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| "AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HUMOR"TM
SHOWCASE
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June
/ July 2007 Contest Results |
Congratulations to
all Semi-Finalists in our
June/
July 2007 Humor
Writing Contest!
(Listed alphabetically by author.)
Asylum
Earth - The Real Story of Orville and Wilber Wright
By
T. Michael
Barclay, Texas
Ingrained with
an innate fear of flying, most historians never got closer to getting
airborne than being on an Amtrak train when the bar car derailed. The
story they would have us believe, was that Orville and Wilber Wright
invented the airplane after studying the gliding experiments of a German
fellow named Otto Lilienthal. Well, hardly . . .
Orville, ever the thinker, had read that this guy in Germany was causing
quite a scene when, shortly after launching himself in his glider, he
would launch lunch. This was turning out to be a bit of a problem for
all who came to watch the flights as the resulting “blow” would spray
people, animals and various objects for miles. Nicknamed “Spew” by his
friends, Otto was having a hard time getting people to watch his flights
for which he charged a small fee. He needed the money so he could afford
to build a motor and attach it to the front of the glider. The idea of
motorized flight had occurred to him one day when the wind just quit and
he did a flying face plant in some of his own byproduct.
So Orville set out to invent a solution for Otto’s problem. After
several years and hundreds of tries, Orville approached Wilber and
proudly announced that he had finally invented a solution. An excited
Wilber, sensing a sure windfall from the invention, asked Orville,
“Well, what do you call it?”
“Why,” Orville said, “It is a Blow Alter Reflective Facilitator, or BARF
bucket.”
“Well,” quizzed Wilber, “Just how does it work?”
Just about to pop a button, Orville said, “That is why I came to see you
my brother, here, just drain your bilge in this.”
Wilber, looking a bit puzzled said, “Say what?”
“Just blow your beets for heaven sakes; don’t you know what tossing
cookies is? Worship at the old porcelain alter, but do it in this
bucket,” continued Orville.
Wilber stammered, “Are you breathing different air than I am? I don’t
feel the least bit ill and I have no intention of flashing hash in that
bucket or anywhere else, but I will call a doctor and have your head
examined.”
Now Orville had two problems. First he needed to test his BARF bucket
and second he needed to get Wilber in the mood to spew stew.
Then he had another thought, why not just go over to Germany and have
Otto chuck lunch a few times for him. He went directly in and checked
the flight schedules from North Carolina to Germany. To his surprise,
there were none, seems that no one had invented a plane yet. “Wow, what
luck,” he thought, “all I have to do is invent a plane, fly to Germany
and use Otto as my test pilot for the BARF bucket.”
Orville worked feverishly to build his plane, hoping all the while that
Wilber would just get a fever, and in December of 1903 he was ready to
head for Germany. But first, he thought it might be a good idea to test
his flying machine, patent number 821,393 (he later dropped the patent
number and just called it his flying machine 821,393). But who to put in
the death trap, errr, flying machine? “Hey, I’m pissed at Wilber, why
not him!”
So on December 17th, Orville strapped a now visibly drunk Wilber into
his flying machine and released the brake. While history tells us that
this was the first manned flight and that it lasted only 12 seconds, the
truth is that the major success of this flight happened within the first
three seconds when Wilber took a Technicolor yawn right into Orville’s
BARF bucket and passed out. It apparently took them another nine seconds
to catch up with the rapidly falling craft. With this unquestioned
success, Orville started the BARF Wright Company but went bankrupt when
the weight of the buckets proved too much for other flying machines.
The brothers had a very strained relationship after that and lived in
abject poverty. It was rumored that the two brothers never spoke after
that day in 1903, but the truth is that as he lay on his death bed in
the home they shared, and with his last breath, Wilber motioned Orville
to lean down and in a whisper said, “Bag, you moron, bag.”
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 Hardcore
Legend Steers Back Into Trouble
By
Burton Cole,
Ohio
My chiropractor
must be writing a novel. Every time I’m in the middle of explaining why
my back is out this time, his muse suddenly interrupts, he grabs his
notebook and mumbles, “My publisher won’t believe this one, either.”
