Category Archives: Humor
Teenage Hearing
We were worried about our daughter’s hearing. She’s sixteen and never seems to hear anything we say. Comments made to this kid are usually answered with “Hmmm?” Requests for her to do something invariably are met with “What?” And never try calling to her from another room. You will grow old waiting for a reply.
We were seriously considering getting her hearing tested when we began to notice inconsistencies in her hearing. One day we were in the kitchen pouring some crackers into a bowl when this supposedly deaf child suddenly appeared at our elbows.
“Can I have some?” she asked.
She had been in her bedroom at the other end of the house when she heard the crackers hitting the bowl.
Another time, we had opened a bag of pretzels and were sitting in the living room sharing them when we looked up and saw her standing there.
“How’d you know we had pretzels?” we asked as she dived into the bag.
“I heard you chewing,” she replied.
Or how about the time we were having an in-depth and lengthy discussion about a very special character in one of our books who needed to be able to communicate with other characters without giving too much information away, which would ruin the plot. We went back and forth for a good twenty minutes when our daughter called out from her bedroom.
“Make it communicate with feelings instead of words,” she said.
She had followed the entire conversation, which was taking place in the living room. And what was even more astounding, her suggestion was terrific. We used it, and it added a great dimension to the story. However, when we yelled back, “Thanks!”, we received no reply.
Sigh. Do you suppose there is a test for selective hearing in teens?
What Great Stories Have in Common
Ever feel deja vu when reading a book or watching a movie? Here’s why.
The Sounds of Today
Boy, the world sure sounds different than it did when we were growing up.
Anyone out there remember the good old days? Basketballs and bicycles, “Tag, you’re it!” and “Race you to the corner!” The noise of a neighborhood football game in the backyard. The sound of feet pounding through the house. Moms and Dads everywhere screaming, “Go outside and play!”
Homes and yards today are very different. The exuberant voices have quieted, the running feet have slowed. The games have become virtual, friends meeting in cyberspace instead of in person. And the sounds of the virtual world and the real world are sometimes hard to distinguish.
Picture this: a mom sitting in her office writing a new chapter for her book, one ear cocked, as always, for the sounds of children, pets, husband, and other miscellaneous visitors. She hears the plaintive cry of a cat. Repeatedly. Upon investigation, she discovers that it is merely a virtual pet, crying out to be fed/played with/brushed or whatever else the computer program demands. She returns to her creating. In another room, her husband is attempting to speak in a computer-simulated monotone. “Yes.” “Service.” “No.” “Service.” “YES.” “SERVICE.” Is he crazy? No, he is merely trying to get a voice-recognition phone system to connect him with the service department.
A baby cries. A baby? We don’t have a baby. Are the cries coming from inside the house or through the open window? No, Mom, it’s just a virtual baby. Mom wonders if young mothers ever ignore their babies cries because they think it is merely the older children playing with virtual babies instead of their living siblings. Mom settles back to continue her sci-fi novel. She is deep into the description of a space battle that seems so real to her she can actually hear the sounds of space ships. Wait. Why are the sounds coming from the living room? Of course. A group of kids, computers in hand, have flown into space to defend Earth from an alien invasion. Mom returns to her writing. She can’t help wondering if a real alien invasion occurred, would anyone notice?
And then the creepiest sounds of all. Subtle sounds that take a few moments to break through the writing fog. Shuffling footsteps. Distant moans. Mom looks at her watch. Is it time for dinner already? Are her poor, hungry children dragging themselves down the hall demanding nourishment?
Nope. It is the apocalypse. The virtual zombie apocalypse, that is. The undead are dragging themselves across computer screens not down the hallway. Mom returns to her work, hoping that the day the real zombies show up, she will be able to tell the difference.
To Blog or Not to Blog
To blog, or not to blog–that is the question.
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous comments
Or to take arms against a sea of bloggers
And by blogging join them. To write, to blog–
No more–and by a blog to say we endure
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That blogging is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be missed! To write, to blog–
To blog–perchance to be Freshly Pressed: ay, there’s the rub,
For in that blog of ours what thoughts may come
When we have blogged of our weekly toil,
Must give us pause. There’s the rejection
That makes calamity of so long a blog.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of blogging,
Th’ writer’s wrong, the proud man’s comments
The pangs of despised blogs, the blogger’s delay,
The insolence of bloggers, and the spurns
That patient bloggers of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his blog make
With a bare pen? Who would blogs bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary blog,
But that the dread of something other than blogging,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No blogger returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those blogs we write
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make bloggers of us all,
And thus the native hue of blogging
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And blogs of great pitch and moment
With this regard their blogs turn awry
And lose the name of action. — Soft you now,
The fair blogger! — Author, in thy bloggings
Be all my blogs remembered.
(An adaptation of Hamlet’s Soliloquy from the play by W. Shakespeare. Sorry, Will, we couldn’t resist!)
Thunder Paws
We’re not sure how many cats we have.
We thought we only rescued two kittens from the animal shelter. Two sisters, Katie, the gray tiger, and Zoe, the black and white. They were only a few weeks old when they came to live with us, too small to move beyond the bedroom door. But once they were older and did venture into that big world known as the rest of the house, a very strange thing happened.
