Whether you are a Dalton State student or the biggest star of the moment in country music, this really shouldn't be that hard.
There are more than 270,000 words in the Oxford Dictionary, so there's really no need for white people to use the N-word. None.
This is not a matter of rights as much as a matter of what's right. And decent.
Not sure why this is so hard to understand, to be honest.
Kids today
Last month a teenager managed to extend a return/refund scam at the Kroger where he worked for almost two weeks.
He started by faking a $10 return and charged the money back to a credit card he had. Yeah, it'd be pretty easy for that $10 to go unnoticed at any grocery store, especially one in an area as busy and bustling as the Atlanta suburb of Gwinnett County.
Well, 19-year-old Tre Brown wasted little time in escalating his little enterprise. Two weeks later, he had run up more than $980,000 in fake returns, including one return for $87,000.
"It seems like this is a rare case where things snuck through the cracks and the person was able to get away with a large amount of money in a short period of time," Gwinnett police spokesman Collin Flynn said.
Seriously. I know we're all loading up for the big game, but close to $90,000 in grocery store returns should set off every bell in the building, right? The last crack that large sank the Titanic.
Bar-ly legal
Hey, I know rules are rules, but the headline that the Pickle Barrel was going to lose the ability to sell beer for a day because an employee had a drink after watching a person - whom they called a friend - get stabbed is puzzling.
Again, the rules are there to prevent folks from getting in a pickle (sorry) or being held over a barrel (again).
But in the grand scheme of things, shots taken - rather than fired - certainly are not as big a deal as a stabbing. Am I right on this?
Kind of feels like a raw dill. (Last one, promise.)
Happy deal
Here's an initiative I'm all for: McDonald's is giving employees at corporate-owned facilities four hours of bonus pay to get a COVID-19 shot.
It means the Golden Arches are the first major fast-food operation to give financial rewards to encourage vaccination.
In addition to McDonald's strike against the pandemic, I know as a consumer, any restaurant that can post a sign that says "All our employees are vaccinated" would be more likely to get my business right now.
Obit observation
Several folks noted the obit of Coach Tony Martino, who died Tuesday at the tender age of 93.
Scott 'Quake' McMahen sang Martino's praises this week on WGOW 102.3 FM. Quake went to Hixson High School, where Martino cast a giant shadow and affected thousands of lives through the years.
In the obit, it would have been easier to list the sports at Hixson Martino - who played for legendary Scrappy Moore at then-University of Chattanooga - did not coach as opposed to the ones he did.
Among his honorary pallbearers will be a former quarterback at Hixson you may know as County Mayor Jim Coppinger. Coach was survived by his wife of 70 years, Billie Jean, and a multi-generational family that surely will miss him greatly.
And as they think back on the blessing Coach was, may his family take to heart that he had a far-reaching influence on more people than they can imagine.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com.
Jay Greeson