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| "AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HUMOR"TM
SHOWCASE
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August/ September 2007 Contest Results |
A Cabin
For One
By
Chris Adkins,
Idaho
I once spent the
month of January alone in a wilderness cabin. It was a fishing “lodge”
owned by my buddy Bayonet Delhue, and it came equipped with goat-sized
mice, teeth-chattering drafts, and an outhouse haunted by the angry
ghost of a long-dead fur trapper. My goals were to test my survival
abilities, to write the great American novel, and to find a little inner
peace. By the third day, I had eaten three jars of peanut butter and was
re-enacting “Top Gun” for myself using my left sock as Tom Cruise and my
right sock as Kelly McGillis. The role of Tom's jet was played by a
boot.
In February, snowshoeing Jehovah's Witnesses discovered me as they tried
to slide a copy of “The Watchtower“ under the cabin door. They kindly
took me back to civilization even after I assured them that I was quite
happy with my own religion (I didn't mention that it involved worshiping
a sock named “Tom”.)
Since then, I've readjusted to life in civilization, but I sometimes
pull out my diary and reflect on the simpler days of that winter. Allow
me to share some of the highlights from my time spent as a modern-day
mountain man:
DAY ONE: Peanut butter for breakfast. Started the fire using one hundred
and nineteen matches. My goal is to start a fire using a quantity of
matches that weighs less than the logs I'm trying to light. Put on my
arctic parka and sat by the stream for some quiet meditation.
Interrupted by a cougar attack. Checked the animal identification book
and it says my cougar was actually a chipmunk. Used book to start this
afternoon's fire. Visited the outhouse and was chased out by the
trapper's ghost (it was either a ghost or another “cougmunk”). Peanut
butter for supper. Found that the cabin's bed is apparently the same
model as that used for sleep deprivation at Abu Ghraib. Laid my sleeping
bag out in front of the fireplace using empty match boxes as a mattress.
DAY TWO: Peanut butter for breakfast. Started a fire using ninety-seven
matches and most of the cabin's “furniture” (I hope Bayonet won't miss
two bean bags and a municipal park bench.) Need to stay in shape so did
a push-up. Tried to read, but found that mice had chewed through the
first half of my copy of Joan Rivers' biography, and had then thrown up
all over the second half. Sat by the stream for more meditation. Almost
achieved total enlightenment, but fell asleep. Awoke to cougmunks
building a nest inside my parka. Started to work on my novel, but the
ink in my pens was frozen. Tried to warm pens inside my shirt, but got
frost-bitten nipples. Peanut butter for supper (and as nipple salve).
Invited the trapper's ghost in from the outhouse for an evening of
charades. He declined and told me to stop eating so much peanut butter.
Played charades with myself. Found that I cheat. Got into a fight with
myself. Lost. Too cold to sleep. Stayed warm by jogging in place inside
my sleeping bag. Got tangled. Fell and hit my head. No more trouble
falling asleep.
DAY THREE: Last of the peanut butter for breakfast. Started fire with
one match and half a bottle of Bayonet's homemade horseradish wine.
Painted on new eyebrows using soot from burnt forearm hair. Did another
push-up. Got a cramp. Decided to pace myself. Achieved peanut
butter-induced enlightenment in the outhouse. Trapper's ghost left for
good. Chewed a bar of soap for dinner. Couldn't fall asleep so started
talking to my socks. Re-enacted “Top Gun”. Special effects weren't as
good as in the movie, but the acting was better. Started to re-enact “Gigli”.
Instantly asleep.
Eventually, I found my rhythm and managed to survive that month without
going completely insane. I learned which plants are edible and which
induce projectile vomiting, how to catch and cook wild game (meaning
cougmunks), and how to entertain myself through long winter evenings.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm late for a performance of “Gone With The
Wind” in my sock drawer.
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
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 Sweat
of Beads
By
Dan Bain, North Carolina
The only thing more traumatic than
the first day of school is the first day of camp. Kindergarten offered
experienced teachers and an established curriculum; camp offers
teen-agers and water sports. A little too “Friday the 13th”, but I’m
sure my son willl be fine if he lasts through lunchtime without
incident.
My microwave pizza has 21 seconds left when the phone rings.
“Mr. Bain, your son has a bead stuck up his nose.”
“I’m sorry – a bead?”
“For participation and character traits. Some kids put them on a string;
yours put it up his nose. It’s a standard craft bead – 9mm.”
“Like the gun?”
“Just the bullet.”
