Cheap Bastid's Corn Disaster

Sometimes you can be just too damn cheap. Like when sweet corn was on special last week at Fraiser Farms at 6 for $1. That’s the cheapest it’s been all year. So I bought some.

Well, last week was a busy week at work. I wasn’t home for dinner until Friday evening. My beautiful bride, Mrs. CB informed me that we needed to use up the corn which had been sitting in the fridge for a week. So OK, it’s going to be a sweet corn weekend. Great. We both love sweet corn.

So we proceeded to eat up all the sweet corn. Every day for 3 days. But hey, we both love sweet corn. We boiled it and we broiled it. I even offered to make corn fritters but Mrs. CB prefers it still on the cob. And even though it was starting to get just a bit old, it was sure good; still sweet, still juicy. I like mine roasted with some charring on the kernels, Mrs. CB wants me to just show hers to the grill to warm it a bit.

It was perfect last night with some sirloin and Friday night with homemade meatballs in tomato sauce. But, as we all know, corn likes to extract its revenge. I remember the many times I help Papaw slop the hogs when I was a kid vacationing at their farm in Kentucky. Toting the slops down to the troughs and then shoveling some field corn to the hogs. They love both. They’d loudly crunch the corn off the cobs and then leave the cobs behind.

Did I mention revenge? Well, this may start to get a bit indelicate but…for some reason we will announce news of our bowel movements to one another. Such terms from my “delicate flower” as “poopie”. Ah hell, we all know what a number 2 is, right? Well, if you do 2 of them the second one is a #4 (2 x 2 = 4) and if you do 3 then you just did a #6. And, I just did a great big TMI didn’t I?

The morning after snarfing down sweet corn you just gotta love the heady aroma of “Neutra-Air” spray wafting out of the bathroom.
Sweet corn season will be over pretty soon. And it’ll be 6 months before there’s anymore. We have to enjoy it while we can—and while it’s at a Cheap Bastid price.

When it’s all gone, here’s the only “sweet corn” we’ll have for a while:

Cheap Bastid's Honey Bunches of Oats

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day…yadda, yadda, yadda. Truth be told, I like cereal. I’ve got a great big bowl that I use for it and because I’m too lazy most mornings for a full breakfast, I typically do a big ole bowl of some sort of breakfast cereal before trudging off to the car dealership for another day of professional exasperation.

But I’m the Cheap Bastid even with cereal. I try to get the most bang for my buck—like with “Nutty Nuggets”. (Those are the “generic”, storebrand of old fashioned “Grape Nuts”. Now this is a cereal that does a lot for you. First off, you can’t fill up a big bowl of them simply because then you’d still be munching on the soggy “nuggets” at lunchtime. So I use a smaller bowl for them and at least by weight it’s as much as my big ole bowl.

These nuggets give your jaw muscles one hell of a workout and they give your stomach a nice big baseball size lump to work on throughou

t the morning and early afternoon. Even better, I’m sure that if you have a cavity they’ll fill it up and tamp down to form a semi-permanent filling.

But, remember that I’m cheap. I won’t spend $3.50 to $4 on them. I buy the storebrand “Nutty Nuggets” for $2.49 which are about half a buck more than I like to spend but even though they come in a smaller box, it’s heavier than any of the “flakes” so you’re actually getting more.

And that leads me to Post “Honey Bunches of Oats”. I love ‘em. I devour ‘em. I only buy them when they’re on special at the store for $1.99 a box and then I buy several boxes. Hey, I’m not going to spend $4.00 on a box of them. And I bet Post knows that too no matter how much marketing they do. So, I wait until they’re on special every 2 or 3 months.

So why don’t they just lower the price to a buck ninety-nine? I bet they sell the crap out them at that price to Cheap Bastids like me. I bet that they’re still making money—good money—at $1.99.

It’s good stuff and I still like to slurp the milk out of the bottom of the bowl and let the last of the sweetened milk dribble down my chin. Now, I like to think that I’m too mature for things like Cocoa Puffs or Fruit Loops (OK, make that macho), but I do like me some store brand “Cap’n Crunch” even though it tears up the roof of my mouth.

You can take pretty much every 50-something guy, every Cheap Bastid like me and you’ll still find a little kid hiding inside who likes his cereal every morning—except instead of cereal and Captain Kangaroo it’s cereal and George Stepanopolous. Oh well, close enough.

