The benefits of house burping

ECHOES FROM THE LOAFERS’ CLUB MEETING

I was walking an Alaskan trail when I met a bear. All I had in my backpack was a can of fly spray, so I sprayed the bear.

 

What happened?

 

The bear flew away.

 

DRIVING BY BRUCE’S DRIVE

I have a wonderful neighbor named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me. The wind nearly took my nose off. I leaned into it so hard, I may never stand straight again.

People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. So that leaves those folks off the curling squad. Olympic curling stones are made of granite quarried on Ailsa Craig, an uninhabited volcanic island in Scotland's Firth of Clyde. Ailsa Craig translates to “fairy rock” in Gaelic. Curling stones must weigh between 38 and 44 pounds. On average, 42 pounds, equivalent to the weight of about 131 baseballs. A stone costs $960 and up. Sadly, a Minnesota curler's ingestion of performance-enhancing tater tot hotdish led to his disqualification.

 

Sloths don’t curl or watch curling. Costa Rica is a mecca for sloths like me. I spent time watching other sloths do a lot of little. Birds of a feather flock together. Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins, but the two kinds of sloths in Costa Rica, the two-toed and the three-toed, are nobody’s deadly sin. No sloth has ever medaled in the Olympics because they’re among the slowest-moving mammals in the world. On average, a sloth moves 41 yards per day.

Sloths are folivores, meaning they consume leaves, twigs and buds exclusively, and they have four-chambered stomachs similar to the digestive systems of ruminants such as domestic cattle. When it needs to, a sloth creeps down a tree, and once on the ground, it digs a hole, defecates in it, and covers it with leaf litter. Then, it’s a sluggish climb back up the tree. Sloths appear mottled green due to algae growing on their fur. They sleep in the trees and reportedly snooze 15-20 hours per day, but recent studies show they sleep only 8-10 hours. It’s believed sloths sleep so much because they can't get Netflix in the trees.

 

I’VE LEARNED

We never have normal weather.

 

"You like potayto, I like potahto; you like tomayto, I like tomahto; potayto, potahto, tomayto, tomahto, let's call the whole thing off!" I’ve never heard anyone call a spud a “potahto.”

 

House burping is a wellness trend involving opening doors and windows on opposite sides of a home for 5–10 minutes daily to flush out stale air, reduce humidity, and prevent mold/carbon dioxide buildup. The cross-breeze improves indoor air quality. House burping can also be achieved by allowing a group of young boys to drink as much root beer as they want.

 

We hear about people saving the best for last, but my wife, when given a box of assorted chocolates, saves the worst for last.

 

BAD JOKES DEPARTMENT

I went to my childhood home, knocked on the door, and asked the residents if I could come in and look around. They said, “No,” and slammed the door in my face. My parents are the worst.

 

Arguing over a Scrabble game is all fun and games until someone loses an i.

 

“Hey Siri, why am I so bad with names?”

 

"I'm Alexa, you idiot!"

 

NATURE NOTES

Fox and gray squirrels are scatter-hoarders. They hide food in many small caches scattered across the landscape. Fox squirrels are the largest tree squirrels native to North America and are calmer than the grays, which are more squirrelly. The agility and skittishness of a gray squirrel have given it the nickname “cat squirrel,” which I’ve heard it called in Texas. A UC Berkeley study published in the journal Royal Society of Open Science found that tree squirrels use a mnemonic technique called "spatial chunking" to sort and bury nuts by size, type and possibly by nutritional value and taste. It’s a meticulous preparation to survive a harsh winter. One squirrel can bury 3,000 to 10,000 nuts, and its tremendous spatial memory and excellent sense of smell allow it to retrieve 26 to 95% of the nuts it had squirreled away.

Central Connecticut State University research reported that an eastern gray squirrel engages in deceptive caching by digging a hole and pretending to drop a nut in it, before covering the hole. They do this covert action to fool other squirrels who might be watching. Both the owners and thieves move the caches. Squirrels listen to the sounds of birds like robins, jays and chickadees, and use them as alarms or all-clear signals.

 

MEETING ADJOURNED

“We are made kind by being kind.”—Eric Hoffer.