|
|
|
| "AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HUMOR"TM
SHOWCASE
|
|
|
October/
November 2008
Humor Writing Contest Results! |
Congratulations to
all Honorable Mentions in our
October/
November 2008 Humor
Writing Contest!
(Listed alphabetically by author.)
Office Clown
By Joe Cappello, New Jersey
I work for this company, a typical nine to five office, complete with
the usual cast of employee characters. It has a culture all of its own
reflected in stories that are passed down from the older employees to
the younger ones. In fact, it’s fun to watch the old timers substitute
the lunch room table for the campfire of old, as they tell these tales
to new hires who are looking for any excuse to avoid returning to their
desks when the lunch period ends.
I witnessed one such story being told by a plant manager, who was just a
few days from retirement. Now, I can’t say it was 100% truth, but there
was certainly a lot of detail that would have been hard for the old guy
to make up. Anyway, here’s how his story went.
Some years ago, there was this employee who worked in the customer
service department. He was 39 years old and loved clowns. He had photos
of clowns hung all over his cubicle. He had autographed photos from
Barnum and Bailey circus clowns showing them chasing each other in
little cars, spraying bottles full of seltzer at the crowd and shoveling
excrement from behind elephants as they paraded along typical Main
Streets in America.
It turned out that there was this woman in quality control who detested
clowns and was quite literally terrified at the very thought of them. So
Mr. 39 year-old clown was never her favorite person.
She would secretly complain to the lady who worked the switchboard that
his raspy voice made him sound like a child molester and the cigarette
he always had dangling from his mouth made him look like an ex-con. She
especially disliked him around Halloween when he dressed up as (you
guessed it) a clown.
On this particular Halloween day, our clowny parked in the lot and came
out of the car dressed in his finest clown boy outfit. This consisted of
two clumps of carrot hair on either side of his head, a Homer Simpson
face with white outlined, Betty Davis eyes, and moist red lips that bled
in a line down his chin and around his cheek bones like someone had just
stuck his face in raw meat. A bright red nose made of a spongy material
crowned his face like a maraschino cherry on top of an ice cream sundae.
He wore a baggy polka dot one piece suit and size 15 shoes that scraped
along the gravel as he walked absentmindedly along the road that led to
the front of the building where he worked. He puffed on his half burned
cigarette no doubt thinking about his day and what he was supposed to do
and what meeting he was supposed to attend, rather than how he looked
clumping in his holy Bozo Clarabelle forsaken outfit.
Suddenly, a car came roaring by and the mirror caught the baggy part of
the pants near his left rear cheek (where he had a rubber chicken
sticking out of his pocket), spun him around in the air, and knocked him
onto the ground in one instant pratfall. The impact sent his hair piece
flying into the air and his red nose was knocked clean off his face.
Dazed and shaken, he was helped up by one of the people in accounting
who happened to be a dwarf. They looked like they were about to perform
a bit together as the clown guy leaned on the dwarfs head in order to
pick himself up from the ground. Once on his feet, he appeared to be
okay.
Word soon spread that it was the lady from quality who was driving the
car. When she finally stopped, she couldn’t move, since her hands were
wrapped so tightly around the steering wheel. (They had to show her the
red nose to convince her there was nothing left of the clown to fear
before she would let go).
The whole thing was witnessed by the shipping manager as he helped one
of his guys load a truck on the side of the building. Now the guy didn’t
exactly see it all or hear anything, so he wouldn’t testify to it. But
he later told the old guy telling the story that he saw her pump her
fist down in one motion, and mouthed something inaudible.
Now he’s no lip reader, but he could have sworn the word was, “Yes!”
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
.Return
to Top
 Aging
Gracelessly
By Tom Harris, Ohio
The change was correct; it was the receipt that bothered me. I couldn’t
understand why I had been given the senior discount by the fast-food
place.
In some narrow
chronological sense, of course, I qualified for it. But I was in the
drive-through, and the lady with the garbled voice who took my order was
someplace on the other side of building. How ever did she know?
Age has its privileges, mostly in the form of discounts. Discounts are
wonderful things, and I am not too proud to avail myself of them. But I
thought it would be a while before sales clerks could take one look at
me – or simply hear my voice on the intercom - and pronounce me
deserving of them. Given my well-preserved features and markedly
immature demeanor, I always assumed I’d have to fight for discounts
until I was well into my 70s. And I was gleefully girding myself for
battle.
A few months ago, in the weeks leading up to one of those birthdays that
end in zero, I received a Golden Buckeye Card. The State of Ohio had
given me a powerful identification tool that I could use to stun and
embarrass sales clerks. Or so I thought.
