This Much I Learned for Sure

This has been a hectic week around the Thevictoraian household. No time for proper posts enlightening the masses with measured doses of down-home wisdom. Nor for venting about people who don't drive as well as I do, who don't use proper grammar and spelling (as karma would have it, I first typed those two words as grammer and spellling), and who dare to inconvenience me by not doing their minimum-wage jobs to my satisfaction. Yes. It's a time-consuming task that Val normally does so YOU don't have to. And chalk up another service: ending sentences with prepositions. C'mon. You know you want to.

In lieu of a proper post, I bring you three things I learned this week.

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A husband is never so loved as when you are depending on him to drive you to a book-signing event on Saturday. I say loved, which is an emotion not always manifested in physical measures such as hugging and kissing and breathing the same air as your paramour when he is harboring bacteria in his sinuses, more bacteria in his ears, and a fever beneath his skin.

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Just because a school cafeteria lists broccoli and salad on the day's menu does not mean they are actually serving two sides, one being broccoli, and one being salad. A fact which turns teenagers and faculty alike into younger, taller, vegetarian Clara Pellers. The answer to their demand of, "Where's the broccoli?" was met with the explanation that the broccoli was in the salad. Indeed, each person found one floret in their lettuce-and-cheese compartment.

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A fifty-three-year-old woman in Florida was arrested for riding a manatee. The maximum fine for which is $500 and six months in jail. She was arrested at the Sears department store where she works, and claimed that she did not know there was a law against touching a manatee, because she had just recently moved to Florida. Which made my bullcrap detector go off. Sure. Like there's really a Sears department store still open.

But seriously. You can't tell me Aquatic Annie Oakley thought manatee-riding was to Floridians as four-wheel-riding is to Missourians. It's not like she just patted the thing on its snout. She rode on its back. At fifty-three years old. If you saw the pictures, you might be hard-pressed to say which was the woman, and which was the manatee. She's no anorexic model, our Aquatic Annie Oakley.

Even my students were astounded. We have been studying man's impact on the environment, and the Endangered Species Act of 1973, and how manatees are an umbrella species. That by protecting them, you are also protecting many other species. They were shocked. Shocked! That somebody would ride a manatee. Granted, these same kids might have shot one and made jerky out of it. But they KNOW better than to ride one.

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I feel so empowered with my newfound knowledge. If the doorbell rings, it's probably not going to be Publisher's Clearing House with my giant check, enough balloons to make my house a real-life star of the movie UP, and cameras to capture my reaction.

It's more likely to be MENSA.