You might be a real Vermonter if

- you plug in your engine block heater before your morning jo.
- your swimming pool brook trout ate the rubber duckies and the neighbor's cat.
- you really did walk to school in 2 feet of snow. Really.
- your "come bosssssssss" can be heard across two valleys and fill a barn before sunrise.
- your new boots are waterproofed with genuine fresh steaming cow shit.
- your fondest per-adolescent teats hung from a Jersey.
- your tractor is green with a hand clutch and has a 2 cylinder putt-putt deeper than any Harley Davidson.
- you enjoy 4 of the 5 seasons - summer, leaf peeping, hunting, skiing, and love the 5th - mud.
- you find the smell of a fresh manured hay field better than all the numbers of Chanel.
- you made half your summer wages as a kid driving tractors during the county fair cavalcade.
- your normal work day starts at 5am and ends at breakfast.
- your hand calluses are tougher than an old wire brush and not nearly as soft.
- you use your turn signals sparingly because you know where you're going.
- you define fine gourmet dining by what's new at the county fair.
- you lobby the international Olympic committee to make horse pulling an Olympic sport.
- you save the -30 degree days for ice fishing. You do lots of ice fishing.
- you contributed 3 months beer allowance to the Fred Tuttle for US Congress fund.
- you use your neighbors pink lawn swans for target practice.
- you make extra money water witching for flatlanders.
- knowing Ames was the original Walmart.
- you had a farmers tan in the 1st grade at age 6 and Popeye forearms in the 3rd grade at age 12.
- you were weaned on Black Label beer.
- your pickup is worth more than your house.
- your snowmobile is worth more than your pickup.
- your ice fishing shanty is worth more than your snowmobile.
- your gun collection is worth more than your fishing shanty.
- your pocketknife is your best friend.
- your next best friend doesn't dare borrow your pocketknife.
- your next best friend is welcome to borrow your truck, snowmobile and wife.
- your axe is double bitted and has an elmwood handle with your favorite Jersey's initials carved in it.
- you have 3 years of wood cut, stacked and seasoned. And years 4 and 5 on the ground.
- you found your wife at the weekend auction bidding against you for the used farrier's anvil.
- your yearly fireworks display is the January chimney fire.
- your favorite chair and prized tools were found at the town dump.
- dump day is the Vermont sabbath.
- post graduate work is shop class.
- you decreed town meeting day a national holiday.
- fancy grade refers to canned beer and maple syrup.
- knowing Vermont was the 14th original colony and claimed rights to half of present day NY and NH and are now damn glad you gave them up.
- your great, great, great, grandfather voted for Ethan Allen for president.
- you eat dinner at noon and supper at 5.
- your milk is straight from the pail.
- your bacon is hanging in the wood shed.
- your eggs are straight from the old hen roost.
- your last 2 deer took 3 flashlight batteries and a salt lick to bag.
- summer camp requires down jackets and a ream of black fly netting.
- bag balm is used for jock itch.
- horse hoof liniment is used for your toenail fungus.
- milkweed pod milk is used to clear your warts.
- your root cellar has sprouted potatoes from 3 years back and wilted carrots from the great depression.

billboard face shots

Would you purchase a house from a realtor that had their greater than lifesize face shot plastered on their foresale realty sign? Me neither. How about an insurance policy from a State Farm agent with their powdered nose on an oversized billboard? Nope, nada, no f'ing way. Then the ambulance chasing foursome of Gorge, Rape, Pillage and Pilfer, LLP peddling their legal wares to skewer your insurance company and causing all our premium rates to inflate. What arrogant idiots. Car dealership owners are some of the worse and ugliest. Why would I do business with a billboard droll for buying a car. We have the internet for squeezing the sleeze bags out of their high profits and fake invoice pricing. The south has the billboard preachers with their glistening combovers. Soul savers making themselves bigger than the originating prophets.

Now the Victoria Secrets' gals parading around in their just barely underwear selling their corporate products is for certain pleasant eye candy. We ain't looking at their faces anyway so it doesn't really count.

