Month: January 2024

This week’s Sunday Stealing doesn’t have a title. But it does feature the interrobang.

1. If you could have a remote control that could pause time, what would you do with it?

There are two contrasting responses to this question. I wish I had said X, didn’t say Y, or didn’t do Z. Those moments, some from years or decades ago, and at least one from the past week, I wish I could take back.

On the other hand, many of those moments led to something else, much of which I’m very grateful for. On balance, I’m leaning towards Que Sera Sera.

2. What’s the silliest thing you believed as a child that you wish were true now?

I had a series of dreams as recently as a year or two ago that I could fly maybe 10 meters above the ground. I could get from place to place much faster. Silly isn’t how I would describe it, though.

3. If your life had a theme song that played every time you entered a room, what song would it be?

Roger Ramjet cartoon theme because when I was kid, some kids would sing it to me. I might as well lean into it.

4. If you were a vegetable, and someone accidentally ate you, what would you want them to say after the first bite?

“You taste terrible!”

Strawberry Letter 23

5. If you were a flavor of ice cream, which one would you be, and why?

Strawberry because I like strawberry ice cream. The local milk company Stewart’s doesn’t sell half gallons of strawberry ice cream alone; it only sells it as part of a Neapolitan package. There may be a vanilla and strawberry combo, and strawberry pints are available. So, I am countering against strawberry ice cream discrimination.

6. What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever googled or searched for on the internet?

This is difficult because I search for many things that someone else might think are weird. As a librarian, I often looked for things I didn’t even understand; I found articles to explain the concept so I could fulfill the research request. There was a question in the 1990s with some sexual, albeit legal, component – I no longer recall the specifics – and one librarian was uncomfortable working on the query. I wasn’t bothered by it.

7. If your pet could suddenly talk, what do you think it would say to you first?

This presupposes my cats cannot talk. When breakfast is a few minutes late, Midnight caterwauls, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen.”

8. If you were a character in a video game, what would be your special move?

The power to disappear, a function I sometimes wish I had IRL.

Genealogy

9. What’s the most bizarre item you’ve ever bought online?

Bizarre is not the word I would use. But I have purchased books for very small pieces of information. For instance, in mid-2023, I purchased the book African-Americans in the Wyoming Valley, 1778-1990 by  Emerson and Moss because it had three brief references to Samuel J. Patterson, one of my great-great-grandfathers who fought in the American Civil War. Now I’m glad I did because the tome I purchased for $30 now goes for $200. 

10. If you could replace the sound of one everyday activity with your own voice, which activity would you choose?

I don’t want to hear the sound of my own voice.

Question mark? Exclamation point!

11. If you were a punctuation mark, which one would you be, and how would you punctuate people’s sentences?

What you’ve been waiting for – the interrobang, (‽), which “is a blend of Latin interrogātiō (“examination, inquiry, interrogation, questioning”) +‎ bang (“exclamation mark, exclamation point”), coined in a 1962 article in the journal TYPEtalks by American advertising executive Martin K. Speckter (1915–1988), who invented the symbol.” It’s generally used in response to those WTH moments in life.

From here: “The interrobang is great for rhetorical questions. You know, those questions that are asked to make a point, and an answer is not needed or even required. ‘What business is it of yours‘– Statement, not a question – do not answer, back away!“

12. If you could have any celebrity be your personal assistant for a day, who would it be, and what tasks would you assign them?

I could use an assistant to type, clean, and cook. I understand Julia Roberts can cook. I’d love for her to tell me about how ML and Coretta Scott King paid the hospital bill for her birth.

Bob and Ray

13. What would be the worst “buy one, get one free” sale item ever?

A Komodo dragon.

14. If you could trade places with any fictional character from a book or movie, who would it be, and what would you do differently in their story?

As I’m disinclined to change the plot of my own life, I am equally not interested in doing that for a fictional character. Besides, with the multiverse, that alternate version probably exists anyway.

15. If you had to live inside a TV show for a month, which show would you pick, and why?

The Dick Van Dyke Show. I watched it religiously as a kid and wanted to be friends with young Ritchie because I thought his parents, Rob and Laura, were cool.