The universe doesn’t give a rat’s ass about whether I (or even the rat) live or die.
Now that he was an official inductee of the secret Kentucky militia, Billy was itchin’ for a fight.
Typically known for his poor foresight, Wendell surprised everyone in the office following the market crash when he revealed to them that not only had he been stockpiling tube socks for years, but that we was willing to share his good fortune with everyone, including Lester, the office nosepicker.
“Sir, the gentlemen have pulled up the wickets and thrown them everywhere, and perhaps even worse, are now refusing to take tea in the rose garden.”
if you have no place to turn, and the words begin to burn, you’re in the right place; if you’ve lost your taste for politics and have no nerve for news, hang with us for just a bit and we promise that you’ll be amused.
For weeks and weeks Harold toiled, eating Jelly Bellies by the bowlfull, until at last he assembled a a perfect jelly bean reenactment of Henry VIII’s full coronation feast in a single, sugary bite.
You know life’s good when those 4 extra cherries seem like a slap in the face.
i believe i’ve mentioned it before, but in this issue The Word Detective reminds us that “There is, fortunately, now an online database of eggcorns, where you can catch late-breaking discoveries like “cut to the cheese” and “put the cat before the horse”…meeYOW!
“Sir, the gentlemen grow restless.”
Peter used to brag about the time that the giant trapped us under that humongous derby hat of his, telling everyone that it got so hot under there that we thought we were going to sweat to death before the giant had a chance to eat us, but the truth of the matter is, Peter got so scared that he wet his pants, which did actually end up saving us because that giant was so worried that urine had gotten onto the brim of his hat that we had a chance to quickly slip away.
I thought there for a minute that I had it all worked out, but of course that proved to not be true.
Chocolate had replaced tobacco as her substance of choice for changing passive self-reproach into action.
Apparantly, the secret agents who routinely bug my car feel I was too lenient on my kid for failing to tell me about a trip to the principal’s office, because on the dust of my hood this morning was this message: “You shoulda grounded her.”
Doris ~ May 30, 1938 - September 26, 2006
I’ve been straddling this “sell the house” fence for so long now that I barely feel those pickets poking holes in my sanity.
I’ll never visit the Caribbean again, not since that time everyone saw me floating there in those warm waters, mistook me for a manatee, then tried to run me down with their boats.
Percy didn’t want to fight, but it seemed to be the only way he was going to get his hands on Henry’s buffalo wig.
Gross as it was, I really needed to tell someone that I’d somehow managed to sneeze on the back of my own head—the physics of it were just so amazing!
So far, the only difference Larry had noticed between his birthday and any other day was that it was trash day, and the barrel gave off an especially rancid stink as he dragged it toward the curb.
After an extensive consultation with the ghost of Melvil Dewey, Keith was nearly ready to admit that there was no practical way to organize his ideas.
After his first sickening experiences with wintergreen-flavored chewing tobacco, Roger would, for the rest of his life, gag at the slighest whiff of wintergreen.
I could be happy the rest of my life with a cinnamon scone.
Muriel basked in the glow of accomplishment after having successfully dodged a post-meeting meeting.
The villagers’ hearts opened wide for Missy Mae, the little pigtailed orphan girl who wandered the cobblestone streets smiling at everyone, passing out brightly colored balloons to the children and inviting them all to her secret birthday party at the church the following Sunday, immediately following Mass, but that was before they noticed the childrens’ balloons floating off ominously across the sky, then discovered that the children were all missing, then heard that awful, horrendous scream of the cloister monster.
When you’re ready for a wife son, you simply hitch up the wagon, drive into town, and pick one.
In these growing conservative times, you might think a begging hobo who looks like Jesus would fare well, cashing in quite nicely on the religious heartbeat of the people, but as it turns out, you’d be mistaken, because like it or not, the hobo with the missing arm or hard-to-look-at birth defect is still top dog of the street corner.
Remember son, early hominoid females always love an early hominoid male who conks them over the head with a branch.
Remember son, girls always love a man in a derby.
