Category Archives: Humor

Behavior, Food, Health, Humor, Personal, Weight Loss

Failure And A Success

03/29/2024 X Teri Leave a comment

In October 2020, I had a gong go off in my head. One consequence is that after 40-something years, possibly 50, I stopped biting my fingernails. The other result was that I lost a chunk of my body. On purpose, even though a sword chop at times is likely.

Recently, I realized that I had transitioned from nibbling my nails to biting them like a rabid hyena. Looking closely at the photo, you can see the ragged mess I’ve made of my fingers. This is an example of the subconscious and anxiety fighting its way through the layers we use to camouflage ourselves. I don’t know if I will get another gong about my nails. So, I might have to resort to old-fashioned and punitive behavior modification. I could go and drive a few dozen nails with a hammer. My dubious accuracy will result in painful fingertips. I’m not proud that I’ve returned to nail biting. Weirdly, though, I don’t keep it secret. My self-image is acceptance. I rarely get self-conscious. It’s definitely not because I look like George Clooney. My spirit animal is much closer to Danny DeVito. I’d rather post a picture of it than attempt to keep it secret foolishly. For anyone young reading this, no matter what you do, age is creeping up behind you. You wake up one morning and realize that you can’t sneeze without risk of injury and that parts of your face look like road maps.

The second part is the date behind my hand. On March 4th, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and revert to my infallible weight maintenance method. While I was only up to 175, I had recently attempted to motivate someone to start the difficult process of reaching their goal. I hit my March 31st goal yesterday. And I’ll be down 10 more soon enough to return to 160, where I belong. I can’t explain how I have so much confidence in one area of my life yet consistently fail in others. Once you realize the problem is you and in your head, the lever is consistency. I don’t count calories – and not only because I lose count after ten fingers. I eat a lot of unhealthy foods when I’m doing my thing. And I hate the word “unhealthy” in this context. During my recent excursion, I cooked my first filet mignon. No one vomited or passed away as a result, so my effort was at least minimally a success.

So many of us fall into the trap of reminding one another that it’s just a question of mindset. But so many things are complicated. Even though we sometimes act like we’ve been recently hit over the head repeatedly, the truth is that thinking and cognitive ability often lose the war to reality. We know, but we don’t act. Or, more likely, we rationalize. Push it off until later. We all know how that works out.

One of my brilliant ideas is to offer someone the right to smack me in the face if they see my fingers near my mouth. (I surmise people would gladly do it for free and often, so the additional carrot of money is a sure-fire option.) It’s ironic that one of my weight loss mantras is “Don’t put it in your mouth,” yet that won’t translate to me not biting my nails like I’m using an old-school typewriter.

In the I-dodged-another-one part of my life, I found out that my equilibrium issue was caused by an ear infection. They didn’t do a brain scan because the last time, it took them 42 minutes to find mine. As most of you will testify, I usually keep it unplugged anyway. I can’t leave it unplugged long, though. The last three times I tried to live without my brain, I received 16 promotion offers. (Something about being the ideal candidate.)
Love, X
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Humor, New Word

Bissextile, Popcorn, and Mosquitoes

03/11/2024 X Teri Leave a comment

Bissextile, Popcorn, and Mosquitoes
(It’s not the latest Taylor Swift song.)

“Pergolas are the broken condom of curb appeal.” I heard that hilarious quote in a Lewis Black video last week. It’s infected my head with yet more riveting and true observations. I’d add my own: “Pergolas are the proof that form defeats function, much like McDonald’s eyebrows.”

The word “bissextile” is interesting. However, it does not hold much value for communication. It’s used mainly to denote the leap year—at least among people who love vocabulary. For everyone else, it’s another example of our language strangling us with complexity. I love observing people sneer at those who don’t follow the alleged rules of our language. Especially spelling. That’s orthography to the supercilious-minded folks among us. (I used supercilious jokingly; it’s how the upper crust looks at some of us when we walk by.)

Another totally unrelated thing is that so many people don’t know that the best way to store popped popcorn is in the icebox. I was going to type “fridge,” but that extra mysterious “d” in the abbreviation for “refrigerator” irritates me. That our language has so many wildly disparate and ridiculous spelling and pronunciation conundrums astounds me. “Icebox” is an anachronism but one that has served us well for decades. By the way, the consensus among many is that we added the “d” to “fridge” not because of unilateral usage but rather because Frigidaire Corporation made a buttload of fridges. It’s more complicated than that because we can’t have easy answers or explanations for anything.

