The pictures above are from last weekend’s bike ride to the Chain of Rocks bridge.  They are the city water take out towers.  They don’t have anything to do about today’s post, but I thought that they looked nice. 

I went out to lunch today with some of the guys.  We went to this little hole in the wall Italian place.  One of the guys had frequented the place enough to be on a first name basis with most of the waitresses.  By the time we were seated I noticed three or more other tables of people from work. 

The owner came around meeting and greeting the customers.  He is 74 years old, was born in the former Yugoslavia, grew up in Italy before moving to Saint Louis.  I found out later that most of the waitresses are his relatives.  On his second or third time around he told us the following “work” related joke:

A plane is on its way to Detroit when a woman in economy class gets up and moves to an open seat in first class.

The flight attendant watches her do this, and politely informs the woman that she must sit in economy class because that’s the type of ticket she paid for.

The woman replies, “I’m blond, I’m beautiful, I’m going to Detroit and I’m staying right here.”

After repeated attempts and no success at convincing the woman to move, the flight attendant goes into the cockpit and informs the pilot and co-pilot that there’s a blond women sitting in first class who refuses to go back to her proper seat. The co-pilot goes back to the woman and explains why she needs to move, but once again the woman replies by saying, “I’m blond, I’m beautiful, I’m going to Detroit and I’m staying right here.”

The co-pilot returns to the cockpit and suggests that perhaps they should have the arrival gate call the police and have the woman arrested when they land. The pilot says, “You say she’s blond? I’ll handle this.” He goes back to the woman and whispers quietly in her ear, and she says, “Oh, I’m sorry,” then quickly moves back to her seat in economy class.

The flight attendant and co-pilot are amazed and ask him what he said to get her to move back to economy without causing any fuss.

“I told her first class isn’t going to Detroit.”

I hope that this joke doesn’t offend any of the blond bombers?  They are all highly intelligent and always fly coach.

UPDATE: This morning after yesterday’s 11 hour workday and two and a half hour commute, I was a little slow getting into work.  So, at a quarter to nine this morning as I am exiting the highway I start noticing cop cars.  I see more and more of them the closer to work I get.  You see STL’s VIP entrance is just outside my work’s gate.  So when any presidential candidate comes to town the cops come out and close the roads.  This morning I figured one or both of the debaters had overnight-ed in town.  I was confused when listening to the radio tonight I heard of presidential road closings.  From msnbc’s First Read comes the explaination:

The passage of the $700-billion financial bailout bill freed President Bush to leave town. During the market turmoil of the past two weeks and the bill’s legislative limbo, Mr. Bush cancelled or postponed appearances at a number of fundraising events for Republican candidates.

About 20 minutes after signing the bill, he was on his way to a fund raising swing that will take him to Missouri and Texas. His first stop: a St. Louis fundraiser for Rep. Kenny Hulshof, who is running for governor — and voted against the legislation. Twice.