Cashing in on Man Made Global Warming by Using Offsets
Some celebrity singer was recently quoted as saying that in order to save more trees we ought to limit ourselves with just one sheet of toilet paper for every visit to the bathroom. That is with the lone exception being up to three sheets for those really messy deals. Bear in mind that she is now claiming to have been joking at that time. Was it said with tongue in cheeks humor? Whether or not she was joking is up for debate. However, it must be noted that she is a blond and a celebrity with a cause. All I know for sure is that she might notice a major decline in autograph requests due to her statement.
Now where you might see someone saying something completely stupid I see an opportunity for more profit than that highly theatrical Inconvenient Truth joke bonanza. That is because we are all a little too late to start our own Carbon Offset companies. No, that ship has set sail. Yet we can take advantage of this toilet paper mandate by way of a new series of offset ideas. No, I am not talking about having toilet paper monitors doling out single sheets in all public restrooms. Especially when you think about what they will constantly be asked, Are you the guy who gives a sheet? Now that job would really, really stink.
No what I hope for is that they make it a law! I hope they invent yet another government agency directed solely at wiping away toilet paper waste. Because where there is a law there is going to be people who are made to back-up these laws. Granted, though the toilet paper abuse law may stink, it will open up my new offset company for awesome profits.
How about offsets for those people who just cannot seem to put their finger on the single sheet concept. I mean seriously, one sliver of toilet paper might not be all that it is cracked up to be. It might be too hard to sit with but, and that is a big but; there will doubtlessly be those who cheat on their sheets. Those will be the people who we will target for our new offset concept. If they just cannot seem to make ends meet with their single toilet paper sheets then they can pay our new company to plant more oxygen producing trees for them. We will call these Methane Offsets! Yes, with Methane Offsets they can use all the toilet paper they want and we will wipe away their wasteful guilt for them.
With methane offsets these people can put their toilet paper abuse behind them. Because we will plant trees for the right price which in turn will offset their methane expulsions with brand new trees. Really, it will be a gas! Speaking of methane gas, all of the thousands of Mexican restaurants can also make money selling our methane offsets to their customers as well. Shoot, we will even pay them a commission on all chili related Methane Offset sales. Hey, we can figure out a ton of ways to pile it on with toilet paper abuse.
You know as I think about it, I could sell Methane Offsets to farmers and ranchers too. It should not matter what kind of animal they raise because each and every single animal has got to expulse methane in either gaseous of solid form. I will be there standing behind them all the way with my Methane Offset Oh yes! Well at least I will be behind all those who do not raise pigs. Those guys will probably be banned from raising pigs soon enough due to the racial hate laws that protect all religions other than Christianity. However, that is another matter that smells pretty bad.
As one last bottom line item about toilet paper abuse, celebrities will not have to worry about people asking for their funky fingerprints instead of autographs. No, with our methane offsets celebrities can once again enjoy refusing to sign autographs. Till they start paying us for their own personal methane footprint, autograph signing could be a sticky subject.
John DeJong is the lead creative designer for NotMeUSA. He has been writing humorous advertisements for over twenty-five years. All of the funny t-shirts, prescription pill bottles, and gag spray bottles were created by him. You can view these by visiting http://www.notmeusa.com
Were You Part Of The Collective Sigh After Christmas?
Christmas is 277 days away. Time to kick back and enjoy spring - or is it?
I have quite a few birthday and anniversary gifts to buy between now and then. And there’ll be a few engagements and weddings - and showers of one type or another. Oh, I forgot about graduation and baptism gifts.
Darn! There’s holiday gifting too, but don’t panic. The more imagination you put into holiday gifts, the more money you save.
Most people give champagne for New Year’s. Instead, give my grandmother’s hangover recipe. Just hearing the ingredients is a sobering experience.
No candy for Valentines - too expensive. Instead, get day passes from your gym. There’re free. If that makes you feel a little cheap, cut them into heart shapes.
St. Patrick’s Day’s in March. Present yourself as the designated driver.
No candy for Easter either; but in keeping with tradition, the 99 cent store should have rabbits’ feet. No, maybe “Paying Taxes for Dummies” would be better.
I’ve thought and thought, but there’s now way out of giving mothers flowers for their day. After all, they gave us life.
For Father’s Day every dad would like a bigger screen TV, but who can afford it? Instead, offer to move his chair closer to the TV he has now.
What’s July 4th without fireworks; and what’s fireworks without - a first aid kit.
