Ramblings from the Lunatic Lounge Humor Column by Jeff Young

trip prep

As we prepared to go on our first cruise, the process of getting ready highlighted some of the differences between men and women.  Here’s how it played out.

One month until the trip

Diva Girlfriend already has all our trip information printed out, we’re registered online, she has maps of where our cabin is, she’s researched everything about the ship, and she’s asked her doctor to prescribe her the little patches that go behind your ears so that she won’t barf when the boat wiggles.  At this point, I am vaguely aware that there is some kind of trip coming up.

Two weeks until the trip

Diva Girlfriend is already starting to feel the stress.  She has compiled detailed lists of what to bring, she wants to spend every dinner talking about which bags will be used for carry-ons, and she starts dedicating multiple nights to pack in the weeks ahead.  I am still mostly oblivious about the trip.

One week to go

Now Diva Girlfriend is asking me every day if I’ve packed yet.  She has all her luggage out, and she’s trying to whittle down which seven pairs of flip-flops she will need to sit on a boat.   I watch the news about the cruise ship that hit the coast of Italy, and picture swimming down the hallway out of my cabin room, in slow-mo, dramatic movie fashion, to escape the ship before it topples over.   I consider watching Titanic again.

Three days to go

Diva Girlfriend is in full panic mode.   She starts chanting we’ll never be ready in time, there’s no way we’re going on this trip.  I finally agree to write down a packing list so she’ll settle down.  “Phone charger, clothes, deodorant, lube.”  She didn't seem impressed, so I fixed the handle on her luggage that I broke at Disney.

Two days to go

Diva Girlfriend has our luggage tags printed out and is running around the house panicking like the place is on fire.  She uses our living room and bedroom to stage large piles of stuff to bring, and other piles of stuff to maybe-bring.  I pour four liters of liquor in water bottles and cram them back into the case so they look like water.  Then I start realizing that I’m going to be out of the house and away from technology for 9 days, so I start playing video games around the clock.

The day before we leave

Literally 70% of everything that Diva Girlfriend owns in the whole world is sitting out in piles around the house.  She has rows of shoes, three-foot tall piles of reading materials, and several different kinds of cameras.  She even brings plastic cups for us to drink from.  It looks like she's moving out -- I have moved into new homes before with less stuff.

She makes the very bold claim that when she usually goes on vacation, that she packs super light, like one bag.  I look at the enormous piles of clothes, along with every kind of medicine and first aid we own, three different kinds of sunscreen, and the seven open luggage containers, and I silently scoff at her light-packing stories.  Then I invite buddies over to play video games and drink whiskey.  The cats notice that we’re about to leave and all start acting insane.

Thirty minutes before we hop in the car

While Diva Girlfriend dresses and second-guesses and triple-checks which shirt she wants to wear to ride across Texas in the car, I calmly walk around the house and pack in ten minutes flat.  Two piles of clothes, a dressy coat, some toiletries, cell phone charger, a guitar, and a book.  Easy.  I end up spending more time hauling all her enormous luggage out to the car, and trying to do a big Tetris puzzle to cram it all in there.

The final result of our packing:

- My total time spent packing:  10 minutes.  I ran out of t-shirts shirts and underwear, and forgot my sunglasses, all of which were replaced for a total of $40.  Side note:  Wearing underwear in the ocean doesn't get them as clean as you might think.

- Diva Girlfriend’s total time spent packing:  73 hours.  She remembered everything and had clothes to spare, but we had to pay porters to lug all the extra crap around, plus whatever costs we spent on extra fuel to lug all of it back and forth across Texas.

In retrospect, my packing method was very much like firing a shotgun.  It wasn't very accurate, but it got the job done quickly.  Next time I'll remember to bring more underwear.

need for speed

Did you know that some cities are expanding their commercial offerings and providing personalized car photography services?  Here’s how it works – They take a picture of your car (with zoomed-in views!) and send you a picture in the mail. Then you send them a check for $75.  If you don’t pay, they’ll even send reminders.  It can be any time of day – even if it’s at night, they have little automatic lights that come on to get a good shot of your car.  Neat! 

Actually, it’s not neat.  I can’t imagine a lazier version of law enforcement.  

I recently started to contest one of these traffic camera tickets.  After receiving my ticket, I went to the online website (from the shenanigans-out-of-state-third-party company who operates it) and logged in to see more information.  Not only did they have a picture of the event, but full video as well.  The video showed me taking a right turn on red at about 45 mph, didn’t even slow down.  I might have been eating lunch and texting somebody at the same time, or maybe working on my cross-stitching.  Who knows.  But I rocketed around that corner like a cartoon character. 

The bad news is that it cost me $75, but the good news is that my car looked pretty awesome.  I considered going back there and trying to get up to a higher speed around that corner, just for the cool video, but $75 is a bit too steep.  

It is a good thing that I’m not independently wealthy.  If not for the $75 price tag, I’d go around that corner backwards, or with a foot out the window, or maybe I could run the light and get out to do some kind of chicken dance on camera. 

The same day I sent in my check for the ticket, I was heading home from the store and trying to get off the phone with my mom.  This is my end of every conversation: “Okay Mom.  Yes.  Yes you told me that.  Yes you already told me that too.  I would get that looked at by a doctor.  Okay, I gotta get going here.  Okay.  Okay, I’ll talk to you soon.  Yes.  Yes, you told me that, too.  Okay, hanging up now…”  (and repeat all that for 17 minutes). 

