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| "AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HUMOR"TM
SHOWCASE
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October/ November 2007 Contest Results |
Congratulations to
all Finalists in our
October/November 2007 Humor
Writing Contest!
(Listed alphabetically by author.)
Safety
Devices
By Cameron Castle, Washington
One of the many safety devices that Laura begged me to install, was the
oven guard. This is one that I snapped to attention and put into place
on my first chance.
Why this particular child safety device is so important is it shields
the one and a half year old Carter, the inquisitive toddler, one that
can now reach to counter height, from burning himself, or setting his
favorite stuffed and flammable toy on fire.
This fabulous and over priced piece of smoke colored Plexiglas, with
three moveable parts and two pages of installation instructions, adheres
to the front of one's stove. It juts out at a very clever angle,
scientifically devised, I am sure, so as to make it possible for the
adult to still reach the surface of the stove, while making it
impossible for the little one to reach up and be introduced to the
inhumanity of human invention.
I followed the instructions as best as my short attention span would
allow, and managed to fit the pieces together, and attach them in just
the right spot to keep Carter’s little fingers off the deadly burners.
Laura was very pleased with me because I installed this contraption
without her having to ask me repeatedly. Other safety devises I have
taken my time with. Carter is my fourth child, and with that comes a bit
of complacency.
“Did you close the gate?” my lovely Laura will cry out.
“You mean the gate at the bottom of the stairs? You mean the gate that
if he sees open, he closes. You mean the gate that is there to keep him
from climbing up stairs he has yet to figure out how to climb up. You
mean the gate that will, in that quick, unexpected, terrifying moment,
keep him from falling UP the stairs? That gate? Yes, I closed it.”
I don’t say any of that, because if he were to choose that moment to
become adventurous and crawl up, then topple down, I would be the jerk
of the century.
“Yes, I closed the gate. What do you think? Of course I did.” is how I
answer.
I was feeling pretty good about my Plexiglas shield, and didn’t mind
reaching over it to cook. It stood there proudly for two days as a
testimony, a monument, to my manly dexterity, my dominance over
implements and instruction.
That was until I preheated the oven. Turns out the adhesive on the three
adjustable, clip-on support pieces doesn’t continue to hold onto its
assigned location if it is introduced to HEAT!!!
You guessed it. If the “oven,” out of some renegade, uncontrolled,
teenage hormone frenzy, decides to go crazy and generate some HEAT, the
whole thing falls apart. The thing just fell off. Well, actually it
slowly fell limp, dangled, then hit the ground, scaring the poop right
out of the dog. Carter got a huge kick out of that.
I am not sure what to do at this point to keep Carter’s fingers off the
stove. Well, at least for the first time. The second time I feel will be
avoided by the safety mechanism that we installed in Carter upon his
conception.
But I am dying to meet up in person with the president of the company
that created, produced, marketed and sold a heat shield that works
perfectly as long it doesn’t get anywhere near any heat. I think I would
just ask him if he had any kids. And, I fear, he would say he did, until
they fell up the stairs.
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
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 Jade
Gets Muscles; Spokes-Hiney For Pancakes Resigns
By Jade Cody, Colorado
I’ve been married for four years — all to the same woman. But if I want
to keep her around, I need to look less like a clothes hanger and more
like those cabana boys my wife, Kelli, drools over. I need some muscles,
pronto.
That’s why, after sharing my sob story with the good folks at the
Chilson Recreation Center in Loveland, CO, I decided to get ripped. For
three months, they agreed to donate two personal trainers and a
nutritionist to my physique three times per week for one hour.
Reporting for duty
Once I arrived at the Chilson Center, I found out that I am the fattest
skinny person ever. Despite pointy elbows and knees that have left girls
giggling for the last two decades, I have managed to have a weight
problem in all the non-bone areas. After a barrage of tests, including a
Darth Vador breathing mask hooked around my face while I walked uphill
both ways through the snow on a treadmill, a little printout said I had
a 20.1 percent body fat composition and marginally catastrophic
cardiovascular fitness.
One month in
After the first month of working out, I really started to feel my
muscles more. I don’t mean the pain, which I felt too, I mean just
remembering that they are there. Everything just seemed to tighten up a
little.
One of my trainers, Paul Stofko, was patient with me and helped me
understand why we’re doing each exercise. He took a pretty laid back
approach, but still made sure I worked my rear off. Every once in
awhile, I caught him grinning when I really struggled — probably like
how firefighters feel when there’s finally a fire to put out.
I lifted weights twice a week and then did cardio on the other day.
That’s the day I liked to call hurt day. It was great fun — in a throw
uppy kind of way.
