Category Archives: Humor

Redefining Exercise

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The plan was simple. Put on a padded gym top. Go to the gym. Look busy on a recumbent bike.

And I did. Look busy.

Busy trying to find where the pad for my right boob had gone. Not that I saw it go anywhere. I just sensed in mid-magazine article that the right side of my chest was drooping toward my knee cap. Which, if I wasn’t careful, was going to get in the way of my rigorous exercising.

While the three pedalers beside me pretended to be impressed with their books, I did a fourth two-hand pat down with the same results. Padding. No padding.

Gah!

The pedals were still swirling behind me when I turned the corner to the ladies locker room. I smirked. Half of me was at attention. While the other half was taking a nap, perhaps.

I patted my bullet proof bra pad, my hand rebounding off its cushion. Only…maybe…

Ah, forget maybe. There it was. My vacationing bra pad. Slumped behind the other, like moral support.

I skipped the rest of the bike “workout” and everything else in the gym. Because sometimes exercise doesn’t look like exercise.

Some folks run. Some heave weights. Some move furniture on their backs.

And some…

Some wrestle a dysfunctional a bra pad into its proper place in the locker room.

It’s all good.

Allison Bailey, John Kathy Koester, Kari Morris liked this post

The Pot Bangers

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It was my younger sister who dredged up a 25-year old New Year’s Eve memory with a simple text. “So…you gonna bang some pots and pans together again this year?”

And I smiled faster than my thumbs could type. “Uh…you know it.” I answered.

And 200 miles apart, we both snickered.

Because one only bangs pots and pans together once. Which is what happened the New Year’s Eve I spent with my friend Carrie. Both of us rule followers. And both of us righteously afraid of her mother who could make you confess sins you never committed by simply looking at you…and waiting.

When her parents had left for the evening, it was Carrie’s dad who had poked his head back in from the garage. “You all bang some pots and pans together to celebrate,” he winked.

And our eyes grew bigger like no idea had ever sounded better.

At 11:55 p.m., we stared at the digits on the microwave. We’d gathered every precious pot and pan Carrie’s mom owned.

At 11:59 and a 1/2, we hauled the mixed and matched pieces down to the back yard, grabbed a pair of pots apiece and started whapping those things together.

Two clunks in, the pots I was holding fell to the lawn. But not the handles. When I looked at Carrie, her mortified face confirmed that she, too, was holding just a set of handles.

Pot handles.

Nothing in my somewhat-sheltered life had prepared me for this moment–the shock of snapping off all of Mrs. Mason’s pot handles. On New Year’s Eve. Following directions.

And so I laughed until I feared my chest might burst apart. Then I looked at the collection of bowls there in the grass. And I gasped for more air to laugh again. And since Carrie was presently still alive, the two of us marched around the back yard hitting together two handles that made nearly no noise.

It was quiet when the Masons returned.  Too quiet. And I wasn’t invited to the kitchen table conference where the broken pots were piled. So I hovered in the hallway.

The verdict? I don’t really know.

I just know that Carrie lived because I was in her wedding a few years later.

As for me, there’s not a New Year’s Eve that goes by that I don’t consider banging a few pots and pans together.

You know.

For old time’s sake.

Kari Morris, Jennifer Starns, Katra Wedeking liked this post

The New Thanksgiving

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Minus our son who was jogging in place in his underwear and who’d already spent two-seconds on his bed time prayer, we had our eyes closed.

Sort of.

My husband was the last to pray. At which time he droned from the doorway his gratitude for this and that.

“…and thank you for this holiday,” he said.

Only he might have added more if our daughter hadn’t clarified with gusto, “which is called Black Friday!”

John Kathy Koester liked this post

The Informant

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The one in the red chair wants to know.

Wants to know if I have eyes in my back.

And I whisper his words slowly with a crinkled forehead, “in my back?”

“You know,” he says, “behind you.”

At which time his sister rescues him and says, “he means, do you have eyes in the back of your head?”

Aha.

I only start to speak, when my son blurts what he’s bursting to report, “well, Grandma does!”

Beware the Quiet Ones

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I’m telling ya…

Sometimes you gotta check in on the quiet ones.  The ones who read books still their legs turn to prickles.  Or who fiddle with 500 piece jigsaw puzzles…for fun.

Because you never know when they’re gonna shimmy noiselessly up the door jamb in a skirt.  And then holler like the house is on fire…”Mom, come quick!  I want to show you something.”

Only to add. “How do I get down?”

The whole scene takes ten seconds.

Maybe three breaths.

It’s just…

it’s just the repercussions of a five-year old witness that might last a little longer.

