10 things no guy wants to hear.

Not even this guy.

1. “How much have you had to drink tonight, sir?”

2. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

3. “You’re like a brother to me.”

4. “Wow! According to the ultrasound, your kidney stone’s a lot bigger than the last one!”

5. “I’m so glad you took the day off! You can handle the kids’ birthday party!”

6. “Dad, you remember how our car looked this morning…?”

7. “I think the house would look much better if you paint it pink.”

8. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

9. “Male pattern baldness and weight gain are very common at your age.”

10. “You’re like a father to me.”

Bad Books Week.

Well, I missed all the fun of Banned Books Week again. I am so completely upset that once again no one has tried to ban one of my freaking books. I'd be on the best-seller lists and making a fortune.

I guess I've read a lot of the books that those self-righteous types celebrate on the Banned Books List, but I would never read one just because it's on the list. It may be striking a blow for freedom, but we don't ban a lot of books in this country (although we're starting to). When we used to think of banned books we thought of pecksniffian town elders getting so upset that a book contained a reference to a woman's ankle that their faces would pinch up like a dead man's anus. Now such old folks are desperately trying to be "down with the people" while banning is beginning to come from the same kinds of folks that celebrate banned books. So there's a good deal of insanity in the ranks.

Typically, though, it was really parents who wanted books to be banned, because they thought such books were inappropriate for young readers. For some reason it is reasonable to say that certain movies are not appropriate for youngsters, but you can no longer say that about books. And publishers seem to be thrilled about it, because when it comes to sex, depravity, and violence for the teen market, they are all in. (I should warn you that the link itself leads to naughty language because it's Cracked, but that should be obvious. Because Cracked.)

Personally I would like to lead a movement for Banned Bad Books Week. We're not going to get rid of books for young readers because they have sex, we're going to get rid of books because the sex in them is stupid and consequence-free. We're not going to get rid of them because they have violence, we're going to get rid of them because the violence is so ridiculous it makes your average superhero movie look like Saving Private Ryan. Above all, we want to ban books that are just bad. Publishers will say they print the books that teenagers want to read, but somehow if Nestle used that argument about Hot Pockets I don't think the nutrition watchdogs would buy it.

I've worked on a number of books for teen girls -- there are no books for teen boys, because boys don't buy books directed at teens when they buy books at all, which they don't -- and most of them end the same way. The heroine is someplace alone, bleeding profusely, but is such a badass she never quits. Here's my take -- and again, language warning, since I want to be accurate:

📗📘📙📕

Kaszandra got up out of the pool of her own blood that was quickly starting to ice over. It had to be minus forty in this warehouse. Wasn't that the same in Celsius and Fahrenheit? Damn, wish I'd paid more attention in Ms. Horkdork's class, she thought. 

But this was no time to review math homework. She ripped the scrunchie from her hair and made a quick tourniquet for the bullet wound on her leg. Devlin DeVille was somewhere in this building, and none of his evil demonic power, none of his obscene wealth, would stop her from destroying him. 

She hopped forward, stifling the scream from the stab wound in her gut. It hurt. She wouldn't have believed there was that much pain in the world. It hurt more than any hurt ever hurt. But all Kaszandra wanted was to stop bleeding so she wouldn't leave a trail for DeVille to follow if he was coming up behind her. 

It was dark as coal in this warehouse, dark as DeVille's heart. Who would have guessed that the richest man in town, head of the local Republican committee, was also a vicious bastard who raped the entire fourth grade? Fucking asshole. She had to destroy him. 

But where was he? She listened carefully, but her ears were still ringing from when DeVille shot her in the head with a potato gun. 

Fucking asshole. 

If only Jassper were here to help, but for all she knew he was--- God, she hated to think of it. She'd hated to leave him under that pile of excelsior, but there was no way she could dig him out. DeVille had planned that trap for Kaszandra, and Jassper had walked right into it, damn his stupid beautiful head, his 24-inch python arms, his rock-hard washboard abs, his---

Whoa, girl, better cool it. Work to do. 

