Holiday Safety Tips:

Tree Ablase

• If you set a Christmas tree branch on fire to facilitate the lighting of several people's cigarettes, get away from it afterward.

• Hang your child's razor blade ornaments toward the top of the tree.

• Also, stack presents at the very top of the tree so that excited kids don't knock the tree over while rooting around beneath it.

• If a homemade strand of Christmas lights is missing one or two bulbs, fill the empty sockets with similarly sized objects, like tiny firecrackers.
Important: Do not light firecrackers!

• You don't have to turn off outdoor Christmas lights at night, but do ball them up in a big rat's nest of a pile and drag it inside until morning.

• If your heart is set on having a Victorian-style house fire, do it by placing lit mood-enhancing candles all over your house and not some other unsafe way.

• When it comes to safely eating Christmas plants, remember this rule of thumb: Your child can safely eat just under twice the amount of poisonous plant matter that can kill your cat.


Kid Care with Arnold

Arnold Crapacan is a Korean War veteran and member of the Woodfin Lion's Club

Dear Arnold,
Do cervical mucus changes signal ovulation? Is it an easy and reliable method to use independently, without having to take one's temperature?
- Hope

Dear Hope,
Mucus? In there? Does your husband know that? Exactly how are you blowing your nose? Good lord woman, there is something seriously wrong with you.

Salvation Army call-up affects local families

This will be third deployment for some bell-ringers

Salvation Army Troop

ASHEVILLE, MONDAY -- Thousands of bell-ringers around the country received news that they would be reactivated at a time of year when many were planning on staying home with their families.

"I've still got tinnitus in my left ear from last year's deployment at the mall," said Joe Colvert. "I signed on with the Salvation Army for a one-day commitment and they keep calling me back up."

Many Salvation Army reservists signed on in the mid-'90s for one weekend a year and loads of perks -- "Free bells, buckets, you name it," said Colvert.

But what once was a way to make a little extra money around the holidays turned into a full-time commitment when the Joint Chiefs of the Salvation Army realized that Christmas had gone broke.

"My wrist is killing me, I can't hear nothin'," said Colvert. "It's either this or folding clothes at their store. I'm going to Canada, man, where there ain't no Christmas or no nothing."

Take the Pritchard Park Challenge!

Standing in Pritchard Park is a new badge of honor.
It is a way of saying to the world, "I do not molest children!"
It is also an easy way to impress your significant other.
When you start a new friendship or romantic relationship, take your new sweetie on a stroll downtown and put them to the Pritchard Park Challenge!
If they are able to cross the threshold into the park, he or she might be a keeper! If they abruptly stop as if they have walked into an invisible wall, it might not be time for you to settle down. Shuffling their feet on the curb does not count! When it comes to the Pritchard Park Challenge!, you're either in or you're out, pervert.

Unopposed tumbleweed population explodes in Pritchard Park

Recent sex offender ban throws fragile ecosystem out of balance

COLLEGE STREET, TUESDAY -- A new ordinance banning sex offenders from public parks has left Pritchard Park "quiet, too quiet," according to downtown residents. "It's spooky when nobody's around."

"Where'd they all go?" asked Jones Myrick, pointing to the completely empty park. "At least before, we could all keep an eye on them."

Some parents are happy about this, however.

"Oh, it's about time," said one mother of two. "Now, I can drop my children off at Pritchard Park for the day while I go shopping, and when I come back to get them, I'll know they haven't been molested."

In other news, the downtown library is reporting "a spike in interest in children's books by adult men."