The Pill Game

Watch out!  Fish oil pills wobble.  Ginseng pills roll.  Baby aspirins bounce.

Every Sunday it is my job to fill our pill containers for the upcoming week.  There are 2 containers, holding seven days worth of pills.

Because pills wobble and roll and bounce, I carefully pour them out of their jars and onto a little plate, making sure that no pill goes rogue and hits the floor, where the dogs will try to consume it.  From the plate, I put the pills one-by-one into the compartments of the containers.

Sunday after Sunday, it is the same routine – so, I made up the Pill Game.  The goal of the game: can I pour exactly 14 pills onto the little plate?  Each time I pour, I am hopeful.  Each time I pour exactly14 pills, I am exuberant --- Wow, I poured out 14 without counting!

We are told that there is a word for everything.   I found the word for getting the right number of objects without counting: subitize.

The goal of the Pill Game is to subitize 14 pills.

But now I worry that I will forget the word for getting the right number of objects without counting. 

No problem!  There is a word for forgetting a word: anomia.  If I can’t remember the word “subitize”, I can just say that I am having an anomia attack. 

Of course, that means that I definitely cannot forget the word “anomia”.

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

They Start Loaning Pitchforks At 1 PM

Driving north in Missouri, once you see lots of fireworks stands, you know you are about to enter Iowa.

Fireworks, which are legal in Missouri, are illegal in Iowa.  So, enterprising Missourians set up stands on the state line, to lure Iowans south across the border to buy fireworks.

Once you enter Iowa, you notice lots of tidy farms, where every square foot of soil is tilled.  The soil in Iowa is rich, and the farmers are prosperous.  That means Iowa farmers are middle-class, on the same footing as the townspeople.  I think this sense of equality creates a certain can-do spirit.

I saw that can-do spirit when I visited Eldon, Iowa.

Eldon was once a thriving railroad hub, but the railroads left and the town shrank to 900 people.  This reversal of fortune did not stop the town from purchasing the old railroad workers’ bunkhouse to be used as a community center.  It did not stop the town from purchasing the old railroad station and turning it into a museum.  It did not stop the town from renovating their 1891 opera house. 

In Eldon, I drove past the Gothic Apartments and saw signs for Gothic Days.  My mind had a vision of hordes of tattooed teenagers wearing black descending on Eldon for Gothic Days.

But "Gothic" is a tribute to Eldon's gem: the house in Grant Wood's painting "American Gothic".  Eldon knows it is a gem - the town set up a parking lot and a visitors' center for all the tourists who want to be photographed in front of the American Gothic house.

Of course, that means that visitors will want pitchforks for their poses - and the visitors’ center gladly loans out pitchforks.  Unfortunately, I was there on a Sunday morning, and they don't start loaning pitchforks until 1 PM on Sundays.  So, I am pitchfork-less in my photo.

This town has 900 people, about the size of my high school.  Yet, Eldon preserved its history, predicted the needs of camera-toting tourists, and got four of its buildings on the National Register of Historic Places.  That's a lot of can-do spirit.

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Once Upon A Trivia Night

My career as a trivia night attendee was cut short by the music incident.

Years ago, my buddy Randy and I went to a trivia night that was a fundraiser for a friend’s daughter’s dance studio.

At this event, the lucky table with the most points was going to take home $200.  For most of the evening, it looked like our table was going to be the lucky table.  We were consistently 2 or 3 points ahead of the table next to us.  

Our friend stopped by our table and pointed out that the owners of the dance studio were seated at the competing table.  I scrutinized the owners and their tablemates; they looked rather old.

We stayed ahead of this table until the music round.  The trivia master played the opening ten seconds of a bunch of rock songs.  At the end of the round, the scoreboard showed that the owners table had zoomed ahead of us. 

No way!  The owners just did not look like the type of people who listened to rock music, much less could identify a rock song within ten seconds.  It dawned on me: the event had been rigged so that the $200 first prize, as well as the rest of the proceeds of the evening, fell into the hands of the owners of the dance studio. 

The trivia night music incident left a bitter taste in my mouth.  It was many years before we went to another trivia night.

Then we attended a trivia night fundraiser for a high school soccer team.  It proved to be a nice event – I enjoyed eating, drinking, castigating the table for not listening to me when I knew the correct answer, and really castigating the table for listening to me when I had the wrong answer.

Next trivia night was a fundraiser for Stray Rescue.  Lots of eating, drinking, and castigating.  The last round of questions was a grab-bag; the final question was: what is the hottest pepper on the Scoville chart?  Our friends Brian and Liesa lit up – “We have a copy of the Scoville chart hanging in our kitchen.  The hottest pepper is a ghost pepper”.

We put down ghost pepper as the answer.  The trivia master said habanero was the answer.

I sprang to my feet.  How could he disagree with people who have a Scoville chart hanging in their kitchen?  I whipped out my smartphone, and headed to the front of the room to argue for the ghost pepper (also known as the bhut jolokia pepper).  The trivia master accepted ghost pepper, and added a point to our score.

Walking back to our table with a big smile on my face, I was stopped by a woman who looked me in the eye, and said to me, “I hate people like you.”

She continued: “I used to run trivia nights and people would whip out their smartphones and raise a fuss over the answers just like you did.  Trivia nights are not about correct answers; they are about having fun.”

My attitude towards trivia had offended her.  Clearly, this woman needed to be educated.  I pulled myself up to my full height and looked her in the eye.  My mind returned to my roots and summoned up my best New York accent.

I said: “Lady --- when I want fun, I go bowling.  When I want correct answers, I go to trivia nights”

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com