Kaszandra shifted into the shadows, quiet as a mouse in fuzzy slippers. With the fracture in her femur it was tricky, but those three years of ballet finally came in handy. Suddenly she heard a click, or a clack -- was DeVille here, behind those stacks of boxes marked High Explosives? Or was that an echo... an echo from the---

"Catwalk," said a voice, and a bucket of gasoline poured onto Kaszandra's head. 

"You son of a bitch!" shouted Kaszandra. That was the end of this blouse. She staggered back into the center of the warehouse room. Dimly lit above her was the catwalk that ran around the interior of the building, and on that, cinematically lit from above, was Devlin DeVille. 

"Feeling warm, Kas?" said DeVille. He struck a wooden match on his thumbnail and tossed it toward her. Kaszandra gasped and stepped back out of the way of the flaming stick of horrible death just in time. "Things are just starting to heat up around here."

"I'm going to destroy you, DeVille!" yelled Kaszandra, her gasoline-soaked hair billowing around her like a bronze cloud. "You've hosted your last Trump fund-raiser!"

DeVille chuckled. "You're difficult to kill, Miss Hendreson, but we're getting there. Fortunately you are unarmed and a sitting duck. A duck coated in gasoline, I might add."

He was right about the gasoline. But wrong about the duck. And wrong about her being unarmed. Carefully, slowly, never taking her eyes from DeVille, Kaszandra reached up to her sternum where his throwing knife had stuck in her ribs. This was going to hurt....

📗📘📙📕

Oh, to hell with it. This is too easy. I'm going to start writing one of these today. I just have to sign my books F. P. Key and use my wife's photo for my author picture. See ya on the best-seller lists!

Smart kid.

Goin' to the end of the line.

October 4, 2017 (Washington) -- President Trump last night to called on all Americans to "rally in the face of the Wilbury crisis that is plaguing our great nation."

"It is time to accept the grim facts," said the president on the nationally broadcast message. "Since the high point of the late eighties, a period often referred to now as 'peak Wilbury,' we have lost approximately 60 percent of this once great nomadic tribe."

The president spoke bluntly: "The recent loss of Charles T. Wilbury Jr. has struck us a blow. Having lost Lefty and Nelson years ago, we have reached the tipping point, a point between Majority Wilbury and Minority Wilbury. Sadly," he conceded, "Otis and Lucky are all we have left."

The president also expressed concerns about the weakness of the nation's "tactical Wilbury position," citing fears of a potential "Wilbury gap."

Mr. Trump's remarks were of a piece with his comments on Twitter the previous night, including, "We mourn the passing of Chaz W" and "Chuck to travel no more" and "Down to 2 Wilburys - Sad!" and "I had Lucky in the pool."

Congressional Democrats were quick to retort that America still had more than half of its full complement of Wilburys when they last occupied the White House. "Clearly, this administration has let the American people down, allowing its distractions to keep it from the crucial matter of sustainable Wilbury," said Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). "A Republican was in the White House when Lefty Wilbury left us, and a Republican was in the White House when Nelson Wilbury left us," she said. "And now Chuck's gone. Does that sound like coincidence to you?"

But a White House spokesman accused the senator of playing politics with the "Stationary Wilbury situation," saying, "The only coincidence is that Republicans have held the White House for twenty of the last thirty-seven years, which means that much more time for Wilbury attrition to take place."

In his speech, however, Mr. Trump tried to strike a chord of national unity. "We need to deal with this Wilbury twist as a family," he said. "We're all very rattled today, like we've reached the end of the line, but we're not alone anymore. Sure, we feel like the devil's been busy, and we feel turned inside out by the news. But if we handle this with care, we soon will be heading for the light, and find ourselves in a cool, dry place. Godspeed, Charles T. Wilbury Jr."

Nervosaurus rex.

We're all a little jumpy now. Citizens against citizens. Lunatics shooting up concerts. Nuts shooting at Congressional ball games. Fat Man in North Korea threatening to drop Little Boy on us. There's so much to be grateful for -- and so much to be nervous about.

It's not surprising that the Fidget Spinner has become one of the most popular and most derided little toys of the 21st century. They give nervous hands something to do.

feel better?

