I met a modern day hermit. I was moving some heavy equipment for a friend and while driving past a farmhouse, one of the chains holding an excavator on the flatbed broke. Since the load wasn't secure and I didn't have a cell phone with me, I stopped the truck and knocked on the farmhouse door. There I met a hermit. At least he looked like a hermit - long beard, long hair, hoarder house, etc. I called my friend and told him to bring another chain. Then I waited.
Me: So you farm then?
Hermit: Nope.
Me: But you live on a farm.
Hermit: Yup.
Me: You're a hired hand?
Hermit: Nope.
Me: Well what do you do?
Hermit: Keep to myself, smoke dope, watch TV.
Me: But how do you pay the rent?
Hermit: I don't.
Damn if the life of a hermit didn't sound too shabby.
May 2, 2013
Quite a long time ago I helped someone initially set up a business website which ran his payments through PayPal. His business got successful and his website changed many times over the years, including acquiring a different back end e-commerce engine. Recently I got a call from him asking if I still knew the password to his old PayPal account. Turns out he had completely forgotten about the account, had not looked at it for many years, and could no longer remember the secret word. I told him the default password I used and he entered it on his computer. Seconds later I heard a shriek of delight. There was still $13,000 in the forgotten account. As happy as I was for his found money, I couldn't help myself from scolding him for never having changed the default password. But then I thought - if he had completely forgotten about $13,000, should I be surprised that he never changed the password?
May 3, 2013
There is a Billy Joel line where he says he doesn't like clever conversation because he doesn't want to have to work that hard. That's exactly how I feel about vanity license plates. I don't want to have to spend a nanosecond figuring out what you're trying to say with your cutesy pie letters and numbers. So whenever I see a 'figure me out' vanity plate, I just look the other way, even if I'm driving at high speed, greatly increasing the risk of personal injury, untold property damage and almost certain death. Frankly, the vain ought to be ashamed of themselves.
It's early morning, the lake is like glass, that's you there with your sketch pad and coffee being all serene and amazing. Or maybe it's your wife, or that girl from the cabin down the lake, the stripper with the creative bent, who comes up to the lake to practice lap dancing and do some sketching. Lorna. Lorna Dune. She's also studying to be a massage therapist. So she comes up to the cabin to do lap dances and massages. It so happens her cabin is right next to yours. Did I say all that out loud?
May 5, 2013
I'm in the men's clothing section when I see over in the corner a whole special area marked 'For the Husky Man Only'. I was intrigued. As I started toward it, a salesman cut me off. Can I help you? I asked if I too could shop in the husky man section. He gave me the once over and decided that I was way too buff (my words, not his) to shop there. He strongly suggested I avoid it, which only made me wonder more about this forbidden zone, and whether there was now a conspiracy involved. Sure, I get it, maybe I'm reading too much into it, but maybe not...
May 6, 2013
What if entire countries had house exchanges. For instance, New Zealand and Iceland would trade places. All the people from one country would move to the other for one year. Next year it would be like, China and Chad. This way we could all get to know our global neighbors by living a year in their shoes. All the countries would put their names in a hat and random pairings would be created with an air of showmanship and flourish. Obviously this is a swell idea.
May 7, 2013
I went to visit a friend. The moment I walked into his house I knew it was his birthday. Stacked everywhere were cases and cases of ice cream sandwiches. "It's your birthday," I said knowingly. "It is indeed," he smiled. "Say, care for an ice cream sandwich?" When my friend was seven, his mother had asked him what he wanted for his birthday. He said he wanted a whole case of his most favorite thing in the entire world, ice cream sandwiches. Which is what he got. The next year she gave him two cases and the following year, three. He is now 57. In his house were 50 cases of ice cream sandwiches. "Is it still your most favorite thing in the entire whole world," I asked. "No," he said, "but the gift is. When she's gone, and this stops coming on my birthday, I know I will never eat another ice cream sandwich again for the rest of my life."
May 8, 2013
John was desperate for a nap but the plane was noisy and packed with so many troops there was no way to stretch his legs, so he stepped outside and instantly found the peace he was looking for.
