November Nuggets

Pumpkin spice season has passed, but now a new product is available for Thanksgiving – Turkey and stuffing-flavored potato chips. One of my friends declared this a good thing, since she can skip making turkey and stuffing and just pass the chips! I shouldn’t be buying chips (I’m really good about that), and the thought of these definitely will not tempt me!

How do you describe someone who is nondescript? I knew someone like this once and I described her as “no jelly, no glaze.” Does that say it all?

It is 2022. Why are we paying for gas with dollars, cents and fractions? What’s the point of $4.29 and 9/10s?  Can’t we just round up? I’m willing to do that. I mean, it’s a tenth of a cent! Gas is so expensive now that what’s another tenth of a cent?

If you remove the W from Women, you get Omen. Think about that!

I have no artistic ability, but I can draw a blank with the best of them.

I’m no longer very athletic – although I used to be a pretty good softball player – but I’m still world class in jumping to conclusions.

It has been almost 2 years, but when I hear Johnny Gilbert say, “And now, here’s the host of Jeopardy,” I still expect him to finish with “Alex Trebek."

If you go to visit the land of your ancestors, can you call it your Landcestors?

I bought $10 worth of tickets for the Powerball lottery but I didn’t win. And that’s too bad, because a bunch of people and charities were going to have a very good year, not to mention a chef who would have had a new, well-paying job planning, preparing, serving and cleaning up from my meals. You know, $2 BILLION goes a long way. The guy behind me on the line to buy tickets was grousing that Uncle Sam takes half. OK, I can make do with ONE BILLION. And don’t forget that the state of NJ takes a cut, he declared. You still come out WAY ahead, I reminded him. I’m just glad he wasn’t a winner. I would hate for him to have to deal with all those taxes. Better I should win (again, I didn’t, so I’m just saying…)

Do I really need an alert to inform me that my package is 10 stops away? Should I be waiting eagerly at the door, or should I try to intercept it on the corner of Here and There? Whenever it gets here is fine with me!

It occurs to me that most of my “walking program” consists of wandering around ShopRite trying to find things when I can’t recall where they are located. I added to the program by walking around CVS today, too. Cue the theme song from “Rocky.”

For someone who can’t seem to park her car evenly within the lines – even with no cars on either side – how is it possible that I was able to parallel park perfectly on the Main Street in Manville the other day on my first try? And while I love a good “pull-through,” either I don’t pull through enough or my car protrudes way past where it should be. Is there a remedial Drivers Ed class I can take?

Here’s a sure sign of aging: You meet friends for lunch instead of dinner. Most of your friends are retired, so they can have lunch without rushing back to the office, and this way no one has to drive at night!

Complete darkness before 5 PM just seems so wrong!

An egg cream contains neither eggs nor cream. Please discuss.

Speaking of eggs, there’s nothing like making yourself a nice plate of scrambled eggs or an egg salad sandwich only to crunch on a shell as you eat. How could I have missed that?

In addition to the many kinds of Oreos you find on the supermarket shelf, you can now customize your Oreos with various toppings. Is this really necessary? First, do we need even ONE MORE variety of Oreos? And second, do you want to pay a bunch more so that you can get sprinkles on them? Just pass me the package of the OGs and a glass of milk and I will be happy!

I’m trying to understand the term “CIVIL WAR.” Isn’t war inherently uncivil?

Recently I passed by a strip mall that featured a barbecue joint, Dairy Queen, Kentucky Fried Chicken, a place for Chinese food, a pizza parlor – and a place for kidney dialysis. I think I get that last one.

What’s with all the military men who set up Instagram accounts and want to follow me? Many say they are single or widowed but they have one thing in common: I block them all. I don’t trust that their information or pictures are really them. Too much coincidence. And after I watched that documentary about the football player with the fake girlfriend, “The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist,” I am leery of anything over social media these days.

When I go to the movies now (which is not nearly as often as I went pre-pandemic), I go on Half-Price Tuesday in Manville. I think I like the movies twice as much for $4 than I do for $8 (daytime, first showing).

Do you ever change your plans because you don’t like the way your hair looks that day, or is that just me?

And speaking of hair, how did I manage to get a cowlick in the back of my hair after all of these years? I can only assume there are changes taking place back there that I am not going to like, and the hair has a mind of its own in trying to protect itself. Or something. And why is it called a cowlick? I could probably Google the answer, but then that question will stay in my search history and the next thing you know, I’ll be getting FB ads about cows.

I have to give credit to the dryer balls I use instead of sheets in the dryer. They are constantly working to find ways to escape, whether it is hiding in the sleeve of a sweatshirt (way down by the cuff, where they are not readily detected) or the corner of the fitted sheet, hoping that once it is put away, they are safe until the next time the sheet is used. I would not be that ingenious if I were in that predicament.

My sister said that she bought candy that was smaller than snack size this year for Halloween. The Kit Kat bars had only one section. With that miniscule size, you can’t exactly sing that theme song: “break me off a piece of that KitKat bar.” Do you remember the joy of scoring the full-size candy? The houses that gave out that stuff were very popular.

I don’t think I am destined to get Real ID. At my first appointment, I arrived well in advance despite getting lost on my way to the South Plainfield facility – a full two months early because I got confused about the date. This time I was booked in Edison and arrived 15 minutes ahead of my appointment, only to find at least 75 people ahead of me (I had time to count them), all waiting outside the office. It turns out there was a gas leak and the building needed to be evacuated after someone was taken away on a stretcher by the EMTs. The person in charge said we could all come back the next day and our appointments would be honored, but I figured the next day would have all of Tuesday’s appointments and all of Wednesday's appointments, which sounded like a bad idea. So, I will go online again to book an appointment and try to get there sometime between 2 months and 15 minutes ahead of schedule. Things could be worse – at least I wasn’t the person carried out on a stretcher.