Day: April 19, 2024

WDP — Random Encouter with a Stranger

Fandango9 Comments

Describe a random encounter with a stranger that stuck out positively to you.

This random encounter with a stranger didn’t happen to me. It apparently happened to a woman who posted it on our local Nextdoor neighborhood app. I don’t know the woman who posted it, but I thought I would share it on my blog since it represents a random encounter with a stranger that had a positive outcome for the woman who posted it.

I went to O’Reilly Auto Parts to get some summer window washing fluid for my car. I had in mind to get a couple of other things and then asked about a special product that l’d heard of to clean/clear/brighten the plastic housings around the headlights of a car. My car is 12 years old now and the plastic covers around the headlights are quite foggy and filmy.

The nicest woman told me they didn’t have that product at the store, but that she had bought some on Amazon and had some in the back. She proceeded to go get it and when she came back out she was holding the product she got at Amazon and some clean cloths and asked me where my car was. I led her to my car and then she proceeded to clean and polish both headlight coverings for me! Who does that? What an awesome lady. I wish I had gotten her name. Kudos O’Reilly’s.

Just for the record, I am not promoting nor receiving any compensation from either Amazon or O’Reilly’s Auto Parts for this post.

MLMM Friday Faithfuls — Dumbing Down the English Language.

Fandango23 Comments

For this week’s Mindlovemysery’s Menagerie Friday Faithfuls challenge, Jim Adams asks us to write anything about the English language. This is a timely question for me because of a discussion I had recently with blogger David Hatfield, who blogs at malaphors.com. I love Dave’s posts, which, as his blog’s tagline states, are about “unintentional blended idioms and phrases – It’s the cream of the cake!”

He wrote this post earlier this week and raised the question of whether the idiom is “champing at the bit” or “chomping at the bit.” The unequivocal answer is “champing.” But most people seem to use “chomping at the bit” because most people are unfamiliar with the word “champing,” so they go with the more familiar sounding, but incorrect “chomping.”

According to Webster’s Dictionary, to “champ at the bit” is to “show impatience at restraint; be restless.” It comes from something said about racehorses waiting for the gates to open, when they bite their bits “repeatedly and restlessly.” They “champ.”

By the way, horse bits are used to communicate with and control horses by applying pressure to the horse’s mouth. The bit sits in the gap between the horse’s front and back teeth, and extends out from side to side. The bit works with the rider’s legs and weight distribution to control the horse’s head.

So, to take the expression outside of the context of horses, one might use it to describe someone who is forced to wait in an impatient way to do something. “Carl had been at the DMV for three hours and he was champing at the bit to have his number called.”

To chomp something is to chew it noisily. So unless Carl was noisily chewing on a piece of beef jerky, he wasn’t “chomping” at the bit.

But here is where this becomes a sticky wicket, whatever the hell that it. In his research on this topic, Dave found that English language authority William Safire wrote, “To spell it champing at the bit when most people would say chomping at the bit is to slavishly follow outdated dictionary preferences.” Safire died in 2009, so who cares what he thinks?

Dave also quoted The Grammarist blog, which wrote, “champing at the bit can sound funny to people who aren’t familiar with the idiom or the obsolete sense of champ, while most English speakers can infer the meaning of chomping at the bit.”

So the messaging seems to be that we should be okay with using words that sound more familiar rather than to familiarize ourselves with the right words and use them properly.

Why is that okay? We are dumbing down Americans by letting them get away with using the wrong words because they sound more familiar rather than teaching them the right words.

No wonder more Americans these days are saying “Nip it in the butt” rather than the correct idiom, “Nip it in the bud.” Although, to nip someone in the butt does sound a bit more interesting than nipping something in the bud.

Fibbing Friday — Even More Uncommon Words

Fandango12 Comments

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 is using more words she found on a site recommended by fellow blogger Archon’s Den.