I'm standing on the street talking with the smoking hot girlfriend of a buddy when this distinguished, well dressed gentleman interrupts us and asks for directions to a restaurant. After he is given them he hesitates before asking us if we would like to join him for dinner. When I inform him that we're not together, he turns his attention to the girlfriend and lays on the charm. He says how a beautiful woman on his arm is the most romantic thing he can think of and would she do him the honour of accompanying him for a stroll and lovely evening meal. She turns to me and says, Don't tell Alonzo, then grabs his arm and off they saunter. My my.
May 11, 2013
In watching DIY shows I see that every woman on every show always wants more storage. When asked to choose between the following:
A. more money than you could possibly spend or gamble in this lifetime
B. a far more handsomer and caring husband than you already have
C. children so smart it's scary, or
D. more storage
they always pick storage. Is this an X chromosome thing?
Only Jean Claude, because he is French, because he is a man, can stand outside at work drinking in the middle of a shift not caring in the least that the boss can see him from his office window.
In the 1400 block of Leonard Rd. is a house with its own ICBM-V. The atomic Volkswagen sits in a cozy underground silo in the back yard of Arlene Chunderson's unassuming split level. The missile was built by her late husband, Scooter, an intense unemployed machinist with a love for weapons of mass destruction and Volkswagens. It was aimed at Scooter's daughter's boyfriend's house, the evil Kenny Oberlin. Scooter and Kenny never got along, and because Scooter was unemployed, had a lot of time on his hands, and wanted to kill Kenny Oberlin, the more he sat around and thought about it the more an intercontinental ballistic missile Volkswagen sounded like the best solution. But Scooter died before he could launch it at Kenny, which everyone found kind of ironic, leaving Arlene Chunderson with an armed Volkswagen in the 1400 block of Leonard Rd.
May 14, 2013
He was dressed in 17" Wesco Engineer boots, reinforced black leather pants, a top grain black leather jacket, forearm-high black leather racing gloves and a jet black Bell helmet with a black face shield. He had absolutely everything - except a motorcycle. This guy was sitting on a bench, in full leathers, with his helmet on, waiting for a bus. Huh?
May 15, 2013
I awoke all fired up, you know. Had splendid stuff to say and started working away but then we lost power and by the time it came back on I forgot everything. All of it. Now I have nothing. Nothing at all.
May 16, 2013
Been looking at a niche product that is so expensive it's hard to justify the purchase.
The questions boil down to:
Do I believe the cost is justified for the benefit derived?
When my friends ask me how much I paid for it, will I tell them the expensive truth or be so embarrased by the fact that I paid that price that I will lie and make up a much smaller figure, which they will know was a fib when they are impressed with how cheap it is and now think that maybe they want one for themselves, look it up online and see how much it really is?
It looks like they don't know how to get into it and the fog machine was brought in to cover their incompetence, make it look more mysterious than just Larry, Curly and Moe looking for a door.
May 18, 2013
Pirates! I'm reading an article when I come across a line stolen from me.
She's the kind of person who will tell you she's older than she is, just to get a compliment about how good she looks for her age.
Since this is the first time I've had this happen, should I be flattered or pissed?
May 19, 2013
Actually it's happened before. Many years ago I had written some jokes for a friend who wanted to try his hand at stand up comedy. The jokes weren't very good - except for one. One joke killed (I'm not going to tell the joke so don't think that's what's coming up and keep reading with the hope that I will only to have them dashed at the end when I don't). So this guy tried stand up for about 4 months and found that it wasn't something he particularly liked and stopped doing it. Fast forward a few decades. I'm watching an HBO special and this comedian tells my joke. I almost fell off my chair. It was literally word for word the same joke. And you know what? Much like yesterday's theft, I didn't know how to feel about it.
May 20, 2013
Tiffany wrote:
So it was my birthday recently and my boyfriend asked me what I loved most in the world besides him. I thought of my Mama, pancakes, and Jack Daniels, but at the time I was reading KeithSpeak, so I told him how much I loved your blog! He just smiled and left the room. Unbeknownst to me, he went out and got inked.
In your opinion, is this romantic or just plain stupid?