To drive boys away, my sister said, just have a bunch of girls throw beach balls at their heads.
“Cool,” my son said, looking out the window at the morning fog, making me think for a moment that he was happy to simply marvel at one of this world’s many wonders, just like his dad I thought, when he added, “so, what’s it for?”
After weeks of careful observation and meticulous note-taking, Ralph was convinced the geese flying overhead weren’t just migrating but were in fact stealing valuable blades of American grass, one by one, as part of a nefarious scheme hatched by the Canadian lawn industry desperate for continental domination.
Before the sun comes up you can do anything you want.
Oh no, I’ve lost a good friend - my old dictionary from college!
Sometimes people have to make their own mistakes.
“Why, it’s a little contraption I’m calling work, Mr. Watson, and the premise of it is rather simple - a man enters on this end, is quickly chewed to bits and pieces, then deposited here, on the other side; go ahead, Mr. Watson, give it a try.
“This country seems to swallow rock,” the woman at the gravel pit said to me as I paid my bill, to which I replied, “And having lived in northern Arkansas, I can tell you for a fact that that is where the country spits it back out.”
When you’re done with our beloved Keith, please forward the remains to: Internet c/o Scrine.
What kind of luck will it bring when the two of you snap a wishbone and the joint breaks off of both sides and lands on the floor?
I don’t love the man who comes and cleans out the outhouse behind the barn, but when I wander in on hot days, I sure do like him a lot.
Call me naive, but it came as a genuine surprise when I could so easily believe it wasn’t butter.
As inspired by: John Mayer
We’re just waiting on the world to change.
I would have liked very much to have watched the birds with you, Doris, hopping about just outside the window, going on about their business as if they hadn’t a care in the world.
Minimalist Jones it is said, knew the secret of flight,
That it’d come to him, clearly, in a vision one night;
“The secret’s not flapping, nor feathers or wings
But in knowing a few of the basic bird things.”
“There’ll be plenty of time for you to kick ass and take names later,” Henry’s wife told him, “but right now, you just need to get in here and pick up your dirty socks from the living room floor.”
“Why yes, Keith, that’s a very good question - there is, in fact, much romance in IRS Heaven, and it’s a beautiful, undying, glorious romance, just like you feel here in this audit room today; you do feel it, don’t you, because I know I sure do.
I’ve always thought I’d sleep better if I had removable arms.
with just a little encouragement from the rain, the chorus of the frogs has turned into a full scale plague, enough croaking to obscure the highway noise- is enough, really: i’d like a spell to make all their spleens explode at once and suffer the same fate as my golden boy, my winning horse, who went down in the 3rd quarter of the last game, and didn’t get back up (out ‘indefinitely’). this is part of the great fun of being a season ticket holder, knowing exactly when you’re investment has went bad, when your season is over.
Times were tough, and I’ll admit, when the cupboards went empty that winter, we thought long and hard about eating Uncle Jim, we were that hungry, but lucky for him (or maybe for us, as he did look rather gristly) no one could find any steak sauce, so we gave up on the idea.
Having struggled so hard on this side of the fence, the prospect and uncertainty of life on the other side often seems even more frightening.
“The grass is always greenest right before I reposses it,” mused Guido as he rolled up another lawn and loaded the ornamental fountain back in the truck, smiling to himself at the thought of how surprised the homeowner was going to be in the morning, and how happy his boss, the landscaper, was going to be when the owner showed up crying with cash in hand about noon tomorrow.
Having become invisible meant Carlotta would one day face an uphill battle competing for raises; overall, though, it had its distinct advantages, she concluded as she munched the last of her supervisor’s potato chips.
at the end of a day during which i read emma lazarus’ New Colossus no less than three times to classes of 4th graders who have no earthly idea what or when the declaration of independence was, not to mention from whom independence was being declared (one thought it might have been the statue of liberty) we are treated to a recording of an ear witness to the gettysburg address and I, for one, say it’s a near thing, the loss of history; a brutally near thing.
