I am a 72-year-old retired journalist, busy recovering from a lifelong career as an unretired journalist. This year marks a half century of my scratching out little fables about life. My interests include genealogy, humour and music. I live in a little blue shack in Canada and spend most of my time trying to stay out of trouble. I am not that good at it. I also spent years teaching journalism. Poor state of journalism today: My fault. I have a family I don't deserve, a dog that adores me, and two cars the junk yard refuses to accept. My prized possessions include my old guitar and a razor my Dad gave me when I was 14 and which I still use when I bother to shave. Oh, and my great-great-grandfather's blackthorn stick he brought from Ireland in the 1850s. I have only one opinion but it is a good one: People take too many showers.
When a man starts his day and heads out to complete a few errands, he does not expect disaster to strike. But strike me it did this afternoon when I discovered my favourite grocery store had hiked its price of peanut butter by 50 cents a jar. At the rate I go through peanut butter, it didn’t take me long to realize what a hit this was going to inflict on our food budget.
And while I don’t begrudge the store the extra 50 cents, it was the lack of notice that sent me into a mini shock. They didn’t phone me to let me know that the price, which had been the same since back in the day when John Wayne still went by his real name, Marion Morrison, was about to shoot up. No letter in the mail. Not a text message, no email. No Facetime chat on my phone. Nothing. That’s what is so disappointing.
So now that the one-kilogram jars are out of my reach, I noticed they hadn’t gotten around to increasing the price of the two-kilogram buckets so I lugged a couple of them home, though I pulled a muscle in my left arm dragging them to my trunk.
With enough orange juice and peanut butter and with the passage of time, I will get over this. But I have been let down.
And I have to admit, I don’t like being let down.
Also, like a slap in the face, they tacked an extra dollar onto the price of raspberry lemonade.
A man’s life progresses through only a few predictable stages: sex, suds, and success. But try as he might to avoid it, he will eventually end up in the final and most important phase: slippers.
Whatever priorities he might have chased down the decades, there will eventually be only one main question to be answered in his life: Has anybody seen my slippers?
Slippers have been important to me since my 20s but now they form one of my key essentials for life along with water, air and potato chips. A few years ago, a glorious pair of bedroom footwear sat under the Christmas tree for me. The two main events in a man’s life are the birth of his children and new slippers for Christmas.
Some free relationship advice: To win a man’s love, get him slippers for Christmas. And don’t cheap out.
My new slippers and I enjoyed our days and nights together, even on out-of-town trips as they went everywhere with me. Then suddenly one day, things changed. The slippers stretched into almost a size too big for me and they began to feel like flip flops. They became, inexplicably, way too big. I began tripping when I wore them.
I tripped up the stairs and down the stairs and sometimes even on simple strolls from the living room to the potato chip cupboard. If it was possible for them to trip me when I was standing still, I am sure they did that too. I stopped wearing them in the bathtub. Too dangerous.
“These slippers are going to be the end of me,” I yelled to anyone, several times a day. The pets started fleeing when they saw me slip on my indoor footwear as they knew an emotional eruption would soon follow. I began to call them my Killer Slippers and recently they sent me flying headfirst into a wooden chair which carved me up like a jack o’ lantern.
Only one solution and it would be drastic: Ditch the slippers. I asked for a new pair for Christmas and arrangements were made. New slippers wrapped and ready for service, Sir! Yes Sir, Sir!
Yesterday I was cleaning up the garage and found some other slippers. They fit perfectly. Like long lost friends. I looked more closely at the Killer Slippers. They belong to my son who has bigger feet than I have. He abandoned them years ago: They were too big for him.
Here are the five stages of a man’s life: sex, suds, success, slippers. And senility. I had put the big ones on by accident one day years ago.
Sometimes life is hard for the human male. I won’t go through the list of ways it sucks but, you know, breadwinning, hiding emotions, early death, and all that, not to even start on baldness, bellies and bad breath. I think about these things every day and feel badly about my plight as a man.
But after learning today about the life – more specifically the sex life – of a certain kind of spider, the name of which I can’t remember, I am feeling a little better about myself. These guys are a little over-the-top sex-crazed, in other words, normal males, but lovemaking for them is a bit riskier than to remember to buy some protection. The problem is, their girlfriends, after it’s all over, literally eat their lovers (I said, literally).
