PROCRASTINATION SITUATION: Before we begin our weekly news chewing session, a reminder last week was National Procrastination Week.
ROYAL REPORT: Our first stop is London. As excitement builds ahead of the upcoming royal wedding, it was revealed Meghan Markle’s wedding gown cost $400,000. Gee, and you thought she would order something for a couple hundred bucks on Amazon.
AMAZON ANIMALS: And speaking of Amazon, according to an item on TV, Amazon employees are allowed to bring their dogs to work with them. This explains why the item I ordered online arrived with teeth marks and slobber on it. I was wrong when I blamed the delivery guy.
DISTRACTION ACTION: The city of Montclair, California, made headlines with its new distracted walking law. It’s now illegal to cross the street while using a phone or wearing earbuds. Other cities are expected to do the same. Pedestrians everywhere should always exercise caution, but here in Fort St. John it’s not illegal to listen to tunes while crossing 100 Street. And if your music is groovy, feel free to snap your fingers.
SPACE CADETS: NASA is offering to fly you to the sun. Well, at least your name. NASA is now accepting online applications to have names sent in a probe that will fly close by sun. This sounds kind of like a scam. If I let them send my name into space, will little green men come to my house trying to sell stuff? What will NASA learn about the sun? I predict they will learn it’s hot — but it’s a dry heat.
CRASH LANDING: Experts say an out-of-control Chinese space lab is falling out of orbit. Burning debris may crash somewhere in North America in April. With my luck, I will park my car after arriving home from the carwash. I’ll be happy that no birds have pooped on my sparkly clean vehicle. And then — BAM! — as I walk away from my car, it’s crushed by a flaming Chinese space station that fell from the sky.
ICE, NOT NICE: According to an item in Healthy Living Magazine, the latest health fad is taking ice baths. They say it will help you live longer. You know the bath is cold when you’re sitting in a tub filled with ice and your rubber ducky turns from yellow to blue.
WINTER WOES: An expert predicts Canadian winters will become very erratic, with sudden swings from mild to extreme cold. I remember winters when I was a kid. My mom tied my mittens to a string through my sleeves so I wouldn’t lose them. She did the same with my socks, on a string through my undershorts.
STRESS STORY: A study shows the average Canadian is stressed out six hours a day. Our topic next week will be: If I’m Stressed Out Less Than Six Hours Daily, Should I Worry?
SNAIL STORY: Surgeons are testing a new wound-sealing product made from snail goo. Yes, the sticky goo snails make. In a survey: 50 per cent of surgeons said they will try using snail goo. The other 50 per cent said they will wait until there’s something even more disgusting.
ROBOT REPORT: Some fast food joints in Ontario are now using robot arms to flip burgers. The hi-tech burger flippers will soon be seen across Canada. A buddy of mine wonders if the same robot flipping technology could be used for flipping kids off the couch when he wants to sit down and watch TV.
CHECKOUT CHUCKLE: Not every company is sold on the idea of technology replacing human workers. Some supermarket chains are getting rid of those self-checkout registers. They say it’s too expensive to keep fixing them. I hold the world record for self-checkout catastrophes. It once took five store employees to figure out what wrong buttons I had pushed. By the way: You know you’ve messed up the self-checkout pretty good when the computer voice from inside the machine says: “Thank you for shopping at Safeway. Please never come back.”
Bob Snyder can be reached at [email protected].
