If you thought the government’s health-care rollout was a disaster, thank goodness it wasn’t run by Jennifer Jenkins, the Ohio spokeswoman for the IRS.
In the first sentence of a two-page news release, she writes: “Before holiday and year-end hectiness begin ... ”
Now, we do tend to encounter a few travails during the holiday season, but I wasn’t aware that “hectiness” is among them.
Jenkins goes on to say that what we should be doing during this joyous holiday season is starting to organize our tax records “so you’ll be ready for tax filing season, which will be here before you know it.”
Yeah, that’s exactly how I want to spend my holidays. Sleigh rides, eggnog and Form 2106.
Near the end of the mailing, she notes that “organization can help you capture all the tax savings you rate.”
We’re rating our tax savings? What is this, American Bandstand?
I guess I’d rate mine a 35. You can dance to it, but I just don’t feel enough savings.
New products
Bath resident Clint Robbins says he sometimes gets more laughs from reading the local ads on Craigslist than he gets from the Beacon Journal’s comics.
He came across so many instances of butchered spelling that he began to compile a list. When he got close to three dozen, he sent it to me.
Mind you, Robbins was willing to give advertisers the benefit of a doubt. To make sure the screw-ups weren’t just careless typos, he checked the body of the ad to see whether the same screw-up appeared there.
Among my favorites:
• “pedistool sink.” (A place to sit while receiving a pedicure?)
• “puddy knives.” (They once belonged to a Seinfeld character?)
• “post whole digger.” (Wouldn’t want to dig for only half a post.)
• “addic ladder.” (The stairway to addiction?)
• “skill cercular saw.” (Specialty item — would have to see the saw.)
• “scrape metal.” (What you do before you scrap it?)
• “leavepick up.” (Ordering someone out of your Ford F-150?)
• “need free dressors.” (Don’t we all.)
Overdue move
Akron’s East High School has sorta, kinda, almost dodged a media bullet. Let’s call it a flesh wound.
The website Cracked.com recently unveiled its choices for “America’s Five Most Embarrassing High School Mascots.”
Leading the parade: the Coachella Valley (Calif.) Arabs, whose mascot is a snarling bearded guy with a huge head who at halftime is joined by a belly-dancing woman, thereby completing the stereotype.
Second worst, Cracked says, is the McLaughlin (N.D.) Midgets. Their mascot has a big, floppy, hanging nose that resembles an elephant’s trunk (or maybe something else).
And then, in a tie for third place, we have the East Orientals of Akron and the East Orientals of Rochester, N.Y., “because if your school has ‘East’ in its name, you apparently have no other choice.”
Fortunately, our East came to its senses in 2010, eliminating the insult in favor of “Dragons,” and the website acknowledges the change.
Notes reader Chris Faircloth, who brought it to my attention, “At least we’re the sole ‘previously’ city on the list.”
Rounding out the top five are the Centralia (Ill.) Orphans and the Laurel Hill (Fla.) Hoboes — yes, with an “E.” Maybe they thought it would be less offensive if they misspelled it.
As Cracked points out, Laurel Hill’s hobo logo is an “adorable cartoon homeless man” who no doubt was created because “school administrators wish to furnish their students with realistic expectations.”
Lauren Hill School defends its choice by insisting that “a ‘hobo’ is just a migratory worker.”
Nice.
Eclectic crime
Somebody broke into a house on Palmetto Avenue in Akron and took two diamond bracelets and ... a cherry pie.
Bob Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3580 or bdyer@thebeaconjournal.com.