Tendonitis of the Mouth

Last night Hardingfele, Rockstar Tailor, and I went to the health club to work out. As usual, we started with the treadmill and then made our way to the pool. However, only Rockstar Tailor joined me in the pool so I asked where her mother was. She said she was talking to someone in the locker room about the paycuts all us state workers got, so I said that when she finally got around to entering the pool, we could razz her about how we had been working out and the only thing she was exercising was her mouth. Now one thing you have to know about Hardingfele is she has been having problems with tendonitis in her arm, so when she finally entered the pool, her daughter hollered, “While we were getting exercise, you were just exercising your mouth! You’re going to get tendonitis of the mouth!” Which is hilarious if you knew how chatty Hardingfele is. I said that was blogworthy, and Hardingfele agreed, so I am blogging about it.

Famous Hat

Love is a B***h

Here, for your reading pleasure, is a story that Toque McToque and I wrote.  She wrote every other line, and I wrote the rest of them:

“Aren’t you done yet?” Mary asked while pounding on the bathroom door.

To her embarrassment, it was the WRONG bathroom door. After realizing her mistake but before she could make a hasty exit, an attractive man opened the door.

"Excuse me?" he said. "This is the men's bathroom. Can I help you?"

Mary felt her cheeks turning scarlet, what should she say? To cover her embarrassment, she said, "Sorry, I was looking for my brother. Maybe you've seen him?"

He smiled broadly and replied, “Do you always try to pick up men this way? I’m David, and I was the only one in there.”

She said, "I've never tried to pick up a man this way before, but let me know if it's working."

He laughed and said, “The jury is still out; will you let me decide over dinner?”

So they headed to the Tibetan restaurant down the road to get to know one another over yak's milk tea. Mary was elated, she hadn’t been on a date in ages. Even an accidental one. She was going to have to start spending a lot more time hanging around the Men’s room.

David and Mary gazed at each other in the light of a yak tallow candle. Mary realized midsentence that she shouldn’t have tried to show off by ordering the spiciest thing on the menu. But Death by Yakmeat sounded like such a delicious dish. In her mind’s eye she saw the restaurant scene from the movie 200 Cigarettes play out, and immediately started to panic. [If you haven’t seen the movie, it was the part where a woman was out on a date and eats a chili pepper and has to run to the bathroom] Since David had not seen 200 Cigarettes, he had no idea why she was panicking and naturally thought a yeti was about to attack him from behind. As he jumped out of his chair and turned around, he managed to knock over their yak’s milk tea. It was good that he turned around, because right behind him was... a yeti! David screamed like a little girl and ran out of the restaurant, right into a large group of children who were trick-or-treating. Since they were Tibetan children, they were all dressed like yetis, except for one who was dressed up as a piece of Timboo bread. Mary wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry; what kind of wuss was she on a date with? One who was getting beat up by all the little yetis because he didn't have any candy to give them! Mary sighed, picked up her purse and snuck out the backdoor. She wondered if David was a Capricorn, since according to Ma Hat, all male Capricorns are wusses. You know, like Al Capone and Muhammed Ali. And of course Barry Alvarez. All she really knew was that too many of her dates ended up with her sneaking out of the restaurant alone. Perhaps, on further reflection, the men's bathroom wasn't the best place to meet a potential mate. She should have listened to her mother and married Zach, even though he was boring. At least she’d have someone to go home to.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Zach was thinking how glad he was that Mary hadn't married him. Mostly because he was gay, but it wouldn’t have worked even if he wasn’t. Her wild impulsive ways had always made him nervous. Besides, his favorite philosopher was Foucault and hers was Norman Vincent Peale. Just as Zach made himself comfortable on the couch with a nice glass of wine the phone rang.

"Sorry, wrong number," said a very familiar-sounding voice. He knew it was Mary and could feel his blood pressure start to rise.

"Mary," he said. "You didn't call the wrong number. You wanted to see if I was at home. Why?" He cringed as his voice went up an octave, while his grip on the wineglass tightened.

"Why would I want anything?" Mary asked with poorly-feigned casualness. She knew it was going to be a short conversation, ending with her in tears. Why on Earth did she call him?

By now Zach was shaking so hard he was getting zinfandel all over the carpet. Mentally he was adding a phone with caller ID to his next Target run. He was surprised to see that they were selling fresh produce there too these days.

“Zach? Are you still there?” He could tell she was about to start sobbing, what had he done to deserve this?

"I gotta go," he said. There was a puddle of zinfandel on the floor that needed his attention.

Mary took her cell phone and flung it as far as she could down the alley, she’d didn’t give a rip anymore. Screw men; she was getting a dog for company. Unfortunately the female Rottweiler-pit bull mix she got at the shelter was not as friendly as they had promised. The End.

Famous Hat (and Toque McToque)

Another Acronym Post: WWJE*

*Who Would Jesus Execute?

