Troof…
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Category Archives: Humor
Thoughts…
We often fear ghosts from our past that loom up in the night, not knowing that when they’re examined up close they’re really just harmless, faded memories we tossed sheets over years ago because they don’t match our mind’s décor any longer.
If it’s an ugly memory, throw it away. No need to keep it in the basement any longer.
Nothing is quite as valuable as the last tablespoon of paint in the bottom of the can two-thirds the way through a project when you know the store is closed.
I’m normally a very quiet person. I have a soft voice and tend towards quiet mannerisms. But when I sneeze everyone within a half mile knows about it. And I often have to pick myself up off the floor.
The closet is sorted. The upstairs is clean. The basement is cleaner than it was. Long holiday weekends are nice! It’s 4:17 p.m. on the last day of a three-day weekend – time for me to relax a bit…
If I were an electrician my basement would be a lot brighter.
I thought it would feel different…
Quite often when a customer asks me to do something that’s a bit technical or just a smidge out of my comfort zone, my initial reaction is, “Why don’t you just take this to a professional and have them do it?”
You’re asking me?
Then I realize that’s exactly what they did.
Oops.
Well crap…
Well poop.
Stupid roof blew off…
Crap.
Nailed the song, forgot to hit “record.” Bah.
Random…
Yes, I dropped my iPhone into a bucket of white paint. No, you can’t laugh. (Yes, it still works. Yes, I feel stupid.)
Pistachios are really rather a lot of work.
Last week I decided I’d go back to Facebook the day I could read ten posts without seeing anything political. Once a day I check in and glance through the feed. I haven’t gotten past three posts yet. The politics are heavy this year…
The nights are always darker in November than they are in June.
When I was a kid I used to stay awake late into the night to happily dream greedy Christmas dreams of mystical, magical toys, reading and re-reading the Sears catalog, carefully circling the biggest, shiniest, most colorful toys, then judiciously adding check marks beside the five or ten toys I really REALLY wanted, hoping the subtle hints would be noticed by those in charge.
Now as an adult, I dream of warm socks and going to bed early.
I installed “Grammarly” on my computer the other day. It constantly checks everything I write for grammar errors, spelling mistakes, etc. It’s driving me friggin’ nuts. It’s like having your third-grade teacher hovering over your shoulder watching you type… (Nothing against third-grade teachers, mind you, but you know what I mean.)
Some days my attempts at grasping reality very much resemble an angry orangutan chasing a bar of soap around the bathtub.
This weekend I need to pull the batteries out of my motorcycle and lawn mower and put ’em in the basement (NOT on concrete – a lesson I learned last year) for the winter. A piece of tin some friends helped me put on the shed’s roof last year blew off in the wind the other day, so I gotta find me a tall ladder and see if I can get that tacked back up (the roof leaks without it). I have about ten squeaky styrofoam coolers I need to tear apart and screw on the shed’s walls for insulation while I’m up there. And I suppose I should tidy the workshop up a bit too… I hope the weather’s nice, though I fear there’s snow in the forecast again. I don’t like snow in the forecast much. There’s always so much to do and so little time…
I just realized the only reason I’m still writing is because I’m too tired to go to bed.
Dentists scare me.
Overheard (in my head):
I am, and always shall be, instant friends with anyone who understands social anxieties. (Provided, of course, we actually work up the courage to speak to each other.)
Overheard, (in my head):
“I don’t know when, but somewhere along the line my life switched turned into an endless ‘to do’ list. Once upon a time there used to be a few ‘I get to’ items mixed in…”
Huh.
Okay, so I normally stick with the $1.35 Totino’s cheese pizzas. I eat about five of ’em a week because they meet my body’s sodium and fat requirements and I’m choosy about that sort of thing. But I saw this in the grocery store for $4.99 and had to try one…
The beautiful pizza, those wings! drooooool…
I mean, look at it. The photos on the box make it look sooooo good! Pizza AND wings! Ohhhh my! I put the pizza in the freezer and seriously had dreams about it that night. All night. And the next morning it was the first thing I thought of when I woke up. Pizza. Wings. It haunted my thoughts until FINALLY it was lunch time. Yay!
