A couple of random thoughts struck me

I just heard a PA (that would be "Public Announcement" for those of you who are, apparently, clueless about these things) on the radio that was a little morality play about using one's small child to clear a hornet nest from the eave of one's house. It is full of little chuckles when the child expresses fear of falling ("Oh, you understand gravity! You're so smart!") or confusion ("I can't see... are they biting me?" "No, silly... Hornets don't bite, they sting!"). It's a wonderful piece. Sure to entertain and inform anyone with small, exploitable children.

It took me back. When my son was about 6, I managed to convince him to crawl under the house and bring some speaker wire from the back den to the living room in front where I had drilled a small hole in the floor for the speakers I planned to put out there. Before you accuse me of child abuse, I usually had to restrain him from getting into that crawl space. He was eager to do it.

Still, being a responsible parent, I was concerned about things like spiders, rats, and poisonous snakes. So I made a cursory search with a flashlight. I would have made a thorough search but the batteries were old and only held out for a few minutes. I am just kidding. The batteries held out until he crawled back out.

I would have crawled under the house myself but the opening was too small for me. My little volunteer had no trouble fitting through the opening. And there actually was plenty of light from other openings and that flashlight. I carefully instructed him on how to use the flashlight to fend off the giant rats and basted him with insect repellent before turning him loose.

No harm came to him at all. No insects bit him, no rats even challenged him, and the snakes all stayed hidden.

He grew up in spite this incident, of falling off a bike and breaking his arm (age 7), bouncing off the road after a skateboard fall and gouging a hole just below his knee (he still insisted on playing baseball that weekend... age 9), getting his thumb caught between the chain and the sprocket on his bike (age 14), and countless other little incidents. Now he owns a nice big house of his own and like the other two houses he owned, this one has no crawlspace under it.

I wonder why?

Every so often, someone drops me an email asking me to mention their blog or asking if I would advertise their (usually commercial) site. I decline these as politely as possible most of the time. But I have this fetish and someone chanced upon it.

A guy named "Ken" sent me an email with this link:
4o Funniest Cartoons to share with the nurse in your life


So, I checked it out. Because that fetish I told you about? It involves nurses... Something about white uniforms with white stockings... none of which I will get into here. In the process, one of the cartoons led me to another site, Nursetoons, which I also checked out. A friend of mine has a standing joke...

Joe: "Sorry I was late. I was sick in bed... with a nurse."

Me (or anyone willing to play along): "Really?"

Joe: "Yeah, she even said 'You're really sick!'"

Be kind to your nurse, she may be the only thing preventing your doctor from malpractice.