You Gotta Blame Somebody

   

   A couple of weeks ago, I had to drive into town to get some blood work done at my doctor’s office and on my way there I seen one of the saddest things in real long time.  In the dirt, on the right-hand side of the road, there was a fairly nice size Winnie The Pooh stuffed animal laying on its back with its legs in the air.  I thought that somewhere in the area a little child has lost their Pooh doll and that child would probably be crying their eyes out if they could see how Pooh ended up on the busy back road in the state of Michigan.

   Before I could get the sad thought of Pooh out of my head – there was another sight that proved even harder to shake out of my consciousness.  On this same road, no more than 300 or so feet away, my eyes gravitated to what looked like road kill right on the center double yellow line.  Much like Pooh – laying on its back with its feet in the air – but with tire marks across its stomach was none other than a stuffed Tigger doll that was about the same size as Pooh.

   How could a child’s Winnie the Pooh and Tigger doll come to meet the fate that it did?  Did someone put these dolls on the side of the road for the trash collector to pick up?  It’s a possibility, but I didn’t notice any garbage bins out on the side of the road, but you can’t rule it out. 

   When I shared this story with someone else they reasoned that some family was probably moving into a new home and they had all of their belongings in the back of a pick-up truck or a trailer and these dolls fell out of one of the boxes.  This scenario is as good as any – but I still don’t think that was how they ended up in the road – nope, my story is a little more sinister.  You see, much like the family dog that he put in a box and strapped in on the top of their car -- Mitt Romney is responsible for Winnie the Pooh and Tigger’s sad demise on some back road in Michigan. 

   How do I know it’s Mitt?  It certainly isn’t Barack Obama.  Obama has young kids of his own and he wouldn’t do something like that to such loveable creatures as Tigger and Pooh.  Obama would make sure that any cuts, scrapes or bruises that they might have gotten from being on the side of the road would be covered in his health care plan and he would support any group that advocated that they be allowed to marry each other.  You know I’m right – if it wasn’t Mitt Romney – who was it?

How Sweet It Was: "Grandma's Medicine"

   “Don’t touch these – they’re Grandma’s medicine” was the warning us kids got about Grandma’s little bottle of saccharine pills that were always on my grandparent’s table when we’d visit them in Cheboygan, Michigan. 

   “Grandma’s got sugar and she needs these to put in her coffee,” they’d tell us. 

   It didn’t make any sense to me – if she has “sugar” – why does she need those little pills?

   “Because they’re her medicine,” like that explanation meant anything to a young and inquisitive mind.

   Well, I’m older now and I have “sugar”, but unlike Grandma, I don’t have that little bottle of saccharine pills on my table, I’ve got a jar filled with those pink packets.  Oh, I could have the yellow or the blue packets, but I’m an old die-hard who enjoys saccharine, what I don’t like are those damn pink packets.  If you have to put the contents of those pink packets in a steaming beverage – you’ve got to fumble around which end you’re going to tear it open – do you go on the “marked” end or the unmarked end?  And sometimes all of the contents of the packet doesn’t empty out because the steam of the beverage – I want a bottle filled with those little white pills that we once knew as Grandma’s medicine. 

   I’m surprised that diabetics in this country aren’t demanding artificial sweeteners in a delivery form such as my “grandma’s medicine” – i.e. “saccharine tablets”.  A little bottle of saccharine tablets are a lot more convenient than those pink, blue or yellow packets and they would be easier to use whether you’re making a cup of coffee for yourself or a picture of sugar-free sweet tea.  And if these tablets were available today – we would be able to pass on that “don’t touch Grandpa’s medicine” warning to a whole new generation of grandchildren.  It’s only a thought.