Tidbits from the Newspaper

The local paper's editors are so smart. Look at these nuggets:

Don't exercise too much too soon.
Don't worry. I am already fulfilling this advice.

Dine out for Father's Day.
HA! Like you had to tell me.

A few other bits I found interesting:

Though the high today will be 90, it will feel like 97. This perceived difference is called the heat index; it's the Floridian equivalent of what you up north call the wind chill factor. The Almanac tells me that today, the sun will damage my skin after I am outside for ten minutes. I will combat this effect with my number 50 SPF.

Someone's selling a size ten wedding gown. It's beautiful, she says, and never worn.

I see ads like that all the time--huge diamond rings going for a fraction of their value, "divorce" garage sales, infant car seats for sale. These items represent huge events or the passage of time in the lives of people I don't know. I linger on these ads, wondering about the stories behind them. It's weird being privy to what you think might have happened, yet quite intriguing.

Hmm. Time to get the notebook out.

6 comments:

Ello - Ellen Oh said...

I never look at those ads because I always find them somewhat sad. But that must be my overactive imagination!

Danette Haworth said...

No, Ello, it is your writer's mind working. But yes, unused wedding dresses, "divorce" garage sales . . . artifacts of sad stories for sure.

Anonymous said...

Ooh, the wedding dress one--there's a story. Wow.

Travis Erwin said...

Here is a funny but true story about how one of my coworkers got himself in serious trouble with his wife.

She ran an ad to sell her old wedding dress and when she informed him a woman was coming to look at it he said, "Oh, is she a big woman too."

Danette Haworth said...

HA! Travis! Talk about a slip!

Mary Witzl said...

Danette, I read a good novel recently about a woman who answered an ad for a never used wedding dress simply out of curiosity and pity. For the life of me I cannot remember the title, but I was intrigued by the premise. I feel the same way when I see ads like that. I wonder what happened and mourn the fact that I will probably never know.