WARNING: WHILE READING THIS ARTICLE YOU WILL BECOME ARTIFICIALLY 0.57418% SMARTER, BUT DON’T BE ALARMED IT ONLY LASTS A FEW SECONDS!

There’s nothing more annoying than a broken spring. We depend on springs to be springy when they’re supposed to be, but when a spring’s sprong is sprung, suddenly we feel helpless as we mere mortals do not have the means to cope with springlessness.

Springs are everywhere, they’re all around us, and it’s kind of creepy when you stop to think about it!

I mean there are springs in our doors, chairs, cars, appliances, watches, computer hard drives, even our beds; the list goes on and on and on!

If springs ever became aware of themselves well… they could really screw with us humans in ways that we could never imagine!

Think about this… you get up all groggy in the morning, start fumbling around in the kitchen, stick a day old cup of coffee in the microwave, and push the “one minute” button.

Then after you hear the “beep” you reach up to open the door so you can retrieve the luscious cup of brain enhancement juice.

But for some hideous reason the “spring” in the latch that opens the microwave door, decides that you’ve been over-caffeinating yourself and goes on strike!

Yeah… not a pretty picture is it?

After a few seconds of blinking your sleep craved eyes in bewilderment, you try again and again to open the door so you can get your hands around that holy vessel of brain cell elixir, but alas… all hope is lost.

You can still see the cup through the little holes in the protective screen of the microwave door. You can see the steam rising forth enticing you to smell its magnificent aroma!

But as the steam starts forming on the inside of the door, blocking your view of that holy grail, you turn away, shoulders slumped, a broken man and head for the coffee maker to try to formulate some more of that enchanting substance that enhances your life, even if for just a little while.

Tears start to form which mix with the previous night’s eye excrement, creating a glue like substance causing your eyelashes to stick together, and as a result you can’t see where you are going so you then stumble into the counter top bruising your right hip!

Writhing in pain you twist and step backward to avoid further damage only to step on the back of your left slipper losing your balance and fall smashing to the floor now bruising your left knee, hip and elbow!

At the same time the coffee maker that you thought would save you by grabbing a hold of it, goes flying across the room onto the microwave breaking into many tiny pieces!

Then suddenly you hear that familiar sound, “tick-clunk”, and the microwave door miraculously springs opens revealing its precious cargo!

Rubbing the glue from your eyes, you get up, hobble over to the microwave and grasp the container of this life-force transforming liquid with both hands and begin to sip it oh so gently.

While blissfully savoring the moment you look up, and your eyes fixate on the microwave door… “Huh, Spring has sprung!”

~Snarp
www.foggyblogg.com

Since this issue will fall within St. Patrick’s Day I thought I’d attempt to demystify this whole Blarney Stone thing.

What the hell is it, and why do people go about kissing the damn thing?

I’ve always thought it was some odd looking blue stone found stuck in the sole of your boot while walking through a patch of four leaf clovers, on the third Tuesday of spring, following the first full moon!

In fact that was the story I was told by an Irish fella I met at a pub in California once!  He said if he was down on his luck, all he would have to do is pull it out of his pocket, give it a kiss, then walk into any pub and someone would buy him a pint.

Of course I wanted to see it but he wasn’t going to show it to me because… “No one else can touch it or it will lose its power, besides it has to be kept in the dark while recharging for its next use”. 

So we sit there talking about his adventure of finding this stone while sipping on our beers, and all the while I’m watching out of the corner of my eye as he keeps sticking his hand in his pocket to “see if it’s ready yet”.

Curiosity is getting the best of me, and then all of a sudden he slams down the rest of his beer, quickly reaches into his pocket, brings his hand up to his mouth and kisses it, then just as quickly puts his hand back into his pocket, then gathers up his things as if to leave.

“Hey wait!” I said, while motioning the bartender to give us each another beer, “Come on, just let me see it!” I pleaded, “I won’t touch it, I promise!”  I needed to know more!

“Well me boy” he says with a grin and sits back down, “As I told you it has to be kept in the dark while recharging, but if your quick enough you’ll be able to get a glimpse of it the next time I use it.”

Well I’d like to say I didn’t believe him, and I told him so, but all he had to do was motion with a nod of his head toward his new pint of beer that I just bought him to prove that it worked!  3 times!

That was a long time ago and I was young and stupid, now I’m older and stupid but still want to know where to get one… times are tough!

So I did some research and to my dismay, it turns out this Blarney Stone is a block of bluestone built into the top battlements of Blarney Castle in Ireland, like in the 1400’s.

That’s a pretty old stone and too big to put in your pocket!  In order to kiss it you have to be grasped by the ankles and dangled over a ledge, upside down and backwards to reach it!

That’s just wrong!

Yeah as it turns out every year millions of people, including world statesmen, literary giants and legends of the silver screen flock to the Blarney Castle to kiss the stone!

According to legend, kissing the Blarney Stone endows the kisser with great articulate eloquence or skill at flattery, in other words the gift of gab.  In plain English… lying!

That would explain a lot about the state of the economy.  I’d like to see a list of all the “stone kissers” that turn out to be senators, congressmen, presidents, and ex-girlfriends!

~Snarp

www.snarpfarkle.com