Brutus and the Bear--The World from my Balcony

A couple of weeks ago, I saw my neighbor Tony head out with his large dog Brutus for a morning walk. Tony wanted to turn either left or right down the sidewalk. Brutus didn’t.

But Brutus is about the most even tempered dog I’ve ever seen. He didn’t bark or growl or anything. He just refused and stood there. He wanted to cross the street to take his early morning pee on the corner of a retaining wall rather than take that pee anyplace else.


So what did Tony do? He walked across the street and waited patiently while Brutus lifted his leg and did his morning business. Then they walked down the street together. Brutus with his curled tail high and waving from side to side, Tony ambling with him. Just a couple of “guys” on their morning rounds.

Carolyn has known Brutus since he was a tiny puppy. She’s always referred to him as Mr. Puppy and not the more regal title he is known by in his own home. This also comes from the day when he greeted her by rearing up with each front paw on one of her shoulders promptly knocking her on her behind.

Brutus lives a life of being cared for by a loving family. The family is “Brutus and his Humans” for they belong to him more than he belongs to them. In addition to Tony there are 4 females in the household, the youngest about 11. His “girls” take him out quite often and he walks proud with them rarely tugging at the leash—for when he does, whoever is holding the leash is going for a ride, he’s that big and strong. Woe be unto anyone who would threaten any of his humans. We’re sure that Brutus, who’s starting to get up there in age, would tear them apart in defense of his family.

Brutus will even suffer the indignity of getting a bath out in the open when he looks like a long suffering derelict being scrubbed and rinsed. But, he always seems to be just a bit prouder of his clean, glossy coat with just a bit of extra swagger on his next sojourn.

On the other side of us lives Bear. Now Bear has his own yard. But he basically lives inside a 3 x 2 large “pet carrier” sitting on the front porch. And his yard—well from about April on, it’s dirt and sand. In the “rainy” season of December & January the yard turns green and by February it’s green—but overgrown to a height of about 2 feet with trails worn in it from the limits of the rope used to tie Bear to his yard. At least when there’s grass the feces left in the yard for weeks on end are hidden. This time of year they cover the ground. It’s not Bear’s fault. It’s that his “human” just flat out doesn’t pay any attention to him.



Bear will come dancing out to the end of his rope wagging his tail and barking (a friendly bark) when skateboarders come down the sidewalk or sometimes when people are walking. Occasionally, his bark and end of rope dance causes shrieking (I love it when teen boys are the ones shrieking like a 12 year old girl scared of a spider). Come on kids; check his body language and tail. He wants to say “hi” and make a friend.

To me, Bear is lonely and could really use a friend. I have often wished that I knew his “owner” and could take him out on walks to explore the neighborhood. There have been a number of times when I’ve made it a point to grill up some steaks with bones (like a t-bone or bone in rib eye) and then made it a point to leave plenty of meat on the bone so I could toss it to Bear for a treat. I swear, that the first time I did that he didn’t know what to do with it a first. He sniffed it suspiciously several times then ignored it. Until later, after dark when I could hear him crunching on the bones. I’ve even bought him rawhide chew bones for Christmas and tossed them to him.

All dogs deserve at least a little bit of love. But unfortunately, many is the time when I have seen his “human” come home and walk right by him saying nothing, not even delivering a scratch behind the ears and disappear inside his house ignoring the welcome home greeting that Bear was trying to provide. What a jerk.




I’ve wondered about this dynamic many times. If his “humans” are out playing and Brutus is left out, he’ll let them know with a loud bark that says “Hey! I know you’re doing something fun and you’re not including me! What’s up with that?”

And Bear dances at the end of his rope. Sometimes, Tony and Brutus will stop so that Brutus can go over to Bear and they can say “hi” but doing that decidedly male dog thing of sniffing noses and butt thing. Then Tony and Brutus continue their walk while Bear looks forlornly after them as if he would dearly love to join them.

So what’s the point to this? Well there are a whole bunch of different twists that can be put on this allegory. I'll let you come up with your own.

Suffice it to say, Brutus is part of a family and loved. He takes care of his family and would defend them to his death. Surprisingly, I think Bear would do the same for his family—whoever they are. Brutus is content in his family and belongs. Bear is content too for he knows nothing else but yearns for more. Like so many, he has much more to give. And if I had to choose between the two, I guess I’d choose the Bear.

