The Economy

The big furniture company in my hometown got so tired of Wal-Mart’s tactics in Bentonville, they told them to pound sand and worked with Ikea and straight to consumer options.

 

My dad was in the manufacturing end, not sales. He always talked about sitting back in shock as sales people went Chernobyl on each other and threatened to burn down homes over fractions of cents per unit. But when you do the math on the volume they were talking, it was millions and millions of dollars being negotiated.
He was just like, "Yeah, this is way too intense for me. Call me when it's over."

 

@swingline took a huge dump at a place called Casey's and proudly knowingly left it to clog their plumbing

 

I’m not proud of some of the dump and ditch incidents I’ve had in public loos. No clogging that I’m aware of, but on a couple of occasions I’ve had to throw away underwear on the spot and escape before anyone noticed.

But the worst was waiting for a port-a-potty at a hot air balloon festival where the timer hit zero and I was still in line. I wound up painting the entire damn thing brown and had to beat a very hasty retreat. We were meeting up with friends of friends and I had to keep a poker face while they discussed what unspeakable horror someone left behind one of the plastic doors.

 

We went to a beerfest once and my wife held it for literally 4 or 5 hours because the porta-potties were such a debacle. I kept asking if she wanted to leave and find a clean head, but she swore she was OK.

The absolute worst was the start of the Philadelphia Marathon, when there were about 20 porta-potties for 15,000 hydrating runners.

 

#1 is no problem. I am well versed in stepping around the side of a building, in some bushes, or between parked cars. I took the gold in public peeing in three of the last four Olympics.
If I am going to an event where porta-potties are going to be the only option and I think #2 could happen, I pop an Imodium before I go.

 

The town I edited a little weekly in had a giant Oktoberfest. Tens of thousands of people in a town of 2,000. I’ve never been happier to have a newspaper office to go into when nature called while covering an event. It was like the greatest VIP perk.

 

When our Scout troop used to hike the Appy Trail our Scout Master would feed us dehydrated apples on the drive over, saying they would “clog us up” and make latrine duty less frequent.

 

I started taking probiotics about a few years ago for my bouts of runner’s ’rhea, and they’ve been a godsend.

 

How do you solve the Perpetual Penny Problem?

NYT link …

https://t.co/9TysAbya6X

 

Along those lines.

 

That says a lot.