Yeah, but with Wet Jet, you just squirt and mop up the blood.

Is now the time to bust out the knowledge -- that I gained from pulp novels -- that it's easy to administer a beating without breaking the skin, if you beat someone with a bag of oranges? Now you know.

(Probably you couldn't beat someone to death with a bag of oranges, unless you were lucky enough to rupture an internal organ. But it doesn't matter that oranges are not mops, because there is no mopping to do afterwards.)

In other news, Nomar Garciaparra was in Boston, and rescued two women who'd fallen into the harbor the other day. Everybody they interviewed had a moment in the story when they paused and said, "Are you Nomar?" before continuing in the dramatic events.

Someday there will be a man standing in front of a speeding train, who will pause and say, "Are you Nomar?" and before he can get a reply, the train will run him over. "Yes, I am Nomar," Nomar will say, "and can you ask me that when you're not in grave danger?"

The whole thing is made funnier by the funniness of repeating "Nomar, Nomar" again and again. If he actually went by his first name, Anthony, it would be a boring story.

Is now the time to bust out the knowledge -- that I gained from pulp novels -- that it's easy to administer a beating without breaking the skin, if you beat someone with a bag of oranges? Now you know.

Someone hasn't seen The Grifters....

Actually, funny you should say that. I was thinking of the novel of The Grifters, and had forgotten it also made it into the movie.

Pulp novels are good for the weirdest bits of knowledge, most of it about illicit activities.

There's something fleeting about a Snopes-smack. It just doesn't ever seem to take.

I would like to add, for no reason, that the very typing of the word "Tennessee" immediately starts a song playing in my head -- some days it's "Graceland" ("Memphis, Tennessee, I'm going to Graceland"), some days "Tennessee," but always one of them.

ETA: My traveling companion is nine years old, he is the child of my first marriage...

I was dancin' with my darlin' to the Tennessee Waltz
When an old friend I happened to see
I introduced her to my loved one
And while they were dancin'
My friend stole my sweetheart from me.

I remember the night and the Tennessee Waltz
Now I know just how much I have lost
Yes, I lost my little darlin' the night they were playing
The beautiful Tennessee Waltz.

There's something fleeting about a Snopes-smack. It just doesn't ever seem to take.

I've gotten a few to take. At first I thought they were leaving me off most of the mass e-mails as retribution for my Snopesing (just fine by me), and then one cousin asked me after a mass e-mail if it was true, and then looked it up in Snopes herself before I even had a chance to answer.

two things:

first, Allyson YOU ROCK! You are my newest hero.

second, ita overhears the best conversations.

I think it's finally taken with my mother (that, or she's taken me off the list), but for a while she would include a note asking me if it was true -- on the email she sent to the 15-person list. I felt like saying, "Well, it hardly matters now, does it?"