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Recently my wife and I were chatting about the _floss, which she claims she reads religiously (not). We were discussing possible new features I could introduce when she suddenly exclaimed, “Wait! Whatever happened to Thursday Thingamabob?! That was a fun one.”
Nevermind that she got the name wrong. She had a point. What DID ever happen to Thingamajig Thursday? Did the author just run out of thingamajigs to post about or, with his 40th birthday creeping around the corner, did he merely wake up one Thursday and forget he’d even created such a feature? I know what you’re thinking: a better question might be Why is the author referring to himself in 3rd person suddenly?
I don’t have an answer to any of those questions. But I do have new thingamajigs today; two, in fact, to make up for the many months missed.
For the guys, I present you with something called a grommet, which is nothing more than a reinforced eyelet. I’m sure the women in the blog know this from buying belts like the one pictured here. We men know nothing about belts. I own one black one and one brown one and that’s it. Were it up to me, I’d even do away with the brown one and just wear the black one with my brown pants but my wife refuses. I guess when it comes to belts, she wears the pants.
Now for the ladies, I present you with the fungo bat. Actually, many guys may not know this little practice bat’s real name either. Fungoes are balls hit during fielding practice and the bat used to hit them, which is a good 10 ounces lighter than a normal 30-ounce bat, is thus called a fungo. There are numerous theories on the origin of the word, which I won’t bore you with here. But for those inclined, check them out here.
Comments (7)
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Grommets aren’t just on belts. They are on all sorts of manly things like workboots and tarps, and patriotic stuff like flags.
posted by Bassman on 5-17-2007 at 8:56 am
There are grommets on all sorts of fun, everyday things…my home is grommetted-up with: shower curtain grommets, normal curtain grommets, tote bag grommets, shoe grommets (after all, holes for shoelaces are often just very small grommets).
posted by natlynn on 5-17-2007 at 10:22 am
I, too, had forgotten about Thingamajig Thursdays. Sadly, I cannot blame my age for my memory slippage – perhaps that great chunk of wisdom got pushed out by bigger and badder chunks of _flossness. Thanks for the thinamajigs today – this make my day! (yes, low standards, but I digress)
posted by Trena on 5-17-2007 at 11:14 am
Comment on Rat hole. I’ve never used that term, but in the Marines we used rat-F…
When I was a radio man on a late night shift, the Gunnery Sargent told me you can have another box of sea rations, but don’t rat-F it. As in don’t eat some of it and leave the rest like a rat might do.
That term was also applied to when an area looked in disrepair…
posted by Daniel on 5-17-2007 at 11:23 am
Cheese, Gromit! Cheese!
posted by Dave on 5-17-2007 at 11:27 am
Thanks Trena! I’m glad I’m not the only one…
posted by David on 5-17-2007 at 12:22 pm
grommet is also used to describe a young surfer. I asked, “why grommet?” and never what felt like a solid answer. One old soul told me though, it was since they stuck to the wave… like i said, talking about surfing is not alway solid, but it IS fun.
posted by Scot on 5-17-2007 at 4:38 pm