What If, It’s Another Challenge

I am awed and amazed at the number of people who read these personal-reveal posts.  Thanx, and here is yet another one.

21: Something you just can’t seem to get over
23: Something you always think “What if….” About

I’m not much one for navel-gazing.  I feel that I am not entitled, but rather, pragmatic, fatalistic, realistic.  What is – IS!  The past is in the past.  It’s over, and cannot be changed.  Deal with it!  Time and psychic energy expended in worrying about ‘What Might Have Been ‘, is lost and wasted.

There are many people, often with an overcharged ego and an excess of entitlement, who feel that if they work hard and apply themselves, get a good education, and make what they feel are the right decisions, then God, or Karma, will ensure them success in life.

IT DON”T WORK LIKE THAT!  The universe is supremely disinterested in any one person.  It is almost impossible to fare well in life without taking these steps, but doing so is no guarantee of success.  No-one is assured a smooth ride.  Nothing is God-ordained and meant to be.

When most people think about “What If” and something they just can’t get over, they imagine that some small change in the past would improve their life in the present.  It’s just wishful thinking.  I’ve had hardly any free times in my busy life to brood about lost potential opportunities.

A very few times, I’ve wondered, What if I didn’t have learning disabilities?  What if I didn’t have my essential tremor?  What if I didn’t have a sieve where my memory should be?  Would I have achieved a post-secondary diploma?  Would I have got a six- or seven-figure job?  Would I have had a great career-arc, and have lots of money?  Would I have ‘married better’?

Then I hear the little flutter that warns of the butterfly effect, and the heavy tromp of Karma’s boots in the hall.  If things had been different, would I have done any better?  Would I have had to spend so much time and mental energy getting my diploma and continuing study to master a trade – that I didn’t have time to study and appreciate the English language?

Would I have to rely on aides and secretaries to make my reports and directives literate and intelligible?  Would I have failed to learn to read for enjoyment – would I be incapable of composing blog posts, both of which now occupy me in my retirement?

Money can’t buy happiness, although it makes looking for it a lot easier.  Would I have married better, and would I have great amounts of money in savings and retirement funds, or would I have a string of three, successively-younger trophy wives, whose alimonies empty my bank accounts, and I live in a bachelor apartment till I die on the job, because I can’t afford to retire?

They say that you can’t cheat an honest man.  You can, it just takes so much extra time and effort that it’s not usually worth it.  Similarly, no-one wants to bother stealing from a poor man.  If the stock market nosedives, I don’t care.  If I’d been smart enough to make a lot of money, I might have been dumb enough to meet a Bernie Madoff, or a Nigerian prince.

Strive and struggle to make the most of what you can.  Accept the present, and face the future.  Don’t get a sore neck from looking back at what if!  Let sleeping dogs lie, and don’t trip over them.  My readers are my riches.  You can compound your interest by showing up again in a couple of days.  😀

Hah-ppily Married

Thomas says to his best friend Davis, ‘You know,
I reckon I’m about ready for a vacation, only this
year I’m gonna do it a little different.

The last few years, I took your advice as to
where to go.

Two years ago you said to go to Hawaii; I went
to Hawaii, and my wife Julia got pregnant.

Then last year, you told me to go to the Bahamas.
I went to the Bahamas, and Julia got pregnant again.’

Davis says, ‘So what you gonna do different this year?’

Thomas says, ‘This year, I’m taking Julia with me!’!

***

“Mom, I’m dating a man.”

“Whom, sweetheart?”

“Mike the mailman.”

“Mike the mailman? But he could be your father!”

“But mom, age is just a number.”

“Sweetheart, I don’t think you understand.”

==========

I work with a Chinese guy called Kim and one time at a work function,

We were having a drink and I said to him, “Do you ever get fed up of us Westerners saying that all Chinese people look the same”?

He replied, “Kim’s at the bar getting drinks, I’m his wife”

==========

A weeping woman bursts into her hypnotherapist’s office and declares, “Doctor, I have been faithful to my husband for 15 years, but yesterday I broke that trust and had an affair! The guilt is killing me. I just want to forget that it ever happened! Can you make me forget?”
The hypnotherapist rolls his eyes, and says under his breath, “Oh, brother.  Not again …!”

