The children who work for us are an… interesting bunch. This week’s drama involves Snowflake, who has quit because she doesn’t “feel safe” around me. This involved her getting very upset that we had milk containers that were a day or two past the “best by” date. Now, anyone with two functioning brain cells knows that those dates are pretty meaningless, so I advised her to sniff the milk and if it was off, toss it. She was terrified to do so, so I sniffed it (noting that I’m overly sensitive to sour milk aromas which is one reason I never drink milk)- it was absolutely fine. Being a scientist sort, I thought it would be a useful demonstration to run a little experiment to see if she could actually pick up on something I was missing, and if not, to demonstrate what we all know, that date is pretty arbitrary.

I set up six little plastic cups, coded each of them, and made some coffee with milk. Using a coin flip to randomize, I put coffee/milk into each of them, but some with milk that she was worried about, some with milk just bought that day and with the “use by” several days in the future. They smelled and tasted identical to me. I turned her loose on the samples. After smelling and taking a small sip of all of them, she couldn’t find any pattern. The big reveal came and she panicked. “YOU MADE ME DRINK EXPIRED MILK! I’m feeling SICK!” And she was doubly furious when I referred to her response as psychosomatic. I held back on speculating that the etiology of her gastrointestinal discomfort might be excessive cum-guzzling.

I’m a dangerous man, and worse than that, I invalidated her feelings.

And other dangerous people are those born on this date, including a guy whose career cratered; a guy who inspired Alfred Hitchcock; an angry man who left us an idiot son; by far the greatest man in my lifetime; by far the least greatest man in my lifetime; a guy who went through life wearing the fake glasses/nose/mustache accessory; an incredibly interesting and difficult musician; a guy who was as evil as the inventor of pineapple on pizza; the inspiration for generations of nerds; someone who’s had more hits than Snoop Dogg; proof of Sturgeon’s Law; a chick who really should have lived in Pimlico; and proof that our side can sometimes be funny.

Let’s link before you all die of ptomaine.

 

I have a crazy idea that will prevent our soldiers from getting killed in Syria. Care to guess what it is?

 

Someone is a hilarious drama queen.

 

“No, we’re not going to ban your gas stove” is another way of saying, “We’re lying ignorant tyrants.”

 

A giant leaves us. Who’s next, Godwin?

 

“It was horrible, Oompa-Lumpas flying everywhere, pieces of orange bodies strewn all over the landscape. I will never forget that smell.”

 

Our long national nightmare is over.

 

Old Guy Music today was composed by a birthday boy and will sound familiar to fans of early ’70s prog rock.