I’m confused. For all my life the cool and with-it people have been saying that marriage is an antiquated concept — a mossy old throwback to a time that no longer exists. “I don’t need to go down to some government building and get a piece of paper, to prove my commitment…” Etc.
But now it’s the cornerstone of society, the absolute pinnacle of human existence. It’s interesting, isn’t it? Ten years ago it meant nothing, and today it means everything.
If it were up to me, I’d legalize gay marriage right now. I’d sign the paper without hesitation. It wouldn’t affect me in any way, and would presumably help some people — at least make them happy. AND everybody might shut the hell up about it, finally. How great would that be?
For the record, I love the gays. With the exception of a couple of scary, hardened lesbians I met in Atlanta, they’ve all been a delight. Pass the beer nuts.
What I don’t like: Some of their obnoxious defenders. It’s more about them, than the cause they’re championing. Make no mistake about it.
Anyway, I finally made it through the work week. Some of them fly by, and others drag out like an art house film. This one felt like it lasted for roughly a month. But I’m now free until Sunday afternoon.
There are eight items on my To Do (NOW) list. I have high hopes.
Yesterday I had my annual health screening at work. The blood pressure was slightly elevated, but I’m thinking it might have had something to do with the five gallons of coffee I drank. Man, I was vibrating like a tuning fork.
Also, I’m fat. That’s not the way the woman put it, she said I have too much body mass. Heh. I said, “That sounds better than ‘you’re a fatass.'” She laughed and said, “I wouldn’t say you’re fat, just a little heavy.” I appreciated it.
Once again, the blood sugar and cholesterol were perfect. I’ve got some serious good genes working on my behalf…
Another thing that confuses me: When I was 25 I was 6 feet tall, and now I’m 5-11. Am I shrinking? Will I be battling spiders on the basement floor with a sewing needle in a few weeks? I can’t have that.
Check it out: My novel is apparently a rare collector’s item, even though it’s still available for purchase. Can anyone explain this to me? You can buy it brand new from Amazon for $13.95, or get a used copy for $127.35. Again: confused.
While I was driving yesterday, I started thinking about something that happened to me when I was about three years old. It’s among my earliest memories.
I was in the yard, by myself. I was digging in the dirt with a toy shovel, near our house, when I noticed some ants crawling around. I watched them do their thing, and began thinking about one of my grandmother’s favorite sayings: “Jeff must have ants in his pants today!”
Huh. Ants in my pants. Wonder what that means? I decided to conduct a little experiment. I reached down, scooped a few of them up, and put them down the front of my pants. And it was not good. Almost immediately, one of them bit my wiener. Then another! Oww!!
I began frantically clawing at my crotch, and dancing all around the yard. It didn’t take long to get them far away from my pee-pee (as it was then known), and everything came into focus. I understood my grandmother’s point. She wasn’t being literal; I just ACTED like I had ants in my pants. Interesting. I decided my grandmother must be some kind of literary genius, to come up with such a device.
Can you remember being a kid and totally confused by something an adult said, because you took it literally? If so, please tell us about it. Use the comments link below.
And here’s one final confusion to get us through the weekend… I almost experienced a crisis this morning in the bathroom, but it was averted, thank you very much. However, it led to a good Question, which I don’t think we’ve ever covered before.
In the comments, please tell us if you’ve ever found yourself in a situation where you had to wipe with something unusual. Like, maybe a sock, or a curtain, or a guinea pig? Does anything leap to mind? If so, we’ll need to know about it.
I’m proud to say I have nothing. But I’m hoping you guys have had more interesting experiences in the wiping realm.
Have a great weekend, boys and girls!
I’ll see you again on Monday.
Now playing in the bunker
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First!!
First?
I’ve you put three exclamation points instead of “?” you’d have made it.
I’ve used both snow and a rock. The snow is actually quite effective, even more, sometimes, than toilet paper. Used a woodchip once, too. Too risky.
Oh, and a sock in a gas station bathroom in the Poconos. They were out of paper and I had the bubblin” brew agoin’.
