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July 2, 2004

It’s not that I don’t like my job. I do – I really do. And the way things are today I’m happy to have such a good job. But I can’t help saying to myself, "The grass is always greener on the other side, the best laid plans of mice and men aft gang agley, that’s the way the ball bounces, all that glitters isn’t gold, the best things in life are free, beggars can’t be choosers, beauty is only skin deep, the white zone is for loading and unloading only, quien es mas macho?" I went through a broad variety of career options as a child, but one that still sticks with me is theme-park character. I have no idea what the technical term is, but I mean the people who dress up as various characters and wander around theme-parks. I wouldn’t even necessarily limit myself to theme-parks. I’d be happy to dress up as Larry the Lamprey, one of the many colorful characters of the Zippy’s Pizza chain, and dance around while delivering baskets of garlic bread. I could care less about sports, but I’d jump at the chance – not to mention cavort, wiggle, or shimmy – to be a mascot. Heck, I’d even be tempted to take the job of standing in front of a car dealership dressed as a platypus and waving at passing drivers.What do platypuses and cars have in common? Absolutely nothing, but if you’ve ever seen one of these guys you know the sole reason they’re there is because some advertising quack has said, "A man in a fur suit will make people slow down, and maybe they’ll stop and buy a car!"

But I digress. Sure, the theme-park character is there to say, "Pay no attention to the fact that eight people have died on our roller-coasters this year," and they’re all just pushing a product, but they do make people happy. Is that so bad? I can’t think of a better job than making people happy just by putting on an animal suit with an oversized bow tie. But I also think it’s just human nature that, no matter how good you’ve got it, you wonder if there’s not something better. Maybe all those people in costumes hate their jobs. Maybe they’re frustrated actors, and there’s nothing a good actor hates more than being typecast. Personally I wouldn’t mind being typecast, but that’s because my one appearance in an independent film proves I’m not a good actor. If I got typecast I might be able to perfect my portrayal of a drunk, foul-mouthed clown.

But I digress. Maybe if I talked to them I’d find out that Larry the Lamprey is paying his way through medical school, the guy in front of the car dealership would prefer to be inside wearing a suit and making people on fixed incomes feel guilty for not owning Hummers, and the theme-park character would say, "I like performing, but what I really want to do is direct." Heck, even Mick Jagger sings, "You can’t always get what you want." What would the front-man for one of the most successful rock groups – and owner of, arguably, the most famous pair of lips ever – know about disappointment or frustration? I don’t know. Maybe deep down Mick has an unfulfilled longing to work at Zippy’s Pizza.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.

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Correctly Spelling ‘Potato’

If GH can stand for P as in Hiccough

If OUGH can stand for O as in Dough

If PHTH can stand for T as in Phthisis

If EIGH can stand for A as in Neighbor

If TTE can stand for T as in Gazette

If EAU can stand for O as in Plateau

Then the right way to spell POTATO should be:

"GHOUGHPHTHEIGHTTEEAU"

June 25, 2004

I thought I learned everything I would need to know about bullies in Sunday School, but then I met Kevin. There are all kinds of bullies, but Kevin was just your average, garden variety, "Hey Pizza Face!" and squirt you in the crotch with a water pistol kind of bully. And I made the mistake of being an easy target because I reacted. I got upset and told teachers, most of whom were too busy slipping off to the teacher’s lounge for a smoke and a drink to do anything about it. And there’s not a lot they could do. So I waited and tried to ignore him, like they told me to, because I thought that eventually, like I’d learned in Sunday School, a steel girder would fall on Kevin, I’d be the only person around, and with a sudden burst of superhuman strength I’d save him. We’d become best friends, and when we grew up we’d work together in a lucrative business of driving Cadillacs from Atlantic City to Miami.

Except it didn’t happen that way. One day Kevin gave me some hot cinnamon oil. Specifically he came up behind me and gave it to my eye during a science test. I thanked him with a bloody nose. I’d like to say that he respected me for finally standing up for myself in a way he could comprehend, but really he said, "You’re welcome" by punching me twice in the head. Things would have escalated if it hadn’t been for the teacher who did the only thing she knew how to do: she took us both to the principal’s office. Kevin and I did a week of hard time in detention. He mostly left me alone after that; maybe he decided I wasn’t worth staying an hour after school. Summer was coming up, so maybe he was planning some way to get me then.