Then there’s August. August is a gift you can give yourself. It has no major holiday!
Then it’s Labor Day. Offer to go to the thrift store for your friends. Take the maternity clothes they’ve stored in their attics for unsuspecting daughters-in-law.
By Halloween you realize Christmas is only two months away. If you look in the mirror, you’ll get inspiration to make an inexpensive, but very scary mask for you child.
Thankfully, there are several inexpensive gifts for Thanksgiving, for which your thanks is combined with giving - No-Doz, bigger belts and twelve-step programs for college football withdrawal.
Now it’s Christmas, but again don’t panic. There’s one gift you can give anyone. It’s the one that fits all occasions - money.
You don’t have to worry about size, including batteries, duplicating someone else’s gift or giving something the person already has.
Okay. Some people think giving money is crass and shows lack of effort and imagination. Well, excuse me. It took effort to earn the money; and if the recipient doesn’t know what to do with it - that shows lack of imagination!
Knight Pierce Hirst takes humorous looks at life. Take a minute to make yourself smile at http://knightwatch.typepad.com
Would You Rather Have A Boyfriend Or A Dog?
If you could only have one, which would it be - a boyfriend or a dog? When you think about it, they have several things in common.
Both can do tricks; but when a boyfriend plays dead, he’s in front of the television.
A dog can be taught to fetch the newspaper and your slippers. A boyfriend can fetch, but he only fetches beer and the remote control. If you taught him to fetch the newspaper, he’d only bring back the sports section.
Both dogs and boyfriends stand on two legs when they beg and neither of them understands when you have a headache. Both sleep on your bed and neither one makes it.
Frankly, if you’re concerned about mess, get a dog. It can’t clean up after itself, but it makes less mess for you to clean up.
Something else dogs do better than boyfriends is obey the stay command. Not only do dogs stay, but their love is unconditional.
They forgive you if you’re late, if you feed them the same food day after day or if you put them outside. They don’t complain about your shopping, your lengthy phone conversations or your spending time to look your best.
What it comes down to is this - if you want a long-term relationship, get a dog. They outlive most human relationships.
I, however, didn’t take my own advice. I chose a boyfriend. The boyfriend became my husband; my husband became the father of two sons; and the father of two sons became an executive, who traveled a lot. That’s when I discovered I needed a husband and a dog.
Zachary is a black, standard poodle. He’s eighty-four in people years, but doesn’t act it. He runs and plays as if he were a puppy. This is a trick people worried about getting older should learn.
Now that we live in a condo, Zac has learned to wait for people to get out of the elevator before he gets in. At my present age I find it very comforting that old dogs can learn new tricks. Maybe my husband’s desk won’t always look like a cyclone victim.
Presently, Zachary is the victim of cataracts. He has one in his right eye and one is developing in his left eye. This caused my husband to groan about costly eye surgery until I reminded him that Zac didn’t complain when he had hernia surgery.
Knight Pierce Hirst takes humorous looks at life. Take a minute to make yourself smile at http://knightwatch.typepad.com
Do You Feel Foolish?
I decided the way to avoid feeling foolish on April Fool’s Day was to be empowered by knowledge - no joke. Okay, I didn’t spend hours researching the subject in the library; but I did google it.
Supposedly this day of duping family and friends started in France in 1564 - which explains why their fries make jokes of our waistlines.
Anyway, France was the first nation to adopt the reformed calendar, but some citizens resisted. They wanted New Year’s Day to remain on April 1st and on every April 1st they were victimized by pranksters and referred to as “poisson d’Avril” - April fish. Why fish? Maybe this is a google fish story.
Nevertheless, by the 18th century the custom of playing pranks on April 1st had spread to England and then to Scotland, where an April fool is known as an April “gowk” - cuckoo. No, that’s a translation - not a comment on my research.
My mother was an enthusiastic “hunter of the gowk” -player of April fools. She put liver in the bottom of our beds for our bare feet to discover and hid our clothes. Then there were her cotton-filled muffins and her penny-stuffed burgers, which were worth every cent.
I tried to carry on the family tradition of putting pennies into burger patties; but I didn’t want to risk my family turning into male chauvinist, piggy banks. I wrapped the pennies in foil and was the first to discover biting foil isn’t funny. Announcing French toast for breakfast and serving cold toast on top of a French dictionary was much more successful.
This year the reformed calendar is making me gowk. The day of foolery falls on Sunday. This eliminates all job and school-related pranks.