My neighbor’s father in law was in town, and the two of them came over to toss back a few. We were standing out back smoking cigars, when the father in law announced that he needed to make. I pointed him in the right direction and continued to gab away for about ten minutes before suddenly remembering that I’d finished the roll earlier in the day and hadn’t replaced it.
I ran inside just in time to see him walking up the stairs with a tied plastic bag in his hand. He smiled sheepishly and said that he’d sacrificed the tighty-whities and was going commando for the rest of the night.
I’ve had to use the little round rug that wraps around the terlet before. Funked that bathroom up for a good long time.
Jeff,
Re your book price, it might be something similar to this: http://news.discovery.com/tech/amazon-lists-books-for-23-million-bucks.htm
Apparently, these prices are set by algorithm and sometimes they use less than ideal data (eg: another algorithm).
Do you get a cut of the book sold?
If it sells for $10, you get $1. But if it sells for $100, you get $10?
Or do you just get half a nickle for each sale no matter what the book actually sells for?
Nothing for the used copies, unfortunately… Unless they click through one of my links first. Then I’d get a 6% referral fee from Amazon. But no royalty for another book sold.
I certainly hope no one is selling off their *signed* copy!
I thought about putting mine up for 10 grand.
If some idiot…savy buyer purchsed it, I’d buy jeff beer for a decade and an additional copy of the book.
My cousin had to use the woods behind the railroad tracks with a bad case of ass-plosion and had one – count it – one – cotton ball to wipe with.
I’ve used odd things to wipe my nose during allergy season including a credit card at the gas pump.
And when I was a kid, I never understood what the big deal was about tacks. “The Goddamn income tacks, the goddamn property tacks” – all a mystery to me.
Tacks! Priceless.
My name is Yuri Pushpin…My friends call me Tack.
You remember the Dovers, of course? Ben and Eileen?
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I asked my parents once what they were doing around the table, I was maybe 3 or 4. They said they were sharing a cigarette with friends. I had seen them all smoke before and wondered why they were just then sharing a cig. I went back out side and played in my dirt.
DECADES later I realized that they were smokin’ a doob and getting stoned. It is now one of my favorite memories.
Jeff, you crack me the hell up. A guinea pig. Heh.
I have no idea how I ended up adding an exclamation point to my name, but I sort of like it. (!)
It’s kind of like multiplying everything you are: Miss Q factorial.
I thought “Holy Spirit” meant something with holes in it. Maybe I was thinking of the costume Charlie Brown wore in “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” wherein he “had a little trouble with the scissors”.
Had to wipe once when all I could find were pages from a glossy magazine. EPIC FAIL.
A couple of my granny’s “word pictures” were hard to understand literally as a kid, but I think make perfect sense now:
When a kid was running all around all willy-nilly she’d say, “He’s runnin’ around like a fart in a hot skillet.”
When a child wouldn’t sit still to get their shoes/coat on or whatever, she’d quip, “It’s like trying to stick a wet noodle up a wildcat’s butt!”
I remember my dad trying to explain ALS/Lou Gehrig’s Disease to me, and I remember his exact words: “It makes your muscles turn to concrete”. I had a VERY hard time grasping that concept, even as a 10-year old.
When paperless in the woods, I have used the green leaves of known, non-rash producing tree species, like maple and beech, but the preferred emergi-wipe is the checking account deposit slip, of which there is an abundance in my back-pocket checkbook.
Homosexuals should not be allowed to get married, I think they’ve suffered enough already.
I support their right to be miserable like everyone else.
Here, here!
Me and my friend were walking to the bar one night and he has to go asap. He crouched behind a tree next to a cemetery and let loose. He asked me if I had any tissues in my purse, I didn’t so he ended wiping with a hair scrunchi I had in there.
When I was little, in the late 60’s, and I heard my folks talking about “those ol’ hippies” smoking pot, I somehow got it into my head that pot was a euphemism for doo-doo.
As in “really good shit”?
