Category Archives: Uncategorized

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Unhappy Campers

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Today’s post comes from Bart, the bear who found a smart phone in the woods.

H’lo.,

Now that it’s Memorial Day, the camping season has started up for real. This is good news for us bears, because more people in the woods means more food in the woods. And more food in the woods means more food in the woods! Pretty simple.

He Found a Smart Phone in the Woods
He Found a Smart Phone in the Woods

Some bears think having people in the woods is a bad thing, but I say it all has to do with the type of people we’re talking about. Not all of them are the same! Most bears don’t get this, but I’ve been online a lot so I know it’s true!

The type of people you don’t want are developers. And by that I mean contractors, resort builders, industrialists, etc. They’ll knock down trees and put up stuff that draws more and more people and before long there are no bear-friendly spaces left. Bad!

The type of people you DO want are nature-lovers. They come to be in the wilderness and because they love it so much, they don’t want it to change. Although those really strict and passionate environmentalists are a little too earnest for me. They don’t bring any bag snacks with them – it’s all pea pods and hummus in their backpacks, which stinks!

Give me Fritos any day.

And the type of people who will give me my Fritos are the very best kind of people in the whole world, and they’re especially wonderful when they come to the woods – children!

Children love to eat terrible food – the best kind of food there is! And they’re really sloppy. There is no better camping human than a child, unless it’s a child who really, really does NOT want to be in the woods in the first place. Unhappy campers are the best because they’re so dramatic! Many of them become so upset they don’t eat anything – mom and dad send a plate of brownies and they just throw it into the woods out of spite!

And that’s at least one scenario where I say “spite makes right!”

So I would recommend that all adult humans consider doing something special for the major wildlife groups of the north woods this year – please Force a Kid to Go To Camp!

Why, you ask?

It’s true some child development experts say you shouldn’t force a child to do anything major like this, but I have to disagree. Forcing a Kid To Go To Camp is one of the best and most memorable things you can do as a parent. You’ll always remember it, for one thing. And it helps you develop your shouting voice, for another thing. And also it can transform you into a whole, complete person in a number of important ways.

  • Independence – You feel a lot more independent because your kid has gone to camp and is out of your hair, and it’s summer!
  • Confidence – It’s a great boost to your self esteem when you realize you can make your child do something she doesn’t want to do, especially after that epic battle over the dishes!
  • Relationships – You’ll find you make friends quickly when you can tell other parents how awful it was when you tried to force your child to go to camp. They know just what you’re talking about, and once you share your story somebody is bound to open a bottle of wine. Especially if the kids are away at camp!

So camp is great for everyone, but it’s especially great for us bears when you send kids who are going under protest. So if you haven’t seriously considered it, please take another look and then pack a small suitcase and a big sack of junk food and put them on a bus or in a church van or something and send them up north!

We’re waiting with open mouths!

Your pal,
Bart

What makes you an unhappy camper?

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Lonely City Seeks Mappiness

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Today’s post comes from living and loving correspondent B. Marty Barry.

First, a word of assurance to all the people out there – although I’ve never met you, I do care about each and every one of you very, very much.

That’s why I can sense a problem – namely that some people are feeling really delighted and emotionally validated by the decision yesterday from NFL owners to send the Super Bowl to Minneapolis in 2018. Of course it makes me happy to see people happy and it’s always wonderful to feel good about yourself.

But I’m concerned that we have loaded too many eggs into our basket of civic self esteem.

Some people are saying this single event will make Minneapolis a world-class city that will finally be recognized as being “on the map” in the eyes of those who apparently don’t spend much time gazing at maps – otherwise they would have found us by now!

I seem to remember the very same result was promised in connection with the Super Bowl Minneapolis hosted in 1992 at the then-fabulous Metrodome. Didn’t that create a sufficient level of on-the-mapiness? Apparently not! The Metrodome is now a dirty hole in the ground and we’re still longing for someone (anyone) to award us that elusive “world-class” status.

Every day as part of my mission to bring happiness and self-sufficiency to distressed people, I hear these wounded souls talk about a burning hunger to see approval in the eyes of their fellow beings – especially the kind of approval that comes from others they have never met in far away places they have never seen.

It is because of this urge that I sit in a chair back behind my clients while they talk to me. I have found that not being visible to those I try to help makes me much smarter (in their eyes) and it raises the value of my favorable opinion by about 20 points.