The first day of the month is allowance day; but if I postpone it, I’ll be the poisson d’Avril because both sons owe me money.
Maybe I’ll let my family fool itself. When my husband and the boys help with Sunday dinner preparations, they could be helping with Monday’s dinner. At the last minute I could April Fool them with dinner out.
Hey, there’s no rule that pranks can’t be pleasant. Wouldn’t you be pleased if a crow flew by, squawked April Fool and reclaimed its feet from the corner of your eyes? Or even better - how about finally getting to the end of your tax form and finding the words April Fool.
Knight Pierce Hirst takes humorous looks at life. Take a minute to make yourself smile at http://knightwatch.typepad.com
Do You Know How Generous You Are?
Driving the carpool for another parent or loaning a friend money for a taxi - these are acts of kindness, otherwise known as favors. However, there is another kind of favor - the unintentional kind.
While I was driving to work, people who sell gas, tires and cars were on the receiving end of my previously unrecognized kindness. They all profited from my using up the life expectancy of their products. Starbucks profited from my consuming its product while I was driving.
It may be hard to believe, but we do favors for lawyers also. Having a disagreement with a neighbor, backing into a car, divorcing a spouse are examples - but one could think of a divorce as an unintentional favor for oneself too.
Doctors are another group who benefit. My pain is their gain. If I buy shoes that look better than they feel, the podiatrist benefits. If I don’t ask for help carrying the groceries, the chiropractor benefits. Because I had children, both the obstetrician and the makers of headache medicines benefited. In fact, having children exponentially multiplied the kind acts I did for manufacturers of clothes and shoes, pediatricians and orthodontists, General Mills and Johnson & Johnson.
I break a nail, spill coffee on my suit, stuff too many clothes into the washing machine - the number of businesses that profit from me daily is endless.
One day leads to the next and eventually I’ll be unintentionally doing favors for opticians, hearing specialists and plastic surgeons. Because I’ll start forgetting things, I’ll be unintentionally helping my local government via parking tickets.
Even doing something intentionally can have an unintentional benefit. When we decided to add a dog to our family, we adopted a poodle. Zachary is dander-free because he doesn’t shed. Because he doesn’t shed, his fur continually grows, which results in the groomer benefiting from my allergy every six weeks.
The thrift store is on the other end of the spectrum. It benefits from Cousin Walter only twice a year - right after my birthday and Christmas. One year both gifts were non-electric, coffee pots. The doubling was definitely unintentional, but I’m not sure either were favors.
I’d pat myself on the back for being such a generous person, but that could cause me to be too generous to the physical therapist. Because the last unintentional favor I’ll do will be for a mortician, I’m going to intentionally enjoy every day!
Knight Pierce Hirst takes humorous looks at life. Take a minute to make yourself smile at http://knightwatch.typepad.com
Do Little, White Lies Keep You Out Of Heaven?
You don’t look fat, this tastes good, I love it - these are little, white lies. Supposedly we tell them to spare others’ feelings. Actually, it’s our feelings we want to spare. We want to spare ourselves the hurt of hurting someone else. Truth can hurt - relationships.
Unfortunately, stretching the truth also qualifies as a white lie. A friend invites you to a lecture and you say you can’t go because cleaning your house before your mother-in-law arrives will take all day. It doesn’t and your friend finds out. You can stretch the truth only so far before it painfully snaps back.
Then there’s creative speak - another white lie. When President Clinton said he didn’t have sex with that girl, the truth of that statement depended on one’s definition of sex.
Politicians are pros at creative speak, as well as double speak. They take stands on both sides of an issue in order not to lose votes, but often end up without a leg to stand on.
Your husband asks if you used his car. You say yes, but you don’t tell him about the little, tiny dent. It’s not the whole truth. It’s another white lie.
Supposedly pictures don’t lie. Politicians kissing babies, everyone smiling in a reunion picture, air brushing - pictures lie.
White lies come in all shapes and sizes. For me one was shaped like a lima bean. When I was newly married and living in London, I often defrosted lima beans for dinner, in spite of my not liking them. One night my husband remarked he hadn’t known how much I liked lima beans. Me? I thought you liked them!
When your child’s teacher calls and asks you to chaperone another class trip, is saying you’re busy a white lie? After all, even when we’re doing nothing, we’re busy breathing.
And what parent wouldn’t tell her child that his or her hand-imprint paperweight was the best one? Positive reinforcement or little, white lie?