I was on my residential street, almost home, when suddenly I saw the rotating blue-and-red lights.  At this point my brain did what it always does.  I map out the surrounding areas in my head, start thinking of the best routes to outrun this guy before radios and helicopters catch up, and then I talk myself out of it.   I am not a criminal, so he was probably just stopping me to tell me how cool my car is. 

This was a weird stop, though.  I always drive super slow on my street, actually under the speed limit, because all my neighbors mingle and wander in the street like it’s an extension of their living room.  You couldn’t go the speed limit if you tried, or else you’d hit a bunch of rednecks, kids on bikes, and a couple of hot moms.  So why did he stop me? 

The officer ran up to me, out of breath, and he was super pissy.  Apparently I had led him on a brief chase.  While I was listening to my mother’s repetitive stories, this officer lost me in cross traffic when I cut through my gym parking lot from the main road.  He had to speed off the other way, stop traffic, and gun it across my neighborhood to find me.  

Sometimes I’ll try to talk my way out of a ticket, but I knew from subtle context clues (the way he ran towards my car while unbuckling his gun holster and how he could only speak in shouting volume) that I wasn’t going to get off with a warning.  For future reference, if this happens to you, don't tell him "Wow, man, you are really out of breath."

So I signed for my tickets – for driving 62 in a 45 and for cutting through a commercial lot.  As he walked away, he wanted to leave me a little jab.  “Hey man, next time I have to chase you, it’s not gonna be pretty.”  So I replied “I’m happy to get a 62 in a 45.  You would have caught me doing 90 if you had seen me earlier.” 

the elderly internet explorer user

You find a laptop on a park bench.  You're a kind person, so you decide to open it up and figure out whose it is so you may return it to them.  You don't see any obvious contact info, so let's look for context clues to figure out who owns this thing.  

Uh oh, looking like they use Internet Explorer.  Gross.  Let's up it up and see wh... oh my God, the whole top half of the screen is covered with random toolbars.  How can she even see the screen?  (Notice here that I've already assigned gender.)

I look at the homepage, and sure enough, it's AOL.  I haven't seen anyone use AOL as their primary email since 1998.  The bookmarks are recipes and sentimental blogs.   The programs in the Start menu are the ones that came with the computer and the wallpaper is one of the stock choices from the original Windows install.  All antivirus programs are expired and their icons are blinking for updates.

Obvious conclusion:  The owner of this computer is a grandmother, possibly 70 years old, and uses this thing to share recipes, print church newsletters, and read websites about knitting.  (No offense, Mema.)  I think I have this thing figured out.

Nope, way off.  The owner of this computer is the gorgeous, hip, young brunette that I'm dating.  Somehow, in this crazy mixed up world, this same woman who has a closet full of sexy corsets and leave-on heels happens to have elderly computer habits. 

The dichotomy is staggering.  This otherwise-fashionably-hip gal uses a computer like an old lady.  Diva Girlfriend's virus protection expired years ago and her external backup drive has been sitting in its original packaging for over a year.  She is scared of storing any backup picture or music files on the laptop because using 5% of her available memory space "might mess it all up." 

Luckily for the sake of her computer, she ended up dating me, and I am probably the biggest geek she knows.  Here is how to make the world right without getting anybody upset.

1)  Install Google Chrome or other better browser. 

2)  On her desktop, go into Google Chrome's properties and change the name of its shortcut to Internet Explorer.  Then change its icon to the blue "E" that she's used to seeing.

3)  Now you have Google Chrome installed, disguised as Internet Explorer. 

If she's the type who needs this to happen, then she'll probably assume that a system update or something "got rid of all my toolbars."  Just play along. 

Now you may enjoy safer surfing and reduce your future tech requests.  I don't know how to get a girl to switch over from an AOL email address to any other domain that people are using this decade.  If anybody out there has women all figured out, please send me some kind of troubleshooting guide.   I only understand these crazy computin' machines, and even then, just barely. 

shocking discovery

“s” sounds that I don’t like

Here are sounds that start with "S" that I don't like:

• The SQUISH when you're walking barefoot in the yard and find something that was recently deposited there by one of the pets.  When it happens, you're almost afraid to look down and see the dookie landmine squeezed between your toes like some kind of demented Play-doh Fun Factory.
• The SKREEE that my car's brakes make due to the accumulation of brake dust.  The fix is to get the car going quickly and do a fast stop to clear the rotors, but I always seem to be in traffic, or have my kid in the car, or have lots of loose objects that can bounce around in the vehicle.  When I do finally get the opportunity, sometimes I'll do the fast stop at a red light and freak out whoever is waiting for the light there in front of me.
• The SIGH of any pissy woman.  Even if she fires it off in another room, it makes it way across the house and hits you in the face like a heat-seeking missile of negativity.
• The SKTKTKT sound that one of those hologram plastic cups makes when you scrape a fingernail across it.  Just thinking about that sound makes my skin crawl.  Everybody has different sounds that make them insane, but this sound is worse than nails on a chalkboard or any other audible irritant to me.
• The SHRILLY VIBRATO style that is sung by some elderly choir women.  You can usually tell which choirs have try-outs or who lets everybody in who wants to sing, because the latter will inevitably have one or two of these.  When they sing, it sounds either like somebody is shaking them violently, or they're being electrocuted.
• The SLURP that Ralphie makes next to me on the couch when he's cleaning his puppy parts.  I understand that he doesn't understand human manners, so I try to ignore these kinds of activities for the most part.  But when I'm trying to sit on the couch and eat a burrito, I don't want to hear the sloppy wet cleaning of his brown eye while he leans against me.  Go do that in the yard or something.

santa experiences

My cousin Landon looked sharp in his white beard and Santa garb, complete with the extra touch of white gloves and glasses.  The houseful of kids at my family Christmas Eve gathering all freaked out.  Most of it was the kind of good freaking-out, but there was one little girl there – a daughter of a visiting friend – who experienced the most frightening moment of her brief life so far, going face-to-face with her biggest mortal fear, and went into a full-blown conniption.  She shrieked like we had just allowed a 12-foot-tall spider into the house, and her mom scurried her out of the room.  Not everybody likes Santa, I guess.

