If there is a more useless and annoying bodily function than coughing I don’t know what it is. Maybe sneezing, but I digress. Sometimes when you get a cold, you also get a cough–a persistent, dry, hacking thing that makes you sound like a hoarse seal on its last flipper. You put your hand up to cover your mouth, but you fail and phlegm goes everywhere infecting the entire world with plague. Perhaps this is the secret of the common cold: it spreads itself through uncontrolled coughing, and let’s face it, all coughing is uncontrolled and ultimately, uncontainable. You pop cough drops as if they were candy corn and the cough doesn’t go away, but now your stomach hurts as well. A bad cough always coincides with a concert where most of the music is very quiet–no, you will never have a cough if you have to go to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overature w/ canon. You will cough during an Arthur Miller play where everyone talks and says lots of really profound stuff and you can’t get your cough drop unwrapped because maybe having a stomach ache is a little less horrible than coughing all the time. You buy new, very strong cough drops made with menthol eucalyptus jam that is so powerful the vapors make your eyes water (but now your eyes water and you cough). Good bourbon will help temporarily until you out of bourbon, but now you are tipsy and you have a cough. At the height of your cough you are scaring people who are expecting you to cough up a lung. Your ribs are sore from coughing because your stomach muscles can’t keep up. And then you finally kick the cold which has lasted about 14 days (or if you take zinc it will only last two weeks, so try that), you still have the bloody cough, which is going to hang around for another five weeks–maybe 35 days. Why do you always cough while chewing a soda cracker, spewing everything in eight directions at once. When you cough, people walk away from you, and if you go to the movies you either get hushed or the usher asks you to leave. You get one of those scary, raspy coughs that sound like a part of your throat is actually breaking loose. Some people cough as if their lungs were tip-toeing. You cannot stifle a good cough. You just threw-up a little in your mouth because the cough was so powerful it made you gag. Cough syrup, unless it has serious drugs in it, will do nothing to stop your cough, but it will keep the big drug manufacturers in business smiling all the way to the bank. You may have tuberculosis if you cough that much. As much as I hate to cough a lot, don’t every sneeze and cough at the same time, you will either sprain your head or have to change your clothes because of the wild spray pattern from the snot. Do not let others see the things you cough up and never do it in public. Go off in private–and that means out of earshot–if you have to cough up something like a cat with a persistent hairball. Nobody really wants to hear you clearing a nasty throat. And don’t forget the old adage, “It’s not the cough you have, but the coffin they carry you out in.” And I just ended this note with a double stranded preposition. Priceless.
Category Archives: comedy
On coughing
If there is a more useless and annoying bodily function than coughing I don’t know what it is. Maybe sneezing, but I digress. Sometimes when you get a cold, you also get a cough–a persistent, dry, hacking thing that makes you sound like a hoarse seal on its last flipper. You put your hand up to cover your mouth, but you fail and phlegm goes everywhere infecting the entire world with plague. Perhaps this is the secret of the common cold: it spreads itself through uncontrolled coughing, and let’s face it, all coughing is uncontrolled and ultimately, uncontainable. You pop cough drops as if they were candy corn and the cough doesn’t go away, but now your stomach hurts as well. A bad cough always coincides with a concert where most of the music is very quiet–no, you will never have a cough if you have to go to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overature w/ canon. You will cough during an Arthur Miller play where everyone talks and says lots of really profound stuff and you can’t get your cough drop unwrapped because maybe having a stomach ache is a little less horrible than coughing all the time. You buy new, very strong cough drops made with menthol eucalyptus jam that is so powerful the vapors make your eyes water (but now your eyes water and you cough). Good bourbon will help temporarily until you out of bourbon, but now you are tipsy and you have a cough. At the height of your cough you are scaring people who are expecting you to cough up a lung. Your ribs are sore from coughing because your stomach muscles can’t keep up. And then you finally kick the cold which has lasted about 14 days (or if you take zinc it will only last two weeks, so try that), you still have the bloody cough, which is going to hang around for another five weeks–maybe 35 days. Why do you always cough while chewing a soda cracker, spewing everything in eight directions at once. When you cough, people walk away from you, and if you go to the movies you either get hushed or the usher asks you to leave. You get one of those scary, raspy coughs that sound like a part of your throat is actually breaking loose. Some people cough as if their lungs were tip-toeing. You cannot stifle a good cough. You just threw-up a little in your mouth because the cough was so powerful it made you gag. Cough syrup, unless it has serious drugs in it, will do nothing to stop your cough, but it will keep the big drug manufacturers in business smiling all the way to the bank. You may have tuberculosis if you cough that much. As much as I hate to cough a lot, don’t every sneeze and cough at the same time, you will either sprain your head or have to change your clothes because of the wild spray pattern from the snot. Do not let others see the things you cough up and never do it in public. Go off in private–and that means out of earshot–if you have to cough up something like a cat with a persistent hairball. Nobody really wants to hear you clearing a nasty throat. And don’t forget the old adage, “It’s not the cough you have, but the coffin they carry you out in.” And I just ended this note with a double stranded preposition. Priceless.
