TerMoiAll thought of the day: “This job is getting to me — I’m beginning to understand it.”
News Flash!
Beware of this food porn creeping into your local food store. Spotted today was FlatJacks, an innocent looking addition to your diet, promising to make life easier and in two flavors: Original and “BarBQ.”
All you need is a toaster and about 5 minutes of your time, and all your fowl desires will be met!
Chicken from a toaster! What next? Will pigs fly?
When asked, the chief of police said: “FlatJacks is not to be trusted. He will lay your waist, and leave you with nothing to crow about. We have one of top detectives on this and he will get to the bottom of it, and then we will lay out the facts and seek prosecution of those trafficking in this chicken s&*^t operation.”
Psychiatrists are warning that what FlatJacks has to offer could be habit forming. Said one: “It’s almost magical, what FlatJacks is promising. ‘Chicken from your toaster!’ Who ever heard of such a thing? Pure fantasy! It would be as if I said if I had enough feather dusters, I could fly.”
Even one Republican Presidential candidate has weighed in, saying: “FlatJacks is free market capitalism at its finest. We politicians used to promise a chicken in every pot. We can now promise one in every toaster! That’s progress.”
Asked if he had tried one, the politician coughed and clucked as if to clear his throat and then referred the question to his aid.
When asked about FlatJacks, the Democratic candidate said he would form a commission to study the matter, and take that commission’s conclusions under advisement.
One local preacher took no time in condemning “this abomination to the very soul of Christianity.” Wiping away sweat as he spoke outside on the church grounds where an outdoor dinner and preaching was taking place.
He continued: “Young folks today do not know the true meaning of dinner on the grounds. In my day, the men dressed in their best Sunday clothes and women wore skirts and dresses, and often wore bonnets or hats, and they brought their best homemade fried chicken. It was a little friendly competition to see who had the best. Now, well now, look around here.” He waved his arm toward his brood. “They come in summer shorts – men and women – I say, and the women, well some of them wear the scantiest of things, and bring KFC chicken, and don’t even bother to take it out of the bucket. Now, now they will be bringing these FlatJack things and demanding we have toasters outside and long extension cords, and rows and rows of toasters. This will become one big stick it and click it dinner. Stick it in the toaster and click the lever down. Stick it and click it. This is Satan’s handiwork, I tell you. Satan’s handiwork.” In the distance a roster crowed for a second time and the preacher broke down and wept.
“The pen is mightier than the sword, and considerably easier to write with.”
— Marty Feldman
Marty Feldman, comedian, writer, actor
Wise author Paul Coelho writes: Contrary to glasses and windows, a broken heart remains intact.
Unwise wit responds: That’s because it’s a pain of a different sort.
The window pain ... in The Twilight Zone.
Filed under pain, Paul Coelho, wit, Woirds to live by, word play, words, writer
[Editor’s note: Parts 1 – 4 on the blog. You can click on “Kibitzer or Kidd in the Tags below to reach he previous entries. I am working to make this a monthly feature on the blog. Hope you enjoy this science fiction western with a dash or two of humor set in a quirky time and place: not quite and not quite there.]
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The Kibitzer didn’t know what to make of the situation when he stumbled though the swinging saloon doors and everybody was staring at him. Normally, he was the one doing the staring.
Rain dripped off his hat and clothes.
He smiled. No one smiled back, not even the Kidd. As he stepped the rest of the way into the saloon, he heard a voice say, “Donut go there.”
He looked down at the floor, certain that’s where it came from. But how could the floor speak?
“Did you get them?” the Kidd asked.
“Wipe your feet,” the robust saloon woman said.
The Kibitzer pointed outside. He made a slash like lightning, raised his knee, and then spread his arms wide.
“Speak. You know I don’t read pantomime.”
“Maybe I can help,” Al Wayne said. “He probably saw one of our fair citizens zapped by lightning who then got up and walked away. The first time somebody witnesses it, it tends to leave them at a loss for words.”
The Kibitzer pointed at Wayne and nodded.
“I talk about it in my book, Global Warning. Though I’m not quite sure what the raised knee means.”
The Kibitzer turned slightly red.
The saloon doors swung open again. This time Bonnie came through, carrying a bag. She, too, dripped rain on the floor, but the Kibitzer didn’t hear anything from the floor, or what he thought was the floor, as she approached.
“You forgot these.” She held them out toward him holding the bag between her finger and thumb as if trying to be ladylike or as if what was inside was as foul as fresh dog poop.
The Kibitzer nodded toward the Kidd.
Bonnie didn’t move.
The Kibitzer nodded again. He wasn’t sure why he wasn’t speaking. He had been able to after she kneed him. Was the big guy with the bent sheriff’s star on his chest right? Was it the excitement of seeing somebody zapped by lightning, then being told he would rise from the dead, then begin to see the dead stir as he ran across the wide street of mud that left him, the Kibitzer dumbfounded? He had witnessed many things, even eaten some bad popcorn while witnesses them, but he had never been at a loss for words – until now.
