Are newspapers sending us subliminal messages? Have you checked yours, today?
Filed under newspaper humor
There once was a woman from Oak Ridge
who used sexual “knottiness” as a bridge.
She’d tie down her sailor;
have him now and have him latter.
And she’d (k)not keep it quiet, (k)not a smidge.
Filed under Knottiness, limerick, poem, poetry by author
Q. Where does a writer find interesting characters at the breakfast table?
A. In a cereal novel.
Just make sure it is a whole grain cereal, so you get well-rounded interesting characters.
Filed under Monday morning writing joke, writing humor
I was somewhen gliding over Virtuosity when I woke up from my copy/paste coma. I was ten thousand bar stools above pay dirt, but the drinks had stopped coming long before the last sequence of route rot procedures was done. I tried to perk up with three quick and awful coffees and a Hershey’s kiss left over from my last intrusion into the real world, but it wasn’t helping much. The coffee was a tannic acid man’s dream, bitter and beyond redemption no matter how I tried to doll it up. And the kiss, well, I am a sucker for chocolate, even old chocolate, but this kiss had seen its last sweet pucker long ago, maybe even in a candy gallery far far away.
She walked into my room the way all sycophants do these days – with an air of predestination. She sat down in the old overstuffed chair next to the old overstuffed couch I was crouched on. She placed her legs in just such a position that a trigonometry professor would’ve been had pressed to explain, and it was all I could do to keep my eyes from triangulating on them. They were her best feature, but the rest of her was at least suborbital as well. She dressed in clothes with sharp angles, some of which would probably frighten an armadillo. Her lips were as full and shiny as a waxing moon and her hair gleamed as if it were a source of light all its own. In short, she was as textured as the night, and just as dangerous.
She dragged out a smoke and was about to light it.
“Not in here.” My head was a series of dots and dashes in binary world, and lighting up wasn’t going to help.
She pouted and then put them away. “The boss sent me.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
She looked perplexed, lost in the great heartland of non-sequitors, a trollop with a message trying to make connections with polarized plugs in a non-polarized world.
“The boss says—”
“I know what the boss says. He says it every time he sends one of you floozies down my rat hole with a message, and every time he promises me my freedom and every time he finds a way to wriggle out of following through. Tell Lucy, Charlie ain’t kickin’ at the ball no more.”
She looked even more nonplussed. I could just imagine one big minus sign stretched above her pretty little head, like a halo dancing black hole mambo with an event horizon. One day enough neurons might come burrowing out, Steven Hawking style, to make a moment of enlightenment, but age and propriety would keep me from waiting that long. After all, it’s not polite to stare indefinitely at a glacier, no matter how easy on the eyes.
[Editor’s note: not sure what to do with this. If I should pursue it or let it go. if you have read it, any thoughts or comments? is this an interesting beginning? Thank you for stopping by.]
Filed under story, Sunday story, Virtuosity, Workshop weekend, writing
In the process of making a small tree. Still much to do. Thankful for a neighbor and smart people who came to help.
There is an old joke.
How do you make a small tree?
Start with a large one.
[Editor’s note: I know, originally, the joke was: how do you make a small fortune? Start with a large one. But fortune would be eight syllables instead of seven and ruin the attempted humorous haiku. Plus, I’ll be more like to have a large tree to start with than a large fortune. I don’t hold much prospect that I’ll have a small fortune, either. As for a small tree, well, that may still take me a little while. You don’t know how much brush one full-grown tree can create until you have to clean up after one.]
Filed under Found story, Photo by author, poetry by author, Thunder, Workshop weekend
In our continuing quest to revisit a classic, or even a curiosity from the past and see how relevant it is, we continue with The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce. Originally published in newspaper installments from 1881 until 1906. You might be surprised how current many of the entries are.
For example, here is a definition for the words Conservative and Republican, which have become synonymous. The Old definitions are Bierce’s. The New definition is mine or somebody else contemporary. From time to time, just as it was originally published, we will come back to The Devil’s Dictionary, for a look at it then and how it applies today. Click on Devil’s Dictionary in the tags below to bring up the other entries.
OLD DEFINITION
Abatis, n. Rubbish in front of a fort, to prevent the rubbish outside from molesting the rubbish inside.
Aborigines, n. Person of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.
Corollary: they succumb to abatis.
NEW DEFINITION
Abatis, n. Rubbish in front of the U.S. Congress, placed there to prevent the rubbish outside, the people, from molesting the rubbish inside, the bought and paid for representatives and senators. Often this rubbish is lobbyist, who themselves are many times former congressmen and senators making sure the people who hired them get what they want before the people, voters, do. See lobbyist in an earlier installment of The Devil’s Dictionary.