On zippers
I’ve never liked them and never will. I buy jeans with buttons. My dislike of zippers is almost visceral, and certainly irrational. As a child I had a strange fear of catching a finger in my jacket zipper, and I had an even stronger fear that the zipper would jam, and that while trying to fix it, the zipper just came apart with the zipper thingy engaged about half way up, impossible to move either up or down. This is a recurring nightmare I had as a child. In this nightmare a small bit of cloth would get stuck in the zipper and jam the entire works to the point where only a knife or scissors were the only solutions. How many times have you gone out and left your fly open, your zipper unzipped? This is every man’s fashion nightmare dysfunction–to walk around for hours, perhaps the entire day, and have your wife say, “Your zipper is open. You walk around all day like that? Zippers are everywhere: pants, tents, coats, sleeping bags, backpacks, suitcases, windbreakers, shoes, jackets, boots, bags,wet suits, and purses. The whole secret to using a zipper is getting the two sides to interlock before pulling up the zipper, which can be sexy, but if you are little klutzy, it’s a real disaster. For most people this is an unconscious action which they do every day without even thinking about it. Without even thinking about it, that is, until something goes wrong: the material rips, something gets stuck, the zipper zips without connecting properly to the other side. What is terribly annoying are the people who see you have a disaster, and they offer help: “Oh, heavens, I can help with that!” But they can’t. They try everything, including force, to get the zipper unstuck, to bring it back to normal, to restore symmetry, but the only thing that they succeed at is making it worse. You pull the mess up over your head to relieve yourself of a jacket that won’t zip. Perhaps if you can take a look, you might solve the problem. If the zipper in your pants breaks, you are sincerely up the proverbial creek without paddle because trying to unstick a jammed zipper in the groin area is not only strange and weird, but it must be done in private. You can’t walk around the mall with a jammed zipper on your pants and try to work it out. A jacket with a broken zipper is no longer a jacket, and a backpack with a jammed zipper is both useless and a doorstop. The mechanical device that we know as the zipper is not even a hundred years old, dating in its various forms from the beginning of the twentieth century, so it’s not like this imperfect invention has threatened humanity for that long. The hypothesis for its use is good: close and hold together to pieces of fabric or rubber or canvas for a variable amount of time. In reality, if it fails, breaks, or jams, swearing ensues in which the victim challenges the parentage of the inventor. A stuck zipper can instantly take the passion out of an amorous encounter. I like my buttons, whether they be on my shirt or pants, the probability that I have a button failure or jam is almost nil. Zippers may be fast, but they certainly are neither cool nor hip.