Muscles, take two
By the end of month two, I saw some real results. Stofko had me do these
plank exercises in which I had to hold myself up with just my forearms
and toes with one foot touching the ground. Each time I held the pose
for anywhere from 45 seconds to two minutes, and he measured it on a
stopwatch that was rigged to measure one second for each year that
passed.
We did three sets of that during every session. Stofko was convinced
planks were an effective way to strengthen the torso. And I was
convinced that so is balancing elephants on my nipples, but you didn’t
see us doing that, did you?
The cold hard truth of the matter, though, is that he was right. It
worked. I got stronger, more fit and generally better suited to save the
world. And you should see my torso ... it’s fantastic (this is a lie,
but it is getting better; and when I say better, I mean less beer
bellyish).
Get tickets to the gun show
After three months of working out, the gig is finally up. How did I do,
you ask? Get ready for the gun show, dear reader, ‘cause this boy is
ripped. OK not really ripped, per se. I did not magically become the
Incredible Hulk in three months. But I’m off to a good start. Even Kelli
noticed. She said she saw a big difference in my arms, legs and chest.
And what a difference it has made in my buns.
You know how some guys don’t have a butt? Well, I’m one of them. But
after a couple months, I’m getting a rear end. Sure, it’s no
ba-donk-a-donk (let’s see you spell check that you armchair
proofreaders), but it’s no longer a spokes-hiney for pancakes, either.
And now that I’ve alienated half my reader audience with rear-talk,
let’s move on. Overall I made great gains in fitness and strength. I
improved to have “good” fitness — at least judging by Chilson’s fancy
equipment. I went up in maximum pushups in a minute from 46 when I
started to 59 on the last day. My sit-ups increased from 75 to 91.
So now that the three months are over, I have a decision to make:
Continue in my quest for muscles, working out three times a week for
about an hour, or do I let it all go and return to being the case of the
missing buttocks?
And who knows, if my rear end ever gets all ba-donk-a-donk on me, I’ll
go on a Jennifer Lopez-brand rear diet for me. Wait a minute, did I just
say rear diet?
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
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Life
Slows Down In The Fast Lane
By Burton Cole, Ohio
Help! I am trapped in a fast-food line and I can't get out!
I'm running late for work -- again -- so I whipped into this
drive-through to snatch up a quick lunch to take with me. Life in the
fast lane. But here I sit four minutes later.
Had I stopped to smell the roses outside the store lobby, I'd be eating
by now, not inhaling the faulty exhaust of the car boxed in ahead of me.
We’re both waiting on the woman with the big order in front of us. We
have a mini-parade of hungry hopefuls behind us.
Note to my congressman: We need a law limiting the amount or complexity
of food one vehicle can order in the drive-through. Either that, or all
drive-throughs must have escape lanes.
Six minutes now. We are a drive-through society -- when we can get
through, that is. We never have to leave our cars to bank, or for
medicine, beverages, groceries, photos or pretty much anything else.
Even weddings have drive-through windows, though that mostly stays in
Las Vegas. Except my office hasn't been refined yet to a drive-through
desk. Not that I could get there if it was.
It's been eight minutes and the big woman in the little red car
continues to block the window while the rest of us sit here trapped like
steer in a stockyard chute. The gates are closed in front of us and
behind us, and there is no jumping the fence.
Nine minutes. I'm regretting all the times I jeered my friends who drive
SUVs and pickup. If I were in one of those babies now, I'd pop over the
curb and be out of here, food or no food. But my little Chevy Malibu
doesn't have a lot of clearance. I'm not sure how much I'd tear off the
bottom before hanging it up on the asphalt barrier. Then I’d still be
out my $4.95, my combo cholesterol meal and my job. And towing.
Finally! The first bag is being passed to the woman in the red car.
She's taking it... She's peering inside... NUTS! She's waving it off!
She’s shaking her head and handing the bag back through the
drive-through window.
We're at 12 minutes and ticking like so many time bombs waiting to go
off. I wonder if there are enough of us in line yet to push that red car
out of our way. Just a thought. Ketchup packs would be nice, too, but
that would take too much time.
I once worked at a fast-food restaurant and the rule was if you couldn't
get the bag out the window in minute, you directed the car out of the
lane and into a designated parking spot. When the food was ready, you
ran it out to them.
Not here. While the woman waits for her chow, the rest of us sit in a
stew. The server is trying again. One bag... She looks... She keeps it!
Another bag. Another! One more and ... SHE'S DRIVING AWAY!
