Wind-up Woodpecker

13. How do those wind-up flashlights work anyway?
I have thought of three possible answers for this question:
--Magic
--Fireflies get blown toward the front of the flashlight
--Inside a wind-up flashlight is a small generator that keeps the bulb working. When you turn the handle, you are running the generator. This means that the flashlight doesn’t need batteries. Some of these wind-up flashlights will even charge your cell phone! Other kinds of flashlights that don’t require batteries include squeezable flashlights and shakable flashlights.

I think regardless of whether you use wind-up flashlights or not, it is always smart to have extra batteries around in case of emergency. That is my advice for the day.

14. Man vs. Wild...WTF
This is a television show on the Discovery Channel where a guy named Bear tries to survive in the wild. I don’t really watch this show, but I guess I have a pretty good idea of what goes on.

But let me tell you a little something about my house these days. At my house, it is like Man vs. Woodpecker. The woodpeckers are eating us alive. All of a sudden I will be doing something innocuous in my room, like folding clothes or eating candy, and then the next thing I know, it’s like World War III. But it’s woodpeckers instead of bombs or guns. Frankly I think the woodpeckers are more annoying. So I have to stop what I’m doing, go outside, and shoo them away. But then I guess they think that maybe I’ve left the room or the house, and they’ll come back ten minutes later. This process repeats over and over for hours. Shoo, return. Shoo, return. Sometimes I have gone outside and the insulation from the house is flying everywhere and it looks like it’s snowing. Sometimes my parents will try to shoot them with a BB gun, but they will still come back.

The woodpeckers have put so many holes in the house that now other birds can come through and play around in the walls. Many a time since I have been home, I have been sleeping sweet dreams, only to have a bird start dancing around in the wall behind my bed. Or it sounds like they’re behind my books. One day these birds will drive me so crazy that I might just start pulling everything off my shelves and claw at the shelves and scream, “The birds! The birds! Why won’t these birds leave me alone!” And my wailing will be heard all across Western North Carolina.

So anyway, where I was going with this, is I would like to contact this Bear, and see if they can do an episode of “Man vs. Wild” in my yard. He can live under trees and try to escape from small frogs. But he can only eat woodpeckers. I want to see that guy catch, skin, and eat these friggin’ woodpeckers.