cancer, but we already know how to prevent cancer:: clean up the environment, take the stress out of our stressful lives, improve nutrition and get the chemicals out of our food, and so on. In this country, few people are interested in accomplishing the goals I just listed, even though those steps are known not only to prolong life, but also to improve the quality of life. What this tells me is that people don’t mind getting cancer, they just don’t like dying from it. That’s why so many health care dollars are spent on keeping people alive after they’ve got cancer rather than helping them not get the disease in the first place.
Hoik! Ptui!: You’re talking about poking a hole in time. How do you poke a hole in time?
Dr. Mony: We don’t know that yet. Probably the same way one cures cancer. The point is that much progress has been made in the search for a cure for cancer because so much money has been spent. A similar effort should be made toward eliminating particularly lethal increments of time. That’s why the National Institute of Health grant process should be overhauled to give facilities like UBITCHU more in grant dollars.
Hoik! Ptui!: OK. Say we eliminate Tuesdays, wouldn’t that just increase the death rate for Mondays or Wednesdays or some other day of the week?
Dr. Mony: We don’t know yet, but think of it like that arcade game where you bang down one little lamb's head only to have another one pop up. If you’re fast enough, you can bang down all the little lamb heads and win the game. The point is that we need funding so we can get back to banging sheep. Then we’ll just see what happens.
Hoik! Ptui!: But now you’re talking about eliminating time entirely!
Dr. Mony: Well, killing time is what we’re all about here at UBITCHU.
Hoik! Ptui!: And also apparently, applying for grant money.
Dr. Mony: Precisely.~~ back to table of contents
UNEMPLOYED MARRIED MAN'S GUIDE TO SURVIVAL
Sometimes, after a man loses his job, he also gets kicked to the curb by the old lady. While I find that sad, I’m not blaming the old lady. God knows we men do little enough around the house when we’ve got a job. Of course there are a few men who like housework. For their wives, having her old man lose his job can be a godsend, but most of us men manage to do even less after we get laid off than we did before. What part of “I’m not working right now.” don’t you understand?
Let me make this clear from the beginning. If you can stay in the house, stay in the house! If you get tossed out on your ear, the first thing people expect you to do is move and find work elsewhere. Men hate moving, and moving doesn’t get you out of anything. You just get another bill, for child support. Children are important. If you get laid off, one of the first things you should do is find out if you have any. Ask your wife for a headcount and their names while she’s still in sympathy mode. Later on, she’ll probably demand that you watch those people, so learn to recognize them on sight.
A friend of mine was laid off and his wife told him he had to watch the kids, something about saving on day care. He didn’t know how many kids he had, so I told him he had two sets of twins and tricked him into watching my kids too. Before he realized what was going on, I had saved enough money for a trip to Hawaii.
Once you know who belongs in your house and who doesn’t, you should learn a few standard phrases. You don’t really need to speak the same language as your children, because they’re going to ignore you anyway. You just need something you can holler at them as they go by. I like: “Did you clean up your room?” and “Finish you homework.” Be careful with the standard phrases though. My wife heard me using “Finish you homework.” on my son and shouted at me, “He’s not potty trained yet, fool!” How was I supposed to know that? The kid was 18; I figured he should have had homework.
Another thing you want to establish as soon as you get laid off is whether or not you’re really unemployed. There are some guys who are so talented and flexible that they’re never truly out of work. They’re the sort who lose a senior accountant position at Arthur Anderson today and tomorrow they’re roofing. They may not bring home as much bacon, but they’re still bringing home something. If you’re still bringing home bacon ends, you’re not unemployed. If you’re still bringing home bacon bits and pieces, you’re not unemployed. If you’re bringing home a few bacon rinds, you’re not unemployed. But if you can’t even bring home the greasy bag the bacon bits and pieces were shipped in; in other words, if all you’ve got in unemployment insurance, then you’re unemployed.