We tell white lies to ourselves too. You get on the scale and tell yourself the five extra pounds is water or you look in the department store mirror and blame the way you look on poor lighting. Been there. Done that.
If you overslept, spilled coffee on your suit, got to work late and left important papers at home, is saying good morning to your boss a little, white lie or job security?
Knight Pierce Hirst takes humorous looks at life. Take a minute to make yourself smile at http://knightwatch.typepad.com
Can You Burn Calories Exercising Your Judgment?
From our previous house I could see a constant stream of bicyclers, joggers and skaters go by. Now I see the ocean. As beautiful as it is, it doesn’t inspire me to exercise. I wave at the ocean and it waves back.
I know exercise should be as routine as eating and sleeping; but considering I skip breakfast and my husband has insomnia, exercise is just as routine for us.
I always plan to exercise; but before I can, I come up with another plan. Exercise plans, however, don’t change. They have three components - strength, endurance and flexibility.
Of course, if physical exercise isn’t your thing, you can get strength from character, endurance from a long marriage and flexibility from compromise.
If you’re not good at compromise, you need to vacuum more. I discovered vacuuming under and in back of furniture builds flexibility. The more guests you have, the more flexible you become.
Exercise also increases circulation, which is good for everything from your skin to your brain. In fact, there’s scientific proof exercising helps older peoples’ memories. Unfortunately, you’ll have to take my word for it because I can’t remember what the proof is.
However, I do remember reading you can get enough aerobic exercise by doing four sets of thirty-second jumping jacks, with four-minute rests in between. Now I do that while I’m walking the dog. I’m not sure it’s doing me any good, but I inspire passersby to exercise their facial muscles by smiling.
On rainy days I get my aerobic exercise at the gym; but whether I’m on a treadmill, bike or step machine, I’m bored a few minutes into my thirty-minute workout. Then I start praying for a power failure or wishing the people who make the fast-ticking timers for parking meters also made the timers for exercise machines.
Exercise machines are everywhere. The bad news is exercise machines are everywhere. Hotels have them - although having exercise machines in a Comfort Inn or Holiday Inn is an oxymoron.
Nevertheless, when I get on the scale after a vacation, I can’t weight to exercise; but how much is enough?
Some experts advise sixty minutes three times a week. Others suggest you should exercise for forty minutes after you start to sweat. Still others say a daily, twenty-minute walk is enough. I say you haven’t exercised enough until you can look at yourself naked in a mirror.
Knight Pierce Hirst takes humorous looks at life. Take a minute to make yourself smile at http://knightwatch.typepad.com
Are You Motivated To Be Motivated?
Basically motivation is an inner drive to get something done, but it comes in all shapes and sizes.
Obligation motivates us to get up in the morning. Necessity motivates us to eat breakfast. Responsibility motivates us to go to work. Motivation runs the world. A lack of it runs us ragged.
Feelings of love and hate are strong motivators. So is the fight or flight instinct. My grandmother preached that he who runs away lives to fight another day. Unfortunately, many of us are too out of shape to run or fight.
Running out of time is another incentive to do things -finish shopping before the time on the parking meter expires or have a baby because the internal clock is ticking. I euphemistically refer to cleaning the house before my mother-in-law visits as getting it done in a timely manner.
Time drives all of us. At sixteen our inner drive is to drive, at twenty-one it’s to be independent, at ninety-one it’s to be ninety-two.
Bribes - from ice cream to a corner office - work best when called incentives; but being inspired by someone’s example doesn’t work as well as it used to. Politicians are tarnished, sports figures are untrustworthy, movie stars are bad influences - even religious leaders have fallen from grace.
Motivational speakers, on the other hand - the one holding the book for sale - are more popular than ever. Books like “Dress for Success” and “What Color Is Your Parachute?” keep selling.
In spite of that, I don’t think motivation can be taught. You’re born with it or you’re not. Who taught the motivators? Whose books were they motivated to buy? If motivation could be taught, Gore would have been president.
Motivational speakers are motivated by competition. So are we - from sports to keeping up with the Jones. Unfortunately, the last Jones I knew was in high school, so I’m at a competitive disadvantage.
I use rewards as incentive. However, rewards can be expensive or fattening, unless you’re a Type A personality like I am and think a nap is a reward.
Being compulsive also works as incentive for me. Because my husband had complained about not having enough space in his office, I reorganized it. It was then my husband suggested I find a way to motivate myself not to do things. I’m motivating myself to do this by knowing that if everyone were motivated, who would I motivate?