Just Cuz I Sell Cars For a Living Doesn't Make Me an Asshole

Well, I’ve been toiling away now for 10 months now. I’ve had a few good months and I’ve had a few crappy months. I’ve met some real nice folks and I’ve met some jerks.

The dealership where I work is in an upscale community in San Diego County. Good credit and good income is the norm. We also get a number of Marines from nearby Camp Pendleton, usually with pretty good credit too. And all that helps. What doesn’t help though is the cynicism, smugness and sense of entitlement that all too many customers bring with them usually because they’ve managed to look something up on the internet.


The internet actually does a lot of disservice in many areas not the least of which is in car sales. Just because it’s on the internet doesn’t make it the gospel. Just because it’s on the internet doesn’t eliminate the need to read all the fine print.

Anyway, this hopefully isn’t going to degenerate into a rant. But let’s see what flows from my brain to my fingertips.

There’s a lot of down time at a dealership. And there’s times when you’re desperate for something to keep you busy. And, it doesn’t help when the dealer filters all but the most basic of websites from its computers. Forget search engines or news sources.

So here’s a couple of things from a car sales guy that might help you a bit the next time you think you want to take the plunge and go shopping for a car:

Narrow your choices of a new car down before venturing out. Have a pretty good idea whether you want a cross-over utility vehicle, sedan or mini-van before venturing out. All major manufacturers have websites where you can screen various models and trim levels and do your basic comparison shopping before leaving home. Remember, if I don’t sell anything, I don’t make anything. I’m patient but not to the point where I’m happy to spend 2 hours with you doing nothing but “kicking tires” on your first foray to a car dealership in 10 years.


Are you thinking of trading your car? That’s fantastic. And if you want to withhold it until the end, that’s fine too. But bear in mind that now isn’t the time to get impatient over time because it’s now going to take 30 or more minutes longer when we have to appraise your vehicle and if a balance is owed we have to contact the lender to secure an accurate 10 day pay-off. (The sum of your remaining payments is not your payoff unless you have a 0% loan).

And, the amount you owe on your trade has absolutely nothing to do with how much it’s worth. A customer a couple of weeks ago was incensed that we couldn’t provide her with a trade value that would pay off her vehicle. She owed $8500 on an 8 year old vehicle that was worth $5000 at wholesale. I finally asked her a direct question: “Miss, if you only owed $1000 on your car would that mean that it’s only worth $1000?” Of course, she answered “No”. To which I responded, “Well, wouldn’t you agree then that the amount you owe on your vehicle has nothing to do with how much it’s worth?” Of course it doesn’t.

If you’ve already ground us down to a below invoice price on your vehicle, you have no expectation of a “retail” value on your trade. We’ll go wholesale to wholesale or retail to retail. The dealer where I work rarely tries to go retail for our car and wholesale for a trade (but we will). It’s lousy business for us to go wholesale on the vehicle we’re selling and retail on the vehicle the customer is trading. We won’t do it and will tell a customer right up front that we can’t and don’t.
Here’s a hint. The sources of trade information online are generally woefully inaccurate. The closest we’ve found is Edmunds.com. The source we try to use most is a source that only dealers have access to. It’s known as Manheim Market Reports and is the commodity based pricing from Manheim Auctions, the largest used vehicle auction company in the nation. The prices we get from there are the amounts that used car managers from dealerships have actually paid for specific vehicles. That’s a commodity price and represents real money paid for a car as close to “just like yours” as we can get.

You know, I’m an old fashioned customer service kind of guy. I’ve never held with the notion that selling cars needs to be a confrontational exercise where it’s all about putting another number up on the board for unit count and maximizing my commission on each sale. And the dealership where I work reflects that approach as well.

But if I don’t sell, I don’t earn. We earn a percentage of the gross profit on each vehicle sold. On new cars the minimum is $200. But there’s less profit than that on most new vehicles. Many have no profit or even a loss. It’s a simple matter of trying to put units over the curb and on the road. The profit center of a car dealership is in its “fixed operations” department (a fancy term for parts and service). And the only way that department gets customers is for us to actually sell a car.
Forget stuff about “holdback”, etc. That is indeed money that the manufacturer provides back to the dealer to help offset expenses—like the light bill or the property taxes or fixed salary expenses or even the interest on the loan the dealer takes to finance the inventory.

