--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOW TO TELL WHEN YOUR FOOD IS SPOILED
=======================================
Whether you are a mom who cooks for many, a bachelor who
cooks on rare occasions for himself, or a new college
student who for the first time has his or her own refrigerator
-- you will eventually all open the fridge one day and say to
yourself, Can I eat this or will it kill me?
Well here are some guidelines to help you get through the
crisis, so you will know what to eat and what to toss.
THE GAG TEST
------------
Anything that makes you gag is spoiled (except for
leftovers from what you cooked for yourself last night).
EGGS
----
When something starts pecking its way out of the shell,
the egg is probably past its prime.
DAIRY PRODUCTS
---------------
Milk is spoiled when it starts to look like yogurt. Yogurt
is spoiled when it starts to look like cottage cheese.
Cottage cheese is spoiled when it starts to look
like regular cheese. Regular cheese is nothing but spoiled
milk anyway and can't get any more spoiled than it is
already. Cheddar cheese is spoiled when you think it is
blue cheese but you realize you've never purchased that kind.
MAYONNAISE
-----------
If it makes you violently ill after you eat it, the
mayonnaise is spoiled.
FROZEN FOODS
-------------
Frozen foods that have become an integral part of the
defrosting problem in your freezer compartment will
probably be spoiled - (or wrecked anyway) by the time
you pry them out with a kitchen knife.
EXPIRATION DATES
----------------
This is NOT a marketing ploy to encourage you to throw
away perfectly good food so that you'll spend more on
groceries.Perhaps you'd benefit by having a calendar in
your kitchen.
MEAT
----
If opening the refrigerator door causes stray animals
from a three-block radius to congregate outside your
house, the meat is spoiled.
BREAD
-----
Sesame seeds and Poppy seeds are the only officially
acceptable "spots" that should be seen on the surface of
any loaf of bread. Fuzzy and hairy looking white or green
growth areas are a good indication that your bread has
turned into a pharmaceutical laboratory experiment.
FLOUR
-----
Flour is spoiled when it wiggles.
LETTUCE
-------
Bibb lettuce is spoiled when you can't get it off the
bottom of the vegetable crisper without Comet. Romaine
lettuce is spoiled when it turns liquid. (We didn't think
you needed guidance with this one)
CANNED GOODS
--------------
Any canned goods that have become the size or shape of a
softball should be disposed of. Carefully.
CARROTS
-------
A carrot that you can tie a clove hitch in is not fresh.
RAISINS
--------
Raisins should not be harder than your teeth.
POTATOES
--------
If it looks like it is ready for planting, toss it.
CHIP DIP
--------
If you can take it out of its container and bounce it on
the floor, it has gone bad.
EMPTY CONTAINERS
-----------------
Putting empty containers back into the refrigerator is an
old trick, but it only works if you live with someone or
have a maid.
UNMARKED ITEMS:
--------------
You know it is well beyond prime when you're tempted to
discard the Tupperware along with the food. Generally
speaking, Tupperware containers should not burp when you
open them.
GENERAL RULE OF THUMB:
-----------------------
Most food cannot be kept longer than the average life
span of a hamster. Keep a hamster in or nearby your
refrigerator to gauge this.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stevie Wonder and Jack Nicklaus are in a bar. Nicklaus turns to Wonder
and says, "How is the singing career going?"
Stevie Wonder says, "Not too bad, the latest album has gone into the
top 10, so all in all I think it is pretty good. By the way how is the
golf going ?"
Nicklaus replies: "Not too bad, I am not winning as much as I used to
but I'm still making a bit of money. I had some problems with my
swing, but I think I've got that right now."
"I always find that when my swing goes wrong I need to stop playing
for a while and think about it, then the next time I play it seems to
be all right," says Stevie.
"You play golf!?" asks Jack.
Stevie says, "Yes, I have been playing for years."
"But you are blind; how can you play golf if you are blind?" Jack
asks.
" I get my caddie to stand in the middle of the fairway and he calls
to me. I listen for the sound of his voice and play the ball towards
him, then when I get to where the ball lands the caddie moves to the
green, or further down the fairway, and again I play the ball towards
his voice," explains Stevie.