I don’t begrudge him his hobby but it seems rude. Maybe my injuries are
so routine he just gets bored.
I was right in the middle of how I was all drill sergeant nose-to-snout
with a snorting steer when Dr. Dan suddenly lost interest in my chart
and began scribbling furiously.
“Wait, tell me again! And then you did WHAT?”
If he’d been listening to me instead of snickering at some joke he must
have just remembered, he wouldn’t have had to ask me to repeat it. Four
times.
Anyway, as I told him, it started last Tuesday when I got wrapped up in
a book. I skipped exercises and for two days flopped across the
furniture engrossed in reading.
Dr. Dan asked, “What was the book?”
“‘The Hardcore Diaries’ by Mick Foley.”
“Mick Foley? The professional wrestler?”
“Yes.”
“Let me get this straight – you hurt yourself reading about a guy who
gets whacked in the head with steel chairs, smashed into burning tables
and hurled off 16-foot-high cages? Just READING about it?”
“Yes, that’s what I said. Perhaps if you weren’t writing so much, you’d
hear me the first time.”
Anyway, a couple days later I hobbled off to my brother’s farm for a
bonfire. The drive there had my back screaming in agony, but I made it.
He had told me there would be s’mores.
My nephew has a steer he plans to show at the county fair, so my brother
began bragging on me about how good I was back in the day at taming
rambunctious cattle. I was the dude!
So there I was, my spine askew like a mild question mark. There he was,
Cactus Holstein, the feisty steer, ready to rumble. And there were all
the nieces and nephews, waiting to see if the “hardcore legend” was for
real or just another 10-mile walk to school through 5 feet of snow in
bare feet.
I had no choice. Baby, I wrestled the steer.
I dragged Cactus when he dug in his hooves. I body-blocked him when he
charged. When Cactus tried to plow ahead, I clamped up hard with fist on
halter and forearm braced under his muzzle as I ’splained the facts of
life through clenched teeth.
I may be nearly 50 and gray, but I still have it! Soon Cactus and I were
walking side by side like old pals.
It was a victory for all mankind. I fought the steer and I won!
Until I tried to get out of bed the next morning. I couldn’t get up. So
I gritted through a painful roll until I went over the edge and crashed
to the floor, and...
“Wait, back up,” Dr. Dan said. “Thirty years after you last wrestled
cattle, with a back injured by reading a book, you thought it would be a
good idea to ...”
He shook his head and set aside the notebook.
“Never mind. If the Bonecrunch Journal didn’t believe the one about the
green beans, the frog and the dental floss, they won’t buy this one
either.”
That’s funny. His plot line for the novel sounds like one of the times I
threw out my back. How odd.
www.tribune-chronicle.com
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A
Real Pain In The You-Know-What
By
Laurie Fabrizio,
Minnesota
My husband and I
recently appeared on “Larry King Live”, to debate which was more
painful-his kidney stone, or my giving birth.
Giving birth, that’s a no-brainer. Let’s see… (A) Flushing a pebble
through a small straw or (B) passing a bowling ball through a needle.
I’ll take (B) for the win.
Years ago my husband suffered his first kidney stone. His complexion
looked like Shrek after an all-night tequila binge. We raced to the
hospital, certain he was dying. Huddled in the fetal position, he swore
if he survived that he would never again eat blazing hot chicken wings.
We screeched to a halt in front of the ER. A pleasant nurse looked at
him and yelled “it’s a kidney stone, light on the tongue depressors, a
side order of bedpan, and hold the Mayo Clinic!” He was immediately
whisked away like a high roller at the Bellagio.
I didn’t receive that Five Star service when I arrived at the hospital
about to give birth, as my water leaked all over the lobby floor.
Instead I was ordered to hand over my insurance card, provide three
credit reports and recite the fifty states in alphabetical order.
Perhaps I would have been taken seriously if I’d suddenly exploded and
an alien popped out, did a somersault across Miss Snotty’s admitting
chart and slimed a paramedic.
