Toro! Toro! Toro!

In the spirit of the Presidential Election this week, I offer you a short parable:

A man walked in to a Ralphie's Lawnmower dealership, telling the Salesman he had seen a Toro lawnmower he liked, but he was undecided because other people had said he should take a look at Ralphie's before committing to anything. The Salesman quoted him a litany of issues:

1) Did you know Toro is Spanish for "bull"? Yeah. That ought to tell you something about them.

2) Toro is rumored to be built somewhere in Southeast Asia, in sweat-shop factories that employee under-age orphan kids working 12 hours a day without food.

3) I also read on the internet that the blades of a Toro can just come right off, cutting up your legs and feet real bad. I mean, they just come flyin' right off. Right off!

The man stopped him and said, "Sorry Sir. I don't really want to know what you think is bad about Toro, I've already looked them over pretty well. I just want to hear the good things you have to say about a Ralphie's mower." Once again, the Salesman chose a different tack:

4) If you notice, Toro has consonants and vowels in its name, but they flip-flop back and forth, 1 consonant, 1 vowel, 1 consonant, 1 vowel. Ralphie's on the other hand is a mixture of both consonants and vowels, in random order. That's what you're looking for. You know another name that alternates consonants and vowels, back and forth like Toro? S-A-T-A-N

Frustrated, the man said "Really, Sir - none of that matters to me. All I want to know is what makes your product superior for cutting my lawn than the Toro I saw. I'm going to make a decision shortly, and I need to hear about Ralphie's good points, to draw a fair comparison." The Salesman continued down the slope:

5) Toro promises to cut your lawn, saving you time, energy and money. But did you know about 20 years ago, a Toro executive had dinner with a man who had knocked over a liquor store when he was back in college? Yes the man had served his debt to society, and is now a respected member of the community. But still - are you comfortable buying a lawnmower from someone who pals around with convicted felons and such? That's downright un-American!

The man smiled and thanked the Ralphie's Salesman for his time, then drove to the other store and purchased a Toro. He's extremely happy with his decision. The moral of the story is when you are voting in the Election this week, don't be afraid to vote for someone just because the consonants and vowels in his last name alternate, one after another...

In January, Carnival Cruise Lines' Sensation will be going in for an extended, 35-day Drydock period. For land-lubbers, Drydock is where they pull the ship up completely out of the water, scrape and re-paint the exterior (hull), and do any re-carpeting or fixer-upper work that a ship needs, without passengers around getting in the way or tripping over anything. Cruise lines are hesitant to take ships out of the water for more than a week or 10 days, because whenever she ain't sailin', she ain't makin' money either! But this is a big one. Due to the popularity of balconies (also called Verandahs by the snooty rich), Carnival is adding 98 balconies to this ship and that's what's taking so much time. You may ask how they're able to do that on an older ship not originally designed for them. Good question! It's not going to be easy, that's for sure what with about a billion welders and painters needed to accomplish that feat. However, they feel it'll be worth having Sensation out of action for 5 weeks, because the added revenue of the higher-priced balconies will eventually overtake the expense and turn to profit. Pretty smart idea, if you have the money to employee a billion welders. Maybe that's not a true number, but now that we're in the economic mess we are, it sounds so weak to say "about a hundred or so". That's why everything is a billion to me now. Maybe I should have said 1.63 billion, to make it sound like I really had researched thoroughly. Or not.