Tagged: humor
A Plea For Help
Dear Brain,
Why? Why are you doing this to us? What are you even doing to us? We haven’t felt this way in years. Decades.
Don’t you remember the days when sitting is all that you had us do? Whether at a desk or in the cockpit? Weren’t those pleasant? Sure, you didn’t seem to be that stimulated, but at least we had it easy. Not everyone gets their way all the time you know.
Look at us now. Feel us now. Can’t you tell that we’re exhausted? So much running. And for what? Oh, and I spoke to Fingers the other day, they told me not to say anything, but they’re starting to feel it too. What about your piano? Are you really going to let Fingers become too tired to tickle the ol’ ivories?
We just don’t understand it. What are you running from? Responsibility? Failure? It doesn’t make sense. We used to live in harmony, and now look at us. Muscle mass is shrinking, and we’re sore all the time.
We aren’t saying we can’t keep up, we just believe you are underachieving at the moment. Remember what Bruce said in TDK? “I believe in Harvey Dent.” Well, we believe in you! We’re with you. No matter how far this road goes, we won’t let you fall. Just please consider us in the softer moments. Please. Okay, that’s all. Try to get us some rest.
With Support,
Legs
Relief
And with that they were out the door.
As usual, she ran to the car, and verbalized her victory upon touching the driver’s side passenger door–her door. He simply shook his head and said, “Yep. Looks like you beat me again.” He opened his door, placed everything in the car and started it. Then he opened her door and put her in her car seat.
Getting back into the driver’s seat, he backed the car out of the garage. Next, he put the car in park and got out. The recent week of sub-freezing temperatures took their toll on the garage door opener, so he was forced to use more than just his finger muscles to open and close the garage. In a jiff, he was back in the car and they were on their way.
At the daycare, he grabbed her nap stuff from the front seat and told her she could start unbuckling and get out. Like always, she seemed to not hear this command, and he was at her door before she could comply. She happily dropped down to the cement, and reminded him about the dangers of walking on ice.
Leaving her with the teacher, he walked out of the building briskly. He had time, but never liked the feeling of being rushed. There was something rewarding about getting to work early enough to be able to sit in the car for a moment before going in.
He pulled into the parking garage, and turned off the car. Reaching for his lunch, he nearly jumped.
“MOTHER EFFER!” he shouted. “GOD DANG IT! I know I grabbed it this morning.”
His mind raced to figure out what he would eat for lunch now that he had discovered he left his on the counter.
Walking past the passenger door, his peripheral vision picked up on a grocery sack which looked awfully similar to the ones he packed his lunches in. Turning for confirmation, a shudder of relief almost knocked him off his feet.
“I knew I didn’t forget it,” he said, impressed at his ability to believe a lie.
How To Get A Raise
(If you’re short on time, skip to the bottom for numbered instructions).
In the classic western Tombstone the new actress in town is awestruck by who-she-doesn’t-yet-know-is Wyatt Earp. The actress’s friend says to her, “My dear, you’ve set your gaze upon the quintessential frontier type. Note the lean silhouette…eyes closed by the sun, though sharp as a hawk.”
For some reason that quote sprung to his mind when he thought of describing his new boss. Standing a lean 6 feet, the man’s movements signaled to all–customers and staff–that he was in charge. But that’s not the extraordinary thing. What’s extraordinary is his oneness with the job.
It’s retail. Business can be slow or fast. Apart from the length of the line, anyone wanting to know how busy it is need simply look at the man. When business is slow, he focuses on the numbers and keeps everyone ready for it to pick up. When business is fast, his smile beams an uncommon love of the job. The line of customers can be out the door, and he just smiles and smiles. Where some would be stressed, he handles the situation with exceptional grace. This grace stems from a certain pride in knowing that he is doing his job well. In response to “man, you should see your face. How are you so happy?”, he clarifies “It’s not that we’re busy, it’s that we’re so busy and things are running so smoothly.” His smile betrays his joy. It is a joy founded on purity. And that is why he is the boss.
Instructions for How To Get A Raise
Step 1 — FLATTER your boss endlessly.
Step 2 — REPEAT Step 1.
So You’re Dying To Hear What It’s Like, Eh?
