Everything the workers have and appreciate came because they had to demand it. Think of what Labor Day means.

Sunday Rerun: You don't have to call me "Mister," Mister.

 I read the great "Ask Amy" column every day in the SUN paper, because I am that kind of guy who needs help handling the vicissitudes of life.

One thing I have learned is that it's best to handle your own vicissitudes, but in private.

Anyway, the other day, a 77-year old lady wrote to ask Amy about how to deal with the cringe she gets from being called "young lady."  She is active, still working, so it's not like she's obviously worn down by life. So why do people - she cites "waiters, tour guides and all kinds of public servants" - and mentions that it's ALWAYS a man - marginalize her this way?

I submit, not by any kind of excuse because there is no excuse for such condescending behavior, but the problem is that most men don't know how to appreciate women.  This situation is emblematic of that. There is no reason to use this smarmy attempt at reverse flattery.  How about realizing that a 77-year-old woman is not a "young lady" or an "old lady," but, rather, a "woman"? Age has nothing to do with it. Lots of people of lots of genders are youthful well into their 80s, and plenty of us decided to seem superannuated at 25. Go figure.

And while I was mulling this over, I heard from an online friend who said she did not like being referred to as "honey" by a female customer service rep on the phone. I think it best to save "honey" for people we really know and are sweet on (and they, on us).  BUT there is one exception.

In Baltimore, one of the remaining vestiges of our onetime Southernness is a simple rule that any customer of any retail establishment is often called "hon." Sometimes, it's "honey," but usually, it's "hon," as in, "Did you want the white American cheese, or the yellow, hon?"

And "ma'am" and "sir" are still in vogue here. In my case, I dealt with citizens for most of my working life as a public servant, and referring to them by those honorifics is second nature to me. And noted Southerner Elvis A. Presley addressed everyone that way right up to his sad end.

So will I stop saying that? No ma'am, no sir. And I'll take the yellow cheese, hon.

The Saturday Picture Show, September 5, 2026

The trading card people had their printers working day and night after Colton Cowser made this sensational game-saving catch the other night. This is starting to look like the peak Oriole highlight for this season, though.

So you wonder what it looks like when water drops drop on 35-mm film? Wonder no more.

This just reinforces my notion that Scotland is a terrifically cool place. The horse hs hung her shawls right out in her pen!

You know you have a reputation for lead-footed driving when people are personalizing speed signs just for you. Slow down, Donna!

All my friends love the low rider. I understand that this truck has airbags so it can be lowered to the ground to park at Concrete Blocks 'R' Us.

A bit of philosophy from your local graffito-vandal.

This sort of competitive pricing is just why Grocery Outlet failed to catch on in Baltimore. No math majors, they.

I would feel really insulted if I cracked my Chinese cookie and got this sort of warning, rather than some Asian wisdom. For the record, our pet does not do her business in public, so nyahh nyahh.

No, he's not. He is of this plain no longer. That was 32 years ago! Hope you remember.

But that one commercial says to "tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection." Now you won't let me in the hospital to tell him. I'm so confused.
 

Lean on Me

Remember that oldie by The Rooftop Singers, "Walk Right In"? Well sir or ma'am, modern research says they should have called it "Walk Left In." 

And don't blame the Rooftops; the song dates back to 1929 and an original record by Carson's Jug Stompers.

But, according to science (and since school is back in sesh, better pay attention!) we humans tend to walk the way the other humans walk, and that means veering to the left as you strut about.

They even go so far as to say that we still do this even if no one else is around! 

A new study says humans instinctively drift left, or counterclockwise, when we walk — even if no one else is around.

These were the highly-regarded researchers from the University of Navarra.  They checked out the gaits of hundreds of people in Spain and Japan, and they say no matter what, no matter where, and even if the people are right-or-left handed - they're leaning left!

“Our findings are highly consistent,” the researchers recently wrote in the journal, Nature Communications....because, “regardless of crowd size, boundary effects or laterality traits such as handedness, footedness and eye dominance, counterclockwise motion systematically emerges.”

The ancients never suspected that the feet have their own brain!

The researches looked at all sorts of people in all sorts of situations on all kinds of terrain, and they are dead to rights, we walk left.

I can only hope that I was not among the unsuspecting amblers being tracked or filmed or whatever they did.  As the owner-operator of two replaced knees, I tend to left them decide which way to go.

It does no good to argue with titanium.

 

They put a spell on you

Do you have any little superstitious gestures? Such as what I read about the other day.  Apparently, every time some people board an airplane, they give that silver bird a little love tap as they climb aboard.

