Fighting For One-Liners

I just won my first cage fight….
….The parrot didn’t know what hit him.

I was reading this book today, The History of Glue….
….I couldn’t put it down.

I hired a handyman to do some odd jobs around the house….
….He did every other thing on the list.

I made strawberry jam today….
….It was a jarring experience.

Snaccident….
….Eating an entire bag of chips by mistake.

Women only have two problems….
….Nothing to wear, and no room for all their clothes.

Life is like a helicopter….
….I don’t know how to operate a helicopter.

It’s probably just my age….
…That tricks people into thinking I’m an adult.

The Devil whispered to me, “I’m coming for you.”….
….I said, “Bring pizza.”

If you’re lost in the woods, start talking about politics….
….Someone will show up to argue with you.

When a clock is hungry….
….It goes back four seconds.

I often break into song….
….Because I can’t find the key.

I just sold my homing pigeon on eBay….
….For the 22^nd time.

I’m not lazy….
….I’m just in Energy-Saving Mode.

What do you call a person who studies soft drinks?….
….A Fizzicist.

If I eat 3 bags of chips, and drink 4 cans of soda, what do I have?….
….No self-control.

My wife said, “I’m going out for a couple of hours.  Do you want anything?”….
….I replied, No, that’s enough.”

I couldn’t sleep last night, so I started reading the dictionary….
….By 3:00 AM I was past caring.

To the two criminals who stole my calendar….
….I hope you both get six months.

Did you hear about the criminal who pick-pocketed a dwarf?….
….How could he stoop so low?

I’ve heard of a lot of dumb criminals….
….But bakery robbers take the cake.

I think I need professional help….
….A chef, a butler, and a maid should do it.

Did you know that 2 or 3 glasses of wine a day….
….Can reduce your chances of giving a shit.

Let’s talk again, after they find….
….A cure for your personality.

Tradition is….
….Peer pressure from the dead.

My New Year’s resolution is to procrastinate….
….I’ll start tomorrow.

Straight Arrow

My wife, bless her heart, is a linear thinker. I mean a, A straight line is the shortest distance between two points. linear thinker.

If we’re watching Poirot, or Miss Marple, or reruns of Columbo or Murder She Wrote, while my active and vivid imagination is distracted by red herrings, plot twists, or character development, her Laser mind points directly at the culprit.

It wasn’t the butler. It was the illegitimate son of the maid, from an affair with the Master. And she’s right 90% of the time. However…. She has trouble getting off the paved road. She reads romance novels. Several times I have heard her complain about the dénouement of a book. The story will come to a stop at a particular juncture, and it’s up to the reader to decide whether the hero will come back and marry the girl, or if he will ride off into the sunset. She gets quite upset. Enquiring minds (like hers) need to know!

It’s not that she has no sense of humor. It’s just that she is not friends with puns or word-play. My father used to describe a damp day by saying, “It tried to rain, but it missed (mist).” She occasionally repeats (?) this as, “It tried to rain, but it misted.” Literal! Literal! Literal!

My darling old Mother, who wouldn’t say ‘Shit’ if she had a mouthful, would comment about someone farting, by saying, “(That’s)Better out, than one of your eyes.” Like bread upon the waters, this one comes back as, “It’s better out that way, than out one of your eyes.” 😕 🙄

She has discovered a YouTube file that plays over 2 hours of mostly pop songs, but one of them is the old Meat Loaf song, ‘I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That). “What is it that he won’t do?? He keeps saying that he won’t do That, but he never says what That is. If she’d just shut up and stop obsessing, she’d find out. The song, like a sentence in German with the verb at the end, is constructed. After 4 minutes of him yowling that he won’t do that, his woman cuts in, and starts singing about him being a star, and rich and famous, and how he will use it ‘to go screwing around.’ The song ends with him assuring her, “But I won’t do that.”

She likes the singer, Ed Sheeran, and watches many of his music videos. One of them has her baffled. In the video for a song called Shape of You, Sheeran is in training as a boxer – jab, jab, punch, punch. He is assisted by a curvaceous young female, who even teaches him some dance steps to aid his footwork.