Well, I’ll tell ya. Working at a car wash–for me–is like listening to a broken record on which is recorded Mr. Miagi’s “Wax on, Wax off,” Improved-George McFly’s “Now, Biff, I want make sure that we get two coats of wax this time, not just one,” and Chris Rock’s “Scrape, scrape, scrape…surely two hours have passed…WHAT?! Only 15 minutes!! AHHHHHH!!!!!”
In other words, it’s kinda fun. Thanks for asking.
How To Start An Argument
(If you’re short on time, skip to the bottom for numbered instructions).
“Are you kidding me? That’s not at all what I said,” he said, resigning himself.
“That is what you said. That is exactly what you said,” she replied, her voice betraying her emotion.
“No. I said that your family does things different from how I’m used to. I never said they are weird. I never said they are wrong,” he argued, trying one last time to be clear.
“Well, I think if we Googled ‘synonyms for different’, ‘weird’ would make the list,” she said, calming ever so slightly.
“It might. But the difference is that ‘weird’ carries a value, whereas ‘different’ is value-neutral,” he said trying not to get excited too early.
“Why does my family have to be the ‘different’ one? Why can’t your family be the ‘different’ one?” she stammered, signifying she was beginning to understand.
“Because I was the one who said it. My family can’t be ‘different’ to me. My family is what I am used to. Therefore, if your family is not like what I am used to…they are different. You could say the same thing if you thought so,” he said, hoping to be done with the whole thing.
“Fine. My family is different to you, your family is different to me,” she said, unable to recall why this ever even came up.
“Good.”
“Good.”
“Your brother, on the other hand, is weird,” he said, laughing heartily as he ran.
Instructions for How To Start An Argument
Step 1 – Fail to communicate yourself fully and accurately on the first try.
Step 2 – Believe the other person is incapable of making the same error.
She’s A Djeeen-yus!
“Trees,” she said in response to the prompt he gave.
After hearing “I see…” and seeing his finger point to the cars on the page, she responded, “Cars.”
He turned the page. The next page had two scenes. In the first, the main character painted a wall blue. In the second, the main character’s friend colored the wall red with a crayon. He continued the challenge-response game.
“I see…” he queried, pointing to the blue.
“Paint,” she finished.
Smiling ear-to-ear, he chuckled. “Ha. Good. I would have also accepted ‘Blue’.”
Origins of the Unfamiliar Camera Shudder
The truth? Well, no one ever seemed to want to know the truth. Just the same, the truth was his great-great grandpa was the culprit. Having never met him, of course, he only had heard stories. The man’s name was Pete. In fact, he was named after his great-great grandpa. Apparently this Pete was quite the guy. Loved by everyone; despised by no one.
Herein begins the tale.
Thinning, fine white hair revealed Pete’s old age. A welcoming smile betrayed his young heart. And a never satisfied quest for practical jokes kept him busy even after he was too brittle to work on the family farm.
They say great-great grandpa Pete really was a jokester. He was always catching everyone off-guard, and even though his victims always eventually got over it, his pranks were usually very inappropriate. The legends account for this by telling of his ridiculously strong character. While inappropriate, his making-fun was meticulously timed and delivered. One could only imagine, then, how well-planned Pete’s crowning gag must have been.
It was a large family reunion. Not just cousins, but second cousins, third cousins, and fourth cousins thrice removed were invited and made their appearance. With a guest list that large, quite a few dignitaries and very wealthy people were in attendance. Great-great grandpa Pete would have been banking on this.
On the guest list, a fairly distant relation was former president Rutherford B. Hayes and his wife “lemonade” Lucy, known (without justification) for her role in the temperance movement. To Pete, they were Uncle Rutherford and Aunt Lucy.
It was a warm sunny day in June. June 25, 1889, to be exact. Pete had known the president and his wife for some time. Rutherford and Lucy were just a bit too–let’s say proper–for practical jokes. Just the same, Pete had seen in Rutherford’s eyes something of a sparkle each time he witnessed one of Pete’s masterpieces.
Now, as everyone knows, former Presidents are not to be trifled with. Despite not occupying the position anymore, they are still well-connected to all the right people. Pete would have known this too. Apparently he didn’t care. He had chosen his course, and on that fateful day nothing was going to stop him.
