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My humorous thoughts about life.
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Read as my little friend gets caught in a blame game of Who Cut the Cheese? Bruce Coville said something to the effect that, "In order to be successful in writing for children, you need at least one of five words: fart, poop, burp, butt," and I can't remember the last one. Any suggestions?
☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁☁
During Social Studies, Slater let out a loud fart then laughed about it.
His eyes widened, he slapped his hand over his mouth, and whispered, “Pardon
moi.”Randy waved his hand over his nose and pointed at me. You’d think he’d know
I don’t fart, since we’d been in the same class since the third grade. I’d
provided enough gas-free space that I could’ve charged admission to have kids
sit by my desk for a respite from Randy’s stink.“Was that your fart or Will’s?” Randy asked Slater, as if he’d never cut
the cheese. Even Harrison was ready
to blame me for what I’d never done. Well, at least in school.
It's time again to give up real food for flat crackers that give one digestive problems. We can purchase all kinds of derivatives for matzah, such as matzah fartful, too. Oh, yeah, don't forget the Gas-Ex with the Passover supplies. And remember, Moses's line, "Let my people go," takes on a whole new meaning.
My son summed it best in eight grade when he said, "When I was in sixth grade and someone farted, it wasn't funny, but now it's hilarious!"
What is it about eXpelling gas, a normal function of the human body, that make so many chuckle? The average person farts ten times a day. That's average. Of course statistically, one could find a range of 287, so to be accurate, wouldn't we need to know the mode and median too? For example, although the mean is ten, maybe most people only fart nine times per day; however, the day of the count, Rush Limbaugh farted 264 times. Would he be considered an outlier or did he mess up the whole dang curve?
Is there an Institute of Fartology? If so, who works there?
"My name is Dr. Jones, and I count farts for a living." I bet he's the life of the party! A real gas if you know what I mean.
Furthermore, do these statistics count dead guys? A friend who's an undertaker told me that dead people constantly eXpel gas; however, this gas doesn't just exit from below. It could sneak out of a joint causing a sudden flip of a wrist or foot twitch. I wonder, does cadaver gas smell better, worse, or the same as living farts? I'll have to ask my friend. It just goes to show, we still have a lot of research to do in this scientific field.
Every time I post something political on Facebook, my daughter Judy says, "Mom! Don't do that. You're not going to change the minds of those who don't see things your way, but you will make them angry and quit following you."
She may have a good point but those darn impulses make me have these conversations. How can one not answer the absurdities that some folks post on Facebook? How do I not share that fine tuned point that may just sway the one undecided voter left in this country? People whine that they don't want to read politics on FB, but as for me, I don't want to read about what you ate for dinner. Is it not important to enter into conversation about the future of the free world? What better time do I have to make an influence on the next thirty years than today? After all, the Supreme Court is at stake as well as our democratic right to vote.
Every morning, the conservative talk show blasts through my radio and I get my blood moving by listening to the idiocy coming through the airwaves. This morning, Andrew Clarke had the nerve to say, "No one is using voter ID laws to keep people from voting."
Really, Andrew? It sure looks that way to me. Why not allow any ID to work? Do you really think a young person will forge a college ID just to vote? Half of them won't even bother voting when given the right. More people are being denied the right to vote than questionable ballots to begin with. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a slick Republican strategy to steal the election... and if we're not paying attention, it just might work!
Let the impulse take you and join the conversation before it's too late.
One of my fifth graders made me this delightful, little sign that proudly hangs in my classroom. Like everything else, there is a story behind it; and yes, it's silly enough for a Sunday.
I started this school year with a fabulous tale about how I spent my summer vacation. Okay, it wasn't really what I did over my months off because kids don't want to hear about their teacher laying around the house after surgery. Instead, I told a stunning lie about my trip to Africa with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
To make my story believable, I began by showing the kids a picture of young Brad Pitt in my University of Missouri yearbook. Once I had the logical reason of how I know him, I spoke about how Brad and Angelina wanted a pet monkey for their many kids. Furthermore, since I speak to monkeys, they wanted my help with this endeavor.
To add interest to the story, I did my monkey imitation, which is quite good if I do say so myself. "Hoo, ha, ha, ha, ha." After I talked a monkey out of attacking Angelina, she invited me to California to act in her movie, Jane's Journey, about Jane Goodall the monkey lady.
My great, great, great, great, great, great, great whatever
My students' mouths dropped as they said, "Really?"
I said, "No, but it was a fun story, wasn't it?"
This led into a writing prompt about "the summer you wish you had," which is a lot better than the boring, "Write about your summer vacation."
In conclusion, the kids have dubbed me a monkey whisperer, and thus the sign. ☺
I'm home from work for two days. Wednesday morning, I saw my gynecologist... or rather she stuck my feet in those awkward stirrups and saw me. My youngest daughter–nineteen–has never had the pleasure of visiting this sort of doctor, so I made her an appointment in May and told her it doesn't hurt a bit. It's just like a trip to the dentist, except they're looking at the other end.
