Category Archives: Humor

A Word Of Thanks

02/04/2022 X Teri Leave a comment

“My socks may not match, but my feet are always warm.” Maureen McCullough

As someone who turned down raises twice in my history with my company (during which one year we all took a 5% pay cut due to cutbacks), I’ve never complained about what I’m paid. Especially in the last 18 months, I have been even more grateful to my job overall, even though it drives me bonkers at times. The goings-on with Covid definitely tried my patience. But I do love my schedule and the flexibility my job affords. Some of my co-workers are actually not a total pain in the ass. Besides, they seem to tolerate ME well, which is a feat of both bravery and foolishness on their part.

In the last couple of years, the company had to adjust to market pressure and give the lower-end employees two pay bumps, many of whom finally went to $15 an hour. I now have 17 years with my employer. Given the number of shenanigans and stress I’ve often doled out to my managers, HR, compliance, legal, and just about everyone, it is a miracle that I’m still there. I’m a complete goof but sometimes people forget my background or my contradictory ideas about safety, employment law, and general do-the-right-thing beliefs. I’ve been lucky to be both vocal and humorous, even while doing a very physical job. I’m definitely not my job, but it does afford me the chance to be fickle and fiendish.

I have a minority opinion about seniority – and always have. While we can earn different benefits based on longevity, I’ve always believed that anyone doing my job should earn exactly what I do, regardless of tenure. It’s not exactly a popular opinion, I realize. It’s caused some hilarious team meetings and awkward moments. Not awkward for me; rather, for them. All of us are expendable and are only as valuable as our output and knowledge.

In general, I’d rather have more satisfied co-workers than a slightly higher wage. Since most of them SEEM to be working for money, it follows that more money should lead to better morale. Except for the assholes. There is no pleasing some people, as anyone who has thrown a dinner party knows.

I didn’t know what kind of raise I might get on this paycheck. I would have been grateful for any raise. When I checked my online paystub and did the simple math, I realized that I should not be doing even simple math without a calculator and probably a helmet.

My raise? 10%. That’s substantially larger than any I’ve ever received. I know that the raise was based on complex calculations, probably using a dartboard and while drinking shots at Art’s Place on College. But whatever the reason, I am grateful.

“The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.” Eric Hoffer

So, as for the administrators who authorized the raise, I guess I need to nod in their direction, as much as it pains me. I prefer to snark at them!

I would write more, but I need to go spend this 10% on something vital to my life: notecards and PopChips.

“I will find you and I will hug you.” – Possibly Liam Neeson

Love, X

PS The picture is from this morning. I walked down the trail and listened to the birds. The squirrels scampered along the branches and knocked puffs of snow loose as they did so. It was as if I had the entire world to myself; no traffic, no passersby on the trail. Only the peeking sun, the flow of the creek, and my thoughts. It was sublime and beautiful.
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Behavior, Humor, Mental Health, Personal

A Therapeutic Moment

01/29/2022 X Teri 5 Comments

“Your past is just a story now,” she said, her voice booming with confidence. She saw the look of disbelief on my face and nodded. “Are you saying you’re incapable of turning the page and choosing different behavior? If that’s so, go ahead and surrender to your patterns. It’s over for you.”

I was a little stunned that she was advocating that I give up.

“Get a piece of your crazy chalk, X, go outside, and make a chalk outline of your body, as if you’ve fallen forever. Look at it. That’s what you’re going to leave behind if you don’t make different choices. You know that the number of obstacles that hit you is never going to be zero, so figure out how circumstances are not your actual problem. You are. You wanted clarity and hit-you-in-the-face commentary. There you have it.”

I nodded with an intent look on my face. She wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t heard before. The words, though, were incisive and harsh this time.

She continued. “I read your ‘reset’ promise. You said you’d give it a year. Do that. Every day, make a chalk outline and remind yourself visually that we all are going to end up with unfinished business. Get yours done already. You love to write? Do that. You want a connection that gives you presence and affection without qualification? Get that. If you can’t be successful, I doubt anyone who sees me can be.”

I laughed. “I wish you’d tell me how you REALLY feel.”

I pulled the piece of orange chalk out of my gray jacket pocket, holding it up. “I’ll get started when I leave, right in your parking lot. I hope no one gets the wrong idea.”

“There is no wrong idea. It will either be funny, surprising, or hurtful. You know that you can’t control other people’s filters. Stop trying. What was it you gave me? Like a mouthful of fire, who you are should be impossible to conceal. Your sense of humor is your secret weapon. Focus on that, X.”

