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| "AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HUMOR"TM
SHOWCASE
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February/March
2010
Humor Writing Contest Results! |
Congratulations to
all Honorable Mentions in our
February/March 2010 Humor
Writing Contest!
(Listed alphabetically by author.)
Then There's the
One About the Herd of Meatballs
By Wayne Chan, California
Don’t believe everything you read. If there’s anything you might take
away after reading this column, I hope you believe that simple fact.
Hmm…I think there’s something wrong with my point, but I just can’t put
my finger on it.
Anyways, the point I was trying to make is about how in this day and
age, the internet allows anyone who has a keyboard to write just about
anything they’d like for public consumption, which makes it tougher for
everyone to discern fact from fiction.
Case in point: The mystery of the genetic robo super-chicken.
My father is a very educated and wise man. He came to this country from
China nearly penniless, and yet he’s gone on to become a respected
university professor, written a text book, and owned several businesses.
He and my mother managed to raise my brother and I, support us through
college and send us on our way to make our own lives.
Yet for most of his life, as with most people of his generation, when
they read something in a newspaper, book, or magazine, they could
usually trust that the information they were reading had been thoroughly
vetted by an editor or publisher.
So you can understand how an errant e-mail might distort my dad’s
“reality field”.
Let me just say, before I begin, that I did not make the following up.
Not so long ago, a friend of the family forwarded an e-mail to my dad
with a disturbing report. The e-mail, written entirely in Chinese,
claimed that Kentucky Fried Chicken (now known as KFC), in an effort to
cut costs and boost profit margins, had managed to genetically alter the
DNA of a chicken so that these new chickens no longer had feathers,
bones, a beak, wings, legs, or heads.
Essentially, KFC had created a living, breathing, full-sized chicken
nugget.
Upon further investigation, I was astonished to learn that when these
boneless blobs of chicken roll around vigorously in their chicken coops,
they sweat honey mustard sauce.
OK, OK, I just made up that last part. But, it’s not like after reading
about this robo-chicken that someone’s going to read my little fib and
say, “OK Wayne, now you’re just being silly!”
Seeing as how my father has always loved eating at Kentucky Fried
Chicken (as does all of the Chan family, which probably has something to
do with his DNA being passed along to all of us), he was immediately
taken aback and aghast.
In fact, he was so repulsed by what he had read that it prompted him to
write a letter to the president of KFC to seek out the truth.
In his letter to the president of KFC, my Dad wrote:
Dear Sir,
I have enjoyed eating KFC products for many years. However, I am writing
to you today because of an e-mail I recently received that deeply
troubles me. The claim I’ve read is that the reason Kentucky Fried
Chicken has changed it’s name to KFC is because KFC no longer serves
real chickens.
I would appreciate it if you would respond to these allegations so that
I might be able to continue enjoying your products.
Thank you.
Surprisingly enough, KFC did manage to reply to my dad’s thoughtful
letter. In it, they assert that this rumor was an urban legend and that
KFC serves the same type of chickens that we all might buy at our local
markets.
Fair enough. The only problem I have with their explanation is that it
doesn’t exactly give me a vote of confidence when the last time I
visited the supermarket I bought a big tube of boneless ground chicken.
www.trooce.com
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
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 Banana
Split
By Cindy Largey, California
“Stop the car!” I shouted again.
“We’re almost there,” replied my husband.
“I’m not kidding! I can’t do this!” I begged.
“But Mom, it’s the best banana bread in the whole world;”
“We’re so close;”
“Just a few more miles;”
“Try closing your eyes,” said my four teenage daughters respectively.
This day seemed like another perfect day in Maui when we started the
treacherous drive to Hana on a quest for the old Hawaiian woman who sold
banana bread at a stand. Now it felt like a nightmare. I gave up and
opened my door. What choice did I have? That got my husband’s attention.
He stopped the minivan. I jumped out.
“What are you doing? Get back in the minivan,” he ordered.