***

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO REALLY LOVES YOU

Put your partner, your cat and your dog in the trunk of your car for an hour. When you open it up again, who’s happy to see you?

***

So it’s okay for the cat to run away and hide under the bed when company comes, but when I do it, I’m being antisocial.

***

Moses was the first person with a tablet to download data from the cloud.

***

Feefiphobia is a chronic fear of giants.

***

If laziness were an Olympic sport, I’d come in fourth so that I didn’t have to walk up to the podium.

***

I do weights for muscle health, cardio for heart health….and chocolate for mental health.

 

Dagwood And…. Whatzername

Two blondes are in Heaven….
One blonde says to the other, “How did you die?”  ”I froze to death.” says the second.  ”That’s awful” says the first blonde. “How does it feel to freeze to death?” ”It’s very uncomfortable at first,” says the second blonde. “You get the shakes, and you get pains in all your fingers and toes. But eventually, it’s a very calm way to go. You get numb and you kind of drift off, as if you’re sleeping.”  ”How about you, how did you die?” asked the second blonde.

”I had a heart attack,” says the first blonde. “You see, I knew my husband was cheating on me, so one day I showed up at home unexpectedly. I ran up to the bedroom, and found him alone watching TV. I ran to the basement, but no one was hiding there. I ran to the second floor, but no one was hiding there either. I ran as fast as I could to the attic, and just as I got there, I had a massive heart attack and died.
The second blonde shakes her head. “What a pity … if only you had looked in the freezer, we’d both still be alive.”

***

Two blondes are filling up at a gas station and the first blonde says to the second, “I bet these awful fuel prices are going to go even higher.”

The second blonde replies, “Won’t affect me, I always put in just $10 worth.”
***

The executive was interviewing a young blonde for a position in his company. He wanted to find out something about her personality so he asked, “If you could have a conversation with any person, living or dead, who would that be?”

The blonde quickly responded, “The living one.”

***

There was a competition between a team of blondes and a team of brunettes to see who could catch the most fish ice fishing.

Once the contest started, it was clear that the brunettes were going to win — they kept pulling out fish after fish.

Soon, the blondes got worried and sent over one of their team to see what the brunettes were doing differently.

A few minutes later, the blonde comes running back.

“A hole! You need to put a hole in the ice!”

***

A blonde was at her divorce lawyer’s.  Almost screaming, she was insisting, “He’s not going to get that!  I’m keeping this!  He’s going to have to pay for that!  He’ll have to support me for this!”

Taken aback, the lawyer asks if she has a grudge for her husband.

She responds, “We don’t even have a car-port.”

😯

’18 A To Z Challenge – A

Aaugh!  Is it April again??  I just awoke from my winter’s hibernation, and shambled out of the Den, to find other folks well into the alphabet already. As usual, I’m off to a slow start.  Using my Great Awakening as a cheat for the letter A, I’ll make this one a theme-reveal post – “Theme” in only the loosest of senses.

I thought that I might use ‘Trope’. It’s a figure of speech that includes ‘interpolation,’ which is just a fancy word that means the (sometimes)nonsensical non-sequiturs covered by the promised rambles inside some of my rants.

I decided instead, to go with Chaos And Confusion.  I provide the chaos, and you are confused.  This is completely different from last year’s theme, which was Confusion And Chaos, where you were confused, and I provided the Chaos.  Got that all straight??  Good, now explain it to me.

Alms! Alms for a hungry beggar!  Hungry for inspiration – not food.  (Have you seen my tummy recently??  Happily, NO.  My belt size threatens to become greater than my IQ.  [And there you have the first of my non-sequitur interpolations.])

If any of you have a word or theme, for any letter, that you think would be safe to let me loose with in public, feel free to submit it.  I would welcome all suggestions.  I can do serious research, or just my usual, disorganized babble.

Please stop back again soon for a post that doesn’t use any letters of the alphabet, but definitely in two weeks, when I use the letter B to batter the American Bible Belt, and Donald Trump’s banality.  😯

WOW #10

The Word Of the Week for this week will be;

CANARD

Definitions for canard
a false or baseless, usually derogatory story, report, or rumor.
Cookery. A duck intended or used for food.