After I left the office, I did what usually gives me a secret laugh. I knelt on the pavement and drew a rudimentary chalk outline of a body. I wrote “Yesterday” on the torso.

Somehow, I knew she would nod in approval at the small addition to my drawing.

Almost all of our lives are written in chalk. Entropy and time erase so much – but never the connections and moments we share as memories. Things are transitory, just as we are.

On the way home, I stopped and got nine balloons. I wrote a card that said, “Thank you for being you. -Anonymous.” And I tied them to someone’s car, someone I didn’t know. I laughed, knowing that whoever the car belonged to would find them and be filled with curiosity. And maybe a little glee. I gave them a story, maybe one that would linger forever in their heads.

Love, X
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Humor, Personal

Not My Birthday

01/05/2022 X Teri Leave a comment

Thanks to you all for the birthday wishes.

My only regret is that it’s not my birthday. Not that I can prove, anyway.

I am 20,008 days old.

That’s MMVIII for us weirdos that love letters over numbers.

Allegory, Ancestry, Humor, Lemon Moment, Personal

Coincidental Joy

01/04/2022 X Teri Leave a comment

There are days when coincidences flood my life. Because we are thinking animals, it’s easy to find a nexus and connections where there are none. Other days, the barrage is so consistent and overwhelming that I feel like I’m the titular character in a Richard Bach novel. I stop and pet a dog and look up to see that owner bundled in warm clothing is someone I once knew. That a new neighbor gives me a stack of t-shirts and one of them is a green Spongebob-inspired one. (That’s a more complicated story.) A stranger writes me on Ancestry to tell me that they read about one of their ancestors on my blog. A DM of words to tell me that something I wrote five years about my personal history gave them hope that anything can become a story and not a constant reminder of pain. Another to tell me they’d read about 400 of my blog posts and told me he didn’t realize that he could just write about anything he wanted to. Or that he could be honest about the things he was not proud of, a couple of which he shared with me. I got a quick peek at what my life would look like in a year. A succession of hugs, causing laughter and a little bit of merriment. Some hugs are built from scratch and others feel like comfort. I won’t detail all the coincidences, but it was a minor crescendo as the day progressed.

I hear the mockingbird, too, in my head. When I wrote this line, A small bird flew up to my feeder, singing as he ate absurdly large suet balls. My window blinds are open, of course, so that I can watch the world whiz by with ridiculous speed out on Gregg. My feeder is less than five feet away from me, directly in my line of sight. My cat Güino is laying on the extra-wide windowsill I installed, even though the air is chilly through the window. I hear him chirp in response to the small bird, though he doesn’t jump to nuzzle and nose at the window as I expect.

I went for a haircut today, too. I sat and joked with the duo of older barbers. I’m guessing they are unaccustomed to rapid-fire humor. Instead of telling my barber how to cut my hair, I asked him to cut mine as if he were doing “The Ugly Bruce Willis special.” I waited. “How the Jason Statham one where he looks like he lost his mind. Can you do that?” And then I relented and told him that my haircut was the easiest in the world. “#1 attachment and do the rest any damned way you’d like.” He laughed. “Well, I guess you’re right. That is the easiest.” When he was done, he started to hand me a mirror to examine the cut. “Are you kidding? Where’s your self-confidence?” He laughed again. “My Grandpa told me that you should never paint a burned house. Whatever happened here, it’s on me.”

As I left, I asked them where the special bottles of spray were. The older of the two said, “What spray are you talking about.” I smiled. “The one that really good-looking men use to keep the women at bay.” They paused and then cackled. “Oh, it’s not for me. It’s a gift for a friend!”

During my errands, I encountered a few more coincidences. At Peace at Home Shelter Thrift Store, at Harps, and even on the drive home. I felt like a special filter had been placed on my brain.

The brooch is one of several I made for my sister. I have a small collection of both meaningful ones – and lunacy-inspired ones, too.

I chose joy today, even though I had a couple of moments that were like running on a treadmill, blindfolded, and in reverse. But I felt myself insisting on pushing aside the indifference and negativity from the world.

Even as I write this, I know I’m going to have a couple of more coincidences happen. I can feel their scratches at the door of my life.

Love, X
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Decorative, Humor, Personal

Laugh! Or Else!

12/26/2021 X Teri Leave a comment

Listen, if you come into my apartment, you’re going to need to pay attention. I have so many little goofy things and pranks laying about.

This morning, as the landlord and I carried my new water heater up the steps, he came inside and was pleased that I’d contained the leaking water heater.

As he left, he looked at my doorknob and smiled. He didn’t say anything, but he shook his head.

