Things that amuse me, Vol. 18

So where was I? Oh yeah...

Four kids is a lot. Did you know that? Anyway, here are a few of the things that have been amusing me during the past several months:

1.  Before I had kids, I can very confidently say that no one had ever happily stepped on my taint to get a boost up.

2. How many episodes of Mad Men does it take before a woman stops saying things like, "What?! He's married!" The world may never know.

3. My 9-year-old son D- recently found out that dyslexia is a real condition, not just some kind of unhelpful super power of Percy Jackson. Since he got four books and one movie into the series before realizing this, he still might not be able to resist following slow readers around school, watching for magical fight scenes to break out after the tears and misplaced anger blow over.

4.  I'm becoming convinced that it may be the primary purpose of dry cat food to serve as bait to draw mice into The Kill Zone. Either way, the cats get fed, though, right?

5. My 3-year-old son E- opened a fortune cookie to find the observation, "You are never bitter, deceptive, or petty." And that's how we discovered the unwritten label, "Fortune Cookies not intended for users 3 or older."

Amusing searches, Vol. 18

Here are more of the most amusing searches that have brought people here, in no particular order.

(All search strings are reprinted exactly as they were entered, and the search text links to the post at which the visitor arrived.)

• things i enjoy my wife hates (Akron, OH) - If you're looking for tips and advice, I unfortunately have nothing much to offer you, but I can say that wives have notoriously poor taste and questionable judgment.

• RI ESCORTS (Warwick, RI) - This was clearly a smart search, because YOU KNOW I AM ALL ABOUT THE RHODE ISLAND EXCORTS, my friend!!*

• when to label a 5 year old girl as homosexual (Quezon City, The Philippines) - How about, "Never"? Is Never an acceptable answer? You'll find out in good time, or not at all, depending on her comfort level...

• PEE (Norvenich, Germany) - Either PEE is a legitimate, dignified acronym in Germany, or I think maybe this was supposed to be some kind of horrible image/video search.

• waxelene for vagina (Valencia, CA) - Sorry, can't help you at the moment, I haven't tried using it on my vagina yet.

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* Given that you arrived here via an amusing Internet search yourself, sir, it was probably a bit awkward in an "uh-oh, too late" kind of way when you landed on a post in which I was mocking the previous searches of others. Sorry you had to see that... and I'll be sorrier if you ever happen upon this one in future searches. Just make sure it's a good one! No reason...

Super fun vacation time for old ladies

Well, after a few years of working from home while watching the kids (easier with all-day school, for sure!), and thus splitting responsibilities a lot more with my wife J- than I had been, I'm now ankle-deep in a taste of juggling everything by myself again for a week and a half: J- is taking a vacation with my sister and her friend to hang around a beach house and reflect on turning 30 and 25, respectively.

I shouldn't complain, since I took a similar trip with my brother last year* when I turned 30, but who would I be if I didn't? I mean, you may not realize it, given my laughably outdated banner up there, but I'm dealing with an 8-year-old, a 5-year-old, a 19-month-old, a basement full of fleas, and a garage full of 9 cats**, whereas J- only had to deal with a 7-year-old, a 4-year-old, a 7-month-old, a kitchen being drywalled, and a very welcome mother cat and three kittens*** who'd recently shown up on our doorstep out here in Cat Country.

So, clearly, the difference is night and day.

J- dealt with the stress last year by buying them off with a promise to have candy for dinner, and then following through in legendary form.

Problem for me is, not only do they now have their bars set somewhere just above, "There is such a thing as candy for dinner", but they've already spent most of this summer being spoiled by one set of grandparents or another, to the point that the older two wouldn't bat an eyelash at being handed the keys to their own set of his-and-hers hovercrafts.

So what am I supposed to do?

All I've come up with so far is to go totally the other way and just put them to work as much as possible, to make them really appreciate heading back to school soon, as a break in their strict schedule of Cleaning Up After Myself, plus Other Light Chores****. It seems to be working pretty well, knock on wood... for me, at least.

I think they'll be happy to see Momma walk through the door.

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* Of course I didn't take the opportunity to get back into writing real blog posts at the time, because that would make too much sense.

