Category: Humor

Sagging IQ and other drooping body parts

by energywriter, posted in Humor

Only a few weeks remain until the “mandatory” 50th high school class reunion. Mandatory does not refer just to attendance, no matter where you live, but you must also compete for the most successful, most beautiful, most hunky, most prestigious degree, and who can still Twist and Rock Around the Clock.

Grandchildren and great-grandchildren are discussed in whispers. Even though we’re all 68, we are not “old enough” to have such people in our lives. Some of us play tennis, golf and pickle ball, or say we do. The guys talk about their football heroics, not mentioning this is on the Fantasy League.

I can’t speak for everyone, but my mental acuity has slipped just a bit. From being above average, I now have to stop, think and hope I find the word I’m looking for so I can sound as intelligent as my much younger supervisors. Like many others my age, I’m retired but still working.

A few days of ago several of us had a farewell party for a coworker. When the bill came it had basic charges at the top, several paragraphs of text that no one read, then way at the bottom was the suggested tip and signature line.

Because of the huge gap between meal details and the tip/total section I became confused. Luckily, my twenty-something supervisor was sitting next to me and helped me decipher the receipt. I told her, “Don’t tell my boss I can’t read. She might fire me.” She assured me that as long as I can count change, I’ll still have a job. I signed the receipt, stuffed the credit card into my wallet and handed the folder back to the wait staff.

Soon another bill was presented to me, for the same items. I began to wonder what was going on. My supervisor looked at the bill, compared it to my credit card and assured me it was mine. Looking in my wallet I realized I had an extra credit card. I passed it down the table and went through the payment procedure again. This time I remembered how the system worked. Whew!!

Now that I’ve covered my still superior IQ, I want to talk about the “still beautiful” part. Not to brag, but I need full head-to-toe Spanx with old-fashioned rubber girdle reinforcement. By the time I get all the body parts to stop jiggling and drooping, I’ll have enough body armor to compete in the local police terrorism training. Actually, I’m willing to bet I could compete at any of the military installations in this area.

Can you imagine those young service members’ faces as this old woman wrapped in Spanx and rubber girdles walks through a hail of bullets, calling out “I’m rubber. You’re glue. What you shoot at me will bounce back and stick on you.” Meanwhile, they will be in full body armor, ducking and firing from protected positions.

My hair can look young again with the help of my local salon professional. She can wax my brows and upper lip and tint my hair to its former, glorious coppery strands. She can add “fillers” and extensions to make my hair look as thick as it was many years ago. I’m counting on her to weave so tightly that all my sagging facial parts are back in their 18-year-old position.

Guys, you might not get this, but any woman of our generation will know exactly what I’m saying. Our mothers braided our hair so tightly we thought our eye lashes grew from our brow line and our eyelids reached almost to our ears.

See, just a few minor touch-ups and I’ll be 18 again.

© by Sharon D. Dillon, May 25, 2014

Granny and Technology

by energywriter, posted in Humor

Granny’s journey with technology is long, but far from straight, path; specifically the technology used to create this blog.
She is so old that she remembers being excited about a new invention – the electric typewriter. When they added a correction option she was ecstatic.

After a few years Granny was assigned a desktop computer connected to a main frame in another city. All she could do with this machine was to check if a client’s unemployment check had been paid. Paper and telephones comprised all other communications.

Then along came Word Perfect and Harvard Graphics with 3.5 inch disks replacing 5 inch disks. Granny was in typing heaven. Not only could she correct, but she could attach a picture or a graph to her reports then merge them with a list of names and addresses. A friend suggested that Granny could type faster backward than forward. Possibly, but all the retyping gave her an opportunity to do some editing.

Having an IT professional hidden in a tiny basement office gave her the courage to try new things. She knew that if she made any mistake smaller than blowing up the office, the IT guru would rescue her. Then along came Macs, MS Word, burning cds and storing War and Peace on a single thumb drive. Wow! The old lady was floating on air.

After years of growing and learning and doing more fun things with a computer/laptop, she ran into a roadblock — a big one with those cement blocks used to redirect traffic during construction. She expected a steep learning curve when she bought a laptop loaded with Windows 8. What she didn’t expect was that the learning curve wound its way up Mount Everest and when she reached the top she’d just fall off.

Being a cautious consumer she also purchased a copy of Windows 8 for Dummies. That little yellow book showed her how to do some basic word processing and do some things that were not on her wish list. Feeling frustrated, Granny signed up for two Windows 8 classes. There she learned a few more ways to work with the new program.

Then voodoo struck her laptop. It could run basic programs, but attempting to do anything related to the internet was like choosing by eenie-meenie several times an hour. After a few minutes working with email or the internet the wireless connection would shut down. Granny took her laptop to the repair shop twice to no result. She tried a different shop who suggested she call her internet provider. After working with two different IT professionals she learned a trick to keep working and sending messages, though not to its maximum capability. Each time the wireless connection failed, she could restart the laptop and continue her project. This was a nuisance, but it got the job done.

She still faces a problem that no one seems to know how to correct. How does Granny keep the wireless connection working all the time? Does it take gold, diamonds or just a serious threat?

© by Sharon Dillon, May 12, 2014

Generations – a poem

by energywriter, posted in Humor

 

Life flows, from year to year.

Many generations, come and go.

How many? I don’t know.

I, remember, seven.

Great-grandmother, a wise woman;

Dressed in the old style;

From Civil War, to men in space

She was content, with few smiles.

Grandfather, a victim of life’s ills,

Especially, winter chills.

Even lightning strikes, and WPA

Formed his rocky pathway.

Parents survived the Depression

and World War Two.