“I told you. I can’t handle this road. You ignored me. Now I’m out, so
what are you going to do about it?” I felt so clever.
My husband and the girls had a pow-wow as I stood defiantly, slowly
regaining my composure. Then I heard, “Honey, we won’t be long.”
“WHAT?” I screamed, but they were gone.
I hiked down the road to a wide spot with shade. While I waited, I
thought about what a good wife I had been for over twenty years to
“that” man who drove off. I thought how combined I had spent 39 ½ months
pregnant and 45 hours in labor with “those” children. I had been to
every recital, play, and conference. I withstood many sleepless nights.
I had been vomited, spit-up and peed on. I never mocked or abandoned any
of “them” when they were scared. And here was my reward.
An eternity later, I spotted the minivan and waved. The inside reeked of
banana. Crumbs were everywhere. I saw two loaves of the Holy Grail
banana bread sitting on the seat.
I asked, “If it’s so good, why did you only buy two loaves?”
“We bought six loaves,” they said.
“Where did you put the others?” I inquired.
“We ate them,” they admitted looking away.
“It really is the best in the world,” they reminded me.
I climbed back into the minivan and simply stated, “I can’t believe you
chose banana bread over me.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, the old woman at the stand asked
where our mother was. When we told her, she took our bread away and
lectured us. We almost left empty handed. She made us promise never to
do anything like it again and to apologize to you. We’re sorry.”
“We know it was probably wrong to abandon you like that.”
“Do you want some bread?”
“You won’t believe how good it is.”
I still can’t eat banana bread.
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
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Baby
Diarrhea is the New Black
By Lauren McHale, Pennsylvania
It was 9:45 A.M. on Wednesday morning. Ordinarily at this time I would
have been at work in Center City Philadelphia, but now three weeks into
motherhood, I was standing in the kitchen holding my newborn daughter.
Like all new moms,
I instantly bid farewell to modesty, vanity and sleep and was now at the
mercy of a mini-human whose schedule revolved around sleeping, eating,
pooping and crying.
As far as my new
wardrobe, I traded business casual attire for the middle school gym
teacher look defined by old t-shirts, shorts, a disheveled ponytail and
a cosmetic collection that consists of a stick of deodorant and a tube
of chap stick.
I had just finished
rinsing off a pacifier and putting it on the drying rack when I locked
eyes with my daughter. I know that at three weeks old a baby's vision is
equivalent to that of a legally blind person, but she was staring so
intently at me. Chalk it up to hormones, lack of sleep or that sobering
"I have a baby" feeling, but suddenly I felt tears welling up in my eyes
as I embraced this obvious mother-daughter bonding moment...
Then I heard it...
a loud gurgling rumble in her tiny belly registering at about a 5.3 on
the abdominal Richter scale. I knew that rumble. It was the kind of
rumble that you usually only experience when you're in a quiet setting
like a staff meeting or a doctor's office surrounded by a lot of people,
and you can feel your face getting red because you know that everyone
heard the rumble and most of them assume it was a fart, and you just
want to stand up and announce "it wasn't a fart, it was just one of
those weird stomach rumble things."
With no other warning, the rumble was followed by a loud forceful squirt
(think squeezing-the
last-bit-of-ketchup-out-of-the-plastic-bottle-squirt), and baby diarrhea
with the color and consistency of spicy brown mustard shot out the side
of her diaper all over the front of my t-shirt. Before I could even
react, an aftershock soon followed, but this time the stray mustard poop
bullets bypassed my shirt and instead grazed the side of my shorts and
splattered all over my socks and the kitchen floor.
Obviously the poop explosion killed the mother-daughter bonding moment.
As I patiently endured a long 30-second waiting period to see if a third
squirt was looming before cleaning up, the door bell rang. I peeked out
the window and saw the UPS driver standing there with a package and that
small electronic signature pad device for me to sign. You've got to be
kidding me. Do I ignore him or boldly answer the door in my poop-covered
state?
