It doesn't seem
appropriate to be clowning around in the wake of the passing of my
mother, Patricia Gebhard Wright last evening. She was a woman of
good humor and enjoyed a laugh. Many of my first laughs came from
her (in spite of the fact that she had my nose – how did she do
that?) She was a loving and kind woman and I can't recall a mean
thing that she ever said or did. I will miss her, but I count myself
fortunate to have had her as my mother and my friend.
“Yeah, I want you to tat hair on my head – solid black.”
“Um…”
“What?”
“I’ve never done that. It’s not going to look real, you
know.”
“Hey! They sell cans of spray paint for people to paint their head
– a tattoo has to look better than that – plus I never have to
worry about gray hair.”
“Yeah, but everyone makes fun of the spray can hair. It looks
kind of stupid.”
“All right – so what wouldn’t be stupid?”
“Here’s my scalp flash book.”
“Yeah, nothing stupid here. I’ll just go with tattooed black
hair.”
In
an earlier post entitled, In Support of Foo link, I advocated changing the
word ‘off’ to foo. Typically, the etymological community ignored
it. Maybe titling this blog Just Plain Stupid
was a poor choice in that regard.
While
I stand by my foo/off argument, that has nothing to do with today’s
post. This is not about foo, but Foo, as in Little Bunny Foo (X2).
It’s
a case of improper judicial finding without benefit of appeal. For
those unfamiliar with the case, here is an excerpt from the record:
Little Bunny Foo Foo, hoping through the forest
Scooping
up the field mice, and bopping them on the head.
This,
in short, is the accusation against FooX2 – that he was recidivist
field mice bopper. According to the fairy mandatory sentencing law
of 18298 CFE (common fairy era,) repeated and unrepentant mouse
bopping must be punished by eternal goonhood.
How
barbaric.
What
is this, the middle ages? The same law punishes badger painting and
skunk hypnosis with 7 to 15 years fairy labor (either flower
brightening, or tooth sorting.) Do I need to tell you how dangerous
a lavender badger is? – not to mention a skunk under the influence
of post-hypnotic suggestion.
I’m
not defending field mice bopping. I know that bopped, swirlied,
nuggied, and wet-willied rodents suffer PTS (post Tra-rattic Stress)
disorder, but with counseling, and dairy products, these vermin can
live out their normal disgusting lives.
Unlike
lavender badgers.
There
are some extenuating circumstances clearly spelled out in the
transcript that neither the fairy mandatory sentencing law, nor the
fairy standing in judgement recognized in this case.
While rabbits are
generally much larger than mice, we need to point out that FooX2 was
called LITTLE, and the mice victimized were field mice (among the
largest of their species.)
The acts in question
did not take place in a field, but a forest. Might FooX2 feel
threatened but an incursion of strange rodents coming into his
territory?
FooX2 was a bunny,
not a rabbit – in other words, a juvenile. The FMSL gives no
guidelines for juvenile leniency.
Clearly,
the problem here is not FooX2, an intimidated youthful offender, but
a system of justice run not through a representative and therefore
responsible government, but by a cadre of organized fairies under the
arbitrary leadership of cruel and capricious godmothers.
How
ironic that a smalltime prankster like FooX2 is sentenced to eternal
goonhood, by a tyrannical wielder of supreme judicial power who is
little better than winged and wanded Al Capone.
Who
is the true goon in this case?
The following video was clearly put together by the prosecution in order to put FooX2 in a bad light
I'd like to present part two of the scintillating, most popular post ever made here on Just Plain Stupid... But it's a lot easier just to post a bunch of tee shirt sayings and call it a day.
Hey, everyone's angry about health care these days.
Talk about things that make you angry
Okay, it's probably not true - but we can hope
My feelings around election time
My bunny slippers assure me it's true. They're very close
I tried this several times. After a while...
I had this tee shirt. I had to trash it 'cause it had too many cuts in it
Sigh...
Yum
The world is full of mutants
Speaking of mutants
Will punctuation stop mutants?
Go ahead - call him a wimp.
Yes, yes, I know I had this in the last post - but I can't get over how much Curly looks like Kirk.
And ONCE AGAIN, I find a video to fit the theme - the classic Rhys Ifans bit from Notting Hill. If you think this is all Ifans can do - check out Danny Deckchair. Warning - language
Some time ago - I'm too lazy to look it up. I posted some tee shirts I'd seen and liked on this blog. People didn't seem to hate it as much as my usual stuff, so I thought I'd give you a break and post some more tee shirts today and Thursday (less work for me, right?)
Not available for Merlin or Benjamin Button
Not available for politicians
sigh
People point this one out to me a lot...?
fertilizer?
You got it.
Should be the Go Figure Reads logo
You know they do it
and
My favorite today...
I never realized how much Curly looked like Shatner
Once in a while I actually match up the video with the post theme -
Across the lines came the blood-curdling cry, “Whey
into them, boys!”
