The show supports a guy having multiple women. Brigham Young, bring ‘em on.
Think about it. Twenty-five women and one guy. All televised. Big ratings. Hell, I was riveted every Monday night.
Knowing how I am, I put myself in the position of one of the twenty-five, seemingly lobotomized (but beautiful, if not surgically enhanced) women. Not only is he is dating me, but he is checking out twenty-four other women and I have to agree to live with these gals and watch my potential husband take them out, kiss them, and spend the night with them.
In the real world, if this were happening, no woman in her right mind would put up with this, let alone let the rest of the world watch her be so stupid. Let’s face it. Women are competitive and territorial. We are.
So there has to be another catch (or not). Maybe the contenders are hoping they don’t get chosen so that they might be the next Bachelorette and karmically put twenty-five guys through the ringer. Or perhaps it’s just for the notoriety and exposure.
Speaking of rings (and exposure), how about rocks? In “Rock of Love,” Bret Michaels, an over forty-something rock star bachelor, drags a gaggle of overexposed, inflated, and double-cleavaged females through the mud (and his bedroom), and finally selects one lucky girl. He is on his third, so what happened to the other two? The first makes cameo appearances on his subsequent shows and helps him decide on the new girls. (Yes, I watch this stuff like a bad accident.)
And there are shows about a bisexual models looking for love (not fair at all, it doubles her chances, doubles her pleasure, and doubles her fun). And bisexual twins who might choose someone the other one wants (is blood really thicker than…?).
Only one couple has made it through the “Bachelor”/”Bachelorette” ordeal (Trista and Ryan) and are a couple of kids along in their marriage. She was shunned in “The Bachelor,” became “The Bachelorette,” and after being burned, caught herself a hot fireman (who actually turned out to be a nice guy).
So this latest bachelor, single father Jason Mesnick, seemed like a really good guy too. He was devastated on the last “Bachelorette” and the world wished he had been picked, wanted him back, and desperately wanted to watch him get lucky in love and live happily ever after. Long story short (really short), he chose the girl we all wanted him to pick, proposed, spun her around enough to make me throw up, joyously jumped in the pool with her and his mini-me-three-year-old son to celebrate, and six weeks later broke up with her on national TV because there wasn’t any chemistry anymore. Then he begged for a chance with the girl he didn’t pick. WTF?
Are we buying this? You couldn’t pay me enough to allow a guy to break up with me in front of the whole world. Not at twenty-five and not even at fifty-five. And the originally shunned bachelorette number two with the crazy eyes actually said, “Sure, let’s give it a shot,” which gives credence to my lobotomy theory. Yes, there would be a shot (with a Colt .45), but not another freaking date.
The rejected fiancée is now spinning herself around on “Dancing with the Stars,” so I guess “reality” recovery happens in warp time.
Like Mulder, I want to believe. We all do. It’s romantic when two people, destined to be together, find each other in this world. If we have to live voyeuristically and vicariously, safely wrapped up in our robes at home, then so be it. But something tells me that if I turn off my television set, get dressed, and go out, I might have a better chance of finding love myself.
Copyright 2009 Robyn Justo
* * *
Robyn Justo is a freelance writer who is living, breathing, and learning the new rules of dating over 40. Experienced, but by no means an expert, she shares the frustrations, triumphs, and general hysteria of single life on the Monterey Peninsula. “The Expiration Date” addresses the lighter side of dating later in life. The names have been changed to protect the innocent (and the guilty). Robyn also occasionally hosts local social events for those brave-hearted single folks who actually have the courage to come out of the house.

Having never kept an actual journal, Mollen writes these columns in retrospect. For each column, he chooses a different day in his lifetime, and writes about it as though it were today. A particular entry may be about a day last week, or Halloween 1980, or the day he was born. Some of you may be asking, “But how would he have been able to write a journal entry on the day he was born?” To you, Mollen says: “Lighten up. It’s a humor column.”

Trip Into this World Calls for a Travel Agent

Journal entry: May 4, 1969 (age 0)

This has been a long, exhausting trip. I’ve spent nine months aboard the mother ship, waiting for my scheduled arrival today. The timing worked out well, because today also is my birthday.
Like any long trip, this one has been full of hassles.
At the very beginning, I was cellular, but couldn’t get phone service.
I developed a headache at some point, presumably after I had developed a head.
There was never enough legroom, despite my frequent kicks of complaint.
There were no window seats available, so there was nothing to look at outside.
The mother ship also lacked in-flight movies, forcing me to settle for muffled audio from Laugh-In episodes and Nixon speeches.
I kept trying to order some pretzels and a double martini, but all I ever got was the same boring casserole of essential nutrients.
After a few months of this, cabin fever settled in. Eventually, I was so bored and upset I just curled up in the fetal position and sucked my thumb.
So I was glad when it became obvious today that the long journey was coming to an end. There was a lot of turbulence during the descent, which made my head spin a little. Luckily, I was seated near the door, and I jostled into position, using a built-in tether to drag my luggage from the overhead compartment.
The exit itself was too disturbing and painful to describe in detail. It was like flying into Newark.
But the hassles were not over. The security people at the gate were WAY overzealous, particularly during the strip search. “Was this really necessary?” I wondered, when I had thoughtfully planned ahead by traveling nude?
Heedless of this show of good faith on my part, the team of uniformed heavies searched me for contraband toes, hosed me down, and attached an institutional bracelet to my wrist for identification. Apparently they think my name is “Boy Mollen.” No one listened as I repeatedly screamed out the name I had already chosen for myself, which is “WAAAIGGGGHHHH.”
On top of everything else, they lost my luggage. Now what am I supposed to do for food and hydration?
The answer came when I was handed to a person with a big smile and a familiar voice that said, “Hello, Timothy!” She seemed really happy to see me, so I let it slide that she too did not know my real name.
Then I was handed to another smiling face, with a deeper voice that I also recognized. He touched a finger to my nose and said, “Hi there, little one.” Feeling a bit jet-lagged, I started to fall asleep on his shoulder. As I did, I heard one of the uniformed people ask how many other kids there were at “home.” The two familiar voices laughed a little and said, “Five. All boys.”
“Hmm, that should be fun,” I thought, and drifted off to sleep, feeling safe and warm.

***

Tim Mollen is a syndicated humor columnist. He is also fond of jam. You can contact him or read more of his work at www.timmollen.com

I went for a walk in the woods today-or more accurately, I went for a hike in the woods. 

