The other day while walking out of Whole Foods Market, I almost bit the bullet. You see, not only does the flip flop not have good traction on a wet surface, but your foot, which is exposed, is now wet and is sliding off of the flip flop. Therefore, my flop went flip while my foot went flop, which almost sent me flying feet first!

Luckily, from my days as a neighborhood meter reader, in which I had to walk through every kind of weather imaginable, I have acquired a knack for catching myself while tripping. I think the trick is to let the foot go that is snagged or slipping. Just let it do its thing. In the meantime, use your other foot to correct your balance. You may have to let yourself fall in such a way that it makes it easier for your leg and foot to catch yourself, as you are falling in a manner with which your other leg is confident it can help you recover from.

Suppose you do not have the best coordination and would not be able to catch yourself, what else, what else could you do to keep yourself safe when wearing flip flops in the rain?? Well, you are in luck! We here at WhatToDoAbout.com have developed our proprietary Flop Chains! Just think of them like tire chains that you would put on your car when driving through heavy snowfall. Flop chains allow you to walk confidently in rainy weather. The comfortable leather strap nestles the top of your foot while the chains wrap the bottom of the flip and keep you from flopping.

Also, for those that cannot afford our custom Flop Chains, we offer custom engraved WhaToDoAbout.com canes. These beauties can be yours for only $750. The great thing about having a cane is that it really makes you a couple notches cooler, just for carrying it around. It is an excellent fashion statement that will transcend the years of your life, as you will enjoy it from 25 to 85. Spread out over 60 years, the initial investment is minimal, and the cane is multipurpose. Not only does the cane help you to maintain your balance through slippery conditions, it can also help you in warding off would-be assassins! Or, if you have kids, and we all know kids need discipline, you will always have your custom cane nearby to help provide that discipline!

There you have it! What To Do About WALKING IN THE RAIN WITH FLIP FLOPS! May you never fall in the rain again!

It is important to monitor the kitchen towel, especially if you have unobservant roommates or family members, as they may have inadvertently wiped up chicken blood, or, perhaps, maybe coffee was spilled on the counter and the towel was set in it and then placed right back on the handle without anyone noticing.

Some people like to have two towels in the kitchen, one towel to use for hand drying, and one towel to use for drying dishes. I think the two towel method is useful for maintaining a cleaner towel for longer periods, although, while you may be able to stretch the usefulness of the clean towels, you now have the extra work of watching, swtiching out, and washing two towels as opposed to one. I like having two towels in the kitchen just so I can use one to snap people in the bum, but that’s just me. Towel snap!

So, as you should have been able to glean, the most important thing for excellent use of the kitchen towel is keeping it clean. The second most important thing is to allow it to dry properly in between uses. Sure, sure you will have times when you need a towel to clean up a dirty mess, but then that towel will go straight to the wash and will not be a regular customer of your hands or dishes for the next week.

If you fail to clean your towel or allow it to dry properly, it will develop a a terrible smell that will haunt you in your dreams. The smell will overtake your every thought and permanently bind you to its will. You will never again escape its clutches. It will be the farthest thing from the most interesting smell in the world, and yet, everyday you will think you smell the smell, even when you do not.

Most evenings you wander about South Minneapolis taking in the sights and sounds. You think, “not all who wander are lost”, which is true in your situation since you have a plan to your wandering, and therefore it is not really wandering at all. Tetall.

Your experience of walking in the cold, the snow crunching under your feet, is an experience that is intended to help you experience. Experience what? Ah, life. You experience life in new ways and life through new eyes. Of course, the experience of life that comes from your experience of walking, also continues to manifest itself after the actual experience itself, as well as, being related in different forms such as thought, speech, and writing. So, in this manner, the experience becomes many experiences.

However, I would not be so foolish to think that all things in life would be worth experiencing for the sake of experiencing them and thereby seeing life in new ways and through new eyes. Right? That would be stupid. Right?

Since we cannot un-experience our experiences, there are some truly damaging experiences that, despite the ability to see life in a new light, the new light may actually be a darkness. I hope you are with me, because this all makes complete sense.

I am getting kind of sidetracked, I mean, you are getting sidetracked. We were talking about you, and your wandering at night. Part of the point is getting sidetracked, is it not? Being available to be sidetracked is part of the plan, although, getting sidetracked is not always a good thing either. It takes some discernment to know when it is appropriate to be sidetracked. Wisdom, wisdom too, it goes hand in hand with discernment. They like to hold hands when they are walking and wandering around town.

So that my dear friends is what you should do, wander with wisdom and discernment, and possibly, maybe, thereby not wander at all. And who knows, maybe you would like a good laugh while reading about someone who is walking downhill both ways in South Minneapolis. Not quite the type of laughs that you will get from reading Terry’s textual gold in Crying Women, Spicy Food, Buying Feminine Products, Cutting Down A Tree, A New Car, or Men’s Restroom Etiquitte… but still.