I pictured my self at the checkout, watching the clerk ring up my
purchases. Then, just before she hit the total button, I pulled out the
Golden Buckeye Card and held it two inches from her nose, in the manner
of a television cop.
“Tom Harris, high-end Boomer,” I said with great authority.
“Mr. Harris, I’ll need to see your driver’s license,” she replied in the
snippy manner the young have when they’re given a modicum of authority.
“Look, young lady, this is a Golden Buckeye Card issued by the State of
Ohio and it entitles me to certain rights and privileges, including
discounts on my purchases from this store.”
“I know what it is. Do you think I’m like blind?” she said. “If you want
the discount, you’ll have to show me your driver’s license. And if you
don’t stop acting like some 4-year-old with a plastic badge and a toy
pistol, I’ll call the manager.”
“Actually, I’ve always thought I was more like Special Agent Gibbs, NCIS…”
“Yeah, right,” she mumbled while working over her chewing gum. “Just
show me your license.”
“OK, here it is. Read it and weep, Little Miss Priss.”
A triumphant smile spread across the clerk’s face as she picked up my
license. But then, as she examined the document more closely, her
gloating faded to shame and remorse.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Harris,” she said with sincerity.
“Apology accepted,” I said softly, in an effort to comfort her.
“As you probably know, a gang of really evil 40-somethings is flooding
the system with counterfeit Golden Buckeye Cards,” she said. “The
manager told us, we have to ask for a photo ID from every really young
looking person who attempts to use one. It’s not my fault you look so
young. I busted two people this morning, and they both looked at least
10 years older than you.”
“They probably should eat more carrots,” I said.
“Maybe I should eat more carrots so I can see better,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it. Very few people are able to guess my age,” I
said. “Still, no one likes to be mistaken for a youthful miscreant. But,
we all have to make sacrifices to preserve the integrity of the system.”
“Thank you for being so understanding,” she said. “Here’s a $50 gift
card for your trouble. Do have a nice day.”
I don’t know why, but nothing even remotely similar to this has happened
to me yet. It must have something to do with television and its
idealized view of the world. People under 50 no longer have any idea of
what a really old person looks like.
That’s my theory.
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
.Return
to Top
Start
The Music
By Tom Harris, Ohio
Whatever happened to elevator music? It seems to have become extinct, at
least in public places, which is where elevator music performed its
greatest service.
Sure, the music was as bland as warmed over Cream of Wheat, as insipid
as a Nicholas Sparks’ novel, but that was its great strength. Elevator
music could be ignored. It was easy to ignore. Like one of those
nettlesome tasks that you really ought to do, but which no one will
notice if you don’t, it begged to be ignored.
Elevator music was the accompaniment to the unpleasant but necessary.
Exposure usually came when you were somewhere you didn’t want to be – a
waiting room, for example, biding your time until the nurse announced
that the proctologist would see you.
Hugo Winterhalter, Andre Kostelanetz, Lawrence Welk, Enoch Light, Nelson
Riddle and the rest were ideal waiting-room companions. If you wanted to
read, or solve a crossword puzzle or share your medical history and all
its nauseating details with the stranger next to you, they didn’t
interfere. And if you wanted to sleep, elevator music was a terrific
soporific.
If there was a problem with elevator music, it was possibility that you
might be vaguely familiar with the lyrics to one of those meandering
melodies. Then those few words, that phrase, that snippet of schmaltz
would linger in your head. The mind wanted to sing, but the only words
it knew were “baubles and bangles and beads,” or “shall we dance, bum ba
bum,” or “across a crowded room,” or “I’m crossing you in…a boat?” or
“mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy…whatever.”
It was frustrating. The words refused to leave and all the things you
were supposed to remember disappeared in the confusion. Still, a dose of
something stronger, say, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” was usually
sufficient to send the bothersome lyrics packing.
Sadly, elevator music has been banished from most waiting rooms and
replaced with televisions permanently tuned to one or the other 24-hour
news stations. Regardless of their politics, all news networks have one
thing in common: announcers with loud, screeching, grating, nasally
unpleasant voices. And to add to the dissonance, the announcers are
apparently required to talk fast; perhaps they’re paid by the word.
It’s nigh on impossible to read, or carry on a conversation or nod off
for a moment when the waiting room is filled with the frenzied, jarring,
ear-piercing yammering of people whose job it is to convince us that the
end is near – right after this commercial break. Stay tuned or miss the
apocalypse.
