Tag Archives: hilarious

Bait

Bait: (n) food used to entice fish or other animals as prey.Dictionary B

My dad was a fisherman.

Some folks would say my dad fancied himself to be a fisherman.

My mother might have concluded that my dad went fishing to get away from home.

Whatever the case, he had an adequate array of rods, reels, hooks, sinkers, bait and tackle to be considered worthy of the aspiration.

My dad had five sons, and he quickly assessed which ones he thought were better suited for hunting and fishing.

Being the fourth son, for some reason or another, he decided that I was not bent in the direction of the standard woodsman. I don’t know how he came to this conclusion. I was actually the only one of my brothers involved in sports, and certainly had an aptitude for floating in a boat and throwing a line in the water to snag a hapless aquatic creature.

I only went fishing with him a few times–and because I wasn’t given many opportunities, on the paltry occasions when I was with him, I acted a little squeamish.

Especially when it came to the bait. We used two kinds: night crawlers and minnows.

Night crawlers are worms and minnows are little, tiny fish-like creatures with one big eye on them. (Or I think it’s one.)

I was not real thrilled about the idea of grabbing a worm from the peat moss and putting it on my hook. It wasn’t because I was sensitive about killing the crawler, it just felt funny.

My dad thought this was hilarious.

I also did not know where to place my hook into the minnow to make it the most appealing to the creatures we were trying to trick. I did catch on, but not before my father had a chance to stereotype me as a “weinie-woman.”

So much to my chagrin, I have not fished as much during my life as I would like to, because of those run-ins with the bait.

I think it is completely permissible to be a little bit nervous around worms and minnows…until you finally get the feel for it.

 

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Antipruritic

dictionary with letter AAntipruritic: (n) a type of drug used to relieve itching.

Life is a farce.

The sooner you realize it and become comfortable with the idea, the more proficient you will be at achieving your goals and the less resentful toward the overall comedy.

Let’s look at the basic rollout:

When we’re young enough to have energy and the passion to drive us to participate, we’re too stupid to do anything of quality. After we survive the “season of stupidities,” we gain the intelligence to make better choices, but we’re too exhausted to enact them.

Isn’t that hilarious? It’s an invitation from the Creator to relax and not take things too seriously.

Because when I was twelve years old, I got naked with a bunch of my friends, and slid down the bank of a creek in Oklahoma into an ice-cold pond, to skinny-dip.

The water was so cold that there was no room for ridicule because all of our genitalia disappeared. It was a blast.

But since we were young, inexperienced and mentally flawed, we had no idea of the local terrain, vegetation or possible perils.

So about three days later, I discovered–on my bummer side–that I had contracted poison sumac. I didn’t even know what sumac was. (Actually, I would have been happy to go through the rest of my life dwelling in that ignorance.)

It itched like poison sumac sounds like it would, and since it was on my backside, it had an inclination to “go west, young man,” and creep up to my more non-scratchable areas.

I needed to do something.

I tried every over-the-counter antipruritic–and the relief lasted only the length of time it took to smear it on, pull on my underwear and take two steps.

Nothing helped.

Apparently, this particular strain of sumac was well-versed in medical treatment.

After numerous attempts to relieve my scratchiness, one day I found a huge clump of ice which was left over from a fishing trip, where the catch of the day was kept frigid.

A thought came to my mind. If no one was looking, perhaps I could pull down my underwear and sit on the ice.

So I did.

At first it stung. Then it burned.

But when it froze, I found God.

It was a little embarrassing to go around my tiny village trying to acquire large chunks of ice, but it was the only thing that brought me any sense of contentment, and kept my “sumacian” enemy from attacking the neighbors.

It took about two weeks–but it finally went away.

I think it’s safe to say, I put that one on ice.

 

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Ambidextrous

dictionary with letter A

Ambidextrous: (adj.) a person able to use the right and left hands equally well.

I think each and every one of us is always looking for bragging rights.

But to be honest with you, there are certain things that most human beings are unable to do.

Ambidextrous is certainly one of them.

When I was a kid I had this friend who treated girls really lousy. When I was much, much younger I didn’t mind, because I was in that whole masculine hornet’s nest of believing that females might actually have cooties.

But this guy was really bad. It’s like he wanted to humiliate girls all the time–hurt their feelings, and came darned close to being physically intrusive.

So what we did every once in a while was challenge his macho nature by asking him to show us how he could throw a football left-handed, even though he was a right-handed person.

He fell for it every time.

He was terrible at throwing a ball with his left hand. I would say that he threw like a girl, but actually, most of the chicks I knew threw better.

But we wouldn’t laugh at him to his face. Instead, we applauded each time he threw this awkward pass into the air–trying to convince him how much of a stud he was. And when he ran to get the ball so he could show off again, we took that brief moment to burst out in laughter, only to calm down upon his return, further pumping up his ego and make him promise to do it again.

I do not think he was ever aware that we were using his pseudo-ambidextrous claims to make fun of him the way he made fun of the other portion of our species–the ladies.