As the first of Pete’s family trickled in, he encouraged the required small talk by talking about his new camera. This camera, he said, was not unlike other cameras of the day, except in one feature. His camera had a timed shutter. He really wanted this affair to be a family only event, and so he didn’t want to hire a professional photographer. He also began spreading that he wanted the first picture taken that day to be a photograph of everyone there.
As the trickle of guests became a raging rapid, so did the story of Pete’s camera. Soon everyone was anxiously awaiting picture time. All in attendance naturally assumed Pete would be the one to press the button then run to his spot in the 4.75 seconds before the shutter opened.
One can only imagine the surprise, then, when ol’ Pete announced to a gathering of 250 of his family members that he was going to give the honor to his “favorite Aunt-who-was-also-a-first-lady” Lucy Hayes. Not being one to regularly indulge in the frivolities and vices of life, the story has it that Lucy succumbed just this once and accepted. They say Pete had a curious twinkle in his eye as he was explaining the task to her.
Straightening up as he finished, he calmly took his place among those about to be photographed.
Trembling with nervous excitement Lucy began to sense the crowd’s growing impatience. She knew she must get it right the first time. She knew that if Pete had to come back and help her one more time, the most distant relatives–already drunk she noticed–would just leave the formation.
The pressure became unbearable and as she pressed the button and began to walk briskly back to her spot, a loud report was heard and as she shuddered in fright, she looked to Pete for reassurance that she didn’t make a mistake. In an instant, Pete tossed her a bottle of whiskey which she caught out of instinct. Turning, she realized she was front and center, looking guilty and holding the substance that she had fought her entire adult life to ban as the shutter opened. A moment later, we’re told that everyone else fell over laughing as they realized Pete had struck again. Everyone but Uncle Rutherford. He was holding his dear beloved who appeared to have fainted. Within the hour she was pronounced dead.
Pete had finally done it. He had finally picked on the wrong person, at the wrong time. By the end of the day, despite former-President Hayes’ insistence that the incident be kept a family matter, word had spread. Naturally, like all stories, the listener heard what they wanted to hear. Couple this with Rutherford demanding Pete hand over the single piece of evidence that proved it was all about Lucy’s obnoxious stance on liquor, and the story really scrambled to build a foundation. In the end, the story that spread throughout the country was that Lucy died because she used an unfamiliar camera to take the picture at the family reunion.
While you may never have heard of great-great grandpa Pete, or Lucy Hayes, you surely have experienced the result of this rumor. Even to this day, when relatives handle camera’s unfamiliar to them, they do so with great trepidation. They cannot shake the fear that something terrible may happen as they take the picture. Little do they know that it wasn’t the use of an unfamiliar camera that killed Lucy, but irrational shame.
At least that’s what I tell myself to explain why we’re so afraid of other people’s cameras at family functions. Can you explain it?
What Was She Thinking?
Sitting across from her, he took took a breath as he finished talking. He could only wonder what she was thinking. Reminiscing, they discussed how they first met. He told her how nervous he was, how excited he was, and how all he wanted was to be able to know her thoughts. She smiled politely at this, and replied in kind.
Wrapping up the meal, they walked silently to the car. He couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking.
He told her about his day, and she laughed at the funny parts. He told her how he learned a new joke, “How do you make an octopus laugh?…Give it ten tickles!” She laughed harder.
Arriving home, they began their separate nightly routines and he sat down to his computer. As he piddled around, he heard her turning pages, walking around, and turning on the tv. Her thoughts eluded him.
He’d had enough of the screen for one day, so he went to her. She was watching tv. Watching her, he lingered in the hall a little before entering the room. He asked himself, “I wonder what she’s thinking?”
The next morning as they ate breakfast they chatted about the headlines. He asked her how she expected her work to go, and she said, “Good.” She volleyed the question back, and he told her how he had a 10 o’clock meeting, followed by lunch with a friend. Continuing, he told her that his afternoon was booked with two more meetings, but he should be home at 5 o’clock because the last meeting won’t go long. She said, “That’s good. So will I. Chicken tonight?” He agreed. She had to get going, as hers was the longer commute. As she walked to the garage, he wondered what she was thinking.
