The radio said there would be a big flu season. So far, around our house, this appears credible.

Adrienne got irritable and punky Sunday, when we drove to Ashland, Oregon, the home of the annual Shakespeare Festival, about an hour north of here. There’s a pretty University there, and a quainte downtowne with precious shoppes, where after a long wait we got a mediocre breakfast at high prices. However, the service was only so-so.

When we got home, she retired early, and Monday was mongo ill. Suspecting the worst, I went shopping. We got the TheraFlu, the Advil Day and Night, the Alka-Seltzer Deeply-Serious Cold tablits, and the ever-handy coca-cola and saltine crackers. A good thing, too.

In the early evening, I fell out too, and slept through the night, all the next day, and the next night. On the mend now, ate rice and a kipper, and seeing as how I was feeling more chipper, asked dear Adrienne did she want a kipper.

She groaned, “No kipper. No skipper. No dipper.”

See, incomprehensible! She’s feeling better!

San Francisco, 1982: A few years before I met Adrienne, she was dining in San Francisco, at a swank place on Nob Hill called Julius Castle, which is mentioned in one of the Sam Spade mysteries from the 1940’s, so I guess the restaurant’s been there for a while.

Adrienne and her escort decided to try wild boar, a special on the menu. The dinner seemed all right.

But that night …

Adrienne was deep asleep.

Slowly and vaguely, a frightful dream crept over her. A dream of fear. In a dark forest, a terror in her heart. Being chased by … something.

Running and running and running, scrambling through the underbrush, trying to get away. To no avail.

A sharp terror, a pain so intense …

She awoke with an awful feeling in her blood. She’d been the boar; she’d been chased; she’d been killed, and eaten.

On that day, Adrienne became a vegetarian.

I’m not a vegetarian, myself. But then, I’ve never been chased, killed, and eaten.

Out of my body, back soon. Please leave a message. WCB.

You may recall my friend Bob who started Bob’s Typing Service sort of as an accident. I suppose that, typing and typing, you just look at words a lot, but Bob became quite expert as a proof-reader.

In fact, once he moved away into the mountains, he sold the typing business and now operates TypoFinders proof-reading service, on the internet, using a simple website that I designed for him one afternoon. With an internet connected laptop, he works from his mountaintop home these days.

I was thinking of him because he sent me a few typos last week. Just as I collect quotes, Bob collects typos. Here are a few for your enjoyment —

We proudly feature some-day shipping.

Sign up now for our Beauty and Fitness Curse.

“This house features an enormous dick, suitable for entertaining or just enjoying the view.”

Want more? Visit the typo gallery at TypoFinders!

You know there’s a new “Do Not Call” list being promoted, but from what I hear, it doesn’t make much difference. I’ve not added our phone numbers, because I enjoy most telemarketer calls.

I figure that, since they’ve called me on their agenda, surely as a human I have a perfect right to reply on my own agenda. My agenda is usually the amusement of The Bloggard, and I’ve noticed that if you just continually misunderstand a telemarketer, he or she will usually entertain you mightily.

For example, this morning at home, I got a call from a young lady wanting me to subscribe to a newspaper. Holding my tongue in the roof of my mouth while speaking, which made me both hard to understand and very dumb-sounding, I asked her what was a Record-Courier anyway.

When she explained that it was a newspaper, I asked her did you need to be able to read.

She pointed out that I could tear out the coupons, which had pictures. I told her that I’d not been trained in pictures, and then asked her why she was calling me.

She told me she had a great deal and quoted some numbers. I fed back the numbers incorrectly to her for a while, and then started all over at the beginning asking what was a Record Courier anyway. But finally my breakfast was burning so I had to end the call.

But in the office today, I encountered an all-time low: two telemarketers at the same time.

While I was on the line with an AT&T telemarketer attempting to change my phone service so as to save a lot of money, I had to put her on hold to take another call, which was the Better Business Bureau wanting me to sign up so as to give my business more respectability.

Since I was kind of busy, I connected the two of them together, introduced them, and explained that the lady had a way to save a lot on long distance, and that the guy had a way to make the lady’s business have more respectability.

They didn’t seem to get on very well, however.

I regret to say that they both hung up on each other.

Which shows us, I suppose, that the Better Business Bureau doesn’t care about saving money on long-distance. Which makes me seriously question joining an organization which wastes the good money I’m paying on needless high-priced phone bills.

Further, it would seem that AT&T doesn’t care much about appearing respectable. Maybe they figure what’s the use? Probably they figure people would see through the ruse, anyway.

Probably they’re right.