The end of February marks the end of the cold here in east Texas. I already have lovely flowers popping up in my front
yard. Here in Texas February is the
season between Football and Crawdads. Last week we had Valentine's Day or as my some of my bachelor
friends call it Independence Day.
Andreas liked my JOW about word
without English equivalents. He even
provided me another one.
Fremdschämen (German)
- to express (feigned) embarrassment/shame for someone else's
stupidity/embarrassing actions/appearance
===========================
A high-school English teacher was well
known for being a fair, but hard, grader. One day a student received a B minus
on a theme paper. In hopes of bettering his grade and in the spirit of the
valentine season, he sent her an extravagant heart-shaped box of chocolates
with the pre-printed inscription: “BE MINE.” The following day, he received in
return a valentine from the teacher. It read: “Thank you, but it’s still BE
MINE-US.”
----------------------------------------------
A cowboy rides home to the
ranch and finds that his house is burned to the ground, his horses have all
been stolen, his livestock slaughtered, his dogs shot down, and his ranch hands
murdered.
One man, barely alive, manages
to gasp out before dying: "It. . .it. . .was Shanghai Pete."
Grief-stricken, the cowboy
buries his his ranch hands and his dogs. He then drags all of the livestock to
a pit and pushes them in, covering their corpses with lime. Rage begins to set
in and the desire for revenge overwhelms him. He mounts his faithful horse and
rides for town at a full gallop. Pulling up at the saloon in a cloud of dust,
he jumps off his horse and collars the first person he sees. Grabbing him and
shaking him, he screams in the man's face: "Do you know where Shanghai
Pete can be found?!"
"In. . .in. . .the
s-s-saloon!" Stammers the man.
The cowboy storms through
the swinging doors and the saloon falls deathly silent. The cowboy scans the
room from under the brim of his hat and says: "Which one of you low-life sonsabitches
is Shanghai Pete, who burned down my house, stole my horses, killed all my
livestock, shot down my dogs, and killed all my ranch hands?"
A man dressed in black,
easily 6'8" tall and nearly as wide, turns from the bar with a gun in his
hand. "I'm Shanghai Pete and I did all those things! So
what!!?" he thundered.
“Ummm… Well, don’t do it
again, okay?”
Some stupid riddles:
Q: How many sheep does it take to make one
sweater?
A: Depends how well they can knit.
Q: I am the beginning of the end, and the
end of time and space. I am essential to creation, and I surround every place.
Who am I?
A: The letter E.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Bingo
Callers have pride in their work. And the best of them all was Gérard Leahey:
Bingo Caller.
He started this career innocently enough, when called upon in grade school to call the numbers in the bingo based game that is supposed to help kids with math. The teacher, who would usually call the numbers, had a sore throat. Gérard found that he could be charmingly entertaining while calling, without disrupting the flow of the game.
Of course this was long forgotten after high school. He enrolled in an art history in college. While attending he chanced to be asked to help out at a charity fund raiser. The fund raiser, you guessed it, was a bingo and he provided the service of caller. He easily found his pace and it was generally agreed he was the best caller the regulars had ever heard. One octogenarian suggested he work weekends at the usual bingo hall she frequented.
It turns out that good Bingo Callers are a sought after commodity. Your fair sized bingo halls pay a good buck for "talent." That - plus tips - and Gérard stumbled into a job that he thought at first would be merely jingle change. These weekends he would develop his timing, his patter, his clever tagline commentary "clickety-click, sixty-six" and the like. The proprietor asked him to work full time. Art history classes became history.
After several long years Gérard became somewhat of a celebrity - at least in the small town in which he worked. He had stopped working weekends long ago in favor of the weekdays and some evenings which featured younger, more interactive crowds. Gérard was happy.
So it is not without a bit of irony that what lead to Gérard's later difficulties occurred at a charity function at the very venue where his career was launched. It was, however, a senior's function. While Gérard felt obliged to help out, he did not look forward it.