So if you want to have sex with one of these hotties, and these guys really do want to, you have to have a strategy if you don’t to “die in her arms tonight” as one pop singer once ridiculously sang. The strategy that sometimes works is to get the hell out of there as soon as it’s all over. This is not easy, but can be accomplished.
However, these spiders have two penises which might sound like a good thing but when you’re trying to make a run for it, could slow you down. Especially since these penises are located on the spider’s head. “Hey, is that a tophat Fred or are you just happy to see me?” they might be heard to be asked. “Eff off,” replies Fred.
However, and we may as well stick with Fred from now on, Fred does the nasty and then, to get away from his lover and would be consumer, chews off his penises and runs away as fast as he can. How you can chew off your penises when they are located on your head is a mystery but I guess spiders know how to do that.
Now, if after all that, Fred could just go home and have a shower, apply a bandage or two and sit down to read his favourite book, Itsy Bitsy Spider, that would be fine. But instead, after he turns around, head all bloody and suddenly penis-less, he has to viciously fight off a long line of other males who just can’t wait to get in on this action. Because Fred’s penises are still inside his lover and doing their job of impregnating her even though Fred has left the building, and if his two former members are interrupted, no baby Freddies next spring. Out of four males spiders who go a courtin’, only one makes it out alive, if penis-less.
But I have to be honest, I think Fred’s life probably just got a whole lot better now that romance is off the table.
Now, as bad as all this is, it could be worse. There is a caterpillar somewhere out there that has to contend with a wasp which stings it and eats it and this guy’s only hope is to fling his poop as far away from him as possible so that the bee won’t find him. In human terms, that would be like throwing your bowel movements 75 feet away from you while lying on your belly on the ground.
Oh, what the heck, my life as a male seems rather quiet and uneventful, you know, so no more complaints from me. It’s Fred that has the real headaches even if his head is lighter than before. But at least he won’t get called a dickhead anymore. (Ya, I went there.)
I have invented a few words in my time. You’re welcome.
Among my finest is the word “geneosity”. This is to be used to describe an act – and the person who does it – of a very generous man (me) who is willing to share his genius with the world.
My latest breakthrough? My wife melted a whole bunch of nearly expired candles and put them into a jar with the idea she would use that candle wax up. But, how to insert a wick. Hmmm.
Geneosity strikes again.
“Why not stick a birthday candle down the middle of the goo,” I said. Works like a charm and it feels like my birthday every day.
Now I need to get to work on a new word. Something to describe an amazing genius who drives around in an old beat up Chevy with a bullet hole in the back bumper. Idiot has already been taken but I might work some form of it into my new creation.
To the man or woman or alien who parked beside me at the mall today: I have decided not to invite you to my next party. I am impressed, however, that you were able to get your little crapbox wedged up so close to my driver’s door I couldn’t even squeeze my body between the two vehicles (having downed too many chocolate bars and sodas) let alone open my door to get into my car and drive away.
I haven’t been able to squeeze into a space that small since I was ten years old.
I waited and waited for you to return because I wanted to address the situation with you but you were off being selfish somewhere else and I finally had to do something. I opened my passenger door and reclined both front seats as far back as they would go. Then I slithered my expansive frame across the seats, my muddy boots leaving slime across my dashboard and windshield in the process. The boots got stuck somewhere along about then and I began to wonder, if this experiment didn’t work, whether or not I would be able to extricate myself from the car at all or if this might be a job for the fire department and the jaws of life.
Finally, somehow, I got my feet on the driver’s side floor and my ass in the seat, started the car, and delicately pulled away, noticing, as I did, that the passenger side of your car was all banged in as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. If I had had a sledgehammer with me, you might have had a few more notches on your tin belt.
Now I am not a forensic anything and can barely spell forensic, but my forensic inspection of the beat-up side of your little tin box leads me to believe that this is not the first time you have jammed someone in and some of those other drivers, once in their cars, have slammed their doors against yours as a kind of thank you gesture.
I have one question for you. Have you thought of trading in your jalopy for a bicycle? You can park those suckers anywhere.
Our little dog Toby has become the World’s Greatest Peeanist.