"But how do you putt?" Nicklaus wondered.
"Well," says Stevie, "I get my caddie to lean down in front of the
hole and call to me with his head on the ground, and I just play the
ball to the sound of his voice."
Nicklaus says, "What is your handicap?"
"Well, I play off scratch," Stevie assures Jack. Nicklaus is
incredulous and says to Stevie, "We must play a game sometime."
Wonder replies, "Well, people don't take me seriously, so I only play
play for money, and I never play for less than $10,000 a hole."
Nicklaus thinks it over and says, "OK, I'm up for that. When would
you like to play?"
"I don't care.... any night next week is OK with me."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two computer people discussing those old stories about Bill Gates'
name adding up to 666 in ASCII:
"I hear that if you play the NT 4.0 CD backwards, you get a Satanic
message."
"--That's nothing. If you play it forward, it installs NT 4.0!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just out of the seminary, Father McLaughlin was assigned to a
parish in Chicago. Three weeks after he arrived, Father
McLaughlin walked into the church and stopped dead in his tracks.
Kneeling at the altar, praying, was Jesus Christ.
The young priest rushed into his superior's office. "Father
Murphy," he exclaimed. "Come quick! Our Savior is in our
church!"
The two clerics rushed back into the church and sure enough, there
was Christ praying at the Altar. "What should we do?" whispered
young Father McLaughlin.
"Look busy!" answered the older priest.
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You thought you had a bad day at the office....
A true story...
A professional scuba diver's letter to his sister...
April, 1998
Hi Sue,
Just another note from your bottom dwelling brother. Last week I had a
bad day at the office. Before I can tell you what happened to me, I
first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job. As you know
my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the
office. It's a wetsuit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So
what we do to keep warm is this:
We have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece
of shit sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful
temp. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose which
is taped to the air hose. Now this sounds like a damn good plan, and
I've used it several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get
to the bottom and start working, is I take the hose and stuff it down
the back of my neck. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It's
like working in a jacuzzi. Everything was going well until all of a
sudden, my ass started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This
only made things worse. Within a few seconds my ass started to burn. I
pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done.
In agony I realized what had happened to me. The hot water machine had
sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. This is even worse
than the poison ivy you once had under a cast. Now I had that hose
down my back. I don't have any hair on my back, so the jellyfish
couldn't get stuck to my back. My ass crack was not as fortunate. When
I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the
jellyfish into my ass. I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma
over the comms.
His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he along with 5
other divers were laughing hysterically.
Needless to say I aborted the dive. I was instructed to make 3
agonizing water stops totaling 35 minutes before I could come to the
surface. I got to the surface wearing nothing but my brass helmet. My
suit and gear were tied to the bell. When I got on board the medic,
with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of
cream and told me to shove it up my ass when I get in the chamber. The
cream put the fire out, but I couldn't shit for two days because my
asshole was swollen shut.
I later found out that this could easily have been prevented if the
suction hose was placed on the leeward side of the ship. Anyway, the
next time you have a bad day at the office, think of me. I hope you
have no bad days at the office. But if you do, I hope that thought
will make it a little more tolerable.
Take care, and I hope to hear from you soon.
Love,
Brian
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As most of you know, the new Tech Museum (www.thetech.org) just opened
in San Jose and it's a pretty cool place, but if they REALLY wanted to
capture life in Silicon Valley, they should have included some of the
following:
1. The Unreasonable Expectation Work Week Simulator: Ever wonder what
it's like to work 80 hours a week? You can now experience blurry
vision, diminished reaction time, the health effects of eating nothing
but Doritos, and the heart-racing excitement of Jolt Cola addiction
with the Unreasonable Expectation Work Week Simulator! Hey, who are
those strangers claiming to be your family? They're just part of the
mysteries you'll experience at the Tech Museum!
2. The "Find Help At Fry's" Cyber-Challenge: Don your Virtual Reality
goggles and take a tour in the Valley's favorite electronics chain!
Your challenge: find someone who can help you. It's not as easy as it
sounds, though. If you do find someone, you still have to somehow get
them to make eye contact! And once you get help, the challenge isn't
over! You still have to avoid the "Let me get my manager" monster,
endure the perpetual "Humans as Cattle" cash register corral, and make
it past the paranoid door Nazi without getting a body cavity search!
