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| "AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HUMOR"TM
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| June/July
2005 Contest Results |
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Winners,
Finalists & Honorable Mentions from the August/ September 2005
Contest will be featured in our Humor
Showcase until the
October/ November 2005 Contest is
over, when new Winners, Finalists & Honorable Mentions
will take their place on these pages!
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"X Marks The
Spot"
By Patrick "Patch" Rose,
Truth or Consequences NM
First-Place Winner
I love Ash Wednesday. It’s the only day where it’s socially acceptable to walk outside with a filthy face.
The effects of this holy day are best experienced down in the Wall Street section of Manhattan. Men in Saville Row suits and women in floor-length mink coats walk around with enough dirt on their heads to start an ant colony.
Ordinarily, these people would be mortified to find a sliver of oregano in their teeth; today, they’ve got a litter box on their heads and they’re happy.
My favorite game is to guess the priest by the smudge. Some people walk by with perfectly proportioned crosses on their heads. You know these people saw a brand new clergyman, still excited with his work and trying to make each face a masterpiece.
Then you pass someone with a cruel smudge running parallel to their eyebrows, and you know these people hit a church with a tired old priest, for whom the wonders of oily skin has long since worn off.
Many churches in New York have quick lunchtime services to receive ashes. You can get in and out in twenty minutes. You can tell who’s been to these services—they’re the ones sporting a checkmark.
One guy I passed had a perfect dot in the center of his forehead. He hadn’t gotten a cross, he’d gotten a period. I immediately imagined a quadriplegic pastor, still dedicated to his duties, dipping his nose in the ash pot and pecking people on the head.
Bald guys have it worst of all. All that acreage is too much temptation for the priests. This one poor guy I passed by looked like he’d been jumped by two priests who’d used him for tic tac toe.
But the most disconcerting thing about Ash Wednesday is the attitude of the ash wearer. To them it’s a badge of honor. As they pass you, you can feel them scanning your forehead like a melon at the checkout counter. Upon finding your forehead free of grit, the evil looks start. You can just hear what they’re thinking –- That one’s going straight to Hell. After several nasty glances from the
asherati, my paranoia got the better of me. I started looking around for an open church.
Unfortunately, I found myself in a part of town without a church. As I looked around, the panic rising inside me, I spotted an old homeless guy lying in a doorway.
I ran over to him. “Hey,” I said, and broke his reverie with his bandaged left foot. “Show me your hands,” I told him.
He looked up me and I think he couldn’t decide who to talk to; the me on the right or the left. He solved the problem by crossing his eyes. He shook a battered coffee cup at me.
“Show me your hands,” I repeated.
“Gimme a dollar,” he said.
I gave him the dollar. He showed me his hands. They looked like they hadn’t seen soap for a decade. His blackened palms and fingers were nicely complemented by the green line underneath his fingernails.
They were perfect.
“Okay,” I told him. “Spit on your thumb and smear it on my head.”
“That’s gonna cost you two dollars,” he said.
I gave him another dollar and he smudged me. Unfortunately, the last thing he must have eaten had to have been tuna and mayo, because all I got from him was a greasy puddle that stunk from twenty feet away. I walked away, heartbroken and reeking.
“For another buck, I’ll lick it off,,” he called after me.
Finally, as a last resort, I crept over to one of those outdoor ashtrays they keep by the front doors of office towers. I lucked out
-- no one was currently puffing. Without trying to be too obvious, I lifted up the cover and ran my fingers around the ashtray. Then I quickly wiped them on my forehead.
I turned to find the building security guard watching me. He had the most beautiful ashen cross on his polished bald head. His eyes burned at me as he reached for his radio.
I laughed and put back the cover. “No time for church,” I told him. “God Bless You.” Then I got the hell out of there.
I felt his eyes burning through my back as I went to one of the sidewalk vendors. I paid five bucks for a Giants ski cap and spent the rest of my day in wool-covered anonymity.
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