** Now that we found a home for one of the 8 kittens born in two litters within two days back in May...

*** The surviving kitten of which just had her first litter (of 5) in our garage at almost exactly 1 year old.

**** The latter of which generally gets bumped off the schedule, due to the first show running long...

One-item lists, Vol. 3

Most inconvenient things about my wife getting a Caesarean section
1. I wasn't allowed to make her laugh for several weeks. I really have no idea how else to interact with her.

Reasons I don't want my wife using my side of the bed as a storage area when I'm not there
1. Because I get to find in it lovely treasures like, say, the shriveled stump of an infant's umbilical cord lying next to the used tissue in which it was allegedly once loosely contained.*

The kinds of ways I count my blessings
1. The snow didn't blow around and drift waist-high like usual during a recent windstorm here... thanks to the preceding hours of heavy rain freezing everything solid.

Proof that "ladylike" tendencies don't kick in until after age 6
1. (Female classmate of my son's, apropos of nothing in the hallway one morning during a schoolwide Norovirus epidemic): Destiny, I wasn't in school yesterday! ...Yeah, I pooped in the car, so...

How I can tell my daughter may be the ultimate Anti-Vegetarian
1. Nothing has changed since I posted this. My 4-year-old daughter M- recently smiled between mouthfuls of ham roll-ups and said, "Since I watched Babe today, I was in the mood for ham! ...Because pigs make ham."

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* And let me tell you, the only thing more shocking than finding such an item is realizing that you were able to identify it, completely out of context, in under 10 seconds.

Jesus was a carpenter, right?

Something about living out here all on our own, with all the breathing room we can stand and an entire second garage just for tools and such, my carpentry fever has flared up worse than ever. I'm slowly acquiring all the tools of a world-class woodworking shop.

My new motto, whenever my wife mentions wanting to buy something, is, "I could make one for you out of wood."

A chair? A table? A staircase? A dresser? A patio? An ottoman? A kitten? A stepstool? A pillow? Why not?

And yet, even I know my limits.

But perhaps it doesn't seem that way to other people, based on the following conversation about our upcoming kitchen remodel that I had recently with my friend Adam, who gave me the nickname LiteralDan years ago.

Adam: You're gonna buy cabinets?? You know they're crazy expensive, right?

Me: Yeah, I know...

Adam: You, of all people, I'd expect to make your own cabinets. You could totally do it, too.

Me: Well... I've been tempted, but it'd take me forever, to do it right. ...I wanna learn and practice in a lower-profile area.

Adam (uncharacteristically animated, earnest, and encouraging): C'mon, you could do it! You're just enough of a perfectionist that they'd be done right, even if they took a long time, and you'd have them forever. You could always point to them and say, "I made that."

Me (finally catching on): ... You're just trying to talk me into the disaster of making my own kitchen cabinets for your own entertainment, aren't you?

Adam (proudly): Yes, yes I am.

Classic quotes, Vol. 21

Here are some recent quotes from my wife J-, my 5-year-old son D-, my now-3-year-old daughter M-, and me:

D- (excitedly, as I mix salsa and sour cream): Are we having chimps and dip?!?

M- (looking at Winnie-the-Pooh clock, trying desperately to become the world's first 3-year-old to either carry a tune or remember actual song lyrics): Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh... silly nilly willy, stuffed with stuff! Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh... he fluffs himself! ... Silly old bear.

Me (to J-, pulling what we'll call "a Dan", in fairness): "In a few minutes"? "In a few minutes"??? What's "a few minutes" mean by this point? Once you get past 60, they're called "hours", so you know.

M- (with a gentle, warning tone as I begin to finish off the last piddling bit of Goldfish crackers, only once she's had plenty of them): Save some for other people, Dad...

D- (referring to his sister's lollipop stick that missed the garbage can): Oh, yeah, I stepped on that before, but I pulled it back off my foot.

Classic quotes, Vol. 20

Here's the latest batch of quotes from my wife J-, my 5-year-old son D-, my 2-year-old daughter M-, and me:

D- (talking about his "girlfriend" of the last month or so): Jessenia and I are going to get married. And then we're going to have a baby. (I ask him what they'll name it) Ummm, Joseph... Toys.

M- (on toilet, happily): Something's coming out... (mischievously) Guess what it is??

Me (getting a look from J- after I jokingly joined her in scolding herself for dropping pictures behind the scalding radiator): What?! I thought we were berating you as a couple for your clumsiness!

