Reminder: VOTE!

No, this blog is not in a time warp, urging you to vote for president. We mean the Slightly Humorous survey, which is taking up quite a bit of room to the left of this page and is FAR MORE important than the presidential election. For starters, your vote could determine the direction of this blog, and therefore your level of entertainment satisfaction, for the next 6 months, or whenever we decide to think up some more vital ("lame") questions for another poll. Remember that we need a scientific sample (approximately 6.3874932 people) to make any valid conclusions. And valid conclusions are what we are known for.

Disclaimer: Voting in this survey will have no bearing on the raising or lowering of your taxes.

Reach out and beep someone

Joe's telephone conversations with his mother are often punctuated by laughter. My phone conversations with my own parents are often punctuated by...other sounds. Reconstructed here is my most recent discussion with them, after my mother's return home from inpatient therapy.

I ask my mother if she is glad to be home.

"No," she says.

Well, this is off to a positive start.

"You mean Dad's not treating you like a queen and doing everything for you?" I ask.

My mother does not snort, but she comes dangerously close this time.

"He drops me off at the door to the grocery store," she says.

"That's helpful, " I say encouragingly.

"It would be more helpful if he came in with me."

Our conversation is periodically interrupted by a loud BEEP!, which we attempt to ignore for a while.

"What is that sound?" my mother finally asks.

"It sounds like someone is pushing the buttons on the phone," I say pointedly.

My father coughs. He explains, in a somewhat irritated tone, that he is trying to turn the volume down on the TV. He clearly would appreciate being left alone to handle this task.

My mother attempts to explain to him that one generally uses the remote to turn down the volume on the TV, and that he is not going to be successful by pushing the telephone buttons, no matter how many BEEPs! he makes.

But in her haste to be helpful, she calls the telephone the television, so that her advice comes out like this:

"You're using the television, Jim."

"Yes, I know I'm using the television," he says. "I'm trying to turn it down."

"But it's not going to work by pushing the television," she insists. "You have to use the, uh, other thing...."

"I am using the other thing," he insists.

The conversation proceeds in this manner for some time, punctuated by more BEEPs! I finally point out that what my mother is trying to recommend is the use of the remote.

"That's right!" she says. "The remote."

The BEEPs! subside, as does the noise coming from the television, and my mother and I continue our discussion.

But soon we hear water running. My mother sighs. "Now what are you doing?" she asks my father.

"I'm rinsing my dishes off, like I'm supposed to," he says somewhat peevishly. He has come under fire recently from more than one of his children for not helping my mother with the dishes, and here he is trying to be helpful, yet he gets reprimanded.

His dishes must have been very dirty, because the water continues to run for a while. My mother and I talk over the sound.

Things are quiet for a while, then we hear a bag rustling. My mother inquires yet again what my dad is doing.

"I'm having my snack," he explains. "There's nothing wrong with that, is there?"

"Do you have to do it while we're on the phone?" she asks.

He regards this as a frivolous question and continues to rustle in the bag. My mother attempts to pick up where we left off talking.

Gradually we become aware of munching sounds.

My mother sighs heavily. "Well, what can you do with him?" she says rhetorically to me.

"With who?" my father demands. Although he cannot hear much of what we are saying over his munching -- WE cannot hear much of what we are saying over his munching -- he hears enough to suspect, with that uncanny sense husbands and fathers everywhere possess, that we are discussing him. And if we are, he wants to know about it.

I begin to say my goodbyes. "Call back when it's not so noisy," my father says. "I could hardly hear a word you said."

There is one final sound. It is from my mother, and she is snorting.

Survey # I forget

Once more it is time for our Periodic Drive to Raise Money for the Slightly Humorous Blog. No, wait, I meant it is time for our Periodic Slightly Humorous, Extremely Scientific Survey (although if you WANT to send money, we will not stop you). This time we have some exciting new questions, along with some we have probably asked before, but since I don't remember which are which, I am counting on you not to remember either. So please take some time to answer the four questions at left. As always, I know you will ponder each question deeply, search your heart for your honest feelings, and then answer at random. Since this is an anonymous survey, fortunately for you all answers cannot and will not be used against you.

Mis(sed)-communication

Many couples, due to their busy lives, find that they must schedule time to have conversations with each other on important topics, such as whether they have three children (which is what they have always thought), and if so why there are six in the kitchen at the present moment, all clamoring to be fed.

