Holidazed

I love this festive time of year, from Thanksgiving through New Years. It's the one set of holidays that celebrates what Americans do best: Eat.

Also, it's the time of year when I reap the benefits of having never put away the Christmas decorations last year. Around July I may have looked the fool, but I'm sittin' pretty this month while my neighbors have toiled away their weekends stringing lights around their gutters and staking Santas to their roofs.

Honestly, I don't get the whole concept around decorating the house. Why add another weekend chore whose one guaranteed result is to add the reverse chore to your list in another month? That's like handing markers to a three year old standing in front of a clean, white wall; you're just inviting more work.

Far better to just skip the decorations the first time around. Sure. you may have the only dark house on the street, depressing and lonely looking when you come home in the evenings. Sure, you'll have to say "No" to the kids when they beg you to liven up the black hole of holiday despair. But that's just good practice for when they ask for a new game console or textbooks for school.

Of course, you may be worried about your standing in the neighborhood.

There are easy ways to avoid the social stigma associated with having the creepy house on the block. Tell your neighbors that you've converted to some religion that doesn't celebrate any holidays. Or tell people that you're allergic to lights and fake icicles. Or if you really want the subject closed, tell them your spouse died and you're in mourning. (This last one may require a bit of effort to make sure that your spouse stays hidden. Forever. But the firm way that it shuts down the nagging will be worth it).

You can also tell people that you're concered about global warming and that you're saving the planet one LED bulb at a time. Then get back to watching the game on your big screen plasma display, which you'll have plenty of time for since you didn't have to waste your weekends decorating the house.

Yule Chuckle

When down our chimney
Come Santa’s claws
It’s snow holiday at
The house of Haase.

He arrives in the room
With a reindeer antler
And goes after our stockings;
He’s a hearth dismantler.

He takes our kids’ gifts
And has presents of mine
All stuffed in his bag,
When I start to whine,

“Why are you stealing?
Is this some kind of trick?”
He says, “Why do you think
They call me Saint Nick?”

Then the dog takes after
The man in the suit.
The fat guy sees him
And lets out a hoot.

They chase ‘round the room
Santa’s running with fright
Then I trip, hit my head,
And I’m out like a light.

When I wake up later
From an eggnog haze
I realize it’s just been
One of those days.

The mess in the room
Is not one of theft,
But instead is the chaos
From unwrapping bereft

Of sanity, caused by
Delight and great fun
Of the children finding gifts
By the gross and the ton.


Still I wonder, as I gaze
Around at the sight
Why an antler was left
By the hearth in the night.

Presents and Accounted For

I spent some time this week helping out at the Family Giving Tree, an organization that collects presents for various charity organizations so that the kids can enjoy the holidays. The helpers there are called "elves."

It's a pretty cool mission and all, but I figured that it was a good idea for me to lend a hand mostly because, as they say, "God helps those who helps thems elves."

Plain Fright

I rode on an airplane recently. It would have gone fine if I hadn't had the feeling like we were going to die the entire time.

I love when the plane you're riding in hits some turbulence. Flight attendants are falling in the aisles and spilling drinks like they're at the tail end of an all-night bender, roller bags are dropping from overhead compartments like redwoods in a clearcut, and the whole plane is shaking like a belly dancer with palsy.

Then the pilot comes on the speaker, “We seem to have hit a little turbulence here.”

A LITTLE TURBULENCE?! THE AIRCRAFT IS SHAKING ITSELF APART!

“I'm going to turn on the 'fasten seat belts' sign” [bling!]

NICE MOVE! MAYBE YOU COULD HAVE DONE THAT BEFORE THE GUY STUMBLED INTO THE BATHROOM AND PEED ALL OVER THE WALLS AND HIMSELF!

The pilot continues muttering in a relaxed tone, as if he were ordering another scotch. Which might help explain the bumpy ride. “We're going to continue to see a bit of chop here.”

STOP WITH THE PILOT-SPEAK BUZZWORDS AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE DEATH SPIRAL WE'RE IN!

“So we're just going to keep that seatbelt sign on until it smoothes out.”

GOOD CALL – MAYBE THE SEAT BELTS WILL HELP THE WINGS OVERCOME THEIR STRESS FRACTURES!

“Meanwhile, those passengers on the right side of the airplane can see the Great Salt Lake.”

NICE – IT'LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO AIM FOR AS WE'RE PLUMMETING!

“So sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.”

I MIGHT DO THAT IF I FELT WE WERE GOING TO REMAIN AIRBORN!

I tried to keep my cool, kept telling myself that this is normal for airplane flight, and that the pilot's calm tone was just meant to convince me that everything would be okay. I sure wish I hadn't heard his final message:

“Flight attendants: please bring the drinks trolley into the cockpit. The one with the scotch bottles. I'm going to need the whole cart.”

Coupling Couplet

He was mean to her; angry
And fill with spite.
But she fell for him fully;
It was love at first slight.

Poetic Justice: A Period Piece

The writer was accused of a
Capital offense
When a lower case letter
Started one sentence.

"Words, words, words!,"
He was heard to exclaim
And upon a period
He fixed all blame.

"I had no idea
That sentence had ended;
I thought, instead,
It was merely extended.

A colon with one dot
Instead of with two
Is half of the usual;
You admit this is true?

Well half of a whole
Is partial credit,
So I left it as-is
In my final edit.

I let the sentence
Just roll on
Because I thought the period
was a semi-colon.

But Your Honor," he offered,
By way of a carat,
"I heard a joke and
I'd like to share it.

You know how it is
When you're running late?
It was 'dine and dash'
When the hyphen ate.

Or did you hear
Of the man named Parks
Who disputed Communism
And questioned Marx?

Or the animator who sold
Her office joint?
She no longer saw
The ex-claymation point.

Or do you know why
The beach makes us so tanned?
It's all the electricity
From the amperes-sand!"

But the judge, it seems,
Was not amused.
When asked for mercy
He simply refused.

Instead, he proclaimed
A painful pennance,
A terrible time,
A serious sentence.

"It concerns punctuation
Of a different sort,"
And he would not let
The man retort.

"Words do not fail me
As they failed you
And I will now do
What I do for your due.

Since you seem ignorant
Of your plight
And do not know
Your Wrong from write

You shall stay locked up
In a concrete slammer
An extended period
For using bad grammar.

The man was heard shouting
As he went to his fate.
"I'll fight this decision
With a punch - you wait!"

Doctored Jokes

Orthopedics are totally hip.

An ENT doctor nose her stuff.

How can an internal medicine doctor stomach it?

Do you think brain surgeon's mind?

Proctologists are quite anal.

Anaesthesiologists are a gas.

When a child is healed, is it called a pedicure?

Crisis Mode: The Standup Version

Here's a standup bit that I did in October. I posted some of the material for it in this entry a few weeks back.