I never found out because a few weeks before summer vacation started Kevin was killed in a motorcycle accident. I know my sucker punch and his death are unrelated events. I know he was a jerk and that I had a right to defend myself. So why do I feel guilty? After Kevin I learned that most bullies will, if ignored, go away. Even though what teachers really meant was, "I can’t be bothered with it" when I talked to them about Kevin, "Ignore him" was actually useful advice. It’s tough to turn the other cheek when you’re thirteen, your hormones have turned into a gang of skinheads, and your face is producing enough oil to solve the world’s energy crisis, but it’s not impossible. There’s no way I could take back what I did even if he were alive, but his death serves as a powerful reminder of how final certain actions are. I wish I’d learned it before I punched him but I did learn that Kevin didn’t have any real power over me. He’s still tormenting me in a way, but only because I choose to let him torment me. I keep Kevin in mind in part because of what he taught me about bullies, but mainly because of what he taught me about myself.

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The Parrot

Wanda’s dishwasher quit working so she called a repairman.

Since she had to go to work the next day, she told the repairman, "I’ll leave the key under the mat. Fix the dishwasher, leave the bill on the counter, and I’ll mail you a check. Oh, by the way don’t worry about my bulldog. He won’t bother you. But, whatever you do, do NOT, under ANY circumstances, talk to my parrot!"

"I REPEAT, DO NOT TALK TO MY PARROT!!!"

When the repairman arrived at Wanda’s apartment the following day, he discovered the biggest, meanest looking bulldog he had ever seen. But, just as she had said, the dog just lay there on the carpet watching the repairman go about his work.

The parrot, however, drove him nuts the whole time with its incessant yelling, cursing and name calling.

Finally the repairman couldn’t contain himself any longer and yelled, "Shut up, you stupid ugly bird!" To which the parrot replied,

"Go get him, Spike!"

June 18, 2004

Up and down, up and down,
I will lead them up and down.

-William "Wild Bill" Shakespeare

Every summer there’s a production, version, adaptation, or interpretation of "A Midsummer Night’s Dream", Shakespeare’s play about a group of people who go into the woods and get Puck’d. Maybe this play’s so popular because, four and a half centuries later, most of the jokes are funny without the help of a dictionary. Every time I hear the title I can’t help wondering when midsummer is. I don’t plant beans so I don’t have an almanac, but it always seems to be that midsummer is some time in late June. That can’t be right because, where I live, anyway, summer starts in June. It’s preceded by "early summer", which is April and May, and followed by "barbecue", which is August through September. September to November is "late summer", and from November to March it’s "winter". Winter starts to act a little funny in March, since one day it’ll snow and the next day you step outside and lose six pounds just by sweating. Technically this should be "spring", but really it’s sort of like winter and spring arguing back and forth over who’s going to take the keys. I’ve tried to come up with a name for this intermediate season, but all I can come up with are Springer, Sprinter, and Wiring, none of which sound right. Wiring is the worst because, around here, if your wiring is going to go bad it’s going to happen in the middle of summer when you really need air conditioning. Besides, I consider myself lucky to live in a place that has four distinct seasons, unlike, say, Sri Lanka, which has two seasons. Those seasons are "hot and dry", and "hot and rainy". Then there’s Antarctica, which also has two seasons: "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey", and "the brass monkey’s packed up and left".

But I digress. When I was a kid summer started when we were released from school. Technically it started a week before we were released from school, when we’d all absorbed so much information that we couldn’t hold any more. That’s when the teachers started throwing things at us they knew we’d never need, like how to determine the volume of a rectangular solid. By that time the only volume we were interested in was what was needed to make Pink Floyd’s "Bricks In the Wall, Part 2" heard through every part of the school.

But I digress. In the old days summer was when plantation owners would change into their white three-piece suits and sit on their front porches. They had to wear white suits because this was before deodorant was invented, and anyone wearing a three-piece suit in the middle of summer would have B.O. that was more toxic than cyanide. The glare from their white suits served as a warning to people not to get too close. This is why whenever you see pictures of plantation owners sitting on their front porches there’s always just one, and the picture is taken from a distance. Maybe it’s because of their insistence on wearing three-piece suits in summer that there are no plantation owners any more. I think that’s a good thing, partly because plantations sound like they were pretty awful places to work, sort of like a mega-store but without the comforts of fluorescent lighting and nylon vests, but also because, even though a plantation owner would probably be able to tell me when midsummer is, I wouldn’t be able to get close enough to ask.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.