Mosquitoes hone in on the carbon dioxide we breathe out. They also tend to go to certain colors. This is a very useful fact.

I was going to joke about the fact that only female mosquitoes bite, but I am scared of the cancel culture. I’m not quite recovered from the incident last year, in which I was banned from participating in yodeling contests because I paid a helper to intermittently hit me in the groin with a small hammer as I yodeled.

Humor, Lemon Moment

Retail Shenanigans

03/08/2024 X Teri Leave a comment

I have an addiction to leaving fun signs at retail registers. I did more than one today. But in this case, before I even got away, I overheard one person ask the other, “Ooh! For some reason, I think a free pickle with coffee sounds really good! Don’t you?” I walked away quickly. There are a lot of times when it’s way more fun to use my imagination to develop the possible scenarios that resulted from my shenanigans.
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Behavior, Biographical, Brother, Family, Humor, Monroe County, Nostalgia, NSFW language, Opinion, Personal, Social Rules

{Some Of} Bobby Dean’s Rules For Fighting

03/07/2024 X Teri Leave a comment

NSFW due to a wild mix of subject matter and personal commentary…

My brother Mike died without fulfilling my desire that he write a book. He absorbed the false honor narrative of some of my family members. He was a big man, my brother. I took these rules from conversations that Mike and I had on the phone when he was winding down. I’ve shared pieces of them before. My brother Mike had an interesting life. He was a great writer. We both recognized that between the two of us, we might be able to capture the horror, dark humor, and insights that we experienced. Of all the things that piss me off about the way he went out, it’s that he didn’t have enough clarity to see that he should pull up and find a way to live a few more years. Had he chosen to find a way, the resulting book we would have written would have been an irreverent mixture of Pat Conroy and Stephen King.

I’m paraphrasing my dad: “You’re going to get punched in the f mouth. There’s no doubt about it.”

My brother Mike saw a few fights that I didn’t. While I did witness my dad getting his ass whipped, Mike saw a few more of these than I did. Dad had whiskey courage. He read a few too many Westerns and got the wrong lesson out of most of the movies.

Take them for what you will. My dad was a walking contradiction. I despise a lot of what he did. But I understand it a hell of a lot better as I get older.

Rules:

If you’re going to drink in a bar, you’re going to need to be deaf or have a thick skull.

If your buddy is getting his ass whipped, you have to get your ass whipped too.

If someone threatens you… There are no rules, no warning. Do not think about it. Start hitting.

If someone says they’re going to whip your ass, don’t wait for them to prove it.

If they’re close enough to hit you, hit them first. Don’t stop hitting until they’re down.

The most dangerous man is never the loudest.

Don’t punch them more than you need to. But if they are intent on killing you, don’t walk away when they’re on the ground.

If they dress like a dandy, they will not want to get dirty. If they wear a tight shirt, it’s a sure sign that their muscles are for show. Except if they have dirty, scruffed-up boots. You don’t mess around with people who work hard for a living.

Nuts, throat, nose. If those don’t work, bite anything that gets near your mouth.

There’s no such thing as fighting dirty. If they are coming for you, everything in the room is fair game.

If you deserve to get punched, let them hit you in the face. If they attempt to give you more than what you’ve got coming, remind them that you’re a dirty bastard.

Once you’re done fighting, men have a drink. If you can’t have a drink with a man you just fought with, you’re not worth the hat that sits on your head.

…
Dad tried to make a man out of me. Whatever that means. He had his demons. A great deal of his alleged teaching resulted in me choosing the opposite. I never could get my head around that kind of violence. But if you ask me if I understand it, the answer is yes. Especially so when the universe fails or when people fail to honor the fact that violence should never be out of proportion to what caused it. Dad scrambled my brains a few times, but one thing that came out of it was that I learned that many fights come out of nowhere. And a few people who should have scared me didn’t. That’s a part of the Bobby Dean legacy that fills me with contradiction.

I’m forgetting a few of his rules. Despite some of the negative things I have to say about him, he surprised my brother and me many times with how he phrased things. I sometimes forget that he was smart. I would snarkily mention that he often failed to incorporate his intelligence into his behavior. But I’m tired of getting hit by a bolt of hypocritical lightning.