What an experience!

I feel like I should have a cape and a scroll with wise proverbs and instructions from the good people of the north… hmm… maybe a nice velvet robe too… I don’t know, maybe not. Or, should I have a club (blunt object) for each piece of advice I share? One that says, “plow your streets, then apply salt”, number 2 would say, “don’t sled on the street, especially when there are brick mailboxes around you”, 3 would say, “never use a shovel to clear snow off your lexus, or any other car for that matter”.

I just want to provide some basic tricks of the trade, from the good people that brought you deep dish pizza, sky line chili, and car manufacturing. How to survive the snow would be what I would call it… NO, Wait! Surviving snow for dummies! is even better.

We recently received about 5-6 inches of snow, depending on who you ask. This snow, or Armageddon as it’s known here, came on us after two failed attempts at getting the weather prediction right in the first place. Once they had finally figured out if the snow was coming (2 hours before the first flake) ALL the schools were closed and most businesses decide to close early. As if this weren’t enough, the impending snow came and fell as finally forecasted, the rest of the city “clocked out” as it were.

This is where the rest of the madness started, you know? People slipping and sliding like they had never driven on snow before…Oh yeah they haven’t! I heard about maybe 50 sledding accidents, numerous (too many to count) car accidents, two of the 13 snow plow/salt trucks tipped over and let’s not forget the dude I saw clearing his Lexus off with a metal scoop shovel… FAIL!

I know you southerners are all laid back and stuff, but really? It takes just a little common sense when navigating a sled. If you are speeding toward a large blunt object, lean to the left or bail out altogether. If you have too much snow on your car and cannot see out of the windshield and you don’t have an ice scrapper, please use a broom, NOT a shovel! Please drop your snow blade on the ground if you drive a snow plow, that IS why they call it a snow plow. You will then find the very bottom layer of ice and then you can apply the melting agent. Secondly, if you are driving a snow plow, please feel free to check up on said area after dark and take care of the problem areas.

Just a little friendly advice from up north, you know? The people that get more than one snow a year…..You’re welcome!

Well, I remember just last week, when we came home from that very scenario, nestled in the bed with our youngest boy. The feeling of the warm covers, the smell of my pillow after a long week away, the feel of the next day being open to sleep in. Drifting into sleep, I am taken swiftly to a sweet dream filled with white puffy clouds and puppies rolling and playing in the tall meadow grass. Just then, I hear a brook and I wander over to see it and find that the water is warm. I jump into the water, swim over to a little waterfall, and play in the falling water. I notice that the water has a fragrance… it is not a pleasant smell at all. As a matter of fact it is quite horrible, it smells like… like…. VOMIT! All over me!!

My son who, might I add, was sleeping in between my wife and I, coughed so hard and with his head cocked back that he threw up like a fire hydrant. And no, not like a fire hydrant on a hot day in the middle of the summer, but more like a fire hydrant after you just warmed up from a run. The water from said hydrant was hot and smelled of old meat and stagnant dairy.

My kids tend to vomit like a tidal wave on some rocks, wet and pissed off! It is never in a trash can or a toilet and it usually finds its way up the walls, behind car seats, and all over my face!

There are ways to avoid kids and vomit:

-Don’t have kids.
-Don’t take your kids out of your home (this will help them to stay well).
-Don’t let your kids sleep in your bed. No matter how tired and lazy you are.
-Don’t feed your kids things that will knowingly compromise their immune systems and then wonder why they are sick.

I would love to see your suggestions on this subject. Please let us know how you deal with your kids vomit.

Getting on the highway really isn’t that hard, but alas, some people really do make it that way, hard. I think it’s fun to watch people enter, especially the ones who are mad. They are not mad for any certain reason they just ooze anger. How do I know? Because they are usually yelling at their windsheild, or giving their steering wheel a severe tongue lashing. This lashing happens before they even get into merge position. Laughable I tell ya, laughable!!

So you want to know the untold secrets? The unsaid rules of the road as it pertains to merging? Well, let me tell you what merging doesn’t involve.

Merging doesn’t involve:

-Brake lights
-No signal drifting
-Horn honking
-Low speeds
-Yelling
-Middle fingers
-Cursing anyone’s mother

You can just about tell what to do when merging by reading the don’ts. I know you like it when I point out the obvious so I will tell you the untold secrets of merging. The unsaid rules of the road!

When merging please remember:

-The accelorator is on the right
-There is no room for brake lights
-Screaming at the car next to you will not make up for your short comings, no matter how loud you get and how much you move your hands.
-Use your signal
-Use the whole length of the ramp

That’s it! I know it’s simple really! Just commit to following these rules. You do that and you will not go wrong! Rmemeber that the entrance ramp is your runway, hit the gas! Use these untold secrets of merging, the unsaid rules of the road with respect… and wisely.

