Friday Hodgepodge
Friday, February 05, 2021
Four Things
1. In one of the more amusing examples of fast thinking in parenting, I spontaneously "realized" that tooth fairies demand all known pieces of any missing tooth before they will redeem said tooth for payment. One of my daughter's teeth came out in two pieces, a day apart. Mrs. Van Horn had her place the first piece in the usual spot on the premise that it was worth partial payment.
I forgot.
"I was afraid of that," I ... explained ... the next morning. "I have heard that tooth fairies want all the pieces so they can mend them."
Pumpkin lost the second part of the tooth later that day and was five dollars richer the next morning.
2. I was surprised to hear my wife, on her way out the door one morning, quietly saying, "Spectacles, testicles, wallet, and watch."
After verifying that, yes, I had heard this correctly, I learned that she had heard me saying the same thing.
It's not a habit, but after randomly remembering Austin Powers saying it (below, near the end), I do occasionally say it to amuse myself: Checking for my wallet, keys, glasses, watch, and phone is so ingrained that I don't need a mnemonic.
But it does help my absent-minded wife: It has been quite a while since I have had to wear her forgotten pager in case it goes off. (On days that she forgets it, she can have pages re-routed, but it isn't necessarily fool-proof.)
File under strange and amusing, but effective.
3. My son has a good sense of humor, although the subject matter is about what you might expect at his age. He asked me the other day, "Dad, what's the end of the world?"
"I don't know."
"A bathroom without toilet paper."
4. This week, I had one of those "they grow up fast" moments when I realized that, ever since school resumed, I have not once had to tell my daughter to dress in the morning, and rarely have had to remind her to do her homework in the evening.
She ... just ... does those things.
I told her what a grown-up thing that was, and how much I appreciated it when I realized that.
-- CAV
6 comments:
Hi Gus,
Your mnemonic reminded (heh!) me of a social incident when I was about 6 years old. My uncle was something of an earthy sort but held a fairly important local church position. When the family was visiting, he told the following joke;
A rabbi and a catholic priest were good friends and decided to go out one night to have drink together. As they were crossing a New York City street, they were so involved in conversation that they were nearly run down by a taxicab and had to dive for the sidewalk together.
The priest sat up and crossed himself and then observed his rabbi friend doing the same. He said, "I didn't think that Judaism recognized the sign of the cross".
The rabbi looked back and said, "That's testicles, spectacles, wallet, and watch."
Well, I retailed this to our local churchman who was not amused. Nor were my parents, though they knew where it had come from.
My reasoning was that since my uncle was the same rank as our local church authority, surely he would find it amusing too.
I'm not sure if I understood the joke as such, but I certainly knew that I'd thrown a clinker onto the social pile.
c andrew
Anon.,
I don't know whether you explaining why you thought it would have been okay to the churchman -- which I gather you didn't -- is something we should more regret as a missed addition to the humor or be relieved about for your young sake!
Gus
Yo, Gus, your son's joke reminds me a bit of my nephew. When he was around three, he asked me, "What do you call four horses walking down the street?"
"What?"
"Lost!!!"
A couple of years later I told him that joke, and he said, "That was stupid."
"You're the one who made it up."
"Nuhn-uhn!"
Then fifteen minutes later he asked me, "Who's the only American soldier who can defeat the Taliban?"
"Who?"
"The Blair Witch!"
I just looked him in the eye and said, "And you expect me to believe you didn't make up the joke about the horses?"
Because when it comes to jokes, the men in my family play for keeps.
Though on a serious note, it is sort of interesting to think about how such attempts at humor started and why they fail. If we ever created AI, I imagine many many poor schlubs would spend their graduate education analyzing jokes worse than my nephew's until the dang thing gets it right. Shades of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, though much less entertaining.
C. Andrew, that joke reminds me of one Dave Allen, who mined his atheism and Irish origins for great humor, told back in the 70s. I forget exactly how it went, but it was something like this: He went to Rome with a friend and while he was seeing one of the sites on the way to the hotel, the Pope himself stopped by and had a brief chat with him and went away. When Allen came over, his friend said (thick Irish accent), "Dave, Dave, are my eyes deceiving me? The Pope blessed you?" Allen replied, "No, he said [pointing at his head] 'I see you're in Rome. [Pointing at the ground] Get your bags, [pointing to the side] get your friend, [pointing to the other side] and get on the next train out of the city.'"
And my favorite priest-rabbi joke is probably the one where a priest and a rabbi were close friends for many years. One evening the priest asked the rabbi, "Have you ever tried pork?"
The rabbi was silent for a minute and finally said, "I admit, I did once try some to see what I was missing, but I purified myself after and have never done so again."
A few minutes later the rabbi asked the priest, "So, have you ever slept with a woman?"
After a minute the priest replied, "Yes, I confess, once just after being ordained, I gave into temptation and slept with a woman, but I confessed and did penance and have never slipped since."
They sat there in silence for a minute, and then the rabbi said, "Hell of a lot better than pork, isn't it?"
Snedcat,
RE: Blair Witch: Ouch! Also: How does he know about the Blair Witch?
In other news: Aaaaaand that lands Heinlein's book into my hopper.
Gus
Yo, Gus, you ask: "Also: How does he know about the Blair Witch?"
I have no idea; he was like 5 at the time, so it was probably by word of mouth from other kids.
Also, here's an amusing if slightly weird video (one suspects there was more FX budget than anyone knew what to do with) by a good Aussie ska group, the Melbourne Ska Orchestra, which is one of the few ensembles that actually has enough horns by my druthers. (I think I sent you one of their songs before, but it's well worth a repeat.) That song is along the same lines as Reel Big Fish's "Sell Out," though much better (on the other hand, the video for "Sell Out" is amusing enough in its own way).
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