My four-year-old daughter Jules posed for pictures and thanked Santa for her new box of checkers.  She politely gave the impression that she believed Landon was the real deal.  Then she leaned in to whisper to me, “Daddy, is the real Santa going to bring all the stuff I asked for before?”

When you’re a kid, Christmas is your biggest payday of the year.  In your little Kool-aid pumping heart, you’ve been led to believe that there is an old benevolent man with God-like powers, an army of elf labor, and he wants to bring you stuff that you demanded after you saw them during prominently-placed commercials.  He has supernatural powers to know if you’ve been naughty or nice, but still needs a letter to tell him what you want him to bring.  After all the excitement, you finally close your eyes on Christmas Eve night, badda bing, some intruder has entered your house to do a reverse robbery.

Clairebear, my almost-two-year-old niece, a very bright and serious young child, was getting ready for Christmas Eve night and put out cookies with my sister Jenn, who is currently so pregnant that it hurts to look at her (it’s like there’s a tall baby standing up in there sideways and doing dance moves.)  Clairebear made sure the cookies were placed where Santa could see, then told the cookies “Okay.  Bike.”  Having presented her Christmas Currency, and specifying her wishes again, she was content to go to bed.  Just in case, she had given the cookies a “Claire”-ification.  Ha!

Pardon me, dear readers.  I throw puns in here sometimes just because they make my sister insane.  Maybe it’ll send her into labor.

When I was younger, I played along to keep getting the gifts, of course.  In time I became the oldest of five siblings, and we all played along well into adulthood to continue getting that sweet, sweet Christmas loot.   But as a young kid, I considered the Santa evidence kinda soft.  Okay, I see here where somebody took a bite out of the cookies I left.  Physical proof, but?….  I didn’t go so far as to compare dental patterns with my parents, but I did leave the door open that they were the ones biting my cookies.  I was also curious why all the adults acted uncomfortable when I asked how the Santa thing works out with the Jesus thing.  I asked if Santa could use his powers of space and time to bring back dead relatives, and why he didn't use his flying powers to help stop wars and help injured people out of burning high-rise buildings , and if he was cryogenically frozen all year to give him longer life.  I was the kid who asked the creepy questions. 

2012 New Year’s Resolutions, But Not for Me

Each year, in a continuing effort to improve my life, I make a list of New Year’s Resolutions.  But these resolutions are not for me.  These are the ways for others around me to improve, so that I may have a less disturbed existence..

10)  I resolve that when my internet goes down, and I call my internet service provider, and they stick me on hold for 30 minutes, that they stop playing messages referring me to go to their website for assistance.  Hey dummy, I can’t go to your website because your internet service is down.  This is the help line for internet service disruption.  Each time their message goes through the loop, inviting me over and over to “simply go online for assistance”, I want to punch somebody in the throat.

9)  I resolve that Diva Girlfriend will stop telling our mutual coworkers about what kinds of websites I visit when I’m home alone.  I would think that her, of all people, would be more discrete with sharing what kinds of content I have saved on my home computer.    wink wink, nudge nudge

8)  I resolve that my cat will stop waking me up at 4:30 in the morning, yowling loudly for wet food.  My new policy of giving him an impromptu bath in the sink seems to be working, but we still seem to do these early morning grooming sessions more often than I'd like.  He is a big orange jerk.

7)  I resolve that everybody stops talking about the world ending in 2012 because of the Mayan calendar.  The faulty calendar of an ancient civilization shouldn't get nearly as much press as it has.  Watch for the distancing and backpedaling by the same people responsible for all the countdown hype and news coverage of Armageddon Day.

6)  I resolve that the Disney organization will stop whoring out my personal information.  I had an amazing time in Orlando this year.  But every day since then,  I have received telemarketing calls and junk mail for various vacation-related offerings, timeshares, cruises... you name it.  If you ever go there, I recommend giving them fake personal information.  Instead, Mickey Mouse will know you as Scooter McFargus, from Salt Lake City.

5)  I resolve that nobody else dies this year.  I've lost five close friends and family in the last two and a half years, including a brother and my dad.  If you're reading this, try really hard not to die in 2012.

4)  I resolve that everybody quits smoking.  You spend a ton of money on cigarettes and your breath smells like an ashtray.  You know the only thing worse than having to smell the smoky fart that you leave lingering in my breathing space?  Listening to a grown adult boohoo about how hard it is to stop their own bad habit.

3)  I resolve that when I ask for help finding something at Target, that they don't wander up and down aisles, hoping to notice it.  Hey Einstein, that's what I just now did before I reached out to you for help.  I don't want to watch you spend another 10 minutes wandering around doing the same thing.  Use your radio to ask someone who is smarter than you if you don't know where it is.

2)  I resolve that this year's presidential race gives us many comical moments.  The embarrassing moments, muddy smear campaigns, catchphrases, and misspoken facts expose our presidential process for what it truly is -- a contest of charisma.  the winner is whoever can give the most general, middle-of-the-road, non-committal answers to appeal to the masses.  I hope this year's proceedings deliver us the high level of comedy "irri-tainment" that we've come to expect.