Arriving at the office, he ran into Jeb, his co-worker. Scanning the room to be sure the wrong people weren’t around, Jeb whispered, “Hey man, you ever wonder what women are thinking?”
“Yup.”
Disappointment
When that Aprill with his shoures soote/The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,/And bathed every vyne in swich licour/Of which vertur engendred is the flour…*
“Okay, Chaucer, that’s enough Middle Earth or whatever for tonight,” he thought, exhaling.
Straining to lift the book, heavy reading seemingly adding to the already heavy weight, he placed it beside him on the couch. He closed his notebook, and placed it too beside him. In a move foreshadowing a time not yet, he pushed the couch with his hands to stand up and proceeded to the kitchen. Water cup in hand, he turned the faucet on, and confirmed a cool temperature with a rapid flick of his fingers. He nearly finished in one swig, but habit caused him to stop early and pour out the remainder. The slightest feeling of guilt pestered him as he wasted the water. “Whatever.”
As he walked back towards the couch, he eyed an open bag of tortilla chips. “Pretty sure I’m doing chips and salsa tonight,” he announced.
At first, head movement; pupils adjusting to reality next. Finally, his friend smiled.
“We finished off the salsa the other night. It’s all gone,” the friend disclosed.
“That’s fine, we still have the Pace in the fridge,” he said, knowing his friend would never stoop so low to eat, let alone serve others, bottom-shelf salsa.
Like Aesop’s cloak-removing sun, his friend’s smile only grew.
“You finished the Pace?” he asked in disbelief.
“Well, there was only so much good stuff left, so I just mixed it all together. I didn’t want to run out with people over,” informed the friend.
“Oh.”
*****
*Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales
Same Sh!t, Different(?) Day
Unless you live under a rock, you heard that President Obama recently had three dictionary’s (Google, Merriam-Webster and Cambridge) add the following entry to the definition of literally: “Used to acknowledge that something is not literally true but is used for emphasis or to express strong feeling.”
In typical fashion, that isn’t the only, or most impactful, word/definition that the president had modified. While everyone was abuzz over the fact that a definition clearly in opposition to the word’s actual definition was added, nobody noticed the other word the president had changed: different. (Of all the words for this to happen to, that he chose ‘literally’ to accomplish his ultimate goal is genius as it is so fundamental to a dictionary that it necessarily would draw attention.)
If you go to dictionary.com and look up different you’ll find, “not alike in character or quality” as the number one definition. However, the same three dictionaries the president has in his pocket have caved to the pressure yet again. Instead of just adding a definition to the number two spot, though, they actually erased all the previous definitions and instead put, “being the same.”
Now, we could discuss how, yet again, the president’s actions–always hiding bigger changes behind smaller changes–are disreputable, but let’s not. We could discuss how, yet again, the president’s actions–endlessly overstepping the limited nature of his power–are illegal, but let’s not. We could discuss how, yet again, the president’s actions–his surprisingly unsurprising changing definitions of words–are narcissistic and disrespectful to all mankind, but let’s not. Instead, we will focus on how his most recent action, changing the definition of different, clearly illustrates how he has a fundamental misunderstanding of his main campaign promise: change.
President Barack Obama promised to change this country, presumably for the better. We turn again to dictionary.com and find that change is defined as, “to become different.” Do you understand what has happened? The nature of all the president’s flaws are revealed perfectly in this one seemingly minor action. He wants to have it all. He wants to “have his cake and eat it too”. He wants to “have it both ways.” However, as long as there is one other human–functional backbone included–in existence, he’s going to have a problem reconciling his ‘wants’ with reality.
His changing the definition of different doesn’t even make sense if he doesn’t have these ‘wants.’ How can a man who promises change fulfill his promise if everything is the same?
Some of us might be inclined to let this minor change be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Let’s turn to a dissenting opinion: His entertainment value alone has been worth it.
For those of us who first learned how inept presidents were with Clinton, we were even more disappointed in Bush II. And out of these three presidents that have done nothing but drop the ball, has President Obama not been easily the most enjoyable to watch. Will you join me in admitting that rather than getting upset, you actually hope President Obama never leaves office? Long Live King Obama!
Captain’s Log 