Archive for August 2011
Would You Like Some More Ketchup with That Cucumber Salad, Young Man?
Today is my eighth anniversary as a lunch lady at John Jay Elementary School. So to celebrate, I decided to give the kids a little extra on their trays. I went crazy overboard on the stewed prunes. You should have seen the grateful, hungry looks I got from every single child! The same look they display when there’s kissing on TV – you can just tell the little dears find the sweet things in life so special.
Why, just the other day I made sure to glaze the cupcakes in date paste just to give a little extra. I could just see those adorable children scrunching up their noses in delight as they nibbled voraciously at the treats. Oh, those children – I could go on and on about them. Never had any of my own, but as a lunch lady I get to feed them better than their own parents, and with federal nutrition guidelines to help me. If a dish needs more vegetable content, I just add ketchup.
That’s how I got the creamed corn to meet the federal standard. Same goes for the pizza and the macaroni and cheese. I even did that once for the lemon meringue pie, but for some reason the color came out wrong. It was only supposed to be a pinkish white, not a dark red. So I didn’t try that again. Tasted wonderful, though, if I say so myself.
I always try to show the children I care, too, by smiling sweetly every time I dollop some goodness on their cafeteria trays. I have a missing incisor and a gold upper canine, plus there’s this persistent rash on my upper lip, so the smile comes out just right, the perfect mix of down-home concern and salt-of-the-earth credibility. The kids always stare at me for an extra second or two before moving on, so I know I’ve made a connection.
Used to be I could take more liberties in what I added to the food, but health inspectors put a stop to that. I suppose they mean well, but gone are the days when I could give a little bit of myself to a child who needed an extra bit of encouragement or grown-up demonstrations of nurturing. No more strands of my bluish hair to garnish their lunch, and no more cigarette ash to add some warmth to the food of a child just gasping for a little more love from his environment.
I’m glad I ended up with this gig, not like my friend Wanda, who’s stuck over at Thomas Edison High School across town – she has to see young people groping each other and engaging in romance right there in public! I’m much happier nurturing the bodies and hearts of the more impressionable ages. You never know what a little bit of input from a trusted soul behind the cafeteria counter can do to the minds and hearts of developing children.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I must add more ketchup to the apple sauce. It’s looking a bit drab.
Christopher Columbus’s Twitter Feed
Oh, baby. I can’t believe they bought it! #wealth here I come! Long Live the King and Queen!
Anyone know where you can get a decent navigator around here? Crazy Juan’s closed last month. Plague.
Think I should make potential crewmen submit to a physical? Please answer: how many arms do you have…
Gotta remember the jerky. Gotta remember the jerky. Gotta remember the jerky.
You’d think after all the Jews were expelled you wouldn’t be running into them right and left. Some Inquisition*this* turned out to be.
When I get to India, I’m trading Pedro the cook to the natives for someone who can cook. #indigestion
Some guy just said something about the world being flat. Doesn’t he know the Greeks already knew it was round?
And away we go! Sail the ocean blue! On to India!
Oh, %$#@. Forgot the jerky.
Four days out. Not much to report. Canary Islands haven’t sunk yet.
Pedro scored some really fatty mutton while we were loading supplies in the Islands. Maybe we’ll keep him.
Remember that comment about the Jews? I should have said right *to* left. Get it?
Oh, Jesus I’m so bored. Need a volunteer to fall overboard so we can have some excitement.
Wonder how Real Madrid is doing, considering they won’t be established for another five centuries or so.
Burned again. Really must stop sunbathing in the altogether.
With all this talk of mutiny, there’s no one to do the cooking. Plenty of brine for pickling, though.
Land! Land! And it looks fabulous for growing tobacco! Whatever *that* is. This is supposed to be India.
I have an idea: we’ll just ignore the fact that this isn’t India and call it India. Also, let’s spread smallpox.
Smallpox for syphilis: a fair deal?
Goddamn Indians. Not an ounce of chicken curry in sight. #gypped
Farewell, Santa María. *Sigh*. Only foosball table in the fleet.
Well, must be getting home. These Indians don’t take too well to being outgunned and treated with contempt.
What are all these sores?