I put about 2.2
seconds of thought into it before concluding that I should just answer
the door. He's a UPS driver... He delivers hundreds of packages a week,
and he's probably greeted by all walks of life, like pervy men in their
tighty-whities, senile old ladies offering him shortbread cookies, and
vicious pitbulls trying to lunge at his crotch as their owners struggle
to restrain them. A little baby diarrhea was probably the most benign
thing he encountered all day.
I marched to the front door, opened it and smiled at him, hoping that my
pearly whites and an irresistibly cute newborn would distract him from
the fact that I was covered in human excrement. No such luck. He had a
look of disgust on his face as he pushed the signature pad towards me
and blurted out, "um, you need to sign this." I shamelessly took my time
signing the pad and waved goodbye as he sped away from poopville. I
retreated back into the house, cleaned up the mess and slipped into a
clean t-shirt and pair of shorts, the perfect canvas for another diaper
mishap.
www.laurenmchale.blogspot.com
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
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The
Full Monty Locker Room Experience
By Lauren McHale, Pennsylvania
As a lifelong participant in competitive
sports, I am no stranger to the women's locker room. I remember first
setting foot in the locker room of the Ocean City Community Center at
age 8 after joining the swim team and being greeted by the potent smell
of chlorine mixed with the faint yet detectable scent of shampoo. The
rubber mat floor, the wall-mounted hair dryers and the rows of blue
lockers were all part of a new, yet benign environment for me.
I remember scouring the room for a private
little corner of my own to get changed when I was suddenly blindsided by
the appearance of a middle-aged woman emerging from the shower
completely naked. She had a towel in her possession, but she was using
it to dry the excess water from her hair as she paraded across the room
to her locker.
I remember feeling somewhat shocked by
the blatant display of confident nudity, but I tried to play it off as
if I was a seasoned locker-room veteran and simply waltzed over to a
locker quietly trying to erase the image of what just occurred from my
mind altogether.
I continued to swim competitively all through high school, but no matter
how many times I walked in and out of that locker room, I never seemed
to get immune to the women who treated the area as their personal nudist
colony.
One of my dear friends, Jamie, was and
still is one of those shameless nudists who does not hesitate to
socialize in the locker room wearing nothing but her birthday suit. She
would walk up to me in all her naked glory and stand about 2 feet away
(clearly invading my personal space, which undoubtedly increases
exponentially when you throw nudity into the mix) and just casually
initiate conversation. "Hey Lauren, did you do your Geometry homework
yet?" she would ask nonchalantly. I wanted to respond by saying, "hey
Jamie have you come to realize that I feel semi disgusted and
uncomfortable every time you approach me with your God-given assets
flopping around in my face?" but I would bite my tongue, offer a
one-word answer and turn my head.
I often wondered if it was just me. Maybe
I was just a total insecure conservative prude and the nudists were
simply content and comfortable conversing in the buff as I shielded
every inch of my body with an over sized towel.
Fast forward to 2008-2009. Here I am, a 28-year old woman, a survivor of
MANY years in locker rooms including four years with my college track
and field team. I've seen every body shape, every anatomical nook and
cranny that there is to see (no matter how many times I tried to avoid
them). One would think that I'm hardened to it all, that I'm completely
unaffected, and perhaps have even evolved into one of them by this
point.
Not the case. I recently started swimming
again to get back in shape, and I discovered that nothing has changed in
terms of locker room scenery and my internal reaction to it. On Sunday,
I got out of the pool and rushed into the locker room dreaming about the
fuzzy towel that I was about to wrap around my shivering body. As soon
as I swung the door open, I was greeted by Friendly Naked Woman #1 who
exclaimed, "Boy do you look cold! Is the water temperature that bad?"
Why did she have to ask me a question??