Hands aquiver with anticipation I opened the freezer and gazed lovingly at the box… That’s when I saw it.
Seriously? Wings with no wing meat? What the what?
Oh no. They weren’t chicken wings, they were “white meat chicken fritters.” That’s not good…
Nonetheless, I’d been dreaming of this marvelous pizza for almost a full day now… I looked at the box, the photo of that crispy crust, perfectly round pepperoni, melted cheese, oh my oh my oh my! I made my way to the kitchen. I find that to be a convenient place to cook stuff.
Pausing for a moment to wipe up an errant puddle of drool, I opened the box, taking one last look at the wondrous photos on the front. This is what was inside:
Nutritious AND well-presented – who could ask for more?
Oh. Hmmm. A lopsided pizza with random pepperoni, a bag of frozen chicken nuggets, and a bag of some sort of frozen… something. Maybe if I spread it out it’ll look better…
The pizza of my dreams!
Ah well. I’m hungry. I rearranged the pepperoni and tossed it on the Pizzazz, my dreams of a dreamy pizza fading, being replaced by dreams of something edible. I mean, for five bucks I wasn’t expecting miracles, but… But those pictures on the box! I wandered off to go cry in a corner while the mess of a pizza cooked.
I puffy-heart my Pizzazz Pizza Maker! I puffy-heart it!
In fifteen minutes or so the thing dinged. “Ding,” it said. “Ding.” Fighting off imminent depression and pizza-based gloom I made my way to the kitchen (which I find is a convenient place to cook stuff). Surprisingly, IT LOOKED GOOD! IT LOOKED GOOD! Yay and hurray!
I heated up the wing sauce quick and stirred it over the chicky nuggets…
Hey, the pizza doesn’t look half bad! The wings, though. That color just ain’t natcheral.
After a few trepidatious nibbles I was pleasantly surprised – the pizza was actually pretty good for a five-dollar frozen… The sauce on the wings had a pretty vibrant color, one that’s rarely seen in nature. “White meat chicken fritters with a buffalo-style sauce packet.” Yeah.
Well, actually… Yeah. Not half bad!
Methinks I’ll buy this again!
It could be worse
I woke up with this song bouncing around my head…
Uncle Hippie’s Happy Chainsaw Tips
Q: Running a chainsaw sometimes hurts my ears. I’ve tried earplugs, but they get all gunky and fall out. What should I do?
A: Move closer to the stage next time you go to a concert.
Q: My fifteen-year-old chainsaw has recently started billowing clouds of blue smoke. Is that normal?
A: Yes. Through personal experience, I know that fifteen is the age of experimentation. You should expect any fifteen-year-old to be difficult to start, smoke a lot, and kick back.
Q: Should I sharpen my chain at 30 degrees, or 32?
A: Yes.
Q: Uncle Hippie, what sort of lubrication should I use on my two-stroke?
A: If it only takes two strokes, do you really need any lubrication? I feel there may be other problems here.
Q: My chainsaw is running quite rough and stalls a lot. I feel the problem may be with the fuel mixture. Is there a way to adjust that? How should I go about doing it?
A: Yup, here’s what you do. First, make sure the engine is off. You can tell an engine is off by listening very, very carefully. If you can hear your wife yelling at you to take the garbage out, the engine is indeed most likely off. (See question #1.) This is very simple, but you MUST complete the following steps in order. It will be tempting to skip to the last step, but don’t. Remove the two nuts holding the safety cover on, take the safety cover off, move the blade bar back, and remove both the chain and the bar. Get a regular screwdriver and slip it under any likely looking piece of plastic and gently try to pry it off to get to the engine. Once you’ve broken that, try the other side. Okay, now that you’ve spilled gas and oil all over your workbench and have broken all the plastic bits off the unit, you should be able to see the engine. I’ve found that most of it isn’t really used, so go ahead and just sort of start turning whatever you can see that turns. I mean crank on it. Most things on an engine will make a “cracking” noise right after it’s broken – that’s what you’re listening for (see question 1). Now, the final step – again, do NOT proceed to this step without completing all the steps above. Show the pile of broken parts to your wife, explain that you’ve tried everything you can think of to fix the saw but it’s useless, then go buy a bigger saw from the store and grunt in a manly way.