Accept No Substitutes

So, the other day, my buddy and I were solving the world's problems (and a couple of our own that we'd brought with us) over some brewed hops and barley, at a local watering-hole. Neither of us was particularly hungry, but I was sorta casually scanning the Appetizer card, just to see if anything appealed to me, when I espied an entry for something called 'Breast Substitutes'.

Ummmmm. . . Huh?

Neither of us had ever seen anything like that on a menu before, nor could we quite imagine what they might be (nor were we particularly inclined to ask the sweet young blonde who was waiting on our table). Nor could we quite imagine why anyone would even want a 'substitute' for such things.

But it's worth noting, I suppose, that at $3.00, they are rather considerably less costly than the real item. . .

But still. . .

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Spring has sprung, the grass is riz. . . and the trees are budding, filling the air with pollen, causing eyes to itch, and sinuses to run. Which is a pain, but whatcha gonna do?

6F, who is not an allergy sufferer, was noticing that 5M (who is sort-of the 'Allergy Avatar' of our family) was more sneezy than normal, and wondering why. I was explaining that it was because of his allergy to pollen (which I also have, although not quite as acutely as he does) - that all of those lovely green buds adorning the trees are spewing out prodigious quantities of pollen which invisibly fills the air, so that we're all sort-of swimming in a sea of pollen, which irritates the eyes and sinuses of all of us allergy sufferers.

"You know," 5M chimed in, helpfully, "pollen is kinda like tree sperm, isn't it?"

Which, OK, true enough, but. . . I dunno, taken in the context of 'swimming in a sea' of it, sorta made my skin wanna crawl. . .