“…but they would not let me take a piece of cake from the cafeteria, so, I ask you, was it so wrong for me to grab twelve sets of silverware and run like hell?”
We huddled in the corner for what seemed like hours, watching from the shadow of the stairwell as the faceless men shuffled up and down the hall, not once noticing us, or if they did, not seeming to care in the least.
5’10”, nice looking, dressed in perfect taste, he flatters the girls he meets with his continental manner, and his voice is low and soft and he’s never seen without a derby hat….
“Did you hear about that car door slamming Little Timmy’s hand this weekend?” the instructor asked the school’s principal; “I hear that with his fingers all smashed, he’s slurring all his signing, and that the kids have taken to calling him Elmer Fudd.”
Nobody I know will back up my story with a straight face if I speak to waiters in a fake accent.
“Doc, give it to me straight - is it Scrapies?”
Everyone knows that sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you, but few folks are aware just how often neither of the two happens and space aliens (their presence covered up by a covert global treaty between governments) get both you and the bear.
Now that he was an official inductee of the secret Kentucky militia, Billy was itchin’ for a fight.
I bet no one warns the soap about stray hair.
“Any tendency to self-handling at its earliest manifestation will lead the wise mother to adopt means for its suppression - only by the utmost vigilance and care can the formation of injurious habits be prevented; such habits injure the mind through the excitation of the nervous system, and result in loss of self-control”
“No doubt the foundation of a happy home lies very largely in the kitchen; to often have ill-cooked dinners put asunder that which God hath joined together - it is impossible to have peace in the soul while there is war in the stomach.”
6. Remember, global warming is the northern realtor’s best friend, because with polar ice disappearing at such an astonishing rate, igloo values are going to shoot through the roof, and as everyone knows, high prices means high commissions on every igloo sale!
‘She’s good’, said the irrepressible bubbly poppet (who couldn’t resist glancing at her new red shoes at intervals throughout the conversation), ‘she wants to move somewhere warm and be near the sea so she can be a mermaid and meet a black irish pirate and have coconut babies’.
You’re such a bruxism lass, Keith commented to Jeannie - and she preened and squiggled in delight, comparing herself mentally to the buxom screen sirens of yesteryear.
Jeannie, I’ve got something to tell you.
Keith made not sleeping seem such a trivial thing by continuing to function consistently but Bethany, after staying up for two days running, began speaking in tongues and realised after minimal ‘Net research that it was not as easy as Keith made it all seem - it wasn’t the irritability that worried her, nor the blurred vision, slurred speech and memory lapses - after all, they were symptoms of a good night out; overall confusion was a day to day state and suffering psychosis and eventual death just didn’t seem real but the idea that she may suffer reduced sex drive while still in her womanly prime had her reaching desperately for the sleeping pills (which, she belatedly realised, had the same effect).
“You can’t blame me for Canada’s troubles, Queen Elizabeth, and for the last time, stop calling me!”
Keith overflowed with words, and it was a lucky thing indeed that Salem, Oregon was not flooded completely with the verbs alone.
The secret to true love may lie with the herpes simplex virus, or more specifically, with Clive Wearing, the man whose own bout with herpes caused him to suffer an acute case of amnesia, leaving him just enough memory to remember his love for his second wife Deborah, whom he’d married the year prior to his illness, causing him “to greet her joyously every time they meet, believing he has not seen her in years, even though she may have just left the room to fetch a glass of water (Wikipedia).”
I’m sometimes afraid that years from now, my many biographers will grossly exaggerate the nature of my personality, and just like they did to Phineas Gage (that poor fellow who you might recall survived having an iron bar driven through his head just because he wasn’t paying attention to life for a brief second and tamped down on the gunpowder, a mistake, I’m sure, that any one of us could make) will embellish the information about me, adding ”drunkenness, braggadocio, a vainglorious tendency to show off his wound as part of Barnum’s Traveling Exhibition and an utter lack of foresight”, **, which not only scares me, but irritates me tremendously, considering the fact that I have not even been given the opportunity to travel with the Barnum Exhibition.