1)  I resolve that my Mom will learn how to exit a building faster.  I love it when she comes over.  But you can ignore her the first time she says she's heading home because she is going to say goodbye to each person three times, piddle around in her purse, linger by the door, and will not be ready to leave for 47 minutes.  She does the same thing when it's time to exit a vehicle.  When she puts the vehicle in park, she's not even close to ready to get out.  She piddles on her phone, takes time to gather things, stops and forgets what she's doing, and then gets out 15 minutes later.  When we arrive somewhere together, I just go inside without her.

antivirus shenanigans

After years of doling out free tech support to family, to family members’ neighbors, to family members’ neighbors’ plumbers, to some guy who heard of somebody that knew a guy who looks like me, I realized that once you help somebody out with their computer, they assign you to be its custodian for the next 12 years.

“That damned Jeff.  He filled up my computer with too many files.  Now all my internets go to this peckerhead singing a song about how he’s never gonna give me up, never gonna let me down.”

Back to the slideshow.  My sister Jenn came over and we were knee-deep in scanning pictures of Dad sporting a hippie haircut in his high school senior pictures when suddenly, a brand new antivirus program appeared.  Wait, I don’t remember this program here before.   It offered to scan the drives and provided a way to fix the 47 viruses it “found,” but only if we registered and sent money to their company.  Uh oh, looking like a virus.  Let me just do… a few more clicks…. yep, everything is locked up.  Anything I clicked on, only this dumb “Vista Antivirus 2012” program would load.

3.       I tried a long list of things to do it the hard way… fighting with the task manager, futile attempts to uninstall, deleting files, trying and failing to start in safe mode, system restore wouldn’t load, stood on one foot while I waved around magic beans, etc.

Jules and Papi

Shortly after eating, still milling about at the dinner table, Jules randomly said “We’re all kids here.”

Diva Girlfriend smiled and said “Not quite, Jules, your Daddy and I are adults.”

Jules replied “Nuh uh… we’re all kids because we still have our mommies and daddies.”  Then she paused, looked at me and said “Oh.  Except you.  Your daddy’s in heaven.”

Ouch.

Jules and her Papi were the very best of friends.  He’d come over and the two of them would make an enormous mess while making gingerbread houses, painting on canvases (and each others’ faces), making bowls on a pottery wheel... you name it.  A mere mention of his name, and her little eyes would light up.  She knew that he’d always show up with an armful of presents or crafts, and would give her his undivided attention.  From there it was a contest who would be the loudest (and trash the house more) as they boisterously played – the 4-year-old or the 53-year-old.

He happily let her boss him around ... One night a couple weeks ago, she convinced him to sit in her closet and read her bedtime story to him, jammed in next to the toybox.  I told her that wasn't nice to do to Papi, and I got the impression she was just seeing how much she could get away with.

So I expected that Jules would take the news harder when I told her about his death last week.  Instead, here’s how it went down.

I delivered my pre-rehearsed explanation about life and death and heaven and how she won’t see Papi again in this world.  Jules smiled and replied, “Okay.”

Whew.  That was easy.

She thought about it for a bit, then asked me, “If you and Mommy die, do I get a new Mommy and Daddy?”  Trying to spin this away from some kind of response that would make me start crying like a lunatic, I told her that we were going to drive her crazy well into her old years.  She was satisfied with that response.

Later, she offered confusing questions to her Nana and Diva Girlfriend – maybe Papi would meet us at the church?  Or Papi was in the hospital?  At the hospital with Jesus?

When I was a kid, I wouldn’t have handled it nearly as well.  I’d blow a gasket if I lost a GI Joe guy.  I still remember my uncle pretending to throw Dusty out the window, got a good laugh when we all freaked out, and then laughed again later when he revealed to us that he really HAD thrown the guy out the window.  Then he peed in my windowsill in the middle of the night, hosing down each of my stuffed animals in their little faces.  I didn’t handle loss very well as a kid, I guess.

The moral of the story is that we’re all kids, until we aren’t.

rinsing the cat

As I hold him in the sink and turn on the water, he tries to wriggle out of my hands and turns his face up to yowl at me.  His screech turns into a gargle as he catches a mouthful of the faucet water.  Suddenly , I hear an angelic voice over my shoulder – it’s my four-year-old daughter on the stairs.  

“Daddy, why are you rinsing the cat?”

Wait, the story starts earlier than that.  Let’s reboot.

As I drive home with my new tiny orange furball, he curls up on my lap, tucks his head under my arm, and purrs while he paws at my armpit.  He wasn’t named Diablo yet (which means “devil”) – I had just bought him 5 minutes ago and his personality had yet to emerge.   For now he is a rescue case, he’s deathly ill, and I just picked him over his furry white sister at the grungy apartment because he looked like the better chance of survival.  My $20 purchase turns into $850 in vet bills the first week.  But of course, you can’t put a price on who would eventually become my best furry friend and longest roommate.  

Oops, I went back too far.  I’ll skip ahead.

I’m standing in my yard at 4:19 am in my underwear, and I’m out of breath.  I’ve been chasing the little jerk for 17 frantic minutes.  He knows that if he stays in the yard and doesn’t get cornered, he can avoid me catching him.  We’ve done this every night now for three straight nights – or I should say early mornings.  He thinks it is hilarious to yowl at the top of his lungs to wake up the whole house in the middle of the night.  “YOWWWWWWWUUUUULLLLLLLLLLL!”  He makes it out the cat door before I even open my bedroom door, and then I’m in hot pursuit.   At that moment, huffing and puffing in the yard, arms scratched up from trying to reach at him hiding in my bushes,  I make a new house policy – if Diablo wakes me up, he gets a bath.  If I have to wake up two hours early for unscheduled cardio, then he gets to spend the morning getting his wet fur back in order.  