One flier described it as “like you give a dog a little pat on the head.” It establishes a connection.

This woman told the POST she gives the Boeing a triple tap and that she got the habit from her husband, who gives it the Boeing-Boeing double tap.

And it seems that a lot of people are in the habit of making themselves feel like that the plane will get them to where they hope to get because of that tap.

Whatever.

“Our bodies, I don’t think, are made to understand flying through the air,” said the triple tapper.

That's the thing about superstitions - they are specially geared to each person, and we all seem to have our own. Some people can't think of opening the morning news (online now, folded paper back then) without a sip of coffee.

A lot of people get all worked up about a broken mirror. This dates back to the ancient belief that mirrors capture a part of our souls. And because a leaning ladder forms a triangle that might stand for the Holy Trinity, many people will not walk under a ladder up against a wall. 

As Steve Allen once said, some people have a fear of falling, and some have a fear of loud noises. I personally have a fear of making a loud noise while falling.

Mister Lister

 Here's a fun list from the good folks at Mental Floss! It's a roster of everyday household items which were ubiquitous in the 70s and are now rarely seen, like a turn signal on a BMW.

• The Percolator: as in who makes bubble covfefe anymore? 
• The Fondue Pot: we got married in 1973, which was probably the peak year of fondue gifting in America. I think we got three, never used any, and I am far too self-conscious to regift a device for dunking chunks in molten cheese. Hello, Goodwill!
• The Aluminum TV Dinner Tray: they still had these by the time microwave ovens came into vogue, but try nuking your Stouffer's that way! Sparks and short circuits for the microwave and a still-frozen pot pie you had to eat like a Popsicle
• Avocado Green Appliances: We had a green blender and were proud to put it out for the years we lived in Glenmont Apts, with the green kitchen decor. Once we moved to our first house, that avocado blender that never blended an avocado wound up in storage next to the unused bread maker.
• The Popcorn Ceiling: that first house had one of these, and let me tell you, the edges on those joint compound ripples are razor sharp! Ask my right hand.
• The Rented Telephone: An odd concept to grasp. It was said to be illegal to hook up a phone to the Bell System, even if you owned a phone. We didn't.
• TV Guide: 15 cents a week back in the day and that included listings for all the shows on all the stations our antenna could pull in. Plus the easiest puzzle on earth, with the exception of Junior Jumble.
• The Encyclopedia Set: Many a term paper and report on World War II had their start in our good blue World Book, the three-ton printed Wikipedia of its time.
• The 8-Track Player: Never had one.
• The Kodak Carousel: Parents had one. Everyone's parents had one. Labor Day weekend always featured a slide show with pictures of everyone's days at camp, doing cannonballs in the pool, and eating crabs. 
• S&H Green Stamps: it was my job to fill the books with stamps. I used to use a soggy wad of paper towels to moisten the pages of stamps that would give us that long-wanted electric can opener or fake wicker picnic set. 
  
  
  

• The Glass Fever Thermometer: run it under hot water for a second and get another sick day out of it!

Some day, future generations will fight over antique Keurig machines and long-dead cell phones, but they won't know the thrill of setting up a new one of either!

Bear fact

If you have ever been in one of those situations where people are sleeping in one of those platonic setups, no slap-and-tickle going on, just honest slumber at, say, an open dormitory or firehouse or jury panel, you know there are people who just can't wait to try to wake people up and make it look like they weren't trying to wake them up...

The loud rustling of papers, the overloud sneeze, the accidental doorslam...and then, "Oh, you're awake! Well, Janeen is going for crullers, do you want anything? And can you spot us ten bucks?"

Leave people to sleep! Polar bears too!

Here's a story about a boat operator near Norway. Last week, he was fined over $5,000 for blowing his foghorn to wake up a sleeping polar bear!

There they were, happily steaming along the coast of the Svalbard archipelago, some 620 miles away from the North Pole, earlier this month when the operator airhorned the poor ursine awake and made it more, according to CBS News.

“Its occupants are said to have spotted a polar bear sleeping on land,” Lars Fause, governor of the territory, said in a statement. “A person on board then used the ship’s foghorn, waking the animal, which moved to another location,” he also said.

So if you decide to sail over that away, leave the polar bears alone. And try to figure out why you would want to annoy a huge animal like that!

Under local rules, “It is forbidden to needlessly disturb, attract or pursue a polar bear,” which was declared a protected species in Svalbard in 1972.

So, sail on and leave the bears alone, whaddya say?