I may not be much, but I'm all I think about.

S'more or less.

I guess I've been lucky this year, sweets-wise. My wife still loves me. (D'awwww.) Also, I got the Caramel M&M's a few days before they were supposed to be available. Now I've gotten the new Girl Scout cookie, S'mores, even though there has been lots of trouble in the distribution.

Apparently there were huge shortages, and word on the street -- literally, I spoke with a couple of guys in a parking lot about this, Scout's honor -- the local Girl Scouts would be obliged to give you a free box of something else or otherwise do a make-good for people who had paid in advance. I hadn't, so I expected I'd just get nothing. Maybe an apology.

But despite the huge advance orders, paid for or not, the local kid came through and brought me the box I'd ordered. After all, the Girl Scouts are known for their resourcefulness. 

Also for their pinpoint ethnic diversity.

So how are the S'mores cookies?

Weird.

I like them; the lovely, and thoughtful Mrs. Key did not. She said they tasted like a cereal bar. I agreed, but for me that was a plus. Still, she had a point. Good or bad, these sandwich cookies did not really taste like a s'more. How could this be? The box says: "Crunchy graham sandwich cookies with creamy chocolate and marshmallow filling." That's the whole ball o' wax right there. What went wrong?

One side tells you what it is, the other has GS activities. Horse racing, here. 

Camping? Trail blazing? Smurf hunting?

Candid shot of marshmallow and chocolate filling.

The main problem is that the box lied -- the cookies are not graham flavored in any meaningful sense of the term. They taste like shortbread. Now, again, I didn't find that a bad thing, but my wife is a strict constructionist and I respect her views.

The S'mores cookie may be better out west, though. It's common knowledge that Girl Scout cookies differ depending on which bakery is being used to make them -- no, the girls don't all get together and whip them up -- and it's the same with S'mores. I got the one from Little Brownie Bakers; the S'mores from ABC Bakers are a chocolate-covered graham cracker with a presumably marshmallow layer of white over the cracker, says WCNC. That one might be a lot more s'moresey than mine is.

Really, how could a scouting organization not do this right? Scouts and s'mores are all about the camping. It's just three flavors coming together. Is that really hard?

Well, I still think they're okay, so I'm not going to berate them like the Washingtonian did in its review, "Girl Scout S’Mores Are the Worst Thing to Happen to S’Mores." Their main problem is not the lack of grahamness, which didn't even rate a mention, but the lack of marshmallowness: "They have a vegan 'marshmallowy filling,' which is like saying pizza has a vegan 'cheesy topping,' i.e. it’s terrible and no one should eat it unless they have to." I thought it had an acceptable marshmallow taste. Real marshmallow and chocolate cookies are notoriously hard to transport, after all, and a lot of these cookies get sold by girls working at tables in the hot sun. So if they had to cheat on the marshmallow I can understand. But graham?

I suspect we're just getting started into the debacle of the S'more cookie. Too bad. It should have been a total Girl Scout gold award, but it's looking more like a Daisies participation trophy.

Good Scout.

[NB: Another Fred "Classic" from the old blog, but updated. --FK]

I was a Webelo until the pack dissolved.

I liked Cub Scouts. It was fun, and parents were directly involved, so kids were better behaved than at school. Plus, as we all know, chicks dig a man in uniform. With my blue cap and outfit and yellow scarf, I was a third-grade hottie. It was a little tough to be called a "We-Blow" by some jackasses in my city school, but I have no regrets.

Okay, well, I regret that we didn't sell these.

Anyway, the pack didn't survive being kicked out of the school--long story, not our fault, I swear!--and so I never made Boy Scout. Still, I always try to Be Prepared, following the Scouting motto. Moreover, even as a Cub Scout I considered myself bound by the Scout Oath and the Scout Law:

Scout Oath
On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

Scout Law
A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.

So I thought it was time I had a look at myself to see how I was doing on these things. Five-arrow scale.

