Mom's Disease - Humor

Mom had this disease, a speech impediment which caused her to say hysterical, dumb, or embarrassing things. She explained it this way: "My tongue gets wrapped around my eye teeth, and I can't see what I'm saying."

A lot of things she said cracked us up, worried us, or embarrassed us. Sometimes all at once. I doubt most of them were original, but the way she used them, they were hers. Even during my teenage years, after I'd heard them all a thousand times, they would still crack me up. Even in front of my friends.

My brother, Bill, recalls, (you'll have to ask him how fondly) her saying, "I brought you into this world and I can take you out." I don't recall her saying that to me. Draw from this what you will.

Most double mastectomy breast cancer survivors don't tend to make a lot of jokes about it. Bill reminded me that Mom did.

"I was standing in a group (at Publix) showing off some new meatballs and my boob dropped onto the floor."
("Who else could say that with a straight face?" -Bill)
He forgot to mention the second part. "As I bent over to pick it up, apologizing to the embarrassed man in front of me, the other one fell out!"

The one that always made me nervous was the one she used if she owed me something, such as if she were a couple of bucks short at the grocery store and borrowed it from me.

"Mom, may I have my two dollars?"
"What two dollars?"
"You borrowed it from me a couple of days ago at Safeway, remember?"
"Don't worry. I'll owe you til I die before I'll cheat you out of it." "..."

Even when it made me nervous, the way she said it, so innocently, so sincerely, so tauntingly (all at once), usually made me smile.

She would have done well on stage.

Dad has a great sense of humor as well, but Mom articulated hers a lot more. We kids all ended up with it. When our self described "Evil stepmother" (who I lovingly call Mom now that Mom #1 is gone)-- a wonderful counselor and hospice manager-- called us together to help us prepare for Mom's death (her 412th (whatever) bout with cancer was finally claiming her physical life), it rapidly degenerated into a joke fest, discussing things such as bronzing Mom and standing her up over her grave, and what her pose should be (picking up her rubber boob after it fell out?). Wink just stared at us at first, then relaxed. We might not cope normally, but we'd cope.

And we have.

As I finished writing this, I realized that Mom kept her promise. Over my childhood and teenage years she probably borrowed $20 - $30 ($50 to $100 in today's money) from me. She owed me til she died, but she never cheated me out of it.

Paging Mr. Roadkill

(I wrote this Nov 11 of last year. It's been lurking ever since, but I found it just now, peeping through the disk drive.)

A while back at a restaurant, I ate spicy, Italian food and, shall we say, made the bench seat vibrate. My niece said, "I think your pager's going off."

"I don't have a pager."

She and my daughter looked at each other. Realization dawned. They both jumped up, making faces. "Eewwwww!"

Tonight, at Chuys (Tex-Mex) my pager went off a *lot*.

I still don't have a pager.

Hi, Ashley and Shaunda!

Who Needs Drugs?

On occasion, I'm asked why I don't drink. Once in a while, I get asked whether I do drugs. Although it's typically more like, "Really? You don't do drugs? Then how are you so weird?"

It's simple. My mind naturally produces controlled substances.

The DEA routinely kicks in the door to my skull, runs in wearing black masks and with guns drawn, seizes my brain, takes it to an open field, and burns it. Then they have to collect all the animals that breathed the fumes and sequester them in the hopes they'll return to normal. Apparently a rooster who thinks he can fly an airplane or cow who thinks she can produce technicolor milk (and especially one that does these things) is a threat to national security. Livestock that don't return to normal eventually end up in politics.

Which explains why so many of our federal legislators have absolutely no clue what the Constitution says. They're hallucinating.

So there you have it, straight from the horse's mouth.

And don't forget, horses are livestock, too. If you see one repairing flats off I20 in west Texas, wave. That's Uncle Jerry.

Veggie head

To this day, many people believe I was brought to Austin as part of the "Keep Austin Weird" campaign. I'm OK with that.

But most of these same people express surprise when they meet my wife. "You're so normal," they say. "How did you end up with a weirdo like him?"

What they don't realize is that Sharon keeps up with me, and at times surpasses me. in weirdness. Just two days ago (this is all true) she went to the doctor and had a lima bean and a new potato removed from the back of her head. Really. That's what the doctor told her. A lima bean and a new potato. I didn't ask whether the doctor ate them. I don't want to know.

I also don't know how she had vegetables embedded in the back of her head that required doctor's office surgery to remove. Sharon claims she doesn't know, either.

This doesn't surprise me. Ask any parent whose child has required medical help to remove a bean from their nose or a wad of Play-Do[tm] from their ear canal. "Little Bobby has NO IDEA how that got in there."

You and I, of course, know full well how it got in there. Either little Bobby stuck it in there exploring, or a sibling did it out of sheer siblingtude.

Since my wife's siblings are all at least 900 miles away, I think we can rule the latter out. But she insists, and I have no reason not to believe her, that she didn't do it herself.

The only other explanation I can come up with involves the CIA and space aliens. Frankly, knowing my wife, that seems a lot more likely. She's always expressed more interesting in eating her vegetables than burying them under her skin.

Although, in today's economy, that might be the safest place to stash something for troubled times. Unless you fly somewhere. Then the TSA will know, and report you to the Department of Hoarding which will report you to the IRS, which will sneak in and cut half your rainy day food out of the back of your head, thus throwing off the CIA's inventory and causing friction with space aliens.

That's all we need, war with Alpha Centauri. With fuel prices as high as they are, the troops would get stranded half way there.