Why couldn't she just make a naked statement that required no response
on my part???!!! I mumbled a quick reply and stayed focused on finding
my towel. I headed to the shower, enjoyed a nice steamy relaxing one and
then turned the water off, wrapped myself in the towel and headed back
to my locker where I encountered "Friendly Naked Woman #2 who happened
to also be elderly and obese.
She smiled and said "Hi dear, how are
you?" and then plopped herself right down on the bench in front of me. I
almost threw up in my mouth. It was at that moment when she sat her bare
geriatric nether regions on the bench next to my clean clothes that I
decided I'm NOT the crazy one, I'm NOT the prude conservative one, and
I'm NOT the insecure one. I'm simply a human being that happens to think
that locker room denizens should be respectful of other gym-goers'
personal space, virgin eyes and/or weak stomachs, and that a simple 3-ft
x 2-ft piece of terrycloth material called a towel is all it takes to
ensure that a level of comfort is experienced by all. I don't think
that's too much to ask.
www.laurenmchale.blogspot.com
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
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Snoring:
My Mating Call
By
Diane Pascoe,
North Carolina
“What’s bothering you , dear.” Honey’s
question pierced the stillness of the early morning. The only other
sound to be heard was the dog’s elbow thumping the floor while giving
his ears their morning scratch.
“Oh, I’m just thinking about all the things that have to be done.” I
explained sleepily. As an afterthought, I asked curiously, ” How did you
know I was lying here awake?”
A pause followed and then he said, “Because you were so quiet.” Now what
the heck does that mean? I could have been asleep and been quiet too,
couldn’t I? Isn’t that the usual drill?
Flashback to one night about three years ago. As I lay peacefully in my
pre-sleep frozen ferret position, he walked over to my side of the bed
and bent down with his nose to my face. I waited for a goodnight kiss,
but no smooch landed.
In the morning, I asked him what that was all about, and he replied,” I
thought you were dead.” He continued cautiously. “You were sleeping
quieter than usual so I came close to see if you were still breathing.”
Call me thick, but it was only at that moment that I realized my love
god was just too gentlemanly to spell out s-n-o-r-e. I “sleep out loud”,
as Mark Twain once put it. Questions raced through my mind. Was I a 10
on the snoring Richter scale? Did I exceed the safety limits for noise?
I knew better than to challenge his truthfulness because I feared he
would tape me at my symphonic worst and end all hope that maybe he was
just teasing me as spouses often do for their own amusement. Deep down
though, I knew it was all true because I have even snorted myself awake,
hearing just the tail end of a freight train leaving my pillow as I
awaken.
I worry a lot about snoring. What if I fall asleep on an airplane and
there is no honey there to nudge me? Will my seat mate say “Turn over,
dear?” Will the flight attendant ask me to turn it down a notch or two
because the other passengers can’t hear Mrs. Doubtfire Returns? Will
everyone stare at me as I play my nasal trumpet in dreamland? Horrors! I
must never fall asleep in a public place, I vow to myself.
This vow was very short lived. My friend and I recently fell asleep at
the beach in the relaxing warm sun, snorting ourselves awake after a few
minutes of sawing logs and drooling. I guess I’ll now have to sunsleep
only on my non-snore-producing left side, even if it means over-roasting
my right side in the Carolina sun. At my snoring worst, Honey says I
could cause a tsunami, wiping out all beach life on the east coast.
When those ads appear on TV for all the pills, gizmos and gadgets that
guarantee snoreless sleep, my love god turns his head ever so slightly
towards me, with his eyebrows raised, uttering not a word. Silence saves
marriages, he has learned in husband school.
My love god is lovingly tolerant of my nasal noise, putting a positive
spin on this annoyance. “I just think of it as your mating call,” he
explains.
This is proof to me that love is not only blind, but it is deaf too.
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
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Get
a Grip
By
Dorothy Rosby,
South Dakota
Okay, so I lied. Maybe. Just listen to my
side of the story before you judge me.
A friend gave me one of those gripper things you use to open jar lids.