On zippers
I’ve never liked them and never will. I buy jeans with buttons. My dislike of zippers is almost visceral, and certainly irrational. As a child I had a strange fear of catching a finger in my jacket zipper, and I had an even stronger fear that the zipper would jam, and that while trying to fix it, the zipper just came apart with the zipper thingy engaged about half way up, impossible to move either up or down. This is a recurring nightmare I had as a child. In this nightmare a small bit of cloth would get stuck in the zipper and jam the entire works to the point where only a knife or scissors were the only solutions. How many times have you gone out and left your fly open, your zipper unzipped? This is every man’s fashion nightmare dysfunction–to walk around for hours, perhaps the entire day, and have your wife say, “Your zipper is open. You walk around all day like that? Zippers are everywhere: pants, tents, coats, sleeping bags, backpacks, suitcases, windbreakers, shoes, jackets, boots, bags,wet suits, and purses. The whole secret to using a zipper is getting the two sides to interlock before pulling up the zipper, which can be sexy, but if you are little klutzy, it’s a real disaster. For most people this is an unconscious action which they do every day without even thinking about it. Without even thinking about it, that is, until something goes wrong: the material rips, something gets stuck, the zipper zips without connecting properly to the other side. What is terribly annoying are the people who see you have a disaster, and they offer help: “Oh, heavens, I can help with that!” But they can’t. They try everything, including force, to get the zipper unstuck, to bring it back to normal, to restore symmetry, but the only thing that they succeed at is making it worse. You pull the mess up over your head to relieve yourself of a jacket that won’t zip. Perhaps if you can take a look, you might solve the problem. If the zipper in your pants breaks, you are sincerely up the proverbial creek without paddle because trying to unstick a jammed zipper in the groin area is not only strange and weird, but it must be done in private. You can’t walk around the mall with a jammed zipper on your pants and try to work it out. A jacket with a broken zipper is no longer a jacket, and a backpack with a jammed zipper is both useless and a doorstop. The mechanical device that we know as the zipper is not even a hundred years old, dating in its various forms from the beginning of the twentieth century, so it’s not like this imperfect invention has threatened humanity for that long. The hypothesis for its use is good: close and hold together to pieces of fabric or rubber or canvas for a variable amount of time. In reality, if it fails, breaks, or jams, swearing ensues in which the victim challenges the parentage of the inventor. A stuck zipper can instantly take the passion out of an amorous encounter. I like my buttons, whether they be on my shirt or pants, the probability that I have a button failure or jam is almost nil. Zippers may be fast, but they certainly are neither cool nor hip.
On a green lizard
We brought the plants home a couple of days ago from the neighbor’s house where they spend the summer. Apparently we also brought home a small green lizard which had made its home in the branches of a small ficus we have. After three days in our kitchen, he decided he was too thirsty or too hungry, so he made a break for it. The natural human condition is, of course, “kill it!,” but me, being the simple-minded granola eating tree-hugger that I am, I decided to try my hand a green lizard wrangling. Now wrangling a two ounce green creature that looks like he sells insurance is not as easy as it looks. My first weapon of choice was a large plastic cup, but he laughed at that and asked if I was going to “ice-tea him to death.” He stopped laughing when I brandished a broom. First, he pulled out his wallet and offered me fifty bucks to forget the whole thing and let him go back to his tree. “No dice,” I said, “You’ll be after my pop tarts in no time.” So he took out his cell phone to call 9-1-1 because as I came at him with the broom, he felt his life was in danger. I had him cornered by the stove, and he suggested that we make two cafe lattes and discuss things, especially extinction level events, such as presidential elections or getting whacked with a broom. I declined. He made a break for the cabinet holding the microwave, but my wife got between him and cover, so he reversed course, and headed for the other plants. I think he played hockey at some point in his life because he checked me into the wall, and I was momentarily stunned. In the meantime, I had opened the back door, and he caught a glimpse of light, freedom, escape, the promised land, virgin territory. He headed for open country, and I was hot on his trail, but then he decided to hide behind the plants and I lost him. After lifting all the plants, I spotted him behind some big green leafy thing, and the chase was on again. He almost broke to the left and headed into the living-room, but I dropped the broom and he headed for the door again. I thought his English accent was hilarious as he screamed about giving me a discount on my car insurance if I’d switch to another company. I said, “No!” and brought my broom to bear. He scampered toward the light and jumped over the threshold. He was free, and I slammed the screen door shut after him. He is now in a resettlement and witness protection program in our back yard, and I have warned the neighbors that he wants to sell them car insurance. So now I will get my “non-lethal green lizard wrangling badge” which is part of the Order of the Old Green Geezers. We do a lot with recycling and composting. Other than the shouting and screaming, it went perfectly well. No animals were harmed in the writing of this essay.