My boyfriend does a lot of construction and several years back he completely gutted a bathroom at my parents’ house. Had it down to joints and pipes. As he was re-setting the floor we were watching my 3 year old nephew for a week, who was fascinated by the whole process. One day he pointed to the disgusting hole in the ground where the toilet had been & asked what it was. My boyfriend turned to him, completely serious and said ‘Well, that’s where you poop, silly.’ He went back to work and didn’t think anything of it. About an hour later while boyfriend was in the garage cutting some wood my mom and I hear a little cry “Missy? Missy?” coming from the back room. We go back there and there’s little Tyler, butt stuck to the hole, trying to get up, but was stuck! He had to poop and since Adam had just told him “Well, that’s where you poop” he figured that was it. Poor guy was so embarassed when we all doubled over laughing (it was hard not to) and cleaned him up. He loves his Adam and didn’t know what sarcasm was yet. He learned that day.
I was at Fort Riley for a field training excecise in the middle of summer hung over to beat hell and get promoted in the field to E-5. As soon as the formation ended, I had the asplosions. Found a port-a-potty and entered into stench and 200 degree heat and shit my brains out. Only then did I realize there was no ass wipe. Used my promotion papers. How fitting.
Had to wipe with paper towels on Monday. This was in a deconsecrated bathroom at work, which I didn’t realize until too late. I was thinking of putting a big BYOTP sign on the door.
Confusion as a kid… not exactly what we’re looking for, but one time I asked my mom what hell was. She said, “Hell is a state of mind”. Decades later, I understand.
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Back in the mid 80’s I was at a softball tournament and had to go. Not wanting to go in a port-a-potty I tried to hold off, but eventually got to the point where it was hurry up and choose where it’s going to happen. So I went in the disgusting little house, hovered over the hole and let fly. Then noticed there was no paper. All I had on in there was my uniform and I had to play shortly. I saw there was a little sink in there, and checking that the water worked I made an executive decision – I used my hand to wipe my butt. Thankfully I didn’t need to use two hands. Then I washed up best I could in the tiny sink and walked out.
Not only did we win the tournament that weekend but I was the pitcher. I give all the credit to my secret weapon, the stinkball. Although I never told anyone until now how I had taken matters into my own hands that day.
Hey, Shawn, shit happens.
A fine Executive you are!
Are you kidding Jeff? Gay marriage will cost everybody. That’s why the supremes are considering this issue, although it is being presented as something different. If the federal government defines marriage to include homosexuals on a federal level it will directly affect tax rates. Married gay couples will get the same tax breaks that hetero married couples now get which means non-married rates will have to increase to make up the difference. They will enjoy spousal death benefits for social security and every other government program that offers spousal benefits…all at the cost of other tax payers. And that only touches the surface of the extra costs that gay marriage will cause gay and non-gay singles to incur. Don’t get me wrong. I agree, sign it into law. But find a way that it won’t cost me more money in the process. And while they are at it they should find a way to repeal all those tax breaks that hetero married couples get too because that also increases my tax burden.
When i was very little I thought there was such a thing as a “cyclonehidit” for years because my mother would always tell me that my room looked like a cyclone hit it. i had no idea what a “cyclonehidit” was and there was no internet to look it up at that time, but I knew whatever it was it wasn’t good. When i finally learned that a tornaodo was also called a cyclone I realized what my mother was trying to tell me about my room.
not directed at getalife but just borrowing the town soap box for a sec….Regardless of the cost, isn’t it their right to be treated equally? Which is the amendment that says something about not enacting any sort of religion? 18? I think Y’all might be confusing marriage with holy matrimony anyways. Being a Canadian, I don’t really know jack shit about what goes on down there. Obligatory “sorry”
It is their right, hot fuzz. I could give a crap if my taxes will be raised if it’s allowing fellow citizens (who also pay taxes, btw) to have the same rights as their heterosexual counterparts. Nobody should be discriminated against and to use taxes as an excuse to keep them from being equal to everyone else is pretty ridiculous, in my opinion.
Just to start the flames, we’re already equal. I can’t marry a man and neither can they. It’s equal for everyone.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/gay_marriage
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My dad likes this argument:
“They already have the same rights. I am a straight man and cannot marry another man, a gay man cannot marry another man either. See? We have the same rights.”