You Call It a Bedsheet, But I Know It’s a Superhero Cape
A follow-up to: http://wp.me/pSXPz-g5
|
Item |
Purpose of Item According to: |
||||
| Normal human | Ten-year-old | Six-year-old | Four-year-old | Two-year-old | |
| Computer | Computing; communication; work | YouTube (The King’s Singers) | YouTube (The Muppets) | YouTube (Whatever anyone else is watching) | Removing all the keys from the keyboard |
| Car | Transport people, possessions | Excuse for use of power windows | Excuse for use of remote control | Convenient setup for kicking Mommy’s back | Convenient setup for pulling four-year-old’s hair |
| Pizza | Nourishment | Vehicle for delivery of toppings | Justification for not eating anything that is not pizza | Convenient setup for consumption only of the mozzarella cheese | Face paint; hair dye |
| Oatmeal | Breakfast; ingredient in cookies | Excuse not to eat breakfast, cookies | Excuse not to eat breakfast, cookies | Excuse not to eat breakfast, cookies | Hair gel |
| Bed | Slumber | Storage of books, toys | Trampoline, jungle gym | Toy car/truck parking garage | Access to delicate,easily ripped window screens |
| Refrigerator | Storage of perishable foodstuffs | Browsing | Jungle gym | Place to sit and cool off | Pavlovian stimulus for cries of “apple!” and “cottage cheese!” |
| Kitchen | Preparation and storage of food; cleaning used food implements | Place that suddenly ceases to exist when breakfast cereal bowl needs washing | Default hangout venue | Default hangout venue | Pretzel procurement area |
| Schoolbag | Transportation, storage of school books and supplies | Invitation to two-year-old to empty, scatter contents to the winds | Doormat | Fashion accessory | Randomly selected object that must be used in emulating older siblings |
| Bathtub/shower | Bodily hygiene | Acoustic experimentation with spray nozzle aimed at different surfaces | Peep show customer impersonation | Hydrodynamic experimentation with plastic bottles emptied over the side | Toilet |
| Parents | Source of emotional support, provision of basic needs | Furniture | Furniture | Furniture | Furniture |
Raise Your Hand If You Go Camping to Rub Shoulders with Cows
We Western Civilization types are so deprived. We have no idea what it’s like to share an abode with a herd of cows: the stench; the mooing mass of mammal; the unpredictable, copious streams of pungent urine (an AWESOME name for a rock band, btw); the dung underfoot (also a good band name, or perhaps a comic book superhero – are you writing these down?).
And although we Western Civilization types often “rough it” by going camping, seldom do we choose to camp in areas known for their cattle population. Last week we went camping in a forest. You know, a wooded area not generally associated with kine. Boy, you and your ignorant assumptions:
- “Say, mind if I poop here?”
Fortunately, the only evidence they’d left prior to our arrival was old enough not to be a problem, and they only came around in the morning after we’d started packing up. And the kids seemed to take the mooing masses in stride:
"Uh...hi."
But they were well behaved. And so were the cows.
Except when one bull (it was CLEARLY a bull) reacted to the sudden appearance of a car by mounting a nearby female. Hey, can understand. That’s how I react to seeing cars, too. My wife is getting tired of it, though; five pregnancies have been enough for her.
Which is not to imply that our activities in this forest were centered around the bovine, though we did have grilled hot dogs for dinner the night before (probably turkey, come to think of it, so never mind). The divine also played a part. I have never spent so much leisure time in such a beautiful bit of nature. When I was at summer camp and we went on hikes or camping trips, there was always a schedule or some pressure to do stuff or get somewhere. Not here. We looked at the stars. We looked at the sunset. We looked at the trees:
"Daddy, what are all these big green buildings?"
The next night we spent a forgettable time on a rocky, noisy beach. Blech. I’d share photos of that sunset, but that was about the only moment of relaxation in a span rife with escaping children, loud neighbors, exhibitionists, cruddy restroom facilities, misbehaving children and humidity that would make mildew uncomfortable. We were glad to be out of there and on toward the Australian wildlife park, where we fed kangaroos:
"Pellets again? Boy, you humans have no imagination."
We also got to see a koala, a bunch of large bats (flying foxes) with a little baby bat, and a mess of other cool creatures. Then we went to a local swimming hole with half the rest of the population and eventually, home, where the wildlife of our own making decided to trash the place. New rule: if it’s not cleaned up by bedtime, it’s mine. Yes, that includes your favorite LEGO pieces.
Say, is there a way to train these domestic creatures?
How I Tried to Ruin Thursday Night’s Dinner Party
1. Left staircase unblocked so visiting toddler could tumble down stone steps to basement and crash into precariously stacked heavy items.
2. Managed to get fingertip of right thumb caught in mechanical corkscrew. This resulted in: flirtation with passing out (my brain cannot handle blood or the mere prospect of serious injury – when I took the two-year-old for a blood test a week ago, he barely reacted, while I felt woozy); incapacity to serve or otherwise interact with guests, leaving spouse to assume those duties and ride herd on the children; and the cumulative realization of just how unevolved I feel without the use of my opposable thumb.
3. Seated guests in exactly the wrong way, resulting in crescendoing drama as various elements of the visiting clan vied for position at the same table as the guests of honor. The simmering tension was defused only through the deft ministrations of someone who was clearly not me.
4. Left doors and windows just open enough to allow mosquitoes in, but not quite open enough to allow cool evening air in.