I enjoy walks. They allow me to exercise without me even being aware of the fact that I’m exercising.
One rule that I’m very committed to following when I walk is the “no incline” rule. If I feel the slightest hint of an incline on the surface I’m walking on, the muscles in my legs immediately file the following protest with the head office: “According to Chapter 17, paragraph 6.2 of the WALK Agreement, any surface with an incline greater than 0% is considered a hill, and therefore not allowable under the Terms and Conditions spelled out in Chapter 22, paragraph 8.2.c.ii through 8.2.c.iv. Any violation of this agreement may result in an immediate muscle cramp.”
But today I went for a hike, which meant that any incline ranging from 1% to 135% was fair game. Hiking any incline steeper than that would be considered repelling-in every sense of the word.
Since I was able to write this column, it’s quite obvious that I survived the ordeal. But I am now dealing with a very disgruntled body. In an attempt to re-establish total body-mind unity, I requested my body to help me describe the difference between a walk and a hike. Here was my body’s immediate (and unedited) response.
The difference between a walk and a hike is like the difference between getting a full body massage from a licensed masseuse on a comfortable massage table and getting a full body massage from a licensed semi-truck on uncomfortable pavement.
One of the phenomenal perks of living in the Great Northwest is easy access to thousands of miles of hiking trails. Ten minutes after backing my car out of the driveway, I was standing at the trailhead attempting to stretch the muscles in my body. I allowed them to officially file their protest, and then we disappeared into the vast wilderness.
As several hikers passed me, it didn’t take long to realize that I was not wearing the latest in designer hiking apparel. And after several snubbings from my fellow hikers, I began to feel inferior, and my hiking fun-o-meter dropped dangerously close to the red zone.
Just as I was about to turn around and slink back towards my car, I realized that nature didn’t have the same discriminators. It didn’t care what I was wearing. In fact, it didn’t even care if I was wearing. And that was all the reassurance I needed to forge ahead.
The other thing that didn’t take long for me to realize was that I was monumentally out of shape. The average person’s lungs hold about five liters of air, whereas I appeared to have the same lung capacity of a small rodent, which holds about one milliliter of air. I was so completely out of breath that I couldn’t find it, let alone catch it.
I had heard about this phenomenon during exercising called the “burn.” The burn apparently occurs early in a person’s workout routine, when every muscle in their body feels like it’s on fire. The good news is that the burn is only temporary, and it’s immediately followed by a burst of increased energy and drive. The bad news is that when my body reached the burn stage it just kept burning.
In my younger days, I was a very competitive person. I lettered in three sports. I did not like to lose at anything, whether it was running a race or determining which one of my two brothers and me could hold our breath the longest. I always managed to find enough reserve in my tank to finish strong in whatever event I competed in.
So as I was hiking, I would occasionally hear someone approaching from behind me and my competitive nature, rusty from dormancy, instinctively tried to kick in. Unfortunately, when I hit the accelerator, it was obvious that there was nothing left in my tank but cobwebs.
The first to humiliate me was a pack of cub scouts trying to earn their plant and wildlife badges by identifying various species of flora and fauna. “There’s an indigenous Mossback Bipedal.” A scout the size of a sapling was pointing his right twig in my direction. The other small trees erupted in full-lung laughter as each passed by me. It was too much to hope for an American Black Bear to suddenly appear on the trail in front of them. I’d like to see which snot-nosed sapling would be able to earn his wildlife badge by pointing to the snarling fauna while shrieking, “There’s an Ursus Americanus” without wetting himself uncontrollably.
Later, as I was traversing a series of perilous switchbacks, I heard this high-pitched raspy voice directly behind me: “On your left.” Before I was able to figure out what “On your left” meant, this frail, spindly, grey-haired lady blew past me. I don’t know how old she was, but I would bet she was probably hiking these hills when the old-growth trees were considered new growth.
Now I have nothing against old ladies. I am married to a beautiful lady who some day will turn into a beautiful old lady. I am very respectful of the elderly-as long as their behavior is age appropriate. This lady was certainly not acting hers. I can just imagine the discussion later that evening at the local retirement center’s bingo night.
Eunice: “So, Harriet, what did you do this afternoon?”
Bingo Caller: “G43.”
Harriet: “I sat in my rocker listening to Perry Como while crocheting a pair of baby socks for my great-granddaughter. What about you, Mildred?”
Bingo Caller: “D13.”
Mildred: “I watched my soaps. That Doctor Filbert is a handsome dish. If he were my doctor, I’d become a hypochondriac. What did you do, Eunice?”
Bingo Caller: “I27.”
Eunice: “I hiked up the side of a mountain using my new handheld GPS navigation system while listening to my MP3 player.”
Bingo Caller: “E32.”
Harriet: “Did you pass anyone?”
Bingo Caller: “M29.”
Eunice: “Pack of scouts and a man who looked like Welton Carp did just before he stroked out. BINGO!”
I have found that communing with nature by oneself is extremely rewarding. You get to enjoy the relaxing sounds of nature. You get to set your own pace. And you have no witnesses who will ridicule you in front of family and friends that you got passed “on your left” by a granny.
I’m going to take a breather from writing this column and address a pet peeve of mine. Until I went for my hike, I did not even consider this a peeve, let alone a pet peeve.
When I was at the trailhead today, there was this plastic bag dispenser. If you are hiking with a canine companion, you are supposed to carry a plastic bag with you in case he/she decides to squat in the middle of the trail and drop a gomer. It’s not fair for some unsuspecting hiker to step in your dog’s gomer. A commercial pressure washer that produces 5,000 PSI can instantaneously peel eight layers of paint off the side of a house. But once you get dog gomer packed deep into the complex tread patterns of your multi-grip rugged-terrain hiking boots, it is not leaving.
So for all you hikers with dogs, I’ve modified a very famous quote uttered by every wannabe environmentalist: “Take only memories (and plastic bags with your dog’s gomers), so others can leave only non-gomer footprints.”
Back to my column.
When I finished the hike and returned to the trailhead, I was both exhausted and elated. There is something both peaceful and therapeutic about communing with nature. Henry David Thoreau wrote: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Since I’m about 150 years too late to have a chat with Mr. Thoreau, I’ll have to draw my own conclusion to this famous quote from his book, Walden. After all, he lived in the woods for several years, whereas I lived in the woods for several hours.
A visit to nature is cleansing. We walk into the woods carrying a forty-pound backpack stuffed with stress, problems, worries, and burdens. Every aspect of our lives is complicated and complex. There are no easy answers or simple solutions. Life weighs heavy on us. And although we each have our own unique ways of dealing with this reality, the objective is universal: to protect what is internally meaningful against all that is externally meaningless.

***

Check out L. Dustin Twede’s website at www.ldustintwede.com. He can be reached at ddtwede@yahoo.com.

“Yo! Coco!” Chet’s salty voice vaulted out of Coco’s voicemail with a full-gainer and half-twist, and stuck the landing in her good albeit nondominant ear. “Me and Violet are quits. Can I see you?”

Coco froze, an odd response during this heat wave. She melted onto the sofa, her emotions boiling over, thus soaking the middle cushion. There they absorbed the vagaries of her situation AND a stubborn coffee stain, before slithering back into her body as easily as orange jello without the fruit cocktail.

So, he and Violet were through? Coco supposed it was possible. But, for oil in tents and porpoises, he was a mean little Chet, with a lung history of violets.

A natural multi-tasker, Coco cradled the phone and a nursed a newborn hope, while do-si-doing with a full-figured panic that it was just the same old Chet. Bell curves clanged warnings in her head! Probably in the temporal lobes. But she swallowed her pride, raised her hopes, and lowered her standard deviations to his level, though she knew first-hand that his deviations were far from standard. Should she take him back?

On one hand, Chet had scarred their history with gallons of stabbing pain. But on the other side of the coin, could a saprophytic rebirth of their tangled crimson emotions, as such, spawn the fiercely winged seedling of hope?

Yes, indeedy! Her innermost heart of hearts spasmed with the honeyed hope that in the blackened dungeon of Chet’s primrose pathos, a toothless ancient languished in the chains of his vociferously silent bosoms of pain, pretty darn hungry for rescue. Her mind roared like a rogue caterpillar down the velvet façade of the past, tasting memories that were, oh, so bittersweet. With a hint of lime.