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A rich Australian decided that to throw a party and invited all of his buddies and neighbors, including his friend Jimmy. He held the party around the pool in the backyard of his mansion. Everyone was having a good time drinking, dancing, eating shrimp, oysters and BBQ. At the height of the party, the host said, "I have a 15ft man-eating Crocodile in my pool and I’ll give a million dollars to anyone who’ll jump in." The words were barely out of his mouth when there was a loud splash and everyone turned around and saw Jimmy in the pool! Jimmy was fighting the croc! Jimmy was jabbing the croc in the eyes with his thumbs, throwing punches, doing all kinds of head butts and chokeholds, biting the croc on the tail and flipping the croc through the air like some kind of Judo Instructor. The water was churning and splashing everywhere. Both Jimmy and the croc were screaming. Finally Jimmy strangled the croc and let it float to the top like a K-mart goldfish. Jimmy then slowly climbed out of the pool. Everybody was just staring at him in disbelief.

Finally the host said, "Well, Jimmy, I reckon I owe you a million dollars."

"Nah, I don’t want it," said Jimmy.

The rich man said, "Man, I have to give you something. You won the bet.How about half a million bucks then?"

"No thanks. I don’t want it," answered Jimmy.

The host said, "Come on, I insist on giving you something. That was amazing. How about a new Porsche and a Rolex and some stock options?"

Again Jimmy said no. Confused, the rich man asked, "Well, Jimmy, then what do you want?"

Jimmy said, "I want the name of the guy who pushed me in the pool."

June 11, 2004

Why does your foot fall asleep? I ask this question even though I couldn’t care less about the answer, mainly because I’m only interested in knowing why MY foot falls asleep. Specifically I’d like to know why my foot – and it’s only one, never both, always falls asleep at the worst possible time. For instance, my foot always falls asleep right before a fire drill in my building, or right before I’m about to run the Boston Marathon. When I was about fourteen a very wise and knowledgeable adult – or at least I thought he was at the time – looked at me very seriously when my foot fell asleep and said, "Oh. That means you have poor circulation." He said this in the same tone that doctors use when they say something like, "You’ve only got twenty-four hours to live," or, "The problem is you’ve been cut in half by a train." I used to think doctors used this serious, calm tone because it was comforting, until I once had a doctor get hysterical over a condition that could be cured with two aspirin and a good night’s rest. "Are you sure you don’t want to try this incredibly expensive drug that your insurance won’t cover?" he wailed. "Are you sure? The only possible side effect is that your teeth might fall out." I then realized that doctors show incredible self-restraint when they calmly inform patients of a terrible medical condition, because inside they’re jumping up and down and screaming, "Yee hah, I’m going to buy a yacht because of you!"

But I digress. The adult who told me a foot full of pins and needles was the result of poor circulation wasn’t in a position to make any money off of me; I think he was just trying to scare me, and it worked. I figured that if I had poor circulation at fourteen I would have a heart attack by twenty, and a couple of strokes by thirty. The fact that other peoples’ feet fall asleep all the time didn’t even occur to me. I was too worried about my own health. Now I understand that my foot falling asleep is caused by the nerves and not blood vessels, so even though it’s uncomfortable it’s unnerving. It’s nerve-numbing. But why haven’t doctors found a way to prevent it yet? I know most doctors who do research are interested in curing big diseases, and that’s admirable, but preventing my foot from falling asleep would be one of those incremental improvements, sort of like the three-way lamp, that are part of making our lives better. Why can’t those doctors take a break and figure out something simple like that? They’re probably too concerned about their own feet falling asleep.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.

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LOVE STORY

I SHALL SEEK AND FIND YOU…

I SHALL TAKE YOU TO BED AND HAVE MY WAY WITH YOU…

I WILL MAKE YOU ACHE, SHAKE AND SWEAT UNTIL YOU MOAN AND GROAN.

I WILL MAKE YOU BEG FOR MERCY… BEG FOR ME TO STOP.

