My aunt bought a used car in a small town in the '80s. A few days later she got pulled over, and opened the glove box to find several small bags of white powder.

The cops got real sketchy, real fast, but let her go after seizing the bags for testing.

Turns out, it was the previous owner's laundry detergent, packaged for convenient laundromat use.

We've had a Bald Eagle fishing the stream behind our house all winter. I always know he's on the prowl when I see the Blue Jays get all worked up. They hate the eagle.

As far as I've seen, the eagle has absolutely no interest in the Blue Jays.

I have to admit, one time when I was walking out to the trash can and the eagle, previously unseen, took flight from the tree in front of me, and it momentarily spooked me. Their size is startling.

I regularly wear a pair of Walker's Silencers.

They're designed to be hearing protection while shooting, but they have selectable filters like "clear voice" which makes voices easier to hear, while dampening other sound, and can be paired to my phone, so that I can listen to music.

That lets me reduce noise in crowds or loud environments, while still hearing people talking to me, and listening to The Allman Brothers. Because they are battery operated, I can't wear them all the time, but whenever I know I'm going to be in a noisy environment, I have them on me.

This is what I do. I've been playing for 30 years, and I've never had a neck look this bad.

Same with "presents". I can find "resen", but it crosses both "satan" and "consume".

In general, if someone is passionate about something that you aren't gifts pertaining to that thing are dicey.

My wife spins wool into yarn, which she weaves on her looms, or makes into socks with her knitting machine. The number of skeins of hobby lobby yarn and Wal-Mart knitting supplies that she's gotten as gifts are staggering. She won't use any of that stuff.

I drink tea. A lot of tea. I generally get loose leaf from the tea seller in our town, and spend a fair bit of time discussing my selections with the guys that run the place. That box of Bigelow holiday sample teabags isn't going to light up my day.

We appreciate the effort and the thought, though!

They are both me at every party, ever.

He's got hard times coming. Cut him some slack.

At least you'll have the picture to remember them by. It's probably for the best.

"The monks" is a false etymology. The French trappers didn't name it after monks. They named it after a native word, that was later shortened/corrupted to "Des Moines".

From Wikipedia: William Bright writes that Moines was an abbreviation used by the French for Moingouena or Moingona, an Algonquian subgroup of the Illinois people. The Native American term was /mooyiinkweena/, a derogatory name applied to the Moingouena by the Peoria people, a closely related subgroup. The meaning of the native word, according to an early French writer, is visage plein d'ordure, or in plain English, "shit-face", from mooy-, "shit", -iinkwee, "face", and -na, "indefinite actor".[7]

The origin of the name of the city of Des Moines is lost to history. One possibly apocryphal story is that French traders often named landmarks after the people living near them. When trading with one tribe, the French asked the name of another tribe living by a nearby river.

The first tribe, wanting to discourage the French from taking their trade goods to another tribe, called them something like "those shitfaces over there".

The French, not realizing the meaning, recorded the name of the tribe, and thus the river, and then the city as "Des Moines".