" /> BRAINPAN LEAKAGE » Humor
  • Mindy, Hold The Mork…

      0 comments

    alligator Some of you have been asking how the “Coffee Talk” blog went over with my “College Girlfriends.” Well, I have to say, it seems that it went over well. Mindy shall be remaining Mindy, unless we slip and call her Muffy, which could possibly happen. I mean after all, the last day of classes she did haul off and show up wearing an alligator embellished polo shirt and packing a shopping bag from Whole Foods Market. However, the bag and its contents are fodder for a different blog. The point I am trying to make here is that we don’t have to call her Miffy (yet). She actually got a good laugh out of the “Coffee Talk” entry, as did Karen.

    In fact, the two of them found it even more amusing than I had imagined they would… As in Laugh Out Loud funny… To the point of calling friends, relatives, and even writing to their congressmen to tell them they should read it.

    Some of them did, and I now have a senator calling for an investigation of me. Something to do with “illegally purveying satire to the humor challenged.” I’m not quite sure how that is going to pan out, but I’m not really allowed to talk about it at the moment. All I can say is that my attorneys, Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe are on the case.

    dchowe At any rate, much to my delight, because of a single entry on Brainpan Leakage, my college girlfriends effectively provided me with even more blog fodder…

    Mindy topped the stairs, plodded across the mezzanine, then plopped down in her chair at the C4K “Coffee Talk” table. As she leaned back and slid down in the seat she let out an exasperated sigh.

    Karen looked over at me, then at Mindy. “So, did you get a gun yet?”

    “No,” Mindy replied, brushing off the gun reference as old hat.

    “West county people,” Karen grumbled, shaking her head.

    I picked up my cell phone from the table and checked the time. Mindy was actually running a bit late. We’d expected her a good ten minutes ago. Not only that, she didn’t look to be her usual Mindyish self. By that I mean, no polo, no sweater tied around her neck, no pearls, no Star-Make-A-Bucks… Nada… As a matter of fact, she was wearing a baggy t-shirt, her hair was pulled back into a short tail and the rest was covered with a baseball cap. I  studied the uncharacteristic look for a moment, then laid the cell phone back onto the table and nodded toward my newly arrived girlfriend.

    “Casual Thursday?” I asked.

    She sighed again. “You just wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had.”

    I expressed an appropriate modicum of concern. “Anything wrong?”

    “Can’t be much,” Karen grunted. “She’s sittin’ in her chair.”

    “But look at her…” I replied. “I mean, slum city here…”

    “Hey!” Mindy objected.

    Karen gave her head a dismissive shake. “Finally dressing normal for a change. Besides, she still doesn’t have a gun. If it was real trouble she’d have a gun.”

    Mindy tapped her fingers hard on the table. “Hey! I’m right here you two. I can hear you, you know.”

    I turned my attention back to our disheveled cohort. “Yeah, okay, so what gives? Why the bad day?”

    She breathed heavily. “Well, you know that blog you wrote?”

    “Yeah,” I said with a nod, a bit of concern now creasing my forehead. “I thought you liked it?”

    “Oh, I did,” she told me with a typical, animated Mindy nod.

    “She still shoulda shot that idiot who was using the expired milk,” Karen mumbled.

    “So what’s the problem?” I asked Mindy, leaving Karen to complain to herself.

    “Well, I told several of my friends they should read your blog.”

    “Okay…” I said, waiting for the other shoe.

    “So, two of them emailed me about it,” she explained.

    “How many did you tell?”

    “Everyone in my email address book.”

    I raised an eyebrow. “Roughly how many is that? I’m assuming more than two?”

    “Not many,” she told me with a shake of her head. “Only three thousand four hundred and twelve people.”

    “I see.” I shrugged. “But only two responded, so that’s your issue?”

    “I’m still waiting on the others. The issue is what they said.”

    “Okay, so did the two that wrote back to you hate it or something?”

    “If they did, just shoot ’em,” Karen offered.

    burn notice “You know, Karen,  everyone who reads my blog thinks you’re that killer woman on Burn Notice,” I said, glancing over at Big K.

    “You mean the hottie with the gun?” she asked.