Anything about that line sound strange to you? For me, it’s the
dairy references. Milk is comprised of curds and whey, as anyone
who’s familiar with Miss Muffet on her tuffet can tell you. Curds
is the part that gets hard like cottage cheese, or when scrunched
together for a long time, hard cheese. Whey is the liquid stuff that
curds float in when milk gets chunky. Skim milk is largely whey.
Chunky milk has been curdled. Blood doesn’t curdle, it clots. Why
do we say, blood-curdling instead of blood-clotting?
And what does whey have to do with impassioned violence?
That’s right men; throw that sour skim milk in
their faces! Their clothes will get all filmy and their hair will
look funny! They’ll smell bad for a week!
Udderly ridiculous - or is it?
Not having the money to travel, I chose the less expensive route of
travel dreaming. Being an alum (meaning it took me longer to flunk
out than at most schools I went to) of UMass Amherst, I decided to
dream travel to the game where our mighty A-10 school faced the
Wisconsin Badgers of the wimpy Big 10 (at least our division REALLY
has 10 teams!) (Okay, UMass is in the Mac now – poetic license.)
There I was, on the fifty yard line, just under row 27.
Yeah, I said under.
You see ticket prices (even dream tickets,) are pretty pricey, and
from a spot under the massive bleachers, I get to experience the roar
and majesty of the game without paying for a ticket.
It’s also a great place to find loose change.
I was busily picking up pennies and nickels and staring hungrily at a
plate of nachos perched above me, just out of reach, when I was
joined by a lad of 10 or 12 wearing a red jersey with a big white W
on it.
“You one of those Minute Men, Mister?” he asked.
“Yes, I went UMass,” I answered.
“Minute Men,” he scoffed. “It must make you real popular with
the ladies.”
I looked again at this child, wondering if he’d meant to make an
off-color remark.
“So, you up here to smell our dairy air?”
“What?” I asked. “Were you just speaking French?”
I was interrupted by a roar from the crowd as the Badgers scored a
touchdown. The boy jumped up in the air in celebration and landed on
my foot. As I searched for damage to my vintage P.F. Flyers, the
plate of nachos fell from above. The boy snatched it as it passed so
close to my face that I could smell the cheddar.
“Cheese,” said the boy, smiling as he stuffed a nacho into his
mouth.
Stomach growling, foot throbbing, I watched the lad saunter off
spraying nacho crumbs as he sang On Wisconsin. That’s when
I noticed my wallet was missing.
I checked the score the next day – Wisconsin 45, Massachusetts 0.
Maybe dairy products are war-like.
Okay, here's a couple of videos I don't know what do with.
When I was nine years old, we had a pop-up trailer. It spent a lot
of time sitting in the yard, snow – sometimes several feet of it,
piled up on its fiberglass roof. It didn’t move till spring –
usually late spring, and while our Clark Griswold station wagon got
its share of roof snow, we always brushed it off, or let it blow off
as we drove it to school or the grocery store.
The trailer just sat there – cold, snowbound, forgotten.
Except by our dog. Copy, whose name was a shortened form of a
pretentious French phrase (he was a poodle after all,) regularly made
winter pilgrimages to our little pop-up. He rubbed along the
trailer’s side, jumped over the connecting tongue, and peed on it.
That may seem like an action of distain, but to the brain of a poodle
(or a nine-year-old boy,) it was an act of respect and commiseration.
Copy loved summer vacations with the pop-up. We’d throw our stuff
into the Griswold, hook up the trailer, and pile in. Copy and I got
in the back, or as we called it in deference to The Adventures of Mr.
Peabody and His Boy, Sherman, the way-back machine.
The way-back was
our special part of the Griswold for two reasons, a) we were the only
two agile enough to climb back there, and b) the way-back machine was
reliably full of exhaust fumes and our smaller size meant that Copy
and I produced the least amount of vomit.
From the way-back machine, we watched the pop-up trailer come to
life. First, the trailer hobbled up and down as the flat side of the
tires rediscovered their round identity. Then, the leaves and pine
needles impressed by months of snow and repeated applications of bird
poop worked their way free and flew joyously onto the windshields of
cars behind us. Finally, the connecting chain, carefully wrapped
around the tongue unraveled and sagged enough to strike sparks from
the roadside, bathing the Griswold gas tank with pyro-splendor.
Copy and I eyed each other in those first stages of our
carbon-monoxide highs and knew that summer vacation had begun.
And in that state of rapidly diminished brain activity, we knew the
pop-up, so long cold and neglected, was happy as well.
There are those that tell me inanimate objects like pop-up trailers
have no moods, no hopes, no disappointments, no desires. That the
glow we saw bathing the trailer’s smiling front was just a
combination of partial asphyxiation augmented by the flames
intermittently expelled by the Griswold exhaust system.
Maybe they’re right; maybe little pop-up trailers have no souls;
they don’t go to heaven when they die. But if one did, a pop-up’s
heaven would be a place where it is always the first day of summer
vacation, the leaves and pine needles of depressing winter are
stripped away, and oxygen-deprived dogs and children constantly
appreciate the roundness of its tires, the gleam of its fiberglass,
and sparking majesty of its camp-providing glory.
