It is Pothole Season in Kansas City! Later today my family and I will head out to find our Pothole Tree and, then, exchange names for gift-giving. Tuesday morning on FirstNews, Michele Rooney reported that there are, already, nearly 300 of those metal plates on the roads covering potholes. And, this is just the beginning. FirstNews co-anchor Kris Ketz told the story of potholes on Broadway shredding two of his car's tires a few years ago. He said it was expensive and annoying. He could barely contain his anger as his driver fixed the tires while Mr. Ketz sat in back of the limo and watched TV. His frustration increased exponentially when he realized he had already seen that particular episode of Designing Women! Sometimes that Delta Burke really gets under his skin!

I've never, knock wood, have had a major pothole encounter. Although I did try to blame a pothole once. My car needed to have a new tire put on so I took it to our favorite garage. They did the job and, as I was pulling away, I took the first corner too close and scraped the new tire on the gutter...so much so that it knocked the tire off and bent the wheel frame. I sheepishly pulled right back in and said, with fake bravado, "You'd better get that pothole out there fixed! Fell right into it! Bad pothole! Bad, bad pothole!" Unfortunately, one of the mechanics had seen me leave and the rest had heard me.

I wonder if we'd like potholes better if we called them "kettles" around here like they do in some parts of the world. "Oh, that darn kettle just knocked my hub-caps clean off!" Yeah, that does sound a little friendlier. In the United Kingdom they use the word pothole to describe a deep cave and folks who like to explore them are called potholers. Is that better than being called a spelunker? Would you rather be accused of spelunking or caving or potholing? Frankly, they all sound like things a third grader shouldn't say in the hall. In the west, by the way, some call a pothole, a "chuckhole." I'm pretty sure Chuck Norris would have a problem with that.

If you really want to see a pothole, I guess you have to head for Archbald, PA. That's where the world's largest pothole is found at Archbald Pothole State Park. It was formed by a glacier and is 38 feet deep. When people in Archbald say "This place is just a big hole in the ground" they mean it in the very best possible way.

By the way, that's how I meant the title of this e-hole-agram, Going to Pot: in the best possible way. If the by-line on this story was "Willie Nelson" or "Woody Harrelson" it probably would've had different connotations. Or, if my mom wrote it. She has long used the phrase "going to pot" or "gone to pot" to indicate something or someone taking a downward slide. Not that she ever used that phrase in reference to me...her favorite son. The word "pot" gets thrown into a lot of illustrative phrases.

For example, growing up in the Lutheran Church, I came to think of Potlucks as nearly sacramental in their importance and any casserole using creamed chicken soup and tuna as necessary elements in becoming a true believer. Add coffee and you're practically an apostle. We had potlucks after weddings and confirmations and baptisms and, especially, after funerals. We're not big into the seven stages of grief where I grew up so we substituted the post-funeral potluck.

1. Shock: "Wow. What a surprise?! He seemed like he was in pretty good shape. Where's the coffee?"
2. Denial: "I keep expecting him to walk in here and, if he does, I hope he'll bring the cinnamon rolls."
3. Anger: "It just makes me so mad to think he's gone when we just put racing stripes on his Arctic Cat. Where are those cheese curds?"
4. Bargaining: "Hey, pass the three bean salad or you're not getting these ham sandwiches."
5. Guilt: This one is a given and exists apart from anything else going on.
6. Depression: "Well, I guess that's about it. Can you scrape anything else out of that crock-pot?"
7. Acceptance: "Hey. Time to go. 'Nuff of this. Wonder who we can find to fill his spot on the bowling team?"

It's a healing process.

There's "He can talk the legs off an iron pot" and "That's like trying to get a quart into a pint pot" and many others that I can't relate here in a family-friendly forum. Of course, an oldie but a goodie is "A watched pot never boils." We changed that a little when we were trying to get the kids out of diapers: "A watched tot never soils."

Go ahead, take your potshots.