Within minutes, my husband was on a stretcher, hooked up to an IV and
high on morphine. He drifted into his “happy place” while babbling that
I looked “hot” and he that he was going to get lucky. Knowing he was
harmless, I made sure he wasn’t mistaken for a corpse and toe tagged.
Whenever he regained consciousness, a Florence Nightingale would drift
in with another happy shot.
Where was this angel of mercy when I was in labor, offering to pave her
driveway, or give her a pedicure if she made the pain go away? I was
told to tough it out like women had for hundreds of years. They squatted
in the fields, give birth and went right back to work. So that explains
their short life expectancy.
That was before the sexual revolution, push-up bras and Girls Gone Wild.
For years I listened as my husband embellished his kidney stone story,
resulting in a chain reaction of grimacing males locking their knees
together. It has now evolved from a fish story into an epic saga. He
continues to drone on that kidney stones are definitely more painful
than child birth. I must have missed the time when he passed a nine
pound torpedo through a body orifice.
How painful could the pain be, with morphine coursing through your
veins?
Recently, however, I was blessed with a kidney stone. It came on
suddenly like a stampede of retired Hooters gals at the Victoria’s
Secret half price sale. The back pain was intense. It felt as if I had
been an organ donor without the benefit of anesthesia.
After sitting in the waiting room for an hour, my doctor confirmed the
diagnosis. I was sent home with Tylenol, a used strainer and an extra
long straw for the water tanker truck. Wait…where was my wheel chair and
the morphine injections? Shouldn’t I be whisked away and sent to my
“happy place?”
I tried to tough it out but finally demanded Vicodin. Whimpering for
morphine only brought a visit from the Tooth Fairy. The “little” stone
took up residency, and built a retaining wall refusing to leave. By this
time, I was so hydrated that I started to resemble the Michelin Man on
steroids. Alas, my endless screening failed to catch the intruder.
The age old battle between the sexes continues to rage on. Having
suffered through both a kidney stone and childbirth, I can say without
hesitation that they are “equality pains”. Plus, if my husband’s any
indication of how men handle kidney stones, imagine how they would
endure child birth. It would be the end to the human race as we know it.
www.fabrizios.com/laurie
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Accomplishing
Great Things Up The Suction Hose
By
Sue Anna
Langenberg, Illinois
I think that we are all capable of accomplishing great things. At least
that’s what my parents taught me.
Every day you should appreciate life, they lectured, and do something to
improve your mind. Follow your own talent, read something and enjoy each
day as if it were you last, they raised a forefinger.
That’s if you have time. What they conveniently forgot to include in
that happy thwappy life lecture was that teensy weensy detail called
making a living. Taking care of the business of life these days has
nearly sucked up every waking moment as well as every ounce of energy.
Then if there’s anything left in our brain cells, we might be able to
accomplish great things.
Either that, or be independently wealthy and have someone ELSE clean
house, grocery shop, do laundry, fill the gas tank, cut the grass…
So I decided that I would take 15 minutes each day to try to accomplish
great things. You know, like write a classic American novel, get an
advanced degree in nuclear physics, move mountains – little things like
that. Saturday was designated Day One for the rest of my life. Fifteen
minutes at a time, I told myself. And if all goes well and I live to the
age of 146 years old, then I could accomplish great things.
The morning was spent in the car shop – the one that takes my money to
get to the job so that I can earn money to pay the car shop.
There was also no coffee in the house. Everyone knows that you can’t
accomplish great things without caffeine. One quick store trip and then
I couldn’t think straight when I noticed that I was a week behind on my
housecleaning.
OK, I’ll vacuum and do laundry, then accomplish great things. But the
vacuum cleaner sat in the same spot reminding me that it had no suction.
A midget-sized dust mite was safe from a hose that lay there dead.
Several trips to the store later for the right size filter, and I was
disassembling the thing. With new filters in, vacuuming would be a snap,
I thought.
Still no suction. The front room turned into a vacuum cleaner workshop.
