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Abuzz
By David Crawford, British Columbia

Oranges, Goats, and Guns
By Jonathan Criswell, Delaware

They often say to live every day of your life as if it’s your last. Actually very few people say that. I know I have never said that. I’m more of a “There’s always tomorrow” type of procrastinationarian. Live every day as if you’ll be bored sick tomorrow if you do it today.

But when they do say to live each day as if it’s your last, bear in mind some of the following real-life examples:

You could be my fourteen-month-old son for instance. You herd 47 Mandarin oranges into your mouth at once before attempting a swallow. When you realize you’ve inhaled more than you can chew, your face briefly turns the color of Jupiter, your eyes cross, you gurgle out something, you cough like a dying cat, you offload a mushy orange entanglement the size of a baseball, then you sigh and smile and lean back in your chair, equal parts relief and accomplishment. Then you do it again at lunch and supper.

Or you could be me. You witness that and nearly die of a heart attack three times daily.

Or you could be my grandmother. You are 86 years older than your great-grandson but have had fewer citric bypass issues. As a youth you daily walked 50 miles into town for two handfuls of dirt for the family. Because walking was faster than operating the motorized vehicles your family didn’t own anyway. You awoke at the same hour that your offspring’s offspring would regularly stagger home from a night out two short generations later to start tending to animals and planting your family’s next 20,000 meals. You grew up in the Depression but regrettably, apparently never invested in any of the mass media that would have alerted you that it has since ended. You use the same Ziploc bags as Ozzie and Harriet. You survived the Depression and countless wars against virtually every country in Asia. And you did it all without air conditioning or a microwave. Your self-imposed degree of difficulty is shocking, stupefying actually, if not outright commendable.

So there’s some expectation that you could go out and water your plants without getting attacked by a goat. And you’d be wrong.

Your “neighbors,” for lack of a printable term, have seemingly lost track of their goats – again- and they – the goats- have made their way into your yard, this time meaning business. This would almost be permissible if they at least lived on an apparent farm. But they don’t. The neighbors don’t grow, raise, milk, or slaughter anything, nor are they subsidized to NOT do any of those things, else they should have at least subsequently subsidized their own regulation-sized Hircine Retaining Wall. You’d think. But no.

Two of the three goats just sort of stand there and eat your grass, (not that you needed that grass anyway) but the third goat pins you up against your front door and rams your midsection with its head. This is disorienting to anyone, but especially you, because this hasn’t happened to you in some time. You are scared and cry for help but none is forthcoming. You are saved only by your ability to bore the goats nearly to tears with your impish cries, and so they pack up and head home, realizing they will get none of whatever it was they wanted in the first place. (A cup of sugar? Bread? More grass? Your Singer sewing machine?) Your legs now resemble diseased fruit with the pounding they took, and let’s face it, you’re 87 years old, a lot could have happened. But like the orange-stuffing toddler, you live to fight another day.

Or you could be the goats. By the grace of God, you picked a joyless Tuesday August morning to attack your overmatched, octogenarian neighbor. Had you picked a Sunday or a major US holiday, somebody else representing the family would likely have filled your bloodstream with lead sufficient to topple the Budweiser Clydesdales. So somebody is watching over you as well. Just not your owners I guess.

Today it’s oranges, goats, or guns that could kill you. (Is that Warren Zevon I see smiling from Heaven?) Tomorrow, who knows? Live every day as if tomorrow something else could kill you. That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time.

The Education Department has announced that it is recalling a half million high school graduates after officials discovered defects in the nation’s educational system. According to unnamed sources, several parts of the U.S. educational system were found to be working improperly. Providing an example, an unnamed education official said that hundreds of high schools had routed first year algebra students to work-shop class; where the students were taught to use four inch pliers and adjustable wrenches to factor third order polynomials.

A second unnamed source said that education officials also discovered that half of the nation’s high school English students mistakenly had been issued abridged poetry books; books which replace Edgar Allen Poe’s term “nevermore” with the expression: “Polly want a cracker.”

A third unnamed source told reporters that he was still waiting for his parents to provide him with a name.

The third source also said that no one defect dominated the education department’s recall decision. Rather, the source said, department officials decided that the cumulative impact of hundreds of minor education defects meant that letting loose a half a million high school graduates on the nation’s universities and job market would compromise public safety, undermine the economy, and increase the ratings of the cartoon network.

