Bitchin' About Washing Clothes? It's A Snap Nowadays

Yep, those were the days! We got a brand new clothes washer and sadly, in our eagerness to learn about it, Mom showed us how to use it. It was a lark, at first, but soon after became just another chore. Mom and Dad worked and we kids had certain chores to perform each day after doing our homework.

It was a learning process, especially learning how to feed the  wringer without losing a finger or hand. In actuality, there was a safeguard that allowed the wringer slide up when clothes (or children's hands) jammed it. Of course, we kids didn't know that at first and it was a pretty scary thing when it happened.

The clothes then went into a square wash tub to be rinsed by hand and then, run through the wringer again into another tub of fresher water. From there, one last run through the wringer and the clothes were ready for the clothes line.

Our clothes line consisted of a piece of rope tied between trees, with a tall board for the middle when the line began to sag because of the weight of the clothes. Clothes pins were always scarce normally because we used them to make match guns, but I digress. The trick with clothes pins was to double up and use the same pin to hold the corners of two pieces of clothes.

Anecdotally, there are three stories that come to mind. The first was the 1950 hurricane flooded Miami and we lived close enough to the Florida Everglades that all kinds of critters, especially 'gators and snakes looked for dry land.

I remember Mom tying the two square washtubs together, tying them to her waist, putting my brother and I into the tubs, then wading to the mailbox to get the mail. She didn't want to leave us alone in the house, just in case. Pretty brave, huh?

The second time, we had just finished hanging the last piece of clothes when the clothes line broke and we had to start all over again.

The third was when we let our cat Blackie into the house when we were specifically told not to do so. As it turned out, Blackie had a case of the runs. When he tried to run away to do his business, we grabbed him and put him back on the bed. He then dug an imaginary hole on the bed and did what nature had intended.

Have you ever washed sheets at night hoping that your parents wouldn't get home before you finished?

The News As I See It: Ben Affleck is the new Batman and Miley Cyrus is apparently the new Lindsay Lohan.

Wal-Mart will soon begin offering benefits for their employees' same-sex partners. How about that? Finally a company looking out for the interests of gay and lesbian Chinese factory workers!

The Kardashian family has another marriage in trouble. Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom are having marital problems. And the state department says its warships are already rushing to the area.

Vice President Joe Biden said that "Syria must be held accountable." Unfortunately, the Obama administration has never employed an accountant, so they have no idea how to do that.

The secretary of the treasury told Congress that we will be out of money by October. A lot of Americans are shocked by this. Didn’t he know that we're already out of money? What happened to all that money we gave them last April 15th? Before we give the government any more money, show us some receipts.

U.S.warships are near Syria. They're saying now that a military action against Syria will last no more than two days. It's going to be a two-day war, which means we'll be there for another 10 years.

A New York City ferry that takes tourists to Liberty Island crashed. The pilot apparently ignored warnings of giant statues in the area.

This Date In History: 30 B.C.; Cleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt, committed suicide. 1862; The Second Battle of Bull Run took place during the Civil War. 1905; Ty Cobb made his major league batting debut, playing for the Detroit Tigers.

1941; The two-year siege of Leningrad during World War II began. 1963; A hot line between the Kremlin and the White House went into operation to reduce the chances of an accidental war.

1967; Thurgood Marshall was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to become the first African American Supreme Court justice. 1999; East Timor residents voted to secede from Indonesia.

Picture Of The Day: "Okay, throw it and I'll run and get it, but not too far, ok?"

Printable Things I Never Told You: 1) I don't like to brag but my bank says I have an outstanding balance. 2) Fish don't seem that stupid to me. If a burrito dropped out of the sky and hung in mid air, I'd probably eat it. 3) My girlfriend woke up this morning with a huge smile on her face! I love Sharpie markers. 4) If the whole world smoked a joint at the same time, There would be world peace for at least two hours, followed by a global food shortage. 5) You know you drank too much last night when you have to use google maps to locate yourself the next morning.....and that's five !

Today's Horoscope: Virgo - August 30th: This weekend you're going to get a giddy feeling that you're going to be emotionally elevated to heights you've never before dreamed of being able to reach. The world will become your oyster, flowers will bloom in your presence, children will miraculously stop crying in your arms and dogs will quite their yappin' after midnight. Do me a favor and stop that yappin' dog first. He's driving me nuts!

Birthdays: My pals Hector, Rose and Sergio - Happy Birthday 19XX, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, author 1797, Huey Long, politician 1893, Roy Wilkins, civil-rights leader 1901, Fred MacMurray, actor 1908, Ted Williams, baseball player 1918, Warren Buffett, financial executive 1930.

The AREA 51 Retirement Home Bar And Grill: A young monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to helping the other monks in copying the old canons and laws of the church by hand. He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not from the original manuscript.

So, the new monk goes to the head abbot to question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up! In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies.

The head monk says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son." He goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscripts are held as archives in a locked vault that hasn't been opened for hundreds of years.

Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot. So, the young monk gets worried and goes down to look for him. He sees him banging his head against the wall and wailing, "We missed the R! We missed the R! We missed the R!"

The abbot's forehead is all bloody and bruised and he is crying uncontrollably. The young monk asks the old abbot, "What's wrong, father?" With a choking voice, the old abbot replies, "The word was 'celebrate'."

Some women were gathered and the subject of the conversation turned to sex and then birth control. The first woman says, "We're Catholic, so we can't use it." The next woman says, "I am too, but we use the rhythm method."

The third woman says, "We use the bucket and saucer method." The others asked, "What the heck is the bucket and saucer method?"

The woman replied, "Well, I'm five foot eleven and my husband is five foot two. We make love standing up with him standing on a bucket and when his eyes get big as saucers, I kick the bucket out from under him."

The Hits Just Keep On Coming: A man died and went to heaven. As he stood in front of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall of clocks behind him.

He asked, "What are all those clocks?" St. Peter answered, "Those are Lie-Clocks. Everyone on Earth has a Lie-Clock. Every time you lie the hands on your clock will move.''

The man said, I see. Whose clock is that?'' St. Peter said, "That's Mother Teresa's. The hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie.''

The man said, "And whose clock is that one?" St. Peter responded, "That's Abraham Lincoln 's clock. The hands have moved twice, telling us that Abe told only two lies in his entire life.''

The man then asked, "Where's Obama 's clock?" St. Peter said, "Obama's clock is in Jesus' office. He's using it as a ceiling fan."

One day, a man accidentally overturned his golf buggy. Elizabeth, a very attractive and keen golfer, who lived in a villa on the golf course, heard the noise and called out, "Are you okay, what's your name?" He replied, "Its John, and I’m okay thanks."

She said, "John, forget your troubles. Come to my villa, rest a while and I'll help you get the cart up later." John said, "That's mighty nice of you,but I don't think my wife would like it." Elizabeth insisted, "Oh. come on...." 

She was very pretty, very sexy and persuasive and John was weak. John said, "Well okay, but my wife.won't like it." After a restorative brandy and some creative putting lessons, John thanked his host.

John said, "I feel a lot better now, but I know my wife is going to be really upset." Elizabeth said with a smile, "Don't be silly! She won't know anything. By the way, where is she?" John replied, "Under the cart!"

That's it for today, my little jitterbugs. Remember, an apple a day will keep anyone away if you throw it hard enough, I'm going to happy hour over at AREA 51.

Have a great Labor Day weekend and more on Monday.

Stay Tuned !