Despite posted municipal ordinances prohibiting antelope in urban dwellings, Coco found herself caught on the horns of a dilemma. Bummer. But hey, that can happen with exotic pets.

So she set off to present the dilemma to her shrink. With co-pay in one hand and cattle prod in the other, she arrived at his office, in a medical center called Thoracic Park. There she unbottled her feelings, poured out her heart, recapped her progress, and spit out a residual mucilage from her Inner Child, obviously ill. The therapist probed her psyche with aplomb, and his ear with a ballpoint pen, quickly getting to the point.

THERAPIST: As I recall, when you began treatment, your life was Chet.

COCO: Yes, but I’ve come to own my past, my feelings, my power, and even a used Hyundai.

T: (Grunts in a healing manner)

C: I’ve learned to set goals, boundaries, and also my hair. And last week I made my virgin jump with the local chapter of BITCHES.

T: You have a virgin?

C: No, I have a dilemma. It’s tied outside to a parking meter.

T: Would you elucidate?

C: What, you’re asking me out? We BITCHES are the Broads in Transition from Codependence to Hedonistic Skydiving!

T: Whatever bakes your cake or shakes your cookies, snookie. Lookie, Chet preyed on you.

C: Holy Chet! I never thought he prayed at all.

T: You’re a bipedal rescue squad with the cellular configuration of a Coco doormat. I just hope this Chetty phonecall doesn’t make you fatuous.

C: (Feels her waist.) Hmm, I do have a bit of a muffin top….

T. then sighted data from a double-blind study to correlate Coco’s progress with the likely duration of her insurance coverage.

Leaving the session, she was drained-emotionally, financially, and molecularly, as adverbs go. But upon removing her morose-colored glasses, she realized the dilemma was gone! A good thing, for the beastie was never housebroken. Now, her burgeoning self-hood burst from the bucolic belly of her angst, pausing to coagulate her thoughts before she began the final leg home on foot.

She used to savor the cycles of life-mostly Krebbs, some lunar and Perma-Press. In fact, she loved cycling so much, she trained rigorously last year for the Ortho-Cyclen, only to discover it was a birth control pill, not a bike race. Oh, the heartbreak! She began to realize that “safe sex” meant more than an evening alone with the small kitchen appliances.

Then Chet happened. She remembered what a hot Chet he was, snaking his way up the corpulent ladder, leasing dolphin-friendly cubicles to disinterred Social Security clerks. But he was a predator in disguise-the classic wolf in cheap clothing, trying to look cool in a unisex His ‘n Hirsuite with wide lapels.

It was Chet in the daytime, more Chet at night. He flexed his rippling biases and rode her seething caverns in a supercilious scree of emetic emerald passion. No, really. He called her a “lucky little love lacuna,” an alliteration meant as a backhanded condiment. Each intellectual satyriasis left them basking in the afterglow of prophylactic acid buildup in their striated muscles. They watched the president’s speech televised from, what was that room? The Offal Office? They even dabbled in cross-dressing, wildly mixing Thousand Island with French.

They’d spent time in states of mania, confusion, and chaos, eventually settling in Oklahoma. Coco suspected he was a cart-carrying member of the elite Illiterati. For, when she took a job in the criminal penal system, he went ape about her not touching nobody’s penals.

And when she confessed to being a Sufi proselyte, the idiot anapestered her for days. (“Please, oh, BABE, take me NOW!”) He wanted to do “them kinky Sufi moves” on a mat. But she was hip to the ways of linguists. They might tolerate a plain mat for a while, but eventually they want it onomatopoeia.

Then everything had fallen apart at the beach, when she caught him in a graphic, Violet scene. There he was, in a satin paralegal brief, while Violet wore a skimpy French diphthong and Army Surplus sandals with Achilles heels and plunging toe cleavage. What did punctilious social etiquette dictate? And could Coco transcribe it? She was riveted where she stood. Not an easy feat on sand.

Well, Chet hit the fan! How odd that he brought one to the beach. Under all the bad Chet, Coco still saw a scared, chicken Chet, yet feared their love was secretly clandestined to fail.

But, enough already with the backstory. Now, back in her apartment, Coco gave him a ring, i.e., she called him, e.g., Chet.

“Babe,” he begged, “take me back. I’m, like, so nonviolet now.”

Not a prolix chic, she hissed, “Heck, yes, I guess, Chet. Let’s.” Six syllables sailed in succinct and sebaceous sibilance across the symbiotic silence separating their alliterative, non-lisping souls.

“Atta girl. Four o’clock. The Moebius strip mall. Bring cash.”

They hung up, and Coco spied the lilting, dark notes of a Baltimore Oreo, migrating toward milk. Her misty eyes flew to the window, but snagged on the drapes. She tried again, and this time her gaze pierced the angry fog outside that roamed the alleys like a gang of wet sheets and pillory cases. Egyptian cotton, 400 count.

Then in a frenzied ballet of womanhoodedness, she proactively interfaced with her walk-in closet phobia in a quasi-quest for that gold spandex dress-the one so tiny it would hug the hips of a chipmunk. She often set traps, just in case. Oh, how Chet loved that dress! With each wearing, it had carved for them an enchanted, magical miasma.

Golly, she hoped it still fit him.

Copyright © 2008 by Mary Tompsett

By Leeuna Foster

I grew up in the late 1950s and early 60s. We rode in cars without seat belts, and in the backs of pick-up trucks. Our parents hit us in public and so did our teachers. We ate loads of sugar and chocolate (not candy…actual sugar and cocoa powder. We pretended it was snuff.) and we didn’t have any excuses for our bad behavior.

We had no idea that we might have ADD. We didn’t even hear about ADD except when we were told by our teacher to figure out how many apples Dick gave to Jane.

We didn’t have video games, iPods, Cell phones, or Satellite. And instead of HDTV and Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, we only had shades of black and white…and two TV channels. And due to the tiny screen size we sat with our noses about three inches away from the TV. It’s no wonder some of us now need to wear glasses with 10X zoom lens.

And people have the gall to call that period in time “the good old days”?

I’ve heard a lot of talk about how the television shows back then had morals. How they portrayed the perfect family life, and taught us about honesty and responsibility. Well, kiss my American Idol. Those TV shows were nothing but a bunch of big fat lies!

Men can’t fly. You can’t just dive into a phone booth, put on a pair of tights, and leap tall buildings with a single bound. We almost broke our necks before we realized this fact. I mean, who knew? They did it on TV.

And the bad guys weren’t always the ones wearing the black hats. It came as a severe shock to learn that often the white-hatters can be really horrible bad men. And more often than not, the bad guy wins.

It was TV programs like these that was the very cause of the increase in the divorce rate for my generation.

For instance, we grew up thinking that marriage was supposed to be the way it was in the Cleaver household. June Cleaver never sweated, she dressed up to cook, and she never looked tired or haggard. Ward Cleaver was always the perfect father and husband. He never said a mean word to his wife, and he almost never threw his plate of food across the room at her. And he never one time called his children “little blood-sucking leaches that should be sent to a juvenile correctional facility.” And we thought this was normal male behavior.

Imagine the shock and disappointment, when not long after the honeymoon, we realized that we had married Archie Bunker. And instead of having a lovely little family life like Ozzie and Harriet, our family was more like Ozzy and Sharon (Osbourne).