I WILL EXHAUST YOU TO THE POINT THAT YOU WILL BE RELIEVED WHEN I’M FINISHED WITH YOU. AND YOU WILL BE WEAK FOR DAYS.

 

ALL MY LOVE,

THE FLU

June 6, 2004

When I was about four years old my mother told me that thunder was caused by angels bowling. Like most four-year olds I wasn’t smart enough to say, "What’s the lightning, then? Are they taking pictures too?" Then when I was about ten my father taught me to count after each flash of lightning, and that would tell me how far away the storm was. This was extremely comforting, especially the first time I did it when I barely had a chance to say, "One" before BLAMMO! right outside my window. I would have spent the rest of the night in my closet, but there were Things inside the closet, and I figured I had at least a fighting chance against the lightning. Actually every year people are struck by lightning and survive. There’s even a support group – I’m not making this up – called Lightning Strike and Electric Shock Survivors International.

A man named Roy Sullivan is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records – the authoritative source for such information, as well as things like the world’s heaviest toenail – has been hit by lightning seven times. At that point I think he’d just come inside. Since it’s lightning season I’ll share with you some of the useful advice I got from the internet – the authoritative source for patently unreliable information – on how to avoid being hit by lightning.

1. Stay indoors during a thunderstorm.

This useful bit of information was obviously written by the same guy who wrote the "How to avoid a shark attack" manual that starts, "First, get out of the water." Oddly enough the Department of People With Nothing Better To Do has determined that you’re more likely to be struck by lightning than to be attacked by a shark. And if you live in Florida – where they have a lot of sharks and a lot of lightning – you can consider yourself lucky to be reading this.

2. The second-safest place to be during a thunderstorm is in a car.

Henry Ford was actually the first person to suggest this. Apparently as long as you’re not touching anything metal inside the car you’ll be safe, so be forewarned: during a thunderstorm is a bad time to try and hotwire a car. Actually the reason a car is the safest place to be is because you can always drive somewhere safe – for instance, into a house.

3. Stay away from church bells.

Unless you’re Quasimodo this shouldn’t be a problem for you. It’s a little-known fact, but church bells attract more lightning than Roy Sullivan. Here’s a little more useful advice from the "how to avoid a shark attack" manual: try to avoid looking like a sea lion. However, once you’ve gotten out of the water you can look like a sea lion as much as you want, especially since there’s no record of sea lions ever being struck by lightning.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.

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A duck walks into a pub and orders a pint of lager and a ham sandwich. The landlord looks at him and says, "But you’re a duck".

"I see your eyes are working" replies the duck.

"And you talk!" exclaims the landlord.

"I see your ears are working" says the duck, "Now can I have my beer and my sandwich please?".

"Certainly," says the landlord, "sorry about that, it’s just we don’t get many ducks in this pub. What are you doing round this way?"

"I’m working on the building site across the road" explains the duck.

So the duck drinks his beer, eats his sandwich and leaves. This continues for 2 weeks. Then one day the circus comes to town. The ringleader of the circus comes into the pub and the landlord says to him; "You’re with the circus aren’t you? I know this duck that would be just brilliant in your circus – he talks, drinks beer and everything!"

"Sounds marvellous" says the ringleader, "get him to give me a call."

So the next day, the duck comes into the pub. The landlord says, "Hey Mr. Duck. I reckon I can line you up with a top job. Paying really good money!"

"Yeah?" says the duck, "Sounds great, where is it?"

"At the circus" says the landlord.

"The circus?" the duck enquires.

That’s right" replies the landlord. "The circus? That place with the big tent? With all the animals? With the big canvas roof with the hole in the middle?" asks the duck.

"That’s right!" says the landlord.

The duck looks confused. "What do they want with a plasterer?"

May 28, 2004

After I delivered a stunning series of strong arguments against consuming cicadas, a little voice in the back of my head said, "What if they taste good?" Normally these voices go away when I take my medication, but it’s kind of hard to argue against something when I can come up with at least one good point in its favor. Is tasting good really enough? another voice says, and to that voice I say, Shut up, I’m trying to think here.

