Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
Saturday, February 16, 2013
A Little Early for April Fools', But A Good (if weird) Practical Joke Nonetheless
It is a mere seven weeks until April Fools' day, but I heard about a pretty well-executed practical joke and just had to tell ya about it.
Monday, December 24, 2012
The Unknown Reindeer, Denny the Ditz, and Why He Did Not Make Santa's Team
by Minnie Apolis
[This is an original story by Minnie Apolis and it is copyrighted 2010.]
PART ONE
To be charitable, none of Santa's reindeer are very bright, so it was very unfair to single out Denny the Ditz as being a, um, simpleton. The fact that when he was told to take a hike, he actually went out the doors and took a walk in the woods should not be held against him. The fact that sometimes he pasted a clown nose on his snout should not be held against him, even tho Rudolf took it as a personal insult.
None of the reindeer were ever going to solve the problem of the missing mass of the universe. None of them were ever going to sniff out a frozen kid in the snow and get hailed as a hero. None of them was even going to remember their place in the harness, for Pete's sake, so we will just have to cut them a little slack here.
Don't get me wrong, they were all decent, hard-working four-legged folk who never went to school a day in their lives, so who am I to judge? I'm just saying that sometimes, lowered expectations can save everyone a lot of grief.
A Tale of Two Reindeer Buddies
Denny the Ditz (everyone called him that) was just the average reindeer. He liked to cut up in front of the other little reindeer, when they all should have been paying attention to instructions. But he wasn't a BAD boy, not at all. He just wanted some attention, and I can't blame anyone for that.
So let me explain what Denny was like. He was of average size and build, maybe on the scrawny side. Liked dessert. Pulled the girls' pigtails. A very average kid.
Now McKenzie was a bit smarter than the average reindeer, though that isn't saying much. But he tried to look out for Denny, and keep him out of trouble. If Denny got upset because he couldn't understand something, McKenzie would sit by him till he calmed down, then show him how to do it.
This sounds so nice and simple. But when Denny was upset, he did not just sit down or scrunch up his face or even cry. He made a SCENE.
Take the day that the whole class of yearlings was first introduced to the harness.
This was such a simple lesson. All the class had to do was walk around the playground, hooked up to a long harness with each other. They did not even have to PULL anything, just propel their own body weight plus a few ounces of leather. Was that so difficult? You would have thought that the teachers expected them to haul the entire temple of Abu Simbel from Egypt to the North Pole, the way that Denny carried on.
He'd flop down and moan "Why are you doing this to me?" over and over. Then he'd get up, hobble forward a couple feet, and flop down and wail for another five or ten minutes. This could get annoying after oh, a whole afternoon of this. The only reason he moved forward at all was that the other reindeer were all pulling on the harness and half-dragging him along. He was just making more work for the rest of them, and so they all started to hate him.
Meanwhile MacKenzie would follow him around from flop to flop, and lie down next to him. He was a year older, so he was not anchored to the harness. This was very fortunate otherwise the harness would have gotten hopelessly tangled.
Though Denny and MacKenzie were both members of the same species, they could not be more unlike each other. As I have said, Denny was, shall we say, mentally challenged. Perhaps I am being harsh, and he was merely suffering from low self-esteem issues.
Perhaps he came from a severely dysfunctional family, leaving him stressed by every demand made upon him. Perhaps he was even a victim of PTSD, possibly after a sleigh blew up, or some mass murderer visited the North Pole.
But MacKenzie was a sweet, kind, long-suffering soul who only tried to make everyone happy.
Learning to Fly - Not
This brings me to the current matter of trying to proceed with Denny's training as a reindeer, as a proper member of Santa's working herd. Eventually he got over his fear of being strapped in to the harness. But then had trouble getting the hang of flying.
Denny was hitched up with the other trainees in a harness. He had finally accepted these ropy strips of leather tying him to the other reindeer. He had given up pretending he was being hung; he used to hold the harness up from his neck, like a man pretending he was being hung by his necktie.
The next phase of training was to learn to fly. This is a bit similar to the scene in the first Harry Potter movie when the class is introduced to brooms for the first time, and most of the class cannot make the broom rise off the ground.
The reindeer ran around the training ground in circles for an hour. Some of the reindeer started to float right away. Some were jumping up as they ran, trying to get airborne. Then there was Denny. As luck would have it, he was behind another student who was a natural flier. And what was Denny doing? Denny was grabbing that reindeer's hooves and jerking them down to the ground.
