Sleeping, dating and avoiding hot coffee
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That’s why it grabbed my attention when Reuters recently released results from a world-wide survey about sleep habits. According to the survey, 66 percent of all Americans are in bed by midnight.
One of the things I enjoy most about sleep is having neat dreams. Why just the other night I was dreaming about eating a giant marshmallow. When I woke up, half my pillow was gone.
I’m sure most of you have heard that joke before, but what you may not know is that I sometimes talk in my sleep. In fact, I’ve noticed that while Cupcake doesn’t always listen to what I say when I’m awake, she pays great attention to what I mumble in my sleep.
In other sleep-related information from the 28-country Reuters survey, Portugal had the highest number of people stay up after midnight at 75 percent. And Japan sleeps the least of any country with its citizens averaging just under six hours of sleep a night.
In an informal poll of Standard reporters, we discovered Duane Sherrill sleeps the most of anybody at the paper. Duane likes to sleep nine hours a night and often naps at his desk.
As for other news of note, I have to admire the thinking of New York farmer Pieter DeHond, who now has a giant personal ad made from corn stalks in one of his cow pastures. Underneath the message is a 1,000-foot arrow pointing SWFs (single, white females) to his house.
DeHond estimated it only took him an hour to plant the corn in the 18-acre field in May. He said he opted for a field ad instead of the more conventional personal ads that are published in newspapers.
“I wouldn’t want to place a personal ad in the paper,” DeHond told the Associated Press. “To me it seems too desperate.”
Hmmm, let me get this straight. A tiny ad in the newspaper is desperate, but an 18-acre ad that can be read from an airplane is normal behavior?
DeHond, a 41-year-old divorced father, said running a business and looking after his two teenagers doesn’t leave a lot of room for socializing.
And in a final note, I wanted to mention the fact it’s been 13 years since the landmark court decision that granted Stella Liebeck $2.9 million from McDonald’s after she spilled hot coffee in her lap at the drive-thru window. The court decision is regarded by many Americans as one of the most ridiculous ever, although few people know the amount was reduced to $640,000 on appeals.
So let’s fast forward to the year 2005. Last month, McDonald’s customer Rachel Wahrenberg filed a similar lawsuit after her 6-year-old daughter was burned by coffee at a restaurant in Estero, Fla. The mother claims over 80 percent of the child’s body was scalded by the coffee, which to me means McDonald’s is using one gigantic cup.
A significant difference in last month’s lawsuit is a 79-year-old customer was allegedly carrying the cup, or should I say vat of coffee, which burned the girl.