To be so needy is very human, I think. But if I’m being completely honest, it’s also a little tiresome and somewhat pathetic. But I’m not thinking of anyone in particular when I say that, and of course I’m not here to judge. It’s just that I don’t understand why we are suddenly so giddy to have a Big Date with the NFL – an organization that counts its conquests in Roman numerals (XLVIII so far) and readily admits to having “franchisees” in 26 cities around the country! Franchisees! How cold! And yes, we’ll be in the spotlight on February 4th, 2018, but so what? What happens next?

I’ll tell you! The very next year that same significant occasion will be held at some other franchisee’s place and we will be forgotten!

Yes, it’s nice to be chosen. Our date will leave lots of money here, but we will also spend a pretty penny on new infrastructure – primping and improving and getting ourselves ready. Maybe too much? Time will tell, but already I can see that we are quite eager to please!

Let’s re-visit this next time. Until then, why don’t you set aside a morning and spend it locating yourself on as many maps as you can find! The more often you hear yourself say “I’m already there,” the healthier your perspective will be when it comes time for the Big Date.

Whose opinion matters?

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Ice Out!

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Today’s post comes from Congressman Loomis Beechly, representing Minnesota’s 9th District – all the water surface area in the state.

Greetings 9th Districters!

Finally, we are in the season when things in the fabled 9th have literally become more fluid as the ice has been declared “out” over almost the entire district, give or take a few of the far, far northern lakes where pond hockey continues almost to the 4th of July.

This relative warmth relaxes and releases things.

As your elected representative I have been frozen, just like you, through most of the winter. I see that I have only produced three formal press statements since last November!

Critics say this has to do with my management style – namely that my staff hates working for me and they’re frustrated over constantly shifting positions and policy decisions. But I prefer to think of my office as a high-expectations environment where my demanding standards can surprise some under-prepared and off-balance assistants.

Yes, there is a lot of turnover in my office. But that creates opportunity for fresh-faced young people to learn first-hand how disheartening the world of work can really be! So if you know any youth who need such a lesson, have them contact me ASAP, since I’m doing pretty much everything on my own right now!

I’m not complaining. As many highly driven, financially successful business leaders like Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling will tell you, spare-time pursuits like self-reflection and second-thoughting are highly overrated. If you have something to say, why not just get it out there, unfiltered?

Accordingly, here’s the big news – with the softening terrain there will be an influx of visitors from exotic distant locales like Chicago and Denver. And with them come jobs! It would be wrong for me to take personal credit for the seasonal uptick in employment, but job numbers are looking better nationwide, as long as you don’t look at the other numbers that aren’t as encouraging.

That’s welcome news that might not have happened if there was a different person representing you in Washington. How so? Previous staffers have discouraged me from “going public” with this line of reasoning, but my logic has been upheld in literally dozens of time-travel scenarios. Changing one historic detail puts everything else in flux, so consider these items linked – I am in office and tourist dollars are on the way. End of story!

And with those visitors comes an increase in work all across the 9th district to guide, feed, lodge, entertain and clean up after our guests! And by “we”, I mean “you”, since I don’t deal personally with tourists even though I am a people person! Most of the people I schmooze are funders and power brokers – folks just like me who happen to have things that I need, like money or a vote. So of course I love them and we get along famously!

Ordinary tourists are more like demanding constituents who have many urgent needs and not a lot to offer in exchange. I realize that may not sound so good, so disregard it if you’re starting to feel mad. We’re a little short staffed right now, and having to handle your tirade will not make things any easier down at the office.

Besides, I could use the relief. It’s spring!

That’s all for now. God Bless America and so forth!

Your Congressman,
Loomis Beechly

Does it help things to speak freely?

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The Not So Lazy Days of Summer

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Today’s post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden.

Hey Mr. C.,

Even though school is almost over for this year, the work never ends for us kids!

That’s right, it’s summer job time again, which means me and my friends have to sweat bullets to come up with a fresh list of reasons for why we don’t have summer jobs!

This is good practice because it helps build up a life skill – deflecting unwanted questions.  And that’s tougher now than it was in the olden times, like two years ago. Back then all you had to say was “tough economy” and everybody was like, “Well, yeah!”. But now you say “tough economy” and they say “I heard it was getting better”.

And maybe it is, but not for teenagers!

