One Week As A Tax Return Associate Working Late At Tanya’s Income Tax Solutions—Vol. 2: The Phone Calls
Filed under Absurdities
One Week As A Tax Return Associate Working Late At Tanya’s Income Tax Solutions—Vol. 2: The Phone Calls
Filed under Absurdities
A Guide to Modest Masochism: Elderly Edition
1. Put a small piece of aluminum foil on your dental filling. (Please note, Werther’s Originals candy wrappers do not provide a significant source of shock. We recommend the copper-sided foil of Rolos.)
2. Pluck a small hair from the outside of your nose.
3. Coat your finger with peanut butter and let your dog lick it clean, permitting as much mouth-play as you’re comfortable with. Your goal here is gnawing, but be careful to let him break the skin. That borders on basic masochism, which you’re not ready for yet.
4. Leave your thigh-high compression socks on overnight. This will not cause you lasting harm, but you will suffer slightly.
5. Use the toilet without the donut seat cushion in place.
6. Dip the end of your tongue into a hot cup of coffee. (It hurts so good.)
7. Place a few sesame seeds between your dentures and gums. It will only take two or three. Five is too many.
8. Put the tennis-ball covered leg of your walker on your gout-ridden toe. Slowly, gently press down.
9. If all else fails, dab a little bit of Preparation H in your eye. But just a touch, now. If you encounter a searing pain, then you’ve gone too far and you need to do an eyewash in the sink.
Filed under Absurdities, Lists
Yelp* Review for Stella’s Bistro
Whoever wrapped up my salmon and couscous in aluminum foil did not even try to make the swan’s neck look elegant. Yes there was length to it, but there was no graceful curve, no attempt at beauty. Imagine a duck as he takes off in flight. Imagine the horrible awkwardness of that moment, the desperate jutting of his head as he struggles to lift off the water. That’s what I was given. That’s how my food was treated. If I were the manager and I saw my busboy butcher an aluminum foil swan like this, I wouldn’t just fire him. I’d find something that he loved or held sacred and destroy it. Any good manager knows this.
Filed under Letters
Helen Keller’s Fifth Grade Pen Pal
Dear Helen,
My teacher says you can’t see or hear. I get blue and orange mixed up, so maybe we can be friends. Do you know about hippos? They are very dangerous. So are wolverines. They can kill bears. Last week my dad’s sister came to our house because she’s tired of all the bullshit. Do you know what a Fluffer Nutter is? It’s peanut butter and marshmallows on graham crackers. Sometimes I put peanut butter on my cat. He’s old. Have you ever been to a water slide? I bet you can go on those. We should get my dad to take us to Raging Waters. We can get cotton candy and I can spell secret words on your hand. Like congenital. I hope you can spell. My mom’s favorite song is “The Rose” by Bette Midler. I like The Judds. They are a mother and sister group. My mom and me sing when we make Fluffer Nutters for my dad’s sister. She smells like tomato soup.
Talk to you soon,
Rachel Dawkins
Mrs. Stallworth’s Class
Filed under Absurdities, Letters
My Dinner with Jack Kerouac
Submitted by PR Griffis
Ryan’s Steakhouse, Sandusky, OH
Upon Entering
After he fills his flask in the car, then pulls his pockets inside out at the register and asks the vaguely terrified sixteen-year-old cashier if she’d like to see an elephant (which I take as a sign that I am to pay for us both) we set our plates and beverages at a table near the dessert bar.
“That’s where the most truly righteous and down-for-a-balling ladies congregate,” he tells me.
He says this loudly enough that the well-fed and honest-faced family of four behind us stops – forks in midair – and doesn’t begin masticating again until we pick up our plates and head to the salad bar.
Round One
Rather, I take my plate to the salad bar and fill it with leafy greens while he berates me.
“Fairies eat salad,” he tells me around a mouthful of Bourbon Street Chicken, scooped directly from the steam tray into his mouth. With his hand.
The muscular, well dressed, possibly gay couple (In Ohio? At a Ryan’s? On second thought, maybe so.) stops and watches him the way you might a homeless Vietnam veteran chasing pigeons in the park. While screaming. Which, come to think of it…
Round Two
“The Jews own all these places,” he says while ladling starches onto his plate – potato salad and mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese and five (five!) of those puffy rolls. You know the ones.