Sometimes we will dip into it to close a sale. That’s because increasingly customers demand that we compete against the other dealerships which sell the same brand as we do when it comes to price. We are required by customers to shave prices incrementally with the one most willing to whittle down the price winning. Imagine selling a $30,000 vehicle because you beat the guy selling the identical vehicle 20 miles down the road by $50. It happens all the time and it’s absolutely exasperating.



I earn about 1/3 of what I earned a couple of years ago as an automotive industry consultant. The benefit is that I have reduced my business travel from 150 nights a year in a hotel to 0. That’s worth it.

I love the customers I work with, by and large but the bottom line is that I’m a professional and just because I sell cars for a living doesn’t make me an asshole.

The DEA, Ebonics and Buckwheat--Whassup?

As Dave Barry used to say, “I’m not making this up.”

Seems like the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is looking for a few good translators. 2,100 to be exact. These folks will be employed to transcribe wiretaps.

This is all according to a short article in my local newspaper on Sunday which was contained on the “Backpage” under “News of the Weird” with the headline “Professional Training Required”.

The short piece listed some of the openings for DEA’s Atlanta office which include 144 Spanish experts, 12 Vietnamese and 9 each for Korean, Farsi and Ebonics. Jeesh, I’m surprised that someone like Glen Beck hasn’t gotten hold of this one. Ebonics?

OK, so I know that DEA isn’t necessarily interested in my language skills which consist solely of having to wade through 3 years of French in college in order to get 2 years worth of credit—although I have sold 2 cars over the years to French speaking buyers using the fractured phrase “voulez-vous acheter c’et voiture?” (I think I spelled that right).

I actually remember more of the 1 year of Latin I took at Madison Junior High School in Tampa way back in 1965. “Tempus fugit” anyone? (Actually, if anyone’s interested, I can still recite “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” in Latin at the drop of a hat and can still give a rousing rendering of “Quadiamus Igatur” in “basso profundo”--but I’ve never come across it in a Karaoke version).

And unfortunately, the DEA isn’t interested in the other language my wife and I have been working to translate into a useable communications tool. We discovered the “Rosetta Stone” of it a while back and have been using it for a while to discover the nuances of pronunciation and grammar of this unique, spellbinding language from our childhood.



Yep, I’m talking about Buckwheat. Or, pronounced in the vernacular, “Buhweet”.

Carolyn and I can actually carry on something resembling a conversation in Buckwheat with only occasional pauses to figure out the vowel sounds and hard consonants and we find this to be quite an endearing language. Buckwheat was the most loveable of the characters in the “Little Rascals” with his wide-eyed innocence and grin.

People have been speaking in “Buhweet” for more than a half century. Virtually every adult has at one time or another invoked Buckwheat by making an “OK” sign with thumb and index finger and saying “Otay”. That’s the most famous “Buckwheatism”.


So, we often speak to one another in Buckwheat in our silly conversations at home about such “weighty” topics as what to have for dinner or what to watch on TV and sometimes our e-mails incorporate Buckwheat.

But alas, there is no demand for the language by the DEA and consequently it’s not likely to be embraced in the world of literature or journalism anytime soon.

But, just visualize in your own mind if you saw a Shakespearian actor, on a stage in the costume of a Roman Senator saying:

“Fwens, Rohmas, caweemen; wenme ya eah, I comma bawwy Teedar, naudu pwaiz im.”


Or, perhaps what you may wish to do is to look your spouse in the eye and tell her (like I often say to Carolyn):

“I wubbu!”

That’s because she’s “tree tines a mady”

Koran Burning and NYC Mosque--"Ball of Confusion"

Recently, a blogger I respect and admire wrote of his anger and fear. The upshot of his post dealt with the uncertainty that today’s world brings. His conclusion? Confront the fear of failure and his anger will melt away.

Boy, do I admire that. I can’t emulate it, but I can sure admire it.

Right now, I have no fear of uncertainty. And neither am I angry. Resigned is more like it. Weary is more like it. Beaten down? Probably.

