Invasion of the grout people.

In this post: Remodeling disasters, spray-painted savages, a USDA recall.

I’ll begin with a lede sentence you’ve seen here before in various iterations: Howdygram headquarters was invaded this afternoon by grout people AND glass people! Clayton, leader of the grout people, and Tim, representing Binswanger Glass, conferred together adjacent to Sam’s favorite toilet and managed to figure out, after two months of inept repairs, exactly where, why and how the shower in our master bathroom continues to leak puddles onto the stone floor. They made plans for another overhaul — hopefully for the last time — after Memorial Day. I am simultaneously excited, hopeful, skeptical, despondent, mildly nauseated and irked. I’ll need therapy by the time we’re done with this. Or at least a lot of braunschweiger.

In other local news, I’m afraid there isn’t any because I’ve been asleep practically all day. I like to think of it as a patchwork of luxurious, retiree-perfected medium-length naps connected by bathroom breaks and a piece of leftover pizza at 2:45. For your possible interest today’s napping movies included: Murder at the Gallop (1963) starring Margaret Rutherford; White Cargo (1942) starring Walter Pidgeon, Richard Carlson and Hedy Lamarr; Murder on a Honeymoon (1935) starring Edna May Oliver and James Gleason; and The Kennel Murder Case (1933) starring William Powell, Ralph Morgan and Mary Astor.

Holy crap, everybody ... I just read a gigantic headline on CNN.com that the USDA has recalled two million pounds of food — TWO FREAKIN’ MILLION! — due to E. coli and Listeria contamination, including ground beef, hummus, hummus dips, walnuts and fresh clover sprouts. Who the hell eats clover sprouts besides goats? The hummus and hummus dips are sold at Super Target under the Archer Farms label (see below) and at Trader Joe’s; 1.8 million pounds of contaminated ground beef were distributed to 40 states just in time to poison America in honor of Memorial Day.

The answer? I think we should all start eating more Cheetos and Hormel canned tamales, clearly two of the purest foods on the market. Also Slurpees.

Thank you for reading this.