Instead of the neat and orderly life of June and Ward Cleaver we had the Rosanne Arnold household. Is it any wonder that people got divorced?

And we always thought our children would grow up to be like Opie Taylor or the Waltons, but noo-oo. Our kids turned into clones of Bart Simpson, and Beavis and Butt-Head.

Then there was that show about a boy and his dog named Lassie. We found out the hard way that our dog won’t run home and find help when we’re in trouble, nor will it pull us out of a burning building. He’s more likely to lie down in the driveway and bite his fleas while we’re crisping up like a piece of bacon in the smoke and the flames.

And the Mayberry jail looked so appealing it made us want to walk up and slap Deputy Barney Fife so he would have a reason to haul us off to that comfortable little jail cell and feed us some of Aunt Bea’s fried chicken. The only criminal in Mayberry was poor old drunken Otis. I don’t think there was a single drug bust during the entire eight years of the show.

But if you want my opinion I think Floyd was smoking something. And furthermore, I think Barney was on crack. Nobody can be that nervous just from drinking coffee.
Do you remember the Elvis movie, “Jail House Rock”? Didn’t it just make you want to be there?

Things sure have changed a lot since then, and I agree that television has gone to the dogs, but one thing I will say for it. When you’re feeling really bad about your family life, you can now watch TV and realize that, based on what you’re being shown, your life is really sort of normal.

Maybe that’s what they mean by reality TV.

I still haven’t figured out why they call the 50s “the good old days.”

Day 1-I come home from work and find the garage door partly open. “What’s going on?” I wonder. I go inside to check and find a strange dog in the garage. 

Whose dog is that? “Get! Go away! Shoo!”
I guess I will just leave the garage door open until it decides to leave. I’ve seen him around here before, but I’m not sure whose dog he is.
Day 2-My daughter informs me that the black lab belongs to the neighbors. They are gone for the weekend. “Something could happen to him.”
Yeah, like he could get reported to animal control for not being on a leash. But, she makes him a bed in our garage and closes the garage door so he will not get cold.
“Okay, he can stay in the garage until they get back, but he absolutely cannot come in the house. He is not our dog.”
Day 3-I walk into the kitchen and the dog is sleeping on the rug by the door. “What is that dog doing inside?”
“Smokey was cold outside.” Smokey? Now it has a name.
“He’s too afraid to get off the rug. See him shaking?”
Probably afraid the dogcatcher will find him. “Okay, he can sleep on the rug in the kitchen, poor thing, but he absolutely cannot go in the rest of the house. He is not our dog.”
Day 4-My daughter says, “I checked the neighbor’s yard. Smokey’s leash is broken; he chewed though it.
“You are not going to make him go outside in the cold rain, are you? They don’t ever let him run loose.”
Meanwhile, the dog is in the garage scratching on the kitchen door. Next thing I know, he will want to bring twenty canine friends inside with him.
“Okay, he can sleep here until they get back, but he has to stay outside except at night. He is not our dog.”
Day 5-The door to my grandson’s bedroom is closed. I knock on the door and the dog answers, “Woof!”
“What is that dog doing in the bedroom? He is supposed to stay in the kitchen! He is not our dog!”
“He is sleeping on the floor, grandma! He likes it in here better than in the kitchen. He is lonesome.”
Am I the only one who suspects a conspiracy? “Okay, he can sleep here, but just on the floor, and just until the neighbors get home! He is not our dog.”
Day 6-The dog is in my grandson’s bed, stretched out on the bedspread, snoring.
“What is that mutt doing in the bed? Lonesome? How can he be lonesome? Why isn’t he outside? No, you can’t keep him! He is somebody else’s dog!”
Day 7-The neighbors come home! Yippee! I see their car in the driveway.
I immediately give the dog his walking papers and put him out the back door without any luggage or spending money. The dog walks through the wet grass, slowly dragging himself to the neighbor’s house, where he scratches the door.
No doubt he is pretending that he was locked out the whole time, is cold and hungry, and was chased by wild cats. He had to chew through his collar to escape, and is lucky to be alive.
I have not seen the dog since they came back. I’m sure they have no idea that their mongrel was sleeping in the neighbor’s bed, dining on the neighbor’s dog food, being petted by the neighbor’s daughter, and spoiled by the neighbor’s grandson.
They are probably so happy to have their dog come home unharmed that they will lavish him with affection and promise never to leave him home alone again.
Actually, there is no point in leaving him home alone. The next time they go somewhere, they might as well just leave him with us.
We wouldn’t want him to be lonesome.
Sheila Moss, Humor Columnist
www.humorcolumnist.com

On the 24th of this month the Firesign Theatre invades Monterey. I’ll be there to help celebrate Nick Danger’s 40th (damn, I’m old) birthday. If you haven’t seen this zany group back in the day, don’t miss this possible last or next-to-last or whatever live performance!
That’s enough-I’m off on a mini vacation. Gonna have lunch in Marina. Woo-hoo!
Don’t Forget the Advertisers!

I took Rex down to Point Piños in Pacific Grove. We stayed in the car for a while-he woofing at seagulls and me woofing at the girls doing yoga in Spandex on the sand in front of me. The gulls and the girls finally disappeared, and we ventured down to the waves.
A Canada goose had been honking overhead, and dove down and glided in for a landing in front of us. Rex took immediate notice of the intrusion and looked to me for guidance.
Before I could tell Rex to honk back at the goose, it arched its neck, spread its wings, and charged my four-legged friend. Rex, rather than get into a dustup with a goose, simply sat down and wagged his tail. The goose, having been ready for a brawl and seeing Rex sitting down and wagging his tail, stopped in its tracks. (I’ll have to remember that tactic next time I’m in a barroom fight.) The goose relaxed and Rex went up to it and sat down, turning around. They both looked at me.
The reason for the goose’s immediate nasty temper became apparent: another goose flew in; probably its mate. Canada geese mate for life, I’m told, so it was probably a spouse. The three of them looked at me. I looked at them.
Was Rex on my team, infiltrating the enemy, or had he abandoned me for the company of two regal-looking fowl? I took a step toward them to test Rex’s loyalty. Rex failed-the two geese charged me and Rex stayed at the rear, wagging his tail.
Perhaps Rex really was loyal to me, and needed to prove his fake loyalty to the geese, such as a vice cop infiltrating the crime-ridden Mafia, or the Hell’s Angels, or the Lawrence Welk fan club.
As the geese charged, I had to decide whether to run away or stand up to the geese. I looked around to see if the girls in Spandex were still around-if they were, I couldn’t run away like a wimp. Rats! They were at their car watching the whole thing. One had a camera; I couldn’t run. It could be a video camera and I’d be on YouTube in twenty minutes. Eighty billion people watching a wimp at the beach running from two geese. No, I had to think fast, which has always been a challenge for me.
“Rex! You run to the left and distract the geese! I’ll run to the right and make a get-away! Meet you at the car, buddy! Save yourself!!!”
Unfortunately, that was way too much information for my little friend to assimilate and act upon. As I ran to the right, he ran toward me. I ran with all my might as the geese put it into overdrive and chased me, Rex running on their parallel flank.
“Rex!” I yelled, “for God sakes, just sit down and maybe they’ll stop! Don’t run WITH them.” Again, too much info for Rex’s walnut-sized brain.
I came to a rock the size of a Volvo station wagon. Here was my chance. A chance for what, I didn’t know, but here it was. I jumped up on the rock. The geese and Rex came to a screeching halt and I looked over to the yoga girls, as they watched a full-grown man run from two geese.
Improvising (my usual method of making it through life), I made a yoga pose and faced the Spandex contingency. “King Dancer Pose-Natarajasana!” I yelled out to the girls. They waved and came running over, and, having put away the video camera, I felt somewhat safe.
As they ran up to my rock in admiration and gleefulness, the geese ran away. Rex stayed.
“Oh,” they said, “that’s a great Natarajasana! Wanna’ do some more poses with us? Maybe you can teach us a few things!”
I looked at Rex. He looked at me. The geese were halfway down the beach chasing a teacup poodle. I looked back at the girls. “Swami Tommy at your service. Last one into the Urdhva Dhanurasana pose is a rotten egg!”
Later that night, as I was on the floor applying salves and lotions to my destroyed tendons and muscles, I looked at Rex. “The two girls are coming over tomorrow night to do some more yoga. Wanna’ bring Millie and make a five-some? Let me show you the Parsva Bakasana so you can impress your gal. They love stuff like that, you know.”
Lying on my back, I heard geese overhead. I wonder if that is them.