And sure enough, his trademark quick style and his banter was met with shouts of, "Slow down, sonny!" and "Could you repeat that!" He was off his game. He was restless and bored. Between each numbers he had to wait, and wait, and wait while watching a sea of bobbing blue haired heads wave through the room. To keep his sanity between numbers he would fidget. He called one number, then grab the next (as was his custom) and while waiting to call the number in his hand he would toss the ball into the air and catch it in his shirt pocket... catch it behind his back... catch it in his teeth.
It was with this last stunt that it happened. Just as he caught the ball in his teeth, a little old lady in the table just in front of him yelled, "BINGO!" with a force that startled him. He ulped, and swallowed the ball he had just deftly caught. With all the attention on the winner, no one had noticed. Gérard was not about to let such an incident affect his reputation, so he told no one. He confirmed the winner, finished his duties for the evening, collected his pay then quietly left.
But later that evening it started: the nausea, the bloated feeling in his gut, the discomfort while going to the bathroom. It was too much. The next day he was a wreck.
So he went to the emergency room. Not trusting doctor/patient confidentiality, Gérard described his symptoms but did not explain the incident. He was too embarrassed, to boot. The puzzled doctor took X-Rays. After examining them he said to Gérard,
He started this career innocently enough, when called upon in grade school to call the numbers in the bingo based game that is supposed to help kids with math. The teacher, who would usually call the numbers, had a sore throat. Gérard found that he could be charmingly entertaining while calling, without disrupting the flow of the game.
Of course this was long forgotten after high school. He enrolled in an art history in college. While attending he chanced to be asked to help out at a charity fund raiser. The fund raiser, you guessed it, was a bingo and he provided the service of caller. He easily found his pace and it was generally agreed he was the best caller the regulars had ever heard. One octogenarian suggested he work weekends at the usual bingo hall she frequented.
It turns out that good Bingo Callers are a sought after commodity. Your fair sized bingo halls pay a good buck for "talent." That - plus tips - and Gérard stumbled into a job that he thought at first would be merely jingle change. These weekends he would develop his timing, his patter, his clever tagline commentary "clickety-click, sixty-six" and the like. The proprietor asked him to work full time. Art history classes became history.
After several long years Gérard became somewhat of a celebrity - at least in the small town in which he worked. He had stopped working weekends long ago in favor of the weekdays and some evenings which featured younger, more interactive crowds. Gérard was happy.
So it is not without a bit of irony that what lead to Gérard's later difficulties occurred at a charity function at the very venue where his career was launched. It was, however, a senior's function. While Gérard felt obliged to help out, he did not look forward it.
And sure enough, his trademark quick style and his banter was met with shouts of, "Slow down, sonny!" and "Could you repeat that!" He was off his game. He was restless and bored. Between each numbers he had to wait, and wait, and wait while watching a sea of bobbing blue haired heads wave through the room. To keep his sanity between numbers he would fidget. He called one number, then grab the next (as was his custom) and while waiting to call the number in his hand he would toss the ball into the air and catch it in his shirt pocket... catch it behind his back... catch it in his teeth.
It was with this last stunt that it happened. Just as he caught the ball in his teeth, a little old lady in the table just in front of him yelled, "BINGO!" with a force that startled him. He ulped, and swallowed the ball he had just deftly caught. With all the attention on the winner, no one had noticed. Gérard was not about to let such an incident affect his reputation, so he told no one. He confirmed the winner, finished his duties for the evening, collected his pay then quietly left.
But later that evening it started: the nausea, the bloated feeling in his gut, the discomfort while going to the bathroom. It was too much. The next day he was a wreck.
So he went to the emergency room. Not trusting doctor/patient confidentiality, Gérard described his symptoms but did not explain the incident. He was too embarrassed, to boot. The puzzled doctor took X-Rays. After examining them he said to Gérard,
"You have the strangest tumor
I've ever seen. But don't worry. It's B9."
*************************
Don’t blame me for my terrible jokes. When I was a child my father attacked me with cameras; I still have flashbacks.
Don’t blame me for my terrible jokes. When I was a child my father attacked me with cameras; I still have flashbacks.
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