I have a concept.
The Gays are REAL by (some say divine) design. Our planet is becoming over populated. Over 7 Billion humans at this point and the scientist say at the current rate we will deplete all natural resources.
It makes sense that the natural progression of things could be solved if a larger percentage of humans were born specifically to NOT procreate. (GAY is REAL)
For a while. Until we get the population under control so our natural resources will not be depleted within a ten year projection cycle.
It makes sense t o me.
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We had moved near a volunteer fire department.
The neighbor was trying to warn us new kids to stay out of the street when the siren “went off” (that’s where she went wrong) because the volunteers use our street to get to the station and they drive FAST.
So when the siren went OFF.
It was off. .. so I stay out of the street ALL TIMES?
Yeah. It’s what I did until I figured it out.
I was 5.
My friend’s house was being built and the worker dudes would do things like take a dump in the shower drain but who knows what they wiped with. One guy took a dump in the basement and used the instruction manual/warranty papers for the furnace.
A group of us went to Nascar in Michigan. We went to a bar and downshifted in to shitfaced in no time. One of the group went to use the bathroom and in doing so disappeared for a while. Not that anyone really noticed until a guy came up to us and asked if we were the Canadians. Our buddy needed to toilet paper. So we sent in a bunch of comment cards… 3×5 cardstock. In all our laughter we forgot about him because we were well, shitfaced. Another guy comes up to our group, sees how drunk we are and then goes to see the bartender… who was last seen carrying an armful of toilet paper to the men’s room. Our buddy was not amused.
Not really in the theme but sorta in the neighbourhood… We had an office of about 40 people. Being a small office, we really didn’t have day time custodial staff, we just all took care of things as needed. I was coming out of the wash room and the president was coming in with a seriously overflowing armload of toilet paper to replenish the supply – 20 rolls maybe? We made eye contact and he remained straight faced until I dead panned “I’ll let them know you’ll be a while”.
One of my earliest memories is sitting on the kitchen floor while my mom made dinner or cleaned the kitchen. Every time she got on the telephone (I was almost too young to know what a telephone was) she’d end up saying the same sort of sound C A R T I E R..(made up to protect the guilty).. Every time.. C A R T I E R… I had no idea what it was but every conversation pretty much had her making that sound C A R T I E R. It wasn’t until kindergarten that I realized she was spelling our last name,
My uncle used to call my brother Bruce the Moose.My little cousin (not the Sparkiest Plug in the Engine) wanted to see the moose. Kid would NOT shut up about it even after we explained what he meant. “But you said there was a moose!!! I wanna see it!!!”
We were visiting my Dad’s uncle out west when I was 4 or 5. The place was such a dump that even a 4 or 5 year old could tell. He poured us drinks in dirty glasses. You couldn’t see out the window because it was caked in cigarette smoke. I remember this from 46 years ago…
I went to use the bathroom and fished the job leaving just the paperwork… but there was no paper. There was no empty roll. There was no roll holder. “MOM!!!!!!”… Mom brought me in some kleenix out of her purse. We found out later that the stack of newspapers in the vanity was for wiping.
Insomnia is a bitch… third time this week…sigh
Yup….
ok it REALLY sucks…
I hear you. Valeria root works a little. So does melantonin tablets. In fact, I think there are even triptofan tablets.
Of course, nothing beats a few pulls of Crown Royal.
All joking aside, it DOES suck.
When I was little my grandmother took us kids out to the movies, and we saw “Mary Poppins”. For years afterward I was scratching my head wondering what is this thing called a “trocious”.
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I think this ties the two subjects together nicely:
Growing up in the south, I would hear my Dad or other older relatives describe something or somebody as being, “rough as a cob”. I never understood the expression until years later. Apparently & to my horror, poor, rural folks would use corn cobs in lieu of TP. Hence, the saying, that old lady there looks, “rough as a cob”.
