Today’s post comes from America’s leading discourager of reckless behavior and most varieties of fun, Bathtub Safety Officer Rafferty.

At ease, civilians!

I know I don’t need to repeat that you are safest from harm when you are relaxed and attentive. So get enough sleep, don’t drink to excess, and don’t do things that stick a finger in the eye of gravity or make you, or other people, tense.

That’s why I’m sorely disappointed in William Carey University cheerleader Ashlee Arnau, whose flipping-and-basketball-throwing performance has gone viral on Youtube.

I’ll show it to you, but only if you promise you will never, ever do this yourself.

Ashley told the AP she “really doesn’t practice”, but she has been working on it during half time at home games and this try was the fifth of the night at the last game of the year. In other words, the last possible attempt for this season – imagine the pressure!

This sets a very alarming example for all of America’s flippable youth. Not only was she turning herself upside down without wearing a helmet, but she threw a heavy basketball at high velocity towards a distant target she couldn’t see very well. What if a baby climbed up there on a ladder at the very last minute? Or a frail old grandma?

Unlikely, I know. But what if?

And Ashlee is not alone in this obsession. Once you start to look around online, you’ll find dozens of videos where people are doing handsprings and launching spheres into the air. And then there are these guys, taking trick shots with basketballs around the outsides of airplanes. I know there’s something terribly dangerous and ill-advised about all of this, even if I can’t tell you what, exactly.

There’s additional danger on the way! I know this to be true – People who earn a small bit of fame making trick shots in Youtube videos will be called on to try those shots again and again and again. In the process of reaching for another taste of glory, they will face disappointment and may forget to become doctors, lawyers, mathematicians, artists, or even baristas. You can try your whole life to make the impossible shot a second time – and even if you do, so what? You already did that.

And during each of those fruitless attempts, they will repeatedly violate two of my most important safety rules:

1) Keep your feet on the ground, and
2) Don’t throw things.

So I’m imploring Ashlee Arnau and all who would mimic her, please … stop now while you’re ahead. Don’t ever try that again!

Yours in Safety,
B.S.O. Rafferty

It’s hard to argue with the reasoning here but I think Bathtub Safety Officer Rafferty is just a little bit jealous. Having Youtube Trick Shot Fame would be incredibly satisfying – but once you know that your amazing feat is being replayed all over the world pretty much endlessly, it would naturally lead a person to wonder – what next?

Describe something you did successfully – just once.

There was an unexpected hiccup on the Trail Baboon blog luxury cruise today as I headed off on Saturday morning errands confident that I had arranged everything to post perfectly without further attention or involvement from me. This was the first time in 19 months of this journey that I had proceeded with such reckless faith in technology and human attention-to-detail.

It should come as no surprise that one of the aforementioned elements suffered a catastrophic letdown, and our Trail Baboon Industries failsafe systems failed to catch the failure for 10 long hours. The blog drifted aimlessly, at the mercy of digital weather and electronic tides.

As a result, un-engaged internet eyeballs were left to accumulate on an already-perused page. It was the Trail Baboon equivalent of eating nothing but Saltines and wall paste. Hours of quality baboon attention piled up and then spilled over into other, possibly less savory areas of the Internet.

Who knows where people wound up? I’m concerned, because it is very dangerous out there.

Today’s planned post, an entertaining and thoughtful guest blog by Sherrilee, will be held because it deserves to receive your full attention on Monday morning.

In the meantime, describe a time when your mistake went undetected for too long, resulting in a much larger mess to clean up.

Today’s post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden

Hey Mr. C.,

I don’t know how everybody else feels, but I sure don’t like Valentine’s Day. It’s nothing but a big chance to do the wrong thing. When I try to say words of love I get all tongue tied and clumsy and it never sounds right.

So this year I had this cool idea that I would try to tell my girlfriend something romantic in French, instead. Just like this old dead guy Maurice Chevalier did when he put on his straw hat and did a bunch of singing and dancing in the movies. I’ll bet you’ve heard of him because you’re about that old too – just short of the dead part, I’m guessing.

