Bakers’ Dozen Fibbing Fridays

Pensitivity101 and her Loss Control Officer were distracted by a troupe of Polish folk-dancers, so I was able to make off, undetected, with another list of ten chances to win the Paul Bunyan Tall Tale award.

1. What did the Three Wise Men bring as gifts to the babe in the stables?

Watermelon-flavored bubblegum, a Hello Kitty backpack, and a bunch of those pine-scented car deodorizers.  Do you know what stables smell like??!  And He’s not helping matters any.  He’s being investigated by the EPA for air quality violations.  “Holy shit” may be what He produces, but it still reeks.
2. Band Aid had a Number One hit with the same record 3 times. What was it?

A catchy little ad-jingle that goes I am stuck on Band-Aid brand, ‘cause Band-Aid’s stuck on me.
3. Why is Rudolph’s nose red?

Santa can’t possibly eat all the cookies and drink all the milk that people leave out for him, all by himself, so Rudolf helps out.  Approximately 40% of the milk – and almost all of the egg nog – are chemically enhanced with rum, rye or vodka.  The night barely begins before Rudolf’s bloodshot eyes start to leak down to his nose.  The bright glow helps tell where they are, but soon Rudy has no idea where he’s going.  Santa has to attach a Garmin mini-GPS unit to his antlers, even to assure they get back to dead-drunk North.
4. Who was Santa’s Little Helper?

They were some special little ‘stay-awake’ pills that Santa got from Walter White of the Breaking Bad TV show.  Pound a few of those down with a king-can or two of Monster© soda, and stay awake and alert for the 24 hours that it takes to chase the sunrise, and deliver seven billion toys in 24 hours.
5. What will you find on Quality Street?

Snooty bitches like Posh Spice, (GOOP) Gwyneth Paltrow, and Oprah Winfrey, believing their own press, and looking down their noses at lesser beings – anyone other than them.  What you won’t find, is the likes of the Kardashians, Nicky Minaj, or Cardi B – who all believe in quantity, over Quality.
6. What is egg nog?

According to the translation of the French side of Canadian cartons, it is “Chicken Milk.”  I don’t know how you’d milk a chicken.  You must need a very short stool.
7. Who is Saint Nick?

He is my neighbor, Nicholas Dunning-Kruger, whose wife is an obsessive shopper.  She only has two complaints – “I have nothing to wear.” and, “There is no room in my closet.”  She will contentedly spend 12 to 14 hours of a Saturday, going into every shoe store within a fifteen-mile radius, and still return home with nothing more than a smile.  Nick obligingly, obediently, uncomplainingly drives her around and patiently waits for her.  He is the inspiration for my Beothuk Flash Fiction.  I don’t know why he hasn’t smothered her, or slashed her wrists with a sharpened credit card.  He truly is a saint.
8. Where is Christmas Island?

It’s at the seaward end of the Happy Holidays Archipelago, just across the Incensed Christians Strait from Lovingly Inclusive Key.  There are lots of shopping and party places, but be careful if you want to visit.  There are a bunch of religious nut-cases who try to block access with large crosses, and insist that they own the entire island, when they only hold title to one small area.
9. What does Feliz Navidad mean?

It means that you’re living too far south in the United States.  Move somewhere far enough north that people say Merry Christmas – or at least, Happy Holidays – or your festive meal will be arroz con pollo. (recipe)
10. What is a gobbler?

That would be my divorced uncle, Fred, at any Easter, Thanksgiving or Christmas family gathering where someone else is providing a home cooked meal.  Free is his favorite flavor.

 

Flash Fiction #214

PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook

SWAG

Brucie had a very rewarding Christmas. He was old enough to know that there was no Santa, but smart enough not to say so.

“Santa” had finally brought him a basic cell phone. He’d got socks and underwear (Thanx, Mom) books, video games, dark chocolate and Scottish sweets. He’d watched A Christmas Story and asked for a BB gun, but Mom said that Ralphie’s mother was right – maybe later. “Later…. right.” Adults speak a different language.

Mom had warned him not to just throw his wrapping paper everywhere, so he’d carefully placed it all in a neat pile beside him.

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story

How To Be Taken Seriously

PLEASE ENSURE MIND IS IN MOTION BEFORE ENGAGING MOUTH

Whoever you are, whether Christian Apologist, Flat Earther, Immigration Protester, or Climate Change Warrior, to be taken seriously, it really helps if you get your facts straight before you start spouting off.

It does little good for the Pope to insist that the Bible is inerrant and free of contradictions, when one of God’s commandments is, “Thou shalt make no graven images.’ and two chapters later, God instructs, “Thou shalt make two graven silver cherubim, and place them at each end of the Ark of the Covenant.”