DrTroy Munson liked this post

Seven Pounds in Seven Days

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It happened right here.  Pier 91. Last Sunday.

We kissed our waistlines ‘goodbye’.  And boarded the Oosterdam.

This tiny thing. With 2094 other guests.  And 808 crew members.

And sailed away from this place. With smiles that wrapped around our faces.

We didn’t know what lay ahead–things like decadent desserts and classy napkins.  But if it had anything to do with this sunshine and that view, we liked it already.

Liked it that is, until we hit a hiccup.

When our ship bucked and heaved in the open ocean.

Ech.

…so did we.

For fourteen hours we looked something like this.

And upon rising again, celebrated dinner like this.

Which only meant that by Tuesday we were hugging lunch menus like these.

And getting chummy with the butter bowl.

And that’s where it began.

The bread. The butter. The four course meals multiple times a day.  The snacks in between the four courses.

The ice cream. The fruit bowls. The salads.

The fries.

And so really, it’s not any specific meal that made us wish our pants had gentle elastic bands instead of zippers.  It was all of them.

 

This is the guy who met us at the dinner door. Every night.

He’s got a little bar here of  ginger, figs, dates and mints. And he puts whichever we want into a napkin for the walk back to the stateroom.

I think it’s to help us with something.

Heh.

If only it had.

At a gift shop in Juneau, we passed on these.

And hovered here instead.

Then on board again we ate desserts like this. Things that had the word ‘tchokolade’ in them, that looked like wrung out tea bags plunked on a plate, but tasted like happiness.

Pure happiness.

And holy goodness, if I didn’t watch my own husband order three desserts.  For himself.  In the same sitting.

It. Was. Awesome.

Hey…we’re eating again.

Dessert, too.

And here’s the two of us feeling like we better sit here a little longer.

t

Because come the ‘morrow, it’s salmon off the grill.

 

I’m not sure how to rate our dining experience except to say that it was superior to anything we’ve ever known in any restaurant.

Which means we’d do well to bring our self-control along next time.

And stretchy pants.

Just in case.

No Secrets Here

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For six or seven minutes both kids steadied a rainbow of cars on the treadmill.  Rows of cars.  Cars whose three-second future would end in a lump at the end of the treadmill

My son held each up, declaring it a favorite before spotting something shinier and speedier in the next and changing his mind.

My daughter, though, picked up the motorcycle and held it under her brother’s nose.  ”This is the one,” she whispered, “the one that pulled mommy over and gave her a big ticket.”

And all I heard was a reverent, “Woooow,” as my son beheld the puny bike.

The Birthday Meal

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We were still burping bits of my mother-in-law’s mashed potatoes and fried chicken and releasing the top button of our pants, when my son sighed, “well, it wasn’t my favorite meal.”

There was a collective, “oh?” as we noticed his plate, completely scarfed of chicken and on its second serving of potatoes.

“So…what would you choose for your birthday meal?” my sister-in-law asked. She spoke softly to my son who was rolling his potatoes into small balls between his palms.

Only we all waited.  We poked our forks at empty plates.

And then in a voice filled with certainty, my son said, “Cereal.”

There was a moment’s breath where no one said anything, not even the slightest titter.  ”Cereal” we all mused.

“Why not?” we snorted.

Seems birthday dinner will be extra special next March.  Consider yourself invited over for a bowl of Koala Crisps.

Because Idle Fingers Will Find Something To Do

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In varying degrees these last two weeks, our house has smelled like red Christmas candle.

When it shouldn’t.

Same with our son’s fingernails.

And the white paneling on our stairway.  Now white and red–like candy canes–and extending as far as a little boy’s fingernails can reach. To smear wax.

Which makes sense now, I suppose, having found the candle 3/4 submerged in the bathroom sink, the wax completely softened and divots of the stuff missing from around the wicks.

So who should clean this?  A little boy in a red shirt?

That’s what I thought.

Which is why our son’s squirting the soap and wiping his heart out with a rag.

Only the problem here?  He’s enjoying himself.

Which means that he asked his sister to spread more red wax on the white wood, so he could keep scrubbing and pressing the soap dispenser…

And picking at the wall with a butter knife.

Seems we need the sun to shine around here.

And soon.

Foreign Language Skilz

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The child who stood wearing two pairs of swim trunks–one on his head–spoke with certainty right in my face.

“I know how the Chinese say ‘pretzels,’” he said.

He paused long enough to suck in a roomfull of air.

And then I heard it, quiet at first, the married sound of ‘p’ and ‘r’ blowing from his lips like a flap of wind, connecting, finally, with ‘etzels’ as he ran out of breath.

“Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrretzels.”