They say, whoever “they” are, to avoid discussing sex, religion, and politics. And that was probably sound advice when I was still part of the working world. Most of the companies that I worked for were relatively conservative, and the fact that I am a liberal atheist was best left unsaid.
But now that I’m retired and my family and most of my friends know about my views on politics and religion, I feel less inhibited about expressing my true beliefs, views, and perspectives. On my blog I will frequently publish posts that discuss the topics of sex, religion, and politics. Why? Because they are interesting and potentially controversial and I have strong opinions about all three topics.
Di (aka Pensitivity101) hosts Fibbing Friday, a silly little exercise where we are to write a post with our answers to the ten questions below. But as the title suggests, truth is not an option. The idea is to fib a little, a lot, tell whoppers, and be inventive, silly, or even outrageous, in our responses. For this week’s Fibbing Friday, Di has given us some colorful questions to fib about.
1. Who do you associate with ‘green fingers’? The Jolly Green Giant.
2. Who or what was the Red Baron? An embarrassed British nobleman who lost his manor due to financial mismanagement. 3. What was the significance of yellow ribbons around oak trees? It’s a method to let lumberjacks and loggers which trees to not chop down. 4. Why did Alice follow the White Rabbit? Because she was racist and refused to follow a black rabbit anywhere. 5. Who was The Black Knight? Batman 6. What is a Blue Moon? A very sad moon. 7. Do brown cows produce colored milk? Hmm, given that this is Fibbing Friday, my answer has to be Yes. 8. Why was the Pink Panther pink? Because he wanted to be medium rare. 9. Why are pandas black and white? Because they don’t understand shades of gray. 10. What is a Silver Shadow? A rare type of eagle that has silver frathers.
For this week’s Mindlovemysery’s Menagerie Friday Faithfuls challenge, Jim Adams asks us to write anything about a dating site that we joined, if we had any luck on that site, or if we think all of them are a big waste of time and money.
When I was in the dating years in my life (16 to 30), there were no online dating sites. In fact, back then, there were no online sites of any kind, as the World Wide Web/internet didn’t exist back then — at least not for use by the general public. But when I was in college, a new, computer dating service was introduced. It was called “Operation Match.”
Operation Match was the first computer dating service in the United States, begun in 1965. Users filled out a paper questionnaire that they mailed back with a $3 fee. The questionnaire was geared to young college students seeking a date, not necessarily a marriage partner.
To enter, participants filled out a paper survey with 75 questions about themselves and the same 75 questions about their date’s ideal characteristics. Questions included “Do you believe in a God who answers prayer?” and “Is extensive sexual activity in preparation for marriage part of ‘growing up?’”
There were also four short-answer situational questions. One question, for example, asked: What would you do if your roommate set you up with an “embarrassingly unattractive” blind date for a big dance? Would you “monopolize your roommate’s date, leaving your roommate with only one noble alternative,” or would you “act very friendly the whole time and run the risk of being trapped into a second date?”
Once the questionnaire was completed, participants would mail their answer sheets to Compatability Research Inc. in Cambridge, MA along with a $3 fee. Their answers would be recorded on punch cards and run through a room-sized IBM 1401 computer. Three weeks later, they would receive a sheet of paper with the names and contact information of their top six matches.
I think I was in my sophomore year when Operation Match blanketed my college campus with its questionnaires. I was curious enough to invest $3, complete the questionnaire, and mail it in. Three weeks later I received my printout with my six “matches.” I decided to start at the top of the list and work my way through the six names. The first girl I called had entered into a relationship with a guy just after she sent in her questionnaire, so she was “off-the-market.” Number 3 on my list said she did Operation Match as a joke and had zero interest in going on a date with someone whose name appeared on a computer printout.
I did go out with numbers 2, 4, 5, and 6, and that resulted in four first dates and no second dates, either because I had no interest in a second date with her or she had no desire to have a second date with me.
Bottom line, for me, computerized dating was a bust. I imagine that online dating sites probably are too.
Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.