People always think we can go get work in some fast food place, like there are suddenly thousands of open jobs as soon as school lets out because teenagers are hanging around all day to eat more and more fast food in the summer. But we don’t eat more fast food because we don’t have any money because we don’t have jobs. And if the fast food joints hired us so we could have money, then we could buy the food but we wouldn’t because we can already eat the spillage and wrong orders and leftovers behind the counter during our shifts!

Economics sure gets complicated!

The only other people who would have more time to go to a burger joint between June and September are the teachers, but when they place an order with a kid behind the counter who is also one of their students, the teachers kinda expect to get their fries upsized for free. And the kids do it because who knows if that teacher is the one who will hold your whole future in her hand when she decides whether you got a “B” or a “C” on that essay?

That takes a real mental toll, trying to decide if it’s ethical to bribe a teacher with french fries. It’s almost as taxing as writing and rehearsing that no-job excuse.

Speaking of which, here are some of the best ones I’ve heard so far:

  • I’m going to summer school to (catch up on / get ahead of) my regular classroom work.
  • I’m doing super-honorable extracurricular volunteer stuff to pad my college application and make me seem like I’m a much better person than I am.
  • I’ve taken an unpaid internship so I can get experience being overworked and under appreciated.

People tell me that last one will really prepare me for life in the adult world, but they’re all good excuses. One bad thing, though. They all require extra explaining because adults will pepper you with questions like: Where are you going to summer school? What are you studying? Where do you volunteer? What colleges are you going to apply for? Where is the internship? How awful is that boss? Etc, etc, etc.

More work for us, because making up things is hard, especially when the stories have to be believable.

So whenever you see a report that says American teens don’t want to work, you should ask us what we’re doing with our time this summer. You’ll see us working pretty darn hard to deflect that question!

Your pal,
Bubby

I told Bubby that I agree – using your brain to be coy can be great practice for life in the real world. Unfortunately, the only field I know of where you can get paid specifically to deflect questions is politics.

How do you answer the uncomfortable question?

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Ask Dr. Babooner

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Dear Dr. Babooner,

Almost 20 years ago I had a prolonged fling with a powerful married man. I was silly and he was foolish and it got into the press (because he was kind of important) and it almost cost him his job. But he survived the scandal and is still taken seriously today.

I, however, was mocked and scorned and I lost all the jobs that I might have had – ever. The only real employment I could get from that moment on was in the global punchline industry. As the unpaid butt of a billion jokes, I heard my name mentioned everywhere as I saw my once-promising future become bimbo-ized. So rather than hide and weep I went on TV to talk about it with Barbara Walters and sat for interviews so someone could write a book on the whole incident from my point of view.

Then I tried to make handbags for a living and when that didn’t work out, I hosted a reality show but people were only interested in the much more dramatic reality show I had lived through. So I didn’t say much for a long time, hoping it would all blow over. But now I’m back and guess what? Nothing has changed! People are acting like I’ve never talked about it at all and that I’ve been in hiding all this time, even though I’ve been desperately trying to get attention for something (anything!) else.

In spite of it all, I’m still ‘that girl’ even though I’m 40 years old!

I can see clearly now how things will go unless I’m somehow able to re-write the end of my story. But how can I do that? Should I change my name? Should I do a total makeover and move to Madagascar? But disappearing won’t do anything to salvage my name, and of course politics is completely out of the question.

Please, Dr. Babooner, point me in a direction that will head me out of this eternal dead-end!

Sincerely,
Saucy Beret

I told Saucy Beret she is completely out of luck if she hopes to write this “shameful episode” out of her someday obituary, because as a somewhat famous person her obituary is already partly written and it’s in there for keeps! Her only hope is to minimize the dalliance with an outsized, separate accomplishment of some significant sort. I recommend finding a cure for cancer, which would not only give her something to talk about besides her youthful indiscretions, it would also tangentially benefit a few other people she’s never even met!

Short of that, her only option is to grin and bear it.

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

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A Brief Pressing

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Today’s post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden.

Hey Mr. C.,

I thought it was pretty cool the other day when that kid from New York who got accepted into all eight Ivy League colleges held a press conference at his school to announce that he had chosen Yale.

That’s a pretty awesome decision.

I don’t mean the decision about going to Yale. Ho hum to that. I mean deciding to have a PRESS CONFERENCE at your SCHOOL!  And one that real reporters would actually come to!

Amazing!

It got us talking in 5th hour Life Skills about what it takes to get attention from journalists and how each of us would handle the pressure if we knew we had to face the press.