“I feel much better.”
“Don’t panic; this happens frequently.”
“I’ll be right there.”
I drive like a bullet myself, park in the loading zone, and bolt for the
counselor’s office. She hands me a flashlight and says if I shine it
straight up his nostril, I can see the offending bead.
“Which one?” I ask.
“Aquamarine – for group swim.”
“No! Which nostril?”
“The right.”
I shine, look and see nothing. Having tapped my medical expertise, we
head for the pediatrician.
The doctor suggests several drops of antihistamine directly up the nose;
my son protests that he hates having things stuck up there. We revel in
the irony for a moment before returning to the task at hand.
My job is to reassure my son while holding him flat on the table with
his head dangling off, for easier dropper-to-nostril access. As the
doctor advances, my normally docile little boy transforms into an angry,
cornered cougar. I recoil with scratches down both arms, but the doctor
is able to get 2-3 drops on target before taking a swipe to the head.
He calls two nurses, a receptionist and a billing clerk to restrain my
little werecat while attempting to retrieve the bead with six-inch
tweezers. They never have a chance.
After three aborted nostril forays and an assortment of attacks
accompanied by leonine screams, the doctor is happy to recommend a
specialist. Once the billing clerk has cleaned her facial lacerations,
we settle our co-payment and trek onward.
An hour later, we meet the referred plastic surgeon. “Because the bead’s
plastic?” asks my again-human offspring.
We explain that the referring pediatrician managed only to shove the
bead further up the nostril.
“Which one?” he asks.
“The right one.”
“No – which bead? My kids go to that camp.”
“Umm, aquamarine?”
“Wow! He did group swim already?”
He locates the bead and reaches for a long, stainless steel, suction
tube. When my son emits a guttural growl, I ask the doctor if he
believes in lycanthropes. He changes his mind and schedules surgery for
later.
_____
After dinner, we head to the hospital to meet the surgeon, his nurse, an
anesthesiologist, a vitals monitor, and a student who’s never seen this
procedure. My wife remarks that it took fewer attendants to get our son
out of her than it will take to get a bead out of him.
They dope him up with Versed and wheel him away while he’s still
giggling. Moments later, the surgeon returns with an aquamarine bead in
a specimen jar. The procedure took 15 seconds, but the cougar wakes
slowly over 30 minutes. After he trees the recovery room nurse, we head
for the jeep and civilization.
Back at home, the savage beast is soothed with a plate of mac and
cheese, and begins to fill us in on the rest of his day. Including the
rest of his beads.
“I got the blue one for honesty and the yellow for respect.”
“How about the dark green one? What was that for?”
“Responsibility.”
“Oh. Well, I’m certainly glad you showed some of that….”
www.dan-bain.com
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
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 Beware
the Charm and Kneecaps of Gangly Sixth-Grade Boys
By
Jade Cody,
Colorado
Oh look, another female teacher has fallen in love with a fifth-grader.
It must have been the student’s cool 50 Cent Trapper Keeper or the
romantic way his acne glistened in the sun.
How does anyone fall in love with a teenage boy?
When I was that age, I was all elbows and kneecaps — like now, only
ganglier, and with enormous front teeth that had no business in a little
kid’s mouth.
When I see these female teachers falling in love with their high school-
and middle school-age students, I am baffled. There have been a couple
in the past few years near where I live.
So as I watched this teacher on the news, I wanted to know, short of the
Axe effect, how could this have happened? This teacher is an attractive
lady — for a felon, anyway. Let’s just say she won’t have any trouble
making “friends” in the slammer.
I can sympathize with that student, though. When I was in fourth grade,
I tried desperately for nine solid months to get my teacher — we’ll call
her Mrs. Amazing — to go out with me. But she said no. That’s what
adults did back then, even if their students did “really really really
with sugar on top” want to marry them.
Now I think I should’ve tried harder to lasso Mrs. Amazing. I shouldn’t
have wasted so many mushy love notes on those dumb 10-year-old girls.
Just think, Mrs. Amazing could’ve driven me on dates to the zoo, taught
me how to shave, gone on romantic candlelight PB&J dinners at the
cafeteria ... the possibilities are endless. I would’ve been the coolest
kid at school, or at least the only one with a sugarmama.
So I’m wondering what is wrong with these female teachers — and most
importantly, if it’s contagious.
My wife teaches sixth grade. She said she can’t even comprehend what
these teachers see in their students. But what if some sixth-grade Romeo
swipes her from under my feet?