I’m not going to get into all the personal aspects of this. Instead, I’ll touch on just a couple of things in our world that I just don’t understand and which have essentially left me feeling hollow. Or, as the title of this little essay says—“Ball of Confusion”. I’m 59 years old and still confused and befuddled by this world and how people can be so gosh-damned stupid, ignorant and selfish.



Many of the goody-two-shoes have written their scathing opinions of the church in Florida proposing a “burn the Koran day” on September 11 and of the proposal to build a Mosque/Islamic Community Center near “ground zero” in New York City. I feel like Tom Hanks in “Big”, a 13 year old in a man’s body sitting in a meeting waving his hand for attention, “I don’t get it”! And I guess I’m just stupid. “I don’t get it.” This stuff is a no-brainer.

How many Americans get incensed when someone in Tehran burns an American flag during a demonstration? How many Americans got incensed when draft protesters burned the American flag at Berkley and a hundred other college campuses in the 60’s to protest the draft—and even went so far as to propose a Constitutional Amendment to ban the practice? How many of these “good Christian people” would be furious if a religion gathered a wheelbarrow full of Bibles and had their own book burning? Would they start a “Christian jihad”?

It’s not a matter of worrying that the Islamic world might get angry and use this as a “cause célèbre” to recruit more terrorists. It’s just wrong. It’s racist. It’s arrogant. It’s as much a blasphemy as if the Bible were being burned. It’s hypocritical.

On to New York. Let the people proposing the Mosque build it wherever they can legally build a facility of that nature just like it were a Catholic or Baptist or Jewish community center. The U.S. was founded on religious freedom (check the 1st Amendment someone). Build the center as a symbol of that religious freedom--as a symbol of the freedom that cannot be exercised in Tehran or Riyadh or Kandahar. Anything less is shameful.

Does somebody always have to be the enemy? It seems like that is often the case in human dynamics or in national aspirations. As Pogo said, “I have met the enemy and he is us”.

We’ve got a hell of a lot more problems than those being hammered on by a flake of a preacher in Florida or by some of the good citizens of New York City. In both instances the cry is for “freedom and tolerance for me and people just like me or people who I say are deserving and not for anyone else”. That’s just utterly asinine.

We’re better than that. And these actions make us just like “them”. Whoever “them” is. “Them” of course is people who don’t look like us or act like us or who believe something different from what we do. And we’re better than that, dammit.

I get weary and worn down watching this crap every day splayed out on TV or in the newspaper. But the media frenzy must be fed which tends to feed us like voracious piranha desperate for whatever scraps we can gobble up.

So I’m just benumbed. My brain refuses to focus or work intelligently on these and other issues. The world has increasingly become that “Ball of Confusion” with focus on the minutiae and not enough emphasis on the basic values we hold dear. It’s all a perversion. And that makes me fearful. Which makes me angry. Because there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

We had to get General Patreus on TV the other day saying that it’s not a good idea to insult Islamic believers because it might make it more difficult for U.S. troops to do a job which is already incredibly difficult. Why didn’t President Obama turn Vice President Biden loose? I would have loved to hear someone from “official” Washington say something blunt. Biden could have said something like “this is totally effed-up” in response to both the proposal to burn the Koran and the opposition to the Islamic Community Center.

But then again, it all comes back to what my Dad used to say: “Opinions are like assholes; everybody has one.” All I can say is, “I don’t get it”.

So, I don’t write much anymore, except on “safe” topics. It’s a “Ball of Confusion” and I’m having a hard time sifting through it, let alone writing about it.

A Baseball Player Looks at 60

I’ve been thinking about this since before my birthday a few weeks ago. And, now someone’s gone out and done it.

Seems like former Boston Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee won a baseball game a week or so ago pitching for the Brockton Rox an independent minor league baseball team in Massachusetts. Lee went 5 1/3 innings in picking up the win.


Thing is, he’s 63 years old. And the lefthander, known throughout his major league career as the Spaceman, can still bring it.

I quit playing over 40 baseball in about 1996. Even then at age 45 I could still put on the gear and catch for about 5 innings. I remember my very last at bat which is what prompted me to “hang ‘em up”. I had adjusted my batting stance to be one which old guys like me will liken to the stance used by Phil Linz who played short for the Yankees back in the mid-60’s. It was an extremely open stance but it let me bring my hands through faster and keep my head more level so that I didn’t have to wear my bifocals while trying to hit.