D- (casually telling my mom about his abovementioned girlfriend): Yeah, we're in love, so we're going to get married. (remembering) Oh, and I'm also going to marry Naya!

M- (rightfully infuriated with D-): No D-, those are mine! (he gleefully ignores her) Stop it! (lunging towards him with outstreched hands) I will choke you!

Marriage is...

...When the cryptically referenced "services rendered" birthday present from your significant other is his putting away the gigantic f***ing pile of laundry you've let pile up, again, over the past few weeks.

Happy birthday, J-!

Storybook Weddings: Elmo, assault, rampaging horses, and idiocy

I came upon an older article recently about 13 wedding horror stories, including a massive brawl at a lesbian wedding, and a groom arrested for violating his new wife's restraining order, and I figured I'd share my amused observations on a few of them:

Bride Drunkenly Assaults People - I'm pretty sure the lady in this amusing mug shot is the yin to the yang of this bride I posted about awhile back.

Bride Thrown From a Runaway Horse-Drawn Carriage - You may question his methods, but you can't argue with the results when God decides to point out that you're being kind of a douche.

Bride's Dress is Ripped by Dry-Cleaners After her Wedding - Really? This is on par with being arrested, poisoned, or nearly killed by a truck?? I'm thinking they ran out of good ones but still wanted to have 13, for the gimmick.

Husband and Wife Brawl With Police When Renewing Vows - When your name is "Elmo Jesus", there's bound to be a few assault charges anytime lots of people are gathered.

Woman Swallows Engagement Ring - This one was fated to end disastrously from the moment it was conceived. If this lady is anything like my wife, he should have already known that you do not put anything you value between her and a Frosty.*

Man Scales Side of Brooklyn Bridge to Retrieve Ring - This one answers the age-old question, "What does an idiot do when he drops something?"

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* I know that sounds bad, and she'll probably groan and hit me, but it's true, and I would never lie to you people, or even withhold unflattering information. Honestly, I don't blame her, though-- those things are good! Have you ever dipped a fry in one?

Editor's Note: With that winning note, speaking of brides, I'd like to announce that today is my wife J-'s birthday, which has always been one of the biggest highlights of her year. Since it's not yet been made a national holiday (though it was, much to her chagrin, named a national day of mourning 8 years ago), the day is tarnished by her having to go to work.

Wanna help me brighten her day with some well wishes?

Not to belabor a theme, but...

I was informed by my son's school calendar that apparently today is something called "Labor Day".

Not having been a part of the traditional work force for almost two years now, I'm not quite clear what this means beyond my having to entertain a five-year-old for one extra day this week.

Calling on all my powers of deduction and forensic etymology training, I can only assume that this day must have something to do with honoring the struggle and sacrifice of our nation's childbearers.

Care to share any entertaining stories about your (or your significant other's) own labor experience?*

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* Before you answer, keep in mind that my wife J-, rightfully portrayed here most times as an overworked saint and generally sympathetic figure, had such fast labors that she has since declared a handful of other things as more painful than childbirth. Begin hating her... now!

A conversation with J-: She could make that happen pretty easily

My wife and I have recently been looking wishfully at houses that are pretty far from Chicago, out where prices are lower and space is more plentiful. Being as disorganized as we are, we know that whenever this happens, it will mean a huge disruption in one or more areas of our lives.

For instance, if we bought one of the houses in a particular town we've been scouting before that $8,000 tax credit offer expires on December 1, J- would be looking at either a 3-hour daily commute each way, or some kind of other temporary living arrangement for 6 months, until the end of the school year.

After considering for awhile yesterday (on the phone during J-'s already long commute) all the many paths our lives might take in the coming months, I accidentally signaled the end of our discussion, as I often do, by clashing in tone with my much more earnestly speculating wife:

J-: I mean, it'd be really hard on both of us. You'd be alone with the kids all week, day and night... you'd basically be a single parent.

Me: Does that mean I could date?

J-: ... No.

Fellas, I highly suggest you try this one at home yourself next time you're tired of being taken so seriously as an adult having a serious conversation at the end of a long workday. It's totally worth it!

Post-graduate education for preschoolers

Today, instead of writing some wandering rant or sarcastic childish commentary, or just transcribing my kids' strange conversations, I need to sort through a little something here.

Please indulge me while I wrap my head around the fact that I just packed some kid's lunch. For school. Where he'll be all day today, like a real person.

