Tag Archives: relatives

Cot

Cot: (n) a light portable bed, especially one of canvas on a folding frame.

Possessing a plethora of stories and examples of how the phrase “one size fits all” does not apply in real life, I will now turn my attention to the common cot.

When I was a boy I was never little, so therefore, I was never a “little boy.” I had a man-sized weight for a child’s number of birthdays. Yet when funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
I visited relatives—since I was supposed to be a kid—they tried to fit me into child situations, spaces and even leftover pajamas from their beloved children who were now grown but were once obviously skinny and attractive.

All of these experiences are worthy of the horror genre. I have broken toys, disabled bicycles, split out pants and—oh, yes—destroyed a cot or two in my journey through childhood obesity. This was long before anybody talked about it—when you were considered “big-boned” so parents wouldn’t be embarrassed because their child was a fatty.

Aunt Wilma had a cot which she supplied each and every summer during a week-long visit, always insisting I had used it the year before, even though I explained that it was not only too narrow for me to lie on, but also not sturdy enough to withstand my bountiful booty. She pooh-poohed me, as grown-ups often do.

Each year I faced the same dilemma. Knowing that the cot was not going to work (because I had already broken it the year before) I assembled it every night while she was in the room giving her good-night kisses and hugs, and then, upon her departure, folded it up, removing the bedding, to sleep on the floor, trying to make sure I woke up early enough to arise and reassemble the cot to its former haphazard position before she came in to bring us all to the breakfast table.

It was exhausting.

It was a farce.

And what made it worse was that my aunt patted me on the head every single new day and said, “You see? You were wrong. The cot works just fine.”


Donate Button

Subscribe to Jonathan’s Weekly Podcast

Good News and Better News

 

Android

dictionary with letter A

Android: (n) In science fiction, a robot with a human appearance.

I was just sitting here realizing that the concept of android portrayed by the science fiction writer probably was derived from observing a bunch of human beings who appeared to be androids.

So it’s not so much that androids take on the attributes of humans, but rather, that so many humans we know have acquired aspects of the android personality.

  • Their speech is stilted.
  • Their facial features rarely change.
  • Their movements are stiff.
  • And unless reprogrammed, they continue to pop off the same information over and over again without any need for contradiction or any sense of embarrassment.

I have many relatives who are androids.

I have met many people in the business world who certainly could pass for one.

After all, the androids in the movies don’t really act human in the sense of being unpredictable, emotional and filled with both grief and glee. They are even-tempered, controlled beings who don’t sweat–mainly because they never exert.

So I’m not so sure we’ve created a robot that resembles humans, but rather, we already have humans that resemble this particular type of robot.

You see what I mean?

For if androids really were human-like, they would spend most of their time broken down and complaining about the lack of attention and a personal need to be oiled.

That would be a real human android. Otherwise, what you have is an android human, which unfortunately, fill the ranks of those who insist on filing.

Donate Button

Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

Album

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

 

Album: (n) 1. a blank book for the insertion of photographs, stamps or pictures 2. a collection of recordings on a long-playing record, cassette or compact disc, which then is issued as a single item.

God, I wanted to make an album.

I was twenty years old and obsessed with the idea.

There was something about the final front cover, backliner notes and the whole idea of being in a recording studio that just rang my bells and clanged my cymbals.

There were a few problems:

  • First and foremost, I suppose, was that I was broke.
  • Second was the absence presently of the major talent to warrant such a maneuver.
  • Third and most pronounced was that I didn’t have a group.

Being extremely immature, I opted to address the third problem while ignoring the other two.

I started a band with members who were just as possessed as I was with the notion of “going vinyl.” We rehearsed for twenty minutes and for forty minutes talked about how much fun it was going to be to be famous. We finally put together the magic number of ten songs, and begged and pleaded with relatives for donations for our project.

We finally pieced together enough money to pay for the first ten hours in a studio, with no idea how we would pay for the rest.

It seemed like a good plan–mainly because we were crazy.

There was a studio in our town that not only recorded records, but had a plant which pressed the final product right on site. We acquired a very reasonable photographer (free) who shot our cover and back cover, and we spent all of our time writing the liner notes instead of rehearsing for the session.

So when we got in the studio and they played back what we sounded like, we were convinced that the tape they had used was warped–causing our voices to go flat.

We got better. Of course, it cost studio time. So at the end of the session, we had a pretty decent record, but owed $723 to get our magical mission released into our greedy paws.

Now, $723 to us was either going to be achieved by killing off all of our parents and inheriting the money, or breaking into the recording studio and stealing our record. After about two weeks of nasty phone calls from the studio, they finally negotiated a deal so that we could pay off our album in installments.

We finally had it in our hands. It was magical. It was the Holy Grail.

It didn’t sell.

So not only did we never pay back the studio, but we eventually had to give away all of our albums to people who kept insisting they already had one.

My fortunes in the recording industry have improved over the years, but I will never forget stalking my first album. It was like the night of your honeymoon, mingled with your first trip … to Baskin Robbins.