“It may say Ryan’s on the door, but don’t believe it,” he adds, glancing left and right before stuffing two of the rolls down the front of his pants, winking conspiratorially at me as he does.
“They should call it Shlomo’s. Shlomo’s Steakhouse,” he says. “It’s honest, and it sounds better, too.”
I put my first edition of On The Road back into my jacket pocket. I’d hoped for so much. Too much, I see now. This is the delusion of youth being mashed. Like a puffy roll in a too-small pair of stained slacks.
Round Three
After returning from the bathroom and patting his stomach – “Had to make a little room,” he says – he pulls his flask out and empties most of its contents into his iced tea, then returns it to the waistband of his pants, nestled between the two rolls, which are now leaving grease stains on his shirt.
He tries to get me to bet him that he can’t drink the whole glass in a single go. Which, had he not already stuck me with dinner (and, I’m guessing, tip), I might have been willing to do. Now, no way. He shrugs and drinks most of it down, then upchucks a little. Into the glass.
“No harm, no foul,” he says, and drains it.
Round Four
His head is on the table. He groans, lets one rip. It sounds wet. I go to the dessert bar, looking over the possibilities. There really aren’t any.
“I loved him, you know,” he says. “It would’ve been a lot easier if me and Neal just coulda balled each other. Would’ve saved a whole lot of people a whole lot of misery.”
I nod, clap him on the shoulder, begin walking towards the door. This much honesty doesn’t bode well.
“I love America,” he shouts at the beefy patrons, none too steady, a chicken leg in his hand, his napkin now around his head. “I am a Catholic and a Patriot. I wasn’t ever a pinko beatnik, ever, and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.”
I pause at the door, try to embrace The Myth in my mind, try not to notice The Man pocketing the tip money from the table before throwing up down his front and collapsing to the floor, where he lays for a surprising amount of time.
Filed under Short-shorts, Submitted
Somali Pirates Talk Shit About…
- first mates who stutter
- The Dutch
- slow-ass cargo ships
- central governments
- manatees
- club-footed children
- the smell of papaya
- Dave Matthews Band
- any fucker on a wave-runner
Filed under Absurdities, Lists
The MF Interviews Gene Wilder (1984)
The Murky Fringe: I think everyone wants to know about Willy Wonka and the fall/somersault you do when the kids come to the chocolate factory. Was that you?
Gene Wilder: Yes. There we no stuntmen on the set–except for the midget stuntmen tumbling for the Oompa Loompas. But that fall into the summersault was me. Totally improvised. If you remember, I walked into it with a limp–now that was real because I’d fallen off a horse earlier in the week.
The Murky Fringe: Did you have the horse put down?
Gene Wilder: Not this one, but I’ve euthanized plenty of horses.
The Murky Fringe: In that scene at the end of Willie Wonka, where you and Charlie and Grandpa Joe are flying around in the glass elevator overlooking the town, it looks as though you’ve whispered something into Charlie’s ear. Was that Willie speaking to Charlie or Gene talking to Peter Ostrum [the actor who played Charlie Buckets]?
Gene Wilder: I’ll do you one better. I’ll tell you what I said. Never put a glass eye in your mouth.
The Murky Fringe: Were you alluding to Sammy Davis Jr.?
Gene Wilder: No. There are thousands of people out there with glass eyes–and some of them want nothing more to have you put it in your mouth.
The Murky Fringe: And that’s a bad idea?
Gene Wilder: It’s just poor judgment on a number of counts. Sammy’s a good friend.
The Murky Fringe: Are you this generation’s Jack the Ripper?
Gene Wilder: Well, which one? There were two Jack the Rippers. Scotland Yard won’t admit this, of course. But to answer your question, yes. Perhaps I am.
The Murky Fringe: What is one thing people would be surprised to know about you?
Gene Wilder: Here’s two things: I was born in Milwaukee, and I can’t pass gas around men.
The Murky Fringe: You can’t or you won’t?
Gene Wilder: It’s a condition called septoflorocoitus. Gas moves normally through my digestive system, but when there are other males around I cannot release it.
The Murky Fringe: So what do you do? Hold it?