Should I be jealous now when she gives out star stickers on the little
boys’ spelling tests? Maybe I should wait at the bike racks and make
some threats: “Stay away from your teacher; she’s mine,” I’ll yell.
They’ll laugh or call me poopy pants, but they’ll know there are plenty
of other teachers in the sea, so it probably wouldn’t be a big deal.
I’ll have to tailgate the little “suspects” as they ride their BMX bikes
home. Maybe I’ll hire a private investigator posing as a reading tutor.
He’ll change sweaters and loafers several times each day for secrecy.
Mr. Rogers — will you be my detective?
Maybe I’m just jealous because not all teenage boys are as goofy as I
was.
I did end up with another Mrs. Amazing, though, one a little closer to
my own age. Must be all those elbows and kneecaps that she just couldn’t
resist..
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
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 Everything
I Need To Know About Being Black, I Learned From Kenny Rogers
By
Mark Harris,
California
Coming of age in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, it became
clear to me – and to those around me – that I was black. There's no
quicker place to clear up your racial ambiguity than Appalachia. Not
that I was the victim of a racist, flaming bag of poo or anything like
that. The struggle of being a minority is more subtle. It's the everyday
grind of keeping up with two cultures, our own and that of the
prevailing white world.
White people don't know how good they have it. Sure, there's the whole
master race thing, but what they overlook is the privilege of "cultural
leisure". As a black man, for every Vibe, I have to read Rolling Stone;
for every Spike Lee joint I see, I have to watch a Michael Bay turd. Too
much BET and I'll fall behind on my MTV. And if I do, I'm labeled
culturally retarded: "You've never seen Laguna Beach?!" Yet the fact
that I've memorized Pookie the Crackhead's dialogue from New Jack City
is somehow meaningless. Why are black people always late? Because we're
reading Cosmo.
I had my moment of discovery in the fourth grade. As our reward for
learning the dreaded "Mary Had a Little Lamb"/"London Bridge Is Falling
Down" medley on the recorder, my music teacher let us bring in a record.
I couldn't wait to enlighten those clodhoppers with the hippest 45 of
the day, "Let's Hear It for the Boy" by Deniece Williams. But Brett
Smitherton, with his beach boy-blonde mullet-cum-rat tail, brought a
rival song, "Islands in the Stream" by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. It
was put up to a vote. In hindsight, my defeat seems less surprising than
how secure Brett and I were in our masculinity. The vote made one thing
clear, though: majority rules and minority drools. My lifelong battle
against being force-fed at the teat of popular culture had begun.
Thanks to my parents' unnerving addiction to Paul Harvey, I was able to
avoid listening to the radio for most of my adolescence, but my
resistance to TV and movies, was, as they say, futile. Over the years,
the visual arts have introduced me to people and things I have no
interest in, from The English Patient and Sanka to Night Ranger and
Harper Valley PTA. Although I've never seen it, I know who wins each
season of The Bachelor. It ain't the black guy. I've grown out of
hip-hop videos, but now that white America has discovered them, I need
to stay relevant. Damn your hipness! Say what you will about the horrors
of being a minority, but knowing the names of the Mandrell Sisters
without even trying justifies reparations. I feel like the black
character in every horror movie who has a bad feeling but "goes along
with the group," only to end up in some monster's stool sample.
So, how do we abolish this cultural slavery? Our goal must be a new,
race-less national aesthetic. Our homogenized, generic culture must be
easy to maintain in order to celebrate the great American pastime:
sloth. We'll sing color-blind, public domain tunes like "Happy
Birthday", "Chopsticks", and the Windows start-up chime. We'll entertain
ourselves with shadow puppets, paper football, and tickle fights. And
we'll wear frocks. I can hear white people asking, "But Mark, what's in
it for us?" Ever hear of a little thing called "brownie points"? That,
and reduced odds of getting shanked.
I'm not blaming anyone – except maybe 4th grade clodhopper who spell
culture with a "k". As a wise man (I think it was G.I. Joe) once said,
"Knowing is half the battle." Now that you know, it's time for action.
Let's come together like drunken frat brothers who explore their sexual
curiosity then vow to never speak of it again. Islands in the stream:
that is what we are. No one in between. How can we be wrong? Sail away
with me to another world. And we'll rely on each other. Uh-huh. Making
love with each other. Uh-huh.