In our case, our varied preferences in times for getting up and for going to bed mean that Joe and I have a tiny window of time when we can optimally comprehend each other's conversation. This window of time is approximately 7:13-7:52 p.m. Outside of this time slot our ability to communicate coherently is several compromised, and any conversation attempted must be repeated later. This can be seen in the following examples.

"Good morning, sweetie," I say brightly one morning, as I do on most mornings.

He mumbles something that might be "Morning," or possibly "Caffeine, I need caffeine."

This type of response in no way intimidates or deters a morning person, which I have inexplicably become after many years of being a mumbler myself before 10 a.m. It only makes us more determined to help the other person become coherent. So I press on.

"Did you sleep good?" I inquire.

"Uh huh."

Before I can continue this scintillating conversation, he leaves the room. He is back a few minutes later. "Good morning!" he says cheerily.

I look around to see if there is anyone else he might be talking to. "Didn't we already have this conversation?" I ask.

"Yeah, but I wasn't ready for it yet," he says.

Later in the day, during our window of optimal mutual comprehension, he informs me of his plans to keep inflicting damage to the family room wall in his quest to liberate the fireplace hidden behind it.

Alarmed, I tell him we need to talk about this.

"We already did," he says.

"When?"

"Last night."

"When last night?"

He is vague on the exact time, but I gather it was well after I had gone to sleep.

"I was already asleep," I say. "You must have been talking to someone else."

But he insists that it was me. "I told you that it would be really easy to keep working on the fireplace if I made some handles on a piece of plywood and fit it into the opening when I'm not working on it. It would look much better than just sticking a slab of wood there."

"And what did I say?"

"You said it sounded like a terrific idea."

"I wasn't ready for that conversation," I declare. "We'd better have it again. And NOT at 2 a.m.," I clarify. "7:34 tomorrow night should work."

Letter of complaint

Dear Employer,

Now that I have had my 6-month new-employee review and my probationary period is past, let me just say that although I greatly appreciate the privilege of working for a company that provides free calorie-laden foods several times a week, I wish to make a complaint about certain working conditions that have come to my attention.

#1: First, the weather. I'm sure you have noticed that it is getting colder outside. I realize that this issue is generally considered to be out of an employer's control, but I would like to suggest certain weather-related policies that would greatly benefit your employees' health and sense of well-being and, hence, productivity. For instance, perhaps it is not really necessary for employees to come to work on days when the temperature is not expected to reach, say, 45 degrees. It is really quite inconvenient to struggle into one's coat, scarf, hat, mittens, boots, etc. each morning. And that's just to get out of bed to turn the alarm off.

Not having to come to work on cold days would also prevent us from having to get into cold cars in the morning. As you are no doubt aware, no one in Maryland has a garage, except possibly those who are incarcerated at taxpayers' expense. I believe this is written into the state Constitution ("Garages are an unnecessary and unsightly appendage to a domicile and are therefore hereby outlawed for the remainder of this millennium, or until the entire state of Maryland is overtaken by the Chesapeake Bay due to global warming, whichever comes first").

I realize that in certain states, having a cold-weather policy would result in industry shutting down completely during four or five or six months of the year, but just think how refreshed those employees would be when they returned to work in the warmer months! As for making employees come to work during bad weather, the state of Ohio's public education site refers to various hazardous weather conditions -- defined as "anytime the temperature plunges to 45 degrees" -- as "public calamities." Do you really want your employees on the road during a public calamity? Wouldn't it be far better for them to remain safe at home with their loved ones, their hot chocolate, and their comfortable sweatpants? I know that my mental well-being is certainly enhanced by some hot chocolate and sweatpants.

Speaking of sweatpants, have you noticed that your employees are dressing more warmly now, including blankets? This is generally a sign that it is time to turn off the air conditioning.

#2. On a more personal note, I have noticed a disturbing trend occurring whenever there is an important announcement made to the entire company through the intercom. As you are no doubt aware, the intercom does not extend into the restrooms. Why is it that, whenever some such announcement is made -- such as that a fire drill is imminent, or that I have won the office lottery -- you wait until I am in the restroom to make the announcement? As this has happened several times now, my associates are aware of the issue, and I live in fear that someday I will win a raffle of $1,000,000 and when they realize that I did not hear the joyous news, they will refrain from telling me in the hopes that I will not find out and they can split the winnings.

#3: This is more of a suggestion than a complaint. I have heard rumors that we may be holding a "Pajama Day" at work, in which employees have the privilege of coming to work looking just like they rolled out of bed. I think this is a great idea. In fact, maybe we could take the concept one step further and declare a "Pajama Day in Your Home," wherein each employee remains at home for the workday in her or her night wear. This would, I'm sure, greatly boost morale, particularly if employees were required to do no work while in their pajamas.