If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on any day this past year and link to that post in a comment.
How about it? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Flashback Friday post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.
This was originally posted on April 26, 2018 on this blog.
Snidely Whiplash
When I was a lot younger than I am now, I used to watch “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends” on TV. I loved the show, an animated television series that originally aired from November 1959 to June 1964.
Produced by Jay Ward Productions, the series was structured as a cartoon variety show, with the main feature being the serialized adventures of the two title characters, Rocky the flying squirrel and Bullwinkle the moose.
The main adversaries in most of their adventures were two Russian-like spies Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale.
Other segments of the half-hour cartoon show included characters like Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties (a parody of old-time melodrama), Peabody’s Improbable History (a dog named Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman traveling through time), and Fractured Fairy Tales (classic fairy tales retold in comic fashion).
Snidely Whiplash was the archenemy of Dudley Do-Right. Whiplash was the depicted as the stereotypical villain in the style of stock characters found in silent movies and earlier stage melodrama, wearing black clothing, a top hat, and sporting a handlebar mustache.
Snidely Whiplash was a character that, to me, anyway, is the personification (to the extent that a cartoon character can serve as a personification) of a cur, or a contemptible man. So naturally, when I saw today’s one-word prompt, “cur,” I immediately thought about Snidely.
I am unofficially participating in this year’s A to Z Challenge. My theme this year is girlfriends.
W is for Wendy C.
Do you remember a few days ago when I was telling you about Stopwatch Sally? Well, I met Wendy through Sally. Shortly before that incident where Sally slammed down the receiver on her telephone so hard that I was sure she must have broken the base unit of her phone, I was over at Sally’s house to pick her up for a date. When I came to the door of her house where she lived with her parents, Sally invited me in and asked me if I minded if her cousin, Wendy, could tag along.
Sally explained that Wendy’s parents were moving into a new house in the area because her father had just accepted a position as the editor of a well-known business magazine. Her parents asked Sally’s parents if Wendy could stay with them while Wendy’s parents were getting things settled in their new house.
Anyway, after I agreed to let Wendy come with us, Sally called out to Wendy, who was upstairs in Sally’s bedroom and Wendy came walking down the stairs from the second floor. She took my breath away, that’s how beautiful she was. Like Sally, she was a junior in high school, but not at the same school Sally was going to.
I know that Sally was getting pissed because I was paying so much attention to Wendy that night. Of course, I didn’t know that less than a week later Sally and I would have a big blow-up. When Sally excused herself to go to the restroom, I asked Wendy for her phone number, but she didn’t have it because the landline at her new home hadn’t been installed yet — and cell phones were still nearly half a century away from becoming ubiquitous. Wendy asked me for my phone number and promised to call me when her phone was installed.
Wendy did call me a few days after the Sally incident. “My cousin told me she dumped you,” Wendy said. I admitted to doing something I regretted and Wendy said, “If you ever were to talk about me the way you talked about Sally, I’d dump you too, but I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you learned your lesson.”
So Wendy and I started dating, but she was nothing like her cousin. I was only a freshman in college, but I was truly smitten and thought Wendy could be “the one.” Sure, we would make out and go at it pretty hot and heavy, but we never got past third base, even after dating her for the better part of a year.
During the summer before my sophomore year at college and her senior year in high school, her parents rented a place on the ocean at Fenwick Island in Delaware. I was invited by Wendy to spend a week there with her, her sister, and her mother. Her father had to stay behind in DC for his job at the magazine. I was sure that I was going to “consummate” our relationship during that week.
So when we had an opportunity to go all the way, we did. And it was everything I’d hoped it would be. Except, I sensed that this wasn’t her first rodeo. I asked her about that and she admitted that she’d had sex once before. She also admitted that there was a guy at her high school that she was also seeing. He was a jock, the captain of the football team and shit like that. His name was Derek.
Right after Wendy and I had sex, I told her that I loved her. She said she loved me too. Then she said, “But there is someone else I love more than you.”
This, That, and the Other 