I’m all for combating global warming, but a do-gooding tree-hugger recently had this op-ed published; Aircraft exhaust 10 or 11 kilometers above the Earth’s surface is thought to have considerably more polluting effect per person-mile, than automobile exhaust at ground level, per person-mile.

I’m not sure what his point was. Only transcontinental flights go up to 40,000 feet – 10/11 kilometers. The pollution from a few thousand flyers each day is much more than offset by the total of hundreds of millions of cars driving around. He could fight a more down-to-Earth battle. He’s tilting at one little Dutch windmill, when there are thousands of giant wind-turbines ruining people’s lives in the name of ecology.

Your favorite jovial old tundra-dweller recently became aware of ‘Blue Monday,’ the third Monday in January. It’s not something that affects me. A sociologist did a somewhat un-scientific study. He took into account things like the weather – cold and snow, the lack of sunlight for the last month, friends and family visitors who have now left, the shopping hassles of Christmas, back to work after some time off, and now the bills arriving. He felt that Blue Monday would be the day that cumulative depression would be most likely to affect/be noticed/felt by the average North American.

Immediately, the usual suspects began their howling. Psychologists, and counsellors whined that the day somehow belittled people with depression, when it actually raises people’s awareness of the condition and its causes.

One denier objected to the way the day was chosen, complaining that, “It’s like adding the speed of your jogging to the color of an apple.” And yet psychologists and penologists know that certain colors of prison uniforms and cells help calm prisoners down. One Arizona Sheriff makes his inmates wear hot pink overalls, and violence has reduced significantly.

It should be taken seriously, yet it is no more real that the chubby Santa Claus that Coca-Cola invented. Speaking of people who don’t know what they are talking about, a local radio announcer doesn’t get it. He claimed that, “It is the most depressing day of the year.” It is not the day that is depressing. It is merely the point in time when all the previous depressing influences come together in a confluence – like the perfect wave – and people are most likely to feel depressed.

A newspaper story about a truck crash wrote of ‘semi-tractors.’ (Surely, they are semi-trailers?) In another, a 10-year-old boy wrote to every automaker in the world, and requested ‘decals.’ He got back a hub-cap, hood ornaments, trunk logos, and key-fobs…. because, aside from those little generic warnings on your car windows – auto-makers don’t use ‘decals.’  I don’t know what he (or the article writer) thought ‘decals’ were.

First my Dismantling of Faith post, then all of these, in one week. Does nobody pay attention to the details of reality anymore? It helps, if you want to be taken seriously.

Fun With One-Liners

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again….
….It

I began speed reading, and last night I read “The Da Vinci Code” in 15 minutes….
….I know it’s only 4 words, but it’s a start

How do you make headlines?….
….with corduroy pillows

Police arrested two teenagers today. One was drinking battery acid. The other was eating fireworks….
….They charged one, and let the other off.

I was going to start up an Apathy Anonymous support group….
….then I thought, Why bother?

I’m trying to come up with a Theatre pun….
….but it would just be a play on words.

I’m not stubborn….
….my way is just better

What’s the most reactive fish in the ocean….
….2NA

What’s brown and sticky?….
….a stick

As a kid, I was made to walk the plank….
….because we couldn’t afford a dog

I have a pet tree….
….kinda like having a pet dog, but the bark is quieter.

I hate those new parents who do all that baby talk….
….Yes I do! Yes I do!

As a scarecrow, people say I’m outstanding in my field….
….but hay, it’s in my jeans

I went into a pet shop and said I’d like to buy a goldfish. The clerk said, “Do you want an aquarium?”….
….I said I didn’t care what star sign it was

My boss told me that I intimidate my co-workers….
….so I just stared at him until he apologized

I love telling Dad jokes….
….He loves them

There are so many scams on the internet these days….
….For $19.95 I can show you how to avoid them

It’s okay, Password….
….I’m insecure too

I went to a can crushing convention….
…seeing all that metal destroyed was just soda pressing

Christmas always sucked when I was a kid….
….I believed in Santa Claus, but unfortunately, so did my parents

I’ll never forget the last thing my Grandpa said to me….
….are you still holding the ladder?

I saw two blind people fighting. I said, “I’m rooting for the one with the knife.”….
….they both ran away.

I invited my math teacher to my house. I told her to get here at ten past one….
….so she turned up at eleven.

I know it’s you going around stealing enclosures….
….whether I’m right or wrong, please don’t take a fence.