I would be happy to discuss these matters further at your convenience. Preferably over the phone, while I am at my residence, relaxing in my pajamas.

Respectfully submitted,
Editor #6

The Universal Law of Cleaning

Due to technical difficulties (none of which had anything to do with ME), this post appears much later in the day than it was supposed to. We apologize for any inconvenience.

There is, I believe, a Universal Law of Cleaning when Expecting Company. This law states that the tasks you have put off for the last five years because they are so unappealing suddenly become the things you must do when you are supposed to be doing something even less appealing, like making your entire house presentable for visitors. We don't have visitors very often -- you will doubtless see why as you read further -- but when we do, this law is in full force.

This law affects the genders in quite different ways. Women, for instance, generally find themselves compelled to do tasks that, though not entirely necessary at the moment -- such as the removal of all knobs on the stove for the purpose of cleaning around them -- nevertheless make some sort of improvement in the appearance or functioning of the home. When the Universal Law of Cleaning when Expecting Company is applied to men, however, the result, instead of improving the home, usually involves varying degrees of property destruction. Let me illustrate with a recent example.

With company expected the next day at our house, Joe's task is to clean the family room in the basement. This is important, because this is the room that welcomes you into the house, unless you are the daily mail, in which case you are flung through a little slot in the front door upstairs and deposited unceremoniously on the floor of the study. But for people, they generally first see the basement.

Now, we have a large contingent of household objects with no permanent dwelling place -- not as large as we used to have, but nevertheless substantial enough that when a visit is imminent, it is Joe's job to magically remove these objects to another part of the house so as to give our visitors the impression that we are intimately acquainted with Martha Stewart's Rules for Gracious Living. This task is so enormous that we write it in large letters in our daily calendar: CLEAN FAMILY ROOM!!!!!!!!!!! The number of exclamation marks following this directive represents approximately how much cleaning we estimate will be needed. The exclamation marks generally take up all the room on the calendar.

On this particular occasion, however, Joe felt another call upon his time. It was imperative, he felt, that this very day, instead of making the family room presentable for our guests' imminent visit, he must set about liberating the 170-year-old fireplace that has been walled up for at least 20 years. Indeed, it was his duty.

This act would involve knocking through the wall of the family room to find the fireplace. The room he was supposed to be cleaning. But the Universal Law of Cleaning when Expecting Company must be obeyed. I began to hear sounds that were not compatible with cleaning, and when I entered the room I noticed -- being an observant sort of person -- that roughly a square foot of the wall was missing. Well, not completely missing. Most if it was strewn all over the floor.

In keeping with the Spousal Confidence Laws of Maryland, I will not divulge the discussion we had when I discovered this situation, but let's just say that it is fortunate that I was not the one holding the ax.

Despite the Universal Law of Cleaning when Expecting Company, I blame this on the real estate agent who sold us the house. His hobby, when not selling houses, was to smash holes in the walls of his historic home to see what might be behind them. He encouraged Joe to take up this hobby himself, enticing him with visions of finding and restoring stone walls and brick fireplaces. "If you don't like what you see," he said, "cover it up and try someplace else." This is the only advice of a real estate professional that Joe has ever followed. I am quite sure, however, that by "cover it up" the man meant restoring a wall to its original appearance, whereas the experiments on our walls are merely covered over with plywood, so that the room appears as if some crazed animal has attempted to smash through the walls in an effort to escape.

I have ceased trying to come up with an explanation for these slabs of plywood on the walls to our guests, and now just ignore them. My only hope is that visitors of both genders will, upon seeing our desecrated walls, instantly recognize the application of the Universal Law.

Oh, the things you don't know

You might think that editing textbooks would be a boring profession. Pretty much you'd be right. BUT, every now and then the editor is rewarded with amusing little pieces of information, or misinformation, that make her satisfied that she did not go into some other line of more interesting work, such as wilderness instructor. In the interest of not being selfish, I will now share with you some of these amusing little pieces of (1) information and (2) misinformation.

First, Rembrandt's Night Watch is a beautiful, haunting image of three confident musketeers striding through a crowd of people who seem confused as to why they are even in this painting. But the interesting thing about the painting is not the subject. In addition to Night Watch, it has several alternative names. One, which our fifth grade art book thoughtfully points out, is The Sortie of the Captain Banning Cocq's Company of the Civic Guard. This painting is on display in the Netherlands, at the Rijksmuseum, where it no doubt carries an equally long and absurd title, more so because it is in Dutch.