So, to avoid an interstellar disaster, please do not bury vegetables in the back of your head. The world as a whole thanks you, except for the parts to busy killing each other to care.

Occupare Die!

Occupy the Day!

Part of a facebook conversation at the end of high school winter break, 2012 ...

Michaela: Oh yeah, I do have to wake up and go to prison tomorrow. I was too busy being happy to think about such a terrible thing.

Me: Go transform school, girl!

Michaela: Yes Raul and friends, that IS the life. I can't tell the difference between our school and a factory. So, ya know... Haha Miles, always encouraging!

Me: I suppose I could be discouraging if you'd rather.

"Don't worry, Michaela, soon enough you'll walk out those prison doors, a free woman at last, only to be gutted by a very small UFO flown by a drunken, miniature Alpha Centauran. As you lay in agony, bleeding on the steps, one of the wardens will walk out, look down, and say, 'You forgot your backpack', and drop it. Right on your gut. A few minutes later, about the time you think you may be capable of moving a hand enough to grope for your cell phone, a kitchen guard will walk out, look down, and say, 'You didn't eat your last lunch room Jello'", and drop it. Right onto the hole in your gut. As a swarm of ants hurl themselves futilely against the 'lime' flavored jello (which appears to be 87 years old) you'll realize that you forgot to turn in your final final, which is most likely inside your backpack, now coated with blood, 'lime' flavored Jello, and furious ants. At this point, a small UFO will land beside your head and an interstellar cop will crawl out (looking for all the world like an over-sized ant in a blue uniform), look up, and say, 'You'll be happy to know we caught the bum who gored you, but not as happy to know that he was uninsured, and the judge let him off because he had diplomatic immunity. Good day. Say, mind if I have some of that "lime" flavored Jello?'"

Is that better?

Occupy the Key!

The Buffoonery and the Interviewee (A True Story)

Once upon a time I was called upon to do an interview. The interview seemed to go well. Thanks to the Miracle of Modern Airlines the interviewee had been late arriving. By the time the interviews (at least a half dozen people interviewed each candidate) were over the person playing chauffeur had left. So, rather than pack the interviewee off in a cab, I agreed with the head of HR to take the interviewee to the airport.

(Foreshadowing: My only transportation was a motorcycle, which we did not feel would make a great impression on the interviewee.)

As some people suggested that the interviewee's looks may have factored into my agreeing to take her to the airport, it should be pointed out that not only was (and am) I quite happily married, but the interviewee was an amazon who thought going to Antarctica and wrestling whales was a Great Thing To Do In One's Spare Time, so there were definitely no evil thoughts in my simple mind. Meanwhile, the office manager (a truly pathetic title for The One Who Holds All Power and Can Get Things Done (TOWHAPaCGTD)) offered to let me use her car as an airport limo.

(Foreshadowing: TOWHAPaCGTD had a very nice Mercedes.)

After delivering the interviewee to the airport safely (and with perfect propriety), I realized the car in question was nearly out of gas. At a Texaco on the way back I spent 5 minutes looking for the gas cover door release, before calling TOWHAPaCGTD and asking where said release was, only to find out there was none-- you just pushed on the door. As if by magic, it worked.

I pulled around to the pump, locked the doors (having lived a long time in the Crime Capital of The USA (Atlanta)) and found the gas cover door would not open for anything. Eventually I decided the gas cover door was jammed and cleverly decided to use a Key to open it. Applying only light pressure with the handy car key, the handy car key broke in half.

After staring at the key for about a minute, I (somehow without whimpering) thought of Super Glue(tm). I bought some and glued the key together. It broke going into the door lock. I glued it again, praying like crazy. This time it worked. Ever so carefully and prayerfully, I withdrew the key from the lock, and it didn't break! I pumped some gas. I paid for the gas. I put yet more glue onto the key to make it as strong as Fearless Fly, inserted it into the ignition, and drove back to the office.

TOWHAPaCGTD was fortunately a kind and understanding individual. Even more fortunately, the TOWHAPaCGTD's husband also worked at the place of employment and had a spare key, as the muchly glued key had by now fallen 2 feet onto a very thick, soft carpet and burst asunder.

TOWHAPaCGTD refused to even worry about the cost of replacing the key (not cheap on a Mercedes). I now felt deeply indebted to TOWHAPaCGTD and was planning to have another firstborn to give to her in gratitude. My wife vetoed this idea.

Occupy Big Days!

We got married on my birthday. People assume this is so I would remember the anniversary, But a great deal of my life, I have forgotten my own birthday. In fact, I woke up the day after my 19th birthday realizing I had missed it... and so had everyone else. I didn't say anything to mu housemates. A few weeks later, around someone else's birthday, David asked, "Don't you have a birthday coming up, Miles?"

"Nope."

"But I thought, wait! We didn't miss it!"

"Don't worry about it."

"Oh, no! I'm sorry!"

(I think I did a great job of acting; I had them convinced I was feeling hurt but trying not to show it. But only for a minute, or it would have simply been cruel. I laughed and told them I'd forgotten, too.)

One friend remembered (Hi, Helen, wherever you are!), but she was in the middle of Nowhere, NY, hitchhiking, without a phone nearby (well before cell phones existed). Even my parents forgot. I had a lot of fun with that.

At any rate, Sharon picked my birthday because it seemed romantic. She has often wished she hadn't (her exact words are usually, "What was I thinking?") but she's still the best birthday present ever.

I usually remember our anniversary, but it helps that she asks what I want for my birthday. 8^)