Fast forward two hours.

Diablo struts into the bathroom where I’m getting ready for work.  He’s playing it cool, but his ears are both pointed towards me like little orange satellites… he is feeling me out on whether or not his statute of limitations has passed.  Or maybe Kitty Daddy forgot all about the incident in the yard?   Nope.  I look at him, we have a locked-eyes moment, I grin, he goes wide-eyed, and he makes a break for the living room.  Before he makes it to the cat door, I stun him with a couch pillow and leap over the couch to grab him.  As I head for the sink, he bellows a woeful yowl and tries to claw me with his rear claws.  He knows what’s coming.   

Fast forward to that evening.

We’re doing some make-up petting on the couch, and Diablo smells great.  He must have needed the bath.  I scratch his head and ears in all the perfect places, the culmination of almost 15 years of trial and error together.  He purrs like a lawnmower, tucks his head down, and nuzzles it into my armpit.  Good times. 

top ten Christmas pet peeves

Here we are again, throttling up full speed for the Christmas holiday.  To help you avoid screwing it up for everybody else, here are my ...

Top 10 Christmas Pet Peeves

10.  Santa haters

For you cutting-edge parents out there who tell your kids about Santa while they’re still toddlers – I see your point.  It’s weird to start off kids in this realm of magic, mystery, and the unexplainable business model of the North Pole, only to turn around later and shrug it off later as organized lying for the purposes of good holiday cheer.  But keep in mind that the rest of us do this tradition with our kids because we enjoy it.  When your little enlightened blabbermouths spread that word like a virus, you might as well have snuck into a hundred kids’ rooms and punched them in their little faces.

9.  Overrating old Christmas movies

When you were a kid, the claymation Rudolph may have been the most amazing thing you’d ever seen on TV so far, and might have triggered some special form of holiday glee in your little eggnog-pumping heart.  Christmas movies have gotten better, but your nostalgia may have kept you from updating your goofy brain with better taste.  Don’t believe me?  Watch it again and tell me you don’t roll your eyes the first time you hear the blasting shrill sound everytime his nose lights up.

8. People who put their lights up too early

I have neighbors across the street who do Halloween lights, and another set down the street launch their full glowing Christmas regalia the next day, long before Thanksgiving.  If you count up all that time, plus the rednecks down the street who leave theirs up until February (and turn them on every night), my neighborhood has some kind of lights up a third of the year.

7.  People who shop too early

Yes, yes, you already told me at Thanksgiving.  You got your Christmas shopping done in July.  I’m tired of hearing about it.  I hope everybody’s tastes have changed, and nobody likes the things that have been collecting dust in your closet for 6 months.

6.  Christmas songs that make you cry

I love me some Christmas songs.  I will sing and dance to “Run Run Rudolph” at the top of my lungs in the car, and then hum that awesomeness all day afterwards.   But lately they play songs that make you cry, like the kid who needs to buy his mom some shoes because she’s on her deathbed, but he came ill-prepared to the checkout stand because he’s too poor to buy them.  I do an emotional 180 when this comes on – three minutes ago I was happily air-guitaring to Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and now I’m fighting off tears for Christmas Shoes.

5.  Christmas songs twisted into advertising

I understand that especially now, companies need to whore out their crap to the masses.  But when you set the song to one of my favorite Christmas songs, I find myself singing your dumb version instead.  Jiggle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way.... Oh what fun it is to ride… in a brand new Honda Accord…

4.  Gifting anything related to Christmas

Whoa …. a Santa Claus mug?  And a porcelain nativity scene?  And an ornament with my name on it?  Neat, I’ll pack all this stuff in a box right now to go sit in my attic for eleven months.

3.  Mass mailings

I love the holiday cards that include a hand-written update on how the family is doing along with an updated picture slipped into the envelope.  Those get a front-and-center spot where I display Christmas cards.  The ones that serve as the floorboards of that display are the ones that are mass-processed.  Glossy, impersonal greetings with a computer-generated envelope, made from some picture you uploaded to a website on a break one night while you were playing FarmVille.  It’s all the automation of junk mail, but with no coupons.

2.  Mistletoe belt

Mistletoe is a sweet concept – a romantic moment, you grab a girl around the waist, uh no, look up here, it’s traditional, let's get our smooch on.  The mistletoe belt is the tacky joke-gag add-on.  I am sure that this was invented the same year they started the original tradition, probably by the perverted uncle of whoever started it.  Please tell me that in all recorded history, that this has never successfully resulted in an extreme act of appreciation.

1.  Ruining Rudolph

When you sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, sometimes kids will shout out the little add-ons.  LIKE MONOPOLY!  LIKE PINOCCHIO!  LIKE COLUMBUS!  But hey, they’re kids… you just roll your eyes and wish those little boogers would be attacked by hungry wolves.   There is also an occasional adult who won’t sing any other part of the song, but will yell out the nonsense.  LIKE A LIGHTBULB! The next grown-up who does this in my car might end up in a wood-chipper.  LIKE FARGO!

corrective lens denial

There comes a time where all visually-impaired people finally admit that they need corrective lenses.  I would call it a “moment of clarity,” but it’s probably anything but.  It is usually a new tree-shaped dent in your car, or a missed street sign that gets you lost deep inside Oklahoma,  or a misfired “Hey check out that girl’s butt,” who ends up being the elderly grocery cart wrangler at Walmart.

