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Summit Up

Summit Up

Good morning and welcome to Summit Up, the world’s only daily column individually wrapped for your enjoyment.

Actually, we don’t know why we’d individually wrap this for you. We’re kind of wondering why anyone would individually wrap anything.

As we sat enjoying dessert in a local eatery last night, terror struck. No, it wasn’t anything like baked Alaska going nuclear or a hot fudge surprise in the lap. It was a more subtle attack – a raspberry seed lodged itself between two molars – but nonetheless bothersome. So bothersome, in fact, we had to do something about it immediately. We set out in search of a toothpick, which we eventually located on the hostess stand.



To our surprise, every last one of the hundred little toothpicks in the jar was individually wrapped.

“Some people are just germ freaks,” our dessert partner said, as we puzzled over how much plastic in the world is wasted wrapping little splinters of wood.



We began imagining what must have been a pivotal civil lawsuit in the world of toothpicks: A man, patting his belly after a hearty meal of sesame-encrusted trout finds his teeth are infested with the seeds. He seeks out a tool to remedy this nuisance and, of course, finds it at the hostess stand.

But what he doesn’t realize is that this toothpick jar is full of used toothpicks. The gingivitis he contracts is the fatal variety. The jury awards his family $29.95 for the price of the dinner and $1 million for pain and suffering after the family must explain to other relatives that the ol’ man died from employing a toothpick that had already been in someone’s mouth.

At least that’s what we’re imagining. Why so many other things in this world come individually wrapped – coffee creamer, straws, cheese slices – is beyond us.

Some things make sense: We like the newspaper delivered to our house individually wrapped, if only to keep it out of the mud and snow. Prophylactics: We all know guys only need one of those anyway.

We leave it to you to make sense of all this.

***

Mike had to walk home late at night, in the cold, in nothing but a T-shirt. He’s hoping the person who precipitated this Scum Alert!! Scum Alert!! suffers a similar, if not worse, fate. Mike says this particular hogwart stole his green Burton flight jacket from the Liquid Lounge Sunday night. He’d love it if the person just took it back there, otherwise he’s hoping he runs into him or her in a dark alley.

This next item would also be a Scum Alert!! Scum Alert!! if it didn’t have enough of a happy ending to make it an Angel Alert!! Angel Alert!!

Matt, a.k.a. the Bowl Troll, had his bike stolen – again (we’ve previously printed Scum Alerts! on this very bike.) This time, Matt was working at Mi Casa when someone rode off on his blue Nishiki Pacific. Knowing Matt’s love for his bike, the Mi Casa crew all jumped on their bikes and scoured Breck looking for the offender. They found the bike in the lawn in front of Cecilia’s.

“Please do not steal my bike again,” Matt said.

If only we believed people would heed that request.

***

It’s Wednesday, ladies and gentlemen, but more importantly, it’s Everyone Proclaim Your Irishness Day, which we know our readers will. In honor of the holiday, we’re waiting for your limericks at summitup@summitdaily.com, fax at (970) 668-0755 or just do a nice brogue on the voicemail at (970) 668-3998, ext. 237.

We’re out looking over a four leaf clover that we overlooked before …

Some people are so practical as to take all the whimsy out of our philosophical musings. We were pontificating the other day on the great glass storage debate (upside-down? or right-side up?) and which way is likely to keep the glass free of dust, germs and shelf gunk.

“To solve the problem, just rinse off the glass every time you use it,” Amber said in her voicemail message to us.

We’re going to try to convince you all that, hey, we already thought of that (honestly, we did), but we’re so pious in our water conservation ethic that we just couldn’t bear to do that. Yeah, that’s it.

***

photo: su-snowman special

cutline: Jeremiah Vaille (the little one) has a new friend in the backyard, thanks to his papa, Troy, and buddy Jason, who took advantage of Sunday’s wet, wet snow to build a monster of a snowman up in Wildernest.


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