It's been fifteen minutes. The car in front of me pulls up. He's had
plenty of time to count out the exact change. I watched him do it
through his back window. He's handing up the money... He dropped the
change! It's bouncing all over the place! He's trying to open the door,
which is wedged against the drive-through wall, to gather up the errant
coins which are rolling all over. No. He's not going to... He's crawling
out his window like a Duke of Hazzard. Oh, c'mon, mister, don't try to
fish the quarter out of the grate!
Eighteen minutes. I hope my bosses aren't looking for me -- or busy
working on my pink slip. They won’t find me. I'm stuck in the fast lane.
www.tribune-chronicle.com
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
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Love
Potion No. 9
By Brad Manzo, New York
As I was typing away in my office a few weeks ago, I received a frantic
call from my wife. “Help, come quick.” This was serious.
I raced upstairs without checking my email for jokes or last night’s
sports scores on ESPN .com. When I reached the dining room, my wife said
with fear in her voice, “We’re in the bedroom.”
I hurdled the toys strewn across the dining room floor. I hurt my knee
but hobbled to the bedroom. There was no time for pain.
“What is it, honey? Are the kids all right?”
“It’s, it’s a thousand legger.” My wife pointed down to the disgustingly
large, but ultimately harmless, water bug.
“That’s it. I hurt my knee for a bug.”
“Just kill it!” Both she and my daughter had looks on their faces that
said, if you don’t kill the bug, we’ll kill you.
I could do this. I grabbed her shoe.
“Not my shoe, dammit.”
“Sorry.”
I grabbed my shoe and swung at the bug. I missed.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Do I have to call my mother?”
Now she had done it. She questioned my manhood. I swung again and
missed. The bug started to crawl away. However, before my wife could
taunt me with “My 96-year-old Grandmother has better aim than you,” I
swung with all my might and splattered the bug before it could escape.
“Thank you, thank you so much.” My wife hugged and kissed me as if it
were our wedding night all over again. If my daughter wasn’t there, who
knows what would have happened?
It then dawned on me that I had just discovered something fantastic, a
true aphrodisiac… the Holy Grail for all men. I had to seize this
glorious moment. With a newfound confidence, I scoured the rest of the
upstairs for more bugs. Unfortunately, the rest of the house was
bug-free.
My wife rolled her eyes. “If you want to do something constructive, why
don’t you fix that window I asked you to fix 2 months ago?”
My status as conqueror and hero had vanished. “I think I hear my cell
phone ringing.” I bolted to the sanctity of my basement office.
A couple of days later, I told my friend John what happened.
“My wife tells everyone that’s the reason she stays married to me—I‘m
willing to kill bugs,” John replied.
It wasn’t the sexiest reason in the world to stay married, but it made
perfect sense. Early on in relationships, we often view our spouses as
perfect and overlook our mate’s faults. After a few years and maybe a
couple of kids, the honeymoon is over. You begin to see your mate’s
faults, wrinkles, receding hairline, strange hair patches, half-dollar
size bunions, etc. You then have to bring something practical to the
equation, such as bug or rodent killing or the willingness to clean the
toilet. My marriage is secure as I’m willing to do both.
Additionally, whenever our relationship seems to be in a rut, I don’t
have to run out to the store for flowers or candy—I just kill a bug and
the romance is rekindled. For those extra special occasions, i.e., when
I really screw up, I have a stash of dead bugs I can drop on the floor
at a moment’s notice.
Knowing my luck, though, one of my kids will probably find my stash and
hide it on me. Then I’ll be in serious trouble. Until then, however,
I’ve got Love Potion No. 9.
www.sanitycentral.com/guest/brad.htm
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
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Remote
Control: Reincarnated
By Richelle Putnam, Mississippi
In my second life I want to come back as a TV remote control.
Why? If you’re a woman, need you ask? Better yet, if you’re a
man…well...duh. Especially a southern man, who, surrounded by car
magazines, pretzels, and ice cold beer, (all man’s best-friends—sorry,
Fido) snuggles 24/7 around a big-screen television, hording the infamous
“remote control.”
Yes, my dear women colleagues, wives, and mothers of all ages, you know
exactly what I mean. So close your eyes, if you will, and for a moment
imagine this scene in your second life, reincarnated as a TV remote
control:
Your husband steps through the backdoor and the first thing he does is
look for…YOU.
Yes, YOU. Not a cold, frosty beer. Not the newspaper. Not the latest
streetrod magazine with Betty Bikini on front. YOU.
And when he can’t find you, his heart begins racing, his hands sweat,
and the thought of not having you at that very moment causes his eyes to
tear up and a bullfrog to leap into his dry, thirsty throat. He calls
everyone into the den, children, dogs, even the neighbors, and pleads as
he wrings his hands. “You have to help me find her. Without her life is
meaningless. She is everything I need, all I desire.” (Sorry, kids and
poor Fido. You simply can’t compare).