I've always been the guy who smugly exclaimed that I have perfect vision.  When I was younger, I could read newspaper print from across a table.  Now I have to slow my car down to approximately 2 miles per hour to read street signs.  I find that it also helps if I turn down the radio -- I guess my ears are linked to my eyes somehow, or maybe my brain can only power one set of organs at a time.

I still have not bowed down to stick my head into the jaws of inevitability.  Instead, I’m in that middle ground called Corrective Lens Denial.  I probably need glasses, or contact lenses, or whatever surgery where they zap your eyeball with a light saber.  But I haven’t committed to that first eye exam.

I recently  passed the eye exams for a new driver’s license and a physical, but both were narrow-passing marks, heavily reliant on hints from the test givers.

We had a Benefits Meeting this week at work, and I found myself squinting at the slide to read it.  Hmm, looking fuzzy here, turn on super-squinty powers... Oops, this is the slide for vision benefits.  Okay, I'll pay attention for a moment.  They started talking about co-pays, eye exams, we'll fund frames up to a certain amount -- and the combination of tired-head and my Corrective Lens Denial took over and I blew it off until next year.

"See" you later, Four Eyes.

first flight

“Daddy, when we go to Dis-ah-ney, on the airplane, who’s gonna sit next to me?”

“I am, Sweetie. “

“Oh.  Okay.”

Few seconds goes by…

“If I wasn’t sitting next to you, where did you think I’d be?”

“You always drive.”

Our trip was right before they stopped requiring kids under 12 years old to remove their shoes again, so we sent her battery-powered-motion-activated-pink-blinking-princess shoes through the X Ray conveyor.  I’m surprised that those didn’t set off some kind of alarm.  Those things are wired like little explosives.

She didn’t mind the security check, waiting in line, removing shoes, etc.  To a four-year-old, everything was accepted as the normal course of business.  If there was a clown juggling three Chihuahuas and a mariachi band singing Journey cover songs, Jules would have seen that and thought Okay, they do juggling and singing here, I guess that’s normal.

Around the terminal, she had a captive audience while other passengers waited for their planes.  She explained to each person about how she was going to Dis-ah-ney, and this was going to be her first airplane ride, and Daddy was not going to be flying the plane today.

I showed her the little trains of carts that bring our luggage up the airplane, and we watched the guys load the conveyor to send our suitcases up into the belly of the plane.  She said, “Oh.  That’s nice of them.”

Jules was fairly well-prepared for the rest of her first airplane trip except that she was surprised that airplanes had wheels.  When we were taxiing around DFW Airport, she thought we were just flying really low.  She needed some convincing that there were wheels under the plane that retracted once we got in the air.  She still might not believe me.

Jules was moderately impressed with watching the Earth become small beneath us for the first time in her life, seeing houses turn into tiny specs, climbing up through the clouds.  But she was super-impressed with the tray table that she could put up and down.   I’d point out how we were flying higher than birds could even fly, miles up in the air, and then she’d show me how neat it was that the tray table included a little round cutout area for her drink to sit.  I’m considering installing one of those in my car for her to use.

When we landed, I explained that the airplane was going to take us to the terminal, and then we’d rent a car to go from there to Disney.  She asked why the airplane didn’t just fly straight to Disney and drop us off there, and I didn’t know what to say.  That’s actually a pretty good idea.

starting line

Hello readers. I have three revelations for you.

#1: Since the last post, I’ve been in a fight with a grown man, I took kiddo to Disney for the first time, I was in my new car while a friend wrecked it, I attempted to drown my 15-year-old cat, my childhood best friend moved in, and for some reason, I have stopped remembering to zip up my pants after bathroom activities approximately 93% of the time. We have much to catch up on.

#2: You have been amazing readers, even during my hiatus. Hundreds of you have been checking in on the site, posting links to my pages to other places out there, sending supportive emails, and I’ve gotten three offers for ads. This blog marks my 146th entry on this site. That seems like a lot of content, but I’m honestly astonished that you’ve continued to visit while I’ve been away. You have been surprisingly great consumers of my goofy brand of insane ramblings.

#3: I’ve decided to make a real commitment to this blog. I’m not going to come right out and say that watching Julie and Julia set this in motion, or even admit to watching that movie and tearfully cheering for her to beat her culinary goal. But I think it is a great idea to impose a deadline for productivity.

So here it is – I am giving you 100 humor blogs in the next 365 days. I want to be the very first blog that you pull up on your smartphone when your bottom touches the potty seat.  This counts as the first one, and by next December 2, we’ll have that blog count up by 100. Here is how my new self-imposed challenge goes:

• Each entry has to be over 300 words to count as a blog. Quotes, links, funny pictures, etc. don’t count against the total.
• If you have a blog and link to me, I’ll link back to your sites too (Just send me an email to request it --- buffmancomic@gmail.com )
• At the end of the year, I’ll be using your feedback and votes to determine the best entries, and will submit a book for publication that contains what you consider to be the best columns.

Go ahead and bookmark this site, or add me to your RSS feed if you haven’t already – I promise fun reading in the months ahead. Welcome to the ride, please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. I hope you enjoy it.

No donut for you

"You no have money. No donut."
"I do have money. Can you run it again?"
"The machine. The machine say you no have money."
"Well I'm sure I have money in my account. Please try it again?"

beep boop beep…. (sour face, one eyebrow up)

"Still say no money. No donut."

Despite her payment policy, she took one look at my adorable 4-year-old daughter and allowed us to leave there with her pink donut and Sunny Delight. But only after I first signed a piece of paper that said I'd come back and pay her. I wrote "123-4567" for my phone number and she didn't notice.