Aborigines, n. Person of little worth found cumbering the voting booths at election time. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize or fodder for the plutocratic machine that is the U.S. Congress. unfortunately, this has also become increasing true of state congresses, too.
Corollary: they succumb to abatis.
Filed under Abatis, Aborigines, Ambrose Bierce, Devil's Dictionary
The blathering idiot and Zoey had decided to see other people. Well, Zoey had announced she was going to see other people. The blathering idiot saw other people every day, but that was not what Zoey meant. Reluctantly, he tried getting dates. Less than reluctantly, the women refused, some politely, some derisively, some laughing so hard they had tears streaming down their cheeks and nothing else to say. And those that did say something polite usually said that it was not about him, but about her.
Eventually, the blathering idiot turned to dating web sites such as “Oui, Hook U Up,” or OHUUP for short. Their tag line was: “We put the We back in Oui.”
For several weeks he logged in, and talked with several women, exchanging e-mails, photos, even details of things liked and things he wanted to do and try. But he was not able to get a date. At the last minute, they would have a reason why they couldn’t meet, even for coffee or a soda.
But they did keep suggesting he sign up for the Platinum Oui for a Week Club, guaranteed to get him Oui more attention.
He didn’t have the extra money for the POW Club.
He was feeling down, wondering what he was doing wrong, when he ran across Xenia at the downtown library. She was there with some of her friends and somebody other than her mother Zoey watching over them.
She asked how he was. He told her.
“Mom’s meeting some guy she met online.”
The blathering idiot nodded.
“Though I think she really misses you.”
In some ways, he missed Xenia more than Zoey.
“I think those web sites are bogus.”
He nodded.
“I have a friend whose dad tried several of them. He told my mom he was about to fly over to Russia to meet one he had chatted with online. But he began to wonder and after chatting with a few other women from the same site realized he had been talking to some sort of computer program.”
“Really?”
Xenia nodded.
“Said he was embarrassed to admit it, but didn’t want her making the same mistake. Said he thought about reporting them, but then looked at ‘that legal stuff’ he called it on the site and it said something about using staff members and bots to enhance customer satisfaction.”
Some things are a (key) stoke of luck and some things are a (key) stroke of genius, and then some things are a (key) stroke too far.
When the blathering idiot got back to his computer, he logged into the web site, found his inbox had sixteen “oui notes” waiting for him.
Instead of reading them, he pulled up that “legal stuff” and though it was dull and at times difficult reading, he did find a section that read:
“OHUUP may, in its sole discretion, cause or allow you to be contacted by one or more Super Oui Profiles (“SOP”, “SOPs”) as a part of its “SOP” feature. A SOP may represent a person employed by OHUUP or an affiliate of OHUUP or an automated digital actor created by OHUUP. Nothing contained in an SOP is intended to describe or resemble any real person, and is included on the Website only for the personal enjoyment or entertainment of Users.
“Furthermore, SOPs are used to enhance your online experience, by (for example) stimulating communications with other Users, by introducing you to new or existing features of the Service, or by encouraging active participation on the Website. SOPs may also be used to monitor User activities and communications to ensure compliance with these Terms. In the event that the User responds to a communication from a SOP, the User may, but is not guaranteed to, receive one or more additional communications from such SOPs. Any communication between you and a SOP is for your personal enjoyment or entertainment….”
There was more, but he had read enough.
Another oui note showed up. And another. He glanced at them. Then he realized there must be some mistake. Something was amiss, or not really a miss. Somehow, he was mistakenly getting some woman’s “oui notes.” In this case, the blathering idiot decided, it was a not a bot her, but a bot him.
Filed under blathering idiot, cartoon by author, Internet dating
Corner in a corner of his mind
He painted himself in a corner in a corner of his mind. His first brush with “success.”
The blathering idiot had never stopped to read the sign until Xenia asked him about it. They were in a restaurant. One that she had selected and he had taken her to in order to help out his on-again, off-again girl friend Zoey. He was doing this to try to get back into her good graces.
But Xenia’s question was proving hard to answer. Maybe too hard. He stood in the rest room, hands over the sink, waiting for an answer, or even somebody to ask. But for ten minutes now nobody came in the rest room. No employee even bothered to poke his head in.
So, all he could do was stand, bent over the sink, hands under the dripping faucet, back twinging, and read the sign next to the mirror over and over and over again:
Employees must wash hands
Sooner or later one of them had to come in, and at that moment, he would make that person wash his hands and then he would return to finish supper with Xenia, and he would never come to this restaurant ever again, particularly if he had to tip the employee for this slow service.
[Editor’s note: other blathering idiot “adventures” available by clicking on the “blathering idiot” tag below.]
Filed under blathering idiot, hands, humor, sign, wash
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