New Hampshire mustaches

French's is a tiny independent, locally owned toy store that has been in Concord NH for decades.  It has nearly gone under a few times, especially recently, and almost totally closed this past year, but somehow it hung on thanks to a decent Christmas season.  It has a truly skeleton crew of toys at the moment, but that matters not, Offspring and Niece-ette (the younger of my brother's two girls); they love French's, no matter how pathetic the inventory.  Every time Offspring is here, they go spend time (and considerable dough) at French's toy store.  This time I went with them and they were carefully considering their options: they each had $20 to spend.  As they were weighing their various options, Aunt Sister in Law exclaimed loudly and with glee 

You guys! They have MUSTACHES!

which led to a stampede to her location, to see just what that meant.  It is a hilarious assortment of fake mustaches to stick to your face, including variations such as the handlebar, the sheriff and everything in between - there are 7 or 8 in total.  We thought about going home and having everyone pose with the mustaches, but then I realized that this would be the absolute perfect cold vector and we all thought better of it.  All to the benefit of French's though ... as we ended up buying two mustache kits - one for each kid.  

Tonight Niece-ette and Offspring, who I've taken to calling Thing Four and Thing Five (which is very funny if you know my maiden name) are sleeping under the stairs; there is a little alcove there.  A sleepover, but I think they will end up upstairs, so I've already set up a bed for them in a room, a room OTHER THAN MY ROOM, so tonight I get the bed all to my glorious self, ALONE. A-L-O-N-E. Ahhhhhhh.

Schools dismiss early for safety

The local news station had this headline today after the schools closed due to predicted snow and ice: "Safety tops reasons for early school dismissals" 

Really?  Seriously??  Safety tops reasons?  Nothing like being MR. OBVIOUS!!  What other reasons are there?  Seriously people?!  I'm imagining these headlines instead:

• Students nag, teachers give in; schools dismiss early
• Teachers complain they have inadequate time to spend their salaries; schools dismiss early
• "No one wanted to be there anyway" says principal; schools dismiss early
• NC teachers run out of things to teach; schools dismiss early
• January white sale lures school children and staff alike; school dismiss early
• Mutiny. Shools dismiss early.
• In a stunning coincidence, 95% of students and staff have a dental appointment today; schools dismiss early
• Citing a desire to get a jump on the weekend, schools dismiss early
• Unexpected spring fever outbreak causes schools to dismiss early
• Citing the need for additional unstructured playtime for their students, schools dismiss early
• Citing unity with part time workers, schools dismiss early
• In an effort to teach the war strategy of "retreat", schools dismiss early
• Teachers quit their day jobs; schools dismiss early

and the REAL headline should have been ....

• In an effort to muck up parents' lives and wreak as much scheduling havoc as possible - SCHOOLS DISMISS EARLY!