Every night, he will want you right beside him, in his chair and in his
bed, and he won’t be able to keep his hands off you. He may not ever be
satisfied with one television show as he flicks, flicks, flicks through
the channels, but YOU, well, you’re more than enough and he’ll never
stray from you, not for one second.
He’ll even fall asleep with you held tightly in his grasp and awake
still holding you. Plus, he’ll protect you, no matter the cost, risking
scratches and bruises as he squeezes his large hand down into the narrow
crack of the couch that you accidentally slipped into.
He will toss aside quarters, dollar bills, even a winning lottery ticket
to get to you and pull you to safety. Then, he swears to never, never,
and I mean never let you out of his sight again. From here on out,
twenty-four/seven, he is determined to keep you in his sight, because
losing you is simply too traumatic.
But you know what? In your second life as a remote control, even your
kids will ache to be with YOU. That’s right. When they return home from
school do you know what will be the first thing they do? Fight over who
gets to have…YOU.
Because after Dad gets home from work, well, you’re all his. Remember
all the intimacy your kids refused you in your first life, like those
motherly pecks on the cheek or hugs before you dropped them off to meet
their friends. From those very ones you persevered hours and hours of
hard labor so that they could live, from those darlings for whom you
scrimped and saved to buy outrageously expensive clothes at Abercrombie
and Fitch, Bebe, and expensive specialty boutiques, came mumbles through
hard, locked jaws, “Mom, please. Not here.”
But that was in your first life. In your second life, they’ll shower you
with love and attention. And that’s not all. When your batteries run
down, they’ll sacrifice the ones in their walkman or cameras… for YOU.
It’ll be like taking care of you in old age. Speaking of which…they’ll
never put you in a nursing home because, well, they’ll always need you.
So, yes, a second life as a remote control would be fantastic. Simply
fantastic. Wouldn’t it, ladies?
But alas, that
dream that will never come true, as sad and depressing as that may be to
all the neglected wives and mothers of the world. Now, if you’ll excuse
me, my husband and the kids will be home soon and…I have to go hide the
remote control.
Again.
www.richelleputnam.net
© Copyright
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Letter
to a Very Rich Dog
By Brian Thompson, Florida
Dear Leona Helmsley’s Dog,
First off, let me just send my condolences and tell you how sorry I am
for your loss. This must be very tough on you. Maybe as tough as when
your mother was sent off to the federal pen for tax evasion. Things got
tough then, and we all read about how you had to go off your foie gras
diet and switch to boiled lobster. No butter! Is there no humanity in
this world? And now she’s gone forever, that wonderful hotel heiress who
the cruel media dubbed the “Queen of Mean.”
I always liked the woman. Not that we were close or anything. In fact,
we had never met. But I walked by the Helmsley Park Lane in Manhattan
once, and the hotel actually sneered at me and tried to steal a quarter
from my pocket. So I feel like I knew her well. Is it true she could
suck a dollar from a billfold three blocks away?
But to the point of this letter: I read in the newspapers that you have
suddenly come into great wealth thanks to your master’s unfortunate
demise. If I’m not mistaken, you were left a total of $12 million.
That’s good money for a Maltese. Shoot, that’s good money for a beagle
or a shitzu. In fact, in dog dollars, I believe that’s $84 million. Not
bad, and I’m sure you have big plans for that money. Jetting out west to
party all night with Paris Hilton. You two will go and trash rooms at a
Radisson or a Marriott. (Silly second-tier luxury hotels.) And no doubt
you’ll keep up with your manicures (or in your case, are they
pedicures?)
But a dog your size surely can’t use all that money. So I’m asking if
you would be willing to give some of it to me. You wouldn’t believe our
poor and miserable lifestyle. We’re so low, we have to stay at Holiday
Inns and GASP! even the occasional Travelodge.
The money wouldn’t be for me, but instead my own dog, Chase. She’s
nothing like your fine pedigree. My dog’s a simple mongrel — an American
mutt with no appreciation for the fineries of high-class living. She
eats garbage, that sad, uncultured wretch. She’s never known the thrill
of liver snaps soaked in a bottle of 1988 Dom Perignon. Once she had a
shrimp tail she found on the street, but it made her barf. Fine living
doesn’t agree with everyone.
I bet you’ve never had a flea in your entire existence. If you did, your
blood is so rich that the parasite would just pop right then and there.
But not my dog. When it comes to fleas, she’s like a Motel 6. She’s not
only loaded, but these are ruffian fleas. No taste or sophistication.