To make matters worse, all these news people, with their degrees in
English or journalism or communications from America’s great
universities, are incapable of asking a simple question. Five minutes of
dissonant speed talking produces a disjointed and convoluted query that
might have a point to it – somewhere.
Then the guest says, “Well, Sharon, I think…”
Only to have the newscaster interrupt: “I’m sorry, Senator, but we’re
out of time. Thank you for dropping by.”
Then the nurse calls you, and the doctor takes your blood pressure.
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
.Return
to Top
Camera
House
By Tom O'Brien, Ontario
While making notes for a newspaper story about our town's annual summer
music festival, I spied my colleague Wayne. He was working on a
different newspaper story for our town’s newspaper, The Mattawa
Recorder. He still uses a camera that takes film while mine is digital.
My photos prove that my hands shake and the camera lens needs a bar of
soap.
“Would you like a real nice brand new camera,” says I, trying to hide my
lust to offload that Christmas gift from my brother. I tried to be cool
and confident knowing the demand for such contraptions is lower than a
snake’s belly. And snakes are not known for buying cameras.
“Tell me about it,” said the harried Wayne while trying to make a
hung-over violinist look perky and lively. The two were sitting at a
picnic table and suddenly a glass of beer tipped into the violin’s
resonating box. The musician’s command of English would have silenced a
quarrel in hell.
“That masterpiece has all the things a photographer needs to make any
photo a prize winner,” I said with determination and confidence. I even
had the nerve to make fun of things when I suggested the camera had a
bird bath. My self assurance took a sudden turn when the angry musician
growled and began jerking beer from his soggy instrument. The more he
shook the faster moms and dads hustled their kids away.
“OK,” said a relieved Wayne while someone mopped out the innards of the
violin. “Put the camera inside my house,” and I ran to my car and soon
deposited the camera in his kitchen as he suggested.
The next evening I saw Wayne sitting at the same table and this time he
was interviewing a local twelve year old girl who had just sung “Rock Of
Ages.” Because of her red pig tails and Ginger Ale I knew there would be
no beer disasters.
“So, how do you like the camera,” said I.
“It wasn’t in my house,” he said.
I was stunned.
“Describe my house,” he asked and I named the trees and bushes and
flowers in his front yard. I never realised I was such an informed
botanist. And as an afterthought I included the number and street name.
“Well you got the number right and that’s about all,” he said while
adding the name of his street.
A paleness glum spread over my semi consciousness. I haven’t felt so
stupid since I was a real estate agent and tried to sell a house to some
buyers and the house was not even on the market. The shocked owner,
dressed in her pyjamas, called me a goofball in three Slavic languages.
The numbed purchasers fled away in a taxi and never returned my phone
calls.
I drove to the wrong house intent on getting the camera back. There was
no answer after I pressed the doorbell. I left several business cards at
the front door. I went home hoping the house owner would phone me rather
than the newspaper. The editor reminds me often of me writing a wedding
story exactly seven days before the actual ceremony. She has never
stopped laughing about my observation that I was at least in the right
church for the wrong wedding.
At home I waited for the telephone to ring. At ten PM it thundered. I
picked it up.
“Yes,” I drawled in sheepish unease.
I heard a load of heavy breathing and then all floodgates of
disquietedness opened. Wide.
“What you doink in my (deleted deleted) house,” screamed an unhappy man.
“Speak,” he said and knew I had some fast skating or else I’d be absent
more than a camera.
Searching for an answer in my distraught head, I thought of deflecting
his rage to someone else. “Wayne told me,” I blurted, “to drop the
camera into his house.”
There was a pause, then a small laugh titter, followed by big laughter.
A nervous yuk fell off my tongue.
“Ist thut Wayne the noospaper guy,” said the mellowing voice.
‘Y-- yess,” I stammered. A laugh was followed by a crescendo of
hilarity.
“Him goot fren. Git over here now. I give you back your camera. Goot
thing you’s didn’t leave camera on pillow beside wife.”
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
.Return
to Top
The
Nuptuals Of Bobo
By Tom O'Brien,
Ontario
November 3, 2008
Hi Mom and Dad,
I just woke up after attending the most far out wedding(s) ever
imagined. One of our guys at work, Bobo, who comes from Russia, had to
get married and not because of an impending baby arrival. Bobo,
according to his lawyer, had to get married in order NOT to get
deported. How truly romantic! Perhaps the Refugee Board arranges blind
dates.
Bobo’s original choice for a bride is the mother of his daughter. She
would not marry him because he snores … and is behind on his child
support. The night before the wedding Bobo asked her sister to be his
lifetime love. She consented, but only if she received a dowry of two
hundred and fifty dollars before going up the aisle. I wonder if she is
president of the flat earth society.