He'll even get there on a bus, by himself, and though he may look as ridiculous with his color-coded nametag, backpack sticker, and strange visor as I did with the grotesque cowboy totebag my mom made my brothers and I carry (but not my sister, years later...), he will have reached the point at which the bounty of day-to-day memories in my own life began, 23 years ago.*

I'm starting to think that, despite all the evidence my spotty memory and helpful cloud of denial can provide, my girlfriend and I just might be parents. Of actual children. And I'm pretty sure I'm getting some flashes that there was a wedding in there somewhere, too.**

This means we may not in fact be college dorm roommates who got matched up with a couple of unbelievably needy, dependent midgets by the university housing authority. Someone will soon be coming into our apartment, holding us accountable for our shamefully disorganized, impromptu lifestyle, emboldened by third-party education outside the cult walls.

As well he should. It's about time someone did.

Good luck, kid.

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* What this means for me, I'm not sure, but it doesn't really matter. I just don't want to screw this up for him.

** Coming up on six years ago, I'm told.

Not goodbye, just see you later

I figure I should let you all know that tomorrow, I'll be checking out of this northwest-Chicago-suburban popsicle stand for a few weeks to drive all the way out to Northern Maine to visit my wife's family and some old friends from the mean streets of Caribou and Presque Isle.

During this time, I should have posts popping up on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays as usual, but my e-mail responses to comments will be spotty at best, or nonexistent at likeliest.

So while I'm off today desperately packing for our long, long, long 1400-mile drive in a Camry with a 5-year-old and 2-year-old, I'll give you something to discuss amongst yourselves.

As I began last night to assess the unbelievable volume of little bits of crap my wife has let pile up in the car over the past school year, I found a notable scrap of paper I'd dropped* a few weeks ago.

On it I'd recorded an amusing conversation opener from the lady herself while we were driving somewhere, after she'd had yet another in a chain of is-it-summer-yet long/violent days with the generally lovable 7th-8th grade Special Ed. students/gang members she teaches:

"I have a feeling quite a few of my students are going to get the s*** beat out of them [at home] tonight, and to be honest, I don't feel too sorry about it."

Negative-three days till summer break! Am I right?

When I get back, we'll all be more than two weeks closer to me pathetically hanging around downtown trying to meet random BlogHer attendees. If you'll be one of them, let me know!

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* To be fair to me, it is HER paper and I had picked it up off the floor of the car to start with. So, in essence, I was subconsciously putting it back where I found it, 'cause that's the kind of person I am. I put things away and take care of my immediate area so I never HAVE to formally Clean The House/Car.

So now thanks to this footnote, we'll have something fun to discuss in the car tomorrow. Wish me luck!!!

Arsonist Bridezilla drags victims from burning safehouse

This post is dedicated to Allison Ross, who'll no longer be A-Ross by August, but something else hopefully just as catchy instead. Let's see if she can top this feat on her big day...

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I just thought I'd share with you this little story of yet another Bridezilla going way over the top in her effort to upstage all her peers:

Bride rescues family from house fire

If TV has taught you anything, and God knows it's taught me plenty, it should be plain as day that those people had just run into the burning building to escape the bride's wrath, probably after they coughed during the vows or threw the rice a little too hard.

So there she went dragging them back out to face the music. Mostly a percussion piece, I'd guess, right before the fire department showed up.

But once everyone else arrived on the scene, of course, the neo-hippie liberal media spun themselves a sappy tale of a heroic, selfless bride risking her life and sacrificing her dress on that one day that marks the absolute pinnacle of every woman's life.*

As for the dress, though, there are few pieces of clothing better suited to this kind of ruination-- if all goes to plan, you were never going to wear it again anyway.

And if you're upset that you spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on it, well, you already made a horrible decision and wasted most of that money, and saving it from some ash isn't going to get it back for you.

What difference does it make whether the dress slowly turns yellow in a closet or it turns jet black immediately after the ceremony? I'll tell you what the difference is: an awesome story.

Plus, you save money on buying a fancy black dress for your husband's funeral! Highly recommended for the cost-conscious golddigger cruising the old-folks' home.

And with that, I declare Wedding Season 2009 officially Open!