“Don’t worry, Kibbey, I won’t knee you again.”
Kibbey? No one called him Kibbey!
The entire room broke out in laughter. Even the big guy with the bent star chuckled.
Nobody told Bonnie to wipe her feet.
(To Be Continued…)
Previously, parts 1 – 3 have been published here, but I thought I would include them along with a new part 4. More to come in this continuing offbeat story. If you enjoy it, let me know. If you don’t, you can let me know that, too.
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The Cough Drop Kidd and the Kibitzer rode into town. It would have been in a cloud of mentholated dust, but because it was raining, it was in a slosh of mud and a cough laced with glycol. They were almost out of cough drops and the Kidd was not happy.
“Kibitzer,” he said between sniffles, “go get us some.”
“I’m only here to watch,” the Kibitzer said, “and for the popcorn.”
The Cough Drop Kidd pulled his six-shooter and pointed it at the head of Kibitzer’s horse. “You wanna observe riding or walking?”
The Kibitzer’s horse’s ears flicked back and forth as if trying drive away a fly. The Kibitzer blinked a couple times and finally said, “I’ll go watch the apothecary mix up a batch.”
The Kidd nodded and raised the barrel of his pistol skyward. “Be quick about it. I’ll be in the saloon getting a hot toddy. A little honey will help my throat.”
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The Kidd entered the saloon. It was beat up ol’ place with chairs that had legs that didn’t match and a bar rail so wobbly it had a hand printed sign hanging from it that said: Donut touch. That means u.
The floor creaked to the point he was sure it was talking to him, saying something like, “Donut go there.” But he paid it no heed as he stepped toward the bar. This part of the Wild Side was full of things that spoke when not spoken to. Some said it was haints. Others said it was spirits. And some even said it was bottled spirits. Even though he was wet all over, the Kidd was parched.
“Hey, dandy boy, wipe your feet. What do you think this is, your corral?”
A few people looked his way and a couple of folks chuckled, but most kept doing the mopping and card playing and lying they were doing before.
The woman yelling at him was tall and a little on the heavy side, which meant this business had been good to her. The Kidd liked that about her. She was standing behind the bar, so thus far what he liked was only from about the waist up. She was wiping out a glass.
When he was up near her, he whispered, “I’ll have a hot toddy.” His voice was about gone.
“Well, I do declare,” she said, “the dandy wants a hot toddy.”
“A what?” somebody at the bar asked. His back was to the Kidd, so the Kidd didn’t know what he looked like.
“A toddy. A hot toddy.” She said the words again and winked back at the Kidd. He wasn’t sure if it was a friendly gesture, or a twitch.
The man turned around. His face was as scuffed as the floor and as beaten up as the chairs. Tobacco juice ran out of one of the corners of his mouth. One eye was lazy and one earlobe looked as though a coyote had chewed on it.
“Dandy,” the man said, spitting on the floor, “we don’t serve your kind.”
It was that moment that the saloon went quiet, except for the gentle swinging of the saloon doors and the floor saying, “Told you.”
“Package,” a voice said. “Package for a Cough Drop Kidd. Is there a Cough Drop Kidd here?”
All eyes turned toward the Kidd.
The Kidd turned toward the delivery boy in his granny spectacles, gray cap with a black bill, and clothes too starched and too new to have been worn much in this town.
“One D or two?” the Kidd asked, lightning still flashing just outside the saloon doors.
“Ah,” the delivery boy looked down at the package, “two.”
“Good. The Kid with one D works the lower territory south of the divide. We call the divide the D-M-D for short.”
“And for long?” the boy asked.
“His D ain’t that long,” some cowboy shouted.
The others in the saloon chuckled.
The delivery boy turned bright red, dropped the package, and skedaddled out of the saloon, getting immediately struck by a lightning bolt. The box hit the floor and broke along one of its sides. It bulged open, spewing books across the hardwood, every last one of them different, one of each and each one about vampires.
“So, you a blood sucker, Dandy?” The floor-faced man stepped away from the bar and his hand rattled toward his holster. He had rattlesnake rattles in a band around his wrist and his hand twitched slightly.
The Kidd glanced around. The card games had stopped. The lying had stopped. Even the moping had stopped. The woman behind the bar twitched him another smile and then ducked down behind it. She moved quick for a big woman.
This town is cursed, thought the Kidd. But he didn’t have much time to think anything else. The floor-faced man’s hand was at the top of his holster.
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The apothecary was almost done making the cough drops, but the Kibitzer was tired of watching. He ho-hummed to himself, took another bite of some slightly stale popcorn, and decided watching was not always what he had pictured it would be. It was a very unpleasant observation and it did not sit well him or his stomach. The popcorn didn’t help. He belched once in hopes of relief.
It was during the descent of the belch out of his mouth that he heard what sounded like a pop, saw the delivery boy run out of the saloon, and then watched as lightning tripped the light fantastic across the kid’s body.