The girl friend was upset big time because nobody would tell her where
Bobo and her sister were to live. Chances are very good that Bobo
already is a lonely groom. And let’s not forget that some mothers find
it hard to let go.
For the record, there were three brides and three grooms and their
guests all crammed into a dilapidated church called “Heavenly Nuptial
Bliss Cathedral.” The walls were lined with church pews giving more room
for the three wedding parties to intermingle. Those parties all had to
wait while the owner/manager rounded up a retired rabbi to conduct the
ceremonies. The ancient priest, who was scheduled for the jobs, quit in
disgust when she saw how Bobo was dressed. The Scottish kilt was ok but
the T-shirt screamed, “Everybody farts … Get over it.”
Bobo’s lawyer and the photographer had to be separated before serious
fisticuffs erupted. The lawyer only wanted a picture of a large wedding
group taken previously with Bobo and bride dubbed onto the shoulders of
the “stand ins.” The photographer said ok but the lawyer went ballistic
over the nine hundred dollar fee. The two exchanged hot words. After the
shutterbug scored with an uppercut, the woozy lawyer rose from the floor
while the camera kept flashing in his face. I don’t think either knows
anything about professional etiquette.
Many “No Drinking Alcohol” signs were everywhere but that did not stop
Bobo from opening his own bar. It featured his own homemade “White
Lightening.” It had to be ninety percent alcohol with just a hint of
liquorice. He charged five dollars a glass. While holding a tray over
his head he was followed around the hall very closely by his gloomy
bride, very miserable girl friend, and the mother-in-law who frequently
lunged at his moneybag. Lets face it, some girls got no aim and others
have no appreciation for business talent.
My date for the evening was a colossal bore who got drunk on one sip of
Bobo juice. While returning from the washroom he let himself get picked
up by a bridesmaid from one of the other wedding parties. After falling
straight down on his massive keester, he rolled over and began doing
“The Swim.” While many giggling and laughing women surrounded him, his
hand brushed against an ankle of Bobo‘s mother-in-law. She let out a
holler that would have rattled a ghost.
Rather than view any carnage I left quickly and laughed all the way home
in a taxi.
Keep chuckling ... All my love,
Deb
P.S. I told the cab driver about Bobo selling his own booze. Turns out
he is Bobo’s cousin and he went back to collect some unpaid debts.
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
.Return
to Top
Career
Choices
By
Faye Riccitelli,
Pennsylvania
Do you ever wonder about certain
people’s choice of career? I do. For instance, just last week I was
hospitalized, and in need of a little sympathy. Nurse Ratchet was the
only reluctant respondent to my buzzer. She delighted to report that my
insatiable thirst would be quenched with an ice chip, my insurance
didn’t cover the TV, and payment was required upfront. She smiled
sweetly, contented to know that the ceiling tiles would be my only form
of entertainment, as she exited the room.
I remember another occasion when she
wiped a facecloth across my body as if I were a park bench in need of
sanding. “Good God, there’s nerve endings in that thing called skin,” I
reminded her. She raised an eyebrow, pursed her lips, and reluctantly
released her sanding cloth.
What magical moment was it that spoke to Nurse Ratchet and called her to
the field of Nursing? Was it her first “A” in Science? Perhaps it was
the money, or the hours, or the first blessed sensation she felt while
some Science lab guinea pig winced in pain. I just don’t know what
motivates people to their career choices, but it certainly keeps me
wondering.
A recent trip to the veterinarian found me wondering, yet again. It all
began with Mrs. Rosignold. I am afraid, she too, mistook her calling in
life. Yes, in that scrabble game of career choices, she reached in the
bag of options, and pulled out nothing that spelled appropriate.
Veterinary medicine seemed a poor choice rather quickly, as she was so
awkward handling my four month old kitten, I had to come to her rescue,
or the cats for that matter. The cat apparently sensed her discomfort,
for he kept swan diving off the weigh table into a corner that promised
him nothing, but possible injury. Mrs. Rosignold bent over and pulled
him straight up by the scruff of his neck. Eyes bulging and body in a
dangle, he succumbed to the transport like a car at the end of a crane.
I am afraid there is an age at which you can no longer gracefully lift
an animal in maternal mimicry without resembling a predator with the
catch of the day.
What on Earth possessed Mrs. Rosignold to choose a career in veterinary
medicine? I quickly guessed good grades in Science, and proceeded to
distract the poor animal with some neck scratching before the sting of
the vaccine became awkward procedure number two. She marched about the
room staunch and stilted in her white coat and black pumps, robotically
dropping the cat on several more occasions. “OHOOOOO”, she would coo as
the cat hit the floor with a thump. You would have thought she was
making breakfast and he was an uncooked egg.