That heavy load, could only,

Lead to stern, determination

Turmoil, and Vietnam, were

Softened, by my three.

Tiny smiles erase harsh news.

Time to wash, who do I choose?

One, gave me two, who

brought perspective anew.

Life is about loving,

not crying and enduring.

They gave me three

Boys! – Can you believe it? – All boys!

Do I have, to learn sports?

Or how, to climb a tree?

As life comes, it also leaves.

Now the oldest, of four generations,

Some say, I’m matriarch.

What does, that mean?

Am I now, wise, kind, loving?

I can trust, only The One Source,

And those, who went, before;

To teach me, all I need to know.

© by Sharon Dillon, August 25, 2010

The plant bandit

by energywriter, posted in Humor

Recently I read an article about a man who robbed two banks in the New York area by carrying his “give me your money” note in a bouquet and a potted plant, respectively. This news led me to begin thinking about what might happen if this should become a fad.

Short robbers could disguise themselves in a hydrangea bush. Taller thieves might try crape myrtle or wisteria camouflage. Bad guys from the south would look like trees covered with kudzu.

“Hey, Y’all give me yore money. Don’t make me pull mah gun. Aw, fergit it. The kudzu ate mah gun.”

Why stop there? This could become a marketing tool similar to the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile and delivery cars with  giant dominoes on top. But let’s think vegetation.

Perhaps Asian food could be delivered by a leek driving a car disguised as a stand of bamboo. A mobile jalapeño driven by an agave plant (worm is optional) or a cilantro plant might deliver Mexican food. Italian food possibly could be delivered by a bundle of basil, oregano and wheat.

A bunch of wine grapes would, of course, present our French food. German food could be offered by a basket of hops or cabbages. The Irish might deliver their food via potato or corned beef spices.

One drawback might be that most of us would need to take a botany course to be able to identify what food was coming our way.

“Officer, the runaway car was a leek. No, I think it was a wheat or maybe bamboo. Oh gosh, I don’t know. It was green.”

Another potential problem would be that no one in my acquaintance speaks plant. Most of us talk to plants but we do it in our usual language, whatever that is. So how would we communicate with these plants? Would they be bilingual and speak the local dialect as well as plant? Imagine a cross-botanical delivery.

“Amigo, mi nombre es Cil Antro. Here’s your tacos, no jalapeños.”

“What’d you say? Come ag’in and speak plain Tater.”

Just some potential scenarios to keep you awake at night – or haunt your dreams.

 © Sharon Dillon, August 9, 2010

Twins – oh no!

by energywriter, posted in Humor

A video, posted at http://www.mommylite.com by Sarah Maizes, triggered a flashback to when my twins were born. So, I’m taking this opportunity to inflict, excuse me, share my memories with you.

The year was 1967 and Husband/Daddy was on his second tour in Vietnam. His first tour was when son was born. That man had great timing!

I was very pregnant and wondering if the baby would ever be born. No sonograms back then, just x-rays that doctors used judiciously on pregnant moms. I awoke at 5:35 a.m. needing to use the “necessary.” When that task was completed I felt a sharp contraction. After 30 minutes I called the doctor and my parents, waking them all from a sound sleep. Mom drove me to the hospital while Dad drove my three-days-less-than-18-months-old livewire son to his aunt’s for day care.

I checked in and was given papers to sign. “You expect me to sign my name? I can barely breathe much less hold a #$%^pen!”

The staff put me in a labor room with another woman who was sitting calmly reading a magazine. Not knowing if she was a “first timer” and not wanting to frighten her, I kept my lips tightly sealed. No moans or groans, much less screams, came from my half of the room.

After a few minutes the nurse wheeled me into the delivery room and expected me to move myself from bed to delivery table. Was she nuts? If I couldn’t write how could I move my overblown body from one horizontal position to another?

Very soon a healthy baby girl slid out and was retrieved by the nurse who began doing nurse things to her. The doctor began palpating my abdomen with what felt like boxing gloves. “Please stop, that hurts,” I pleaded.

“Just hold on a little bit. You know the placenta has to come out,” the doctor said. “Oh, my God! Here comes another one!”

Healthy Baby Girl B arrived just four minutes after Baby Girl A, both within two hours of my first contraction. She was also retrieved by the nurse who did more nurse things. Then the overly-cheerful b***ch laid a wrapped baby on each arm and asked me if I was happy to have twins. I just lay there looking from one baby to the other. Comprehension was not quite there.

Mom related that the doctor approached her in the waiting room with shaky fingers trying to light a cigarette. “It’s twin girls, Mrs. Dillon.”

Then the fun really started. While I was serenely sitting in the hospital feeding BG A or BG B, Mom was busy trying to scrounge additional baby equipment and clothes.

Her other job was notifying Daddy of the births. She visited the American Red Cross office which duly sent a telegram. The next day they called Mom to tell her that Daddy could not be found and was suspected to be missing in action, but they would send a second message by another route. This message was confirmed and Mom could once again breathe. There was no way she was going to tell me that he was missing in action.

Three days later I received a letter from Husband/Daddy. Panic was evident in his pen strokes, “Did you have two babies or four?” He had received both telegrams.

Going home day had its own excitement. Another aunt was holding one daughter while my mother held the other. Big Brother having been told he had two baby sisters, burst through the front door and ran to see the babies. First one girl cried, then the other. Big Brother looked from one to the other and said, “Uh-oh!” then ran to his room. A new toddler sized football eased his fears somewhat.

I don’t think he’s ever gotten over the shock.

When Mom asked which baby she was holding Aunt replied, “This one, because you’re holding that one.”

Oh, the other mom in the labor room? That was her eighth baby.

 © Sharon Dillon, July 15, 2010