"Hello, this is Bank of America representative Ruben, what can I do for you today?
"Hey, what's up with my check card? Why is it declining?"
"I see here that we sent you a new one and shut this one off."
"Oh that letter that arrived yesterday? I haven't even opened it."
"Yes. You should be using that new card. The old one is closed now."
"Yeah, I noticed. Well, Ruben, how about letting me know so I don't look like a jackass in the donut store? That lady acted like I was trying to rob the place. What if I were stranded somewhere without gas? Or out of town?"
"We did notify you. It's explained in the letter that came with the card."

So I moseyed back to Donut Land with my new card, and tried to pay.

"Hi there, I was here earlier, I need to pay for a pink donut and a Sunny Delight."
(She tries to hand me a pink donut.)
"Don't you remember me? I've already got the donut. It turns out that the card was closed because this other, new card was sent to me. I'm here to repay."
She gives me a puzzled look and says "The Sunny Delight is in the case. You go get it, right there."
"No, I already have a Sunny Delight. I just want to give you money."

It was like I was sticking the place up, but in reverse.

"You no want pink donut? You want other donut. Here. You take chocolate."
"No, just ring me up for five bucks. I want to repay you from earlier."

The only way I could make it happen was to go grab a Sunny Delight out of the case, get her to put a pink donut in a bag, and then pay. Afterwards, it was very confusing to her when I left those things on the counter and walked out of the building, but now the world feels pretty right.

juicy red meat

My sister recently announced that she’s a vegetarian again.  I asked if it was for health reasons (because last time her gall bladder exploded or something).  But it wasn’t a nutrition thing, it’s a compassion-based decision.  Unlike the rest of us, who try to ignore the chopping-heads-off part of our grocery store experience, her sweet brain dwells on those things and she doesn’t want to have cute animal parts sprawled out all over her dinner plate.

I guess I’m not as compassionate.  I’d understand her becoming a vegetarian if she had to – like if meat was giving her incurable itchy butt worms or something, but the compassion-based approach, I have trouble relating.  It’s like she announced that after a period of time off, that she wants to be a Buddhist.

Much like other temporary Buddhists, her whole family gets dragged into the ordeal.  My brother-in-law deserves a medal for being the best husband ever.  If I had a wife and she wanted to talk me into eating bean dip at every meal, I’m not sure I would be as understanding.  If I were him, I’d be at home right now trying to find a good place to hide baby back rib bones.

Hmm…. On the other hand, maybe he’s doing that right now too.  (Ha!  Sorry Craig if I just busted you.  I'm the worst.)

It’s funny how we project ourselves into everybody else’s situations.  Hearing about somebody finding Vegetarian Religion, it just makes me crave some kind of juicy red meat.  Why is that?  Perhaps the brief consideration of ‘Could I do that too?’ triggers my inner glutamine response, and my brain starts cheering for the careful marination and grilling of said meats.  I've eaten pounds of red meat since my sister's hippie revelation.

Dammit, now I want to eat a koala bear.

With ranch.

It’s hard to imagine a life without meat.  Sure, you could get your protein from other sources, like beans.  But you don’t want to hang around me after some epic bean consumption.  Especially if we’re in a car or something.

How about we just don’t eat the cute ones?  I could see not eating deer on account of their majestic appearance and cute fluffy white tails and memories of Bambi.  That makes sense.  And even pigs are pretty sweet once you get to know them.  They’re smarter and sweeter than dogs, despite their deliciousness.

Longhorns are awesome with the big pointy defensive head-swords, but your basic cow is pretty dumb.  I’m talking about your traditional farm cow, who just stands around burping back up chunks from one stomach to another, chewing on it again, wandering around, and leaving huge poops.  A cow is nature’s walking billboard that says “Hi I’m fat and slow, I dispense milk and taste terrific.”  You release a cow into the African Sahara, she’s gonna get ripped apart in like two seconds.  Hell, a zebra could probably even beat up a cow.  I don't know if it's ever happened in the wild, but I would bet on the zebra.  They're quite wiley.

I try to remind my sister, and other humans, that we are animals, too.  Our species didn’t get this far by eating hummus and vitamin supplements.  We fashioned crude weapons just so that we could whack the heads off all God’s little creatures.  Later, we invented cow-sized guillotines and bolt-guns to save ourselves the trouble.  I’m sure that we’ll still be eating meat in 100 years, even when we’re slicing the cows up with badass laser weapons.

Centuries from now, I picture a peaceful utopian society, with Buddhists chasing around koala bears with lasers.  Now that is the future I want to live in.

Jules Clues

I love the time I spend driving in the truck with Jules.  From the moment we take off, she turns into a little chatterbox.  We discuss a wide range of topics, from God to weather to Spongebob Squarepants episodes to how her stuffed animal cow’s grandma (who she describes as a human) is feeling right now.  We sing Christmas songs (yes, all year, apparently), and we count to a hundred together like The Count from Sesame Street.  (“One! Twooo!  Threeeee!  Ah ha ha ha….”)

I’ve gotten her convinced that the truck windows are voice-activated.  She’ll decide that she doesn’t want the last inch of her cheesestick, yell “Windows Down!” and I quickly and discreetly fumble for the automatic window-down button on my side while she explains that she’s not a litterbug because the birds can eat cheese. 

For the record, we don’t do this with any sort of paper or plastic garbage.  (Don’t Mess with Texas, yeehaw.)   I’m not sure if birds will actually eat cheese, but to be honest, the cheesesticks don’t even make it out the window.  She’s sitting literally an inch from a 18 inch x 24 inch open window, and somehow misses EVERY TIME, resulting in an inch-long hunk of cheese bouncing around randomly in my truck to find later. 

