Archive for February, 2019

1. A Snowball in Hell – Not a chance
2. Charlie Rose, Harvey Weinstein or Matt Lauer’s Robe Closure Coordinator
3. BTW (and this is off topic) If you say the phrase “very wary” 4 times in rapid succession, you’ll know what it’s like to have smoked marijuana. OK, back to “Jobs I’d be very wary of taking”:
4. Human Being – Can’t avoid this job. In fact we’re all in mid-career trying to find the right solution by thinking it out, even though thinking has nothing to do with any so-called solution. Everyone is “gifted” with this preexisting condition and it’s not covered by any insurance plan or religion. Even atheists have to deal with it.
5. The guy at the zoo who determines if a female elephant is ovulating and thence “in the mood” for fertilization. Pass. I think I’d rather do this with female humans.
6. I’d worry about working for a company called “Water Solutions” and not finding the irony in it.
7. Yellow Snow Writing Analyst – Not for me. Too many contradictions. For example, you might identify a beautiful woman as the snow writer of a yellow message in the crystalline flakes and come to the conclusion, “That Snow Angel; that’s no angel.”
8. Y’know when a zealot says, “Kill’em all. Let God sort’em out.” I don’t want to be the guy God hires to do the sorting.
9. Bodyguard for Celebrity Groundhog Puxatany Phil – He’s really slipping. He’s just a shadow of his former self. Besides Feb. 2nd is the only day he needs security. Plus I hear he’s always inviting female Woodchucks back to his burrow to watch Groundhog Day.
10. Washroom Attendant Siberian Gulag – Would much rather work in the Gulag Chapel.
11. Police Groping Dummy – “Miss Jenkins can you please show the court on our living mannequin exactly where and how Mr. Weinstein touched you?”
12. Mandarin Orange Skin Peeler – So many sectors. So little time. Oh, you say it’s automated now. OK then, well I don’t even want to make the machine that peels them.
13. Laundry Hamper Wrangler at the Mustang Ranch – Pass. Too much DNA.
14. A position in Trump’s Cabinet – Too much bending over
15. Any Kind of Manuel Labor – Let Manuel do it.
16. Online Moderator of Pfizer’s Medicinal Enema Chat Room – Hosting a “How to” instructional guide on the mechanics of internal cleansing? –No thanks. Sounds like a job for the guy at “Water Solutions.”
17. Recycle Center Debris Sorter – C’mon people, bandages, banana peels and toothpaste are not recyclable.
18. Pork Belly Stand, Jerusalem Food Court – (see snowball’s chance in Hell)
19. Gong Show Contestant whose talent is being able to burp the alphabet.
20. I know #19 is not really a job because you’d have to volunteer for it. I just wanted to get to 20 and ran out of ideas. So here I sit very wary. Very, very wary. Oh well, (In burp language) A B C D E… 

 

I’ve always believed in the Native American notion that allowing someone to take your photograph is tantamount to letting them steal your soul. So you can imagine how I felt when I was forced (as a condition of employment) to submit a DNA sample (a small vial of saliva) to 23andMe for a complete genetic workup and public posting of my innermost helixes. I couldn’t avoid the molecular invasion fast enough. Not wanting to appear fickle, I sent them a sample – of my female cat’s saliva for DNA testing. Getting a thimble of cat saliva is no small feat in itself and perhaps worthy of a Nobel Prize for Expectorating.  

In any event I think the feline saliva sample may have skewed the results. The following is 23andMe‘s report:

 

Dear Mr. Hardiman,

23andMe has successfully processed the genetic material in your saliva sample and we can unequivocally issue the following findings; some of which are extremely surprising for a 57 year old Caucasion man. We are pleased to present the following results for David Hardiman – BA4956891376:

• DNA evidence strongly suggests you possess at least 8 more lives
• Genetic markers indicate your bathroom habits, while generally hygienic, are unorthodox to say the least.
• In coding your spiritual identity, it appears you are monotheistic and not pantheistic i.e., you seem to worship one really big ball of yarn rather than several smaller ones.
• You’re very needy. Well kneady actually. You tend to fluff your pillow for a full 30 seconds before settling into it.
• Hippocampus genes indicate you’re very comfortable being referred to as a “pussy.” In fact you seem to prefer it.
• DNA torsion modeling of your vertebrae indicates you are the only human ever able to lick the middle of his back
• In addition to your 2 regular nipples, you seem to also have 4 superfluous one.
• Based on tendon and ligament DNA, we estimate you should be able to long jump at least 94 feet.
• Not sure where we’re getting this one, but it appears your favorite form of transportation is to be picked up by the scruff of the neck and deposited at your destination. 
• Although you claim to be Irish-Italian, your ethnicity is definitely a combination of Persian and Siamese
• While you’re not able to grab things with your tail, you do indeed have one.
• Your 16^th gene indicates you clean yourself by a process of self-bathing. Geneticists refer to this activity as “tongue-in-groove” hygiene.
• Your facial hair is ample, as is your body hair. Your whiskers are few, but very long.
• DNA evidence shows you’ve spontaneously climbed up drapes
• Although at times it may be unasked for, you nonetheless tend to rub up against complete strangers. Unaccountably you seem to receive positive reinforcement for it. #Meowtoo
• It is not advised you French kiss anyone due to the pointy spiracles on your tongue.

