It’s hot enough to fry a squirrel’s nuts on a branch…
The hot and humid days of summer have arrived at The Nest, and once again I’m left to wonder why people actually look forward to this season as opposed to the slushy cold of winter. They both suck as far as I’m concerned. So before the heat fries what’s left of my mind, let’s answer this week’s Share Your World questions, hosted as always by Melanie…
Even the Share Your World god’s hands are sweating in this heat…
In your opinion, what’s the closest thing to real magic?
SAPPY ANSWER ALERT! When I was a kid, we lived just a couple blocks away from one of those fountains that was rigged up with lights at night to change colors. I still remember being fascinated by how the water color changed like that as me and my little sisters would run around its perimeter like the little hellions we were…
How the magic works…
Where is the worst smelling place you’ve been?
Well, the city I live in stinks, and always has due to the steel mills. We locals have to go away for a few days and then come back to really get a whiff of the aroma, though. That said, the towns to the north smell even worse since they have a bunch of oil refineries…
I love the smell of carbon monoxide in the morning!
What are some things that you’ve heard in your own life, which sounded like compliments but were actually insults?
I get told all of the time that I’m “special,” which certainly looks like a compliment… but anyone familiar with America’s public education program knows that “special” has a much deeper meaning than what you’ll find in the dictionary…
It’s alright, though. I totally own up to being “special”…
What incredibly common thing have you never done?
I’ve never sent a text message before… which shouldn’t be surprising since I no longer even have a plain old flip phone anymore (At least one with service).
Since you all like to be entertained by my special motley comedy troupe, let’s open this question up to the Shelf critters…
CHIP: Well, this is a fun question! I guess for me, I’ve never gotten a traffic ticket before.
FUZZYWIG: Maybe that has something to do with none of us critters owning cars? Well, except for Snuggle and his windowless van.
CHIP: So, do you think you can do any better, Fuzzy?
FUZZYWIG: Sure. I tried MARIHUANA before, but I never inhaled.
CHIP: I find that hard to believe. Did you also not have sex with that woman?
FUZZYWIG: It’s true, man! I can absorb the smoke through my skin.
CHIP: No wonder you look like the back side of a honey badger.
SCRATCHY: I’ve never played a Yanni record before.
FUZZYWIG: That’s not common. Nobody listens to…
CHIP: Really? You’re missing out, because Yanni is one of the best musicians of all time!
FUZZYWIG: That figures…
CHIP: Shut it, Fuzzy! I know you still play that Iron Butterfly garbage when you get stoned…. which is always.
SANTA: You know what I’ve never done that everyone else has?
FUZZYWIG: Entered a house through a door?
SANTA: I’ve never got to open a Christmas present before because nobody ever thinks to get Santa anything for the fucking holiday!
BUSTER: And I’ve never lived long enough to see the sun set in the evening!
CHIP: That’s awful! Not surprising, but awful.
MR. FOX: …………………..
FUZZYWIG: Yeah, we already know. You’ve never shut up before. Goddamned chatterbox…
Yooooooooooooooooooooooooohooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!
FUZZYWIG: This one should be interesting…
MITZI: Mitzi’s, like, never….. um……. like, totally never not done anything before!
CHIP: I’ll bet you’ve never turned down sex before.
FUZZYWIG: I’ve never turned down sex before, Chip.
MITZI: Totallies! Like, who would ever turn down sexy times?
CHIP: Mr. President? Surely there’s something common that even you’ve never done before.
UNCLE SAM: Son, of course there is! In a Shelf full of deceit, I can honestly say that I’ve never told a lie!
BUSTER: YEEEEEEOWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!
FUZZYWIG: Best. Buster. Death. Ever.
CHIP: And just a few minutes before sunset. Alas…
RAINY: You know what common thing I’ve never done before?
FUZZYWIG: Taken a bath?
CHIP: You should talk, Fuzzy.
RAINY: I’ve never gotten to jump in a rain puddle like every other little girl has! I’ve never even seen a rain puddle before, and it just makes me so……
RAINY: GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR……….