She said she'd found it at a thrift shop and, remembering I'd said I
needed one, she bought it for me. I thanked her effusively. How very
nice to be thought of! Except that I didn’t remember saying I needed the
gripper.
Not that I didn’t need it! It’s just that up until that moment, with it
staring me in the face, it had not occurred to me how much I needed it.
My friend seemed proud of herself for being so thoughtful. She proceeded
to tell me her acquisition story as bargain shoppers often do, and I
pretended to listen while I racked my brain. Had I made any comment that
would lead her to believe I was having trouble opening jars? I couldn't
remember a single thing. And yet, I have had trouble opening jars. If I
hadn't mentioned I needed a gripper, I should have.
My friend was now carrying on about how often she used her own gripper,
as did her mother and her sister. And then it occurred to me! What if my
friend had me confused with someone else who would now continue to
struggle with jar lids because of me? What a thing to have on my
conscience!
But by now we were a good ten minutes into the conversation; a
conversation in which I had enthusiastically thanked my friend for her
thoughtfulness and agreed that yes I could really use the gripper. It
seemed too late to say, "I don't remember telling you I need this--not
that I don't need it."
There was nothing left to do but offer to pay her for the gripper that,
up until that day, I hadn't known I needed. Naturally, I was concerned
that if I did, she'd start bringing me all sorts of things I can use,
but haven't thought of yet. I offered anyway, and she graciously
declined. It was a gift! A gift that was possibly meant for someone
else. I took it and use it often, always wondering, am I forgetful or am
I a liar? Meanwhile my friend hasn't brought me any other gadgets. Maybe
she's on to me--or maybe I haven't mentioned I need anything else, in
which case, maybe I should.
I'm sure this story illustrates a point, though I'm not sure what it is.
Maybe just that the longer you wait to speak up, the harder it gets.
Whether it's telling your neighbor you're the one who reported their
barking dogs to animal control. Or telling your parents that you're the
one who burned down the garage when you were 14. These are just
examples, mind you. We had a carport when I was growing up, and it's
still standing.
I swear my delay was only an attempt to buy thinking time. But I waited
too long, and I certainly didn't want to embarrass us both after we'd
carried on like that. Plus I was afraid she'd want the gripper back.
www.dorothyrosby.com
© Copyright
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The
Salad Days of Playboy
By
Scott Sackett,
California
I hate pornography, not on the usual
religious or moral grounds, but because you can get it free anytime,
anywhere. You can download incredibly high quality smut off the
internet, through your phone, and probably now on your Leapster! Why
back in the day – we had to work our tails off to get our porn!
It was a simpler time, before the advent of the internet or VHS tapes,
and the only true standard of erotica was Playboy Magazine. And to an
11-year old growing up, Playboys were only available at the local
“drug-stores”, barber shops, and your fathers’ stash hidden above the
refrigerator. Too young and too short! This was the bane of adolescents
whose hormones had just recently woke and were on a low-boil.
One particular summer day I was taking a stroll to canvas the
neighborhood on trash day. Mind you this was before the nonsense of
environmentalism and individual recycle bins. Trash was displayed
proudly in godly mounds at the curbside awaiting pickup. It was a
special haven for us kids who could rifle through it and find untold
discarded treasures. You might unearth a clock radio, power-tool, or
perhaps a slightly cracked baseball bat. Sizing up one particular trash
can, I gauge its potential. Expertly navigating my arm downward through
tins of half-eaten frozen dinners and beer cans, I press deeper when a
small glint of glossy paper catches my eye. A tattered magazine
bewitches me and I tug it stubbornly from the bottom of the bin. Out
emerges from the fettered heap is an enchanted wonderment filled from
cover to cover with images of scantily clad woman. The letterhead
“Playboy” announced in a bold, titillating, font. Was that a clap of
thunder I just heard?