I told my friend that I was selling my car….
….he didn’t buy it.

 

Another Line Of One-Liners

Santa Claus now has 10 reindeer. He’s taken on Rudolph’s brother, Henry the brown-nose reindeer.
Henry can run as fast as Rudolph, but his depth perception isn’t as good.
***
If your apartment is hit by a dolphin, DO NOT GO OUT TO SEE IF THE DOLPHIN IS OKAY.
That’s how the hurricane tricks you into coming outside.
***
I told my boyfriend we could watch porn for his birthday and do everything that we saw in the video…
He was super psyched, until I fucked the pizza guy.
***
I learned yesterday that a school of piranhas can strip all the flesh off of a child’s body in less than a minute…
On the downside, I lost my job at the aquarium…
***
My sexual desires have been getting out of control…
But it wasn’t until I spanked a statue that I knew I’d hit rock bottom…
***
I have a condition where I feel the need to steal library books.
I should probably get that checked out.
***
What do you call an IT teacher who has sex with his students?
A PDF File.
***
I speak my mind….
Because it hurts to bite my tongue all the time.
***
Calm down! Take a deep breath –
and hold it for 20 minutes
***
What’s the difference between ignorance and apathy?
Don’t know, don’t care.
***
I just cancelled my gym membership.
I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.
***
I go to the gym so seldom, I still call it James.
***
EXERCISE??! I thought you said ‘Extra fries.’
***
What do you call a book club that’s been stuck on the same book for years….
….The Church
***
As a kid, I used to stick my tongue out to flirt with girls. My parents disapproved.
As an adult, the girl’s parents disapprove.
***
A man dies and goes to heaven. He meets God and asks him “What is the meaning of life?”
“Well, if I told you, it’d ruin the joke”
***
I got pulled over by a policeman… He came to the window and said “Papers…”
I said ‘scissors, I win!’ and drove off!
He must be desperate for a rematch as he’s been chasing me for ages!
***
We hang our petty thieves, and elect the great ones to public office.
Aesop
***

 

2017 A To Z Challenge – Gastronomy

 

Don’t confuse the title of this post with Astronomy. That’s the study of heavenly bodies.  This will be about the study of my body.  It’s far from heavenly, but it has its own gravitation field, and can cause eclipses.

For the first half of my working career, eating and weight gain were no big deal. My office jobs were so sedentary that I didn’t require great numbers of calories.  With two kids to raise, there wasn’t a lot of spare cash available for French fries, junk food or soft drinks, and the wife had not yet become the great cook that she would be a bit later in life.  Although I did manage to go from a stick-thin kid of 135 pounds, to a solid, well-built man of 185, and stayed that way for years.

All that changed when I left the offices, parked my brain at the door, and went to work in the plants. Suddenly, the jobs were so physical that I needed and consumed 3000/3500 calories a day.  The kids grew up, and there was enough cash for the occasional fast food treat, and the wife was described by her brother, a professional chef, as a better cook than him.

185 lbs. crept to 190, then 195, then to 200. I’m a good eater.  The greeter at the grocery end of Wal-Mart says, “Welcome back Archon. It’s always nice to see you.  Two more visits and I can retire to Florida.”  The wife learns 5 new recipes, and I gain 5 new pounds.  Now I’m 205 lbs., and I can see retirement looming, but not my toes.  Changes have to be made!

The wife says that we’re getting older, and the chance of weak bones is increasing, so drink chocolate milk and eat cheese every day. I’m okay if I stay upstairs, in the computer room, but if I go downstairs in the evening, I’m wrestled to the ground by a toasted bagel – or some potato chips that were on sale – or cookies and hot chocolate.  It’s always something.

I have lots of will power. What I need is some won’t power.  The wife thinks I’m obsessive, because I weigh myself every day.  Seven years into retirement, I’ve passed 210, and occasionally 215.  217!  218!  The day I saw 220, I – not ‘panicked’ – but something has to be done.  Something other than letting the white beard grow back in, and buying a Santa suit.

Yesterday, the scale read 209.8, but my blood pressure was 136/78. The diastolic is still low, but I need to do something about the systolic – like lose some more weight.  I don’t want to be the guy in the Christmas song – round John Virgin.  If I was the victim of a shooting, the chalk outline would be a circle.

Thanx for reading the whine I had with my cheese. I’ll see you around….as long as I’m not quite as round next time.   😳

Don’t Bet On It

How do you tell a Polish guy at a cockfight?  He’s the one with the duck.
How do you tell the Italian?  He’s the one betting on the duck.
How do you tell if the mafia is there?  The duck wins!