Origin of canard 1840-1850 Canard is from Old French quanart “drake,” literally “cackler,” from the onomatopoeic caner “to cackle” and the suffix -art, a variant of -ard, as in mallard or braggart. Canard is all that is left of the Middle French idiom vendre un canard à moitié “to sell half a duck,” i.e., “to take in, swindle, cheat.” Canard entered English in the 19th century.

I don’t really know why I chose Canard as the Word Of the Week.  It’s not all that old, and it’s not cute and cuddly.  It is interesting that, in both English, and French where it came from, it has the word value of ‘lying, cheating and swindling.’

It wandered over and got used in Jules Verne’s The War of the Worlds, when it was only 50 years old.  Never a common word, it is still used occasionally to reference American politics, where lying, cheating and swindling are competitive sports.

This week, Lewandowski distinguished himself by reviving the birther canard—the thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Margaret Talbot, “The Trouble with Corey Lewandowski on CNN,” The New Yorker, August 6, 2016

I started out researching pollard(ing), which is trimming a tree back severely, to produce a ball-shape, and more, leafier, shorter branches. I was soon at bollard, which is a short, thick iron or steel post used to tie ships to; from the bole, or trunk of a tree, and found that the meaning of the surname Bullard is, “son of a monk or priest.” I was in the –ard neighborhood anyway.

There is a Random House Dictionary. I sometimes feel that I should be using it. That’s what my research often feels like. I hope to see you here again, the next time I fail to be inspired for a Flash Fiction.

A To Z Challenge – T

This will be a DIY, or interactive post, for the letter

Back last April, when I decided to try this challenge, I also decided to cheat (a bit). Each day, I would scan a variety of other posts, to see what words their writers had chosen, to pick one that sparked some inspiration.  Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn’t.  This is a ‘didn’t work’ letter.  I wrote down;

Tough
Tarts
Too much
Think
Treasure
Tease
Trash
Train – (noun or verb)
Torrid – or is that….
Torpid – I can’t read my own writing

I would like to make this an audience-participation, contest-y sort of post. I invite all of my readers to choose one of the above words, or provide any other T-word.  Leave a comment, giving your word, and hopefully some kind of prompt.

We can’t rely on ‘First Through The Door” kind of thing, so I will choose one at random, and use your word and prompt to attempt to compose a short post about it.

So, what do we have for our embarrassed loser lucky winner, Johnny?

Well Bob, first they will receive my undying thanks for pulling me out of a compositional blue funk. They’ll also experience the incomparable joy of seeing their name up in lights on my blog.  I’ll even try to link to their site, so that others can know what they’ve done.

C’mon folks, everyone is welcome to submit an idea. The more, the merrier – I am.  You can’t win unless you enter.  If you don’t, you’ll just get some more;

I’ve claimed that I’m tough. I’m probably not.  It’s more like overcooked, dry, and stringy.  I just finished two of my once-a-year mincemeat tarts.  I should have only eaten one, because I’ve already had too much tryptophan from too much turkey, since I’m writing this at Christmas.

I like to think that I can compose the occasional little linguistic treasure, but it’s just a tease. Too often, it’s only another example of taking out the mental trash, which I use to help me train to write better. ‘Torrid’ must have been a typo, because I’ve never had ‘that much’ passion about anything in my life.  With my rotund tummy stuffed full of Christmas goodies, I’ll just become torpid, and hibernate until New Years comes along.

Your suggestions are welcome, because my inspiration is….also hibernating.   😛

Elementary

Sherlock Holmes – Elementary Dear Watson

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson go on a camping trip, set up their tent, and fall asleep. Some hours later, Holmes wakes his faithful friend.

– Watson, look up and tell me what you see.

Watson replies, – I see millions of stars.

– What does that tell you?

Watson ponders for a minute. – Astronomically speaking, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets.
Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo.
Timewise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three.
Theologically, it’s evident the Lord is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant.
Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you?

Holmes is silent for a moment, then speaks. –
Watson, you’re an idiot, someone has stolen our tent.

***

You’re not going to believe this!

A woman got a problem with her closet door – it was falling every time a bus was passing by. So she called a repair man. The repairman comes and sees that indeed, the door falls out every time when a bus passes by. “OK, I am gonna see what is going on, just close the door behind me” and he steps into the closet.