Lately we’ve been playing a version of “I Spy,” a riddle game where one of us gives three clues to get the other person to guess what we’re thinking.  She’s still working on her clue-giving process.

“Hey Daddy I have three clues for you.  First of all, it’s a number.  And it’s…”

“Is it three?”

“What?!  How do you know?!”

“Your hand is holding up three fingers.”

“Whoops, ok.  Let’s do a new one…  I got it.  The first clue is it’s black.”

“Is it the radio?”

“Daddy!  What?!  How do you know all my clues?”

“Well you’re staring down the radio without blinking, like a laser.”

“You are so crazy!  I’m gonna punch you right in the nose.”

“Jules, this time don’t pick something inside the truck.  Pick something else and give me clues.”

“Alright I’m ready.  It’s purple on top…. and has feet all over it, like 28 feet … and the sides have some kind of little brown things, like different sizes, and some are spiral twist things… and it lights up… and it lives in the ocean... ” (and voice trails off)  “What is it?”

“Well, I have no idea.  You got me.”

“I don’t know either!”  (and laughs maniacally)

Random conversation with Jules

"Daddy, can we get donuts today?"

"I'm sorry, sweetie.  Friday is Donut Day, remember?  Today is Wednesday, and I already made you toast."

"But the other day it wasn't Friday? And we ate donuts then?  Then why not today?"

"That was a special occasion, Jules.  We were running late that day."

"Well maybe today can be special, too."

"I'm sorry, today is just a regular Wednesday.  And you already have toast."

"Daddy, I have an idea."

"Yes?"

"How about I decide which days are special instead of you, okay?  Then we'll eat donuts whenever I feel like it."

The Torturer

As I shook up the mouse in the cardboard box to knock him unconscious, I really doubt that he ever considered that this would be how his little mouse life would end.   But as sad as this annual ritual seemed, I knew was giving the adorable fellow a far more civilized fate than he would have been dealt from The Torturer.

What an exciting start to the story, with a little sneak preview into how it ends!  I hope it starts back at the beginning, to see how they got to this wacky little predicament with the mouse. 

There is something funny about Texas – it’s built on a weather swivel, of sorts.  We’ll bake in the sun at over 100 degrees for months and months, then get one or two days of real Autumn weather, then bam, freezing temperatures.  No in-between.  Well this crazy temperature-shift sends our large Texas-sized rear ends indoors, along with any critters that we don’t successfully manage to keep out.   

There is a field behind my backyard – with no houses for a hundred yards – which is awesome for hot tub skinny-dipping, but also provides a little in-town wilderness area for field mice to thrive.  About once a year, right when it starts getting cold, one of the brash young field mice will ignore the horror stories from his elders and try to venture into the Young household.  He doesn’t know that I already have all the irreplaceable Christmas mementos secured in plastic totes, that all my perishable goods are kept locked away in sealed containers, and that I don’t leave food out … except the pet food bowls.  Cue The Torturer.

Who is this “Torturer”?  He sounds so ominous!  I must continue reading.  I was already hooked when he mentioned the skinny-dipping.  I hope that comes up again.

The Torturer’s real name is Diablo (Spanish for “Devil”, which I’m sure is how he is described by any Spanish-speaking field mice in the vicinity).  His nickname is “Itty Bitty”, but as I’ve explained in previous columns, he is neither itty nor bitty.  He is a huge, strong, loud orange tabby with an affinity for biting people’s faces and torturing smaller animals.  If he were a human, he’d already be doing life behind bars or been sentenced to Death Row, depending on which state he lives in.

I think he lives in Texas.  I remember that from earlier in the story.  They execute lots of people. 

Instead, Diablo lives in the luxury of suburban cat life.  He lounges around all day, acting like a jerk, strutting like he owns the place.  He won’t move out of the way when I’m  trying to walk up the stairs, he gets excited at midnight and knocks all the change off my bookshelf for no reason, and loudly yowls at 3am to wake me up. 

But this one time a year, he earns his keep.  Diablo has an important job to do.

I bet it has something to do with the mice.

His super sensitive cat-senses, speed, and agility are no match for a misguided field mouse that tries to scurry in through the cat door.  It’s like watching an Olympian sprinter close the distance on a four-year-old.  He snatches the adorable critter up in a second, usually by the scruff of the neck.  He wounds him in the process, but he's careful not to kill him.  If I don’t intervene, he’ll keep little Fieval alive for several gruesome hours before dismantling him into little gift-sized parts on my pillow.

Oh I remember Fieval Mousekewitz from the American Tail cartoon, about the little Russian mouse who wears a hat and sings.  He and his sister would look at the moon and sing songs at the same time.

So here is the sad-but-necessary intervention process:  I stun Diablo with the cardboard box to get him to drop the mouse, and before he can pounce back on him, I scoop up Fieval in the box.  At this point, he’s irreparably injured, and certainly in no shape to escape The Torturer a second time if I let him go anywhere near the house.  Instead, I put him out of his misery with a few unceremonious shakes in the box and an toss back over into the field. 

Maybe the gesture sends a message to the rest of them: Beware the Torturer... and The Guy With The Box.  Hopefully they’re not coordinated enough to all attack me at once while I’m skinny-dipping in the hot tub.

Yay!  A throw-back to the skinny dipping.  I was hoping he’d go there. 

How to Make Sure Your Credit Card Number is Safe

1. Place an order on Amazon.com.
2. Forget all about the order.
3. See the bill and freak out bigtime.
4. Call and cancel your card. They’ll send you a new one.
5. Ta-dah! New card. Your number is safe.