    “I dunno,” I replied. “I’ve never seen it myself.”

    Karen nodded and grinned. “I saw a commercial. Yeah. I can be her. I’m good with that.”

    “Can we get back to my problem?” Mindy appealed.

    “Yeah, yeah,” I said with a nod. “You’re right. So what’s the deal? Whaddid they say?”

    “That’s just it. Not much. One of them said, ‘ewwww, what did corporate say?‘ And the other one just said, ‘what did corporate say?‘.”

    “No ewwww on the second one?” I asked.

    “That’s not my point.”

    “Did you…” Karen started.

    Mindy cut her off, “No Karen, I didn’t shoot them.”

    “You should have.”

    I shrugged again. “Okay, so what’s the problem?”

    “These are funny people,” she replied. “They both have a great sense of humor. But all they focused on was wanting to know what the Star-Make-A-Buck’s Corporate Office said.”

    “Are you sure they’re actually funny?” I asked. “Sometimes it’s easy to mistake an attack of gas for a smile you know. They could just be digesting some serious roughage or something.”

    “I was pretty sure they were funny,” Mindy told me with a shrug. “But now I just don’t know. I think maybe they just didn’t get the joke.”

    “What is it with you West county people?” Karen asked. “Not getting jokes that even a three year old can understand. Is something in the water out there affecting your brains?”

    “Karen!” Mindy admonished.

    “Hey, I’m just sayin’,” Karen replied with a shrug. “So… You want me to shoot ’em for you?”

    I still don’t know if Mindy has heard back from any more of her friends, and I haven’t seen any news reports featuring Karen barricaded in her chair with a gun, so I’m pretty sure things are okay. Still, I hope Mindy remembers to let me know if she does hear any more from her funny friends.

    I suppose it all depends on that West county water.

    More to come…

    Murv

  • Surviving My Vacation…

      0 comments

    As many of you already know, I recently had the opportunity to take a vacation with my wife and daughter. This was the first vacation The Evil Redhead and I had taken since before the O-spring was born, meaning it had been more than 10 years since our last excursion. However, since the economy hasn’t been the greatest, the land of mouse ears wasn’t in the cards. Instead, we elected to explore nature in southern Missouri and the Ozark Scenic Riverways.

    Of course, since we have these high-maintenance, geriatric, special-needs felines roaming the house this meant we needed someone to keep an eye on them. Enter our good friends Anastasia and Mike. While gone, in order to keep these two brave souls up to date on the progress of our vacation I embarked upon an adventure in text messaging.

    Since many have been asking “how was your vacation?” I thought I’d post a bit of a travelogue in that same sort of format.

    What follows here are not the actual text messages I sent.

    Why?

    Because I couldn’t tell the real story in 160 characters or less.  Of course, if you ask my wife she’ll just call it revisionist history, but then Evil Redheads are like that…

    * * * * * * * * * *

    Day 1: Woke up. Packed van. Drove.  Actually, rode. E K won’t let me drive. Ate fried chicken. Drove (rode) more. Checked into motel. E K immediately declared war on flies (again).

    Night 1: Toured downtown Eminence, Missouri for 3 minutes 27 seconds. Saw everything twice. Asked business hours @ local eatery. Question seemed to confuse hostess who proceeded to vapor lock. Decided it might be better to eat somewhere else. Went next door. Had steak. Returned to motel and went to bed at 8.

    Day 2: Woke up. Drank really bad coffee obtained from nearby gas station after standing in line for 20 minutes to pay for it. Only one person ahead of me but she wasn’t the sharpest crayon in the box.  Went to Two Rivers.  Dude in van took us up river and kicked us out at the bridge. Paddled canoe. Ate lunch. Paddled canoe more. Arrived back at Two Rivers.

    Night 2: Ate bratwurst. Played Uno with O-spring and E K. The Evil Redhead cheated. Not sure where she is hiding the cards. Looked at news. Saint Louis reported a full 24 hours without anything evil happening. Attributed the outbreak of goodness and niceness to E K being out of town.