There were implements to examine the stomachs of snakes for contraband,
Phillip’s head screwdrivers of every size except the one I needed and
four-letter words that echoed through a hose.
I even recalled my ex-husband who bragged that his vacuum cleaner was
from Germany and cost a zillion dollars. It sucks great, he beamed. He
even boasted that he could vacuum without bending over to pick up things
by hand. His was so advanced and allergen free that he could clean the
whole house without once blowing his nose.
Then, heh heh, I ran across another filter that I had overlooked for the
five years that I had owned the vacuum. It said “Change every three
months, you dummy.” It left yet a new trail of dust bunnies to the
trash. The new roaring suction was so great that it nearly sucked up the
dining room shears. Then the belt broke. Another trip to the store.
By then, it was late afternoon and I had not spent my allocated 15
minutes.
Sometimes, you have
to accept the fact that accomplishing great things means that the car
oil is changed and the vacuum cleaner hose sucks.
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Survey
This
By
Carol
MacAllister, Puerto Rico
Please. No more e-mail jokes. My mailbox is jammed; my time is consumed
with important issues. I have work to do.
Why am I part of Bob’s new job description of company jokester? I am
recipient of his, sometimes, twelve jokes in one day. He retired from
the family business, but still goes into the office to “work.” He’s got
the office thinking he is busy on the computer. And, so does Annie who
must be bored to tears with her computer-based job. Her daily e-mails
clog my cyber connections, as does cousin Terry’s whose only contacts
with me over these past three years are jokes and funny pictures without
one word of personal goings-on.
Okay, I have to admit I do enjoy clever pieces of humor. In fact, I
print them out with the obscure hope of compiling a book of e-mail
jokes. But, I’m not sure if that’s literary theft and besides, the jokes
have probably hit millions of screens so everyone will beat me to the
punch lines.
A recent e-mail survey popped up the other day. The questions reminded
me of the old-time popularity books we kids hand-printed on steno pads.
What’s your favorite color?
Who has the nicest smile?
Where do you like to go on vacation?
The old popularity books were mundane at best and hopelessly time
consuming, as was this most recent e-mail survey with questions like, If
you were another person, would you be friends with you? (Huh?) What’s on
your mouse pad? (Duh??) What is your favorite lunch meat? (Lunch
meat???) Are these truly questions for normal people?
Suddenly, an epiphany zapped my funny bone. Create your own flashed in
neon lights like a burning bush. (Not a political pun.) And so the story
goes: I climbed to the mountaintop, chiseled out a survey, e-mailed it
to my address book buddies and rested on the seventh day.
My e-mail buddies didn’t answer. What an uninspired lot of wanders. Too
much work. One has to think and type in answers instead of simply
clicking the forward button. Or, I scared the bejesus out of ‘em with
unorthodox questions.
One completed form meandered back.
1. What is the largest wild animal that has been in your backyard within
the past
three months?
Answer: Husband
2. What shade of black is your favorite?
Answer: Sleep
3. What is the greasiest Chinese food item you’ve eaten?
Answer: Skru Hyu fried duck
4. What is your cholesterol number?
Answer: In Manhattan, it’s 988-6300
5. How long have you been happily married?
Answer: Hap…? Hap…? Is this a trick question?
6. What do you like least about your feet?
Answer: They’re always in my mouth.
7. When was the last time you took a bubble bath?
Answer: When my case of beer exploded.
8. Who is your favorite cartoon character?
Answer: Does this refer to the marriage question?
9. Would you consider starting a new political party?
Answer: Any kind of party sounds great to me.
10. What is your favorite flower? Body of water? Dinosaur?
Answer: Children. Bath tub. Another marriage question?
11. Are you wasting productive time at work fooling around with this
survey?
Answer: Is this an oxymoron?
12. What question would you add to this list?
Answer: Why did I do this?
I confide: the solo-responder was my sister. It’s been rumored our
family is certifiable.
Of course, my survey had to end, as most e-mails do, with specific and
often confusing forwarding directions to overcome end tag superstitions
of side trips to Hell.
