Truthiness

I'll be the first person to admit, I'm a black belt word nerd. I love to see how people use them and misuse them. The other day, I was at a bookstore reading cover copy when I spotted this gem: "he would rather pay attention to blah blah blah (I can't remember exactly) than to his elegant balls." Of course, that made me wonder what elegant balls look like. Are they well-groomed and dressed for the occaision? Do they prefer a certain cologne? And exactly how elegant are his balls? What's the standard on judging this type of thing? I mean, it would have to be really subjective, right? One man's elegant balls may be another's neo-conservative balls. Then I realized that we weren't talking about testicles, but galas, fetes, that kind of thing. Well, that's just false advertising now isn't it?

Another case of false advertising came up at our Super Bowl party. I don't really follow sports so my friends were curious what team I'd root for. I didn't know anything about the Giants and Patriots but I told them that I would root for the Patriots. After the boos and hisses died down, I was asked why. I said the Giants were liars. It's fraud really, to claim they are giants when none of them are as big as Hagrid (and technically, he's only half-giant). If you're going to claim to be Giants - you should be a lot taller - I think. But that's only me. Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

That's probably why I'm back to eating real butter. I got so confused with the names they use on margarine these days. For example, "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter." So we're supposed to take someone's word for it that this crap tastes just like butter, but obviously according to the title isn't? And why is this person anonymous? Wouldn't it make sense to say if it's Oprah, that Oprah Can't Believe It's Not Butter? Which leaves me to believe that it's not Oprah, but some guy's second cousin who lives in his parent's basement - and he wasn't credible enough to proclaim that he thought it tasted just like butter - even though it isn't - so they just left it up to our imagination - and this is what someone like me comes up with. How screwed up is that?

I used to eat Shedd's Spread. But what the hell is that? Sure, they finally gave us a surname to pin it on, but I don't know of anyone famous named Shedd - unless it's the guy from Shedd Aquarium. Or maybe it's something they spread in a shedd. Okay, what do you find in a shedd? Tools? Chickens? Potting soil? Why would I want to eat something you spread on that? And the word "spread" doesn't even remotely imply any buttery goodness.

These are the thoughts that stream randomly through my brain as I begin to plot out the next book in the Bombay Series. And you just thought the books were strange...

The Assassin