Mr. Boozenporn said the key is to know your message and state it clearly. And take only a few questions – the minimum needed to give the impression that you care about what the press wants to know, which of course you DON’T.

You want to make them think you’re being open, you hope they swallow your bull, and then you go home.

Then he assigned us to write a two sentence opening statement for a press conference that could be about anything we want – world issues, personal statements, the weather, etc. And to make it as much like the real thing as possible, we had to get up and read our statement while a guy from the A/V department set off strobe lights and then our classmates got to shout angry questions at us for one minute.  

It was pretty cool.

Here are some of the statements kids came up with.

“I called you all here to confess that the rumors are true. I have been rejected by all eight Ivy League schools and have decided to attend Hamburger U. in the fall.”

“After an in-depth review of electronic records, I have decided I am going to un-friend Derek for the fifth, and final, time. If he tells you we are still ‘friends’, you will know he is a liar, which is something I have known all along but I have only recently decided to believe 24/7, rather than only every once in a while.”

“I have called the world’s press together to announce that I, too, have decided to put a ring in my nose, because piercing is our generation’s way of expression our unique individuality. And besides, everyone’s doing it.”

I’m surprised at how nervous I got when it came time for me to make my statement. But I swallowed hard, got up there, looked into the lights and said this:

“I called this press conference today to publicly challenge Alicia Erickson to a date, at a time and place yet to be determined, and under the rules of the Geneva Convention. I will name a delegation to negotiate the details with her representatives during tomorrow’s second hour study hall, where I have spent the last eight months staring at the back of her head, wishing she would turn around and speak to me.”

Well you can imagine that I got a lot of questions after that about what makes me think somebody as cool as Alicia would go out with me (nothing) and what do the Geneva Conventions have to do with dating (lots), but I said as little as possible and then sat down.

When Alicia got up and gave her press statement ten minutes later it was about pesticides, so I was happy she didn’t include anything about my date challenge in that. But she did look at me a couple of times and she might have smiled once, so I’m feeling pretty hopeful about it.

Your Pal,
Bubby

What is your two-line opening statement?

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Bad Advice

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We are ALL Dr. Babooner.

Dear Dr. Babooner,

I was giving my girlfriend some advice the other day about who she shouldn’t be seen with, based on a companion-complexion social yardstick I came up with for no particular reason. It was just a bit of harmless counseling delivered by an elderly fellow to a younger person.

That’s what we 80 year old tycoons do with our 30-something girlfriends. We tell them how to live, because that’s what attracts them to us – our wisdom.

So I simply told her to think about how things look to other people, and I only did it because I’m so sensitive to appearances. Yes, I fancy myself kind of a public relations expert!

What I should have told her was “Don’t record this!”

Now the tape of my comments has been shared far and wide and people are saying I’m scum. And newspapers and websites are publishing unflattering photos of me, especially that one with my hands folded over my belly.

I admit that I’m surprised. I thought I was still hot! Really!

And I guess that’s just another one of the bizarre thoughts rolling around in my head that is apparently not true!

So now people I’ve known for years have banished me.

I’m an outcast and they won’t return my calls! Which is kind of an ironic result to come out of my who-to-be-seen-with advice.

Dr. Babooner, it feels like my brain is stuffed with ideas that just get me into trouble when I let them out. Plus, I now have no friends, no business associates, and no girlfriend to live within the inexplicable boundaries I feel compelled to enforce!

How can I make everything right?

Dizzily,
Done Don

I told Triple D that it is simply not possible to make “everything” right. Making “anything” right might be a stretch at this point. But offering sincere apologies and examining your attitudes is a good place to start.

And going forward, it is better not to worry about who other people associate with, unless you are a parent and the person in question is your son or daughter. And if the person in question is young enough to be your granddaughter, but isn’t, don’t let that confuse you. Truly, it’s none of your concern.

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

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Fortune Hunters

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Today’s post comes from Captain Billy, Skipper of the Pirate Ship “Muskellunge.”

Ahoy!

Me an’ me boys was enjoyin’ a pleasant mornin’ readin’ th’ Sunday New York Times out loud to one another on th’ poop deck when we was thunderstruck by this story claimin’ that Russian President Vladimir Putin has vast amounts of hidden wealth!

Accordin’ to th’ account, U.S. officials did a very unusual thing, leavin’ a broad hint that they knows th’ whereabouts of Putin’s gold – that he stashed it in a commodities tradin’ company called the Gunvor Group.

