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| "AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HUMOR"TM
SHOWCASE
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December 2006 / January 2007 Contest Results |
The
Pursuit of Hobbyness
By Faith R. Foyil,
Pennsylvania
January. It’s
the month we curl up with a cup of tea during dark and frigid winter
nights, counting the hours until spring and the pounds we’ve put on over
the last two months.
Cheer up. In case you didn’t know it, there are still plenty of reasons
to celebrate this month.
Today, January 18th, is Thesaurus Day. What a great opportunity to pay
homage to Peter Roget, brilliant inventor of the thesaurus, the handy
reference tool which organizes similar meaning words such as
indifferent, comatose and apathetic (section 854.13) to help you more
eloquently describe the return desk sales clerks you dealt with last
week.
Perhaps Thesaurus Day isn’t exciting enough, even though you don’t want
to sound rude, discourteous or impolite (section 935.4). No problem.
January is also National Hobby Month, a special time to recognize the
many hours you’ve spent collecting stamps, building model airplanes,
weaving macramé hangings and trading baseball cards, the results of
which are currently gathering dust in your basement.
My basement already contains several dusty boxes of fabric paints, scrap
booking materials and miscellaneous craft supplies. But I’m always eager
to start a new hobby, and recently took some classes to learn the art of
jewelry making.
Making jewelry is really loads of fun. Here’s how to do it in ten easy
steps:
1. Take a class and feel like an expert.
2. Purchase some beautiful semi-precious gems and other jewelry-making
equipment to take home.
3. Artistically organize your beads.
4. Meticulously string your beads onto special jewelry wire.
5. Forget to secure your artistic creation at both ends while you’re
still stringing, even after being warned repeatedly during class.
6. Run to answer the phone and – whoops- your beads are bouncing all
over the kitchen!
7. Salvage what are left of the beads and find you’re short a slew of
tiny “seed” beads.
8. Find some of the missing seed beads when you take your dog out for a
bathroom break the next morning.
9. Take a class and feel like an expert.
10. Take your dog to the vet.
I became rather proficient after fifteen or so attempts and several
trips back to the store. It was wonderful making jewelry holiday gifts
for everybody I knew (except the mailman who might not have appreciated
the chandelier-style earrings).
Even though Thesaurus Day is passing and National Hobby Month will end
soon, don’t despair. According to a website specializing in obscure
holidays, there’s still
time to observe the tail end of National Oatmeal month. And next week
there’s Penguin Awareness Day and even Squirrel Appreciation Day.
I know what you’re thinking. After Squirrel Appreciation Day, what could
possibly follow come February and March?
Fear not. February is National Canned Food Month where you can play
“Organize Our Green Giant Vegetables Alphabetically” with your family as
the snow falls outside. Then March comes in like a lion, bringing the
ever popular National Frozen Food Month. And let’s not forget those
heartwarming moments of jubilation celebrating Poultry Day and Waffle
Day.
You get the idea. Before you know it, it’s April and you’re out in your
backyard enjoying the sunny days and preparing for more
widely-recognized occasions.
Like National Welding Month.
That’s about it for your winter celebration update. And if you think
this column was particularly senseless, witless or foolish (Roget’s,
Section 468.13) it’s simply not my fault.
I wrote this last Saturday. On “Blame Someone Else Day.”
http://www.faithfoyil.com
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