If you have any questions about this comprehensive report please contact the 23andMe team. Just send us a note on a scratchpad. Based on our findings we’re sure you have many scratchpads scattered throughout the house.

Thank You for Participating,

Sheila Mangrove PhD

Executive Spit Geneticist

 

The entire adventure ended ironically. Based on 23andMe’s report, DOW Chemical thought I’d make an ideal account executive in the mouse extermination division of their rodent control department. 

 

The country of Holland is called the Netherlands and yet its people are called the Dutch. I guess 500 years of wearing wooden shoes will cause splinter groups.

They have a city called “The Hague.” No city should begin with the word “The.” OK, maybe The Big Apple – but you can’t look up “The Big Apple” on a map.

Audience: Thanks Dave. That’s really more than we need to know.

Me: You’re welcome, however, I’m not done yet. And then in the adjacent country of Belgium, there’s an area called Flanders, and the people who live there are Flemish – they’re always blowing their noses. They’re also Dutch. Not only are they confused, but they’re covered in mucous.

And don’t get me started on Luxembourg, the last of these elfin kingdoms that comprise the Benelux triumvirate. What do you call these people? – Luxembourgers? Yes you do. I’ll have mine with a slice of Gouda.

This is how America would’ve developed had not Hamilton, Madison, Jay and others promulgated a federal constitution with a strong central government. You’d need a passport to drive from the nation of Georgia to the nation of South Carolina. Thank you Mr. Hamilton. Maybe someday you’ll be celebrated with a lavish Broadway musical.

Then again America is called the United States and its people are called Yankees.

In my next essay I examine whether imaginary lines should be made real.

 

1. The Battle of Fallen Arches – The Crowfeet tribe discovered all too late that moccasins are not sturdy shoes. Once the Crowfeet’s arches collapsed the Sioux caught them flatfooted. Later the Crow sued the Sioux for a murder of Crows.
2. The United States Drops the first F-bomb at the United Nations (1962) – While complaining about the Russians to an aide just prior to a speech before the General Assembly, poor Adlai Stevenson did not realize his microphone was on, and his F-bomb reverberated throughout the chamber. Damage was limited because most of the nations listening didn’t understand English. Mr. Stevenson deftly defused the F-bomb with an apologetic, “Pardon my French.” To which the French replied, “That wasn’t French.”
3. 

   ♫What’s so funny ’bout peace, love and understanding♫ 

   Battle of Blood Pudding – Actually just a British baking show gone very, very wrong. Bad blood was generated when the culinary tasting panel rejected the Blood Pudding efforts of several bakers.

The bakers felt they’d poured their blood, sweat and tears into their puddings. The panel said, “Sweat and tears yes. But not enough blood. Your blood puddings are anemic.”

Bakers from Liverpool to Manchester united and took up arms. Brandishing vanilla cream-filled frosting bags with floral tips and uniformed in big puffy hats, irate pastry chefs attacked their scolding culinary critics who defended themselves with poison pens. They fought each other tooth and nail. And as expected, when the frosting cleared, everyone’s teeth and nails were a mess. What’s next, a gardening conflict – the War of the Roses?     

4. The War of the Two Lips – A needless conflict. Deaf lip readers at Gallaudet University claimed their teachers were speaking ill of them in the cafeteria, when in actuality the professors were just chewing their food. 
5. Battle of the Banana Republics – This battle was called off when the combatants kept slipping on the battlefield. 
6. Appendomattox – Penultimate Civil War battle fought just prior to Appomattox. In the Battle of Appendomattox Gen. Robert E Lee lost both the battle and his appendix.
7. Battle of the Bugle – Often confused with the Battle of the Bulge, more for its similarity in spelling than anything martial. The Battle of the Bugle was Taps for many servicemen.
8. Water Lou – Cirque du Soleil’s extravagant reenactment of Napoleon’s disastrous Battle of Waterloo. The staging is very complex – Napoleonic Complex.
9. Battle of Yettisburg – An abominable battle between snowmen from the North and South. The battlefield was streaked in yellow lines. Months later, when the snow cleared and the melting was evident, poet Robert Frost delivered his famously moving Yettisburg Address.
10. WW½ – People have forgotten about this fairly benign hemispheric clash (1907-10) involving countries located below the equator. Some say they were protesting Rand-McNally mapmakers always putting them on the bottom of the globe and the older, more traditional countries on the top half. The Prime Minister of Australia said it was punishment for, “all our goofy Down Under animals. I knew those makeshift, spare-parts marsupials would give us a bad name. Kangaroos that box, platypuses with duckbills and Tasmanian Devils. Not to mention Waltzing Mathilda and Christmas in the summer.”