A fourth source, Dr. Crave Vivid, disputed the decision to recall half a million high school graduates. Instead Dr. Vivid argued that educators should use Facebook, to send corrective homework upgrades to the half million defective high school graduates.

Bloggers blasted the idea, saying that putting school homework on Facebook would be more explosive than building a ten-minaret mosque inside the kitchen of Sarah Palin’s Alaskan home and using it to call her husband to prayer.

Dr. Vivid used the occasion to predict that school-based homework would go extinct in the next decade unless:

-- teachers post assignments on social network sites.
and,

-- reward correct answers with pop-up invitations to midnight slumber parties.

The School Administrators Clamp Down

The day following the recall announcement, an official of the American School Administrators union informed anxious parents that faulty class room content was not the key reason for the student recall. Rather, the official said, analysis of graduate records uncovered 2.4 million late homeroom arrivals, 3.1 million cafeteria violations, and over 18 million cell-phones calls from high-school parking lots.

Dr. Vivid said that such defects would do little harm to the economy, since homerooms, cafeteria rules, and cell-phone restricted parking lots are rarely found in business establishments or at universities.

The head of the School Administrator’s Union responded by telling reporters that U.S. businesses do not tolerate late homeroom arrivals.

Dr.Vivid countered, saying that students who miss homeroom might be efficiently allocating resources to their most productive uses and might prove to be the sort of worker that improves U.S. productivity rates.

The head of the School Administrator’s Union asserted that she had already said late homeroom arrivals would not be tolerated by the colleges and businesses in the U.S. economy.

Dr. Vivid changed tack and said that it would be a waste of resources to recall a half million graduating seniors and make them sit through hours of lost homeroom time.

Within an hour of the debate, a School Administrator Union lawyer assured concerned parents that recalled students would not be forced to sit through hundreds of hours of lost homeroom time. Rather, he said, the half a million students were being recalled so they could be suspended from school.

The Head of the School Administrator’s Union then suggested that Dr. Vivid go sit in his university’s homeroom class before he had his U.S. citizenship suspended for ten days.

The Recall Debate Expands

As the school recall debate raged, a high school graduate from Dade City Florida, prominently announced on Facebook that Kyle-Hank-Justin was his name. He then challenged education officials to get a life with a public name.

The next day, three education officials, who asked to be called Code Zz1, Code Zz2, and Bob, said that education department files showed that one Kyle-Hank-Justin had a history of busting up polynomial formulas in algebra shop-class with metal-tipped hammers.

Within minutes of the Kyle-Hank statement, California officials declared that they were recalling two hundred thousand kindergarten graduates.

California education officials said the recall was initiated after investigators discovered that recently hired teaching assistants, with high school diplomas, had been teaching five year old kids to “count from one to nineteen by pounding out each number with a metal-tipped workshop hammer.”

www.bananaws.com

This Is a Great Deal… I Promise… Please Don’t Go!
By Tiffany Carboni, California

Family-Prized Sofa for Sale
In perfect condition—only $100 or best offer (and we’re willing to consider any offer at this point)!

This gently used, Concord grape-colored velvet sectional sofa—that truly doubles as a work of art—is only 10-ish years old and can be yours today. Seriously, call us now!

It features 13 ½ cushions (we’ll explain when you call) wrapped in easy-to-remove covers. Many of these cushion covers still have their original zippers intact. The zippers that were mysteriously ripped out have been inconspicuously replaced with large diaper pins showcasing adorable pink elephants, which we’ll throw in for free if you act right now!

A few of the cushions have only been vomited on by the dog a few times. However, we were extremely careful to scrape out all the undigested kibble from in-between the frame’s tight crevices as soon as we found out what happened (generally within the first 48 hours).

We have also diligently vacuumed out a few pounds of cereal that had fallen into the sofa’s nether regions over the years. Not that we let the kids eat each and every meal on the “dining sofa” while they watch TV and mindlessly pick random body parts.

Because of our thorough cleaning (and I’ll tell you, we had that vacuum hose shoved inside the sofa’s forgotten cavities for a good 12 or so minutes sucking, crackling, and thudding out all sorts of objects), we are confident there’s nothing left inside—and if there is, we’re positive none of it will come back to life.