I’ve confessed before that my brother and I actively thought about killing my dad more than once. I’m not proud of it. But if Dad had survived a few more years, he would have appreciated the dark humor of this truth a lot more. Mike realized when we got older that it probably would have been me who would have done it because I experienced and witnessed a lot more of the violence. When my brother Mike got older, Dad looked at him much differently. Mike would have hurled him through the kitchen window like firewood.

Knowing them both, I am 100% certain that one of them would have pulled out the whiskey bottle and poured the other a shot.

They were the kind of men I did not aspire to become. Whatever dark streak ran through them has luckily remained mostly dormant in me. I’d love to have the devilish prankster spirit. I wouldn’t tie someone to a hunting camp tree stump and light it, but I would enjoy making someone think it could happen. There is a fine line between lunacy and free-spiritedness.

I’m sharing this because it’s supposed to be a tip of the hat. It’s not an accusation. The history is there, written as fact in my mind. One of the crazy lessons of ambivalence is that you can witness a tornado but fall in love with how the lightning looks across the sky. Life can be appreciated similarly, even if you would rather flip the light switch off for some moments.

Love, X
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Behavior, Eats, Food, Humor, Opinion, Personal, Social Rules

Snobbery

02/18/2024 X Teri Leave a comment

Snobbery

I’ve irritated some people in my life. Especially those who are arrogant or irritating about the culinary world we experience subjectively. Pineapple on pizza. Ketchup on steak. How meat should be cooked. Whether painted-on eyebrows look strange. I grew up listening to my Mom say, “You don’t know what’s good.” She could eat some things that the vultures would shriek and fly away from. My Dad forced me to eat some nasty stuff; I can laugh about it now. But a part of me laughs and rejoices because I now know he was among the worst to fail to appreciate all the kinds of foods in the world.

There is no right and wrong regarding what you eat or what you like. It doesn’t work that way. And, of course, everyone knows this. For some, the idea of eating fish eggs or oysters, aka snotshells, is as repulsive as watching a 6-year-old pick his nose and then salt and pepper it.

Whether you like your steak bleeding or burned to a crisp, it lies with each person to decide what they like. I watch people argue and criticize what other people eat. The ones criticizing tend to eat some of the most outlandish and nasty stuff on the planet. My brother Mike liked to dip. He’d mock people’s food choices relentlessly. He didn’t take it kindly when I pointed out that it looked like he had let a raccoon poop inside his lip.

If you want to put chocolate pudding on prime rib, fire away.

If you like fresh jalapeños on vanilla ice cream, pile them on there.

And if you like head cheese or liver and onions, I will gladly watch you smile and burp appreciatively as you consume it. Don’t get me started on raw celery, aka The Devil’s Anus.

But if I’m eating burned popcorn or a steak so well done that the fire department is about to come in and you make snide remarks… you’re going to find head cheese or pineapple pizza under your pillow later that night.

Everything about what we like and dislike is subjective.

There are no rules.

We can’t even agree that ties are a stupid anachronism that should be discarded. Or that shrimp are the cockroaches of the sea. But we can mock someone eating fried bologna as we gleefully munch on foie gras as if our choice is superior to theirs.

If you like to eat literal cockroaches, you’re in luck. In my world, I’m going to be fascinated by anything that I consider unusual. But I’m also going to bite my tongue because I embrace the difference in taste that we all experience.

I’m judging you if you judge others for what they put in their mouth. You better check your pillow if I hear you doing it.

It is the lowest form of mockery to mock or attempt to humiliate someone for what they eat or how they enjoy eating it. This is doubly true if you do so in front of other people while they are doing it. I don’t tell you that your pants make you look like one of the mentioned symptoms in a WebMD article; the least you can do is bite your tongue.

“Hunger does not need a cookbook.” – X

“In matters culinary, there is no greater arrogance than objecting to what someone chooses to eat or how they season it, sauce it, or flavor it. I’ve yet to meet anyone who isn’t an idiot with their food, and the feeling is undoubtedly reciprocal.” – X

Love, X
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Holiday, Humor, Spanish

Valentine’s Day

02/14/2024 X Teri Leave a comment

Valentine’s Day. I much prefer the Spanish version, which is “El Día del Amor y la Amistad.” Translated, it’s the day of love and friendship. I think we would do well to embellish our traditions of the day to include reaching out to friends and people who mean a lot to us. I’m not one to limit my surprises to observed holidays. It is more fun to catch people off guard by NOT waiting for special days. Age has rendered me frustrated by the “tomorrow-itis” I see around me. A gesture, five pounds of chocolate, or a hug on a random day might have an impact that’s had to measure.