By Giosue’ Santarelli

I don’t know if it is that men are trained not to notice their looks like women, but there is a disturbing trend among the male population. Many older gentlemen, even some high-profile figures, are growing moustaches above their eyes!
What is it with the caterpillar eyebrow look? It seems to me to be a sign of age. It may be the Age of Aquarius, but this is more like the Age of the Hairius!
Donald Trump gets a lot of attention because of the hair on top of his head. That’s a good thing because without the spotlight on his hairpiece people would be commenting about the fuzzy slippers he has above his eyeballs!
Andy Rooney has so much hair on his brow that you could hide a group of 1967 summer-of-love hippies and their VW Microbus in there! Don’t these big TV stars have make-up people? C’mon guys! Be funny, and go eye-brow bald!
This wouldn’t be such a major issue except when I woke up the other morning, I noticed my eyebrow hair was sticking out of place! Those brows looked like they could have been of a style befitting Phyllis Diller on a bad day after Raul the hairdresser had gone on strike! What’s next, stray ear hair?
I never had to worry about things like that. My eyebrows use to take care of themselves. Most of the time I didn’t even notice that I had eyebrows! Perhaps Mr. Rooney doesn’t realize that the overgrown weeds above his eyelids are any different than they use to be either. It’s either that or he is afraid of mirrors. Either idea could be a safe bet. Have you seen that guy lately?
How can we have such a dual society? Women have to have tight bodies, silky hair, and skin as soft as a baby’s butt. Men’s skin on the other hand can look like the surface of the moon under a microscope and still some women find them sexy.
I’m looking forward to being a dirty old man. I should only live into my old age where the twenty-year-old girls with daddy complexes will be attracted to me. However, that is not today! So you like a little bit of flab with your men; the better to keep you warm. So you like a bit of grey on your man; the better to find in the dark of night. So you like a little bit of wild eyebrow hair on your man; the better to tickle your fancy with during our conversations, if you know what I mean. Who’s the group without any taste, men or women?
So, maybe as a male I don’t have to look as old as a Shar-Pei puppy even though I have just as many rolls of skin. There is Doctor Look Good that can take care of that as long as my wallet can. On the other hand, looks aren’t everything. Even after a few cocktails on a Friday night, who is gonna want to spend time slow dancing with someone who looks like their great-great-grandparents?
As for me, I have to seriously consider stretching, and tightening, and reversing the affects of gravity the old-fashioned way: with dumbbells. No, not working out with weights, but by spending time with Frick and Frack, my local cosmetic surgeons. In the meantime I am codified through my own action. You will notice the smile on my face because I’m the one without any eyebrows anymore, thanks to a steady hand and the Gillette Company.

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Giosue’ Santarelli is a prolific political columnist, humor columnist, and feature writer who has been scribbling for nearly 40 years. Visit his humor column website “The Devil’s Advocate” at www.devilsadvocate111.blogspot.com.

April birthdays: You will witness a special ceremony. Sorry I can’t be more specific about the details. All I know is that it involves you, a judge, a couple of lawyers, some plaintiffs, a jury, and a swearing-in of some sort that ends with the words “So help me God”-nope, sorry, just can’t make any more of it out.

ARIES (3/21-4/19): A quiet evening with friends is the best tonic for a long day. Sharing your special “tonic” with a group of friends is even better.

TAURUS (4/20-5/20): Anger begins with folly, and ends with regret. But it feels very, very satisfying during the middle portion, let me tell you.

GEMINI (5/21-6/21): A member of your family will soon do something that will make you proud. I know, I can’t believe it either, but it’s true. Of course, I can’t prophesy how distant the relative will be. Most likely, very.

CANCER (6/22-7/22): The time is right to make new friends. This column was written over a month ago to hit a deadline, however, so that time has already passed and is gone forever, Friendless.

LEO (7/23-8/22): You will inherit some money or a small piece of land. I’m betting on a small piece of land. Since this is California, it will be worth millions, but because of the economy, you will never be able to get rid of it. Congratulations, and enjoy the albatross around your neck.

VIRGO (8/23-9/22): Good luck is the result of good planning. Bad luck is the result of bad planning. Mediocre luck is the result of mediocre planning. Spotting a pattern here, Genius?

LIBRA (9/23-10/22): Your great attention to detail is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because it enables you to draw a vast income in that most prestigious of positions, Editor. But it is also a curse, because publishing is going the way of the dodo, dodo.

SCORPIO (10/23-11/21): Look for new outlets for your creative abilities. Can you paint? Consider taking up house painting. Can you write? Consider writing your mother-she’s been waiting for about a year now. Can you belch the “Star-Spangled Banner”? There’s a talent show on the Fox network you should look into.

SAGITTARIUS (11/22-12/21): The joyfulness of a man prolongeth his days. Just look how it prolongedeth the word “prolong.”

CAPRICORN (12/22-1/19): Your heart is pure, and your mind clear, and your soul devout. So naturally your wallet is empty. This is America, after all. Devout doesn’t pay. Start exploiting the weaknesses of others, look for legal loopholes, and seek nothing but material gain. You’ll be rich beyond your wildest dreams! Before you die like everyone else.

AQUARIUS (1/20-2/18): Good things are being said about you. I really can’t say any more than that. A vague fortune, in the passive voice, and mildly optimistic. What do you expect for free? Cross my palm with silver, man!

PISCES (2/19-3/20): If you want the rainbow, you must put up with the rain. If you want the rain, you must get the hell out of California.

