Tag Archives: inhale

Cremate

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Cremate: (v) to reduce a dead body to ashes by fire

I grew up with a “Kellogg’s” approach to death and burial.

This was more or less taking your loved one, sticking him or her in a box, sealing the lid and tucking the flake away.

All the funerals I went to had gorgeous cereal boxes. They all ended up at a gravesite where the container was lowered into the ground, covered over and marked with a stone that insisted in granite that this individual once lived.

So when my thirteen-year-old son passed away from complications due to a hit-and-run accident, I was far from any home we had, traveling on the road. I immediately discovered that those boxes ain’t cheap.

Not only are they expensive, but they demand that you buy a plot of land—which is also extremely costly—and place your loved one in an area where you must to drive to visit.

Well, I realized I was not going to live in the community where my boy died, so I was offered the option of cremation. It was considerably less money. Also, at the end of the process, they handed over a box containing a sealed, plastic bag of dusty and ashy remains.

It was rather shocking. Opening the lid, I took a peek at the contents. It reminded me of when I was a kid and was given the job in late October of cleaning the fireplace out so we would be able to make a nice, cozy flame on cold, winter nights.

… Ashen, clingy powder that wanted to stick to your skin—or if you got it too close to your face and inhaled, could make you cough.

This was not my son. This didn’t represent his brief journey.

I thought to myself, maybe it’s a good thing. Instead of painting up something that’s dead and gone, burn it up, confirming that it will no longer be here.

I picked up the carton, put it in the back of our van, and we traveled with it for years—stuck in the corner near the wheel well.

At times I considered scattering the ashes, but there was no particular place that had more significance than another. Absent finding a resting ground for his soot, I felt more inclined to just keep him nearby.

Matter of fact, he’s still with us.

My younger son has taken him and lifted him up in honor … in a corner of the attic.

Subscribe to Jonathan’s Weekly Podcast

Good News and Better News

 

Claustrophobia

Claustrophobia: (n) irrational fear of confined places

Who says it’s irrational??

Obviously, the definition was put together by people who pride themselves on the fact that they can tolerate small spaces.

I’ve always been claustrophobic. It was particularly embarrassing when I was a young man, playing junior high football, and at the end of
the game–a victory–everyone would jump on top of each other, creating a huge pile of sweaty, stinky, adolescents. I occasionally found myself at the bottom of that mountain.

It was embarrassing because even though I was a large fellow, when I looked up into the surroundings, it seemed like I was seventy-five feet deep, stuck in a hole–and couldn’t breathe.

I slashed out with my hands, throwing kids hither, thither and yon. My coach yelled at me for going into a violent fit. I took him to the side and tried to explain that I had a terror of small spaces, making me feel as if I was suffocating.

He looked at me and said, “Get over it. Life is in your face.”

As he walked away, I immediately began to plot how to keep life out of my face. After all, if you’re claustrophobic you need some room to inhale.

And in my opinion, having that room is not a bad idea anyway.

 

 

Donate Button

Cigar

Cigar: (n) a cylinder of tobacco rolled in tobacco leaves for smoking.

I work very hard at being a man.

I thought having a penis and a beard would be sufficient, but turns out, both of those things are too common to set you apart from the herd.

“Manly things done by manly men in a manly way.”

What in the hell is that?

But you shouldn’t question it too much, because that brings up the possibility of you being gay, which is not a bad thing anymore, but might connote that you are “soft.”

You know what soft is, right? Neither team wants you.

Women think you’re nice for conversation and men keep wondering when you’re going to finally turn gay.

That’s the way I feel about cigars.

I get offered cigars a lot–and by a lot, I mean more than once. People who smoke cigars are historians. They not only know all the details of the little brown tube, but where it began, who smokes this particular brand, how illegal they are, and an absolute plethora of adjectives to describe the smoothness of the taste.

In my lifetime I have smoked two cigarettes and three cigars. (Yay! Cigars win!) Anyway, I can’t truthfully tell you that I adequately partook of either experience. I did not inhale. Just like President Clinton, my morality suddenly clicked in right before taking a deep breath. So the smoke remained in my mouth, barely escaping into my nose–where it stung really, really, really bad. I struggled not to choke. (God, please don’t let me choke! I’m sitting in front of someone I want to impress and I don’t want to be choking on the $54 cigar he just presented to me.)

Yet it was unpleasant.

For two days, no matter how much teeth brushing or mouth-washing I did, cigar residue clung to the inside cave of my mouth.

I have nothing against cigarettes or cigars from an ethical or moral position, but if it’s going to be a symbol of manliness, please mark me down: “N for neuter.”

Donate Button

 

Chow

Chow: (n) food.

There aren’t many things about which I am a purist.

I greatly believe that human beings have the right to phrase, think, pursue and even live out their hearts’ desire.

This doesn’t mean there aren’t ideas and phrases I find annoying–and one of those peccadilloes is when people decide to get cute about
describing eating.

I personally like the word “eat.”

I see no reason to make it more clever. So when people refer to food as “chow,” and slap me on the back, asking me if I’m ready to “chow down,” I suddenly turn into a German Shepherd and want to bite them.

After all, German Shepherds do chow down. They put their faces in bowls and stuff the food into their mouths until it falls out the sides, returning to the bowl to continue their slurping and crunching.

I am not a German Shepherd.

I don’t eat chow, and therefore, I don’t “chow down.”

I also don’t like to pull myself up to the old feed trough. (There seems to be an animal theme going on here…)

I don’t like to shovel food.

I don’t particularly care to inhale my food.

I really do just like to eat.

And I don’t want to be prissy about it, but when I hear the word “chow” I think of someone who wants to convey he or she has been in the military, or a 13-year-old girl who thinks she’s cool because she knows the Italian word for “good-bye.”

 

Donate Button