PS The picture has a subtle meaning and joke that you might not catch at first. It’s what a lot of people look forward to on Valentine’s Day.

Humor, Personal

The Invention of New Curse Words

02/13/2024 X Teri Leave a comment

The Invention of New Curse Words

I’ve been surprisingly under the weather with some strange virus that’s left me with intense fever and body aches, ones similar to those felt after listening to a co-worker talk for fifteen minutes about how busy they are. I went to the doctor twice. It’s better to have a javelin protruding from your leg than to suffer from a virus. At least you can take the javelin out and go about your day.

Because people tend to dislike the stench of body odor, I opted to take a shower. Even though it was the last thing in the world that appealed to me. Yes, even behind voting sensibly.

I entered the bathroom and asked Alexa to play “Passera” by Il Divo. As the song began playing, Guino jumped up on the counter, expecting me to trickle the faucet for him. The song lifted my mood.

I stepped into the shower, being careful for once to keep my balance. I stood unusually close to the dual showerheads for the same reason. That’s when the fun commenced.

Being feverish causes forgetfulness and inattentiveness, not to mention really terrible hair.

I pulled the round knob out on the old assembly. It’s tricky because it can often come off. One of the many advantages of living in an older building is that you learn tricks. One of my learned tricks is to pull the control knob away quickly and with full water pressure. I always remember to check to see if the control valve is down.

Almost always.

Instead of the water coming out of the bottom spout as god intended, it came out of both shower heads at full force. With my achy skin, to say that the torrent of water that came out was cold would be the grossest of exaggerations. Because I was standing so close, the full force of the arctic blast of water covered me immediately. I tensed up as if I’d been tased. I’m not sure how I avoided falling. Had there been a window in the shower, one thirty feet above the ground, I would have gladly hurled myself through it.

Instead, I stood in the freezing water, convulsing like a suburban Karen complaining about the cheese on her Big Mac. While I can’t remember the words I shouted, they were new to me. My recovering, feverish brain opened a new portal to surprise and unhappiness as it created on-the-fly curse words for this special occasion. I shouted so loudly that I might have triggered an alarm on the vehicles outside. While I don’t remember what I shouted, the words sounded foreign and deeply insulting. Complete gibberish, as if I’d recently graduated from an Effective Management course.

I had no choice except to stand and wait for the water to warm up.

That’s how the best curse words are invented.

But I don’t recommend it.

X
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Humor

Last On The Bus

02/02/2024 X Teri Leave a comment

Little Bobby got hit four different times while riding home on the school bus.

The driver grew more concerned. But then he noticed that Little Bobby smiled each time another kid bullied him.

Little Bobby and his brother Mike were the last stop on the driver’s route.

As Little Bobby and his brother stood up to exit the bus, the driver stopped them.

“Little Bobby, why did you smile each time one of the kids hit you?”

Little Bobby’s older and larger brother Mike spoke first:

“Being the last people on the route means that I know where each of those bastards lives.”
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Humor

She Asked For It!

01/07/2024 X Teri Leave a comment

Real Conversation:

I pulled over to see if I could capture the sound of songbirds near the junior high a block or two from where I live. I left my car running and was standing several feet away from it with my phone pointed up.

A neighbor from one of the nearby houses was leaving her house. I saw her come to a creeping crawl not too far from where I was.

“Hey, what are you doing?” She asked me. Her tone was pretty brash.

Because I was in that kind of mood, I walked quickly and stopped about 10 ft away from her vehicle.

I turned my phone toward her to show her the interface for the Merlin app.

“I’m a volunteer for the American Wdlife Association. There’s a large tiger running around within a quarter of a mile of here. I was using the app to detect sounds so we could locate it before anything weird happened.”

Her face froze because I said it in the most serious tone I could manage. Oddly, she didn’t say another word to me. Her driver window went up and she drove off.

I waited until she was decently far away before I burst out laughing.