BREAKFAST WITH MRS. CRANKY

BREAKFAST WITH MRS. CRANKY

 

Every once in a while Mrs. C and I treat ourselves with a nice breakfast at the diner.  New Jersey is famous for its diners.   They are all the same; fast, good, inexpensive, and the waitress always calls you Honey.

I ordered the usual, no menu needed, two eggs over, crisp bacon, home fries, rye toast and coffee.  As I dug into my eggs I mentioned that recent studies now say the yolk is actually good for you yet all the health nuts still order their egg white omelets.  I have long claimed the whole egg was healthy.

This started another interesting Mrs. C/Cranky conversation.

“The drug companies started that.”

“Started what.”

“That egg yolk thing.  They claimed it was unhealthy so they could sell more of their drugs.”

“What drugs?”

“You know; unnecessary drugs.”  

“That’s ridiculous.  What? They all got together and said let’s say egg yolks are no good and we can then sell a bunch of other healthy unnecessary drugs?”

“Yes.  The big pharmacy companies are ruthless money grabbing tyrants.”

“Well if that’s true they’re doing a lousy job of ripping people off.”

“What? Why?”

“Because the drug stocks we own are going nowhere and they only pay about a 3.8% yield.  If they were ripping people off unmercifully the stocks should be higher and the dividends larger.”

Mrs. C changed the subject, advising me we would be having dinner next week with an old friend and her husband.  The husband is Puerto Rican so I had to make a politically incorrect comment about having to watch our hub caps.  (Oh stop, it's a joke...hell, the guy is a retired cop!)

Anyway the conversation found its way to hubcaps and locking lug-nuts on new cars.

“Most cars don’t have hubcaps anymore, they have locking lug-nuts so people won’t steal the tires, but you wouldn’t spring for those safe lug-nuts on the Toyota.”

“That’s because those lugs are a pain in the ass.  I had them on the old Jeep and when I had to change a tire I could never match the key up to the lug, and to make it even harder, that stupid car had a different key for the spare.  To top it off, my stupid ex didn’t know what the keys were for so she just tossed them out.  Who does that?”

“One thing for sure, you know I wouldn’t ever throw them out.”

“First you never throw anything out and second you would have known what they were. 

Anyway, I took the car into “Mike’s” and asked if he could just take the fancy lugs off and replace them all with ones that don’t require a key.  He said he could and I asked how since I didn’t have a key.  It seems they make a tool for just that problem.”

“What is to keep the crooks from having that same tool?”

“Nothing; that is why buying those locking lug-nuts is a waste of time and money.”

“Then why does anyone buy them?”

“Because they are told that they need them to protect their tires from crooks.  They are told this all because there is a lot of money in selling the fancy lug-nuts.  You know who claims you need them to protect from theft?”

“Who?”

“The big drug companies.”

“You’re a jerk!”

“Check please.”