All my life I’ve heard about wiping with corn cobs, but have no idea how it’s supposed to work. Do you run it through the crack like a canoe in a muddy ditch? Or do you actually stick it in the hole for an internal scrubbing?
My stepdad was an avid outdoorsman / hunter. Once in his youth he found himself out in the woods and needing to take a dump…………… alas, no tp on hand. So he grabbed some nearby leaves for the task.
To this day, he can identify poison ivy from great distances.
Happened to me except it was sting nettles
that happened to my highly-allergic-to -poison ivy younger brother on a boy scout camping trip. He had to miss school because he couldn’t wear pants.
My mom told me not to tell our friends what was wrong, just tell them Jim was sick. So I get on the school bus, one of Jim’s friends asks where he is and I announce to the whole bus,” He has poison ivy on his balls.”
I am sure he eventually got even…
One night, hanging out at a friends fire pit, I pinched a loaf in the corner of the yard … sat down and dragged my brown eye across the lawn just like how a dog with worms scoots it’s butt across the carpet.
Felt pretty dam good too!!!
sand box story – I was maybe 4 or 5 – my neighbor told me that sand on bread was the same as cinnamon toast. I think the grit was in my mouth for a week.
Even at a young age, three or four I’d guess, I could never figue out how or why a baby’s cradle was up in a godamn tree in the first place. Some lazy bastard too tired to rock the thing, needed the winds help and really didnit care if the Death Crib (great band name?) plummeted thirty feet and ended up a pile of splinters, I guess. In fact…I’m still confused by the whole thing.
Also around that same age I actually thought my Italian Grandfather, Nanno, aka Louie, had a special wine he’d drink in the morning named, “Hair of the Dog”. I remember looking for the bottle in his pantry where he kept his jugs of wine and at the store when he’d pick up a couple of jugs just for his stock. I never asked him about it.
And while, “The corpse still has the floor”…Apparently I was kinda fidgety as a kid. Not hyperactive, just kinda always ready for my next adventure. I keep relating to the asthma meds they were giving me back in the late ’50s early ’60s which , from my understanding, was kinda like, “Kiddie Speed”. I remember my Grandmother (the non-Italian one) telling me, “Stop that or you’ll get Saint Vitus Dance. Maybe you already have it”. Now really…is that anyway to talk to a seven year old? I knew I had asthma but now this too? And what in the hell was she talking about anyway? Saint Vitus Dance? I paniced and thought that must be what Fred Astaire has. That guy couldn’t go one scene without dancing. Was I going to be doomed to a life of show tunes and dancing? I’m still working on my Cowboys and Indians future and she says this to me? And it wasn’t the only time she said that to me.
***(actually…I lke Fred Astaire. Incredible talent and great tunes to work with)
My grandfather used to say of people wearing baggy pants, “Looks like a family of Mexicans moved out of the ass of his pants.” This baffled me for a long time.
I have signed copies of Jeff’s first book for a mere $1,809 each, if anyone is interested.
I have: “First Edition Signed Copy” of the book, a “Never Worn Smokin’ Fish Cap” and a, “Like New Smokin’ Fish…Holy Crap in a Bundt Pan”, tee-shirt. Today I consider myself a wealthy man. HOT DAMN!
Do you have one of the maroon shirts? I do!
I find it interesting that today’s update starts with talk of gays and ends with ass wiping.
gays could and have married for years; as long as they married someone from the opposite sex. So technically they are not being discriminated from anything.
That’s the kind of logic that helped the Republicans lose the White House by 126 electoral votes last year. Keep up the good work. Feel free to include denials of discrimination against wetbacks.
jtb
NO! NO! NO!!!!!!
Gay marriage will have a DIRECT and IMMEDIATE effect on your life.
Whose car insurance is higher? Singles or married? Singles! All of a sudden, this whole group of people is going from single to married. Do you really think Allstate is going to take it in the shorts?
NO! THEY’RE GONNA RAISE YOUR CAR INSURANCE!!!
Ask Obama about what he wipes with. It’s called “The Constitution”.
Wiping with the Constitution has been in the Presidential job description for at least 13 years now.
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