If you’re really unemployed, the first thing you want to do is buy some time. A good way of buying time is pretending to start a business. Pretending that you’re starting a business is pretty much like starting a business, except it doesn’t require any money. If you had enough money to start a business, why would you want to. You’d be independently wealthy and you could just retire to beach somewhere. But if you talk a good game, you can pretend to start a business for a good two or three months before you have to put up or shut up. That’s two or three months when you’re still your family’s hero, which means the kids are still in day care, you slacking off on that “Honey do” list, and she’s still coming home and fixing dinner. You’re just sorta hanging out with the guys, having a great time and recapturing your lost youth.
After a couple of months, the business thing will play itself out, and you’ll have to make a choice. Pick whatever for you is the lesser of two evils. Option A is watching your kids and doing housework. Option B is looking for a job. I say, you’ve had two good months, so just start with Option B. After a couple of weeks of Option A, most guys are so desperate for Option B that they’ll take any job at any pay. And that’s exactly what employers are after these days.~~ back to table of contents
THANK HEAVE FOR LITTLE GIRLS, YEAH RIGHT!
“Joe picks up 50 rocks on Monday. On Tuesday he picks up 100 rocks. (giggle, giggle) Then on Thursday Joe picks up… Oh! Wait. How many rocks did I say he picked up on Wednesday? Oh yeah. (giggle, giggle) So on Saturday Joe picked up 300 rocks. How many rocks did Joe pick up on Sunday? (giggle, giggle) See we’re doing word problems in school. This is a word problem. Giggle, giggle, giggle…”
Speaking of word problems, I need a word for describing 10 year old girls. EXISTENTIAL comes to mind. Little girls simply are what they are. They exist and that’s about all you can say, but I not sure they exist in the same universe that I exist in. Also I thought in literature, Existentialism had to do with a dreamlike point of view. I don’t know if that’s correct or not, but that brought me to REM, from Rapid Eye Movements during a dream state. But these are more like rapid mouth movements followed by giggles ad infinitum. I have no word.
“Watch me hit this ball!... Oh! I can’t hit it. You have to throw it to me… Ple-ease… (An hour later…) Why do you get tired so quick?… Oh, you’re not old. You have to be like ninety to be old. Are you ninety?... Didn’t think so. So throw the ball!”
Okay. Now I’m thinking relax. Just think of 10 year old girls as funny-looking 10 year old boys. Better the devil you know. Just throw the ball until your arm falls off. But now she’s tired and she goes into self entertainment mode characterized by frequent use of the “be/like” construction. I don’t know what this construction is from a grammatical point of view, but it generally follows a shrill, high-pitched noise. She fouls the next pitch and it arcs right above her head. She ducks and screams “AHHH!” followed by gales of laughter.
“Did you see that! I was like, “AHHH!” (More gales of laughter) Did you see me? (Rather hard for me to miss since I threw the ball and I’m still standing right in front of her) I was like, “AHHh!” (Still laughing hard) One time, when Mom was driving us to soccer, there was a snake crossing the road and all the girls were like, “AHhh!” (giggle, giggle) Like, “Ahhh.” That was funny. (Soft chuckle) (I’m thinking this particular fit has played itself out, but then--) “But what if Mom had hit it, then we would have really been, Like “AHHHHHH!!!!”
Now do you see why I can’t come up with a w
ord? Oh, the answer is 350 rocks because it's like:: a pattern.
Like Ahhhh!!!!~~ back to table of contents
AGAINST THE CONSTITUTION
I know I'm a little too shrill when it comes to conservatives, but I'm in a bad mood lately because of the beating The Constitution of The United States of America is taking at their hands. While he was vice president, Cheney championed the water boarding of captured Al Qaeda. He claims he felt that it was the right thing to do because his goal was to “keep us safe”. I’ve seen this felt-like-the-right-thing-to-do defense in action before. It used to be really big in The South.
The prosecution: “Gee, why did you torture and murder Emmett Till, an innocent, teenaged boy?”
The witness: “Well, he whistled at a white woman, so it seemed like the right thing to do.”
The jury: “Oh well, you can go home then.”
Where in The Constitution does it say anything about keeping us safe? In its preamble, one of the six reasons listed for ordaining and establishing The Constitution is to “Provide for the common defense”. That is the closest thing I can find to “keep us safe”. The preamble is the mission statement for The Constitution. The rest of the document explains how the government is organized