman is Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the seventh Prime Minister of Canada.
The prime minister is like the president in the United States, isn’t he? Wouldn’t this be like an American not recognizing Abraham Lincoln?
Our hotel room has a bedroom, where I sleep, and a living area with a pull-out sofa where my son sleeps. Between the rooms is a door that I close at night when I go to bed.
I got up this morning, opened the door and almost fell over a desk chair that shouldn’t have been there.
“Why’s this chair set up here like a barricade?” I asked my son.
“It’s a long story,” he said.
“Really? What’s the story?”
“We were talking in the lobby last night and Ian got in trouble with his dad for being out of the room so late. Chris couldn’t sleep in his room because his mom and dad had some guests come by so he was going to sleep in Ian’s room but then he didn’t want to because Ian was in trouble so he came in here. He was going to sleep in the armchair and put his feet up on the desk chair. I had it all set up but then Ian called and said it was okay to sleep in his room. I just didn’t move the chair back.”
“That was a long story.”