We may not be making much progress in the war on terror, but it’s been years since I heard anything about the two greatest threats to the America of my childhood—ring around the collar, and ring around the bathtub—so those battles must have gone better.
To exturt is to obtain turtles by force, threats, or other unfair means; examples of usage include: Henry was convicted of attempting to exturt from Miller’s Pond and It is readily known within the turtle smuggling community that an exturtion conviction in the small community of Miller’s Pond will mean many years behind bars.
It was just wrong of my friend’s wife to come on to me like that, and I resisted the best I could, really, I did, but I just went on sleeping and dreaming and she just went on with her little seductive tricks until I swear to God, if I’d slept just one more second I think she would have broken me down.
“I mostly blame my nomenclatural nature,” Henry told the clown, “and of course, my habit of —oh, nice balloon hat; I think we’ll call it ovalis ballooni, or maybe tubulus aria, which has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
I cracked the cookie to find the following message, “Time, Patience, and Nature are the three greatest physicians.”
“We will not say that word in this house, young man” Tim’s mother told him, “but will instead use the word remiss, which is not only a decent and fine word, but is also the word that your father and I always used, God rest his soul, whenever the need arose to discuss his, well… his remiss.”
As they struggled to paste the last looming petal into place, Jeff, the Chief Smellineer, called for the paint squad to get ready.
Sometimes you’ll watch a play and it’s moving or funny, but every now and then it’s as if the script-writer, the director, the actors have all been living in your head, examining your soul, dissecting the secrets, and have brought some of the pieces out for display.
The code was bare and stark, seductive in its simplicity, yet knowing its secrets, feeling how it glared out at him from the screen, as if begging to be touched, Stewart’s fingers instinctively reached for the keyboard, his arousal slowly taking control.
Keith knew he probably shouldn’t record his conversations with Jeannie, but unfortunately, couldn’t help himself.
When I heard the voice on the Wal-Mart Supercenter intercom say, ”Will the parents of Moses please come to the garden center?”, I’ll admit, I was more than a little tempted to fight my way through the crowded aisles so I could meet Amram and Jochebed.
I wonder what the odds of this happening are.
Other men she’d met were never quite so thoughtful, but then Keith…
Janice looked carefully at the penis, really inspecting it for the first time, contemplating the words she’d heard, “tumescent, flaccid, hard, …” the nicknames, “Mr. Softy, my main brain, Twinkie,” and so many more, and all the crazy terms she’d heard for mastrubating, “pulling the pope, spanking the monkey, …” (she could go on all night with those), but mostly she just observed it, letting both revulsion and fascination wash over her as she observed this strange object that symbolizes so much, has done so much, both good and bad, and which while occasionally useful and, dare she say it, attractive to her, was really rather ugly.
Mom, can I go over to Gary’s house for a stayawakeforeverover?
I can tell you right now, of all the names the overtired boys are calling each other this morning, my favorite so far has been Mr. Grumpygills.
Um… yeah - here’s the voice sample - I think (grud_flu_sample.mp3).
Grud, despite recovering from the flu, prepared a voice sample to humour those scriners who’d asked her and Boot to do one. But then couldn’t find anyway to upload it… so didn’t.
The sleep habits of the Inguanian natives, particularly those of the comely young females, are of interest to many middle-aged anthropologists.
Cap’n Dreadboot was often left flummoxed at the various super-powers of Captain Ponce Villonia, but none-so-much as when she witnessed first-hand his ability to not-ever-need-sleep.
If your son and his friends spend more time arguing about the video games secret codes than actually playing the game, then you can bet the boys are pretty good friends.
Years ago I happened upon Sandy Koufax in a grocery store and was able to convince him to throw a can of green beans at a man’s head, telling Koufax (to this day I still feel bad for that poor man, who I’m sure never saw those green beans coming) that the man had no respect for him as a pitcher, and was obviously crowding the plate.
An alligator will become agitated, and quite possibly eat you, if you attempt to discuss the word allegory in its presence; scientists do not yet understand this mystery.