5. Nearly allowed guests to help clear or serve; this threatened our sense of order and the kitchen-dining-room traffic pattern (the bottleneck near Mrs. Thag’s seat is a perennial trouble spot).
6. Wrongly assumed that people would arrive within an hour of the announced start time.
7. Allowed other people near the fudge (MINE! MINE! NO TOUCH!)
8. Let ten-year-old sit out of direct parental sight, enabling him to serve himself some wine.
9. Set the kids’ table with the Dry Clean Only tablecloth.
10. Bought only cheap wine to serve (some inconsiderate guest actually brought a bottle of stupendous 2007 Cabernet. Ah, well).
Our Concern for Our Citizens Is Measured in Decibels
Dear Mr. Thag:
Thank you for writing to us to express your displeasure with the late-night outdoor concert near your home. It is only thanks to concerned citizens such as you that we at City Hall can monitor our efforts to make your life miserable. We find it heartening that the events we arrange cause enough trouble to generate a reaction.
As we explained in a response to your previous complaint after a similar event several months ago, we selected the park near your home when the police refused to issue approval for an alternative, more distant park. In this case, we did not bother trying to find an alternative venue, having already established that the park nearest your home provides the ideal combination of disruptive noise and aggravating traffic tie-ups.
In contrast to the the previous concert about which you submitted a grievance, this one took place on a Saturday night, necessitating that the equipment and barriers be in place during the day. This scheduling allowed us to both occupy large swaths of the green space, rendering one of the only such sizable areas in the city unavailable for recreation on a day with some of the heaviest park traffic, and to block off the playground almost entirely.
An additional consideration involved your status as a resident of the city as opposed to a tourist; we try to impress tourists with our amenities and welcoming atmosphere, and the alternative venues were much closer to several luxury hotels. We remain reluctant to subject such economy-boosters to such a cacophony when they wish to rest. But you, the tax-paying resident, are already heavily invested in staying in the city, and we cannot justify expending assets and effort on your behalf when you’ll probably just vote us out at the end of our terms no matter what we accomplish.
Regarding your concern for the welfare of your young children, and those of other neighborhood families, spare us. Young children don’t even pay taxes, so why should we care about them? As it is, our neglect of the school system should have already clued you in to our manifest lack of feeling for the under-eighteen set. Trying to appeal to our sense of empathy for such parasites is not the way to induce us to do anything.
But thank you again for your feedback. Without the involvement of citizens such as you we would have no idea how well we are doing in our mission to make young families abandon this city. We would much rather play host to transient students and hippies who bring infusions of their parents’ cash instead of trying to drain our coffers with constant demands for improved infrastructure and actual responsiveness from the municipality.
If there is anything more we can do to piss you off, please let us know. Until then, we remain,
Your Municipal Officials
Harry Potter and the Slapstick Schizophrenic
These goblin wars are getting tiresome, thought Harry, gripping the Elder Wand and aiming at a slow-moving goblin across the road. “Anorexia Nervosa,” he whispered. A very thin, pale gray beam shot out from his wand and hit the goblin in the belly. The goblin seemed to waste away before his eyes. But he had to keep moving. Another goblin would surely see where he had cast from. He scurried back away from the hedge and then ran around through the hole in the fence back to Privet Drive.
It had been a month since the magical world had discovered that goblins were no longer vulnerable to “normal” spells. No one had figured out what caused the change – even captured goblin prisoners knew nothing – but Hermione had been reading Muggle psychiatry books, and the names of the disorders sounded like good spells. She and Ron had used Photophobia and Autophagia effectively in defending the Burrow from a horde of invaders, causing the goblins to flee and soil themselves at the slightest hint of light or inducing them to eat themselves.
The discovery proved decisive in turning the tide, but Harry knew the goblins were still numerous and clever enough to present a serious threat. He came back to conduct reconnaissance on Privet Drive alone, in his Invisibility Cloak, not certain whether he felt more threatened by a goblin ambush or the demons of his childhood. The goblins, at least, he could defeat with various forms of insanity; the Dursleys, if they still lived there, were already a few knuts short of a galleon. Harry didn’t know whether a dose of mental illness would make a difference.
Harry incapacitated a goblin patrol with Catatonia and Narcolepsia, then made his way around the neighborhood, half-wishing Hermione and Ron were there with him instead of commanding a counteroffensive to take back Wales and Cornwall. Ginny wanted to come along, but knew the younger ones needed her. Harry checked to make sure his Cloak was still covering him as he edged toward the Dursley’s back window. He thought he heard a familiar voice.
“Well…no, I mean…yes, it would be…no! I want no part of thi – OW!”
Uncle Vernon? Harry momentarily forgot he was wearing the cloak and only peeked in through the window.