    Night 2 (continued): Went to Bed. An hour later woke up gasping. E K had shut off power to my CPAP and was watching from the doorway. Reconnected power to CPAP and Evil Redhead wandered off, grumbling to herself as she reworked her sinister plan.

    Day 3: Woke up. Drank more bad coffee made with overly-chlorinated tap water. Intestines officially sanitized. Went hiking. E K pushed me down a hill. In order to make her stop grinding her foot on the back of my head I had to remind her that we canceled my life insurance.

    Day 3 (continued): E K not happy that her plan to do me in was thwarted. Made me wash up at the outhouse nearby, then told anyone who asked about my scrapes and bruises that I am clumsy and fell down. Talked me into taking cave tour. Attempted to lose me in caverns, but was unsuccessful due to my clever use of breadcrumbs, glow in the dark twine, and a Coleman electric lantern.

    Day 3 (continued): Once back out in the open I offered a lady park ranger ten bucks and a beer in exchange for Federal Protection from the redhead. Ranger declined, patted me on the head and then high-fived E K. It was then I realized that I was on my own and may not survive the vacation.

    Night 3: Ate grilled chicken, Played Uno again. The Evil Redhead cheated again. Still can’t figure out where she is hiding the cards. Watched rain outside window. Went to bed. Laid awake listening to young couple next door “mucking like finks”.

    Day 4: Woke up. Drove to Alley Springs. E K attempted to lose me on hiking trail. Reminded her that I had her car keys in my pocket. Evil Redhead grumbled quite a bit, then tripped on the trail and blamed me. Visited the Mill at the spring. E K attempted to push me into grain chute but I wouldn’t fit. Redhead grumbled some more. Vacation obviously not going as she had planned.

    Night 4: BBQ’ed a pork tenderloin. Tish’s Hair helped. Fixed some truly amazing brown & wild rice faux risotto. Made note of recipe. Ate supper. Drank beer to stop the voices in my head. Went to bed.

    Day 5: Woke up. Drove to Big Springs. E K still couldn’t lose me on trail so she used her evil powers to make gnats swarm my head. Then she made me buy her ice cream at The Jolly Cone in Van Buren. After finishing ice cream she threatened me with a spork. I promised to be good.

    Night 5: Ate supper. Went to bed. Listened to different crew next door. This time no mucking, but much loud laughing and talking.

    Day 6: Packed van for trip to Arcadia Valley and next to last day of vacation. E K frightened the 3 guys next door who had been loud all night. They apologized profusely and then cowered on the corner of the porch. Not sure if it was the red hair, the bullwhip, or a combination thereof. As soon as she turned her back they jumped into their cars and left.

    Day 6 (continued): Visited Johnson’s Shut Ins. Watched from observation deck while E K and O-spring played on rocks. Didn’t join them as there appeared to be too many places where E K could hide my body.

    Night 6: Checked into Fort Davidson Motel. Visited Fort Davidson across the street. E K attempted to do me in with a civil war cannon, but discovered it was non-functional. Redhead not happy. Ate BBQ at Baylee Jo’s which meant I didn’t have to cook. Yay! Finally vacation time for me! Went to bed early.

    Day 7: Woke up. Ate breakfast at motel restaurant. Yay! More vacation time for me. Wondering if E K has finally resigned herself to keeping me around, or if she has hatched a foolproof plan and I am a dead man walking. Packed van for trip home. Visited Elephant Rocks State Park as a last hurrah. Remained wary of redhead.

    Day 7 (continued): Evil Redhead looking exceptionally hot today in shorts and figure hugging top. Local Mennonite group arrives at park for picnic. I watch with great amusement as a trio of hormonal, adolescent boys from the congregation spy E K climbing around on a large boulder and are instantly transfixed.

    Day 7 (continued): The trio of sexually repressed, pubescent males can’t stop staring and soon proceed to pop tents and snap suspenders. Although I can empathize, I laugh so hard that I almost fall off rock.  Eventually leave park and drive home, taking long, scenic route. Remain wary of redhead during frequent stops at landmarks along the way.

    Night 7: Vacation complete. Saint Louis news reports that hiatus is over and evil has returned to the city.

    And there you have it.

    More to come…

    Murv