****

Life is hard, but it’s harder if you’re stupid.

I’ll stop being Grumpy, if you’ll stop being Dopey.

****

An American and a Japanese were sitting on the plane on the way to LA, when the American turned to the Japanese and asked, “What kind of “-ese” are you?” The Japanese, confused and replied, “Sorry but I don’t understand what you mean.”

The American repeated, “What kind of “-ese” are you?” Again, the Japanese was confused over the question. The American, now irritated, then yells, “What kind of –ese are you?? Are you a Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc…” The Japanese then replied, “Oh, I’m Japanese!”

A while later, the Japanese turned to the American and asked, “What kind of “-key” are you?” The American, frustrated, yelled, “What you mean, what kind of “-key” I am?” The Japanese said, “Are you a monkey, donkey or a Yankee?”

***

A lawyer charging a high fee, a lawyer charging
a low fee and Santa Claus were seated around a
table in the center of which was $10,000.

The lights went off. When the lights came back
on the $10,000 was missing. Who took it????

Answer: The lawyer charging the high fee took it
because the other two are figments of your
imagination.

***

How many lawyers does it take to
shingle a roof?

About 3 1/2 if you slice them thin enough.

***

Rules Of Golf

 

1. Ladies are prohibited from touching gentlemen’s balls, either with clubs or hands.
2. All holes must be kept clean.
3. Gentlemen making a hole in one shot must change partners for the second round.
4. In getting down to short strokes, ladies are requested to remain quiet. This co-operation is appreciated by gentlemen players.
5. In games where partners play with one ball only, the players must go off together on each tee.
6. Where the lady player goes off first, the gentleman must not delay the stroke, but continue the play.
7. In cases where the lay is impossible, the lady has the privilege of choosing a new position.
8. When the gentleman finds this is impossible, he may choose another lay, starting at least a club’s length from the hole.
9. In an impossible lay, within six inches of the hole, the hands may be used.
10. Married couples are requested not to meet on the links, but to choose other partners where possible.

Note:  While the management strives to improve the course in every way, it cannot be responsible for balls lost in the bush between certain holes.

 

Just a reminder about proper comportment for next spring’s games.  I know it’s been a while since I played around a round.

It’s Beginning To Look A lot Like Commerce

 

 

 

 

On Tuesday, November 11, after I stood quietly, respectfully, for two minutes, I stopped at a Dollar Store, and picked up a box of biscuits for the dog.  With my receipt, the clerk handed me a postcard sized form.  If I filled it in and dropped it off soon enough at a downtown office, I might earn a seat in the reviewing stand for the local Santa Claus parade – being held tomorrow, Saturday, Nov. 15^th.

I returned home to hear the son announce that he’d picked up his ticket for his firm’s gala Christmas Party – being held next Saturday, Nov. 22.  Dear Ebenezer Scrooge, it’s not even the American Thanksgiving yet, and we’re already hip deep in Christmas.  Welcome to the Festival of Conspicuous Consumption.  The decorations have been out, and the ‘Christmas Sales’ have been on since Halloween.  Even today’s crossword had 3-down – gift-bearing trio = Magi, and – guide for 3-down = star, although, admittedly, those are a little more Spiritual than the rest.

Canada is a bit ahead of The States.  We held our Thanksgiving last month, well before the behemoth that is the Holiday Season was on its tracks and starting to move.  We’ll still be ahead of them in a few years when the commercial season begins about the 4^th of July, and we celebrate our independence on July 1.

Be sure to give the ‘Good Christians’ lots of room to ignore Ramadan, Rosh Hashanah, Diwali, Kwanzaa and secular atheism, and insist that their single day in the next two months of celebrations, is the only valid reason for The Season.

Allow the more militant among them a little extra swing room for when they U-turn, and insist that no-one should be allowed to have fun, or give presents, or engage in spiritual introspection, without their permission and participation.  Their cold, exclusionary Grinch’s hearts are well attuned to this icy time of year.

Armed with my CDs, I’m ready for the day, just over two weeks away, when the radio begins delivering nothing but all-Christmas songs, all the time.  I got a new keg of Bah Humbug on E-Bay, and will be downing the occasional shot to keep me topped up, as I help the wife assemble and bake Christmas Holiday cake and Christmas Holiday cookies.

Choo-Choo

Before the summer ends, I thought I’d take you all on another virtual vacation trip with my parents.  After we had bought that bank-vault on wheels, we took it camping in a variety of places.  One summer, my Dad decided we would concentrate on the area near Bracebridge, Ontario.  Since that fateful summer so many years ago, Bracebridge has installed a theme park called Santa’s Village.  Nowhere near as large and all-encompassing as the all-Christmas, all-the-time town of Frankenmuth, MI., but it still draws its share of tourists.