“For good luck and a windfall of cash, for my continued attention to
your e-mails, and to end global warming, send the completed form back to
me within two hours of receipt. Then forward it to at least 2 people
that you like, 4 people you can’t stand, 7 people less than 4 feet tall
with beards, 1 psychologist and 5 people who live within 23 miles of the
town in which you grew up. Warning: if you don’t follow through, you
will have no fortune, neither good nor bad. In fact, your future will be
on shaky ground and global warming is on you.”
Many jokester e-mails end with a quick uplifting verse. It serves as an
inspirational closing. I persevered: a nice touch with a
thought-provoking, proverbial, old sage feel.
“May the luck of the Irish blow gently on your back ‘cause an upturned
kilt reveals… tighty whities.”
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Laugh
Lines And Goofy Faces -- Neither Is Very Funny
By
Karrie
McAllister, Ohio
Pick up a magazine, turn on the television, click on your computer and
sure enough, they’ll be the latest and greatest news about skin care,
complete with a long list of dos and don’ts.
For me, the list has always seemed ridiculous. If you followed all of
the rules and latest finidngs, it would take an hour’s worth of
preparation just to go outside and check the mail, let alone get your
children ready to head to the park.
“Bah,” I would say, the Ebenezer Scrooge of sunblock. And normally, the
stress of trying to be a good mommy would force me to squirt down my
kids a little, leaving me too tired to apply even the slightest bit on
myself. I would simply take the leftovers that had accumulated between
my fingers and rub it on the top of my ears.
“I don’t burn, I TAN.” Somehow, that made it all better.
And somehow, things were better. And they remained better until a couple
of weeks ago when I finally cashed in a Christmas gift for a facial.
I’m not typically the person who dotes over skin care. Makeup, schmakeup.
Lotions and creams are for old ladies…right?
I’m laying there in the chair and the facial lady is looking at my skin
with a magnifying glass and strange lighting, she points out the group
of poison ivy scars I have down the left side of my face. She points out
the freckles, the spots, and the remnants of my adolescent years.
Feeling that we’ve bonded over my face, I ask my question. “I’m turning
thirty this month and seeing as this is an extremely large number, when
should I start using anti-aging stuff? I don’t want to wake up one
morning and see that I’ve aged and say ‘whoops. I look old and it’s too
late’.”
I fully expected her to tell me that I shouldn’t worry, that my skin
looked great (despite the poison ivy scars), and that anti-aging creams
were for old people, like those people who were at least 35.
Instead she said, “oh, you should probably start using them now.”
WHAT?!?! You’re kidding, right? I’m still 29! I’m desperately trying to
hang on to what little shred of youth I have left, trying to fight off
every urge to celebrate my birthday and buy a minivan, and she tells me,
right to my apparently aging face, that I should start using eye cream
on a daily basis.
I am devastated. I am crushed. Gone are the days of my youth, when I
could rub my eyes in the morning and do Pee Wee Herman impressions with
Scotch tape at night. Gone are the days of making funny faces in the
mirror when my mother told me my face would stay that way because NOW I
KNOW IT WILL.
My mind flashes images of my grandmother’s bathroom, with her counter
full of Oil of Olay products and her Avon bath soap and instead of her
standing in the bathroom, it is me. Crows feet and laugh lines, and
nothing is very funny.
Once the shock had settled, I asked for directions on how to take a
proactive approach to not looking like the little old lady who had a
face like a shoe.
She told me to use lotion, lotion, and more lotion. Moisturizing lotion.
Eye lotion. And most importantly, sunblock lotion. I left her with the
energy to go home and start the lotion process that seemed it would take
over my bathroom and my life.
And since that fateful day, I have been applying and reapplying. My
children are now thoroughly rubbed down before they head out into the
sun, and when they ask why it takes mommy so long to put on their
sunblock, I tell them the honest truth.
“Sweetie, I want your skin to be healthy and radiant. And hopefully, you
won’t have to feel old until you’re at least 35. Now stand still and
stop making funny faces…”
www.KarrieMcAllister.com
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One
Day Down, Three To Go
By
Wayne Scheer,
Georgia
Recently, my wife and I watched our three grandchildren, ages seven,
five and three, while their parents enjoyed a four-day vacation. We soon
learned why nature rarely blesses sixty-year-olds with children.
