Day: December 15, 2017

The Seven Words You Can’t Say at the CDC

Fandango12 Comments

You remember George Carlin’s routine about the seven words you can’t say on TV, right?

Well, you may not yet have heard that the Trump administration is forbidding officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta from using a list of seven words or phrases in any official documents being prepared for next year’s budget.

The forbidden words are: “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based,” and “science-based.”

Seriously, I’m not making this up.

Policy analysts at the CDC were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting yesterday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing.

The ban is related to the budget and supporting materials that are to be given to CDC’s partners and to Congress, the analyst said.

So it seems that we have truly entered the dystopian world described in George Orwell’s novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Thank you Donald Trump, the Republican Congress, and all of you deplorables who voted for that moron.

Manspreading

Fandango13 Comments

01E3CA40-7B10-43D5-8E30-835DC960ABE1I was sitting on the city bus on my way to the office when something strange happened. I had a doctor’s appointment first thing in the morning, and by the time I caught the bus, rush hour was over, so the bus wasn’t very crowded. I had my pick of seats and had taken one along the side of the bus where the seats face inward toward the opposite side, rather than those that faced forward.

I was reading the news feed on my iPhone when we got to the next stop and I looked up to see that young woman, probably in her early twenties, had taken a seat directly across from me. I noticed two things about her. She was quite attractive and she was wearing a very short skirt.

I looked down at my iPhone to continue with the news feed when I noticed that the young woman was seated in such a manner, with her legs spread apart, that gave me an unobstructed view of her crotch. And she wasn’t wearing panties!

I leaned forward a bit and moved both arms up to about shoulder height and width. “Excuse me miss,” I said to get her attention.

She looked at me and said, “What?” I took my hands and slowly moved them together, thinking she would immediately pick up my meaning. She just gave me a quizzical look, apparently not understanding my gesture.

Obviously, subtleties would not work with her, so I said, in a stage whisper, “You’re manspreading.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked. “I’m a woman.”

“Yes, you are most definitely a woman,” I said. “But your legs are spread wide enough that I can see your hoo-ha.”

“My what?”

“Oh Jeez,” I said. “Your crotch. You’re exposing your crotch.”

“Oh my god, you are such a perv,” she said, spreading her legs just a little wider apart. “I’m going to report you to the bus driver.”

“I’m getting off at this next stop,” I said, “so no need to report anything to anyone.”

I stood up and waited at the door until the bus arrived at the stop. As I was leaving, I looked back over my shoulder and saw her smiling at me. Then she winked and blew me a kiss.

This post was inspired by the continuing series from Linda G. Hill called “Scenes from the Second Seat on the Right.” Click here to read her latest installment.

The Christmas Bonus

Fandango6 Comments

“Whoa!” exclaimed Jamie after opening the envelop and looking at the check. “Is this all I’m getting?”

“I know it’s less than you expected,” said Jamie’s boss, Helen. “But this was a tough year. Sales were down and profits this year were meager.”

“But I made quota. In fact, I was almost ten percent above quota,” Jamie protested.

“That’s true,” Helen admitted. “You did exceed quota, but you’ve got a great territory. Outside of the Deep South and a few other isolated states, sales were way down.”

“And yet I’m being penalized with this pittance of a Christmas bonus because overall sales are off,” Jamie said. “That hardly seems fair.”

“Actually, you should consider yourself fortunate,” Helen said. “We’re letting go half of our sales staff. And most others aren’t getting any Christmas bonus at all.”

“So what is management doing to ensure that we have products that will sell well in 2018?” Jamie asked.

“Well,” answered Helen, “for starters, we’re dropping our Make America Great Again line of hats, t-shirts, and mugs.”

Image result for Make America Great Again hats

Written for today’s one-word prompt, “meager.”