Youch!
3. The Valley Fair Mall Parking Space Scavenger Hunt: Your mission:
get in our car simulator and find parking at the Valley's most
congested mall! Extra points for finding a space within a one-mile
radius of the mall itself. Next year we hope to make this scavenger
hunt even more challenging when we violate the laws of conservation of
mass with the addition of the Town and Country Monument to Bad City
Management!
4. "Sell or Die"!: Kids will learn valuable lessons playing this
interactive game designing and marketing superior,
technically-advanced products that fill a niche and meet a need. But
wait! The fun is just starting! It's time to play "Sell or Die"! Kids
get to choose whether they will let themselves be bought out by the
"innovative" Microsoft, or whether they will resist the urge and have
their products undersold by Microsoft's inferior competing products!
The fun is in seeing how long you can last in the face of unfair
marketing practices. The last player to go bankrupt paying their legal
bills wins! Extra points for kids who survive long enough to testify
in front of the Justice Department!
5. Mr. Jobs' Wild Ride: Get in your Apple Stock Rocket and experience
the wildest roller coaster ride of your life! Just when you think the
Rocket is about to hit a wall, swerve wildly and unexpectedly to one
side and avoid certain death (for now)! And the best part is, your
fate is completely in the hands of one all-powerful and unpredictable
hippy-turned-power-player-turned-exile-turned-interim-CEO-for-life!
And look out! The Larry Ellison Hot Wind Machine will try to blow you
off course! You'll lose your lunch on abrupt policy changes, and
scream your lungs out as you freefall on the final Mac Clone Maker
Betrayal Drop of Death! Riders can then regain their composure looking
at the:
6. San Jose Mercury News Wall of Premature Apple Obituaries: Get up
close and personal with Valley history by reading over 15 years of
stories lamenting the imminent death of everyone's favorite fruit
company! With all that circling, don't buzzards ever get dizzy?
7. The Silicon Valley Virtual Commute Race Course: You have two hours
to go 15 miles! Think you can do it? Well, buckle yourself into our
simulator and give it a try! The Tech Museum offers several race
courses to choose from: Try the "880 Endurance Course"! Hey! You
finally made it past the Winchester Mystery Puddle at The Alameda
on-ramp, and you're finally up to 25 mph! You'll make Brokaw Road in
no time. But look out! 101 merges into 880 AND the freeway goes down
to two lanes AT THE SAME TIME! Who designed this nutty course? Or try
the "17 Face Off of Doom"! You're behind one truck in the right lane
going 21 mph. The truck in the left lane is going 20.5 mph! Calculate
how many hours it will be before you can pass both trucks! Or try the
680 "Trail of Tears"! You've got to make it from Pleasanton to Fremont
with only one full tank of gas! Sound easy? Don't forget the inept
Caltrans contractors who block off lanes for no reason at all!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A secretary, out with appendicitis, was being visited by a co-worker
in the hospital. "How are things at the office going, Claudia ?" she
asked from the bed.
"Well, they're all sharing your work: Jody is making the coffee,
Louise is reading all your magazines, and Sharon is making it with the
Boss."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WASHINGTON, D.C.- The Institute for the Investigation of Irregular
Internet Phenomena announced today that many Internet users are
becoming infected by a new virus that causes them to believe without
question every groundless story, legend, and dire warning that shows
up in their Inbox or on their browser. The Gullibility Virus, as it is
called, apparently makes people believe and forward copies of silly
hoaxes relating to cookie recipes, e-mail viruses, taxes on modems,
and get-rich-quick schemes.
"These are not just readers of tabloids or people who buy lottery
tickets based on fortune cookie numbers," a spokesman said. "Most are
otherwise normal people, who would laugh at the same stories if told
to them by a stranger on a street corner." However, once these same
people become infected with the Gullibility Virus, they believe
anything they read on the Internet.
