In many ways in life, I am a purist at heart.  I can wax poetic – and not in a good way – at a restaurant should my Caesar salad arrive with something in it that simply isn’t right.  Caesar salads do not include tomatoes, onions, olives, cheddar cheese, or (shudder) any green vegetable other than lettuce.  I realize that some chefs think they are creating some masterpiece, but perfection need not be “improved” upon. 

               I feel pretty much the same about pizza.  I realize that some folks out there enjoy pineapple and ham on a pizza, but that’s not pizza. That’s just Hawaiian salad on dough.  Seriously, who thinks white chicken and BBQ sauce belong on pizza?  They don’t.  Just eat a sandwich for heaven’s sake. 

               My regard for purity includes sporting events.  I was not happy when entire bowl games became sponsored and the sponsor’s name had to be included in the name of the bowl.  Hence, we were encumbered with the “All State Sugar Bowl,” the “AT&T Cotton Bowl,” the “Discover Orange Bowl,” and the “Prudential Rose Bowl.”  As bowl games continued to grow in number, so did the wacky names.  We now have the “Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl” and the “Chick-filet Peach Bowl.”

               These just don’t make sense.  If we absolutely have to have sponsored bowl game names, then at least get Tropicana to sponsor the Orange Bowl and Domino to support the Sugar Bowl.  It would take some creative thinkers to get all the bowls sponsored so it made sense, but at least it would…make sense.  Here are a few suggestions:  a Tidy Bowl, a Campbell’s Soup Bowl, and a Purina Dog Chow Bowl. 

               Those pesky sponsors weren’t happy with just being named for bowl games. In recent years, we’ve been saddled with sponsors for everything from half-time reports to plays of the game.  These stay true to the pattern of not contributing to the flow.  In this year alone, I’ve been forced to watch the Xfinity 10G network Halftime Report for starters.  I don’t even know what Xfinity 10G Network is (and I don’t care).  Is it something to do with halftimes?  If not, then why aren’t we getting some Half & Half maker to sponsor this feature, like the American Dairy Association?

               But no, they provided the “Keys to the Game.”  Seriously, they should have done the half time report and let some locksmith support the Keys.  Not to be outdone, Jersey Mikes had the “above and beyond” report.  Now, Jersey Mikes has good subs, but shouldn’t they have been sponsoring a substituted player who did well?  I mean subs are not really “above and beyond” food, in my opinion.

               Last week, in a different game we had Jersey Mikes play of the game and the Allstate halftime report.  The only one that might have made sense was the Frito Lay crunch time play of the game – except it wasn’t a crunch time play they featured, it was just a good play. 

               Ah well, if I’m stuck watching various insurance companies sponsor features of a game that aren’t insured at all, then so be it.  I’ll just continue eating my Caesar salad with anchovies and renaming these ludicrous sports supporters.  Right now, I’m dreaming up sponsorships for “bad coaching moves” for TTUN.  How about “U.S. Steel Coaching Moves?”

I’ve never been a big proponent of conspiracy theories.  They seem a little far-fetched to me, and I’ll get to that later.  But one really hit home this week when my massage therapist (while pressing hard on muscles that were very tight) told me that she had heard that there was going to be a “switch flipped” this month and everyone who was vaccinated was going to become a savage cannibal.  Or perhaps a zombie.  Either way, something bad.

               As a fully vaccinated person (and I mean, everything –measles, mumps, polio, tuberculosis, rubella, smallpox, Covid, and today, flu!)- I’m a little concerned to hear that my carnivorous behavior could turn ugly. Beyond that, exactly what “switch” are “they” flipping, and who is “they”?  These questions brought out a new set of conspiratorial conflicts.  They were so convoluted; that I actually could not follow them all. 

               In fact, they were so bizarre I just discounted them completely.  Never fear, these theories are in good company. Now, I know that conspiracies do happen.  Watergate is a great example.  People really did collude to break in and then cover up crimes.  Certainly, Osama bid Laden and a crew of mostly Saudi hijackers conspired to attack America on September 11, 2001.

But honestly, many of the conspiracy theories out there today that are flourishing are simply from people putting some wild idea on social media and having enough followers to make it “real.” That said, they simply aren’t credible.    Me turning into a zombie turns out to be something someone posted on the internet that gained traction.  It also had a few mistakes and outright lies in it, but hey that’s never been a deterrent to getting people to get upset.    

There are a few other “conspiracies” I’ve decided to disbelieve. There’s a whole group out there – with some published books and television documentaries – that say man never landed on the moon.  These same wise ones also put forth that the world is actually flat.  No reason to believe the science on either of these, I guess, at least in some folk’s minds.  What an insult to, not only scientists, astronomers, and astrophysicists, but to astronauts – true American heroes!

When airplanes travel, they leave behind them long water condensation trails.  These cloud-like tracks dissipate.  Conspiracy folks have long said these trails include dangerous chemicals being dumped on us.  Despite a 2016 study published in Environmental Research which proved there were no chemicals in these pretty trails, people continue to believe it’s not so.  Mistrusting science again (I’m getting a pattern here).

The worst one I’ve heard is the radio announcer who claimed the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a hoax.  After losing in the lawsuit that bereaved families brought against him, he admitted that the mass shooting had occurred.  Sadly, only after thousands of his “fans” believed him and spread the misinformation around social media for months. 

A lot of the conspiracy theories center on fear of government control and mistrust of science.  But the people who spread these theories watch television (science), delve into social media (science), go to doctors (science, and government if over 65), and use automobiles (science).  So it puzzles me why some science is used and adored, and some is questioned.