Knight Pierce Hirst takes humorous looks at life. Take a minute to make yourself smile at http://knightwatch.typepad.com
Did You Buy It?
Ads are everywhere! We expect them on television and radio. We just don’t expect them so often.
We’ve been conditioned to expect them before movies start - whether we bought a ticket or rented a DVD. Now ads are in the movies. It’s called product placement. Ford will pay to have Brad Pitt drive a Mustang. Pepsi will pay to have Julia Roberts drink a Sprite.
Advertisements appear everywhere from decals on supermarket floors to messages written in the sky. Blimps don’t write messages or pull banners. Their names say it all.
But when you think blimp, I bet you think Goodyear. It’s like tissues - you think Kleenex. Immediate product association is the product of good advertising.
Buses are shrink-wrapped with giant movie posters. They become billboards on wheels. Ads on taxis, trucks and vans also spread the message.
So does the family car. The rear bumper displays stickers for places visited and politicians to vote for.
Often the rear license plate frame is provided by the car dealership, but the main message this sends is the driver was too cheap to buy license frames. Grease pencil on the back window of cars often promotes nuptial bliss with “Just Married” in big letters.
Companies buy space on the uniforms of professional sports players. - on golf hats and tennis shirts. The jackets of NASCAR drivers look like patchwork quilts.
Professional players are paid to endorse products. Tiger Woods endorses Buick and probably has one in his garage, but Tiger is definitely better at long drives.
Team sports, however, aren’t ad-friendly. Even if you believe Tiger Woods drives a Buick, you’re not going to believe the entire Oakland Raiders team drives Buicks.
Then there are the sports fans who wear team-logos on their clothes. It’s the ad version of wearing your heart on your sleeve. People wear the logos for clothing manufacturers on just about any article of clothing in plain sight and pay extra to do it.
On the other hand - the one without the Gucchi glove - wearing one of Lance Armstrong’s “Live Strong” bracelets raises money for cancer research and lets people know the wearer cares. It’s a win-win situation sponsored by someone who has been a winner seven times.
Even fortune cookies advertise. When my fortune is exceptionally good, I buy a lottery ticket using the numbers on the back of the fortune. Unfortunately, fortune cookie advertising hasn’t improved my fortune.
Knight Pierce Hirst takes humorous looks at life. Take a minute to make yourself smile at http://knightwatch.typepad.com
Do Some Days Seem Thirty-four Hours Long?
Every day’s a gift my grandmother insisted. I agree. It’s just that some are wrapped much more prettily than others.
It’s not easy to think a day is a gift if you’ve lost your purse, gotten a speeding ticket or forgotten your anniversary. That’s the kind of gift that isn’t the right size, is missing batteries or didn’t come with directions. It’s one of those round, jigsaw puzzles that has all black pieces.
My grandmother lived life as a day-half-full person. She’d say if you lost your purse, you also lost that awful driver’s license picture. If you got a speeding ticket, you’ll have to go to traffic school Saturday and won’t be able to help your neighbor paint his house. If you forgot your anniversary, well it’s a good time to remember to pray.
The bad news is days can’t be returned or exchanged. The good news is - yes, there is good news - days are gifts that keeps on giving - tomorrows.
“Fix what you can. Don’t get fixated on the rest” is probably the best advice my grandmother ever gave me, but it’s also the hardest to follow. “Yes, Grandmother; but….”
“No buts about it, young lady. Graveyards are full of people who’d love to have your problems. And just you remember, they’re the only ones without problems”.
Have you ever noticed that when you complain about something, it gets worse? Some would say you’re attracting negative energy. Grandmother would say you’re wasting the energy you could use to fix whatever it is you’re complaining about.
Making someone else’s day better was another one of Grandmother’s solutions for a bad day. Unfortunately, I don’t think shortening my dentist’s work schedule by cancelling my appointment is what she meant.
Sometimes we get what we want - a sunny day for a picnic. Sometimes we get what we need - a rainy day, your third grader’s picnic is canceled, you freeze the fried chicken and have time to finish the novel you started a month ago.
And yes, we’ve all experienced days when everything goes right - not often enough, but we have experienced them. The rain stopped, no one missed the school bus, you kicked the washing machine and it stopped making the banging sound, the check really did come in the mail and your mother-in-law isn’t coming at all.
As this kind of day unwraps, you get wrapped up in it. If only days could be re-gifted.
Knight Pierce Hirst takes humorous looks at life. Take a minute to make yourself smile at http://knightwatch.typepad.com