They swig beer all night long and eat fried chicken from a bucket. A
bucket!
Doesn’t the thought of my poor beast just break your heart? I’m not
asking for much. Maybe just a cool $500,000. That’s nothing for a rich
dog like you. And that money would be put to good use. I could buy my
pooch a lot of Armani with that money. She’d eat porterhouses every
night, and we’d hire a neighborhood dog to go on walks for her. (Can’t
be out there mixing with the other low class K-9s. Might get kennel
cough or her tail end sniffed by a half-breed.) We’d buy a pillow made
from the finest silk and stuffed with cultivated cat hair. Around the
edges we would put diamonds, and we’d hire someone to powder her nose
whenever it gets shiny.
So what do you say? Can you help a poor mutt out? Just a little is all
we ask. We know your mother wouldn’t do it, but you sound like someone
with a big heart. Just consider our request as you snack on caviar
biscuits and get your 10:30 massage at the club.
www.nutshellcity.com
© Copyright
by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.
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Double-Timed
By Christopher Yeager, Ohio
I just celebrated---if that’s the word--- my forty-fourth birthday. The
guy with the scythe left early, but I still feel like I’ve blocked the
plate in baseball with my head. And it has nothing to do with the
refreshments.
Double-digit birthdays (DDBs) hit harder than others, especially as you
get older. Forty-four is definitely the fulcrum, the one where being
conscious of age becomes being aware of the drawbacks of aging.
The others can be charted as follows:
11: Conscious of dampness in pajama pants.
22: Conscious of being called ‘sir’ by woman serving bagel chip samples
in supermarket.
33: Conscious of being surveyed by Club Med about favorite no-tell
hotels.
55: Conscious of double hernia on golf backswing.
66: Conscious of receiving mail order remedies for enlarged prostate.
77: Conscious of dampness in pajama and all other pants.
88: Conscious.
Obviously, we’re talking about men. Women become conscious of the
downside of aging sooner, when they leave the hospital after birth.
Theirs. Female infants generally walk first because they’re so anxious
to get to the phone to order exfoliant and moisturizer from the Shopping
Channel to keep their skin soft and wrinkle-free. Double-digit birthdays
to them are just another headstone for dead cells.
Because guys hoof it more slowly toward oblivion awareness, when the
DDBs do hit home they hit like a tornado, whirling you clean out of the
Kansas of complacency. You start noticing what you’re missing (or think
you’re missing), wondering if it’s worth the strain to attain or if it’s
now beyond reach. Depending on how opportunistically you’ve lived, this
can be like getting tattoed with a bottlecap.
The categories of perceived deprivation that normally strike men my age
are sex, toys (sex toys?), career, and image. The first three I’ve made
peace with, at least until I start passing kidney stones like a Gatling
gun. I’m not planning to pursue the French-cutoffed teen down the block
with legs that start where her coppery tresses end and the father who
could bench press my armoire. I had enough of doing other people’s
homework in high school. I also can’t afford tickets to see Cheetah
Girls.
I’m reconciled for now to not owning the only car I ever lusted after, a
Chevelle Super Sport. I used to wash one every day in tenth grade: I’d
drool on it, and the kid who owned it would wipe it off with my face.
Until my mechanical expertise runs to more than bungee cords and duct
tape, I’m content to do donuts with coffee.
As for career change--- middle-aged men can make the most bizarre leaps
of faith. Schooled in rocket science, they suddenly leave NASA to play
blues harp in a drag show. Not me. Not only do strapless gowns hit me in
the chest wrong, the older you get, the less privation appeals.
Sometimes I still think it’d be a gas to be a folksinger. Then I picture
sleeping in the back of a beater with my arms around a twelve-string for
months on end, beer for breakfast, shaving in a hubcap, and I flip to
VH-1 to catch Indigo Girls.
Which leaves image. This one’s the killer. By the time you’re fifty,
they say, you have the face you deserve. I’m almost there. So what did I
do to deserve glacial grooves around my eyes? ‘You must smile a lot.’
Yeah, right. More likely they’re from all the squinting I’m doing as my
eyes go bad.
But what’s really bugging me about my self these days is my voice. It’s
gotten progressively more nasal and hoarse. I used to sound like a
sheep. Now I sound like a sheep gargling inside a trash can. I long for
mellifluous golden tones, and all I get is a barnyard. Forget about a
facelift; I want a voice lift.
Of course, that might mean I’d be tempted to acquire an SS 396 and hit
the trail with a Fender and Goldilocks up the street.
Bahh humbug.
www.breakfastatnoon.com
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