Sunday, February 18, 2007

Winged Things...

Peanut butter anyone?

The recent recall by ConAgra of it's Great Value and Peter Pan peanut butter has literally given wings to the tons of jars sitting on store shelves and in pantries. Nearly 300 cases of Salmonella Tennessee poisoning has occured in over 29 states - fortunately, no is such a glutton for the stuff that it has caused death. While shopping yesterday I noticed very few jars of peanut butter were left on the shelf at our local Super Walmart, of these only the organic brands remained.

We had our own container of the Great Value brand sitting in our refrigerator, half gone and without anyone in the family being even mildly affected from having partaken in what is a staple in many American households. Due to an infestation of ants that had zeroed in on this particular jars predecessor, we relocated storage of it to the refrigerator to not tempt the pests further. Is it possible, we missed the bullet because of the recalled jar being refrigerated?

Theater goers need flashlights.

My youngest son and I got more entertainment yesterday from a couple of our fellow movie goers, than we did from the movie itself. Well, almost anyhow. We happened to be seated on the end of a row that had two wheelchair spaces in the row in front of us. I was looking forward to watching the movie with legs outstretched and not having to crane to look around a head in front of me. Just as the movie began a woman hurried in front of us looking for a seat and almost found the floor instead. (This is a prime example as to why people should come early to any event). She had ducked down and had her hand extended out (obviously blinded by the darkened theater light) feeling for an arm rest of a seat to ease herself into. Disorientation must have set in because she almost turned a complete 360 degrees trying to "find" the seat that wasn't there. As she groped her way down the aisle (to a third seat position) muttering "where is the seat" and "I wish I could see" I reached forward and grabbed her outstretched arm to guide her to the seat. With a "thank you" she grasped onto the end armrest and turned to seat herself in the empty wheelchair spot! Pushing on her back I said, "No! There's no seat there, move down." Having propelled her into the seat, my son and I sat back to watch the movie.

Within three minutes a man (evidently this womans companion) hurriedly turned into the row. To my dismay, he was even more disoriented than his date. How he ever found her in the darkened theater, is beyond me. He began kicking a knee out trying to find the seat (which wasn't there), while wildly waving his arms around. My son and I had both sat up straight and were guarding our toes as he attempted to negotiate the two seatless spaces in the row. He must have felt the pressure to sit (so as to not upset those behind him) as much as the woman had because the moment he found the armrest that the woman had settled in (which was the outmost seat) he turned to sit on the floor. I guess I was taken up in watching the show-within-the-show, as I didn't move as fast to direct him as I had her and while I was thinking surely she would guide him in, he started to sit on air! This time my aim was off, it wasn't an arm or his back I grabbed as he had lowered himself. My only chance of helping him was a scooping of my hand to lift his butt off the floor. Hissing at him, "No! There's no seat there!" with my hand on his ass, he rocketed (Peter Pan style) straight up in the air landing nearly on the guy sitting in front of him.

My son (who is nearly 16) was snorting and nearly rolling on the floor. "Mom! You grabbed that guys butt!" he snickered. The people behind us began laughing. The woman (was she po'd at him for some reason or just thoughtless?) moved down a space and the guy (no thanks came from him) found the seat she had vacated and quickly sat down. He sat bolt upright, never once moving during the show. He never looked left or right or behind him during the movie to sneak a peak at who had grabbed his backside. But if you were a guy and had someone grab your ass in a darkened movie would you? My son had his thoughts on that idea and gleefully recounted the incident (Mom grabbing a guys butt) with his own theories on the way home. Theory number one: the guy was afraid his date/wife/whatever would be po'd he got groped. Theory number two: the guy was afraid it was another guy. There were more...

(Sigh)..., it was a long drive home.

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posted by Is It Just Me? at 6:05 AM