On a green lizard
We brought the plants home a couple of days ago from the neighbor’s house where they spend the summer. Apparently we also brought home a small green lizard which had made its home in the branches of a small ficus we have. After three days in our kitchen, he decided he was too thirsty or too hungry, so he made a break for it. The natural human condition is, of course, “kill it!,” but me, being the simple-minded granola eating tree-hugger that I am, I decided to try my hand a green lizard wrangling. Now wrangling a two ounce green creature that looks like he sells insurance is not as easy as it looks. My first weapon of choice was a large plastic cup, but he laughed at that and asked if I was going to “ice-tea him to death.” He stopped laughing when I brandished a broom. First, he pulled out his wallet and offered me fifty bucks to forget the whole thing and let him go back to his tree. “No dice,” I said, “You’ll be after my pop tarts in no time.” So he took out his cell phone to call 9-1-1 because as I came at him with the broom, he felt his life was in danger. I had him cornered by the stove, and he suggested that we make two cafe lattes and discuss things, especially extinction level events, such as presidential elections or getting whacked with a broom. I declined. He made a break for the cabinet holding the microwave, but my wife got between him and cover, so he reversed course, and headed for the other plants. I think he played hockey at some point in his life because he checked me into the wall, and I was momentarily stunned. In the meantime, I had opened the back door, and he caught a glimpse of light, freedom, escape, the promised land, virgin territory. He headed for open country, and I was hot on his trail, but then he decided to hide behind the plants and I lost him. After lifting all the plants, I spotted him behind some big green leafy thing, and the chase was on again. He almost broke to the left and headed into the living-room, but I dropped the broom and he headed for the door again. I thought his English accent was hilarious as he screamed about giving me a discount on my car insurance if I’d switch to another company. I said, “No!” and brought my broom to bear. He scampered toward the light and jumped over the threshold. He was free, and I slammed the screen door shut after him. He is now in a resettlement and witness protection program in our back yard, and I have warned the neighbors that he wants to sell them car insurance. So now I will get my “non-lethal green lizard wrangling badge” which is part of the Order of the Old Green Geezers. We do a lot with recycling and composting. Other than the shouting and screaming, it went perfectly well. No animals were harmed in the writing of this essay.
On laughter
Did Jesus laugh? I think I’ll go out on a heretical branch and say “yes.” He was a man, after all, and there were times when I thought the narrators of the gospels would have liked to let Jesus laugh, but they thought their task too serious to let him laugh. This issue is discussed in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, with various characters taking different views on the subject. One side argues that laughter is frivolous and a part of the Devil’s plan to trick true believers into sinning. The other side argues that truth can come from the criticism implicit in laughter, and that Jesus probably made his followers laugh more than once. Although being laughed at can feel rather cruel, most laughter is derived from humor and funny situations, and it can often relieve stress or conflict. The body releases endorphins when it laughs, so laughter feels good. Stress is a horrible killer, but laughter is the antidote. Jesus was constantly being opposed by different groups who felt threatened by the revolutionary message he was preaching. Laughter was probably a great release for all that tension and conflict. Laughter often comes along with a smile, and one feels slightly out of control when laughing. Yea, though I walk through the valley of death, I should fear no evil. The Psalmist laughs at death, even when death is imminent, at hand, and all appears as dark as night and hope is no where to be found. Laughter is like the soul’s sword, it’s shield, it’s true defense. I find laughter to be balm for the troubled soul. When I am stressed out, or worried, or have to face something awful, I put on one of my favorite funny movies and lose myself in the humor and laughter. Laughing helps to put evil in perspective, and evil runs from laughter because laughter shines the light of truth into the dark corners where evil resides. If you have any doubts about the power of laughter, watch the “laughing scene” from the movie “Mary Poppins” and you will never wonder about laughter again.
On laughter
Did Jesus laugh? I think I’ll go out on a heretical branch and say “yes.” He was a man, after all, and there were times when I thought the narrators of the gospels would have liked to let Jesus laugh, but they thought their task too serious to let him laugh. This issue is discussed in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, with various characters taking different views on the subject. One side argues that laughter is frivolous and a part of the Devil’s plan to trick true believers into sinning. The other side argues that truth can come from the criticism implicit in laughter, and that Jesus probably made his followers laugh more than once. Although being laughed at can feel rather cruel, most laughter is derived from humor and funny situations, and it can often relieve stress or conflict. The body releases endorphins when it laughs, so laughter feels good. Stress is a horrible killer, but laughter is the antidote. Jesus was constantly being opposed by different groups who felt threatened by the revolutionary message he was preaching. Laughter was probably a great release for all that tension and conflict. Laughter often comes along with a smile, and one feels slightly out of control when laughing. Yea, though I walk through the valley of death, I should fear no evil. The Psalmist laughs at death, even when death is imminent, at hand, and all appears as dark as night and hope is no where to be found. Laughter is like the soul’s sword, it’s shield, it’s true defense. I find laughter to be balm for the troubled soul. When I am stressed out, or worried, or have to face something awful, I put on one of my favorite funny movies and lose myself in the humor and laughter. Laughing helps to put evil in perspective, and evil runs from laughter because laughter shines the light of truth into the dark corners where evil resides. If you have any doubts about the power of laughter, watch the “laughing scene” from the movie “Mary Poppins” and you will never wonder about laughter again.