On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country

Actually better at these things than I was when I was a kid. Regular church monkey, I am now, but not then. When I was a li'l Bobcat, enthusiasm for America was low everywhere. What the hell did I know? Now I would say that I have to do my duty even if my mood about it is low. That's very tough for a kid. My rating: ↗↗↗↗

and to obey the Scout Law;

We'll get to that.

To help other people at all times;

Hmm... Does that mean every moment I can, or just when they ask? And I guess that wouldn't include cursing people out behind the wheel and stuff, would it? Oy. ↗↗

To keep myself physically strong,

I don't want to talk about it. ↗

mentally awake,

Zzzz... Huh? You say something? ↗↗

and morally straight.

Uhh-- Guilty with an explanation? I mean, I'm better now, but a couple of decades back-- Never mind. I'll go by now. There are advantages to getting old and feeble. ↗↗↗

Now the law exam:

A Scout is trustworthy, ↗↗↗↗
loyal, ↗↗↗↗
helpful, ↗↗↗
friendly, ↗↗
courteous, [except when driving] ↗↗↗ 
kind, ↗↗↗↗
obedient, ↗↗
cheerful, ↗↗↗↗
thrifty, 
brave, ↗
clean, [hygiene good; house less so] ↗↗
and reverent. ↗↗↗↗

Oh, boy. Not a single 5-pointer among them. I'm glad my scoutmaster is not alive to see this. I'd be drummed out for sure.

[More on Girl Scout cookies tomorrow. Those Girl Scouts get all the good stuff.]

Box o' problems.

But what fun is that?

Wiener.

I'm so distraught. A major celebrity was here in the Hudson Valley and I missed the whole thing.

Yes, the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile made an appearance a few towns over at a supermarket, and where was I? Working, like a loser.

The Wienermobile (or Wienermobiles, as there is a fleet of six) makes tours throughout the country in the spring and summer, spreading Oscar Mayer love throughout the land. Decades ago Dave Barry wrote a famous column about picking up his son from school in the Wienermobile, and ever since I read it I've wanted to get behind the wheel of that sweet sausage and go for a ride.

Of course, that's the problem; I would hardly be content to go see the vehicle, meet the pilots (or "Hotdoggers)," and gracefully accept a whistle and whatever other freebies might be on hand. Oh, no. I'd have to try to distract everyone ("Look! Some guy in a relish truck!") and slip in the door. If I was very lucky the keys would be in it; I don't think I can hot-wire a hot dog.

Yes: I would commit Grand Theft Wiener.

Like cop cars, the Wienermobile has a PA system, so I expect my getaway would make for some loud conversations between myself and the police:

"PULL THE WIENER OVER TO THE SIDE OF THE ROAD!"

"Never! You'll never take my Wiener!"

"YOU CANNOT ESCAPE IN THE WIENER. YOU ARE CONSPICUOUS."

"That's what you think! Earl Scheib, here I come!"

I'm not sure it would be safe for children to hear. I am sure it would be the #1 police chase video in the history of YouTube.

I guess I will have to content myself by playing with the free Wienermobile app. If that's not enough, I can get the Wienermobile parking sign for my garage.

Everyone would know this was
my spot.

Then again, if the Oscar Mayer people could only hear the song I wrote following the death of Chuck Berry (so he can't sue), they might just invite me to drive the thing:

Driving along in the Wienermobile
My mustard beside me at the wheel
I stole a bite at the turn of a mile
Ev'ry one of my taste buds runnin' wild...

Assault on battery.

Black Beauty, my gas-powered lawn mower, bit the dust.

A moment of silence, please.

It was barely operating at the end of last season, and as I got it tuned up this spring I realized there were some serious problems. Like, part of the chassis had ripped up around a bolt that held on the motor, so every time I pulled the cord the motor was getting closer to pulling off the chassis entirely. It was time to call it.

Fortunately I have another mower handy, a battery-powered one made by Ego that my wife bought me a couple of years ago. It's a good machine, much quieter than the gas mower, and cuts well, requiring no gas, no oil, no spark plug, no air filter. There are, however, some problems --- one related to the dumbest safety feature I have ever seen, but all the rest related to the battery.