"My immunity to tall tales and bizarre claims is all gone," reported
one weeping victim. "I believe every warning message and sick child
story my friends forward to me, even though most of the messages are
anonymous." Another victim, now in remission, added, "When I first
heard about 'Good Times,' I just accepted it without question. After
all, there were dozens of other recipients on the mail header, so I
thought the virus must be true." It was a long time, the victim said,
before she could stand up at a Hoaxes Anonymous meeting and state, "My
name is Jane, and I've been hoaxed." Now, however, she is spreading
the word. "Challenge and check whatever you read," she says.
Internet users are urged to examine themselves for symptoms of the
virus, which include the following:
* The willingness to believe improbable stories without thinking
* The urge to forward multiple copies of such stories to others
* A lack of desire to take three minutes to check to see if a story
is true
T. C. is an example of someone recently infected. He told one
reporter, "I read on the Net that the major ingredient in almost all
shampoos makes your hair fall out, so I've stopped using shampoo."
When told about the Gullibility Virus, T . C. said he would stop
reading e-mail, so that he would not become infected.
Anyone with symptoms like these is urged to seek help immediately.
Experts recommend that at the first feelings of gullibility, Internet
users rush to their favorite search engine and look up the item
tempting them to thoughtless credence. Most hoaxes, legends, and tall
tales have been widely discussed and exposed by the Internet
community.
Courses in critical thinking are also widely available, and there is
online help from many sources, including
* Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability at
http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html
* Symantec Anti Virus Research Center at
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/index.html
* The Urban Legends Web Site at
http://www.urbanlegends.com/
* Urban Legends Reference Pages at
http://www.snopes.com/
* Datafellows Hoax Warnings at
http://www.Europe.Datafellows.com/news/hoax.htm
Lastly, as a public service, Internet users can help stamp out the
Gullibility Virus by sending copies of this message to anyone who
forwards them a hoax.
*********************************************************************
Forward this message to all your friends right away! Don't think about
it! This is not a chain letter! This story is true! Don't check it
out! This story is so timely, there is no date on it! This story is
so important, we're using lots of exclamation points!!! For every
message you forward to some unsuspecting person, the Home for the
Hopelessly Gullible will donate ten cents to itself. (If you wonder
how the Home will know you are forwarding these messages all over
creation, you're obviously thinking too much.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tonight's television listings
FOX
8:00 Real Humans in Real Pain
8:30 Feral Dingoes Eating Children on Tape
9:00 Jiggle It Beach
9:30 LA Chicks
10:00 Beverly Hills 90210: The 90,210th Episode
UPN
8:00 The Unwatchables
8:30 Voyage To The Bottom Of The Ratings
9:00 Theoretically Existing Show
9:30 Praying For Syndication
10:00 The Last Thing You'd Ever Want To Sit Through
WB
8:00 Where My Wife At?
8:30 Gittin' Yo Freak On
9:00 Me & My Psychic
9:30 Kids Suck The Darndest Things
10:00 Dawson's Clothes
ANIMAL PLANET
8:00 Incontinent Rhinos
9:00 Dan Taylor: Mongoose Optometrist
10:00 STAY!
10:30 The Best of STAY!
E!
8:00 Andy Gibb: A Nightmare Descent Into Booze & Pills
9:00 Margot Kidder: A Nightmare Descent Into Booze & Pills
10:00 Boy George: A Nightmare Descent Into Booze & Pills
ESPN2
8:00 Finland's Brutalest Men
8:30 Being Hit By A Trolley Regional Semifinals
9:00 60 Minutes Of Joe Theismann's Leg Breaking
10:00 Co-Ed Spread-Eagled Weight-Training From Maui
SCI-FI
8:00 Space: 1972
9:00 The Bermuda Triangle: Myth Or Fiction?
10:00 Mid-Budget Galaxy
LIFETIME
8:00 How Can I Choose Between My Daughters?
9:00 The Abused Wife Who Didn't Mean To Kill Her Policeman Husband In
Self-Defense
10:00 The Boy Whose Mommy Watched Far Too Much Television
TNN
8:00 Well, I'll Be Dipped In Pigshit!
9:00 You Hush Up, Wanda Mae
9:30 Sheeeeeeee-It!
10:00 Hold 'Er Down While I Get The Rifle From The Truck
TELEMUNDO
8:00 Roberto Amorosa En Agua Caliente!
9:00 Whoomp! Donde Esta?