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* Without exception.**

** Especially you, J-.

Classic quotes, Vol. 14

Here are the latest quotes from my 5-year-old son D-, 2-year-old daughter M-, my wife J-, and me:

J- (after awakening me with a confused snooze-button smack to the face when her alarm, on the other side of the bed, went off at 5am): Oh, I didn't know you were there.

D- (as if he's proposing something fun for me): Dad, you wanna watch a kid movie? It's been a few days since yesterday when we watched Curious George with Momma.

J-'s student (after J- removed her glasses to rub her eyes): Geez, Mrs. --, you're really pretty without your glasses!*

D- (as Spider-Man, while holding a cordless phone to his ear): Dad, you've got to feel my muscle... (remembering the game he was already playing, turning toward the phone) Hold on, Batman.

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* Explanation from J-: "This happened in a moment of much-needed relaxation, as I was pretending the children and the rest of the world don't exist, but then they once again interrupted me rudely to prove that they do."

Classic quotes, Vol. 13

Here are the latest quotes from my 5-year-old son D-, 2-year-old daughter M-, my wife J-, and me:

Me (to J-, once again dangerously undervaluing my hilarious genius): You being in a bad mood doesn't make me a jerk, it just makes me funny without being appreciated.

D- (as we walked past a church): Hey look! A window like a "t"!

M- (pleading with her brother after I explained to him that getting run over by a car would be lethal): And you would get a BWOOZE!!

D- (while building Duplos at the library): Dad, look! It's a dragon... with guns on him!

M- (repeating a gem of J-'s after seeing me in shorts on a mild day): You gonna freeze your bummy off.

D- (trying to start an unknown chant without the ability to spell): B! Y! B-M-J! B! Y! B-M-J!

Service with a smile

Here's another teaser for my latest post over at Hot Dads, where I'm an ashamedly infrequent contributor.

While you're over there, be sure to check out some of the other contributors' (including a few LiteralDan readers) posts-- you'll be glad you did.

For my American readers, shouldn't you be filing your taxes right now instead of reading blogs? Or shouldn't you at least be in a panic, quadruple-checking that you already did so?

Mano a womano, eggo a eggo

I should have learned after all these years not to enter into any kind of atypical, nonathletic competition with my wife, but I think by this point it's clear that nature just won't allow me to pass up the chance.

Of course, among the most imposing barriers to my abstaining from such competitions is the fact that I often don't know I'm in one until it's over.

Take, for example, our evening of egg-dyeing yesterday. Possibly because she knows me too well, the moment my first egg touched the dye, my wife excused herself from the room with an egg she'd already dyed earlier.

After quite a few curious moments during which I had to explain to both the kids, repeatedly, why they could not drink the delicious-looking colored liquids from the whimsical bunny mugs (D- eventually retreated to just loudly announcing how thirsty he was every two minutes), and only after the kids had used up all 18 of the eggs, J- returned to check on my finished product, which had the surprise* message, "DADDY RULES!" written in wax across its face.

She offered some patronizing encouragement before dropping this bomb on me:
Sure, you're probably thinking, his right hand is upside down, and he's somehow managing to harness magical egg powers to hold a beer stein with his wrist**, but you have to admit, this is pretty much like bringing a gun --and not a quaint foam scrapbooking one-- to a rock-paper-scissors match.

Here's the side-by-side comparison:

Tell me which YOU think is better, keeping in mind that I, myself, am better, and that if you don't pick me, considering all the mitigating factors I've revealed above, I just may epically pout and stop posting my ridiculously overwrought anecdotes here forever.***

(A bonus mitigating factor: in case you've never tried, I assure you it is very difficult to write on an egg with a generic orange crayon not expressly made for that purpose.)

Lastly, please do note that one of the contenders is clearly labeled as the unquestioned master of all, humans and ovums.

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* The surprise, of course, was not the message itself, but rather that it happened to appear on that particular egg.

** J- would no doubt whine that it's not her fault the Chinese Scrapbook Sweatshop managers found it irresistibly cheaper to sell twice as many left hands and feet in a package while cutting production of rights altogether.

*** And if all you ladies stab me in the back on this vote out of some kind of twisted "ho's before bro's"**** nonsense, I'll instead resort to posting only about sports and painful jock itch. Or better yet, everything you never wanted to know about me, me, me, like a bad first date, three times a week. You want that on your conscience? Or in your feed reader?