Uncle Vernon apparently had a Body Bind curse on him, as he was stuck in an uncomfortable position, and a wizard with his back to Harry was sending electric shocks through the man’s body. The wizard’s posture looked familiar, and Harry recognized Draco Malfoy.
Next to Malfoy was a group of four goblins, each one uglier than the next, and just beyond them, with a look of triumph on his stupidly ugly face, Malfoy’s childhood henchman Goyle. Wonderful, thought Harry. All the people in the world I detest, right in one room. He suppressed an urge to trap them all there, and slid the window open a crack. All of Uncle Vernon’s and Aunt Petunia’s comical efforts to keep their house in tip-top shape finally had one benefit, Harry told himself as the window made not a sound. He shifted slightly to his left and pointed his wand at Goyle.
“Coprophagia” he intoned silently. In the dusky light no one saw the brown stream that struck Goyle in the face. Goyle began wiggling his nose and looking around wildly. He then lunged for the backside of the nearest goblin, opening his mouth wide. The goblin yelped and leaped out of the way, bumping into a second goblin and knocking him over into Aunt Petunia’s china cabinet. The cabinet contents came crashing down as Goyle continued to shove his face toward the backside of whichever goblin was closest.
In the ensuing chaos, Harry opened the window further and clambered into the house, closing the window behind him. He aimed a second Coprophagia curse at the only goblin not participating in the melee, then turned his attention toward Malfoy.
But Malfoy had darted out of the room, the better to escape Goyle’s newfound appetite for feces, and Harry could not find a clear path to follow. But he did feel a need to pass gas, and that gave him an idea. He moved around behind Uncle Vernon’s paralyzed form and let go with the most emphatic fart he’d produced in years. It felt good to do something like that for such a constructive purpose, so shamelessly.
Goyle’s nose twitched at the scent and he lunged toward Uncle Vernon, dragging all four goblins with him. As the goblins struggled to subdue the frenzied coprophiliac, Harry moved around them and followed Malfoy out of the room into the kitchen, marveling at the power of the spells cast by the Elder Wand. The difference between his wand and others was even more pronounced in casting the Muggle disorder spells than in producing classic wizard magic. He’d have to ask Hermione about that.
Malfoy was nowhere to be seen.
How to Jump on Mom and Dad’s Bed
1. Jumping on Mom and Dad’s bed may only be done when Mom and Dad are not in the room.
2. If Mom or Dad is in the room, jumping may only be done in such a way that it looks like falling.
3. Accusations of bed-jumping shall be met only with flat denials.
4. When presented with incontrovertible evidence that kids have been jumping on Mom and Dad’s bed, the only acceptable reaction is evasive expressions of ignorance.
5. It doesn’t really count as jumping on the bed if your body just sort of bounces without an actual space created between your body and the bed.
6. Any injuries sustained in the course of jumping on Mom and Dad’s bed shall be embellished sufficiently to forestall scolding for the manner in which the injuries occurred.
7. Holding stuffed animals or figures and jumping with them means the animals or figures are doing the jumping, so it’s OK.
8. Covers or blankets between the bottom sheet and the jumping child means the jumping occurs not on the bed per se, but on the cover or blanket, and is therefore OK.
9. Under no circumstances may a child graciously accept admonishment not to jump on Mom and Dad’s bed; any such rebuke is to be met with, at minimum, a bitter retort of “Fine!”
10. Pillow fights on Mom and Dad’s bed do not count as jumping on the bed, as any jumping that takes place occurs only as a side effect of conducting the pillow fight and not as jumping qua jumping.
Answer: About sixteen. Question: What’s My IQ?
Back when I used to waste my time on the web in completely different ways, I participated in an ongoing game called A Question for My Answer. Each player had to formulate a question for the answer supplied by the previous player in the sequence, then provide an answer that the next player would question. Here are a couple of the ones I still remember:
A: That’s “discreet,” not “discrete.”
Q: So, Mr. President, you want a separate chapter about each intern?
A: Just put it in the sink.
Q: Hey, Joe, where do you want this rotting llama carcass?
A: Airplane fartknocker.
Q: And if it’s a girl?
So, the idea here is to involve you, the pathetic reader, in an even more pathetic attempt to create some inane juxtapositions right here, at (checks URL) Mightier than the Pen. I’ll do a few off the top, just so I don’t have to jump straight into the rejection of deafening silence, and i shall end with an answer for you to question. If you are sufficiently moved, please submit your submissions via comment. I promise to moderate things as quickly as possible. Of course that might mean a week and half from now, but it won’t kill you to wait. I hope.
A: Over my dead body!
Q: Mom, do you want a Lady Gaga-themed funeral casket lid?
A: Our payment policy is Net+30.
Q: Wouldn’t it be a shame, Mr. Thag, for this lovely store of yours to burn down, when you could have enjoyed our protection?
A: I got it!