Loretta, what are you thinking

There's a chain of Loretta Lynn Kitcken's in the south that has lowered the bar for stomach raunch. On a northeast bound road trip and a weary stopover in eastern TN we should happen upon an exit catering to transient truckers and some of America's finest road warriors. The dining selection was like every other interstate exit in the northwestern hemisphere. McCraps, Arbites, Burger KlingOns, Pizza Puke, Taco Belch, Cracker Barf, IToss ..... You get the picture. To be different we opted for the presumably native fare by venturing to Loretta Lynn's Kitchen. What could possibly be disappointing with a brand moniker of one of America's most beloved country songbirds. Plus, the front facade was genuine artificial quaint appalachian clapboard. Well the first amonous sign was the single, and I emphasize single, patron seated by itself in a large dining room on a Friday evening at the peak dinner hour. This patron, undoubltly a trucker, had a gut paunch the size of Rhode Island, a road stare that only years of sniffing diesel fuel could possibly induce and an appetite that every southern wild bog boar would envy. The 2nd sign was the southern growl from bitch woman ordering us to plant ourselves at an open table. Then it gets interesting. BTW, trucker boy is still staring at us like we're ET's 1st cousins. I wasn't sure if I would need to protect my accompanying female companions or my own tight little butt. We soon had the menu choice to make. The 9.99 buffet was suggested by our underaged, overdressed but charming school girl waitress. So we opt for the all you can eat special. It has now been 12 hours since our diet mountain dew breakfast so the hunger pangs are strong and obviously clouding our judgement. We venture to the buffet spread and the real fun begins. The fried mystery looks wholesome with 1/2" thick crusts hiddening whatever lurks beneath. I quickly passed. The pulled pork is at least unbattered but it obviously has been laying in wait for at least a week if not longer and who knows what sauce it was stewing in. Next to it waits something that looks like barbequed ribs. Must have been some damn thin pig because the meat to bone ratio was heavy on the bone. The corn kernels appeared to be fully saturated with water and were as gummy looking as wallpaper paste. The oversized green beans looked no better, except the pie sized seeds poking through the skins. The bread rolls actually looked ok but like a true Americanized delicacy had been sopped in butter or pig lard. The mashed potatoes for sure had been poured from a can and had that crusty skin protecting the underbelly. The pickled beets were a deep violet and smiling at me. We cautiously loaded our plates. Back at the table the stainless fork was mangled so bad I had to straighten the tines out before it was safe to insert into my food shute. This was not a problem because this was the thinest gauge stainless I have ever seen. It was bending just from my glare. It soon became apparent that this southern country fare was not going to make it to my gullet. To top it off the diet coke had a distinctive chlorine hangover. So I'm sure the plastic glass was thoroughly disinfected as well has my stomach lining. Trucker boy had rolled himself out by now and was probably casing out our motel room.

The decor was pleasantly interesting. Pictures of past and present country and western performers were hang everywhere with what appeared to be real imitation autographs. I bet none of them high brows chowed at one of these joints more than once.

So if you should ever find yourself in a hoooowdieee state with a growling gut make sure to pay Loretta's a visit. Oh, and pack a lunch beforehand.

Perfection can not be improved

This is such a simple concept yet it is violated continuously by corporate marketing idiots. Take for example, Chips Ahoy cookies. The original Chips Ahoy's are sheer perfection. The designers stumbled across a divine combination of just the right mix of small dark chocolate chips captured in a crispy, but not too hard cookie batter blend. Even the size is perfection with 3 manly chomps and it's gone and you're onto the next one. Then the unthinkable. Out comes a soft version. And then a version with M&M's. WTF. Who wants a soft cookie. That's cake. Are they targeting ivoryless geriatrics and former hockey players that need to gum their food? Why add extraneous ingredients. M&M's by themselves are near perfection directly from the bag. Mixing one perfection with another perfection does not enhance perfection. You simply negate all that was perfect and end up with warm stinking dog dung. In case you wonder, dog shiat is not perfection, not even to a dung beetle. It stinks like crap and sticks too easily to my waffle treads. Let me repeat. Perfection can not be improved.

The list goes on. Original Oreos are perfect. Nobody wants double stuffing so why offer it. And what's with Hydrox cookies. I ain't eating nothing that sounds like some inorganic synthetic conjoured up by Dupont's sickest chemists. Fig newtons another perfection. Nobody wants cran or apple newtons, only figs. Cheerios. Drop the honey glaze. Beer. Stop serving that diluted horse piss labeled "lite" or "light". Friar Tuck has been tossing in his drunken grave since the late 70's when this sorry excuse for manhood brew hit the NFL half time shows. Lite beer is for girly men and washing my underwear. Hersey's kisses. Who decided that adding an almond made sense. Chocolate and peanut butter. Again two perfections mixed making warm cat shiat look attractive. And what's with white chocolate? Chocolate is brown! Even the name sounds brown and cocoa beans are brown. Not white. There should be no confusion on this point. Porsche and SUV. What a stupid idea. A Porsche is for blasting the twisties at 110 mph and for attracting arm candy. A Porsche is not for soccer moms and snot-nosed kids with suburban attitudes.

Now admittedly some products are in desparate need of improvement. Brussel sprouts come to mind. Why would anyone willingly put something that smells so bad into their mouth? Expect possibly a dung beetle. Or I suppose the cortex dead that also consume boiled cabbage and tapioca pudding. How do these drolls keep from tossing their stomach poo. Same for poached eggs. Cook the damn things. Eggs are not supposed to run. Anywhere.

Time to end this rant. My perfection needs a little primping.

Another Player Bigger Than the Game

Well, I hate to join the T.O. deserves this sh*t bangwagon but another athlete dives headlong into the oblivion spiral. But I gotta get my dig in. T. O. of the Eagles has lost his job. He apparently never bought into the team concept and he got booted. An ego run amuck. Bigger than the game. He's now spoiled goods. Do the fans care? Doubt it. Talk radio will have a field day! Bring on the next one. There's never a shortage of idiots and divine wannabees from any venue of life.

why aren't fax machines next to the buggy whip

I ordered cable modem service for my office and had to sign a 10 page contract basically stating that I would keep it for 2 years or more. I don't believe I promised sexual favors to the salesman. No idea on why it took 10 pages of legal gibberish, but I suppose lawyers have to eat. Anyhow, the sales idiot wanted to fax me the contract so I could sign it and fax it back to him. Time out idiot! I don't have a fax machine because I went paperless when the century rolled into the 21st. I then reminded the modern Neatherthal that his supposedly high tech company should also be paperless. They do promote the sale of their cable modem for highspeed internet access. Why not email me the contract and I'll email a signed version back. Is that so high tech?

Why do fax machines still exist? Do their users not understand the digital age with electronic communications. Paper should be saved for the John Crapper throne room.