Years ago I was with a school group in Spain and we stopped for lunch at a little restaurant where we were served fried calamari. Now this was well before calamari became a staple item in fern bars and hip pseudo-Italian restaurants, so none of us had any idea what it was. But everyone loved it. We were all shoveling handfuls of calamari into our mouths until someone got the bright idea of pulling out a Spanish dictionary. A shriek of, "Ewwwwwwww! This is squid!" cut like a buzz saw through our contented crunching. I was okay with eating squid, but for some reason nobody else around me was. The same people who’d just been asking for second and third helpings of calamari were now gulping water and calling out for ipecac. What was the matter with these people? I admit that there should be limits to the principle of "if it tastes good, eat it", but this was squid, not human ear cartilage.

When I was a kid my mother would tell me to try at least one bite of something before deciding I didn’t like it. Most kids’ mothers tell them this, and unless you suspect your mother is trying to poison you–which, admittedly, I did whenever she served brussels sprouts–it’s not a bad idea. This is especially true in the case of cicadas. A friend told me that Cherokees and other native American tribes used to eat cicadas. My first thought was, When you’re living off the land you’ll eat just about anything. Maybe there’s a reason I’ll eat microwaved macaroni and cheese, which is full of fat, cholesterol, and several chemicals that don’t occur naturally while I turn my nose up at cicadas, which have zero fat, high protein, and a satisfying crunch. Then that little voice says, Hey, eating them beats listening to them.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.

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There were four men in a Minneapolis hospital waiting room whose wives were in labor.

The nurse came out and announced to the first father, "Congratulations, you have twins!"

"What a coincidence," said the father. "I work for the Minneapolis Twins baseball team!"

A little while later, the nurse came out and told the second father, "You are the father of triplets."

"Wow," replied the second father. "I work for 3M Corporation!"

The nurse came out again and said to the third father, "Your wife had quadruplets!"

"WOW! What a coincidence!" said the third father. "I work for Four Seasons Hotels."

At this point, the fourth father fainted and dropped to the floor. When he came to, everyone asked him what caused him to lose consciousness.

He replied, "I work for Seven-Up!"

May 21, 2004

The seventeen-year cicadas are back. I still have fond memories of that glorious summer when I was surrounded by a swarm of screaming seventeen-year old red-eyed monsters flying in every direction looking for a chance to mate. But enough about that Midnight Oil concert. The summer before that the cicadas came out and no one could walk down a sidewalk without hearing a sickening yet satisfying crunch-crunch-crunch. And then there was the noise. If you’ve never experienced the delights of hearing seven hundred billion male cicadas screaming their equivalent of "Single male cicada, non-smoker, enjoys movies, candlelight, tree sap ISO female cicada loaded with unfertilized eggs" from dawn to dusk during the longest days of the year, you can get some idea of what it’s like. Here’s how: record the noise made by a chainsaw, combine it with "The Macarena Song", and play at full volume. Do this continuously for eighteen hours.

Every time the cicadas come out people come up with creative uses for them. Last time a friend of my parents named Bob McComb decided he’d make paperweights out of them. He asked me, the closest thing to an entomologist he knew, to collect a hundred. This took about thirty seconds. This time around I understand people are trying something completely different: eating the cicadas. I heard on the radio that a guy sauteed cicadas with olive oil and basil and ended up in the hospital with a severe allergic reaction. Let that be a lesson to you: make sure you’re not allergic to basil before trying this recipe.

But I digress. A friend of mine mentioned that Native Americans used to eat cicadas, but then again when you’re living the hunter-gatherer life you’ll eat just about anything. Native Americans also used to cure headaches by chewing willow bark until someone said, "Hey, this bark tastes just like aspirin!" I know people in various parts of the world, mostly where there’s nothing else available, eat insects, but somehow it’s never caught on here. I don’t know whether I could bring myself to try it. I like to think of myself as an adventurous sort of guy who’ll eat just about anything as long as it’s not got green peppers in it, but I might have to draw the line at insects. Sure, insects are high in protein and have zero fat, salt, or cholesterol, making them healthy even when deep-fried, but think about this: hunter-gatherers who ate insects had an average life span of thirty years. Modern humans, who eat crap loaded with fat, salt, and cholesterol, have an average life span of around seventy years. Who’s really unhealthy here? Maybe there’s a reason some cultures have a taboo against eating insects.