On cell phones
They are both a blessing and a curse. I bemoan the slavery to which we subject ourselves by owning and using these electronic chains, but I rejoice in the connectivity they provide. I can talk to a colleague in Bologna or a relative in Madrid. I can send a text when running late. Locate a family member in a crowd. Multitask to my heart’s desire. And yet I am a slave to my phone, constantly checking for messages. One thing that I will not do is talk and drive or text and drive. Talking on the phone in the car makes me a bad driver, but texting makes me blind, stupid and distracted while driving. The same tool that keeps me in communication with the world, can also kill me in a second if I let it. Driving and texting are not compatible. I also try to keep my conversation private, and I abhor people who think that just because they are talking to a third party that you cannot hear them. The other day, a woman talked to her sister about her visit to the gynecologist that morning. I heard all about the gory details of the exam, the doctor’s cold hands, and about a particularly nasty std that she will have to take antibiotics to get rid of. And she didn’t know there was a copay. No, she was not pregnant. I got up out of my chair and closed the door. Too much information. I hold my conversations in private, and I think it is extremely creepy to watch a man or woman walk through the airport and appear to talk to themselves. I am disturbed by people who weep into their phones. I don’t want to hear that conversation either. Sometimes I think that cell phones actually separate us from reality, that cell phones are really isolating, and that one might become addicted to phones and eschew real human contact. Rejecting a face to face interview, replacing a real interview with a phone conversation–the interaction is different, dehumanizing, isolating. Call me old-fashioned, but a phone has a purpose, getting or delivering information. When we substitute a phone conversation for real human interaction, we debase our humanity and marginalize ourselves. The phone becomes more important than the people to whom we are connected. A cup of coffee, a cold Arnold Palmer, a glass of beer, a little bourbon on the rocks can be a common place where we connect to others on a human level, face-to-face, watching gestures, looking into the eyes of our interlocutor. The cell phone is a tool that the user must control, but it is also a tool which must be controlled because it is only too easy to be controlled by it. The cemeteries and hospitals are only too full of people who let themselves be controlled by a simple electronic gadget.
On cell phones
They are both a blessing and a curse. I bemoan the slavery to which we subject ourselves by owning and using these electronic chains, but I rejoice in the connectivity they provide. I can talk to a colleague in Bologna or a relative in Madrid. I can send a text when running late. Locate a family member in a crowd. Multitask to my heart’s desire. And yet I am a slave to my phone, constantly checking for messages. One thing that I will not do is talk and drive or text and drive. Talking on the phone in the car makes me a bad driver, but texting makes me blind, stupid and distracted while driving. The same tool that keeps me in communication with the world, can also kill me in a second if I let it. Driving and texting are not compatible. I also try to keep my conversation private, and I abhor people who think that just because they are talking to a third party that you cannot hear them. The other day, a woman talked to her sister about her visit to the gynecologist that morning. I heard all about the gory details of the exam, the doctor’s cold hands, and about a particularly nasty std that she will have to take antibiotics to get rid of. And she didn’t know there was a copay. No, she was not pregnant. I got up out of my chair and closed the door. Too much information. I hold my conversations in private, and I think it is extremely creepy to watch a man or woman walk through the airport and appear to talk to themselves. I am disturbed by people who weep into their phones. I don’t want to hear that conversation either. Sometimes I think that cell phones actually separate us from reality, that cell phones are really isolating, and that one might become addicted to phones and eschew real human contact. Rejecting a face to face interview, replacing a real interview with a phone conversation–the interaction is different, dehumanizing, isolating. Call me old-fashioned, but a phone has a purpose, getting or delivering information. When we substitute a phone conversation for real human interaction, we debase our humanity and marginalize ourselves. The phone becomes more important than the people to whom we are connected. A cup of coffee, a cold Arnold Palmer, a glass of beer, a little bourbon on the rocks can be a common place where we connect to others on a human level, face-to-face, watching gestures, looking into the eyes of our interlocutor. The cell phone is a tool that the user must control, but it is also a tool which must be controlled because it is only too easy to be controlled by it. The cemeteries and hospitals are only too full of people who let themselves be controlled by a simple electronic gadget.