The No Cheating Chip

It's late at night. i slip into the pantry for a little salty snack. i am the only one awake......until i go for the Sun Chips.

This new compostable chip bag, " louder because it is compostable," makes the most gratingly annoying crumply noise i have ever heard.

If you are on a diet, have little or no willpower, yet have asked others (and really meant it) to help you stick to it...let the Sun Chip be your default cheat.
By merely picking the bag up, you will sound off the "I'm breaking my diet" alarm and your saviors will come running.

Selective Attention

When I took this picture a year ago in Waynesville, NC I was taken with the pick up truck and acid green colonial den decorations. Now when i look at this picture, I am distracted by the price of gas and then somewhat irked.

Virginia Revisited

I have met few girls named Virginia. And I have not interviewed a one. However, I have a certain feeling that sometime in the pre-teen/teenage years, girls named "Virginia" are stalked by snickering hormonal name tweakers who alter the spelling in a way that causes embarassment for the Virginias of the world.

VIRGINIA........VAGINA........VIRGIN

Several years ago, I was privy to an unexpected twist on this oh-so-hilarious word play. I was at the gynecologist for my yearly exam, looking swell in a dressing gown and stirrups. The doctor walked in. After a morsel of small talk, he got down to business. Then his cell phone rang.

"Can't talk now," he said. "I'm in Virginia."

Old Ads/New Meanings

I pick and arrange things for a living. I choose words, furnishings, and pictures and put them together in an attractive, inspirational, and sometimes button-pushing kind of way.
Since it is what I love to do, I tend to automatically hone my skills at editing and composing even when I'm not working. Last night, for example, I was thumbing through a few vintage magazines and books, and came upon this ad for the State of Virginia.


By blacking out a few words and letters, I gave an entirely different meaning to the headline.


I have always found yesteryear's advertising lingo to be particularly inspiring for good old-fashioned wordplay. I once ripped out a page from a 1960's Sears catalog. It pictured a teenage boy wearing sports-logoed pajamas. His hair was puffy and his smile overdone. The banner at the top read, "FLAME RETARDANT." I blacked out the "F" and the "ant."

Here's another ad with some room for play. What do you see?