On the inside of the doorknob, I’d left a pair of panties hanging there, like a perverted Xmas remnant. Don’t worry, Susan never even knew they were missing. Who is Susan? I have no idea, either.

I hope she’s not cold, though, whoever she is!

And these moments are what make life so damned fun.

Love, X
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“It’s better to give than receive.” I’m not sure my downstairs neighbor agrees. It turns out that my water heater was giving the floor a constant drip of water, saturating the ceiling below until it gave way. That was a small part of my Xmas day, constantly emptying the little container that would fit between my water heater and the board in front of it. PS I am SO grateful that I waited for an upstairs apartment.

Christmas, Holiday, Humor, Personal

Is Santa Real … A Cat Wonders

12/12/2021 X Teri Leave a comment

What do you suppose Güino is thinking? Santa brought him a couch. But Güino knows the apartment doesn’t have a chimney – and that Santa’s girth alone is too wide for such a thing, much less while pushing a couch down the chute. Güino is 13.5+ years old and too old to believe in Santa. I think he wants to leave Santa one of my protein drinks and fiber pills instead of milk and cookies. But it could land him on next year’s naughty list.
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Humor, Personal, Writing

Amusing Non-Writer’s Anecdote

12/01/2021 X Teri Leave a comment

Because of blogging, I’ve been exposed to people who know me only through my writing. One of them wrote me and asked if I could do a sample reply for an advice blog. Being me, incapable of writer’s block, I wrote back: “I can write five so you can pick and choose.” Answer: “Ha, well, I would like it in a week, if you could.” Me: “A week? My imperfectionism stipulates I’ll have them done in a day.”

I fired them off. Two were serious and three were humorous and also addressed the topics. The blogger wrote back: “Crap! I liked them all. The funny ones made me laugh and think. What do you do for a living?” Me: “I carry around hospital supplies. I write because I don’t know how NOT to.” Answer: “The one about being ridiculously honest? That one should be a TikTok. So over-the-top, but true. I spit my coffee a little reading it. It’s good.”

So, humble-bragging aside, my first piece of advice? DON’T let me write an advice column. All of y’all will be wearing clown shoes and dating known felons before the week is out. Some of you already are. You must be. You’re reading what I write.

Love, X
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Art, Artist, DIY, Humor, Jewelry, Opinion, Personal, Psychology, Social Rules, Uncategorized

Once More Unto The Brooch

11/29/2021 X Teri 4 Comments

“You’re only given a little spark of madness, you mustn’t lose it.” — Robin WIlliams

As for my smaller lighter brooch I made and wore today, it was wildly successful. Sure, I had a couple of eyerolls and a bit of derision. 98% was effusively humorous. One person asked me to make one for her husband, who struggles to avoid losing lighters. I imagined him on the construction site with a lighter-brooch on his shirt, while his coworkers chortled at him. The woman at the gas station thought it was both practical and creative. The booth clerk at the flea market said, “Art is in the eye of the beholder. That’s fairly creative, X.”

Though I make these things to be creative and for self-amusement, I also accidentally discover human behavior lessons by doing so.

You’ll hear me say with regularity, “Anything can be made into a brooch if you’re audacious enough.” The fact that I have one made out of a pregnancy test should be proof enough of that.

“Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.” -Oscar Wilde

Rare is the person who directly expresses displeasure. Not so much about the specific idea or implementation; rather, the IDEA of such a thing. Those people are to be avoided. It belies a lack of enthusiasm for creativity and the autonomy of others to be ridiculous. People who can’t engage in random acts of ridiculousness aren’t part of my tribe, to put it mildly.

People who directly say, “It’s not that clever or not appealing” either do so because they are honest, which is truly a great thing, or they can’t help but to express negativity, which is its opposite. I’m carefree about people’s reactions but I do notice when someone isn’t engaging in a spirit of enthusiasm or encouragement. Life is bland enough without encouraging more of the same.

To everyone who thought it was clever, thank you. To those who didn’t, I can’t hit all home runs. But out of the hundreds of people I ran across today, my cigarette lighter brooch was the most singular thing I saw anyone wearing today. And that’s a home run each and every time – in part because it gives people the opportunity to be amused, annoyed, or to interact. I can’t be certain that NO ONE has ever made a working cigarette lighter brooch. But I am certain that the idea came to me from the mist of my own mind – and that no one I know has ever seen one. Until today. That makes me happy.

The best line I came up with today was a play on words: “Can I send you a Bic pic?”

“Creativity is contagious, pass it on.” – Albert Einstein

Love, X
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PS The next picture is added for varityletter…