Echoes from the Loafers’ Club meeting:

“I have bad news and good news for you.”

“What’s the bad news?”

“It’s going to cost a lot more to fix your car than I told you.”

“What’s the good news?”

“I can’t fix it.”

Driving by the Bruces

I have two wonderful neighbors — both named Bruce — who live across the road from each other. Whenever I pass their driveways, thoughts occur to me, such as: I should clean my eyeglasses before I clean the windshield.

I’ve learned

The law of gravy gravity states that anything you drop on a table will fall into the gravy.

The Post Office could make a lot of money if they replaced the self-adhesive stamps with stamps, which require licking, that are laced with nicotine.

We may all be in the same boat, but not everyone is rowing.

The news from Hartland

Bread store’s inventory is toast after fire.

Hard-to-find CDs and DVDs store’s inventory isn’t filed in any order, alphabetical or otherwise.

Racehorse retires after contracting severe case of jockey itch.

To tell the tooth

I’ve been to the dentist before, so I know the drill. My dentist, who believes that my mouth is so big he could work from inside it, told me what needed to be done. It was a minor procedure, even though there is no minor procedure to a patient of any kind. He threw in a bunch of words he’d learned in vocabulary class at dental school. I knew they were toothy terms, but I asked him to put it into terms I could understand.

“$840,” he said.

I understood.

Reading the obituaries

I saw in the newspaper that a man I knew had died. The obituary section is filled with people I know. I knew him a little, liked him a lot. So I employed my cellphone to go to the funeral home website to leave a message of condolence. I typed out the message on the tiny keyboard and added my name. I checked the message to make sure there were no typos. I sent the message. It popped up on the screen of the funeral home website. I had misspelled my name. It was Al Bart. It read like it was a message from a bad guy on an old Roy Rogers show.

A handle on shopping

I found myself shopping in a big store. That’s not my natural habitat. I bought toilet paper. It came in a bale of 12 rolls. The cashier put a handle on the toilet paper for ease in carrying. That was nice. I also bought a box of Colorado peaches. I enjoy a Colorado peach. The box contained a plethora of peaches arranged in two layers. I didn’t get a handle with it.

Cafe chronicles

I stopped at a small-town cafe located in a fine city where three out of four people make up 75 percent of the population.

I’ve found that “How’s the corn?” is a good way to greet an older farmer in the summer. This precludes getting a detailed report of any medical procedures.

A fellow diner brought his appetite and the appetite belonging to several others. He wrapped his bacon in bacon.

Another consumer sat down with a grunt and a moan before saying, “Old age isn’t what it used to be.”

Did you know?

A metaphor is a figure of speech that transfers the sense or aspects of one thing to another. A simile is a type of metaphor in which the comparison is made with the use of the word “like” or “as.”

Hate-watching is a term for watching television shows that you don’t like, but get perverse satisfaction from.

The per capita automobile usage in the US is 820 miles per month.

Customer comments

Jan Jerdee of Albert Lea said that her grandmother made her lefse thin. If you could hold a round of lefse in your hand and not be able to see the lines of the palm, the lefse was too thick.

When I asked Neal Batt of Hartland when his house would be finished, he replied, “November or December, but I’m not sure of what year.”

Nature notes

Nancy Skophammer of Albert Lea asked for a recommendation for a bird book for a third grader. There are many, but I like “The Young Birder’s Guide to Birds of Eastern North America,” written by a good friend named Bill Thompson III. It was written especially for kids ages 8 and up, after consultation with children as to what they would like in a field guide.

Meeting adjourned

The next time you have nothing to do, be kind.