Gene Wilder: I hold it or go to another room. I excuse myself. My friends are used to it by now.
The Murky Fringe: What’s wrong with Africa?
Gene Wilder: Well, first it’s important to clarify that Africa is a single body only in that it’s a continent. To generalize the people there as a trans-continental culture is really an egregious error, one our European forefathers have made for generations. After all, the Apache of the American Southwest have very little in common with the fishermen of Nova Scotia.
The Murky Fringe: Let me rephrase the question: What is Africa’s problem?
Gene Wilder: My wife is from Zimbabwe, so I’ve got to be careful how I answer this one…on second thought, I’ll pass.
The Murky Fringe: Let’s play a game. I’ll say a word or phrase and you say the first thing that comes to mind.
Gene Wilder: Okay…
The Murky Fringe: Salt
Gene Wilder: Pepper
The Murky Fringe: Jupiter
Gene Wilder: Mars
The Murky Fringe: Gene Simmons
Gene Wilder: Gene Wilder
The Murky Fringe: Tibet
Gene Wilder: The enemy
The Murky Fringe: sperm whales
Gene Wilder: krill
The Murky Fringe: Africa
Gene Wilder: One People
The Murky Fringe: And finally–this isn’t part of the game–what is it about you that people misunderstand the most?
Gene Wilder: That I do it all for me. That this [points to himself] is all about me.
Filed under Absurdities
A Coal Miner Remembers His Canaries
Pa said not to do this–name birds and such—but he’s gone fourteen years now and I do mostly as I please.
We weren’t much for sparrows or ‘keets. We were canary people, long as I can remember. They died quick—first whiff of that bad air. Sparrows were fighters, and my people liked an early alarm.
- Little Dan. He was my first. Birds don’t sing much in mines, but I whistled him up good and he gave me a note or two.
- Captain Whitmore. Meanest canary ever caged. Like a goat been slapped on the mouth.
- Lumiere. Only French Pa ever taught me. Means bear.
- Liza. I put her in a doll dress and told her to “make my damn dinner.” She liked that.
- Roland. Should’ve learned with Liza that you can’t put a bird in your pocket, then jump off your roof. Roland never saw the mines.
- Pig. He wasn’t fat, just loved to roll in his shit.
- Wynona. Unlike Pa, she understood me. I’d say, “Why I gotta be a person? Why ain’t we off in a nest somewhere?”
- Jonah. That bird wanted to die. We did him a favor.
- Stonewall Jackson. Sacrilege, of course. I called him Sherman in front of Pa, which was the only name allowed.
Filed under Absurdities, Lists
Caricature
My dad and I went to Walgreen’s for some chocolate syrup and nail polish remover. He liked to paint his toes to cover up the fungus. I told him all he needed was Vick’s vapor rub–that’s what Randle told me, Randle my cello tutor who once took off his socks to show me.
Dad said Randle lived with his parents, so what did he know.
When we came out of Walgreen’s there was a fat man sitting on a small chair in front of an easel. On both sides of him, resting against the building, were charcoal drawings, caricatures of no one I could recognize. His chair looked like it would break if someone put a baby on his lap. And he smelled, from ten feet away, like salsa left out in the sun.
“That’s a pretty good David Coverdale,” said my dad.
“I know. But I sold a better one to a guy last week.”
“Who’s David Coverdale?”
“Your kid don’t know Whitesnake?” he asked my dad.
“Before his time.”
“I’ll draw your boy,” he said, looking me up and down.
“How much?” asked my dad.
“Five bucks.”
“How bout four and some change?”
“The kid don’t have a dollar?”
My dad nodded toward the guy, “Give him a dollar.” I gave him a five and snagged the other four from my dad.
“What now?” I asked. “Want me to strike a pose?”
“This ain’t Rodin, kid. Just stand against the wall.” He flipped to a new page in his sketchbook, and several scribbles later, the man had finished. I thought he was joking—like he’d drawn some stick figure, some Picasso bird of peace—but he tore the page away and handed it to my dad.
“That’s uncanny.”
He showed me the drawing and in that quick sketch the fat man had captured me completely, except that one of my arms was shorter than the other.
I got in the car and my dad took a shot of the syrup straight into his mouth. It wasn’t for ice cream.