But this title does provide some explanation, at least, for why the people in the painting look confused. They have asked all around, and no one knows what a cocq is. Some believe it is the central musketeer's name; others insist that it is a clue to some hidden treasure, the location of which is known only to the musketeers, which is why they are the only ones not looking confused. In the absence of a consensus on this issue, the title Night Watch was unanimously chose in place of the original, and the people in the painting also voted to limit future titles of artwork to one word (or 15 in French).

The second interesting fact deals with issues a little closer to home, at least if you live in the U.S. Although everyone knows that the U.S. treated the Indians very shamefully in the past, few realize -- unless you read the answer key to our sixth grade history book questions -- that the U.S., at a very critical turning point in history, signed a peach treaty with the Indians. Yes. The answer key does not give any details of this treaty, which must have been very complicated and therefore secret, but I surmise that it went along the following lines:

Indians: You take too many of our peaches. This stop.
U.S.: Okay.

(Some sources believe that instead of saying "Okay," the U.S. responded with "How many is too many?" but these sources are pessimistic.)

Judging from the abundance of peaches still available today, this was one of the few treaties the U.S. ever kept with the Indians. Otherwise we would have picked them clean by 1843. The peaches, that is.

Time does not permit us to share more of these little-known facts with you, but we trust that there will be more opportunities in the future to do so. Wilderness instructors never led such an exciting life.

Drama at the castle

Today we bring you breaking news in a developing situation on the back porch of the Gallant Hero and the Prissy Princess. For several days, they have been keeping a careful eye on three pumpkins sitting on their steps.

"What's the situation?"

"There are chunks missing from P1, P2, and P3. Doesn't look good."

"Damage from the ladder fall, you think?"

"No, the pattern of breaks looks more like the work of a predator. He leaves no trail, though."
"Well, keep an eye on it."

All is quiet during the days work is being done on the patio, which joins the porch. Then, suddenly, there is another development: pumpkin guts lie all the new patio.

"P1 is breached; we'd better get a crew down here to clean it up. Looks like whoever's responsible got away with some of the material inside."

"Destroy P1; it's no use to us any longer, and it will only encourage him to come back. Let's get everyone on this so we can catch this guy. And beef up security around P2 and P3."

There is some discussion on possible parties responsible for the intrusion. Suggestions for likely candidates are offered by interested co-workers, neighbors, CIA agents, etc. The perpetrator is given a code name: The Elusive Pumpkin Eater.

The day after P1 is removed, he strikes again.

"P2 was discovered at 1700 hours on the lower steps of the yard. One side is severely scarred, but it has not been breached."

"Whoever did this was not happy to find P1 missing. The Elusive Pumpkin Eater is leaving us a message."

There is a sudden commotion in the command room.

"There's been a sighting of the perp! The suspect is about a foot and a half long with a bushy tail. Looks like the same guy suspected in the Tomato Heist a few weeks ago."

"Did he say anything?"

"Yeah, we got a recording. Sounds like CHHKKLLL CHHKKLL CHHKKLL."

"Hmmm, doesn't resemble anything we have on file...this guy is bold. Strikes in broad daylight and doesn't care if he's seen."

"What should we do?"

"P2 is compromised, and we can't risk further damage to it. It must be destroyed. And move P3 to a more secure location. We can't risk him getting that one, too."

P3 is moved to the front porch in the hopes of confusing the suspect. The suspect's code name is changed from The Elusive Pumpkin Eater to Bob the Squirrel.

Things are quiet for a few days. Then...

"We've just received a message. We think it may be from Bob the Squirrel."

"Why?"

"It's, um, written in pumpkin seeds. Analysis confirms the seeds are from P1 and P2."

"Well?"

"It says, 'You may have won this time. But I'll be back next year.' "

"Sounds like our ruse worked...anything else?"

"Yeah...it looks like it says 'P.S. Got any more tomatoes?' "

A quick guide to the Christmas shopping experience

I am not one to hang on to a holiday once it is past. The day after Halloween, my sister and I hit the mall to start our Christmas shopping. The bags piled up. Our arms ached. We had to make a run to the car to get rid of everything so we could buy more. We were giddy with our success. "We'll get done early this year!" we said.

When I tallied up the things I had bought, I surpassed even my own expectations: things for me: 11; Christmas gifts: 0.