1. Sardoodledom — a small mountain village in South America where the only written language uses doodles.
2. Callithumpian — the official language of Callithumpia.
3. Turdiform — a perfectly formed, topedo-shaped turd.
4. Persiflage — to attempt to persevere with an almost impossible task to the point that continuing is a form of self-flagellation.
5. Palpebrous — an inflammation and swelling of the palpe gland.
6. Chary — the type of grape used to make a Chardonnay wine from South Africa.
7. Malapert — a specific type of malaprop dealing with a person’s appearance. For example, “She wears dark stockings to hide her very close veins.”
8. Dowsabel — a liquid that, when mixed with water, can stop a loud sound when thrown on the item making the sound.
9. Maquillage — the name of a new electric car that claims to get 500 miles per charge.
10. Dysania — an early stage of dementia.

A2Z Challenge — The Letter Q

Fandango15 Comments

I am unofficially participating in this year’s A to Z Challenge. My theme this year is girlfriends.

Warning: This post is NSFW.

Q is for Quinn F.

We’re heading back to high school to introduce you to Quinn, the girl who robbed me of my virginity. It happened during the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. My two best friends worked part-time at the local drugstore back in the day when drugstores had soda fountains. You could get hot dogs, sandwiches, ice cream sundaes, root beer floats, milkshakes, and coffee at the drugstore soda fountain.

I would periodically hang out at the counter with them when they were working the fountain and, because they were my best friends, they would often give me a free milkshake and hot dog.

One day, while I was sitting on a stool at the counter drinking my milkshake and chatting aimlessly with my pals, an attractive redhead walked into the drugstore, sat down at the other end of the counter, and ordered an ice cream soda.

One of my buddies started to make her ice cream soda while the other leaned in to me and said, “That’s Quinn. She works across the street at the beauty academy and word on the street is that she messes around.”

After Quinn got her soda, my buddies and I were huddled at the other end of the counter admiring the young lady, and, believe me, there was a lot to admire. I saw her pull out a pencil from her handbag and write something down on a napkin. Then she looked toward the three of us and loudly asked, “Who wants my cherry?”

It was all the three of us could do to keep from going completely nuts. Egged on by my two friends, I sheepishly responded, “I do.”

She got up off her stool, walked over to where I was sitting, and put the cherry from her ice cream soda into my mouth, which was conveniently gaping open.

She handed me the napkin with the writing on it and, in a very matter of fact way, said, “Pick me up at 8 tonight.” Then she turned around and sashayed her way out of the drugstore.

I looked at the napkin and saw, scratched out with what appeared to have been an eyebrow pencil, an address and phone number, along with the impression of her lipstick covered lips. My buddies couldn’t believe it and made me promise to tell them all about my date with Quinn.

I had asked my dad if I could use his car, a Chevy II station wagon, that night, and managed to smuggle a blanket and two pillows out of the house and spread them out in the back of my father’s station wagon. I drove to the address Quinn had written down on the napkin and she was sitting on the stoop waiting for me. I took her to the local drive-in movie (remember those?) and once we parked the car, were all over each other. I don’t even remember what movie was playing because I was too busy exploring Quinn’s exquisite body to even look at the screen.

Quinn suggested that we leave to drive-in and head to a place she knew where we would be more private. We drove for about 10 minutes to some country road, which led to a dirt road, and drove another couple of hundred yards when she told me to stop. Then she suggested that we hop in the back of the station wagon where I had laid out the blanket and pillows.

Once we were situated back there she took off all of her clothes and started to take off mine. “You’ve never had sex before, have you?” she asked me. I admitted to being a virgin. I think I heard her say something about how she loved popping a boy’s cherry. Then she asked me if I had a condom and I told her I was prepared.

But I wasn’t prepared for what she did next. She opened the condom, put it in her mouth, and got it on me using her mouth and tongue. O.M.G! Then she laid back, grabbed my thing, and eased it inside of her.

Once I was inside of her and started thrusting, I lasted about 30 seconds before exploding. Quinn was not at all happy about that. She got dressed and asked me to drive her home. For me, it was both the best and worst night of my young life. I was mortified.

The next day I made the mistake of admitting to my two best friends that I lasted only 30 seconds. And that admission resulted in my earning the nickname “Quick Draw” during my senior year in high school.

Previous 2024 A2Z posts: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P

FOWC with Fandango — Surplus

Fandango10 Comments
FOWC

Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “surplus.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, ÿplease manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.