We pulled into town and located the tourist camp.  The town is on the edge of the Canadian Shield, so there is lots of rock.  The camp itself nestled along the edge of a river at a big bend.  Projecting above the campgrounds was a vee-shaped, hundred foot high, stone outcropping.  After we got set up, my younger brother and I went for a walk.  About a block back, where we entered the camp, the rock sloped down so that you could drive about half-way up the steep grade, and climb to the precipice.

We walked up and stared down at our tiny trailer.  In today’s world, there would be steel railings, high mesh fences, air-bags at the bottom and so many warning signs, that you couldn’t see the magnificent view.  Back then there was common sense and self-reliance, and a hundred foot drop.  Having seen what was to be seen, we felt we should return to camp.  Most people just went back down the middle, but we wandered around one edge.  The front was so sheer that only a professional climber with pitons could ascend.  Around the side, where it was merely 90 feet high, the wall was only an 80 degree slope and had cracks and little ledges.  “Do ya want to climb down?”  And down we started.

We made it down safely, although we could have walked back around and got home sooner.  At the bottom was an eight foot pile of scree, which angled down to the edge of the road.  I stepped off onto it carefully, but my brother dropped the last couple of feet into it, and lost his footing.  He tumbled into me, and the two of us rolled right down onto the road, and nearly got run over.  The fact that it would have been ironic wouldn’t have made the hospital visit any better.

The next day we packed the trailer back up and headed further north.  I asked Dad where we were headed, but he just said, “You’ll see.”  We didn’t exactly get lost, but we didn’t get where Dad wanted to be, and had to turn around and go back, and then onto a different road.  Back before GPS and computer maps, I’m surprised that anyone ever got anywhere.  Without Sacajawea, Lewis and Clarke would still be in the parking lot at a Wal-Mart in Montreal.

We finally turned off the paved road, and headed into the bush.  After a couple of miles, the dirt road T-ed out.  Do we turn left or right?  Dad finally decided on right, and started to drive.  After a while I noticed that there were steel rails not too far off the road.  Dad finally admitted that he had heard from someone, that there was a miniature railway back here, which connected two lakes.  We drove for another mile or so and came to one of them.  The tracks went right out onto a concrete dock.

Apparently, by getting lost, we had come at this railroad from the wrong side, and should have turned left at the T-intersection.  If we had gone the other way, we would have reached a nice little campground and village.  On this end there were a few houses and a tiny general store.  Because we drove the extra miles, we had run out of daylight.  The sun was going down.  No time to drive back through the bush to the other end.  Dad talked to the store owners.  They were heading for bed, but told us we could park on the tiny lawn at the end of the building.

There was no room to open the trailer, so we decided to just sleep in the car.  Fortunately it was a station-wagon.  We hauled the stuff in the back out, and Mom, Dad, and my brother slept (?) in the back.  I jammed my feet under the steering wheel in the front.  We had no mosquito netting and it was way too hot and muggy to roll the windows up, so it was doze, slap, doze, slap all night.  I don’t want to say that the mosquitoes were big, but I saw two of them molesting a seagull.

We were out of the car at first light, and down to the lake with soap and wash cloths.  These little lakes sit in hollows of solid rock, and their average temperature is enough to make penguins order take-out.  The store finally opened at eight AM and we got some coffee and hot chocolate for breakfast.

The tiny train was sitting right across from us, so we went over to have a look.  Unless it got lost when Mom died, we have a photo of me, as a twelve-year-old, stretching up to lean on the walk-rail around the front of the steam engine.  Re-watch Back To The Future III to see Doc Brown, and how big the full-size model is.

Finally a couple of guys came from the nearby cabins and started the boiler on the train.  By ten o’clock it was ready to make its first run of the day.  A locomotive, a fuel tender, (I don’t remember if it burned coal or wood.) three flat-bed freight cars and a passenger car.  The two lakes were only four miles apart, but, to get from one to the other by water, was over fifty miles.  The little railway had been put in to haul lumber, small boats and other freight.

Off we went for a lovely ride through the woods.  When we got to the far end, there was a two-hour hiatus before going back, but at least there was more civilization to wander around and look at while we waited.  Finally, we huffed and puffed and chuffed our way back to the car.  We drove back to Bracebridge and stayed at the same camp for another day to recuperate.  Wrong turns and giant mosquitoes and all, it was an adventure I’m glad I didn’t miss.  I hope you’ve enjoyed rummaging through my fading memories.