"It'll be more chauffeuring than babysitting," our son assured us.
"They're in camp all day. All you have to do is feed them breakfast,
pack their lunches and play with them when they get home. They fall
asleep soon after dinner."
Sounded simple enough, although I sensed a potential problem when we
received a color-coded spreadsheet from our daughter-in-law displaying
the children's food preferences. Anna and Conley eat chicken; Willow
eats only fruit and vegetables. Two prefer rice while the other likes
potatoes. Canned peas are fine, but not canned corn. Broccoli is Anna's
favorite, but not the others. Conley will eat salad without dressing. No
salad for Anna. Willow likes ranch dressing.
Honestly, I thought this was a parody until we fed them breakfast. They
all wanted cereal, but Conley liked his with raisons. Willow wanted her
raisons separate. Toasted waffles were fine, one with maple syrup and
one without. We soon discovered why we were warned not to let Conley
pour the syrup himself.
While I tried cleaning the sticky goo from the table and floor, Vickie
told them she was packing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch.
"Could you cut off the ends, please." Anna asked so politely, she
couldn't resist.
"I like ends," Willow shouted, fearing food would be taken from her.
"But only jelly. Peanuts are yucky."
Conley said he didn't want a sandwich, but we were warned if we didn't
pack one he'd be mad when he saw his sisters got peanut butter and jelly
and he didn't.
While they put on their sneakers we added apples, cookies and juice,
deciding not to ask them or to check the spreadsheet.
Lunches packed, we herded them into the car and carted them off to camp.
We soon learned why our kids had bought a minivan. Squeezed into the
back of our Camry, we tried answering their questions. "If we put wings
on this car, could it fly?" "How come that building is taller than that
one?" "When will you die, Grandpa?"
But before attempting the last one, the chatter turned ugly.
"Conley. Stop touching me."
"Willow did it. Not me."
"I did not"
"Did so."
We played I Spy until we arrived at the camp. They seemed as eager to
escape from the car as we were to see them gather around their
counselors.
That gave us a few hours to run errands, go to the gym, relax. Instead,
we drove home and napped. By the time we cleaned up the kitchen, it was
time to begin the chauffer routine. The little one had to be picked up
at one; the others at three.
It was a short ride home from her camp, but we soon discovered if we
didn't have a snack ready for her in the car, this cute little munchkin
turned on us. Fast. "Feed Me!" I heard the plant in Little Shop of
Horrors demand. "I'm so hungry," she whined. We stopped at McDonald's to
hold her over until her next snack. Wisely, we dashed home for food
before we picked up the other two.
"Don't tell your brother and sister we went to McDonald's," I said.
"I won't."
She did.
So it was time for another round of McDonald's. After all, the snacks we
had brought were devoured by the time we got them all into their
seatbelts. Willow, the vegetarian, had another order of Chicken
McNuggets. I decided she was probably right about them not containing
meat.
At home, we were regaled with stories about their exploits at camp. "I
swimmed all the way across the pool," Anna bragged.
"I swam," the former English teacher in me corrected.
"I swammed," she said.
We read to them and they read to us. We roughhoused, sang songs and rode
bikes. They played with each other and their friends for at least five
minutes at a time. We fed them again, bathed them and finally wrestled
them to bed, like cowboys lassoing calves.
Exhausted, Vickie and I let the molecules in the air settle as we sank
into the couch, stared at whatever happened to be on TV, and delighted
in the knowledge that in just three days the grandkids would be returned
to their rightful owners.
Just three more days.
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A
Worse Moustrap
By
DC
Stanfa, Ohio
The first sign of the presence of mice coincided with the absence of a
man. Two days after my divorce was final, I discovered tiny turds in my
candle drawer. Later, I witnessed an unmistakable furry flash across the
kitchen floor. I screamed like a college girl in a gone-wild video - but
my shirt stayed on.
