| Larry Powell: It's a shame that you can't return germs 12/26/2000 By Larry Powell / The Dallas Morning News Good morning, bargain-hunters and other metrospecies.
It is the first shopping day after Christmas. It is the day you traditionally take stuff back.
And don't you wish you could take back the stuff you said to the relatives during that heated moment over Christmas dinner yesterday!
Oh, my, merry Christmas, indeed.
Relax, I'm kidding. Don't expect, in about 11 months, to see yourself on The Jerry Springer Christmas Special Presented by the Not-Board-Certified Arm of the American Bar Association. Really, do you want your picture on TV with this caption: "Accused sister-in-law of poisoning him with congealed salad"?
Look, if you really want to take back something after the holidays, take back the cold and flu, whichever one it was that you brought into town with the kids on Christmas Eve. Oh, my, it's a holiday for germs.
Don't you wish we humans had some sort of a colorful gauge on our foreheads? The more contagious we were, the brighter it would get.
Criminy. In the news last week, Texas A&M proudly announced that its researchers had cloned a disease-resistant bull. Well, howdy doo! Just what we need in a world of germ-carrying people. Any of you ever caught the flu from getting onto the elevator with a sniffling Guernsey? Catch a cold from an feverish Brangus?
Can't someone work on a disease-free human? Take my microbes, please.
My snifflespouse Martha, who is not good with colds or any other illness, told me she was going to stop by a store after work and pick up some sort of magical powder that, she swore, "is guaranteed to cut my cold in half."
I had to ask: "Is half a cold any better than a whole one? What happens, do you just drizzle out of one nostril? When you sneeze, do you go either 'ah' or 'choo'? And will your doctor say you can just work half-days until the symptoms are halfway gone?"
Her response was, as they say, unintelligible.
A post-yule potpourri
What follows is a purging of note cards and odd thoughts. How odd? You be the judge:
• If it were not for Texas high schools, there would have been no playoff football games at Texas Stadium this year. How sad is that? Real sad.
• Another problem at Texas Stadium: that cowboy with the big foam rubber head-and-hat who runs out into the end zone after a field goal or an extra point. That character gives me the creeps. Could be a nice guy – who knows? May be someone in the federal witness protection program.
• On the good side of the Dallas Cowboys' 2000 season, the Brad Sham-Babe Laufenberg radio team on KVIL-FM (103.7) is pretty darned entertaining. Maybe they can take over Monday Night Football next season. Seriously, has anybody really understood this whole Dennis Miller episode? Well, we all wondered where Al Gore might catch on next year.
• In recent days, I've noticed that the striping for traffic lanes on the Jefferson Viaduct from Oak Cliff into downtown has just about disappeared – it has been worn away by tires grinding on residue of post-ice storm sand. Maybe the city should think about restriping that busy bridge pretty quickly. You've seen Dallas drivers – do you really want them GUESSING which lane they're in?
Larry Powell can be reached at 214-977-8487; P.O. Box 655237, Dallas, TX 75265; fax 214-977-8319 or at .
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