Anyway, the pitch came in, I stepped into it and rapped a grounder up the middle. “Self,” I said to myself, “if you get on your horse and boogie, you can leg this one out.” (By the way, I distinctly remember telling myself that as soon as I saw the ball bounding past the pitcher).

So I let go of the bat and pushed hard out of the box. The first step I felt a burn in my right quadriceps muscle as the muscle tore. The second step I felt a burn in my left quadriceps as that muscle tore. By the time I was halfway down the first baseline, I was running like someone in a potato sack race except without the potato sack. It’s a 90 foot baseline. I was out by 20 feet. I hobbled to the dugout, took myself out of the game, gathered my gear and went home for a long, hot bath.

For the next several weeks I had to wear compression shorts 24/7 as my legs healed. My office was up 2 flights of stairs and it took me 5 minutes to climb them. I was “officially” retired from playing ball. I would get twinges in my quads every time I would break into a jog for the next 6 months.

So, what do I want to do? This idea has been percolating for almost a month now. Next August is my 60th birthday. I want to play baseball. Not a game. I want to go out and throw. Warm-up like I used to. I want to take a good session of batting practice. I want to take infield practice. I want to catch for a few batters. And maybe even throw a bit of BP too.

Then I want to go home, take a long hot shower, look at my grey hair and beard and smile. Smile because I got to play ball like an exuberant 15 year old again. Just once. Just one last time.

That’s all. Because like Bill Lee just proved—60 ain’t that old. And like Satchel Paige always said, “It’s mind over matter. If you don’t mind. It don’t matter.”

"Out of the Blue of the Western Sky"...Sky's neice Penny

When I was about 7 or 8 my Grandpa Stark gave me a new wallet for my birthday. That’s a big deal for a little kid especially since it was loaded with a $2 bill and autographed pictures of celebrities. Wow!

(What I like about this photo is that my dad was in the Air Force--but he didn't sit around in uniform watching TV)

But I only kept one picture. It wasn’t the photo of Kirby Grant who was famous as “Sky King”. No. It was the picture of Penny, Sky’s niece. I mean Sky was cool, flying the “Song Bird” all over the west, stopping desparados. But Penny was gorgeous, always getting captured or kidnapped with Uncle Sky coming to the rescue. She was every 8 year old’s dream while we sat cross-legged on the floor watching in both rapt attention and rapture.

And, I know for a fact that I wasn’t the only kid who did this. Jimmy Buffett even wrote about it in his song “Pencil Thin Mustache”: “I remember being buck-toothed and skinny; writing fan letters to Sky’s niece Penny...” Yep, to an 8 year old, Penny was a dream come true.


Imagine then, my surprise this morning when I opened up the paper and a headline on an obituary caught my eye. It said, “Star of 1950s TV series “Sky King”…Lived in Vista”. I did a double take. And there was a picture of this lovely vision from my childhood. Penny. I was totally bummed out.

The biggest reason was that she lived in Vista, CA. I live in Vista. Oh man, she was a “neighbor”. If I had only known.

Yeah, if I had only known I’d have found out where and gone over to introduce myself and get her autograph. I’d have let her know just how much I loved her when I was a kid. I bet no one ever told her that before. Only about 10,000 or so times, I’m sure. Would she have looked just like she did in the 1950s? Or would she have been one of those “handsome” older women grown more lovely as they aged?

She lived right here in this city of 100,000 and I never knew! The dreamgirl from my childhood. Would she have known about all the times I sat on the floor in my tighty-whiteys slurping down cereal as I squirmed through her latest escapade with Uncle Sky? “Watch out Penny, the bad guys are hiding behind the big rock!” And they’d kidnap her and Uncle Sky and “Song Bird” would have to come to the rescue.

Except, as Mrs. CB said, “Yeah, you’d have probably ended up with a court order against you as a stalker!” Thanks dear for bursting my bubble.

The lady’s name was Gloria Winters. She was in her late 70s. She apparently lived a quiet life after a too brief career on TV.


But, more than a half century ago she was a dream to a whole generation of young boys. We grew up watching Joey and Jim (played by Peter Graves) on “Fury”, and Rusty and Rin-Tin-Tin on “Rin-Tin-Tin”. But our hearts belonged to Penny and our allegiance to Skylar King who was forever rescuing her.

Thanks Penny.