To put it bluntly, cicadas don’t just fly around and make noise. They also urinate when stressed. What stresses a cicada? Flying into a person who’s minding his own business and crunching down the sidewalk. If they urinate at the slightest provocation I hate to think what they’d do in the deep-fryer.

Next week: I admit I might try cicadas after all.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.

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The difference between men and women

1. NAMES
If Laurie, Linda, Elizabeth and Barbara go out for lunch, they will call each other Laurie, Linda, Elizabeth and Barbara. 
If Mark, Chris, Eric and Tom go out, they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Godzilla, Peanut-Head and Scrappy.

2. EATING OUT
When the bill arrives, Mark, Chris, Eric and Tom will each throw in $20, even though it’s only for $32.50. None of them will have anything smaller and none will actually admit they want change back. 
When the girls get their bill, out come the pocket calculators.

3. MONEY
A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.
A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn’t need but it’s on sale.

4. BATHROOMS
A man has five items in his bathroom: a toothbrush, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a towel from the Marriott. The average number of items in the typical woman’s bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify most of these items.

5. ARGUMENTS
A woman has the last word in any argument.
Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

6. FUTURE
A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

7. SUCCESS
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can
spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

8. MARRIAGE
A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn’t.
A man marries a woman expecting that she won’t change and she does.

9. DRESSING UP
A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the garbage, answer the phone, read a book, and get the mail. 
A man will dress up for weddings and funerals.

10. NATURAL
Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed.
Women somehow deteriorate during the night.

11. OFFSPRING
Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and romances, best friends, favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams. 
A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

12. THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Any married man should forget his mistakes. There’s no use in two people remembering the same thing.

AND FINALLY…
A couple drove down a country road for several miles, not saying a word. An earlier discussion had led to an argument and neither of them wanted to concede their position. As they passed a barnyard of mules, jack asses, and pigs, the husband asked sarcastically, "Relatives of yours?" 
"Yep," the wife replied, "in-laws."

May 14, 2004

I heard on the news recently that anorexia and bulimia are on the rise…among men. Hearing news like that, I can only say one thing: Way to go, guys! Referring to women as "the weaker sex" went out with terms like "chick" and "dame", and certainly no guy would call women "weak", unless he wants his head bashed in by some broad. Actually using expressions like "the weaker sex" is the best way to avoid getting any.

But I digress. I realize bulimia and anorexia are serious diseases, and they were bad enough when they were almost exclusively suffered by women. And admittedly it’s not a bad thing that some guys are taking pride in their appearance. Unfortunately, as we guys are all too prone to do, they’re taking it too far. I blame men’s magazines for this. For years men’s magazines and women’s magazines had one thing in common: both had front covers with sexy female models wearing outfits that, in the 1920’s, would have gotten them arrested. The only difference was that men’s magazines were kept behind the counter while women’s magazines were prominently displayed in the grocery store right next to the candy where they screamed at women, "Make the perfect cake! Just don’t eat any of it if you want to look like this [liposuctioned, airbrushed, digitally altered] model!"

Now men’s magazines have shirtless guys on their covers who, frankly, make me uncomfortable. I’m not a woman, although I’m often mistaken for one, but having to see those magazines next to the candy bars every time I’m standing in line in the grocery store I understand how women have felt for years. I think to myself, "Oh, nobody has pecs like that. I’ll bet those are implants." And yet at the same time this other side of my brain says, "Maybe if I cut down on the butterscotch pudding and beer and spent all my free time doing nothing but working out at a gym and got my teeth airbrushed I would feel secure enough to wear a tank top." But with men suffering from anorexia and bulimia I’m not sure I want to join a gym. As I said, guys always take things too far. They also brag about it. I could imagine guys in the locker room saying things like, "I’ve gone a week on nothing but aspirin and eight ounces of grapefruit juice!" while another says, "Oh yeah? I threw up twelve times yesterday!"

But there just might be a positive side to the problem. If guys start treating anorexia and bulimia as a fundamental part of their machismo might be the one thing women need to overcome these diseases.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.

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One afternoon, a wealthy lawyer was riding in the back of his limousine when he saw two men eating grass by the road-side.

He ordered his driver to stop, and he got out to investigate.

"Why are you eating grass?" he asked one man.

"We don’t have any money for food," the poor man replied.