Put on your thinking caps, boys and girls-it’s quiz time! The nice folks who gave us Botox are marketing a glaucoma drug approved for: (a) telekinesis; (b) hemorrhoids; or (c) eyelash growth.
Eyelashes! Good guess! We in the scientific elite affectionately call the drug (Z)-7-[(1R,2R,3R,5S)-3,5-Dihydroxy-2-[(1E,3S)-3-hydroxy-5-phenyl-1-pentenyl]cyclopentyl]-5-N-ethylheptenamide. Do you know the brand name? (A) Harry Peepers; (b) Trashy Lashies; or (c) Sluttisse. Oops, trick question. The answer is Latisse, but I must say, option (c) has a nice ring to it.
At last! No more waiting lists for donor lashes from dead mimes.
IS LATISSE SAFE? Absolutely! We’re pretty darn sure. After all, an impressive panel of “eye and skin specialists” approved it. WHO WERE THESE SPECIALISTS? Relax, we’re in good hands. The panel consisted of Avon reps and “government experts.”
THE BENEFITS? Gorgeous lashes so heavy that just blinking will burn an extra 5,000 calories per day. Ooh, baby, I feel a pan pizza comin’ on!
ANY RISKS? The medical jargon was irritatingly obtuse, with bunches of big words ending in “-emia,” “-ema,” “-itis,” and “-opia.” For those scaredy-cats who nit-pick about risks, a dumbed-down list would include itching, burning, vision problems, pain, and cataracts. Oh yeah, and your irises and eyelids could turn brown. Forever. But hey, who doesn’t love koalas? C’mon, loosen up!
HOW DO WE APPLY IT? At night, dab one drop across the upper eyelids at the lash line. No, no!! Not more!!! Are you nuts??!! Easy now, eeeeeasy….
PRECAUTIONS? Remove contact lenses before applying Latisse. True, this may “negatively impact visual acuity,” i.e., you’ll see diddly-squat. Oh, stop whining. And don’t rub your eyes!!! I told you this stuff may itch and burn-you’re such a baby!
Listen up, now. Latisse has “a propensity for follicle enhancement on all epidermal surfaces.” Translation: Careful now, or y’all be sproutin’ in places what ain’t meant to be hairified! See those lab techs over there with hairnets on their hands?? Poor bastards.
ANY SIDE EFFECTS? Quit texting your friends, Suzie-Q, and read the RISKS section again.
HOW DO WE MEASURE EFFECTIVENESS? By the Global Eyelash Assessment Scale, of course! (Scary, but true.) Clinical trials were conducted on oodles of hopeful rodents who failed to make the cut as extras in the Disney film “Ratatouille.” What? HUMAN subjects? Jeez, we already covered this. See the hairnet blurb above.
WHAT CAN WE EXPECT? My dear readers, in addition to sporting furry eyelids, your income will double! Tub mildew will vanish, and tofu will taste better! Plus, your sex life will improve!! Some people may even begin to have one. The official position, however, is less exhuberant: “Results may vary.”
Allow two months to see the outcome of this crap shoot. A number of people can expect long, thick, dark lashes, evenly spaced and symmetrical. Others (no, not you) will see hair growth that is…how to put this…? Bizarre. And did I mention different DIRECTIONS of growth? Indeed. This means that lashes on one eye may be drop-dead sexy while those on the other resemble a drunken millipede at a frat party.
ANY SYSTEMIC EFFECTS? Nah, the body eliminates 92% of Latisse. Experts voted against the idea of hair growth elsewhere, despite reports of bearded frogs loitering near the wastewater plant. True, the remaining 8% in the body will roam our interior hallways without adult supervision. But why be so negative? Future colonoscopies could be a real hoot!
IS IT SAFE WHILE PREGNANT? Hmm…let’s just say many preggled lab mice canceled their baby showers. Frankly, I’m appalled at this turn of events. How the hell did those mice get knocked up in the first place?!?! During clinical trials, the little tarts shouldn’t even be dating.
I’ve just begun my nightly Slutt-er, Latisse program. But not on my eyes-that’s too risky and weird, even for me. No, a dab here and there will coax braids from my facial moles in time for Halloween.
Copyright 2009 by Mary Tompsett
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Mary Tompsett is a self-syndicated humorist who lives with her dog and cats on the far east side of Santa Cruz (okay, Racine, Wisconsin). Her horse left the family for a more stable environment. Read more at www.marytompsett.com.

By Brent Basham

I’d Like to Thank…

Where do I begin? This is just such an honor, really. I’m at a complete loss for words. I take that back. It’s obvious from the existence of the following paragraphs that’s simply not true. I can’t back that up.
Let me start over. For the better part of six years I have struggled to gain recognition for my writing and that day has finally arrived. Hallelujah. I can now proudly add my name to the list of previously unpublished Internet writers who have the good fortune of seeing their work in print.
Granted the publication is free, I’m writing for free, and come to think of it they did mention something about washing the windows down at the office too. But I think it’ll be worth it.
Many of you (more like all of you) probably have no idea who I am. So as a good-will gesture I’m going to take this time to satisfy that burning curiosity (I’m sure it must be killing you) and list my credentials below.
*I was born and raised in the South (Georgia, not Southern California).
*I learned how to write cursive in the third grade.
*Though I’ve never been on ESPN for spelling (not the right gene pool), I have scored at least a C or better on every spelling test I’ve ever taken.
*I can read.
*I can type.
*I grew up in a family that didn’t have any problem speaking their mind.
*The publisher asked me to write for them (which is really all I need).
As you can plainly see I am plenty qualified, perhaps even overqualified, to write for a living. Entertaining people is in my blood. Through the challenges I always knew that some day my big break would come. Now I will be writing for literally thousands of people each month. And some of them will actually like my writing. It’s a mathematical inevitability. So, needless to say I am ecstatic.
So without further ado I have prepared a list of people I’d like to thank who, in their own way, have each contributed to this special moment.
That little pudgy neighbor kid Josh from my childhood: Without you I might never have gotten my mouth washed out with soap. In retrospect, I believe that lone event solidified my future as a sarcastic (and occasionally humorous) writer.
My mother: The first soap incident and all that followed helped shape me into the man I am today. I can honestly say that denied of this particular form of physical torture I may easily have slipped into a life of mediocrity. Thanks, Mom.
My redneck family and friends: Y’all provide a guy with so much material it’s impossible to keep up. Just continue being you and I’ll keep doing what I do.
Al Gore: Without the aid of the Internet he invented I would’ve had a heck of a time getting the attention of this fine publication. I realize you’re probably thinking, “Hey, what about using a homing pigeon?” But the truth is I’ve never been too good at aiming those dang things. And birds don’t tend to fly so well when their takeoff involves being launched beak first into the nearest pine tree.
The fans: Technically there are only four of you right now. However, I just finished reading The Magic of Thinking Big, so I’d like to give a shout-out to the 500 billion of you who will soon be using a portion of your economic stimulus package to buy my new book. You might even have enough cash left over to enjoy an evening out at Mickey D’s. Thirteen dollars a week could be just the shot in the arm this failing economy needs. Don’t forget to thank your local congressman.
Admittedly, there are far too many people to thank here. I have barely gotten the list started and already I can hear the elevator music ushering me off the keyboard. Bummer.
Anyway, please don’t feel left out if you don’t see your name listed here. There’s just no way I can include every person who has impacted my life in some way, helping me reach this pinnacle. Well, actually, I could list everyone but then I’d also have to include a retirement speech as well (since I’m sure this would be both my first and last issue). And quite frankly, I just don’t have it in me right now.
So you’ll just have to take solace in my ending this article the same way my little boy Cody ends his prayers every night… with a summary.
I want to thank that little pudgy neighbor kid Josh from my childhood,
I want to thank my mother,
I want to thank my redneck family and friends,
I want to thank Al Gore (good lookin’ out man),
I want to thank the fans,
AND I want to thank everybody else,
Amen.