CHIP: OK, now we’re going to have to amend that answer to the smelliest place we’ve ever been….
Please feel free to share some gratitude that you experienced during the past week!
We’re living in sad times when you have to pay $54 to make sno cones.
Making sno cones at home is how I’ve survived the summer for almost 20 years now. Well, the shaved ice maker I had decided to lock up and stop working on me sometime back in May… right after I’d just ordered a whole case of cherry syrup, and just after our shaved ice makers at Mecca went out of stock. After waiting patiently for new supply to come in, I finally gave in last week and looked for one online… and found they were being sold for almost three times the price of what a similar machine would cost if I bought it at work. But desperate times call for desperate measures, so I ordered the one you see above and they actually got it to me in just a couple days. The ice it makes is more “snow” than “ice,” which makes the result more of a slushie than an actual sno cone…. but, after sweating my ass off cutting the grass yesterday morning, it still hit the spot. So I’m grateful that I will not die this year from a lack of cherry sno cones…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
poor unicorn… we better where a helmet when it will pass some winds, after drinking from busters bathtub.
for s you are special fabulous!!!! and that is a compliment!!!
Buster’s bathwater has many magical properties! Most of which involve getting killed…
That was a majorly epic “Buster death” I must admit…..surprised it hasn’t happened before since Mr. President has been to the Nest before. We need a sno cone machine – ice cream is nice but the difference in calories is spectacular – I’d much rather eat sno (unless it’s yellow) than shovel in the ice cream all summer. STAY COOL – of course that’s easy for you and your Shelf.
Pam
You gotta watch out around those politicians for sudden nose growth like that. My ice cream binges have usually coincided with kidney stone issues, so I’m glad I have the sno cones again to keep me from resorting to ice cream to beat this heat…
Never seen that sno cone machine before, never knew before that this machine is somewhere. How it works?
You put ice in the top of it and press down on the lid while holding a cup in front of the chute to catch the ice as it chops it up. Ice cream shops have machines that look like a popcorn maker that crush a lot of ice at once, which can then be picked up in scoops and put into a paper cone (Which is where the term sno cone comes from). A lot of sno cone places now just put the ice in cups and you can eat it with a spoon, which is what I do at home…
Thank you for explaining.
Being called “special” is a backhanded compliment if there ever was one. I hope you gave the evil eye to whoever said that to you. Honestly, it amazes me how difficult it is for some people to just say something nice.
Thanks E.S. for Sharing Your World. Death by politician…. *sigh* poor Buster. 😥 Steel mills and refineries are stenchy, but I suspect Rainy gets the Sodden Globe Award for sheer stench. If you piss her off of course. Sno-cones are a summer heat beater for sure (and yeah, that sounded vaguely dirty to me too). Bravo to the cast of dozens from Shelf Critter Theater and their parody of “Normal Life”…. 😆
Death by politician is pretty common, but rarely so direct as Buster got it. Remember to keep a very safe distance away from any politician’s nose…
I always did wonder how those water fountains changed colors – now I know!
Then, I was going along reading, and then bam! That lying president nose comes out and kills buster! I actually laughed out loud — oh, sorry buster! hahaha Better luck next time. 🙂
Sometimes, a Buster death can be seen coming a mile away, so I was very proud of coming up with that out of nowhere one! Glad I gave you a laugh, and don’t forget to look for the Rainbow Donkey next time you see a color changing fountain!
Don’t know about you but I. AM. OVER. SUMMER. Luckily there’s only 74 days left until the official start of autumn, but who’s counting…especially when there’s pricy snow cones! 🍧
Here, at least, we had a real Spring this year… and it didn’t start getting hot until mid June like it’s supposed to… so I have a feeling we’re going to pay for it this summer. The forecast is calling for next week to be even hotter. Lovely…
There were a few days of spring interspersed with several days of winter. Spring is always elusive usually just moving straight from winter to summer in a flash. Triple digits today so I empathize. Fire up the new snow cone machine and try to stay cool.
