Archive for the ‘Nonsense’ Category

A Question or Two

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

Have you ever played jacks, pick-up sticks, or flag football? Would you go into debt to pay for an operation for a cat to prolong its life six months? How about a distant relative, a cousin you haven’t seen for forty years? Have you ever ridden a horse, a cow, a dog? If I say bareback riding do you think of horses? Do you know your own IQ? Do you tell others what it is? Do you exaggerate?

Have you ever worked on a farm or delivered a newspaper? What do you think of if I say moving pipes? Have you ever received a call from a collection agency? Did you shoot birds with a bb gun when you were younger? Do you still shoot birds? When you were a child did you know anyone who hung a cat from a clothesline? How did he turn out? Was his name Jeffrey? Have you ever propelled your body through water using your limbs? Have you done it in a canal, a river? Do you even know how to swim?

Do you ever wonder where George Bush is at this exact moment? Do you care? Is Barack Obama doing a good job? Do you think Hillary would have done a better job? How about John McCain? Have you ever doused yourself in gasoline and threatened to set yourself alight? Do you ever think about what it would be like to stand on Sarah Palin’s front lawn and look at Russia? Would you buy a used car from Sean Hannity? Would you shack up with Ann Coulter? If you wouldn’t buy a used car from Sean Hannity would you buy one from Joe Liebermann or Claire McCaskill?

Do you use the phrase “begs the question” when you mean to raise the question? Do you understand the term bad faith as it applies to existentialism? Do you substitute playdough for Plato when speaking of the Greek Philosopher? If I say Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates can you place them in the proper chronological order? Are you tired of all the questions? Do you wonder what prompted this silliness, this interrogative mood?

A Coincidence

Saturday, January 24th, 2009

I was in a hurry. I’m always in a hurry. I pulled into the lot at the Blockbusters, the movie “City of Ember” on my mind. I put the car in park pulled on the emergency break, left the key in the ignition, the car running, and exited. I remembered to lock the door.

I didn’t realize what I’d done, my mind was still on “City of Ember,” but a few minutes later when I returned to the car the unpleasant reality also arrived.

It was bad on so many levels. What kind of idiot locks his keys in the car and with the car running. This is going to cost me: time, money, and embarrassment. I’d won the trifecta.

I called my father, maybe he had a key. But no, he thought he had one but couldn’t find it. “Call a locksmith,” he said.

“I could,” I said, “but that would be expensive.”

“See that cop in the parking lot. He’ll help you.”

“What cop,” I said. “There’s no cop in the parking lot.”

“Then it’s the locksmith,” he said.

“I could break out a small window,” I said. That would be fast he agreed, but then the time and expense of fixing it will remind you that it was a stupid idea.

“No cop huh,” he said, and hung up.

I was thinking there was no good solution and then . . . I walked straight to the phone booth and dialed the local police station. “Hi I’m at 7th East and 21st South and there is a man looks like he’s trying to break into a car in the Blockbusters’ parking lot.” I hung up as the dispatcher said, “And your name sir.”

A few minutes later a patrol car pulled into the lot, and an officer approached. “Could I see some identification,” he said? I showed him my driver’s license. “What’s the problem?” he said.

“I locked my keys in the car with the engine running. Pretty dumb, I know.”

“Maybe I can help,” he said. He retrieved some tools from the patrol car and a few minutes later he had it open.

“Thanks,” I said, “lucky you came by.”

“No luck at all,” he said. “We had a call from someone who said he thought a man might be breaking into a car.”

“Really,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, “quite a coincidence isn’t it?” “You lock your keys in your car, and we get an anonymous call of a possible crime.”

“Yes, a coincidence” I said.

The Post Office

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

There is something unnerving about the post office. You take a package with you, you give it to the clerk, you pay your money and leave—empty-handed.

The Belcher

Monday, April 21st, 2008

She said, “Have you heard about the Belcher Norman?”

I asked her if there was a comma after belcher.

“It’s a vacuum cleaner,” she said.

I said, “There’s a vacuum called the Belcher Norman?”

“Listen to this,” she said, “When you first turn it on, this bag-less upright burps like your Uncle Morty on Thanksgiving.”

“We don’t have an Uncle Morty,” I said.

She ignored me and continued, “The review says it’s no bargain, save your money, it says.”

“So there was a comma,” I said.

“Yes, a comma,” she said. “You don’t belch that much. Now if I’d said have you heard about the farter Norman …”

The Button

Friday, April 18th, 2008

When I was younger there were cars with push-button automatic transmissions? It was a bad idea, and it wasn’t long before the buttons disappeared and more traditional methods of changing gears returned. We know now that it was not a harbinger of a button-less future, but rather a blip on the path to our modern push-button society.

I read somewhere, that beginning in the nineties, pushing the close button an elevator did nothing, but it didn’t stop me or others from pushing the button anyway, sometimes repeatedly. And when the door eventually closed we felt the power of a prayer answered, or in my case the laws of physics confirmed.

I’m an itinerant button pusher. I’ve pushed buttons on more than one continent. I not only push the close button in the elevator, but in my impatience I push the open button too. If there were a button for the sunrise and the sunset, I’d be pushing it as well.

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