I live south of town by a huge train depot, where trains are coming and going. We have a stop for GM and Tractor Supply so there are always train breaks and the occasional bumping of the cars. The bumping doesn’t happen often but when it does everyone hits the deck looking for the tank that just shot out that shell. We all get up and realize it was just the trains hitting each other… again.

The squeaky breaks are enough to make you nuts, always making noise all night and all day. It sounds like someone is scraping their nails across a very long chalkboard over and over again.

I was north of town the other day and I was standing there with some friends and there it was again… another train horn. Just today I was 15 miles from town over by the lake and heard another train horn blaring. Last week we were sitting in a class at church (20 minutes south of town) and there was a train moving across the street on the edge of the parking lot and it was really loud. It was so much so that we were trying to ignore it but it was like trying not to acknowledge a semi in your front yard blowing the horn over and over.

I can’t think of anything else in this city that annoys me more, other than maybe the traffic. Trains are cool… but really? Everywhere I go there is a train blowing a horn! I am at a loss when it comes to this problem because I like the city a lot. I can even get over the crazy fans that get all nuts when they see Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban. Hey! I think I just solved my own problem! Whenever I hear a train horn I will think about how ridiculous these people are. Thank you what to do about readers for solving my problem! This is the greatest article ever!

You want an example? Ok, here goes. Just the other day I was driving home and there was some thug convention in the middle of my street. So I honked the horn, and when they all looked up I waved with this bright smile and drove right through. You would have thought that I had a gun in my hand or something.

So needless to say in my ghetto there are a lot of crack whores and pimps that like to throw their trash out of their car and into my yard. This wears on my patience, it gets under my skin to the point that I might just do something about it.

I took some time to come up with a plan, I told myself that I would tell the next guy who threw trash in my yard to take it with him. One day as I was coming home from work I had to slowly pull up to the house and wait for a couple of questionable people walking in front of my house. They passed my driveway and dropped a piece of paper off the cigarette carton and I flipped out. I flipped out I tell ya!

I picked up my wife and kids, as we were going to the park, and I grabbed the trash and drove up the road. I quickly caught up to the litter bugs and rolled down my window and said, “Excuse me, you dropped this.” They said “that’s nothing we don’t need it” then I said, “ok, can you throw this in that trash can right there?” they said yes.

You see… it was trash day and every trash can on the street was out and empty. That made me even more mad, but I had fun with it and I think I made them feel pretty stupid.

I think I can come up with another idea for this problem but I need help. I know some of you have some pretty clever ideas and I need them. So get to it! Let me know what you got.

With that being said, I thought it would be a good idea to provide some suggestions that may help put an end to the killer coconuts. 

Below are a few ways we can both protect ourselves from the killer coconuts and also put an end to coconut killing altogether:

1) Wear a helmet. We wear helmets when cycling, playing football, baseball, and hockey, and when doing construction work, people should have no problem getting used to wearing a helmet when going to the beach or napping outside. If they required wearing helmets outdoors in states that have palm trees just think about how helmet sales would increase, it would create jobs and be good for the economy.

2) Assign someone to monitor all coconut trees and to remove the coconuts that look dangerous. Or just have someone install nets beneath the palms so that if a coconut falls it will be caught in the net. This would also increase net sales, I mean sales of “nets” thus creating even more jobs.

3) We could have the people that monitor the trees put styrofoam around each coconut so that if it happens to fall and hit someone in the head it will decrease the chance of fatality.


4) Have a scientist or someone develop a palm tree that only grows to be about 5 feet high, that way if a coconut falls and hits someone on the head it probably will not kill them because of the short distance it has fallen. Of all the killer coconuts, I wonder how many of them fell from a height of over 20 feet, hmm this is all very interesting to think about.

5) Chop down all palm trees located in public areas. Maybe they should ban palm trees in public places, they do look cool but it seems they are just too dangerous to society.  

So there are some thoughts for you to ponder about the killer coconuts. Please be careful out there, there are a lot of nuts out there, I mean crazy people, but also watch out for the killer coconuts. 

I hope this article contributes to an increase in helmet and net sales and also an increase in people purchasing sharks as pets. I think my brother actually has a pet shark named Petey.

What I would recommend in this situation is suing the establishment that left you paper toweless. By having wet hands and opening the door you open yourself to a whole world of germs that are activated by the water that is on your hands. The water helps to scrub the germs right off the door handle and right onto your hands.

By suing these establishments you can send them a clear message that if they want to endanger public health by not providing paper towels in their restrooms then they can pay you an advance against the future health bills that you are going to have to pay because of their oversight.

Your other options involve kindly asking a customer service rep, using toilet paper, or making due with wet hands. Those are not very fun though. Suing is a blast!