9:30 Goooooooooooooal!
10:00 Ai! Ai! Ai! Ai! Ai!
10:30 La Hora De Goya
PUBLIC ACCESS
8:00 Blurry Steve
8:30 Inaudible City Council Meeting
9:00 Do We Have A Caller On The Line? Hello?
9:30 The Best Of Lunch Menus
10:00 My Friend Made This Short Film
10:30 Men With Braids Speak Out
CINEMAX
8:00 Bare Ambition (Tanya Roberts)
8:30 Naked Exposition (Traci Lords)
9:00 Body Of Nudity (Dana Plato)
10:00 Unclothed Anguish (Joyce DeWitt)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Five Commercials Aired During The Lewinsky / Walters Interview"
(and yes, these really did air during the interview)
5. Victoria's Secret lingerie.
4. Burger King - featuring the song "It's My Party, and I'll Cry if I
Want To."
3. Oral-B Deluxe.
2. A promo for the TV movie "Cleopatra," with the following
voice-over: "When she was only 20, she seduced the most powerful
leader in the world."
1. Maytag's Neptune washing machine - "It actually has the power to
remove stains!"
Anyway, it's something to think about.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"That wife of mine is a liar," said the angry husband to a sympathetic
pal seated next to him in the bar.
"How do you know?" the friend asked.
"She didn't come home last night and when I asked her where she'd
been, she said she had spent the night with her sister, Shirley."
"So?"
"So she's a liar. I spent the night with her sister, Shirley."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recently a Ft. Lauderdale advertising agency launched a billboard campaign
(including the inside and outside of buses) that included 17 different
messages .... from God.
This non-denominational campaign started in September sponsored
by an anonymous client.
1. "Let's Meet At My House Sunday Before the Game " - God
2. "C'mon Over And Bring The Kids " - God
3. "What Part of "Thou Shalt Not..." Didn't You Understand?" - God
4. "We Need To Talk" - God
5. "Keep Using My Name in Vain And I'll Make Rush Hour Longer" - God
6. "Loved The Wedding, Invite Me To The Marriage" - God
7. "That "Love Thy Neighbor" Thing, I Meant It." - God
8. "I Love You...I Love You...I Love You..." - God
9. "Will The Road You're On Get You To My Place?" - God
10. "Follow Me." - God
11. "Big Bang Theory, You've Got To Be Kidding." - God
12. "My Way Is The Highway." - God
13. "Need Directions?" - God
14. "You Think It's Hot Here?" - God
15. "Tell The Kids I Love Them." - God
16. "Need a Marriage Counselor? I'm Available." - God
17. "Have You Read My #1 Best Seller? There Will Be A Test." - God
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SERIALISM EXPOSED!
Composer Webern was Double Agent for Nazis
By Heinrich Kincaid
BERLIN, GERMANY (AP) - Recent admissions by an ex-Nazi official living
in Argentina have confirmed what some musicologists have suspected for
years: that early twentieth century German composer Anton Webern and
his colleagues devised the so-called "serial" technique of music to
encrypt messages to Nazi spies living in the United States and
Britain.
In what can surely be considered the most brazen instance of Art
Imitating Espionage to date, avant garde composers of the Hitler years
working in conjunction with designers of the Nazi Enigma code were
bamboozling unsuspecting audiences with their atonal thunderings while
at the same time passing critical scientific data back and forth
between nations.
"This calls into question the entire Second Viennese School of music,"
announced minimalist composer John Adams from his home in the
Adirondack Mountains. "Ever since I first encountered compositions by
Arnold Schoenberg I wondered what the hell anyone ever heard in
it. Now I know."
Gunned down by an American soldier in occupied Berlin, 62 year old
Anton Webern's death was until now considered a tragic loss to the
musical world. At the time the us Army reported that the killing was
"a mistake", and that in stepping onto the street at night to smoke a
cigarette Webern was violating a strict curfew rule.
It is now known that Webern was using music to shuttle Werner
Heisenberg's discoveries in atomic energy to German spy Klaus Fuchs
working on the Manhattan atom bomb project in New Mexico. Due to the
secret nature of the project, which was still underway after the
invasion of Berlin, Army officials at the time were unable to describe
the true reason for Webern's murder.
