Popcorn by The Colonel #10

Essay Question: Compare and Contrast

Murphy’s Law and Catch-22.

Be Concise But Comprehensive.

“C” students would do the best job running the world, including Middletown.

September 19 was International Talk Like a Pirate Day in Middletown and elsewhere. Hope yours was good, matey.

A Middletown friend says she sings poorly. She says when her son was little, and she sang to him, he would say, “Don’t sing, Mommy, don’t sing.” Children are heartless.


There are 322 words in the dictionary ending in -mata (e.g., stigmata), but 1448 ending in -ma (e.g., stigma). Conclusion: not every word ending in -ma has a plural ending in -mata, like dogma, schema, stigma, and stoma.

If you picture your enemy’s face vividly and recite three times “dogma, schema, stigma, stoma,” your enemy feels sudden angina. The first angina may not trigger an actual heart attack, but with repetition, you never know which might be the little angina that could.

Middletown bumper sticker: “My karma ran over your dogma.”

The plural of karma is not karmata. “Karma Karmata” is a Middletown palm reader. “Karma Chameleon” was a 1983 hit by the British New Wave group Culture Club, whose lead singer was Boy George.

The Middletown bumper sticker “Gutenberg was a synthesizer” is an allusion to the famous claim that “all invention is synthesis,” as in “the printing press was a synthesis of the wine press and the coin punch.”

“We shall never understand one another until we reduce the language to seven words.” --Kahlil Gibran. What would your seven words be? The late George Carlin has already been heard on this topic, but not on television.

The average person in Middletown has at least 19 habits unknown to that person. Example: saying “y’know” several times per sentence.

“Crossing the Rubicon” is not a Rubicon named Crossing. You’re thinking of Cedric the Entertainer.

In the expression, “the die is cast,” the “die” is one of a pair of dice, not a tool for imparting shape to material.

Cromwell used to be part of Middletown.There’s a Habitat for Humanity ReStore at 34 Shunpike Road (Route 3) in Cromwell where Jo-Ann Fabrics used to be. 34 Shunpike Road 06416. Open Wednesday-Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (860) 788-6483. http://www.habitatmiddlesex.org/restore/

• What’s a ReStore? It’s a retail store, one of hundreds around the country, each run by a Habitat for Humanity chapter. The Cromwell one is run by the Middlesex County chapter.

• What good is it? Examples follow.

• Middletown people can buy good new and used things for their own habitats and offices at good prices. (The Colonel bought a used Steelcase desk chair for $40 that would have cost three figures new.)

• Middletown remodelers can buy materials for their projects (cabinets, windows, more).

• The ReStore keeps tons of material out of landfills each year.

• The Home Depot, Lowe’s, and other vendors can and do donate overstocks and odd lots.

• Middletown contractors and homeowners can donate usable things removed in remodeling jobs (saves tipping fees).

•  People breaking up Middletown households can donate usable things not worth shipping. Tables, chairs, furniture, cabinets, bookshelves, more. (Restore has a truck and picks up donations but doesn’t deliver purchases. ReStore volunteers will generally help you load your purchases into your vehicle.)

• Shopping at ReStore or donating stuff advances Habitat for Humanity’s primary work, which is builing and fixing up habitats for humans.

The best policy is to visit ReStore often, because the best things come in and go out quickly. But even a single visit is invigorating, because it gives you ideas, sometimes about purchasing and sometimes about donating -- what’s clutter to you can be manna to others.