She returns to her locker, finds and reads a note, stuffs some things in her bag, and leaves. Perhaps the wife hoped for some romantic entanglement. From the first time she watched it, every time, she complains, “It doesn’t make sense. Why does she leave?” Doesn’t make sense??! These are music videos – one of them, Radioactive, shows Mexican cockfighting…. with Muppets. They’re not supposed to make sense.

It might be that, in today’s #MeToo society, the song keeps insisting that he’s in love with her body – the Shape of You. No mention of her smile, her intellect, her wit and humor, her kind and supportive nature – just her body.

Always trying to be helpful, I suggested that maybe she had to go home to make supper for her husband…. or perhaps she had to go home to make supper for her wife. Don’t ask – don’t tell. Still, every time, the question was repeated. “It doesn’t make sense. Why does she leave?”

As the video progresses, Sheeran leaves the training room, and enters a fight venue – to be faced with a Sumo wrestler. 😕 He engages the Sumo giant, wearing one of those ridiculous, inflatable Sumo costumes, and gets splatted to the floor. Apparently this all makes sense to the wife, and she unquestioningly accepts it.

To finally put us all out of our misery, the son told her that the note was from Sheeran’s fight manager, telling the eye-candy that she was a distraction to his training, and to keep away…. only, she shows up at the end, and knocks the Sumo guy down with a Kung Fu drop-kick. Out of the wife’s earshot, the son admitted that his explanation was highly unlikely, but it pacified her, and we all lived happily (and quietly) ever after.

Linear thinkers are useful, and quite productive, although they can be a little dismaying. Are you a linear thinker? My own thought processes can be like a tornado aftermath.

’17 A To Z Challenge – R

The word ‘Roundhouse’ has two, very different but connected meanings, so, for the letter

I’m going to tell you about them.

Roundhouse Slang. A punch in which the arm is typically brought straight out to the side or rear of the body and in which the fist describes an exaggerated circular motion.

This is a type of punch that is usually not thrown until a jab or a hook has stunned an opponent, and his defenses are (slightly) open, because it opens the defense of the fighter who is throwing it. The large circular motion is necessary to accumulate speed and striking power.

At the height of his career, I saw Bruce Lee demonstrate, what he called ‘A One Inch Punch.’ He stood before a sparring partner, tightly clenched his fist and held it 1 inch from his opponent’s chest.  He then wound up his ‘punching muscles’ while holding back, like a dragster revving the engine, but standing on the brakes.

When he had achieved maximum dynamic tension, he suddenly extended his arm, and the victim went stumbling backward. But that was not a punch! That was a push, a powerful push, but a push.  Even a dragster cannot achieve its top speed in its own length.  A punch requires time and distance to amass its total potential

Roundhouse II

a building for the servicing and repair of locomotives, built around a turntable in the form of some part of a circle.

My home town was the end of a railroad line. Another spur on the other side of the peninsula extended all the way to the northern tip.  Train engines can push backward, as well as pull forward, but pulling is more efficient.  Normally, at rails’ ends, and any other place where locomotives have to turn around, roundhouses are used to give them a 180° spin.

My town though, grew up because it was a Great Lakes Port. Besides the river docks, a long stone pier was built out to the offshore island, offering storm protection.  The railroad was used to carry freight from Lake Huron, to Toronto and Lake Ontario, before the building of the Welland Canal, to get past Niagara Falls – grain to flour mills, lumber to the factories, iron ore to the steel mills.

As the railroad came north into town, a spur line branched off, and ran west, out to the end of the dock. The spur line branched back, and joined the main line ending at the station, forming a giant Y, with an empty triangle inside it.  The engines and cars which needed to be reversed, were merely backed up, and run forward around the Y.

We never needed an expensive and maintenance-intensive roundhouse. We did have a big railway building that was large enough to house a couple of locomotives, and cars which needed repair, out of the weather.  We called it ‘the roundhouse,’ but no engines ever got dizzy on a roundabout.

Now, the trains are all long gone, the tracks ripped up, the right-of-way is a hiking trail, and all that’s left are my fond memories. That feels like a roundhouse punch.   😦  😯