Sometimes a story is just so strange you have to share it with your friends
No, I did not take a snotty Kleenex covered in my cold germs and smear it all over the documents that I gave to opposing counsel today, but I certainly considered it.
Every year Uncle Rufus seems to walk away with the “Most Back Hair” trophy at the family reunion, but that’s only because Great Aunt Esther is too sick to travel.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, if you’ll direct your attention to the center ring, it’s that moment you’ve all been waiting for…. the one…. the only…. Lance Living and his Amazing Double Superlative Talking Monkeys!
In spite of his untiring robot thumb, Henry still had trouble hitching a ride.
There’s a hole in my wallet
my wallet, my wallet
there’s a hole in my wallet
Eliza my dear.
Every Saturday at 11:30 a.m. sharp, Ernie would pop the top on his first can of Schlitz and quietly mourn the death of what he referred to as “wrestlin’s glory days.”
I can’t think of a single television character who suffers more on-the-job failure than L.A. District Attorney, Hamilton Burger.
“I refuse to be an accomplice to murder,” Jim told Perry, “so just back off for a minute; I can do this myself.”
“I am only a tourist here on planet Earth,” he said taking a drag from his cigarette, “I’ll be god damned if I spent eight hours of my time a day working at a job I hate.”
“Daaaad, not chocolate for dinner again!”
Grandpa used to always say he had a migraine headache, but I think it was from grandma slapping him around with that largemouth bass.
..not really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs.
If you come outside in the morning one more time, wearing that thin silk bathrobe that does little to hide your bulging stomach and your pale, hairless legs, and I have to look into those watery, red-from-last-night’s-whiskey eyes and talk to you, pretending that I respect you, I hope to God I don’t have a shovel in my hand, because taking a swing at the back of your head would be a whole lot more satisfying than cleaning up the dog shit from that stupid dog of yours.
… if you don’t find yourself tapping your toes to “You’re So Sweet” by Neil Diamond, you’re most likely dead.
Adding the suffix -ist to just about any word that comes up during a patient’s session will not only assure the patient’s return, but has a nearly 45% chance of assuring you professional notoriety.
“No girl here,” giggled the blankets.
Grammar is to sadist, as ________ is to masochist.
Poe Whyetrash never heard his dad speak a harsh word against anyone, but he suspected that his Oxford-educated father (who was black as the night and a self-made billionaire) might have a few unresolved issues.
Article verb preposition article adjective noun, conjunction…
“This doesn’t make any sense at all,” Henry murmered to the bartender, “The government agent said to me, ‘don’t fight us, we’ll have our pound of flesh before this is over,’ but when I pulled up my shirt and told him I could spare him at least ten pounds, he ordered me out of his office and said I’d better come up with cash, fast.”
“As impressive as these numbers might be, David,” Professor Shilling said as he looked over David’s degree program checklist, “I’m afraid that sleeping with as many young co-eds as you’ve claimed here will not help you graduation; I don’t know what your fraternity brothers may have told you, but “The Language of Love” just does not meet this university’s language requirement.”
You can shop for time at the government store, although you should probably keep in mind that things without price tags usually cost more than they’re worth.
“Women just don’t look good in porkpie hats, that’s all,” said Vera consolingly to Muriel’s reflection in the haberdasher’s mirror.
One year ago, someone wrote “Toast is the answer”, which today, on my way to my audit, made me think that perhaps I had reached enlightenment, as I slowly repeated my new mantra, “I’m toast.”
“Let me hang that up for you,” Sally said as she reached out for Theodore’s porkpie hat, her fingertips accidentally brushing against Theodore’s hand, bringing a slight flush to her cheeks.
It was inconvenient enough to have to learn to type, instead of just hiring a girl as he used to in the 70’s, but the final straw was those smart-mouthed “it” kids who kept visiting his desk and reminding him, with a snicker, not to open his computer with the letter-opener again.
On the morning of the audit, Henry put on his worst pair of underwear, hoping that they would serve as some sort of metaphorical deterrent for the economical rape he would soon be suffering at the hands of the IRS accountant.
