Canthook

If your eyes are aging, you may have trouble reading the titles on the spines. Every one of these "Windows" books, however, is about Linux. I guess Barnes and Noble knows what Windows users want.

I suspect Vector Security must be doing a good job. There haven't been any stories in the local news lately about vectors being stolen or vandalized.

WalMart is, it appears, charging $10 for $4 prescription. Better stock up now. The way prices are going up, they're likely to be charging $20 in another month or two.

I saw the driver get out of this car, and I asked her if she got stopped a lot and given sobriety tests. Not a problem, she said. Is her husband a beer distributor? No, she said; he's Mr. Miller. Nice lady. But she better always be sober and alert when she's driving, because that license plate would be a cop magnet.

This picture, incidentally, I took in the Darrenkamp's parking lot, in Willow Street, Pennsylvania. Willow Street isn't a street, it's a town. Yeah, there are a lot of towns with strange names here - including Intercourse, Pennsylvania and Blue Ball, Pennsylvania.

You may have seen something on the news lately about a nekkid guy, apparently drunk or on drugs, tearing up a supermarket? This is the supermarket where it happened.

The day bartender at the Pressroom, a local bar, was in the store when it happened. He walked up to the guy as if nothing special was going on, introduced himself, and asked the guy what was the matter. Minimum wage, the guy said. We can get you a job that pays more, the bartender said. You really ought not be throwing those chairs around, he continued. I'm going to keep doing it until I get a cigarette, NekkidGuy said. We can do something about that, the bartender offered. He walked with the guy up to the cash register, plopped down $10 for a pack of Newports.

NekkidGuy took one cig, threw the pack on the floor, and started to rip the credit-card terminal off its post. No, you're not going to do that, the bartender said, and the guy stopped. I need a light, NekkidGuy said. We'll figure out something, the bartender said, as they walked back towards the store's cafe. About the time they got there, the police arrived. NekkidGuy got on his knees, the police cuffed him, and he didn't give them any trouble at all.

A year earlier, he had gotten into another altercation near his home. When the cops tried to subdue him, he ended up fighting them.

My trophy wife works with people who are mentally or emotionally unstable, and has a reputation for being very good at it. She says it's actually very simple - she just finds out what the person wants, and tries to teach the individual how he can achieve his goal. It's amazing the way clients respond. We'll be out shopping, and a former client will see her from a 40 feet away, and come running at her, yelling her name loudly, and giving her a big hug when they arrive. Apparently, most people don't give them any respect at all, and so Blondie stands out as someone that treats them well.

NekkidMan was staying at the resort across the street from Darrenkamp's. The street is Highway 222. I was attending a meeting there a couple of years ago, and my blood sugar had dropped. I had the devil's own time trying to cross those five lanes to get to McDonald's, and then again to return, but NekkidGuy managed to do it while three sheets to the wind. All I can say is that God must have been watching out for him, first in keeping him from getting run over, and then in sending him an angel in the form of a bartender, to get him under control.