Hans Scherbius, a Nazi party official who worked with Minister of
Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, admitted at age eighty-seven that the
Nazis secretly were behind the twelve-tone technique of composition,
which was officially reviled to give it the outlaw status it needed to
remain outside of the larger public purview.
"These pieces were nothing more than cipher for encoding messages," he
chuckled during an interview on his balcony in Buenos Aires. "It was
only because it was 'naughty' and difficult that elite audiences
accepted it, even championed it."
Physicist Edward Teller, who kept a 9-foot Steinway piano in his
apartment at the Los Alamos laboratory, was the unwitting deliverer of
Heisenberg's data to Fuchs, who eagerly attended parties thrown by
Teller, an enthusiastic booster of Webern's music.
Arnold Schoenberg, the older musician who first devised the serial
technique at the request of the Weimar government of Germany, composed
in America to deliver bomb data stolen by Fuchs back to the Nazis, who
worked feverishly to design their own atomic weapons.
As an example, Scherbius showed Associated Press reporters the score
of Webern's Opus 30 "Variations for Orchestra" overlayed with a
cardboard template. The notes formed a mathematical grid that
deciphered into German a comparison between the neutron release
cross-sections of uranium isotopes 235 and 238.
Schoenberg responded with a collection of songs for soprano and
woodwinds that encrypted the chemical makeup of the polonium-beryllium
initiator at the core of the Trinity explosion.
And in Japan, Toru Takemitsu took time out from his own
neo-romanticism to transmit data via music of his nation's progress
with the atom.
"The most curious thing about it," says composer Philip Glass in New
York City, "is that musicians continued to write twelve-tone music
after the war, even though they had no idea why it was really
invented. Indeed, there are guys who are churning out serialism to
this day."
Unlike the diatonic music, which is based on scales that have been
agreed upon by listeners throughout the world for all of history,
twelve-tone music treats each note of the chromatic scale with equal
importance, and contains a built-in mathematical refusal to form
chords that are pleasing by traditional standards. Known also as
serialism, the style has never been accepted outside of an elite cadre
of musicians, who believe it is the only fresh and valid direction for
post-Wagnerian classical music to go.
"Even if this is really true," states conductor Pierre Boulez, a
composer who continues to utilize serial techniques, "the music has
been vindicated by music critics for decades now. I see no reason to
suddenly invalidate an art form just because of some funny business at
its inception."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An Annapolis cadet recently wrote on a literature exam, "Sancho Panza
always rode on a burrow."
To this his instructor responded, "A burro is an ass. A burrow is a
hole in the ground. As a future officer, you are expected to know the
difference."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hamlet's Cat
To go outside, and there perchance to stay
Or to remain within: that is the question:
Whether 'tis better for a cat to suffer
The cuffs and buffets of inclement weather
That Nature rains on those who roam abroad,
Or take a nap upon a scrap of carpet,
And so by dozing melt the solid hours
That clog the clock's bright gears with sullen time
And stall the dinner bell.
To sit, to stare
Outdoors, and by a stare to seem to state
A wish to venture forth without delay,
Then when the portal's opened up, to stand
As if transfixed by doubt.
To prowl; to sleep;
To choose not knowing when we may once more
Our readmittance gain: aye, there's the hairball;
For if a paw were shaped to turn a knob,
Or work a lock or slip a window-catch,
And going out and coming in were made
As simple as the breaking of a bowl,
What cat would bear the household's petty plagues,
The cook's well-practiced kicks, the butler's broom,
The infant's careless pokes, the tickled ears,
The trampled tail, and all the daily shocks
That fur is heir to, when, of his own free will,
He might his exodus or entrance make
With a mere mitten?
Who would spaniels fear,
Or strays trespassing from a neighbor's yard,
But that the dread of our unheeded cries
And scratches at a barricaded door
No claw can open up, dispels our nerve
And makes us rather bear our humans' faults
Than run away to unguessed miseries?
Thus caution doth make house cats of us all;
And thus the bristling hair of resolution
Is softened up with the pale brush of thought,
And since our choices hinge on weighty things,
We pause upon the threshold of decision.
(
geocities.com/timessquare)