“… buried in the Treasury Department announcement were a dozen words that President Obama and his team knew would not escape the attention of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin. “Putin,” the statement said, “has investments in Gunvor and may have access to Gunvor funds.”

When me an’ the boys read this, we realized right away what them Obama administration investigators was up to. It was th’ “Red Weasel” scenario.

See, we once had this pirate on th’ Muskellunge who we called th’ “Red Weasel” on account of the fact he had these little tiny rodent-like eyes an’ was painfully affected by th’ merciless sun. An’ th’ boys got this notion in their heads that th’ Red Weasel was skimmin’ wealth off’n the top of our plunderin’ an’ pillagin’ an’ stashin’ his ill-gotten gains in a trunk what was secreted away in a dark corner of th’ hold, far below decks.

So they let it be known far an’ wide that they was suspicious! Far an’ wide enough t’ be certain the Weasel would find out! An’ in the rumors that was spread, generous details was offered about th’ Red Weasel’s fortune bein’ inside said trunk hidden in aforementioned hold. Then the boys stationed lookouts an’ waited, an’ sure enough before long th’ Weasel came creepin’ down t’ th’ hold t’ be sure his riches was safe!

Needless t’ say, th’ Red Weasel was keelhauled an’ flummoxed an’ de-pantsed and subjected t’ every indignity we could imagine, before he was tossed overboard an’ forgotten about until now!

Lesson: Makin’ a cheater think you knows th’ location of his gold is a time-honored way t’ get him t’ lead you t’ his gold!

So hats off t’ th’ Obama Administration fer tryin’ this traditional ruse.

An’ also a head slap – what are ya thinkin? Nobody in his right mind would fall fer such a traditional ruse! You’ll have t’ up yer game if’n ya thinks this Vlad is gonna take yer bait.

Of course another option would be t’ hire consultants from th’ pillagin’ an’ plunderin’ industries t’ help ya chase down Putin’s treasure. Either oil company executives or pirates would be fine, though them oil company fellas has busier schedules than me an’ th’ boys, who is available on a moment’s notice.

I’m just sayin’, that’s all.

Yer piratical pal,
Capt’n Billy.

How are you at hide and seek?

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A Punishing Defeat

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Today’s post comes from Wendell Wilkie High School’s perennial sophomore, Bubby Spamden.

Hey, Mr. C.,

Thought I’d better tell you how it all went down in the big debate in Mr. Boozenporn’s class yesterday. Me and Alicia Erickson went toe-to-toe in what will probably be our only-ever thing that we do together, arguing about whether there should be a maximum wage to go along with the minimum wage that got signed into law by the Governor yesterday.

I could tell I was in trouble from the start. Alicia had two big loose-leaf binders on her desk crammed full of papers and there were three of her brainiac friends sitting right behind her, just glaring at me. People had been saying on Facebook that she spent the whole weekend cramming factoids and statistics into her memory – stuff she found in macro-economics and labor relations textbooks that she got from her parents, who are both trial lawyers.

And I think her mom is also a ninja.

It made me kind of sorry that I spent all my research time on Sunday looking into the history of the word Woot!, but it was too late to kick myself over that. I had to go first and make my best argument for the maximum wage, so I launched into my speech that I wrote on the bus this morning and I have to say that I think it was pretty good.

I said a bunch of words about how some people are so good at economic stuff they manage to get a whole lot more than they need. Which is fine, I said, until it gets ridiculous and they have so much they can’t even think how to spend it.

And then I threw in a quote from “Grapes of Wrath”, that I caught Lester Wells saying out loud in the seat next to me on the bus. He was supposed to hand in a book report today in Ms. Hecubensen’s English class, which he had all written except he needed to add something to make it sound like he had really read the whole thing rather than just looking at parts of it online.

And it just so happened it really lined up with my project too:

“If he needs a million acres to make him feel rich, seems to me he needs it ’cause he feels awful poor inside hisself, and if he’s poor in hisself, there ain’t no million acres gonna make him feel rich, an’ maybe he’s disappointed that nothin’ he can do ‘ll make him feel rich.”

Which set me up for my big idea – capping personal income at 10 million dollars a year and then giving individual over-earners the WOOT! title – Wealthy Oligarch Opportunity Titan! Kinda like getting a knighthood, except it has the extra responsibility of using your money smarts to lift up other people.