***

“Got a Minute?”
An eclectic collection of humor articles, this masterpiece of southern writing is widely used as the perfectly-portable-potty-partner.
Visit www.brentbasham.com. (Free autograph for a limited time!)

Taking care of twenty-three homeless cats is like being The Enabler in twenty-three marriages. When friends suggest a Twelve-Step Program, you say, “No, really, everything’s fine . . . .”
I wasn’t always like this. I used to be a serial monogamist, but now, I’ve lost all control, and it’s not my fault; do you hear me? Not-my-fault. Nick Manelli, a.k.a., “Uncle Nicky,” got me hooked thirteen years ago, and he did it in plain sight.
I was out for an innocent stroll around the lake near my home when I saw him drive up in his tricked-out red convertible. He was carrying two heavy bags. I watched the first cat trot up to greet him; then another, and another and another and another. You get the picture. Since I had seen only one cat on my previous walks, I stopped to ask him what was going on.
He reached down to give each of his cats a little scratch behind the ears, a little food, and said, “I’ve been doing this for seventeen years now,” and, just like that, I was a goner. I already had a Siamese cat named Muffin at home and plenty of cat food, so I rationalized: I’ll just feed the cats who come up on this side of the hill-what could it hurt? And now I’m in so deep I couldn’t get out even if I wanted to.
At last count it’s twenty-three that I’m feeding, fixing, and, like any good spouse, counseling. I like to think that I’m putting my psychotherapy training to good use. If anyone were to set up a hidden camera to follow me on my rounds-well, let me put it this way, I’d hate for that video to end up on YouTube.
There I’d be on the small screen yelling at a chubby black cat, “Dammit, Blackberry, come back here and eat. Leave Sweetie Pie alone!” And then I’d say to Sweetie Pie, a small, highly sensitive gray tiger, “Don’t let him push you around so much,” but she’s one-third the size of Blackberry, and she hates him. Last year, an emergency trip to the vet to clean up a bite wound in her side cost me $80. I suspect that the evildoer was Blackberry, but I can’t prove it. He’s as sweet as pie to the human who feeds and pets and talks to him.
On down the hill near Buster Hollow, I’d be caught on camera telling Girly-Girl, a sassy Tiger of a cat, how beautiful she is, and how smart, and “what a good mouser!” (I always try to rescue the mouse, but I know it’s important to her to be acknowledged for her mighty huntress skills.) She’s also a self-designated leader, walking several feet ahead of me down the path, frequently looking over her shoulder to make sure I’m still following along.
One day, just to mess with her, I started weaving from one side of the path to the other. She kept up with me for a few feet, zig-zagging back and forth. Then suddenly she stopped, turned around, and smacked me on the ankle with her paw as if to say, “You think this is funny!? I’m your Guide Cat-come on, Girl, get with the program!”
Next, I’d be seen petting Buster, a chubby Cheshire with four white paws and a white bib. He mysteriously appeared at the lake one day, and I spent the next three years wooing him. He would always stay about twenty feet away and watch as I knelt down, fed, and petted the others-Green Eyes, Blackie-One, Sonny Gray (Sweetie Pie’s son), and Prancer. Each time I saw him, I would call out his name, but he’d keep his distance.
Then, one afternoon, while I was kneeling on the road, feeding Green Eyes on my right, I noticed an unfamiliar cat pressing against my left thigh. It took me a few moments to realize it was Buster. I very slowly placed my left hand on his back, kept it still for while, then moved it up to his scruff. He froze. There I was, participating once again in the nine-thousand-year-old bond between cat and human.
During all the time I’ve spent with them, I’ve marveled at what big suckers they are for human touch, even the older ones. If ever I can lay my hands on a cat just once, he’s mine forever. Call me the “Cat Whisperer” or call me nuts, I don’t care-I am beyond the reach of any recovery program.
I’ve tried to trap Priscilla, a beautiful Siamese-Tabby, to get her fixed, but she has outsmarted me every time. She’s another “highly sensitive” cat, who likes very slow, gentle caresses on her cheeks-not for her the rowdy petting that the guys enjoy. She appeared at the lake two years ago and a year later suddenly came over to greet me by licking my hand.
Six months back, Priscilla gave birth to a kitten whose face is reminiscent of a baby bear. That makes number twenty-four. I’ve tried to resist, really I have, but yesterday I was certain that I heard the opening strains of Wagner’s “Here Comes the Bride,” and another sound-was that the familiar “pop” of a Fancy Feast can being opened?
“With this ring…” Oh, no! Would someone please stop me before I marry again?
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Rosie Sorenson is an award-wining writer whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and other publications. Her new photo essay book, They Had Me at Meow: Tails of Love from the Homeless Cats of Buster Hollow, is about her thirteen years of loving and being loved by a colony of smart, funny feral cats. To learn more and to purchase the book, please visit her website: www.theyhadmeatmeow.com.

By Jason Love

Population

We’ve heard some bleak reviews of the human race, but deep down I think that people are generally… everywhere. Especially during rush hour.
It’s not that people are bad; we’re just a little bit squished. Remember sixth-grade science?
“See, Jimmy, as the rat population grows too dense, the animals start to abuse each other.”
Meanwhile, in the parking lot, someone was breaking into teacher’s car.
The TV people remind us to carpool, recycle, chew ABC gum, etc., and while I’ll do my part, we could trade in all of these PSA’s for one overriding memo: Quit having so many children.
Remember the show “Eight Is Enough”? Eight children is not enough; it’s way too friggen many. I live by a dock where every day new cars, still in their wrapper, drive off the boat and into gridlock. That’s their first experience in the U.S.
How long till we have yo-yo girls working the freeway? “Cigarettes… Candy… Soda…”
If California falls into the sea, it won’t be from earthquakes but from sheer human tonnage. Seriously. When Californians say we have a front yard, we mean it literally: three feet.
How come you need a license to drive and fish and style hair, but anyone, even Rosie O’Donnell, can bear an unlimited number of children? My cousin has a baby every time she needs attention.
“Look what I made!”
“That’s nice, honey. Put it in the crib with the others.”
I know a man whose parents had 20 children and don’t know where half of them are. Trapped in gridlock, presumably. Maybe it’s time for some kind of child-bearing parameters. One baby per 30 I.Q. points? If you can’t spell “vasectomy”… ?
Consider that I myself come from a large extended family, people who don’t use birth control because it isn’t “natural.” Of course, they’re also so old-fashioned, they still believe the world is flat. So it goes.
When the Iowa couple had septuplets, we called it a miracle, but the woman was freebasing fertility pills. She could have gotten pregnant being downwind from sex.
Is anyone else uneasy with Dr. Moreau in the lab? Rumor has it that humans have already been cloned and that zombie-like creatures with heavy brows and crude worldviews await their turn to run for office.
I once attended a meeting for in vitro fertilization. The doctor wielded his lab coat as one might a cape.
“And once we transfer the embryo, aspirate the follicles, and align your ovulation with my golf schedule-voilà, nature’s little miracle.”
In days agone, we had lots of children to ensure our survival; now we have to stop having lots of children for the same reason. If nothing else, think about Santa Claus. You know he’s campaigning for zero population growth.
It’s just that if we go on like this, it’s going to lead to more pollution, more rat brutality, and ultimately a land rush in Arizona, where people will fight like crazy over their new beachfront property.
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Jason Love is an award-winning humor columnist, stand-up comedian, and author of “Snapshots: The Big Picture,” available at Amazon.com. Check out more of his work at www.jasonlove.com.