At that time the husband comes home from work, opens the closet and finds the repairman.
Husband: “What the hell are you doing here?”
Repairman: “Well, you are not going to believe it, but I am waiting for a bus!”

***

Who am I?

Night.
A sleeping couple is lying in a bed.
Door bell rings.
The couple wakes up.
Woman: “Quick! My husband is back!”
Man jumps out of a window.
On the way down, he starts to think: “Shit, I am the husband!”

***

Shoe repair shop

Arnold and his wife were cleaning out the attic one day when he came across a ticket from the local shoe repair shop. The date stamped on the ticket showed that it was over eleven years old. They both laughed and tried to remember which of them might have forgotten to pick up a pair of shoes over a decade ago.

“Do you think the shoes will still be in the shop?” Arnold asked.

“Not very likely,” his wife said.

“It’s worth a try,” Arnold said, pocketing the ticket. He went downstairs, hopped into the car, and drove to the store.

With a straight face, he handed the ticket to the man behind the counter. With a face just as straight, the man said, “Just a minute. I’ll have to look for these.” He disappeared into a dark corner at the back of the shop.

Two minutes later, the man called out, “Here they are!”

“No kidding?” Arnold called back. “That’s terrific! Who would have thought they’d still be here after all this time.”

The man came back to the counter, empty-handed. “They’ll be ready Thursday,” he said calmly.

***

It Beggars the Imagination

“Can you spare some change?” a beggar asks a passerby.
“No, I know you’re going to spend it all on vodka.”
“No, sir, I don’t drink.”
“Then you’ll gamble it away.”
“No, I don’t gamble either, sir.”
“Well then, you’re going to spend it on women.”
“No, sir, I don’t spend money on women.”
“Okay,” the passerby finally agrees, finally. “I’m going to give you $100 if you come with me. I want to show my wife an example of what can happen to a man who has no bad habits.”

Heaven On Earth

 

 

 

 

 

A Briton, a Frenchman and a Russian are viewing a painting of Adam and Eve frolicking in the Garden of Eden.

“Look at their reserve, their calm,” muses the Brit. “They must be British.”

“Nonsense,” the Frenchman disagrees. “They’re naked, and so beautiful. Clearly, they are French.”

“No clothes, no shelter,” the Russian points out, “They have only an apple to eat, and they’re being told this is paradise. They are Russian.”

****

Three guys were standing at the top of the Empire State Building in NYC.

The first guy says to the second, “You know, the wind currents are so strong here in NYC that one could step off the edge of the building and literally float in mid-air due to the upward thrust of the thermal air currents.”

“No way, man, you’re crazy,” said the second guy to the first. So the first guy steps off the edge of the building and just floats in mid-air for about 20 seconds and then returns to the roof of the building.

The second guy is simply thrilled and says, “Watch me do that” as he steps from the roof edge into the open air. Of course he falls like a stone straight down all the way to the waiting pavement below–SPLAT!

The third guy, who has remained quiet the entire time, leans over to the first guy and says, “You know something Superman, sometimes you can be a real asshole!”

****

A woman posts an ad in the paper that looks like this:

Looking for man with these qualifications:

1. Won’t beat me up. 2. Won’t run away. 3. Great in bed.

She got lots of phone calls but met someone perfect at her door. The man she met said, “Hi I’m Bob. I have no arms so I won’t beat you up; I have no legs so I won’t run away.”

So the lady says, “What makes you think you are great in bed?”

To which Bob replies, “I rang the doorbell didn’t I?

****

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

Economy is denying ourselves a necessity today, in order to buy a luxury tomorrow.

Most love triangles turn into “wreck-tangles!”

Heard in a conversation over 40 years ago:  “If they think I’m going to pay a dollar for a haircut, forget it!”

Professor: “Joe, name two pronouns.” Joe:  “Who, me?

Receptionist: Doctor, there’s an invisible man in the waiting room. Doctor: Tell him I can’t see him.

What happened to the dog that swallowed a firefly?  He barked with  de-light.

What happened to the guy who stayed up all night, wondering where the sun went, when it went down?  It finally dawned on him.

What position did Monica Lewinski have in the White House?  Missionary!

Why do blondes hate making Kool-Aid? They can’t get the six cups of water into the little envelope.