"I didn't do so good on the gifts," I said to my sister.

"But you got a lot of nice things," she pointed out, which was comforting.

Despite my best intentions, this is pretty much how I start my Christmas shopping every year, and I actually highly recommend it. If everyone would do this, we wouldn't have to shop for gifts for other people at all. And everyone would get exactly what they want. Plus, the earlier you start, the more things you get for yourself. This is in keeping with the Christmas spirit, which is "good will to all people," including yourself.

My brother has a slightly different method of buying Christmas gifts:

1. Hound family members for a list of exactly what they want for Christmas. Get sizes, colors, brand names, all the identifying information you possibly can.
2. Ignore lists and buy people whatever you want.

As you can see, his method makes my method necessary. And so if you'll excuse me, I must go start my Christmas shopping. Again.

Frightfully fun

Our usual Halloween consists of sitting around the candy bowl, waiting for trick or treaters who never come, because we do not have a porch light and our house is shrouded in darkness. This has never really bothered us, because of course we buy the candy for ourselves, knowing full well we will never get any kids. But this year I was privileged to spend Halloween with my niece's two children, who at the tender ages of five and three have the process down quite well.

The three-year-old -- who has never in her life come within ten feet of me of her own free will -- was so beside herself with excitement that when her brother announced my arrival she flew straight at my legs and wrapped herself around them, fairy wings and all, and squeezed as tight as she could. "Hello?" I wanted to say. "This is Aunt Holly. You don't like me." I tried to hide my face so she wouldn't look up and suddenly realize her mistake. Even without a mask, I am pretty scary to her.

According to a recent story in the newspaper -- which, you might recall from an earlier blog, no longer carries actual news, and the story reported here must be completely fabricated, as you will see -- it is important to make sure children get some actual nutrition on Halloween before they go out into the wide world beyond to collect cavities. The article notes that due to all the excitement of the occasion, some children may be reluctant to acquire this nutrition, and suggests that parents stimulate more interest by having the kids help make the dinner. And not just any dinner. They must plan dinner as an art project, wherein the kids help make foods that the parents themselves would never think of eating but that kids find attractive, such as things that look like spiders and ghosts and eyeballs.

The article was accompanied by several photos of a mother and two children making what the article said was turkey meatball spiders, but what appeared to be cupcakes with various crustacean parts sticking out at odd angles. The meatballs consisted of -- and this is true -- turkey, shredded zucchini, oatmeal, and 12-grain bread. The article did not indicate whether the children actually ate any of this, but I would be highly suspicious of them if they did.

My niece did not have her children make turkey meatball spiders, but she did make a homemade chicken pot pie for dinner. The net food intake for one child was two peas from her pot pie and also four grapes; the other child wouldn't eat a bite and ended up getting a hot dog, which, once on his plate, was subjected to rough treatment as a hockey puck. No doubt the meal would have been more successful if we had called it something interesting, like Brain Pot Pie.

Then it was time for the obligatory photos of everyone in costume, which kids like even less than going to get their picture taken with Santa, because every minute spent standing still for a photo translates into roughly 5 lost pieces of potential candy. My niece lined up four squirming children, her two and the neighbors', and we all snapped away. In an attempt to assure their cooperation, she informed them that they would appreciate these photos someday. They squirmed even more.

When they were finally released to go out, they immediately scattered in four different directions. Most of my time was spent running after a child, only to find out that I didn't know the child, and the one I was supposed to be watching was by now probably perched in some neighbor's kitchen, contentedly eating candy and Brain Pot Pie.

The first five houses they went to -- once we had corralled the children who actually belonged to us -- were all lit up like Christmas trees, yet the kids insisted that no one was home at any of them. I finally realized that they were not announcing themselves in any manner. They made plenty of noise running across the yards, but when they got to a porch they stood silently, peering through the window to see if anyone was coming. If no one came within approximately two nanoseconds, they declared that no one was home, and off they went to the next house to repeat this process.

Apparently they expected the adults to have Silent Radar, which would immediately set off alarms in the house when the children crossed some invisible threshold in the yard -- BWEEP! BWEEP BWEEP! -- and cause the adults to drop whatever they were doing and scurry to do the children's bidding. The only homes where they got any actual candy were those where other children had already done the grunt work of getting homeowners to come to the door.

In the end I got a pretty good deal. The kids graciously shared their haul with me -- once they had figured out how to activate the Candy Acquisition Process -- and waiting for me at home was my full bowl of candy.