Parker Hodges, Staff Writer

Sept. 7, 2000
Go to: No coffee! | Dog coughs up wedding ring | The odds have to be astronomical | These parents have holidays twice a year | Building a false monument

There Is Trouble Not Brewing At My House ... It's not a pretty sight, as I am typing this column at 5:30 Central time this morning in the basement bunker of my suburban rambler outside of Minneapolis. Back to waking up early -- very early ... too early -- to get this column up by 7 a.m. my time. I have to get up at least 90 minutes earlier than when I was writing my previously titled column on a different schedule just last week.

Bleary-eyed this morning, I moved into our kitchen to French-press some java and -- gasp! -- I discovered that we only have decaf! I would have made a quick run to my local coffee shop for a jolt but, alas, I have the baby monitor, and its signal doesn't reach the local strip mall.

So I continue clacking away at the keyboard coffeeless. Please keep that in mind as you continue reading.

Staying On It ... You may recall reading a story I ran yesterday or the day before ... or you may not have even read it. Anyway, it was the story of a groom whose dog ate his soon-to-be-wife's wedding ring the day before the nuptials. He ended up giving her an X-ray of the dog's stomach instead.

The couple left on their honeymoon, with the groom's parents doing dog duty waiting for the ring to reappear. Well, the ring did arrive, but not in the way that you'd expect. Boston Herald reporter Saul Williams fills us in ...

Chistmas Comes Twice A Year ... Among the benefits offered by 1950s-era corporations was the "Christmas Club," basically an in-house, year-round payroll deduction to help employees pay holiday expenses.

Well, there are parents of three children in Glenside, Pa., for which Christmas-like expenses come twice a year. It was a couple of weeks ago when the pregnant mother had to leave a birthday party for her two daughters -- 8 and 3 years old -- to go to the hospital to give birth to a third daughter in the family.

Has it clicked yet? If it hasn't, read on ...

Iraq Still In Its Own World ... OK, let's see, your country gets crushed by an international military force after you invaded a neighbor. Poverty resulted, and your capital was crushed under wave after wave of bombing. Your soldiers offered some, but really very little, resistance as opposing ground forces seemed to move almost at will across the desert.

This was Iraq in the Gulf War, but if you are the rogue nation with few friends and a recent history of disseminating false propaganda to its populace, what do you do? Build a monument to the Gulf War?!?

Coming at noon: An odd online music juxtaposition yesterday.

Parker Hodges is an IBS staff columnist.