Maybe I’ll figure it out when I turn into a zombie.

               Having lived a significant number of decades, I find myself pretty well satisfied with my life skills.  I’ve also noticed that, regardless of classes, studying, reading, practicing, or sheer will, there are a few things that I simply cannot master.  I can’t do them.  I spent too much time wondering why on a couple of them, but the sad fact is, I can’t, and likely never will, do these things.

               The first is to give and/or receive directional instructions.  If you tell me to “go north,” I have a 1 in 4 shot of going the right way.  If someone says, “Please get the chair in the southwest corner,” I will return with a chair.  Again, I have a 1 in 4 chance of it being the right chair.

               For several years, my husband would ask me to mow the north yard.  I dutifully did so, and he always thanked me.  It wasn’t until I came in one day, complaining that he had already done this task when he kindly pointed out that I’d been mowing the east yard.  He shrugged and said, “Well, all sides got done, so I wasn’t concerned.”  But seriously, couldn’t he have just said “Mow the yard with the mailbox”?  That would have been helpful!

               The second thing I can’t do is be close to (let alone touch!) any snake.  It’s easy enough to avoid this at a zoo, but we live in the country.  Snakes do appear from time to time. Though no athlete, I once did a three-foot vertical jump to a patio table when I saw a snake in the pool.  Fortunately, I don’t run into them very often.

               I find it difficult to keep plants alive.  It doesn’t matter if they are indoor plants or in gardens.  I can plant, weed, mulch, and water – and I do all those things.  But plants that stay under my care typically wither and die.  Thankfully, my husband has a green thumb so our gardens are usually plentiful.  That’s all to his credit, though, and despite my presence. 
               The only exception to this is succulents.  I have managed to keep a few of those going for years.  Go figure – they survive desert conditions, so they can tolerate me!

               For the past ten years, I have volunteered at a gift shop that supports Ohio’s Hospice.  I enjoy the work of retail more than I ever imagined, partly because the mission of the shop is such a great one.  I can do almost any job related to this work, except fill the price gun with new tape.  I’ve mastered digital sales, display tricks and price-checking.  When that price gun runs out, though, I’m a mess.  The instructions are very skimpy with even worse drawings.  If I get the tape in the gun at all, it’s usually backward or will not advance when I pull the trigger.  So that particular task falls to one of the other volunteers.

               All-in-all, it’s not a bad list, really.  I think my life will continue to be pretty stable even without these life skills.  I’ll be fine – as long as I’m never confronted with a snake and the only weapon at hand is an unfilled price gun, and someone tells me it’s in the northwest corner of the shop.  Then again, the price gun only “shoots” a tiny piece of sticky paper, which is unlikely to stun, let alone kill, a snake.  By the time I find the correct corner, the snake will have disappeared anyway.

               And where? Where?  Hopefully near a plant – because I have no problem ignoring them!

When I was growing up, my mom used to say (unfortunately, with some frequency), “You are driving me crazy – and it’s a short trip.”  I never really understood what that meant until I was an adult, although I did enjoy driving her crazy.

               Recently, however, I’ve started noticing behaviors in myself that make me question if I might be going crazy.  Sadly, I have no teenager to blame this on, I just do really dumb, silly, nonsensical things.

               For example, I was preparing to make two casseroles for a church breakfast meal one evening.  I went out to our freezer (we actually have two in the garage) to get the bread I thought we had put there.  I checked the smaller freezer and saw nothing.  I checked the deep freeze and saw only the bags of tomato sauce we had stored there earlier in the week.

               I returned to the house and said to my husband, “I have to go to the store to get bread.” He replied, “What’s the matter with the bread in the freezer?”  When I told him there wasn’t any, he looked at me askance.  Following the look was a brief and rather insipid encounter that went something like this:

               Me:  No, there’s no bread out there

               Him:  Yes, I put a loaf in there

               Me:  We must have used it

               Him:  I’m pretty sure it’s there

This continued a few more times until he went out to the garage to check for himself.  I was outraged at this behavior.  Well, I would have been except he returned with the loaf of bread.  It was in the small freezer that I said had nothing in it.  I did look, I swear.

               Then two days later I was going to make turkey and cheese sandwiches.  I know I cannot open the cheese package without scissors, so I prepared myself to do that very thing.  I selected a package of cheese and got it out of the fridge.  Then I took the turkey out and placed it on the counter next to the cheese.  I went to get the scissors from the drawer, but they weren’t there!  They weren’t in the dishwasher, or the sink, or the junk drawer. 

               Someone had moved my scissors!  I would normally hold my husband responsible for this, but I’m beginning to realize that sometimes another person in the house moves things (we live alone, the two of us, so you know who else might be responsible).

               Sighing, I decided to make plain turkey sandwiches and put the cheese back. Sandwich-making complete, I returned the turkey package to the meat keeper, and guess what I found?  Yep, I had placed the scissors in the drawer.

               I’m losing it.  I really felt crazy that afternoon when I went to the grocer.  A man approached me in the aisle, saying “Hello” and smiling into my eyes.  I smiled back, returning a cheery “Hi” thinking, frantically, where do I know him from?  Church?  The store?

               He said, “How are you?” and I replied, “Just fine, and you?” as we continued to approach one another in the aisle.  As we drew together, I slowed down, expecting he’d stop for a chat.  Who was this guy??

               But he continued on, and I then noticed the Bluetooth earpiece he was wearing.  He wasn’t even talking to me!         

               I guess the good news is that if I am going crazy, it’s a short trip!