Behind the Ironic Column

I've been a letter writer most of my life, and I've never liked the "boring" stamps.  You know the ones, the flags in all their variations, the Presidents of various years, the plain and uninteresting ones.  I prefer the commemoratives, even the ones that make a large picture which is ...

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There's nothing like scraping up raw eggs with your hands to jolt you awake first thing in the morning.  I blame it on the sun.  I'm so accustomed to the drizzly grayness early in the day that the fact that the sun was out and shining throught he window was ...

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“Tell him I need a fish head…”   The woman, dressed in the usual jeans and parka dreary-day uniform of Portland, was speaking to her cell phone companion as she made her way through the center of the Park Blocks, dodging the skateboarders.   I was waiting on a bench for my ...

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I've had the unfortunate experience in recent weeks of dealing with a government agency that has a long and convoluted series of voice mail menus and messages.  I'm a veteran of voice mail systems, so it only took a couple of passes for me to know which numbers led to ...

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Hi, my name is Brenda and I'm a book addict.  At least I think that's what it is.  I begin to worry if I don't have a book, or preferably books, to read.  I get anxious and my stomach tenses up at the thought of a bus ride or an ...

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There was some weak, intermittent sun today -- so I ventured out to the Park Blocks to soak up what little Vitamin D there was.  Several other people had the same idea.  It's the weekend, and at least halfway nice, so no point in staying inside.  As I'm sitting on my ...

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I don't usually dream about high school.  It was interesting and sometimes fun, but sometimes sheer hell.  Just like everybody's memories of high school, I suppose.  Mine was a small school in a small town, but I'm not sure that made us any stranger than anybody else. Although perhaps we ...

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Lately I've run across several offers that make a "lifetime" guarantee for rates or services or whatever they happen to be offering.  And the question I want to ask is: "Whose lifetime do you mean?"  Maybe the lifetime of the company.  But, at the rate some companies are being bought, sold, ...

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