Hilarious? Hmmmm, Nope

People are always saying this is hilarious, that is hilarious: it's beginning to really bother me.Some things are funny, sure, but hilarious suggests such an over-the-top reaction to a thing that might, only might, tickle your funny bone it puts me off.Plus, not to sound like a grouch here, but I don't think you get to say "Oh, listen to this, it's hilarious."I mean, the person himself has to decide what's funny, no? Otherwise it's just the hard sell. It's like what advertisers, or the media, do with sex vis-à-vis young people:They take it away from them, take away what is rightfully theirs to find out about, trick it up and try selling it back to them.It makes me feel a mite queasy, you know?

O Crappy Tree O Crappy Tree

For the last nine years I've been the poor schmuck assigned the task of buying the tree.No one else had the time they always said.  My youngest, who has had a real eye for balance and proportion ever since he first picked up a crayon to draw a Ninja Turtle, was off at college since Christmas of '02 and of course Old Dave has never cared. He always just wants to do his Sudoku.My problem doing the job alone is this: I’m not good at it.One year I got some weird kind of tree with needles that LOOKED super soft but turned out to feel like asbestos fibers when you touched them. Plus they were so closely grouped on their branches that the ornaments you tried hanging on them ended up lying sideways.Another year I'm told I got a tree that was way too small - who can tell when you’re there in the lot with no indoor walls or ceilings to give you a sense of scale?Plus I  didn’t see the part on the tree's side that was sort of scooped-out looking, probably because I have a part on my own side that looks that way, a spine that, once it turned 50, started taking a right-hand turn out of the lumbar gate, then changed its mind and went left, then righted itself to head  north again. I'd show you the X-ray but it’s too disturbing. My tailor screamed when he saw it and he's a strong man. “God! Do you know what that LOOKS like?” he said but I wouldn’t let him go on. Bad enough knowing how I think it looks: like a fat worm, writhing. Like a slug, failing the sobriety test.Anyway, that  year when College Boy came home  December 23^rd he took one look at the tree and said “Oh.”Then  “Hmmmm.”     Then “Mum, don’t be mad.  I’m just going to go out and get another tree.”I wasn't mad. I'm never mad. My job in life is to make the first stab at a thing, so others can then come in and point out the problems.He went out then and there and got a new tree, then took every light and ornament off the slug-tree and dragged it out on the porch.....Where began our new custom of having a tree on the porch, which is now a fake tree that comes in several parts and that you jam together using its several daggerish stake-through-the-heart elements.The year I first came home with THAT one was a big hit. “Old TT!” shouted College Boy’s father. "Buying just the essentials again I see!”That’s a joke between us whose origins lie here, two posts back.Come back tomorrow for the rest of the saga.. But the holidays, man. Crazy-making or what?

Leakage

We have leakage here tonight – a so-called catastrophic water main break is dumping eight million gallons of water per hour into the Charles River and the cops are going up and down the streets with bullhorns telling people 'Don’t drink! Do NOT drink the water!And speaking of leakage, I was at my local supermarket an hour ago taking  pictures of the Lays Potato Chips that boast half the calories on account of the secret ingredient Olestra, trade name Olean. I couldn’t believe they were back on the market when I first saw them on the shelves last week.  Ten, maybe twelve years ago my then-8^th grader talked me into buying them on sort of a dare. They were called Wow! chips and as the label said had this magical artificial fat Olestra. The only problem: it also  said right on the package, “May Cause Anal Leakage.”Now kids twelve think everything is funny and mothers of kids twelve sometimes think so too if they don’t get out enough. Suffice it say we bought the darn things - and spent a whole weekend tearing upstairs to the bathroom.Our friend the Internet tells me they were taken off the market years ago but if that’s so then what’s the deal with this new product?  When I saw these chips for the first time last week I grabbed a package and sent it right off to my former twelve-year-old as a birthday present. “For the good times,” my card read, but now I’m actually wondering : If we can’t drink the water AND we can’t eat the chips what are we going to do for fun tonight?(How do they do it? the package asks. Nothin' to it really.All it takes is a credulous public and a hell of a lot of nerve.

You're Done All Right

People are so dumb. I was at the UPS shipping center and I wasn’t sure but I thought the young guy behind the counter had sort of snorted when he saw the address label on my package. He had!  "I hate that outfit," he said. "I’d never do business with Amazin’." "With who?"  said I. "With Amazin’ who you’re sending to here. I’d never buy nothin’ from them.""But I’m not buying from them; they’re buying from me. This is a book I wrote that somebody ordered."  "Then Amazin' should pay for the shipping!" "But it doesn’t work that way. The customer pays AND I pay; and they make me send it by UPS!""So, but it’s costing you $17 to send this thing and that’s the cheapest slowest rate! What are you selling it for?""Nine bucks."So see? Dumb and dumber. It’s like an epidemic! ;-)

Omar Sheriff, Porn Star?

Omar Sheriff Porn Star? I thought he was a porn star anyway when I saw the email with that name on the top, an obvious riff on the name of actor Omar Shariff. “Oh right,” I thought, “click on the link and here’s some guy in nothing but a pair of chaps and a cowboy hat.”

But I was wrong:

"My name is Omar Sheriff, a merchant in Dubai who has been diagnosed with Esophageal Cancer that defiled all forms of medicine so that I have only  a few months to live acc  ording to medical experts."

Ok first of all I like the “acc!” – A nice touch for a guy with throat problems. And who hasn’t wanted to 'defile' all forms of medicine? Write graffiti on the examining room walls? Stick “Kick Me” signs to the doctors’ backs?

"Though I am very rich, I was never generous. I was always hostile to people and only focused on my siness as that was the only thing I cared for."

Well sure but sinus trouble is terrible! Who can blame him for focusing on it?

Of course he regrets all this today:

"Now that God as called me, I have willed most of my  assets to my family and friends. So far, I have also distributed money to some charity organizations but the last of my money which no one knows of is the HUGE CASH DEPOSIT OF TWENTY FOUR MILLION DOLLARS that I have with a Security Company in Europe for safe-keeping. I will want you to help me collect this, deposit and disburse it to charity organizations so please send me a mail to indicate if you will assist me in this disbursement of this money, 20% of which I have set aside for you. While I await to hear from you, remain blessed. Signed, Omar Sheriff."

And he gives his email as youareasucker@hotmail.com and OK yes I changed that just in case some of you crazy kids try clicking on it and get swept up by who-knows-what. I myself however am going to write him right now and, since he’s so rich, ask him to just jet on over here and leave my  cut in small bills under the porch.  And who knows, maybe when I click there really will be a picture of some young cowboy in chaps or not. :-)