Finding a jewel of porn in the trash is the equivalent of a kid winning
the lottery. This was my Playboy - my first true love, and we would
never be parted. My fantasies are suddenly shattered by a sharp noise
across the way. Billy Jacobs emerges from his house, letting the metal
screen door slam noisily behind him. Across the street, another
screen-door slams shut and Elliot Deers stumbles into his front yard.
Adult magazines give off a faint scent that only the attuned nose of an
11 year boy old can detect. The pheromones of porn are quickly
transmitted from pubescent boy to boy at nearly the speed of light. In a
heart-beat a clatter of aluminum screen doors echo up and down the
street and an army of kids assemble. Their steely eyes focus intently on
me. But I was no fool; they weren’t there to welcome me to the
neighborhood– they craved to possess my magazine. But Miss October and I
will not be so easily separated and I take off running.
Legs churning madly, my mind quickly calculates the fastest distance to
home, times the inverse power of porn cubed. It would take me through
the park and over the creek. With a little luck, I could hold up in my
garage with my dearest love forever. Quickly I turn up the path and race
towards the wooden decking. The magazine pressed warmly against my
chest, gives me additional strength. But midway across the bridge, a
phalanx of lustful buddies blocks the path before me. Painfully clumsy
footsteps echo from behind. My predicament is painfully clear – I am
trapped in on both sides with no visible means of escape. Reddened eyes
laser in on my magazine. A low-collective growl issues from the
surrounding mob. My heart pounds wildly – thoughts scatter in all
directions looking for a way to escape. When facing near oblivion, the
human mind can made some startling choices to protect itself. Suddenly
the value of the Playboy Magazine diminishes in comparison to survival.
Against all logic or common sense; I toss the accursed magazine into the
swift waters below. The crowd wails and lunges past me, edging over the
railing. The magazine is quickly swallowed up in the brackish waters and
disappears beyond them. The empty look on their faces read as if I just
shot Christmas. Perhaps pornography and I will cross paths again.
So my despair is with the youth of today, who appear to have their porn
electronically available on tap! I had to use all my childhood guile and
cunning to score some smut. And it was second-hand smut as best! It just
isn’t fair – and that’s why I hate pornography.
© Copyright
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Debt
Superheroes
By
Thomas Sullivan,
Washington
At 6PM on a Monday my doorbell rings. I’m
not expecting anyone, so I walk warily to the front door. I could just
ignore the repeated ringing, but I am waiting for UPS to deliver a
package – my wife’s birthday gift. I don’t want to miss that.
I open the door to find two overweight men dressed in superhero
costumes. The taller guy sports a plastic mask with pointy ears and a
skin-tight muscle suit attached to a black cape. The shorter one is
donning a red body suit and a yellow cape. Above his double chin a thin
black mask obscures his eyes.
Batman and Robin stand silently, failing to introduce themselves.
“Aren’t you supposed to say trick-or-treat or something?” I ask,
befuddled.
Batman takes a final drag off his cigarette and crushes out the butt
using a tall plastic boot. He looks up at me and says, “Your neighbor
Bob owes twenty grand on a wedding. He’s not paying up. The wedding
company hired us to let you know there’s a criminal living next door.”
I stare at my visitors for a moment before something flashes in my brain
-- recognition. When I was in Europe last summer I read about this. It’s
an old tradition dating back to medieval times. They call it “shaming.”
If someone owes money and fails to pay up, the creditor sends out people
to alert family, friends, and neighbors about the person’s deadbeat
status. They contact your wedding guests and ask them where they should
send the bill for the chicken or the fish. They call your parents or
your employer and let them know how irresponsible you’ve become. To make
things “fun” and add intrigue the collectors often show up in costumes,
say a top hat and a tuxedo with long tails.
Batman and Robin stand with their arms crossed in front of their chests,
awaiting my response.
“That’s funny,” I say, “because he just bought a new motor home. I
figured he was flush.”
Their eyes blink with surprise through the angular holes in their masks.
Robin takes an aggressive step forward and responds to my little lie.
“You know, when people don’t pay their bills everyone suffers.”