Quickly, the dumb thing: The handle retracts for easy storage (the mower weighs nothing), but when one of the plastic clamps that holds the handle extended pops out, it stops running. So the operation of the machine is entirely at the mercy of a cheap bit of plastic, which by the way now pops out every time any torque is put on the handle, like if you might want to turn or something. So I have had to clamp it in place to keep the machine operating. That's poor design.

As for the battery, it's the same old same old. The real reason we're not all driving electric cars now has nothing to do with evil gas companies or evil car companies. It's the damned batteries. I'm no engineer, so I'll eschew the science lingo, but allow me to describe the six serious problems I have observed with batteries:

1) Short life: I have to recharge the battery three times to get my lawn done; four times if I'm dealing with wet or long grass (and as I mentioned a few days ago, these are not uncommon circumstances). I don't have the rapid charger Ego makes, so it's half an hour or more to a full charge. You get at least 45 minutes of mowing, so it's a net gain, but it's still very frustrating. What happens when you and your electric car are stuck in traffic for a long time?

2) Long recharge: As I say, the recharge takes quite a while and stops the whole mission cold. This is not a problem with a gas mower -- fill it and go. But the load time for large batteries is considerable. For the country to have fleets of electric cars running around, gas stations would have to be replaced with battery exchanges, where universal batteries that fit every car could be exchanged for charged batteries. You couldn't just have plug-in stations where people get the car zapped and go on their way, like in the Watchmen comic book. Batteries that load like that have not been invented.

3) Instability: Weird things can happen with batteries. If I hit a thick, wet spot of grass with a gas mower it might stall out. The clog can be cleared and the mower restarted. If I do that with the Ego, the battery gets overloaded and has to shut down. The whole thing can discharge. It doesn't make it unsafe, or more so than gasoline, but it is another level of inconvenience, because you have to give it time to cool down.

4) Environmental hazards: Two things about batteries that make them less enviro-friendly than people may think: a) The juice still has to be generated somewhere, and it's not going to be solar and wind but almost entirely natural gas, coal, and nukes; b) Batteries are basically micro-Superfund sites of toxic materials. This doesn't relate to problems with my mower, but it's interesting. Storing energy is a lot harder than people think. Nature's spoiled us by storing it underground in delicious oil.

5) Price: Yes, I could buy a second Ego battery and have one charging while I use the other, but their cheapest lawn mower battery (2.0 amp) is $129. Their most expensive one (7.5 amp) is $386, the price of a good gas push mower.

6) Energizer vs. Duracell: Most Americans are aware that Energizer has a pink bunny mascot, but not that rival Duracell does too. Really!

Duracell's is actually older, but was only seen outside the U.S., so the two reached a deal in 1992, because obviously there's no way to sell consumer batteries without the use of pink battery-powered rabbits. That hasn't stopped the lawsuits, and there's one wheezing through the courts now. Couldn't one of them have been a tortoise? (Tortoise beat hare, as you know.) Or at least a green rabbit?

So those are my battery issues. I do have to say that thanks to my battery-powered mower and my clamp and the beautiful weather, I got everything cut yesterday, so I really shouldn't complain. It beats an old-fashioned push reel mower. Power to the people!

Cowboy self-help books.

Men Are from Dallas, Women Are from Houston

Confronting the Inner Varmint

I'm Fair to Middlin', You're Fair to Middlin'

Broaden Yer Range and Spur Yer Success

Brandin' Relevance: Makin' Other Ranches Irrelevent

Seven Secrets of Highly Successful Posses

Pardners fer Life

Who Moved My Beans?

How to Win Cowpokes and Influence Ranch Hands 

The Power of Positive Ridin'

Gettin' to Yup: Negotiatin' Agreement Without Givin' In

The Last Roundup 

The Magic of Thinking Bonanza

Rustlin' fer Dummies

Campfire in the Belly

Awaken the Bushwhacker Within

Say Howdy to Happiness

Day of Reckoning: How to Reckon Right

Hopalong No More

Giddyup Dad, Moseyin' Dad

Red Eye Whiskey fer the Soul

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Sidewindin'

What Color Is Your Six-gun?