Some people find it extremely distracting when others play with such things, though. Wikipedia says that some schools have banned them. I guess that it's a net loss when your nerve-relieving toy makes others nervous.

Now me, I know a little something about nerves. I grew up when nuclear holocaust was not just something we feared, it was something we expected. I didn't just bite my fingernails; I bit my toenails. I make coffee jumpy. I quit smoking a decade ago and I still want a smoke. I'd have been the Worrier King, if someone else hadn't grabbed the title years ago.

Despite all my fears, I would not let myself get some fidget spinning toy. That's for kids, not a grown man.

No, I got that toy at the top of this post. It looks like it might blow something up, but it's totally harmless. It's the Trianium Fidget Cube, billed on Amazon as an anti-stress/anti-anxiety and anti-depression cube. It's six sides of stress-easing goodness, with buttons to press, dials to turn, a ball bearing to -- do whatever it is you want to do with a ball bearing.

The button on top releases the kraken.

I thought it would be better to have this in my pocket than to bite my nails or jingle coins or beat a tattoo on the table during meetings. However, I realized as I sat near the head of the table at a meeting: this thing makes noise. The buttons and dials and switches click. In a quiet room, people can hear it. They want to know what it is and where it's coming from. And then I get paranoid that they're staring at me.

On the whole I think my stress-reliving toy just brought me more stress on balance. And I didn't even find it soothing when I was free to play with it. When you push buttons or spin spinners you expect something to happen; I find it frustrating when nothing does. The Trianium is like a flashlight with dead batteries. Click it all you want, ain't nothing happening.

Or is it? I have this idle fancy that the perfect combination of clicks and turns will set off a sequence that will lead to a Michael Bay-worthy explosion. Nobody who bought the toy has done it yet, but eventually one of us will.

Then one of us will be past worrying, anyway.

Everybody must get candy.

It's October, and time to start thinking about candy! Just as we do in December (Christmas), February (Valentine's), and April (or March, depending on when Easter falls). Okay, we basically think about candy all the time. Now our excuse is Halloween. Fine.

But where shall we buy our candy?

Dylan's Candy Bar has been ruining the dental work of Manhattan's Upper East Side trust-fund children since 2001. They have also opened branches in Chicago, LA, Miami, the Hamptons, Telluride, several other spots in Manhattan, luxury outlet malls, and a number of airports. They have a huge number of classic and hard-to-find candies (Chuckles, Turkish Taffy, and so on), but their main stock in trade includes big containers of homemade candy that are sold by the pound. You can make a bag filled with anything you want. At checkout they weigh it and charge you appropriately. There's also candy-related merchandise, including (of course) candy-themed pajama pants.

You need these.

We had a lot of fun looking around one of the stores one day, and managed to get out of there with less than half a pound of candy between us, almost all chocolate. It's not shopping for candy -- it's a shopping-for-candy experience.

There was just one problem -- the candy was kinda lame.

Seriously. Their homemade chocolate did not have a particularly good flavor. I'm not sure why. It had a delicate mouthfeel that would seem to indicate lots of lovely fat, but the flavor is weak. That goes for their toffee-graham-nut filled OMGs, too. Even they taste more of nuttin' than of nuts. The chocolate is not even up to the standards of the higher-end Hershey's or Nestle's stuff. It was terribly disappointing.

What makes me sad is that, by expanding the franchises into major airports, Dylan's spreads the word that this is New York City candy, much as See's Candies comes across as the Southern California candy. But See's are pretty good, and Dylan's are pretty meh.

Maybe it's just me. After all, I'm just a Twinkie-horkin' slob who's never seen an opera and couldn't tell a Château Margaux from a Carlo Rossi -- what do I know?

No, I'm right -- Dylan's is expensive and not too good. You'd be better off spending the same money on a huge pile of fun-size Milky Ways.

Today in history.

OCTOBER 1, 1943 -- Ethel Hooper, working for the US Army Air Force,
attempts an early version of "stealth tech" by knitting a plane cozy for a
P-51 Mustang. The drag on the plane from 100 pounds of yarn makes it
impractical, and it is later attacked by the camp cat, Hojo, while in the hangar.