I chuckle and say, “Yup, that’s true. Especially the careless creditors
and the losers they hire to go out and collect their debts.”
Batman’s back stiffens and his plastic chest juts forward. His hands
ball into fists. He grunts something and starts to take a step forward,
but then stops. He must know that a physical altercation would not be
good for advancing his meager career.
“You know guys,” I continue, “When times are good and people are
embarrassed by not being able to pay debts, your little shtick has a
chance. But now, with this …"
I wave my hand through the air, panning the blighted neighborhood with
its plethora of Price Reduced signs and empty houses.
“…people aren’t embarrassed anymore. It’s the new norm.”
Batman and Robin scrunch their mouths in determination. Batman goes for
the old morality play.
“An agreement to pay is an agreement to pay, no matter the situation.”
I ignore his little sermon and say, “You know, once enough people stop
paying, you guys will be looking for a new line of work. Maybe you could
do security at a comic book convention.”
Robin thrusts his hands onto his hips.
“Hey, we’re just doing our jobs here.”
I put a hand in the air, palm facing the superheroes.
“Okay, you’re right. Maybe I’m being a bit rough. Tell ya’ what. Let me
go get my phone. I’ll call Bob and tell him you came by, if you agree to
leave after I call. Fair enough?”
Batman and Robin look at each other and then nod their heads.
I walk inside and stroll into the kitchen. I reach down and unclip
Rusty’s leash. Rusty is Bob’s dog, who I’m watching while Bob is out job
hunting. Rusty is huge and Rusty hates strangers. Hence the need to keep
him restrained whenever the doorbell rings.
Rusty races around the corner and tears down the hallway towards the
front door. I jog behind the dog, which is barking in pure fury. I reach
the front steps just in time to see Batman and Robin racing with all
their might down the street, body fat jiggling while their capes fly in
the air behind them.
http://www.editred.com/tmpsull
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When
Opportunity Knocks You Down
By
Karla Telega,
South Carolina
I grew up in a gentler time when my parents
could smack the snot out of me with impunity. Mom even went so far as to
say that she liked using a wooden spoon because it “stung really good
without leaving a mark”. Most muggings are not thought out so well. She
needn’t have worried, since to this day it takes an anvil, a cliff, and
an act of God before I show any sign of bruising.
I put that formula to the test when I got the opportunity to go
cavorting in the woods a few weeks ago; and by cavorting I mean,
slipping on wet rocks, tumbling down muddy hills, and getting clocked in
the face by an overexcited dog. Without any sympathy-generating
contusions from my weekend of self-destructive abandon, I was forced to
indulge in some self-pity. It was about that time that I happened to
tune in to the Olympic games.
There was cute little Lindsey Vonn skiing down a sheet of solid ice in
spite of a painful injury to her shin. In her place I would have:
a. Fallen as I was getting out of the gate
b. Tried to turn back before the first turn
c. Needed an airlift off the mountain after the first turn
Just watching the pounding that she took on her wild flight down the
mountain made my teeth hurt. If my osteoporosis and I ever attempted to
win any athletic competition, I’m pretty sure that it would qualify as
an act of God, and I would have the bruises to prove it. I couldn’t even
manage to walk a dog without breaking my shoulder in three places.
I’m petitioning the Olympic Committee to add competitive dog walking to
the summer games. Athletes would have to walk their English Mastiffs
through a gamut of small yappy dogs, baby strollers, garbage trucks, and
mailmen. I don’t have Lindsey’s stoic nature, so no medal could tempt me
to enter the 5 Kilometer Mastiff Marathon. Nevertheless, on my reckless
weekend trip I decided to go for the gold.
As research for a mystery that I’m writing, I went to a small town built
over top of an abandoned gold mine. My goal was simple: I wanted to
visualize the setting for my new book. If I just happened to strike it
rich in the process, I would have to find a way to cope. I tried panning
for gold in Hard Labor Creek, where I managed to do a passable fanny
flop on the wet boulders littering the shore. What I got out of it was a
soaking wet spot on the seat of my pants, a banged up shoulder, and a
5.2 from the Russian judge.