“Crazy,” he said.
“What?”
“That guy nailed you. And it only took him a minute.”
“Not really.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s too distorted.”
“It’s a caricature, Sam. Come on.”
When we got home, I went to the mirror and took off my shirt. No matter how I stood—shoulders back or hunched—my right arm was longer than my left.
I went through all my shirts, all my coats and sweaters. Sure enough each one had been altered, but only by an inch or two.
Filed under Absurdities, Short-shorts
Lady Footlocker Customer Evaluation
Did you find what you were looking for? Yes/No
Was the salesperson attentive to your needs and concerns? Yes/No
Would you shop again at Lady Footlocker? Yes/No
Would you like to receive online coupons and announcements from Lady Footlocker? Yes/No
Comments:
Tara was very helpful in fitting me for a pair of Nike cross-trainers. Of course, my husband doesn’t believe in Nike or in cross-trainers. He doesn’t trust people. Sometimes he makes shoes for me out of old tires, like in Africa, he says. But they don’t fit right, they pinch. And when I say anything he just yells at me about all the little girls who have their feet bound in China, and how if little Chinese girls can stand a little pinching then why can’t I. This is a horrible thing to say–about the little Chinese girls–but my husbands’s been different ever since the crash. I miss my mother.
Lady Footlocker reads these evaluations closely and takes each customer’s concerns under careful consideration.
Filed under Absurdities
Sex Ed Newsletter
Dear Parents,
November is National Dental Dam Month (NDDM).
This is a great time to talk with your kids about the value–and versatility–of dental dams. I recommend scheduling a time when you can sit down with your child, make some ice cream sundaes, and show them your dental dams.
Take this time to answer questions about the dams, to clear up misconceptions (for example, Fruit Roll-Ups do not make for good dental dams, but a swim cap is okay), and to teach them the dangers of putting a dental dam over their mouth and nose simultaneously, which may lead to asphyxiation.
If you are having trouble talking to your son or daughter about dental dams, here are several informative websites I endorse:
http://www.therubbercurtain.com
Most importantly, don’t let November pass you buy. Before you know it you’ll be stuffing that turkey, thinking, “I never talked to my daughter about dental dams. It may already be too late.” And it may be.
Dental dams* are available in the nurse’s office in red and white (school colors) and clear.
For more information on dental dams, email me at pistolpete@Bigskyhighschool.edu
Sincerely,
Pete Dumbrowski
*Please note that dentists are not a substantial source of information on the subject–unless they use dental dams themselves.
Filed under Absurdities, Letters
Overheard at The Joshua Tree Cover Shoot
“Get your own Sunny D…that’s mine.” — The Edge
Filed under Absurdities
Last Gasp: Overwrought Endings #1
NAKED VILLAINY
Submitted by Max Lieberman
The gun flashed into her hand like a knife—only this knife shot bullets, significantly increasing its effective range as a weapon. She was too far away for me to karate chop her wrist, and anyway that’s a trick that only works once. I knew my chances were slim… slim but still amply endowed, like a certain blond currently holding me at gunpoint.
I took stock of the tools I had to hand. No weapon, no leverage. Only my skill as a trained Shakespearean stage actor stood between me and the out, outing of this too brief candle called life. Eyes welling, I sank slowly to my knees. “Please,” I shrieked, “Please no! Oh God, no! Oh, oh God!” I wet my trousers for good measure. She held the gun level, rolling her eyes in that way that people who are disgusted with your behavior will do.
Just then, I saw a glint of light through the warehouse window behind her. Time slowed as a hunched figure crept through the door she’d left ajar. Wheeling, the form prepared to throw something—a walking cane?—at my curvaceous captor. Catching the direction of my gaze, she began to turn, and I screamed to draw her attention back to me. The cane caught her solidly at the base of the neck, and she collapsed, slipping between the rotted floorboards into the black water below.
“Just like Ophelia into the fountain,” came the clipped Oxford accent, as the famed director stepped finally from the shadows.
“’Thou shalt not escape calumny,’” I answered, and retrieved the old boy’s cane for him. Laughing, we exited together into the darkened streets of the theatre district, confident at last that the roles we had played did not amount to tragedy.