Category: humor

Aug 17

Dad’s Volkswagen

As long as I could remember my Dad always drove American cars, so it was a great surprise when my uncle mentioned that my Dad and his twin brother had once owned a Volkswagen Beetle–for a short time. “They were coming around a  long curve on our gravel road. Our neighbor and his wife were …

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Aug 15

Life at the potato chip plant

My Dad told us he once worked at a potato chip plant. My brothers and I were fascinated at the prospect of working at such a magical place. “Did they let you eat any of the chips?” we asked. “They let us eat all we wanted,” he replied. We were completely in awe. “They knew that …

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Aug 13

Mijo

Before you try pronouncing it with any kind of J sound, I’ll tell you: it’s pronounced MEE-ho, and in Mexican Spanish it’s a term of endearment for boys (mija, MEE-ha for girls). I learned the word from my brother. He heard it from one of his Army buddies, who told this story: “When I was …

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Aug 11

Sandcrawler Steve

One of my more comically miserable memories involves Star Wars nerds, and lots of ’em. The year is 1997. My friend Dave calls and says he knows this guy named Steve who was trying to put together a big fat Star Wars convention in Kansas City, and the guy needed artists to help. I had …

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Aug 09

Pettin’ the zebra

‘Pettin’ the zebra’ is a metaphor for being stuffed and mounted, and, more specifically, dead; it was coined by my brothers. They were discussing how unwise it would be to ever attempt to burglarize the house of one of our relatives (the relative in question is a hunter and a taxidermist). While he has a …

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Aug 08

Tennis, anyone?

When my wife and I were dating, she was still playing tennis. She said she had an 85 mile-an hour-backhand. I don’t know jack about sports, so I just filed the factoid away. Anyway, we were out on the court, and I was throwing tennis balls across the fence so she could hit them. You …

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Aug 01

Change we can believe in

“The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings and inefficiencies to our health care system,” –U.S. President Barack Obama. Thank goodness we have a man in office not afraid to bring the inefficiencies to the U.S. health care system that we so desperately need. Maybe we can finally catch up with England.

Jul 30

Powa

I recently upgraded a computer for a woman, a pale brunette with a Slavic accent. Imagine if Bela Lugosi had a daughter with Lydia from Beetlejuice. “Do you need to be set up as an administrator?” I asked her. “Yes,” she began. And then a dark, conspiratorial, accented whisper: “I want all de powa!”

Jul 28

Whiskey in the Jar, Part 2

If you read my previous post about Whiskey in the Jar, I told you that story so I can tell you this story. Several years ago at a party we were playing Encore, a game where, when given a word or a topic, you have to sing seven consecutive words of a song on that word …

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Jul 20

Schadenfreude

German word, pronounced “SHAHD-n-FROID-uh.” The literal translation is “shameful laughing,” and it means laughing at the misfortunes of others, kind of like I do in that story about Timmy’s cough.