Just a footnote: as it turns out, as he got older, he turned into a real nerd, and was so introspective that he never actually had a date with a woman. Considering how he treated them, it was probably a blessing sent from the heavens, ordained by the Divine to protect His second and certainly more improved human creation.

But I will never forget, and can even conjure the image in my mind to this day–him lurching back with all his might and attempting to heave that ball fifteen or twenty yards across the grass.

It was hilarious.

 

Alma Mater

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Alma Mater: (n) the school, college or university that one once attended.

Through the years of deep devotion

We will ever loyal be

Love and cherish all our memories

Of our high school days with thee

And the portals we’ll remember

Friends who made our lives sublime

Alma Mater, Alma Mater

Praises be forever thine.

I have no idea why I remember the words to that song from my high school, but I had absolutely no problem conjuring them.

It is a testament to the power of the educational system–its ability to infuse lasting knowledge, and I suppose, insecurities, into its students and victims, respectively.

By the way, we thought it was extraordinarily hilarious to taunt our aging high school English teacher, who penned the words, by telling her that the tune for her verse was borrowed from Hitler’s Nazi Germany list of favs.

Such scamps we were.

Addled

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Addled: (adj.) confused and unable to think clearly (often humorous).

So what is the difference between addled, comedic, pitiful and hilarious? I guess it would be whether people laugh or shake their heads in disbelief. For after all, in order for confusion to be funny, we have to believe there’s some way that clarity could have won the day.

There are actually  many addled things in our society that do NOT evoke a smile:

Listening to Republicans and Democrats debate an issue which they don’t understand but still have developed a rock-solid conviction about is not a source of gaiety. It teeters between baffled and frustrated.

Going to a religious service to hear the mispronouncing of two-thousand-year-old names and locations, as people donned in robes insist that bread and wine purchased at the local grocery store has supernaturally transformed itself into everlasting life, is not exactly what I would call the “joy of the Lord.”

Even though I appreciate that the dictionary considers “addled” to have humorous overtones, watching your grandparent misplace his or her keys for the fortieth time this week does lose some of its charm.

I think we have a responsibility, at all costs to the human tribe, to avoid appearing addled. Matter of fact, there are times I am reluctant to ask others to help me look for something or remember something, but instead choose to find a nice, comfortable, cushy chair in my soul and relax there until memory serves me.

Yes, sometimes it’s better to shut up for fear that your brain has already been closed for repair.

Addled is not cute–and if you’re over the age of thirty-five, if you accidentally become disoriented in front of anyone younger than yourself, they will attach Alzheimer’s to you.

Politics and religion are argued because no one knows one way or the other, but everyone insists they have the answer.

So that’s addled–when you run across a mystery and you’re positive that Mr. Plum did it with a candlestick … in the conservatory.

Accursed

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Accursed: (adj.) 1. under a curse 2. used to express strong dislike or anger towards

I guess that’s why they call it cursing–when you decide that people have made you so angry that you must quickly pronounce judgment on them by only using four-letter words.

I suppose I would have to ask myself if there really IS anything that’s “accursed.”  Is there really some idea or practice in the human family which is not only unmannerly, but worthy of total condemnation?

To be honest, I am tired to listening to curses being placed on human beings for the sins of the flesh. Oh, I know there are things that are gross, mean, deadly and despicable. But sins of the flesh tend to plague the human carcass. Are we better if we avoid them? Sure. Can we completely escape the hold they have on our beings? Not so sure.

So every time we isolate some human being and freeze him or her in their moment of stupidity, trying to draw a conclusion about their entire personage based on a single act or even a series of repetitive functions, we really are placing a curse, which might have a rubber band effect, and fly back in our face the next time WE are equally as foolish.

So I’m not so sure I want to curse people because they have selected personal choices that I do not necessarily adhere to in my own life. No, I think if a curse comes upon any human spirit, it is due to the ridiculous notion that we gain superiority simply because we are something that someone else isn’t, were raised in a place where they weren’t, or retain a color that we deem preferable.

I guess you would call those sins of the heart–those fallacious notions that crop into our minds, which we DO have control over, but rather than chasing them out the back door, we entertain them in the parlor of our brain.

The only “cursed” thing about human beings is when any one of us tries to promote or express superiority. Not only is it absolutely hilarious because we will quickly disprove our premise of being superior, but also, the nastiness of making someone else appear to be small just to increase our own circumference of influence, is probably the definition of evil.

For after all, in order to murder someone you have to convince yourself that they must go and you must stay.

There’s the entire personification of the problem.

So what do I curse?

  • Self-righteousness.
  • Racism.
  • Bigotry.
  • Over-zealous nationalism.
  • Prejudice.
  • Arrogance.
  • Non-repentant values.
  • Anything that makes us believe that somehow or another, we arrived here in the perfect package and everyone else is damaged goods.

Hopefully I will never curse you because you do something different with your body parts than I do.

But I will confront you every time you think that you’re better than anyone else.