As inspired by: Keith's Air
Janice lay dooming, flat on her back under the doom of the dark sky, smelling acrid doom on the still air and listening to the bone-rattling “Doom, Doom, Doom” sound that rose from the very bowels of the earth.
There is disappointment in the air; I can smell it from here.
best you leave those muddy boots at the door, i’m not playing your silly wench games anymore.
As inspired by: pat's Prosthetics Store Ahoy
An increase in pirate cred due to the new hook is all well and good - but it doesn’t make opening doors any easier.
As inspired by: boot's attention pirate skif
Failing to avoid Cap’n Dreadboot’s flailing sword was not all bad, Scurvey Dog Patch LeFleur realised as he attached his prosthetic hook.
As inspired by: Gatesy from "Tripod Tell the Tale of the Adventures of Tosswinkle the Pirate (not very well)"
“I even built this entire city and filled it with pirate-specific attractions to lure him into my trap. Look, everyone, over there! A parrot sanctuary. Beyond that, a prosthetics store. Across the knoll, a shop selling nothing but enormous belts. A pirate radio station playing nothing but “Take on me” by AHARRR!”
I can see you, lurking there. If you don’t scrine something, it’ll be the plank for you!
Pirates (prounounced “pi-ra-teze”) is the new exercise sensation taking the seven seas by storm.
The women absolutely swooned over Henry’s stunning buffalo wig.
How exactly do you shiver a timber?
but one of its own, our scrinebird has.
if i post something here, i’ll turn into somebody else—a far racier and spicier version, anyway?
edit: AARRR! e, ‘tis i! (and the ship, the black freighter…)
“Henry, you get in this house this instant!” his mother would scream from the kitchen window.
There goes four weeks’ wages.
My petty concerns sound a lot more threatening when spoken like a pirate.
A perpetually forgetful spouse is double-trouble; not only does he forget, but he never remembers the fact that he forgot.
It’s been some time since I’ve seen a scrine around these woods.
Something tells me I am not the same man I was yesterday.
Wine and wimmen be not enough; I be needin’ me juicy novel and 90 channels o’ dreck.
Proceed past “Here be dragons” to Skull Island, drop anchor at Deadman’s Lagoon, walk thirty pacess past the old hanging tree directly toward the sunset, sit down and look deep inside yourself.
You can’t expect a man to guard a treasure all night, not without a few ideas popping into his head.
Boot peered triumphantly about the room, internally daring anyone to ask her why she was wearing a captain’s pirate hat.
“This is yer pirate speakin’, we have reached cruisin’ latitude and we have extinguished th’ ‘no smokin’ and no rowdy drinkin’ sign;’ ye are now free t’ move aroun’ th’ ship; in a few hours th’ wenches will be servin’ grog and yer choice o’ skewered rat or th’ vegetarian offerin’, moldy bread; our travelin’ time t’ Canton will be three months, give or take a few weeks as th’ national weather service (that albatross ye saw afore) has predicted heavy winds; if ye feel sick, please use th’ bag hangin’ from th’ hammock in front o’ ye; in th’ event o’ a water evacuation, it’s been nice knowin’ ye.”
Her face lit up with glee and she clapped her hands in rum delight when she realised that “her” boot would become something else entirely.
As Cap’n Dread-Boot surveyed her sleeping crew she realised that the exchange of jewels for rum was not such a great deal after all.
As inspired by: from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner
“And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariners’ hollo!”
First-mate Boot whirled on Cap’n Blackheart and screamed “and your god-forsaken bird be an albatross and ye know it!”
Once upon a time—all good stories begin once upon a time—there was famous Captain Keith Blackheart who ran a tight ship on which only one language was allowed, pirate, and anyone who dared call his pet scrinebird a god-forsaken parrot, or, heaven forbid an albatross would be keelhauld and then fed to the sharks.
“No captain, no, I beg of you, I will not ever wear spiked boots on the deck again!”