One of my uncles said to me as a teen…you’re so pretty, why don’t you lose some weight, then you can be a cheerleader and date a football player.
Nah, I’d rather be a pretty fat ass, thanks…
Wow! And you didn’t just rear back and kick him in the nuts?
I was only a teenager and the idea of spending time in a juvenile detention center for maiming my asshole of an uncle wasn’t appealing…I heard that their brownies and pizza sucked ass…
I’ll bet if you knew the right juvie, they could hook you up with the special brownies. There’s that word special again…
But I was a good girl, loved my momma, not so much Elvis and government cheese…which was why I was so fat! Bwahaha.
I’m glad they let us drink soda when I was in school, so I could get addicted and sport the big Pepsi belly I have today…
Yep, good ole POP right outta the vending machine…
You have a better chance of finding a condom vending machine in a school now than a SODA vending machine…
This is true, so it negates the fact that you’re so totally, like, wrongsies…pop, forever!!
Don’t think sweet talking me like Mitzi is going to woo me over to the dark side…
How about some marihuana, little boy? Then you’ll really be corupted and drink so much pop, you’ll be as bloated as Violet Beauregarde!
If you smoke MARIHUANA and drink SODA at the same time, the mellow and caffeine rush cancel each other out, so you won’t get high and you won’t get fat…
You’re a genius!
Only I don’t drink soda, just pop! So high and fat I stay!
Of all his deaths, that’s the one both myself and Buster never saw coming…
It will definitely be going in Buster’s next death montage…
They have the same kind of lights on Niagara Falls–amazing. The most commonplace thing I’ve never done is that I’ve never seen the movie E.T. When I was younger, it was weird, but now that I’m older, I’m sure that a lot of kids today could say the same:-)
I’ve only seen bits and pieces (not Reese’s) of ET, though I’ve never been much on movies anyway. The last time I was in a movie theater, Ronald Reagan was President!
I’m not a huge fan of movie theatres either—too many people 😁
That was a great, and very unexpected Buster death! I laughed so hard it made me realize my belly feels like a bowl full of jello when I laugh hard. Just another “fun” thing about getting old. ((Sigh))
About your horrifically over-priced sno cone maker, I’ve noticed the prices of a lot of things are outrageous now. I wanted a cheap folding lawn chair for out in my garden. Every place I looked online was charging over $60 for those piece of crap woven nylon chairs like all grandparents used to have. And forget about the nice ones!
I think you and Rainy would enjoy the non-summer we’ve been having thus far. We’ve had highs in the upper 60s and low 70s with a couple of cooler, rainy days every three or four days. A lot of people are complaint but I’m loving it. And now I’m sure I’ve jinxed it by mentioning it and the rest of the summer will be miserable. Mother Nature loves to make a liar out of me!
I guess the increased demand for online shopping has caused everything to skyrocket, but those prices are ridiculous! No wonder our store’s still getting cleaned out of non-grocery items even after it seems like everyone has spent all their money.
The only good thing about all of the heat is that despite the awful humidity, it hasn’t rained much in the past month. Even all the spot storms seem to go around us. If they ever decided to build a wall around the Gulf of Mexico to keep all that damned moisture out of the country, I’d fully support that!
That’s good about the storms missing you! Sometimes I would welcome a wall blocking the rain from the Pacific but the natural air conditioning we get from it is nice. It was only 52 degrees when I went out to walk the dogs this morning and it was wonderful. I’m such a wimp when it comes to heat. For me, anything over 55 is too hot for dog walking!
I love your lounging squirrel. Looks like MY lounging squirrel. Maybe they are related.
And I believe in magic. i always have.
I took that picture on a hot summer day a few years ago. Poor squirrels, stuck in all that heat with fur coats they can’t take off…
What common thing have I never done? I have never eaten a sno-cone… I always admired them at the local fair, but I wanted rides more than snow. I live in Canada…snow is free. Just don’t eat the yellow snow…
So no lemonade sno cones for you?