Finally, it was over and the poor cat returned to his carrier with far
more verve and enthusiasm than he came there with. Obediently, I
followed Mrs. Rosignold out of the examining room and down the short
hall to settle the bill. In a strict German accent , she recited a quick
summation of the procedures executed, and the expected outcome of
events. “Zee kat may be lettargic for a few daze and sore at the vaccine
site,” she uttered methodically ( leaving out the possibility of
soreness due to office swan dives).She bid us farewell with all the
warmth of a military salute, and disappeared down the hall.
I hit the horizontal bar of the silver
door releasing us to freedom. I could not help but notice the cat no
longer meowed. The once confining carrier had become preferable to Mrs.
Rosignold’s touch. I wondered if she was just as relieved to be free
from her patient. Did she proceed down the hall with dread, in
anticipation of what furry creature lays in wait behind exam room 2, or
is she just programmed to diagnose, oblivious to her lack of any bedside
manner, albeit a cat’s bed.
Obviously, I need to stop assuming that people choose careers they like,
and recognize that other factors are at play. A matter of fact, I am
going to start interviewing these people from now on. The minute I sense
that awkward, uncomfortable moment whereby their career choices scream
“WRONG” to me, I will pull out my note pad, and ask for answers; I so
long to know. When did you know that veterinary medicine was your
calling? What do you love most about being a nurse? Yep, that is what I
am going to do, seek out answers to that which plagues me. Uhmmm,
perhaps I should have been a journalist….
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
.Return
to Top
Shopping
Woes
By Sue Thompson,
Minnesota
Shopping has been one of my
favorite pastimes since, well probably since I learned how to say,
“Charge it”. Whether my shopping trips involved clear deliberate goals
or simply hours of care-free browsing I enjoyed every one of them.
Unfortunately, the delight that once consumed me after stumbling upon
those, “I couldn’t afford NOT to buy it” deals has diminished in past
years. Shopping, it seems, has lost some of its appeal.
I realize that such an attitude toward shopping might seem almost
blasphemous to some of you, after all, I question my negative attitude
toward shopping too. Is it because I am getting older and sales clerks
direct me away from designers with first names like Ralph, Liz and Vera
whose fashion screams “juicy couture” and toward a designer with the
first name of Alfred whose fashion screams, “built-in girdle”? Whatever
it was bothered me. Last weekend I had an opportunity to evaluate why
shopping no longer ranked in the top 3 of my most favorite activities.
My husband appeared a bit confused when I told him I needed a plain
white blouse, particularly when he escorted me to our bedroom and
pointed out to me the section of white blouses currently hanging in my
closet. “You see, honey” I informed him. “This blouse has three-quarter
sleeves and I need a blouse that has the full length sleeve”. He pointed
to another blouse, “No, that blouse has a black design on the collar”.
Pointing to another blouse, “No, dear that blouse has a sailor collar.
No, that one is a mock neck collar”. Finally he holds up the last blouse
and says, “And this one?” “Good Lord, Bob, can’t you tell that’s
off-white”. He simply shrugged his shoulders and tossed me the car keys.
Much to my delight, I found the exact blouse in the very first store I
walked into. It was even 20% off. Ah, it felt like the good ole days
again. I headed toward the counter to purchase my blouse when the joy
and excitement that once filled me quickly vanished. A bit dazed by the
sudden drop in emotion, I handed my blouse to the cashier who said, “Did
you find what you were looking for?” Still a bit confused I answered,
“Yes, I did, exactly what I needed, thank-you”. The clerk responded in a
tone that contained entirely too much enthusiasm as somewhat manically,
she exclaimed, “Oh super, that’s just super great and awesome, you know.
I am totally excited for you, ma’am. Just super great.”
As I stood there listening to the clerk go on and on about how excited
she was that I found a plain white blouse I had all I could do to
refrain from saying something like, “Good grief, lady, I found a white
blouse, not the cure for cancer. Could you take it down a notch or two?”
My thoughts were interrupted by the clerk who began a series of
questions that resembled more of a police interrogation than a retail
transaction. “Phone number with area code first, please? Home and email
address please?” And the line of questioning continued.
By the time I finally paid for my item I had completely forgotten what I
purchased. But I learned an invaluable lesson that day – Shopping is
something I still thoroughly enjoy, it’s being held hostage at the
counter that sucks the life right out of me.
www.suegthompson.com
.
|