So anyway I found this video on You Tube where he sings some kind of Valentine song.

I know that because it’s called “Valentine”.

It has, like, a whole minute of warm-up music too, which my friend Willy says girls like because then you’re not jumping directly to the mushy stuff – you’re showing you have patience and class. And when you’re doing a performance with a warm-up it gives them a chance to compose themselves so they can pretend to be impressed.

So last night I was over at her house and we were studying for a school assignment and I said “I have a Valentine’s present for you”, and I played the video for her, and did this really cool (to me) dance that was not at all weird (to me) while I lip-synched the words to the song as best I could (like Beyonce).

Did I mention that my girlfriend speaks French really “bon”?

Well she does. I mean she did. She still does speak it, I mean. French. And she also did when she was my girlfriend, which was yesterday but I don’t think she is today, anymore. My girlfriend, that is. Because it didn’t go over very well. At all.

I’m not sure if there was something wrong with my dance, or the words. Since I was only lip-synching, I’d like to think it was Maurice Chevalier’s fault. But it might be that my girlfriend doesn’t understand the language as well as I think she does, and she mis-heard it. I really don’t know, and might never find out. So I decided to look up the words to the song, especially that catchy part with all the cute rhyming sounds.

Here’s how it looks in French:

Elle avait des tout petits petons, Valentine, Valentine
Elle avait des tout petits tétons
Que je tâtais à tâtons, Ton ton tontaine
Elle avait un tout petit menton, Valentine, Valentine
Outre ses petits petons ses petits tétons son petit menton
Elle était frisée comme un mouton

So then I had it translated by one of those automatic online translator engines, and here’s what came out:

It had very young tiny feet, Valentine, Valentine
It had very young nipples
That I touched with touch, your tone tontine
It had a very small chin, Valentine, Valentine
In addition to its small tiny feet, its small nipples and its small chin
It was curly like a sheep.

Anyway, that’s when it became pretty clear that we were done studying. I guess even in French I’m kinda clumsy, romantic-wise. And what’s more, the studying that we were supposed to be doing didn’t get done, at least for me, because I kind of had a stomach ache when I got home.

Why is love so stressful?

Your confused friend,
Bubby

Today’s post comes from NASA’s Curiosity Rover.

I hate it when they do this.

“Rover, take a self portrait.”

So I extend my flexible arm and take a series of shots with the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI). Gad, do I hate acronyms! Call it a mirror, why don’t you? That’s what I’m doing – looking myself over, or letting them look me over. And it’s not even accurate! I position the arm so it’s out of the picture and then stitch the shots together so it appears the camera is floating above me.

Flattering? Hardly.

I’m a drab pile of bolts on a dried up, rocky beach at a resort no one has been to in a billion years. And I’m sorry, but my front wheel is not that big. Can’t we take this from an angle that emphasizes my sleekness – the economy with which I was assembled? There’s not an ounce of me that isn’t functional and critical to the mission, but “lean” is not the word that comes to mind when you look at this conglomeration. Anything but. With an emphasis on the butt. Get a load of that thing back there – it’s like a small town, complete with it’s own municipal water tower. Ghastly.

My best feature is my ivory coloring against the red backdrop, but would it hurt to have a little more dazzle in the package? Something that glitters? A bit of whimsy? And no, I’m not a fan of the markings they put all over me. Imagine waking up with tattoos you never agreed to – and they’re all so technical! Why can’t I have something cool, like a mermaid?

The other thing I hate about “mirror time” – it reminds me that I’m out here all alone on this bleak landscape, and I’m never, ever leaving this planet.

Sigh.

I’m perfectly fine if we never do this again. Let’s put this shot in the scrapbook and get back to drilling holes in stuff. Please?

CR

I’m sure it’s a miserable feeling for the Curiosity Rover when every glance in the mirror is a major disappointment. But what does he expect, a Ferrari? Trying to live by unrealistic and inappropriate beauty standards is a quick pathway to despair. The mirror doesn’t lie, but our expectations can mislead us.

What’s to be gained from looking in the mirror?