Play-Doh on my Thesaurus…

Did you ever wonder what celebs and media types get for Christmas?

I don’t know what happened  before 2018 but I’m convinced all the media darlings got thesauruses.

Why do I think that?

Hear me out.

Remember when we used to have summertime thunderstorms and wintertime snows?

Not any more.

These days every thundery event might produce torrential, drenching rains, dangerous and vivid lightning, large hail and damaging winds.

It’s almost as though if a twister doesn’t flatten someone’s trailer, we’re to be disappointed.

Time and time again, we’re told to put our heads between our knees and kiss our backside goodbye because the end is near.

Television weather “dudes” and “dudettes” stand before the screen with big red and orange blotches all over it and say this shot indicates potential rotation so you better get to your “fraidey hole” (Midwest for a storm cellar).

We no longer have big snows anymore.

Every winter, we’re going to get howling winds, so much snow that we’ll never see the ground again or ice storms that threaten to eliminate all electric power forever.

Everything is a “near blizzard”.

Geez, even the Weather Channel names winter storms for cripes sake,  just like hurricanes.

I guess it’s just not “cool” anymore to forecast a generic weather event or activity.

It has to be a “super storm” of sorts, or no one cares.

It’s all so “Hollywood” anymore.

I think the hype is directly proportional to what TV stations pay for their Doppler weather radar systems.

While weather predicting has gotten better, do we need to rush out to buy all the milk, bread, eggs and toilet paper every time the skies get cloudy?

I don’t think every weather event is going to be the next “super storm” or “storm of the century”.

Do you?

It sure seems that way.

Here’s my long-range forecast.T

The more these TV types “hype” the weather, the greater the risk that we’ll really have a storm worthy of the awareness and a jaded public will go, “Oh yea, sure!” and do nothing and then authorities will wonder why all the loss of life.

Did the little boy cry “Wolf!” once too often?

But it’s just not weather reporting.

Sports can be just as drama-filled.

How many “Games of the Century” can we watch every season?

Remember when sports used to be played on the courts and not in them?

A lawsuit on behalf of Saints fans over a botched pass interference call?

It makes me tired.

News reporting, too

Remember when the police had a “suspect”?

Now, law authorities have “a person of interest”.

Every crime is “horrific” or “horrendous” and every  event has a “go fund me” page because we’re all so over-wrought with grief and despair.

Listen, I wish no ill-will on anyone but when “everything” is the “worst” or “most- terrible” thing ever, I start to be just a bit jaded.

Put the thesaurus down and give me “Jack Webb Dragnet” info…”Just the facts, Ma’am!”

I am reminded of a little feature the great Paul Harvey used to use.

He’d zero in on some pending litigation or legal matter, but would always categorize it with “From the sue-ers (sewers)” and that little tongue-in-cheek set-up used to make me chuckle.

But now we have to discuss “Play-Doh”  .

There’s a day every September designated as “Play-Doh Day”.

The basic stuff was initially sold as a wallpaper cleaner.

(Nothing worse than dirty wallpaper!)

(It’s horrendous!)

When it was first sold, it came in just one color…off-white.

(Does that make me a racist?)

The inventor of Play-Doh,  Joe McVicker, wanted to advertise the product on the Captain Kangaroo TV show but he couldn’t afford the commercial prices.

Se, he approached Bob Keeshan with a plan to offer him 2% of the sales of Play-Doh if Mr. Green Jeans and the gang would feature Play-Doh for a month.

Captain Kangaroo did.

He fell in love with the stuff and the rest, as they say, was history.

Hasbro trademarked the distinctive scent of Play-Doh.

There was also a fragrance company that made a Play-Doh perfume “if you wanted a whimsical scent reminiscent of your childhood”.

I understand more than 3 billion cans of Play-Doh have been sold.

That equates to more than 700 million pounds of the colorful stuff.

When our girls were much younger, we’d but them Play-Doh and we thought keeping the stuff in the refrigerator would be a good move.

Problem was, the milk, leftovers and jellies pushed the Play-Doh cans into the “out-of sight, out-of-mind” regions of the food cooler.

When those rare cleanings occurred, we’d find plastic-lidded cans with hard-as-rock, but colorful,  lumps inside.

Play-Doh, by the way was a Toy Hall of Fame inductee in 1978 so when we head to Rochester, New York next spring, I’ll be looking for some Play-Doh on display.

Unless we get detoured by a horrendous late winter storm of the century.