"Oh, well, you can come with me to my house," instructed the lawyer.

"But, sir, I have a wife and two children with me!"

"Bring them along!" replied the lawyer.

He turned to the other man and said: "You come with us, too."

"But I have a wife and six children," the second man answered.

"Bring them as well" replied the lawyer.

They all climbed into the car, which was no easy task, even for a car as large as the limousine.

Once underway, one of the poor fellows says: "Sir, you are too kind. Thank you for taking all of us with you."

The lawyer replied: "Glad to do it. You’ll love my place; the grass is almost a foot tall."

April 9, 2004

Freethinkers Anonymous is going on vacation until mid-May. Normally I put this in brackets, mainly because I have this bizarre belief with no connection to reality that at least some of my rants will survive into the future, and I want people to understand that the stuff in brackets is not related to the rant. I have no idea how people, or, if humans become extinct and are replaced by giant cockroaches, will know this. Maybe a cockroach archaeologist, explaining something of mine to an audience, will say, "As you can see, the reason the simians are no longer the dominant species on this planet is clear: they needed instructions on little packets of salt. As you know, you can disregard the information in brackets about the author’s vacation." Of course when you’re reading a newspaper they always put important stuff in brackets, especially when someone is being quoted. For instance, here: "’The general added, ‘We’re monitoring the situation, but I don’t think there’s any reason to worry about [the sudden appearance of large, intelligent cockroaches in the Mojave desert] yet’." Okay, that’s a bad example because it’s not really that important. I think if it were really important they would use those squiggly brackets with the little pointy things in the middle. Little pointy things are always a big attention-getter. So are asterisks. Who was the first person to use an asterisk? I suspect it was on some Sumerian tablet, with a footnote. The footnote said, "This is an asterisk. It will be used to include additional information, such as the name of the company that actually conducted the study on beer mugs, which we forgot to put in our statement when we first wrote it."

But I digress. At this point you’ve probably forgotten, so let me remind you: Freethinkers Anonymous will be on vacation until mid-May. I need a vacation, and not just from Freethinkers Anonymous. I’ve been trying to think of ways lately to break out of my normal routine. I’ve actually started dreaming I’m at work. I don’t know which part of that is worse: the fact that I’m not getting anything done, or the fact that I can’t put it down on my time sheet. It’s not that I don’t like my job, but it’s, well, just a job. I get paid to put in forty hours a week, and I work hard during those forty hours. Is it too much to ask that when I’m at home and asleep that I not dream I’m sitting at my desk answering the phone and researching problems? I used to dream that someday I would have a job like Egyptology, the sort of career that only people who are really, really interested in a particular subject have, which is why I imagined it was the sort of career where you got to follow your own particular interest. It’s not that I’m lazy. I figured Egyptologists and people in similar jobs worked hard, going long periods hardly eating or sleeping. But like writers or painters or house contractors they’d suffer periods when they couldn’t work, so they’d spend days and maybe weeks not eating, not sleeping, bouncing tennis balls off their office wall, trying to figure out what that asterisk in the middle of that inscription was there for. So basically I’m saying that my ideal job is one where you work hard and rarely eat or sleep, which is what made me realize that I needed a vacation. And hopefully during that period I’ll dream that I’m on vacation.

April 2, 2004

My First Grade teacher, Ms. Blue, made me and my entire class promise that we would never do three things: smoke, drink, or gamble. Then we went off into a joyous summer, and by the time I started Second Grade I couldn’t get going in the morning until I’d had a cigarette, I ended each day with a snifter of brandy, and I had my own box at the local horse track.

Seriously, though, it seemed like an easy enough promise to make at the time, but drinking turned out not to be so bad. At least I’ve never really gambled, unless you count an occasional game of low-stakes poker, but that’s as much a part of being a Boy Scout as losing six dollars’ worth of pennies playing Blackjack with your scoutmaster. The one thing I do regret is smoking. I knew smoking was bad for me when I started, I knew it was bad for me when I quit, and I never really did like smoking the whole six years I did it. I can’t be too critical of smokers since I was one once, but I can’t exactly jump to their defense either. I feel a little sorry for smokers since they at least used to have their own section in restaurants and now in some places you can legally be beaten with a crowbar for smoking within a hundred feet of a restaurant. And there’s something admirable about otherwise intelligent people who will stand outside in the snow desperately trying to keep a tiny stick of tobacco flakes lit just so they can get their fix. I also fear the "slippery slope" tendency, or, as I prefer to call it, the good-ideas-spawn-hideous-mutant-children tendency.