Some of the kids in the class answered with “Woot, woot, woot” and every time I said it after that more of them joined in until Mr. Boozenporn told them they had to stop. But that was a cool feeling. Like I was winning them over!

So then Alicia gets up and I figure she’s going to come at me with studies and numbers and probably the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, both.

But instead, she says …

“My whole case comes down to gold and silver, two things the super-rich covet and collect. I’d like to see a show of hands. Who thinks there should be a maximum wage law to limit the income of those greedy super-rich people?”

Just about every hand in the room goes up. I’m feeling pretty good.

“And who thinks there should be a law to limit how much YOU can make?”

Nothing. It was the raised-hand equivalent of crickets chirping.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” she says, “And do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you.” “The golden rule and the silver rule. You can look it up.”

Then she sits down. And everybody says WOOT! Game over!

So I felt bad for a while but a bunch of people told me that I did better than they expected me to and they didn’t really disagree with me, they just weren’t ready to totally give up the idea of being super-duper rich someday themselves.

“But as soon as my hope dies,” said Jennifer Goff, “I’m on your side.”

That’s what friends are for!

Your pal,
Bubby

Do you follow the rules?

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Distracted By WOOT!

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Today’s post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden of Wendell Wilkie High School.

Hey Mr. C.,

So I spent all weekend thinking about my upcoming showdown with Alicia Erickson in Mr. Boozenporn’s class. Our debate about the Maximum Wage is going to be epic! Like I said I’m pretty sure she’ll destroy me but at least I’ll have her attention for almost fifty minutes, which was all I really wanted to do in the first place, so no matter what happens, I win! Woot!

But I’m still a little scared.

I was going to do lots of research on the huge differences between the top earners and the bottom earners and all that, but once I got online I got distracted by Facebook messages from people at school who were kinda taunting me and telling me I was going to do a face plant in the debate and it was gonna be an awesome debacle and woot! woot! and all the stuff that people say when they’re spouting off. Which got me to wondering what woot! means.

So instead of looking at wage statistics I spent a couple of hours researching WOOT. I found out that there are a bunch of different stories. Some say it started out as an acronym for “We Owned (the) Other Team” or “Want One Of Those”, but thanks to over-usage WOOT doesn’t really mean much of anything anymore other than Yay!

Once I got that figured out, I was ready to start on the debate research but then my mom came in and said I had to help her clean out the garden and the flowerbeds so new stuff could grow. I told her I had homework but she never lets me skip chores, so I lost the whole afternoon to doing stuff outside.

But this won’t surprise you – while I was out there, I kept thinking about Alicia Erickson. Especially where she said my idea of setting a maximum wage was stupid because it would discourage job creators and drain away their “urge to achieve.”

Even though I was raking wet leaves and using sharp clippers to trim away dead plants, my eyes kept seeing Alicia’s lips forming those words – “urge to achieve.” Good thing I didn’t cut off any fingers! But after a couple of hours of that, I feel like I’m kind of an expert on urges.

I decided that Alicia might like my maximum wage plan more if there was something in it to let the super-rich still feel special. It would have to have some way for them to keep competing with the other super-rich people besides just piling up money.

And that’s when I remembered WOOT!

So here’s the plan: Once you get to a point where you earn ten million dollars a year, you can’t earn anymore for yourself but you become a WOOT, or an Wealthy Oligarch Opportunity Titan!

Doesn’t that sound cool? It would be an all-capitals title that you’d put at the end of your name, like this – Warren Buffett, WOOT! The exclamation point would be part of it! By law!

I put the word “Titan” in there so they’d feel like superheroes, and the word “Opportunity” so they’d get the hint – everybody who reaches WOOT! status would compete with the other WOOT!s to do good works, like creating opportunities for other people.

Exactly what or how, I don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far on the details yet because we left so much stuff sitting in the garden at the end of last year and it took me all afternoon to clear it out.

But I think this is a pretty good start. It’ll be a lot more impressive than a bunch of dumb old statistics. And I’m sure I’ll think up even more details to add to it while I’m debating Alicia. I just have to remember to keep my mind clear, and not to look directly into her eyes or I might forget everything that’s in my brain.

Wish me luck. WOOT!

Your pal,
Bubby

Of course I wished Bubby luck but I have to admit I’m worried. Doing some real research might have been more helpful than coming up with a new meaning for WOOT!

If you could add an impressive title to your name, what would it be?