The worst of it was when Australia invaded Chile armed only with unloaded didgeridoos that they just pointed at the bewildered Chileans and said, “Diddly, diddly-dow. Dow. Dow. Diddly, diddly-dow.” The only casualty from this hemispheric tantrum was the Tropic of Capricorn which was taken hostage by Paraguay but later released unharmed after another imaginary line – the International Dateline – negotiated successfully for its release. Historians now believe World War ½ was really a gateway World War.   Read the rest of this entry »

1. Jeers – A place where nobody knows your name.
2. The Porcelain Altar – A perfectly wretched place. It promotes both dwarf and cookie tossing.
3. Friends Without Benefits – Formerly the Arm’s Length Tavern, this Debbie Downer club casts a curiously chilling effect on romance. Bar stools are 20 feet apart and “courting megaphones” are issued for yelling sweet nothings into the distant face of your friend – who shall likely remain a friend…without benefits.
4. 

   “Highballs are on me.”

   Where There’s Smoke There’s Cannabis – You know marijuana is much better for you than alcohol don’t you? At all levels. This sit down eat-in cannabis dispensary features hallucinogenically-activating comfort foods like Ham-murmurs, God Dogs and Wavy Gravy.

5. The Elbow Room – A less chilling buzz kill than Friends Without Benefits, but alienating nonetheless. Bar stools are only 10 feet apart and instead of megaphones, sign language and winking is used to tantalize your future bumper of uglies.
6. Dregs – Formerly the Bottom of the Barrel, this newly refurbished club of last resort is a haven for desperados who are one sad Amazon click away from ordering an inflatable “companion.”
7. HyMen – A virginal Paradise for insecure, wealthy guys. This posh club allows affluent Oligarchs to cruise for the thing they most desire in a woman: tamper-evident vaginas. In courting virgins, these selfish men recognize that inexperienced women will never realize what uncaring lovers they are.
8. Trés Cerebral – Too French. Too brainy and very complicated in a fussy way. Be careful not to contract MTDs – Mentally Transferred Diseases like egoism, Superiority Complexes and Misunderstood Prodigy Syndrome.
9. Well Hung…Over – Normally a good thing, but not in this excessive case. In the morning you really regret being so well hungover.
10. The Tilted Uterus – A large and expandable womb where customers feel so at home, that once they settle in, they assume a fetal position and never want to leave. Signature Drink: The Breech Baby Signature Dish: Placenta Helper. Upon exiting the embracing enclosure, many patrons feel reborn. And many Christians feel born again.
11. “OK. You’re a Cab” – Answers the age old question drunks ask bartenders; “My good man, will you please call me a cab.”
12. The Anal Pour – It’s a good thing the place is staffed by a bunch of ass wipes because the drinks taste like sh*t.
13. Call Me a Cab Please – A classy joint where patrons refer to each other by well-known cabs (Cabernets). For example; “How do you do? My name is Sterling Vineyard and you must be Robert Mondavi.” Problems arise when drunk patrons ask the bartender to call them a cab. Usually the bartenders respond, “I can’t call you a cab, but I will give you a Lyft.”
14. Christian Science Drinking Room – Who doesn’t want to become intoxicated by God? Apparently no one. It is however an opportunity to become one with the patron saint of blotto – Jack Daniels.
15. Del Webb’s “Dilutions” – For active cruisers of a certain age. Also visit its sister saloons: the Papery Cheek and the Crepey Neck. This senior saloon serves watered down drinks to aging men with thinning hair and a fatting asses. Also popular with menopausal women who like to swing – their moods and not their bodies. Don’t miss the Blue Hair Happy Hour where formaldehyde-based cocktails will leave you completely em-bombed. Elderly pole dancers are doubly titillating with see-thru outfits to match their see-thru skin. Note this tragically hip joint is often fractured – especially when dancing the Bossa Nova. This happening place is absolutely lights out…at 8 pm sharp. Get deluded at Dilutions.
16. The Repurposed Kidney – Run secretly by an underworld organ bank with ties to Doctors Without Scruples, this meat market syndicate surreptitiously anesthetizes its unsuspecting patrons with narcotizing drinks, then sets loose its in-house doctors without scruples to go a-organ-harvesting. Business plan is flawed because the franchises are not transplantable.
17. Dingleberry’s – How do they even stay in business? I mean those are not olives in the martinis. And the little Goldfish they serve at the bar are, all floating belly up.
18. Kraft Beer Hall – If you like Velveeta, you’ll love Kraft beer.
19. Snickers Bar – Oops. Wrong kind of bar. It is however a Candy Bar where you might find a favorite sweetie to munch on.