The number of cats in our house multiplied.
The chaos and mayhem that has ensued over the last year has convinced us that we have more than two cats. It would defy all the laws of physics for two small cats to cause such commotion. Our evidence for this belief? The shredded curtains, the damaged blinds, the smashed glassware. The disconnected, well-chewed phone cord. The removal and shredding of all pieces of paper in our waste baskets. The sight of cats racing at a speed so fast they are just a blur, making it impossible to determine how many of them have just flown by.
We speculate that these cats come up through the drains. They creep in the open windows. They slither under the doors. The cat food bowls are always empty, the litter boxes always full. We are paying for far more cat food than two cats could ever eat. And as for litter box duties… Talk about job security!
Katie and Zoe deny any knowledge of the other cats. They stare at us with wide, innocent eyes when we make inquiries, as if they do not know what we are talking about. Sometimes they yawn, clearly indicating the questions are not important. And sometimes they casually saunter away, intending, we are sure, to warn the other cats to lie low because the food providers/box cleaners are getting suspicious. Then we laugh at ourselves. There cannot possibly be more than two cats in our house. Right?
We carry this false security to bed with us. We lie still in the night, listening to the sounds of thundering paws racing around the house, sounding like a herd of stampeding buffalo. To get up and investigate is dangerous. In the dark, a little, furry assassin will crack-block your ankles and then disappear, leaving you bruised and swearing on the floor. So we merely listen to the galloping, mentally calculating how many cats it would take to make that thundering noise. Calculating how much cat food we will have to buy. Calculating how many times we will have to scoop the litter boxes. We eventually fall into an uneasy sleep, each hoping that the rampaging hordes will not trample us in the night.
The Politics of Rocks
We have a rock wall surrounding our yard and the four neighbors who share this rock border have four very different attitudes to the question of who owns the rocks on the wall.
Neighbor #1: “These rocks belong to me.” We simply cannot convince him that the property lines runs down the middle of the wall (several surveyors have also been unable to convince him of this) and, as a result, we are having constant skirmishes. This is our most volatile and unstable border. All negotiations have failed, and he now conducts regular border patrols. No leaves or sticks are allowed to linger on his lawn, either, and if you cross the border you so at your own risk.
Neighbor #2:“Take my rocks, please.” This neighbor doesn’t like the rock wall. The stones are constantly falling into his yard and causing mayhem when he runs over them with the lawn mower. He wishes to export as many rocks as possible, and we have a very liberal trade agreement with him. He barters rocks in exchange for help in repairing his lawnmower. Both our properties thrive from this mutually beneficial arrangement.
Neighbor #3: “Who cares about rocks?” The rock wall is not part of his vision of his property. He doesn’t care if we shore up the wall or take it down. His laissez faire attitude requires neither a trade agreement nor border patrols. It is an open border; kids freely cross it and rocks can be added or subtracted with impunity by either side (with the understanding that the wall itself is never dismantled). Free exchange at its finest.
Neighbor #4: “Rocks? What rocks?” We have a fourth neighbor, whose house sits behinds Mr. Take My Rocks, Please. His property shares the smallest section of the rock wall. He never exhibits any curiosity when we work on the wall, and when we once asked him if we could take a beautiful piece of quartz from his side of the wall and offered to replace it with a stone of equal size, he gave us a quizzical look and uttered the now-famous reply, “Rocks? What rocks?” It never even occurred to him that he had any claim on the rock wall. A Neighbor without Borders.
And how do our neighbors view us? We are not entirely certain, but we believe it goes something like this:
Mr. These Rocks Belong to Me sees us as a hostile nation and has instituted sanctions.
Mr. Take My Rocks, Please views us as a harmless border country with a different culture that is not understood but tolerated since our odd fondness for rocks supports his domestic policy.
Mr. Who Cares About Rocks probably views us as a neutral state. We don’t go to war with him and do not interfere in the politics of his nation.
And Mr. Rocks? What Rocks? Perhaps he sees us as a young country, building our infrastructure and cementing our borders. Perhaps he views us a materialistic nation bent on acquiring more wealth (in the form of rocks). Or perhaps, if someone were to ask him about us, he would reply, “Neighbors? What neighbors?”
We’ve Been Editing Our New Book
Sung to the tune “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”
We’ve been editing our new book
all the livelong day!
We’ve been editing our new book,
and the time has slipped away.
We can see the deadline looming
so we rise up early in the morn.
We can hear each other shouting
“Damn it, cut some more!”
Damn it, cut some more!
Damn it, cut some more!
Damn it, cut some more and more, more, more!
Damn it, cut some more!
Damn it, cut some more!
Damn it, cut some more, more, more!
Someone has to check for grammar.
Someone has to check for form.
Someone has to check for style.
While rewriting it some more!
We’re singin’ “Gee, why did I write this?
Gee, this piece has to go-o-o-o-o.
Gee, why is editing so damn hard?
Wish we were strummin’ on the old banjo!”
J.M. Dattilo 