When he discovered that his nightly pee at 10 p.m. earned him a bedtime snack, he developed an overactive bladder. For a long time, he needed two bedtime pees in the backyard. A few months ago, only three pee trips would bring him relief.
And last night, he adjusted his routine to include a fourth bedtimer, this one at 7 p.m.
Tonight, he is again on track for four backyard bushwhackers. He is startled to discover that only his final, final pee wins him some kibble but the gambit pays off as it is not always the same person who escorts him on all four pee offs so he scores additional treats just often enough to keep him scheming.
There is a dog park in Nova Scotia, Canada, which is enforcing a new, quite sensible rule: No Barking Allowed.
The campaign has been very successful. When the dogs enter the park, they immediately suppress their urge to bark. Apparently, it is quite something to see. Unfortunately for the dog owners, their pets bark their heads off all the way home to make up for the enforced silence.
Emboldened by the success of their barking ban, the organizers of that endeavour are now taking their zeal to other locations with the hopes of halting vomiting in hospitals, laughing in children’s playgrounds and singing in churches. Thank heavens we have concerned citizens, also known as retired busybodies with nothing better to do, to deal with these nuisances.
As for me, there is a flock of Canada geese that fly directly over our house twice a day and their honking is driving me mad. Therefore, drawing inspiration from the Nova Scotian barking patrol, I am working on erecting a great big sign: No Honking Allowed.
What kind of a day did you have yesterday? Better or worse than this guy’s?
Walter “Snowball” Williams, 78, woke up in a body bag at a funeral home in Mississippi. He had been pronounced dead the night before but when they went to embalm him, he started kicking like crazy in the bag.
So much for not having a snowball’s chance in hell.
The coroner had an explanation. His pacemaker likely stopped working and after he was bagged, it started working again at some point.
I am not a doctor, coroner or embalmer, but if this actually happens, might it not be a good idea to check a guy’s pacemaker before you plant him?
Good old Snowball. I hope he outlives the coroner and all the employees at the funeral home.
Give ‘er hell, Snowball. You’ve gotten a second chance!
I was in the offices of a bank today and noticed something funny. Behind the smiling tellers at the long counter were a number of big windows, must have been eight or nine feet tall. About four of them.
The vertical blinds were drawn on them all so no one could see out – or in. But in front of the windows were three huge flatscreen TVs, all connected so that they sort of operated as one big screen, with images able to appear on all three at the same time. I don’t know how that works but then again, I don’t know how marshmallows are made so I’m easily impressed.
In any case, the photo that appeared across all three screens was a lovely shot of a blue sky with white clouds floating in it. And I thought: “Why not just open the blinds and let everyone see actual sky and clouds.”
But what do I know about banking? (See marshmallow mystery above). It’s the strangest thing to me, now, how businesses are using expensive flat screen TVs as wallpaper. I guess you don’t have to use as much glue that way.
I wonder who invented the marshmallow and who came up with the name.
I often get asked how I made my fortune. It is an honest question non-wealthy people pose, and it doesn’t bother me at all to explain the path I took from rags to riches.
I left home at eighteen with seven cents in my pocket and the clothes on my back. And over the next five decades, through hard work and guile, I managed to amass more money than I can count. Someday I will write a book detailing how I did it but for now, I will share one little secret.
You might think a man of my elevated status would never need to go to a grocery store but Warren Buffett still drives his car through the drivethrough at McDonald’s so it’s important not to lose the common touch. Another thing about the elites I run with is, far from being tightwads, we like to spend, sometimes with wild abandon.
In the store today, I saw a sign advertising three bags of potato chips for four dollars. That seemed like a bargain but here’s your first wealth tip: It is no bargain at all if all you want is one bag of chips, which is all I wanted (and one more than my doctor wants me to have). So, I ignored the bargain and bought only one bag. It cost me $1.34. If I had taken advantage of the special sale, each of the three bags would have cost me only $1.333333333 (to infinity).
So, yeah, call me reckless, but having made my fortune, my plan is to spend every red cent – literally, in this case, one cent at a time – before I die. As you can see, with my wild abandon ways, I am well on my way to achieving my goal.
I threw out the rule book and spent .777777777 of a cent (to infinity) more than I needed to, he said with a satisfied look on his face.