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
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 I
Didn't Do Drugs In The Seventies
By
Drew Miller,
California
I didn't do drugs in the seventies. In an era when you could do time
for doing thyme, to not do drugs was strictly a personal decision, not
really a moral issue. Luckily, I never had to apologize for my non-peer
pressure attitude. I was in the Coast Guard, I was everybody's personal,
designated driver, and I was, ladies and gentlemen of the jury,
"naturally high." Stoners (pot heads in the vernacular of the era) would
ask me what I was on, and I'd reply, "Life."
They'd slowly nod their heads in a sort of bobble-headed fashion, and
remark in that slow weed-induced drawl, "See, man…I told you they were
putting it in the cereal."
No, I didn't do drugs in the seventies. I did frequent all the "hot
spots" like the basement coffee house of the Presbyterian Church
downtown. A few well-meaning, albeit misguided individuals, were under
the misconception that if they built it, they would come to abide safely
in a drug-free environment, away from the psychedelic temptations that
lay in wait for them just around the corner. And, coincidentally, just
around the corner is where the psychedelic sales rep set up his booth,
where all could imbibe before they would abide inside.
Many an evening, I played a sort of Laurel and Hardy routine opposite
some stick-of-a-figure "head" with a pale, blank "Earth to Mars"
expression that he had applied earlier that day, compliments of his
local cannabis farmer. He'd teeter-totter on his chair, just barely
saving himself from a swan dive at the last moment, only to sit bolt
upright as if to say, "I tried that."
A half-hour of this bobbing and weaving, and I couldn't take anymore. In
my best Olli voice, I politely inquired, "So…Stanley…what do you think
of the coffee house so far?"
And without missing a beat, he scratched his head, leaned over the
table, seeming to defy gravity and announced in that liquid-smoke voice,
"I'mmm sooooo stonnnned."
Little wonder why I didn’t did drugs in the seventies.
But then, who could resist a temptress who had my rapt attention that
one summer? Just this side of Carrie Fisher (Shampoo-Episode Six, Star
Wars Carrie Fisher) and the whole other side of Goldie Hawn (pick any
Goldie Hawn vehicle) and she invites me to an acid party.
I was like a deer caught in the headlights of her date's sports car,
blinded by desire and that feeling you have when you're about to do
something totally illicit but your conscience tells you to deal with it
tomorrow, you may not last the night. I did contemplate what her date
must have thought of me tagging along and how it would slam any
aspirations he had of being her central focus in a no-holds-barred
scenario of naked bodies thrashing about, amidst their hallucinogenic
journey through Strawberry Fields while the music of In A Gada da Vida
imploded the room.
And then she chirped, "You are coming, aren't you?"
What the hell, he's got a TR4 and I'm driving the Dodge Dart.
I should have suspected that this adventure was risky. Who hangs out at
the corner under a street light, reading a newspaper at 11:00PM? Survey
says! Narc! Of course, the place was under surveillance. It wasn’t an
official acid party if you didn't have your own personally assigned narc
on stakeout.
I entered this uptown, second floor, son-of-a-white-collar host's den of
iniquity and scanning the room, I realized that the coffee house had
moved to its new location uptown. There was Stanley, still presumably
sooo stonned, reassuring a guest that he would be his guide for the rest
of the journey. This gesture conjured visions of John Wilkes hailing Abe
and the Missus, "Hey, I'm off to the theatre, I got comps. Why don't you
guys come with me?"
Stanley's charge, by now, had managed to insert a portion of his head
into one of the stereo speakers blasting; I Am The Walrus, while Stanley
was heard to say, "Nooooo, man, you can't crawl into the speaker to see
the Beatles, man. They're not really in there, man. They're like,
totally a fragment of your imagination, man. Like…"
And at that very moment, Stanley turned, and seeing me habitually
plucking at my handle bar mustache, managed to raise his voice above the
cacophonous din and announce, "Like, Goo goo g' joob, man! You are the
Walrus!"
I spent the rest of the night nodding to loyal Walrus devotees and
telling them to go in peace in response to their repetitive chorus of
Goo goo g' joob. And what of the lure, the irresistible bait that reeled
me into a certain catastrophic encounter with Leary's cure-all?
Well, I never "dropped a tab." I was the only one who didn't, and
everyone there thought I was the only one who did. I did sleep with the
temptress that night, if you can call lying fitfully, adjacent to her
equally fitful body on a hardwood floor, as loyal Walrus worshipers
chanted, "Goo goo g' joob," into the wee, thin morning hours.
I didn't do drugs in the seventies. I can't wait until I'm in my
seventies to get started.
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