The Over-40 ABC Book

The Toddler dropped a book in my lap. Although I realized a long time ago that the most important accessory to any father’s wardrobe is a cup, I was unprepared. I’m just glad I have good reflexes.
“Read it, Daddy,” she said in her sweet, two-year-old voice, which, by the time it reaches my brain, sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger saying “Hasta la vista, baby.” Like most sensible fathers, my daughter scares the hell out of me.
The book was a typical children’s alphabet book. A is for apple. B is for ball. C is for cat. D is for Division of Family Services. The usual.
As I sat there, reading about the wonders of Elephant, Frog, and Goat, I realized there are books like this for age ranges except adults. Where’s the 20-something ABC books of Antipathy, Beer, and Centerfolds? The 30-something ATM card, Business meetings, and Children? And the over-40 …
Well, at least I can help with that one.
The Over-40 ABC Book
A-Aches and pains. Remember when you could move without stabbing pains in your joints? You don’t? That’s probably for the best.
B-Bifocals. When you realize you can’t tell a picture of Jessica Alba from one of Albert Einstein. And yes, there is a difference.
C-Colonoscopy. Vacation pictures from the lower intestine. You won’t see a polyp like that at Disney World.
D-Depends. Eww, was that you? Depends.
E-Ensure. When scotch and soda no longer count as dietary supplements.
F-Flatulence. No excuses. No guilt. It’s expected. Life goal achieved.
G-Grouchy. What you are while driving, when the gout’s in your big toe, and when the president talks during your favorite TV show. “I don’t care about the stupid economy when Jack Bauer’s shooting terrorists.”
H-Hemorrhoids. What you get when a lifestyle that prevents you from walking decides to prevent you from sitting.
I-Incontinence. The best excuse for going home early. “Oh, I’m sorry, were those your good shoes?”
J-Jars. I hoard quarters, lug nuts, one-cent stamps, and finishing screws in mayonnaise jars. Don’t try to find them. I buried them in the yard and I have a pellet gun.
K-Knees. You know you have them because of the arthritis; you just can’t see them anymore.
L-Lounge chair. A chair, a couch, and a bed, all in one. I could sit here all day. Oh, wait, I did.
M-Memory loss. …
N-Nothing’s as good as it used to be. Darn tootin’.
O-Orneriness. You can now get away with anything. “Who put the dead squirrel in the cheese dip? Oh, Uncle Jim. You are so funny.”
P-Prostate exam. At least when gangsters finger somebody, it’s quick.
Q-Quiet. Everything’s too loud-except conversations.
R-Rambling. Some stories don’t have a point. “When I was your age youngsters went to school, held two jobs, and wore garlic in their trousers because the Democrats gave vampires the right to vote. Now I remember this one time …”
S-Senior discount. The coffee’s cheap; now if I can only stay awake long enough to drink it.
T-TV trays. The greatest invention known to man, next to the lounge chair. No, really. It’s right next to my lounge chair under the TV Guide. (Which, of course, is a viable alternative “T” because it’s the book that tells me what time Jack Bauer’s going to shoot terrorists.)
U-Underwear. Once it was tight, once it was white. Now it starts high and hangs to my thigh.
V-Varicose veins. Cheaper and surprisingly more aesthetically pleasing than tattoos.
W-Wattle. When your neck keeps moving long after you’ve stopped. Who’s that in the mirror? Alfred Hitchcock? Oh, wait, it’s me.
X-X-ray. The inside of your body’s been mapped better than Google Earth.
Y-Yelling. See Quiet.
Z-Zipper. Is my fly open? Pfft. I just don’t care anymore.
* * *
You can order Jason’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at amazon.com.

I’m talking to this guy and he has a huge Adam’s apple. I can’t help it. I can’t look in his eyes. I have to watch his Adam’s apple, as it bobs up and down.
What’s up with that?
The Adam’s apple is the only part of the body directly tied to the Biblical story of creation. As the story goes, when Eve gave Adam the apple, he choked on a piece of it, and this became his Adam’s apple.
See? There’s a rational scientific explanation for everything.
That’s why men have bigger Adam’s apples than women do.
A doctor will tell you the Adam’s apple regulates the deeper pitch men have to their voices. That’s all it does?
Women have higher-octave voices because their Adams’ apples are smaller. If only there was a body part that caused women to talk less.
But that’s a different matter.
Some of us have big ears, big noses, and big chins. These can be cured by surgical procedures-in the case of the nose, something called a rhinoplasty.
I’ve never known any man who had an obscene Adam’s apple to have it taken care of, like you would a nose. If he did, would he then have a voice like Barbara Streisand?
It’s only conjecture at this point.
I’ll tell you what, though. It’s wrong to have an ugly Adam’s apple.
It’s wrong to blame it on Adam.
How would you like to have a cancer-like growth named after you? According to what you see in the movies, Adam is always a good-looking hunk. Like Michael Parks. Remember him in the show “Then Came Bronson,” about the motorcycle loner who flouted society’s conventions?
Oh! I’m getting off subject.
I’m going to place a sticker on my car that reads, “Unlike skate boarding, it is a crime to have a big, ugly Adam’s apple.”
I was lucky. I was born with a barely discernible Adam’s apple. Does that mean I have feminine characteristics?
I’m a big believer, what with the cost of medicine and doctors these days, in home surgery. In the past, I’ve taken steak knives and carved off offending lumps that I didn’t like, lumps that wouldn’t go away of their own accord… performed without anesthetic.
Why not the Adam’s apple? Hey, if it’s too big… that baby has to go. Simply insert blade, and slice downward for about two inches. Keep a cork handy as a temporary plug.
After all, who in their right mind would want the elegant upward sweep of their regal god-like neck ruined with a bump that makes it look like you partially swallowed a hamster?
The Adam’s apple is the only physiology that readily, involuntarily, moves up and down, except for the eyelids, and the mouth, and the male organ, if you’ve got one.
In fact, if you could synchronize your Adam’s apple to bob up and down in unison with your male organ… you might be able to sell this skill to the television producers of American Idol.
Poor Adam. First he goes gaga for this newly minted chick, who behind his back fools around with a snake. Then, to please her, he takes a bite of forbidden fruit which results in a giant cyst in his throat that looks like a huge, unpopped zit.
Men who have hideous Adam’s apples should wear turtleneck sweaters. Even in the summer.
Copyright 2009 by SammonSays.com

Due to economic conditions, we’ve been forced to raise our price from free to gratis. We did everything we could to avoid it. But we really needed the gratis. Why? To pay for our new digs, of course! And the Jacuzzi. And the Mercedes. Plus, it’s just hard being funny all the time. Look at how miserably I’m failing now! Anyway, we have a great issue this month, with three newcomers we’re proud to bring into the fold. Brent Basham’s “Redneck Review” is guaranteed to keep all y’all laughin’; humor columnist Leeuna Foster debuts with a hilarious look at the fifties; and Tim Mollen contributes his unique “Lost Journal,” in which he documents his past as though it were the present. This month he records his birth. Yes, his birth. That’s exactly the kind of top-notch foolishness you get for gratis.