If you like cats, you’re in luck! Our cat’s white, wiry fur is still stubbornly creatively woven within the purple velvet. If you don’t have a cat, you can pretend you do with this sofa. May we suggest you name your new pretend cat Mouse Killer? Not that our cat has killed any rodent and left it on the sofa to convulse to death. If our cat did do something like that—he didn’t of course—we are happy to note that we have always flipped and rotated the cushions making it hard to remember where the crime scene happened—not that it did.

Also, we’ve never let any kid accidents stay for long! Cushion covers get removed and washed routinely. Because of this, the sofa’s rich hue has become equally faded amongst all the cushions. There are now beautiful notes of pinkish-red showing through. Pretty smart, huh? See, we’ve been keeping our customer in mind for all 10-ish years. You’re welcome.

Call now, an operator is waiting expectantly at the kitchen phone. Did we mention that we’re willing to consider any offer? Maybe, if we like you, we’ll throw in the microwave for free. It works most of the time when it isn’t sparking.

www.tiffanycarboni.com

The Employee Employer Test
By Dan McGinley, Connecticut

As my lovely job search continues, I notice a growing trend in the hiring process starting to provide unbridled pessimism for millions of hopeful applicants:

The computer survey.

“We don’t take letters or resumes,” the manager of a large company informed me. “Go to our website and follow explicit directions.”

Yay.

“Does this include a long list of questions to expose my personality and work ethics?” I asked.

“Yes,” she answered, a thin smile quickly becoming thinner.

“Can I take it every day for a long time, seeing as recent surveys show how most people answer surveys differently at different times, depending on moods, hour of day, and things like caffeine intake?”

“I’m sorry,” she said nervously. “Maybe you don’t want to apply.”

I informed her that there was no turning back now, and after several minutes of actually taking their survey and projectile vomiting, I decided that it was time to devise my own little survey for potential employers, just in case things change and people hire again.

So here is my Official Employer Survey, with three seconds allowed for each answer, and a super secret password that makes fun of all your small pets and loved ones. It may take quite awhile, so be sure there’s nothing to distract you in the room/house/cell block, and find a good number two pencil, strictly for nostalgic reasons. All questions are yes, no, or endless streams of profanity.

1) You always lie and promise employees an annual raise, just to test their pain threshold and economic standing.

2) You enjoy a “special parking space” for your high end luxury car, but encourage everyone else to use public transportation or ride a bike, to help save the environment.

3) You like to set a firm example by chewing employees out in front of everybody, using the “outdoor voice.”

4) You like to move employees from offices to cubicles without any warning, just to see how they react, and to keep people “on their toes.”

5) You love to tell employees that “we’re all a big family,” at company parties where actual families are never invited.

6) If employees behave badly at the party mentioned above, you like to take pictures and collect witnesses.

7) You often love to take advantage of young, attractive members of the opposite sex who work for you, and will do anything to climb a very shaky career ladder.

8) Anything.

9) You like to watch “The Office” for creative ideas.

10) You like to watch “The Third Reich” for creative ideas.

11) If you ever spot an employee outside of work, you desperately try to avoid contact.

12) If you’re talking to an employee and the phone rings, you always make the employee wait until you’re done talking, even if it takes more than fifteen minutes.

13) Or an hour.

14) Or days.

15) You firmly deny treating employees like children, but often give “time-outs” and reward good behavior with little gold stars (their annual review!).

16) You never answer e-mails, and the receptionist screens every incoming call. Especially internal.

17) Your office door is always open.

18) Your office door is always partially open.

19) Your office door is always closed.

20) Your office is across town.

21) You keep a hotel room under another name.

After a long night out in another city, you’ve just realized that a huge presentation has been left behind in a motel “of ill repute.” The important meeting is in three hours, and a motel clerk is holding the goods at his desk almost an hour away. You decide to:

A) Raid the petty cash drawer and call an expensive courier service.

B) Raid the petty cash drawer and call that number scribbled on a cocktail napkin, offering your “date” a chance to make “more cash with less effort.”

C) Find Jesus and race across town to get the goods, then find Eddy on the way back and call in sick from a small lounge, where nobody knows your name.

D) Wing it. You’re that good.

E) Wing it. You’re that bad.

F) Take it out on your employees and blame all of the “little people” who actually put that presentation together.

G) Use the “Go Back” machine and do everything differently, starting at birth.

- This concludes the very first third of the first half of the Official Employer Survey. In all seriousness, most of these circumstances were taken from actual experiences.

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