Doing away with smoking is a good thing. I used to think that anyone who said, "Smoking has no redeeming value" had never seen my mother tearing up the carpet because she couldn’t find her cigarettes. Then she quit smoking and now she’ll not only live longer but she never tears up the carpet anymore. But first they went after tobacco, and then they went after junk food. Is it possible that alcohol is next? Irish pubs have just banned smoking, which is fine, because open flames and alcohol are two things that really shouldn’t be together. If they follow the trend they’ll ban pork pies and microwaved chips next, which is also fine because those things aren’t fit for human consumption. But pubs from Ireland to India will go out of business if alcohol is banned. At least drinking doesn’t pollute the air, unless you count George, that guy who always comes to your parties, drinks way too much, and throws up in your ficus plant.

Ms. Blue, if you’re out there, I just want to say, I’m sorry I became a smoker. You were right, it was a terrible decision. As for drinking, in part because of your advice I at least waited until I was a sensible and mature nineteen before I began drinking. And as for gambling, I’ll give you eleven to two odds that I never start doing that.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.

---

Only the Irish have jokes like these:

Into a Belfast pub comes Paddy Murphy, looking like he’d just been run over by a train. His arm is in a sling, his nose is broken, his face is cut and bruised and he’s walking with a limp.

"What happened to you?" asks Sean, the bartender.

"Jamie O’Conner and me had a fight," says Paddy.

"That O’Conner," says Sean, "He couldn’t do that to you, he must have had something in his hand."

"That he did," says Paddy, "a shovel is what he had, and a terrible lickin’ he gave me with it."

"Well," says Sean, "you should have defended yourself, didn’t you have something in your hand?"

"That I did," said Paddy… "Mrs. O’Conner’s breast, and a thing of beauty it was, but useless in a fight."

===============================================

An Irishman who had a little too much to drink is driving home from the city one night and, of course, his car is weaving violently all over the road. A cop pulls him over. "So," says the cop to the driver, where have ya been?"

"Why, I’ve been to the pub of course," slurs the drunk.

"Well," says the cop, "it looks like you’ve had quite a few to drink this evening."

"I did all right," the drunk says with a smile.

"Did you know," says the cop, standing straight and folding his arms across his chest, "that a few intersections back, your wife fell out of your car?"

"Oh, thank heavens," sighs the drunk. "For a minute there, I thought I’d gone deaf." 

=====================================================

Brenda O’Malley is home making dinner, as usual, when Tim Finnegan arrives at her door. "Brenda, may I come in?" he asks. "I’ve somethin’ to tell ya".

"Of course you can come in, you’re always welcome, Tim. But where’s my husband?"

"That’s what I’m here to be telling ya, Brenda." There was an accident down at the Guinness brewery…"

"Oh, God no!" cries Brenda. "Please don’t tell me."

"I must, Brenda. Your husband Shamus is dead and gone. I’m sorry."

Finally, she looked up at Tim. "How did it happen, Tim?"

"It was terrible, Brenda. He fell into a vat of Guinness Stout and drowned."

"Oh my dear Jesus! But you must tell me true, Tim. Did he at least go quickly?"

"Well, Brenda… no. In fact, he got out three times to pee."

==================================================

Mary Clancy goes up to Father O’Grady after his Sunday morning service, and she’s in tears. He says, "So what’s bothering you, Mary my dear?"

She says, "Oh, Father, I’ve got terrible news. My husband passed away last night."

The priest says, "Oh, Mary, that’s terrible. Tell me, Mary, did he have any last requests?"

She says, "That he did, Father."

The priest says, "What did he ask, Mary? " She says, "He said, ‘Please Mary, put down that gun…’

====================================================

AND THE BEST FOR LAST A drunk staggers into a Catholic Church, enters a confessional booth, sits down but says nothing. The Priest coughs a few times to get his attention but the drunk continues to sits there. Finally, the Priest pounds three times on the wall. The drunk mumbles, "ain’t no use knockin; there’s no paper on this side either."