May 21, 2013
This ever happen to you? You are all set for an out of town trip. The bags are packed. The car is packed. The dogs are in it, everyone is happy and excited for the adventure, you turn the key, the battery is dead. How do you tell your excited dogs they have to get out of the car and wait twenty minutes for the trickle charger to restore enough juice to start the vehicle. How do you tell your wife that the battery may be dying or the alternator may not be charging the battery, but either way, if it happened once, it could happen again. Like the next time we shut the car off. Suddenly the trip has trepidation attached. Well doesn't that suck.
May 22, 2013
If you accept that money is the driving force of your life, you will never have enough, no matter how much you make. If you decide that money is a means to an end, you will never be rich, but you will have a nice life with lots of nice things in it. If you don't care a jot about money, then you are focused on something else. Something that enriches your life in a way that money never could. Is any one of these better than any other? Of course not.
May 23, 2013
So this guy doesn't believe in mediums but ends up going to one because his wife bought him a reading for his birthday. The medium connects with his dead father and the son and the father proceed to have a hellacious argument that gets more and more heated until the guy and the medium are screaming profanities at each other and threatening to kill one another. Eventually it's over. Everyone slumps back in their chairs. The medium asks him if he is still skeptical. The guy says, "No, that was my father, all right. Same asshole he always was. I'm just bummed the son of a bitch still exists somewhere else. God, what a horrendous experience." The medium agrees, "Tell me about it. I thought you were going to kill me." "I was," the guy answered. His wife, who was also there and witnessed the whole debacle says way too cheerily, "Happy birthday, honey!" The husband and the medium stare at the wife like they both finally found someone they could agree upon killing together.
May 24, 2013
Martha wondered what would happen if she never tested this test tube, never looked at it under the microscope, never cultured it in the Petri dish. What if instead she took it home and labelled it Loneliness and kept it in her refrigerator as a reminder of all the wasted years she had devoted to the handsome and worldly Dr. Signorelli who hasn't paid her the slightest heed except that one Christmas party where he got drunk and mentioned her "cute little ear lobes" before passing out under the autoclave.
May 26, 2013
You know what's annoying? A teenage party on the street below our property where for the last fifteen minutes drunk punks have been buzzing loud, radio controlled airplanes over and around our house while I'm trying to work. I'm sure they're not purposely trying to disturb me but they are. Soon, I manage to hit a bi-plane with a softball and it crashes into our yard. You know what's funny about that? When the kid comes up to our house and asks permission to retrieve his broken plane and I say, No.
May 27, 2013
We're old school. Who needs social media when you have a crack Women's Auxiliary to get the word out?
Walking toward me in the mall were two very very big gals, at least 100 pounds apiece overweight, both wearing the tightest, most stretched out, see through yoga pants ever. All the rolls of humanity folded and pressed and packed into those sausage like casings was just overwhelming. I had to look away. I had to.
May 29, 2013
Today I come across a website that sells only one item - codpieces. This site is purporting to bring the 15th century codpiece back to its former glory here in the 21st century. They boast that they have vastly improved "the codpiece experience". There are pictures of guys in business suits with codpieces; guys in bicycle shorts, swim suits and jeans all wearing codpieces. The site extols the protection, fashion, chivalry and art of the device. They have codpieces in metal, fabric and fiberglass; they have sequined codpieces, LED lit codpieces and even a neon one but "you have to plug it in". Frankly, between the yoga pants of yesterday and the codpieces of tomorrow, I'm seriously wondering if I have entered a parallel universe.
May 30, 2013
How can this happen? I was introduced to a girl that I disliked immediately. I hated her face, her demeanor, her ideas, the way she expressed them, just everything about her. I couldn't even feign being polite. I was literally over her the moment I met her. So, um, how can that be?
May 31, 2013
I'm told by someone I don't especially respect that I have a rather rigid approach to life and that I should be more tolerant of fools and idiots. Oh really? Like now? Perhaps, if I respected his opinion even a little bit, I might consider his assessment. But I don't, so I didn't. I can't see any benefit from doing that, I told him. None whatsoever. And that was that.