Cori, my four-year-old daughter, awoke wanting to know what scared
Mommy. I told her it was a spider and I’d killed it.
“What if there’s more than one?”
I told her not to worry and sent her back to bed, and then began some
serious worrying of my own…about multiple mice.
I shut the door to Cori’s room and stuffed a towel in the crack between
the door and the floor. I did the same to my bedroom while a tiny
treadmill turned in my head. I realized I couldn’t run out to buy a
mousetrap without taking Cori. Besides, it was late. Contemplating my
recently failed marriage, an unplanned escape from a man, I felt certain
I could plan a trap for a mere mouse. Unfortunately, my mechanical
aptitude is limited by my engineering knowledge, which consists of what
I remember about “simple tools” from fourth grade. Fulcrum, pulley,
lever and…what else?
One thing I do know is the reliability of a force called gravity. I
exhumed a plastic two-liter bottle from the recycling bin. After cutting
off the top to a mouse-sized opening, I inserted a piece of cheese in
the bottom. I balanced the bottle carefully on one a garage step so even
the weight of a mouse would tip the delicate scale and up-end the
bottle, trapping Mickey or Minnie inside. The slippery, plastic bottle
surface would prevent it from climbing out. The perfect trap.
Morning inspection of the pop-trap—which I was pretty sure I’d be
patenting soon, and after an infommercial with Ron Popeil, would be a
huge success—revealed that the bait and gravity worked all right. In
fact, too well. Its force created momentum (grade 7 science, I think)
which briefly up-righted, then toppled the bottle completely over. No
baby Swiss or varmints in sight.
Never over-estimate the advice of a coworker.
“Glue traps. That’s what you need,” he said.
Another furry scurry the next night, from the kitchen into the basement,
sprang me into action. I cheesed, then placed two glue traps in the
basement—one at the bottom of the stairs and one on the landing (next to
some soon-to-be Goodwill-ed clothing). Sometime during the 11:00 news, I
heard gremlin-like screeches, straight-razors on my ear drums.
Unspeakable sounds screamed “mices in crisis.” The visual on the landing
was as horrific as the audio version. One mouse’s feet were stuck to the
trap and another mouse was trying to pry them loose with its nose. I
looked away, ashamed, and shut the basement door.
Morning Inspection: No rodents or traps on the landing. Two traps, no
mice, no cheese, some mouse turds at the bottom of the stairs.
Apparently I’d fed, and gravity (along with some mighty mouse muscle)
had freed my mouse-mates.
Not initially wanting to commit mousicide, I finally gave in, upon the
advice of a hardened hardware store clerk. Convincing me that a quick
guillotine beat a hanging, I resorted to the traditional clap-trap. The
clerk sensed my squeamishness and suggested those with a plastic cover:
Sort of a medieval hood.
I finally told Cori what was going down in the basement. She curiously
watched me set the traps.
Next day: DOA .The tell-tale omen of two tails protruded from the rear
of tiny black tombs. I grabbed my garden gloves and a garbage bag,
mousercizing the traps and their contents. I also threw in a pair of
Cori’s tennis shoes from the landing, which the mice had mistaken for a
potty. Trash in hand, I was stopped at the top of the steps by preschool
curiosity.
“Mommy, can I see?”
“No, honey. You really don’t want to see this.”
“Yes, I really do.”
I reasoned dead rodents might help ease her into a scary concept: Death-lite?
I opened the bag. Cori looked inside, then at me, her eyes bulging and
her bottom lip trembling.
I reached over and hugged her. “I’m sorry, honey. At least we know they
didn’t suffer long.”
Cori’s lips tried to form words as she released her breath in spurts.
Finally, with a deep sobbing cry, she whaled, “But those were my
favorite shoes.”
www.dcstanfa.com
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
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Flash
And Burn, Baby!
By
Kathleen M.