The next day the search was on for a mine entrance. I had my new rock
hammer and a gold map; and I was itching to use them. The mines, which
were marked by a gold colored blob on the map, had no corresponding
colored blobs in the woods.
In spite of my bad habit of developing crippling muscle spasms when I
vacuum the rug or dust the top shelf of the bookcase, I put out an
Olympian performance of tenacity in reading the map and driving around
the countryside. I was losing daylight and running out of hope of
finding a mine. I had hit the wall. Drawing on some unknown inner
reserve, I looked instead for a feasible location for my book’s murder
scene. I needed public access land in a National Forest, a hill, and a
trail.
I found the ideal location and sauntered three minutes up the trail
before running across four gold mine shafts. I even picked up a rock
that had flecks of gold in it. If you’re thinking “fools gold”, keep it
to yourself. I don’t want anyone bringing me down from the thrill of
victory to the agony of defeat.
I may not have any bruises to show for my misadventures, but I think
Lindsey would be proud of me just the same. I trained and sacrificed all
day for the gold. You may play the National Anthem now.
www.telegatales.com
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
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Gynophobia
By
Thomas Wheeler,
Texas
I did not make this one up. Gynophobia is
a real, live phobia....The fear of women. Having raised two daughters
through their teenage years and having lived with another such creature
for most of thirty years, it is comforting to now have a name for my
condition.
Scientists have conducted case study after case study in a vain attempt
to find the root cause of gynophobia. Study subjects are not that easy
to find. 76.18% of the men approached had to ask their mother,
girlfriend or wife whether it was OK to answer the screening questions.
94.35% of those men allowed to participate could do so only if their
significants first reviewed their proposed responses. Of the 23.82% of
men that could answer without first obtaining a female's blessing,
approximately half were over 75 years of age. The rest were either gay,
wished they were gay or were recently divorced and, as a result, really
pissed off at women-folk in general.
The gynophobic condition is not hereditary. It is an acquired state.
Teenage boys and unmarried young men are oftentimes found symptom free.
The onset of steady girlfriend-ness seems to be the usual triggering
event. Wearing a ring around the next-to-smallest finger on the left
hand seems to aggravate the condition. Suddenly, two-day hunting trips,
excessive beer consumption, eating more than twelve stuffed jalapenos in
one sitting, public farting, scratching what needs to be scratched and
watching "Blazing Saddles" brings, at a minimum, disapproving looks and
in some cases, the withholding of what we guys hold most sacred...and I
ain't talking about a foot massage. I'm talking home-cooked meals. (If
you were thinking that something else might be "withheld", shame on you.
The pre-marrieds among the guy population would never contemplate any
pre-marital physical contact beyond possibly a firm holding of hands. We
married guys, of course, get...I think I'll not finish that.)
Before you know it, a dude afflicted with gynophobia exhibits all kind
of gynophobic symptoms: We stare at the TV with a pleasant look on our
face during a pairs figure skating competition. We attain the ability to
walk slowly through the feminine product section of the grocery store
(as opposed to running down the aisle with our eyes tightly shut). We
use words like "poopy" when talking about our children. We can hear a
Miley Cyrus song on the radio without making retching sounds. We no
longer watch Sunday afternoon baseball double headers or Rocky II, III
or IV or fishing shows. We wear socks...that match. Our favorite brown
pants/green shirt combo is no more. We consume yogurt in the morning and
tea with our Mexican food and salads without a covering of nacho cheese
as if such actions are normal.
Studies have shown that the condition is curable. Apparently, the
donation of a house, a new vehicle, a house full of furniture,
retirement, savings, one testicle and the assignment of all future
earnings will do the trick.
Some might call me whipped. Maybe it's not my fault. I'm sick.
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