Next, I enjoyed a yummy lunch of vegetable broth soup, jello, and Sprite. At two o'clock the real fun began, and the gyno visit was the easy part of the day. Every fifteen minutes, I took four pills with eight ounces of fluid for an hour and fifteen minutes. To tell you what happened then would be too much information.
At seven, I repeated the whole disgusting procedure, but at least I didn't have to drink chalk like I did the last two times. I don't know why I took the last dose–obedient, I guess–but also ridiculous; there was nothing in me!
I took two potassium pills and swallowed four Dulcolax at bedtime. Nothing to eat or drink after midnight.
To top it all off, I got a Fleet Enema this morning. As if there's anything else in there. It's early in the morning, and I'm off to the St. Francis Surgery Center to have some lucky doctor look up my --- eeeeeeeek!
The theme of this week's GBE2 post is laughter. The first thing that came to mind was that delightful song from Mary Poppins. When the movie hit theaters in 1964, my mom wouldn't let me see it because, "I couldn't sit through a movie." Having never been to a movie, I pictured tall seats that one had to balance on or you'd fall off. Why else could I not "sit" through it? Eventually I saw reruns of Mary Poppins on cable, and this scene is awesome.
Laughing from a movie is great, but the best kind of laughter is the home-spun-something-funny-just-happened type. As a teacher, nothing beats making a class laugh. It satisfies my unfilled dream of being a stand up comic. I also hope to make kids laugh with my writing. According to Bruce Coville, that's easy. You just need to include the magic words: fart, pooh, underwear, toilet, and what was the other? Excuse me, I'm having a Rick Perry moment.
At my ten-year high school reunion, we all folded up when reminiscing about sixth grade. When anyone was feeling playful, they'd whisper "underwear" and everyone within earshot would crack up. underwear. Underwear. Underwear! UNDERWEAR! Are you laughing yet? If not, congratulations. You've made it out of the sixth grade mentality.
As for farts, my son said it best in eighth grade, "When we were in sixth grade and someone farted, it wasn't funny; but now, it's hysterical!" Here's the proof. Boys become less mature with age. Although in reality, an occasional fart in an odd setting can still make adults cackle.
Sometimes laughter isn't good medicine. I'll never forget my husband making me giggle after surgery. He didn't realize how much his jokes hurt until I cried from laughing. Then there's the old, "Don't make me laugh or I'll wet my pants." Who has never leaked from more than just the eyes when something was funny?
She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named recently told us a story about not being able to hold her pee when laughing. (Pee-that's Coville's other magic word!) She was at a neighbor's house playing a game called, "Naked City." All the little girls took off their clothes and sat around laughing. Unfortunately, laughter led to wetting the neighbor's carpet. She never told her friends or the neighbor's Mom what happened. All I can say to that is POOR Cocoa! I'm sure that black lab got a bawling out for that one.
I leave you with another great movie. This scene from Singing in the Rain makes me laugh every time I watch it.
When Jenn posted this leaf photo for our weekly prompt, the humor writer in me thought, what's funny about that?
To find humor, we must compare leaves to people. We're born small, grow large, and then shaky. At times we do things to make our faces turn red, then we plummet to the ground because that much color only comes when drunk or sunburned.
So in conclusion, there is nothing funny about a color-changing leaf. Now leaf blowers: that's a different story.
In soccer (of futball for you European types) we call them keepers. These are the brave souls that stand in front of a net and ask for a pounding. If that ball happens to miss them, they eagerly jump in front of the bullet to take the full impact. Ouch! This wouldn't be so bad in the powder puff league, but has anyone seen the men play? You couldn't pay me to stand in that goal.
All of my kids played soccer at one time or another, but only my youngest ever played goalie. She was a little tyke who was supposed to stop powder puff balls. Unfortunately, the last time she played keeper, the ball rolled past her because she was on all fours picking flowers. So she doesn't know how to be a goalie, but she does know how to be a graduate. I'm so proud of my baby who just graduated high school with an honors diploma!
This was my lame attempt at the letter P that got moved to L when I thought of something else. If you're not amused by bathroom humor, you may move along now.
A whach-ma-call-it
In case you're still here: When I was a little girl and we had to go to the bathroom, we went weewee; however, my husband's family went teetee. Weewee, teetee, peepee, piddle, piss, wiz, puddle, tinkle, pass water, void--for something private, we sure have a lot of words for it. Then there are the words for the action--take a piss, relieve oneself, go to the bathroom, or how about just . . . wait . . . urinate?
So, I wonder, why so many words for something so private? After all, it's no one's business when I use the can, toilet, john, potty, bathroom, lavatory, powder room, rest room, water closet--here we go again. A zillion words for eliminating waste. Don't even start me on the bowels.
I guess it's time to end this post, flush, and get off the pot. ☺