**** I feel honor-bound to point out, for those who were taken aback, that those apostrophes above were included to replace the many missing letters# in the words, not out of disgraceful confusion over possessives versus plurals. Who thinks of impossibly rigid grammatical rules when creating the music of the streets? Not enough people, I think.

# Yes, I'm aware that this then means there should be an apostrophe before "ho's", but it just seemed a bit much. Much like this beast of a footnotes section.

Put on a happy face

Consider today's post a solicitation for moral support for my wife, who very early this morning marched slowly down the Death Row that is the 26 miles of highway between home and work, at a school in a neighborhood outside Chicago that is beyond underprivileged.

The air around the young teenagers of this town normally courses with a manic energy so desperate that it often devours even the kindliest hand seeking to calm it, which makes every day for my wife a wonderful new adventure.

She's uniquely suited to this job, though, so even on days when she comes home completely spent and incredibly frustrated, the latter is far more often caused by the incompetent administration above her than the special-needs students around her.

Given that this is always the case, you are undoubtedly wondering what brings it all up today. Well, next week is Spring Break at her school, which you may remember from your days as a student being a very happy time.

The reason you remember it being so happy is because you and your classmates had the strength in numbers to just check your brains at the door each morning and spend the rest of the day doing pretty much whatever irritating little time-wasting activity sprang to mind while the frantic teacher was amusingly attempting to capture your attention.

Now that my wife is that teacher, it is no longer funny.

She spent this weekend dreading going back to school like I have never seen before, after her students, who are as a rule very kind and extremely loyal 80% of the time, spent last week acting out for her an unbelievably detailed preview of what they have planned for this week.

The only reason she isn't spending Day 1 (at least) huddled under a blanket coughing and wheezing away the best Fake Germs she can manage is because her lousy, ungrateful hip ate up all her sick days months ago.

Furthermore, her cold-hearted bastard of a husband, seen here hiding for his own safety behind a mysterious blue tube, expressed a curious aversion to unpaid work days.

So what I need from you, especially if you are a teacher, is some reasons why she should keep showing up to work each day this week, and, if possible, some really good reasons why she shouldn't kill me or make me suffer even a little bit for making her do so.

Keep in mind when suggesting things* that I've already: 1) made her two fun lunches to choose from today; 2) found her some magazines she likes at the library; and 3) told her she could nap guilt-free even longer than usual when she gets home.

Actually, I didn't tell her that last one until now. But my promises of a lazy, super-fun Spring Break have done nothing to shake her steadfast dread or insistence that this will be a week from somewhere below Hell, and that nothing else matters, so I've got to keep raising the stakes.

Or maybe I should quit before she holds out for too much more. I have a feeling it's going to be a long week for all of us.

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* Since I'm clearly a saint, feel free to suggest that she work off her stress and anger each day after work by polishing my sneakers (I insist it must be possible!), cooking dinner, or writing blog posts.

My ridiculous rhinestone bow 'tis of thee

I had another post scheduled to appear here today, but I decided to pull it in favor of this one, since you all probably will care even less about it in a week or so (I've set myself up nicely to take it easy for awhile).

I had to do some serious digging to find a few articles discussing our recent inauguration, but once I found some, I was most intrigued by this one regarding Aretha Franklin's choice of headgear --or should I say her headgear's choice of host-- when singing at the event:

Requests flood in for 'Queen of Soul's' custom hat

Really? Really.

Am I the only one who saw this hat? Granted, it may have been hard to see anything else in a ten-foot arc behind her, but I'm pretty sure all 3 billion people watching saw the same thing I did.

To refresh your memory, we're talking about the hat shown below:

"We even have a lot of men calling to get it for their wives, mothers and grandmothers," Song said.

Ahhhhh, there we go, there's the answer-- men are f***ing idiots. And I say this as one myself-- my own brand of obliviousness and occasional lack of common sense was issued at birth, have no doubt, but rest assured, Mom, Grandma, Katie, and J-, it absolutely does not extend to thinking that anyone I've ever met, or will ever meet, would want to own, borrow, or even-be-willing-when-forced-at-gunpoint-to-wear this hat.

Gonna be a long Returns line at Mr. Song's shop next week, methinks. That, plus a lot of very unhappy-looking invalid grandmothers being wheeled about town with necks ready to give way under the sheer weight of those bows.