He then saw another two or three people scurry out of the saloon as if escaping an unpleasantry, like a distant relative’s interminable funeral or a spelling bee where they were next up and the word was interminable.
The Kibitzer forgot all about the cough drops and stepped outside, glancing toward the sky as if somehow he could observe a bolt of lightning before it hit him, and then considered running through the rain to the other side of the street.
That’s when a young lady came up and kneed him in the groin.
The Kibitzer dropped to the wooden sidewalk, balled up, and began rocking back and forth as if it might dissipate the pain.
“My name’s Bonnie,” she said, leaning over him. “No man leaves my apothecary without payin’ for what he ordered.”
“I wasn’t leaving,” the Kibitzer said, his teeth still clenched.
Finally, he rolled over onto all fours.
“Didn’t you see the kid out there? He got struck by lightning?”
Bonnie shrugged. “Happens a lot lately. He’ll be okay. Nobody in this town dies anymore. Been bad for my business, I tell you.”
The Kibitzer was again standing fully erect, if feeling a little tender. The rain had slackened to almost a light drizzle.
“We already lost two undertakers and the saw bones has gone back to yankin’ teeth. If it weren’t for medicinals for that, I’d probably be blowin’ in the wind, too.” She then slipped him the bill for the cough drops.
The Kibitzer looked at it. “What, no discount for the laying on of hands?”
She smiled at him, then raised her hand. In the muddled light of the evening, she still looked quite menacing. “I didn’t finish.”
The Kibitzer paid her and gave her a generous tip.
He then dashed out into the rain, forgetting the cough drops.
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“Now, now, gentlemen, there’s no need for fisticuffs.”
The voice preceded the groaning of the stairs behind the floor-faced man. A barrel-chested man appeared as if stepping out of an office built half-a-floor above the saloon.
The floor-faced man slid his hand down to his gun anyway, pulled it, and was aiming when the Kidd fired a shot that hit the gun, knocking it out of the floor-faced man’s hand.
The gathered crowd moved back and the floor-faced man scurried away. The man on the steps descended the rest of the way to the floor of the saloon.
“Some pretty fancy shootin’ there, pilgrim.”
The Cough Drop Kidd was as surprised as anyone, but he did his best to hide it. He slipped his pistol back into its holster.
The barrel-chested man walked up to the Kidd and extended his hand. “My name’s Al, Al Wayne, but you can call me Al.”
The Kidd extended his hand, keeping it clenched until the last second in order to keep it from shaking.
“You new in town, Kidd?”
The Kidd nodded.
Al looked over at the dropped box of books. “We don’t allow those type books in town. Frightens the children and some womenfolk.”
The Kidd looked over at the box. He thought about saying, again, it wasn’t his, that he hadn’t been expecting a package of any sort, but he didn’t want somebody else coming forth and accusing him of being a liar and challenging him on it, so instead, he said, “Well, Al, what sort of books do you allow?”
“Why, nice of you to ask,” Al said, reaching behind him and snatching a copy of the book from one of the saloon patrons. “This is the only good book we’re allowed to read here on the West Side. It’s called Global Warning. It’s one I wrote myself, before the collapse.”
Collapse? The Cough Drop Kidd didn’t know anything about a collapse. This was the only world he knew. He was about to ask when he heard the saloon doors swing open. He thought he better turn and take a look. Everybody else was.
(To Be Continued…)
Would you trust this man with a gun?
Would you trust this man with a handgun?
Would you trust him if you knew he was an ex-Memphis police officer?
Would you trust him if you knew he was an ex-police officer with a .38-caliber handgun tucked between the driver’s seat and console of his SUV?
Would you trust him if you knew he refused to take a Breathalyzer test, after being stopped by Nashville police officers for driving 60 miles per hour in a 40 mph zone and weaving across the double yellow lines on a street near Vanderbilt University?
Would you trust him if you knew he was Tennessee state Representative, Republican from Collierville?
Would you trust him if you knew he was the House sponsor of the bill (later mad law) allowing handguns in bars?
If so, Curry Todd, the man in photo, is the person you would trust.
Your tax dollars at work.
It will be interesting see how the state Republicans protect one of their own who to the serve part of the motto “to Protect and Serve” to mean how many drinks he could serve himself and still drive.
Sources:
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2011/oct/12/lawmaker-arrested-on-drunken-driving-gun-charges/
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2011/oct/12/sponsor-of-tennessee-guns-in-bars-bill-charged/
Filed under GOP, humor, political humor, satire, serve, state, Tenessee legislature, Tennessee, true story, trust, wit
Some things need no commentary, but I have one below anyway.
Editor’s comment: Some say this is an example of why men should not write advice columns. I say it’s an example of missing the obvious. First, the advice guy should have told the writer to check to make sure there was enough gas in the car’s tank. An empty gas tank and a car will stall easily. Geez, some people never want to start with obvious.
Following the tragic death of the Human Cannonball at the Kent Show, a spokesman said, “We’ll struggle to get another man of the same caliber.”
Booker's Blog 