Wooton, New Jersey
In my professional experience, I’ve delivered my share of medical
understatement. Falsely reassuring pronouncements, such as “you might
feel a slight pinch” when drawing blood, I uttered them daily. Let’s be
real, if a pinch really felt like that, those delivering said pinch are
either into voodoo, or body piercings, and you’re probably better off
avoiding them. Friends don’t stick friends with sharp objects, period.
Well, no friends of mine, anyway.
Next on the scale of the medical diminution of pain is the “this might
hurt a bit” ruse. You’re likely to hear this when the procedure involves
more than a little pain, such as a Novacaine injection during dental
work, or the not so pleasant shot in the rump. “This might hurt a bit“
means “please don’t squeeze your friend’s hand so hard that you cut off
his/her circulation”.
Further up on the pain ladder is “now, this is gonna hurt”. This means
“find a bullet to bite”, and “please don’t hurt me as I tend to you”.
Spinal taps and injections into large joints fall into this category. If
you hear “now, this will be painful, you’ll have to lie down”, that
bullet will need a medicinal whiskey chaser, and you just might see your
doctor scanning the exit, in case you flail your limbs in pain. Most
wise doctors will give pain meds at this point, as bullets would never
make it through the hospital’s metal detectors, and said doctors don’t
want to share your pain experience.
I guess it’s only fair, having delivered enough medical understatements
to qualify for the “Little White Lies” Olympiad, that I have fallen
victim to my own dose of “medicinal white washing”. Luckily, pain is not
the issue. My issue involves “The Change”.
THE CHANGE , aka menopause, that period of a woman’s life when estrogen
and progesterone levels gradually decrease, until the ovaries finally
call it a day. In medical school, I was taught a boat load of signs and
symptoms of menopause, with the admonition that this was a perfectly
natural process and that the symptoms were gradually progressive, and at
their worst, merely irritating. Oh, and that they could be treated.
Clearly, the author of that chapter of my gynecology text was either an
overly optimistic, barely pubescent woman, or a man, for these symptoms
are far more than “merely irritating”. And having just had a total
hysterectomy, these symptoms have been anything but gradual for me. Now
that I have a patient’s perspective, let’s look at some of the more
common symptoms, and expose the little white lies for what they are.
1. White Lie # 1 - Menopause causes minor problems with memory and
concentration.
If constantly forgetting the location of my wallet, my keys, my
hairbrush, and my assorted toiletries are considered mild problems with
memory and concentration, then sure, my problems are mild. It’s the
constant “now where the heck did I put blank” (insert needed object
here) that makes the memory loss anything but mild. As for
concentration, well, it was only after my surgery that I realized that
it takes real concentration to walk, talk, and chew gum at the same
time. I had no idea I could suddenly lose the ability to multitask, and
that realization hurts. I have to clear my mind now when I walk, or
gravity gets the best of me. Mild loss indeed.
White Lie # 2 - Menopause causes mild mood shifts or swings.
Mild mood swings. Sure. If by mild mood swing, you mean telling my kids
“if you breathe loudly one more time, I’ll ground you until you collect
Social Security”, then yes, the mood swings are mild. But getting
irritable with my dogs for looking at me in the wrong tone of voice,
well, not only is that not a mild mood swing - it borders on paranoia.
White BOLD FACED LIE # 3 - Menopause causes sudden, brief rushes of
heat, known as hot flashes.
I will concede that these rushes occur suddenly, and that they make me
feel very, very hot. But in the three months I have experienced them,
they have never been brief. They are more like floods, with a deluge of
perspiration and the maddening sense that my skin is an out of control
brush fire. And they are not brief flashes, they are more like an
extended burns, as if someone cranked up the furnace in the middle of
summer.
The next time you see your physician, you can take some smug
satisfaction in the following fact. The day will come when Dr. Pert and
Perky Barbie will begin “The Change”, and karma being the trollop she
is, she’s gonna simultaneously forget the location of her keys, cuss her
husband over breathing too loud, and experience the hot flash from
Hades. I can guarantee that she’ll never again underestimate a patient’s
symptoms. Trust me, I know.
Now, ‘fess up - who the hell just turned up the furnace?
http://www.savvy-women-magazine.com/Humor/humor-column.html
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