It always amazes me what sorts of people will claim to be followers of Jesus. Do they have a different Bible than I do? Jesus accepted tax collectors and prostitutes, but after they had repented. So you abortion doctors who go to church, I think you only got half the message. And then there are the people who claim to be Christians but are so in favor of the death penalty that they seem unconcerned that Troy Davis was most likely innocent. Would Jesus be in favor of executing innocent people? Or was he a victim of this sort of mob mentality himself? And just because His death was necessary for His salvation plan, does that mean that he is just fine with the idea of executing poor (and usually black) men without any concern that evidence seems to suggest they are innocent? I’m not even sure Jesus (Who famously told His followers to turn the other cheek instead of seeking revenge) would be in favor of the death penalty for guilty people. The Catholic Church does teach that the death penalty is allowable in circumstances where there is a threat to public safety, but this is not the reason we execute people in this country. We want to teach them a lesson. We want retribution. Such very “What Would Jesus Do” reasons to kill someone. Add to that the fact that we seem unconcerned with whether we actually got the right guy, or any guy with a minor criminal background and court-appointed lawyer will do, and I cannot imagine that Jesus is totally approving of this system of criminal justice. If it is the one you are in favor of, that is your choice, but please quit telling me how Christian you are, is all that I ask. I consider myself a follower of Christ, and I am horrified by the way capital punishment is administered in this country. As a society, we should have moved beyond such a primitive method of punishment.

Another thing I will never understand is why we are so squeamish about corporal punishment even though we are fine with capital punishment. There are some people who just deserve a good caning, and at least if you got the wrong guy, he will heal. Not that I am enormously in favor of corporal punishment, but it seems hypocritical to be so opposed to it and then be in favor of the Ultimate Punishment. I personally would much rather be caned than killed, and I have to think a lot of people feel the same way.

Famous Hat

DRE

Kathbert remembers well when I taught Catechism at a local church (not my parish) and would complain about the DRE all the time: the DRE asks for our input and then does nothing with it, the DRE brought back a kid I sent down to the office for bad behavior and said, “He’s a good kid,” etc. In this context, DRE stands for Director of Religious Education. But where she works, she recently came across another DRE: Digital Rectal Exam. What made it so funny is that they are virtually interchangeable in how pleasant they are.

The thing that puzzled Kathbert the most about the Digital Rectal Exam is that it is not done digitally (as opposed to analog); it is a manual exam that does not need any electronic equipment. Then it occurred to her that Digital could refer to using one’s finger, since it is a digit. Rich said he thought the Analog Rectal Exam would be much more uncomfortable.

Famous Hat

Rockstar Tailor's Names for Boys

Today I took the afternoon off of work, then Hardingfele, Rockstar Tailor, and I went swimming. Now I am at Hardingfele's house, and this post is names for boys courtesy of Rockstar Tailor:

She was going to call him Pizza Hair because cheese is yellow like his hair, then these girls would be like, "Does someone smell pizza?" and then she could say, "It's because he's Pizza Hair!"

She was going to call him Mohawk because he doesn't have one, and then he would be all puzzled and say, "I don't have a mohawk," and then she would be like, "Get your vision checked, buddy!" and he would say, "First of all, I'm not your buddy, and secondly that's not my name and thirdly I don't have a mohawk!" and she would be like, "Do I hear a buzzing sound?"

She was going to call him Laughos the Clown because he hates him and then he would smack his head in annoyance and then she would say, "Violence is not OK at our school. So now you're part of the Laughos Crew." I said he could be Lauphopolis the Greek Clown or Lauffee the French Clown or Lauffino the Italian Clown, but we don't know what ethnicity he is anyway.

Feel free to leave other nicknames for boys in the comments.  By the way, his name for her is Number Two Face.

Famous Hat

At the Audiologist

Sorry for the silence, my 5.8 faithful readers – I was taking a couple of days off of work to enjoy this glorious Native American summer, as the politically correct say. And what I was wondering is if all the other people out there hiking just had the day off of work too, or if they are all independently wealthy and don’t need to work, because there sure were a lot of them.

My office mate once went to visit an audiologist, who said she could tell from the pattern of damage in Light Bright’s hearing that she used to shoot guns and that she plays in a band standing right in front of the drummer. This sort of terrified me: are all my past sins that easy to spot? I can just see how it would go for me at the audiologist:

Audiologist: I can see from this pattern of hearing loss that you have been listening to the most monster bass line of all time too loudly. Have you been blasting “The Humpty Dance” in your car?

Me: Guilty as charged.

Audiologist: And look at this pattern! Do you set off your car alarm by accident a lot?

Me: I have no idea why Erin Caitlyn O’Honda does not recognize me by now.

Audiologist: I’m not sure what this diffuse pattern of background sound is… Do you, by any chance, have a very loud refrigerator?

Me: Yes! You can see that too?

And finally I have to share this from Banjo Player:

Famous Hat

Easy McGee and the Case of the Coffee Supplies

Easy McGee is on the case of the Missing Coffee Cups and Filters. As my readers may remember, here at work we had a safe stolen out of a supply closet, and contained within that safe were dozens of Styrofoam coffee cups. That case has never been solved, and the safe has never resurfaced, nor have the coffee cups. The plot thickens, because last week the thief struck again, and this time s/he stole… about a hundred coffee filters! Considering the low price of said item, this cannot be a case of a desperate person who just needs a few filters to make enough coffee to get through the day. I thought I had a clue:

I posted a sign apologizing for the missing coffee filters and explaining that they had been stolen. Not an hour later, several filters mysteriously reappeared.

However, this mystery has been solved: a coworker borrowed six filters from the 4th floor. Toque McToque and I speculated that someone from the 4th floor had stolen the hundred filters, and the six were simply returned to their rightful home. But we have reason to think it was an inside job, or else the cleaning people. Time to get Easy McGee on the case, we decided.

To Be Continued…

Famous Hat