"I DON'T WANT TO FLY UP," he yelled at the deer ahead of him, who was named Sandy. Sandy craned his head around to stare at this lunatic, Denny, who did not seem to know that they were born to fly.
"I LIKE having my feet on terra firma!!" Denny yelled. The other deer who were near enough to hear him started to giggle.
The teacher, Miss Deerfield, could not see or hear what was going on. She stomped over to where the line had stalled to a dead stop. "WHAT on earth is going on here? Did someone call a lunch break and forget to tell me about it?" she asked sarcastically.
(Sarcasm did not become her.)
Denny by this time was writhing on the ground in agonized fear of being airborne. Mackenzie had joined him at this point, and was sitting next to him, whining softly.
Denny wept a bucket of tears while declaiming how much he liked having his feet on 'terra firma' as he kept calling it. Actually they lived year-round on a layer of perma frost, which is NOT so 'firma' as you might think, but that is another matter.
"I'M GONNA DIE IF YOU DRAG ME UP IN THE AIR," he screamed. "IF WE WERE MEANT TO FLY, WE WOULDA BEEN BORN WITH WINGS AND FEATHERS," he continued.
"Stop that nonsense this instant," Miss Deerfield scolded him. After about an hour and a half of his hysterical flopping and crying, Miss Deerfield sent him to the school psychologist for evaluation and counseling.
His mother, Mrs. Derry Browning, received a letter from Miss Deerfield about it.
"Dear Mrs. Browning," the letter began.
"After several attempts to convince young Denny that reindeer do indeed fly, and it does not kill them, the school has decided that perhaps he might benefit from some counseling.
"I hope that you will sign the attached permission slip, which will allow the school psychologist to conduct an evaluation of young Denny's emotional preparedness for reindeer school.
"It is hoped that young Denny will overcome his mental block in regards to flying, and rejoin his fellow pupils in the class. I am sure that young Denny will make a fine addition to Santa's flight crew one day, and be a credit to the race of reindeer."
"Signed, Yours Truly, Miss Deerfield," it ended.
Well, you can imagine the consternation in the Browning household when Mr. and Mrs. Browning received this letter. They discussed it, of course, like well-adjusted couples do. And they decided that if that was what it took to help young Denny learn to be a proper reindeer, well then, they just had to let the counselor talk to him and hope for the best.
Denny Goes to the School Counselor
"How long have you had this fear of heights?" the counselor asked Denny.
(to be continued)
PART TWO
"How long have you had this fear of flying?" the doctor asked Denny, who was lying stiffly on the couch.
"I dunno, about as long as I've known that we were expected to fly. I mean, about as long as I knew that most of us reindeer can fly," Denny replied.
"I see," the doctor replied. "And how do your parents react when you panic at the thought of flying?"
"Well they mostly are embarrassed. Mom will say, 'oh for heavens sake, Denny, stop making such a big thing of it.' And dad just clears his throat and asks if I'm OK."
"I see. Does this make you feel better or worse, the way that your parents react?" the doctor asked.
"Well, I dunno. It doesn't seem to help, that's for sure."
"Have you ever had any bad things happen when you've flown, like when you were a baby?" the doctor inquired.
"Not that I remember. Do you want me to ask mom and dad about that?" Denny replied. He looked puzzled when he tried to remember back to being a baby. There was almost something there, but he couldn't bring up a memory.
"Well, you could ask them. Maybe they don't remember anything, either. But it's worth asking them or a grandmother, or whoever might recall. It's OK if nothing comes up," the doctor assured Denny.
Denny walked home, kicking a soccer ball all the way. He'd much rather play soccer than fly. So who passed a law, anyway, that all reindeer had to fly? It was un-American, is what it was.
Then he remembered. He's not American, anyway. He lived in Lapland.
OK, then. He'd emigrate to America, land of the free, home of the brave and all that jazz. He'd have to go to Ellis Island, and tell them that he left his native land on political grounds. He objected to the reindeer government that mandated all reindeer learn how to fly. That made him a political prisoner, didn't it? Right.
He would get an agent and sign a contract for a gazillion dollars to play soccer in the US of A. That would show 'em all back in fuddy-duddy Lapland. Flying reindeer are a dime a dozen. Reindeer that can play soccer, now you're talking.
His daydream was interrupted by an old lady. "You want to play soccer? Play in the street, alright already, instead of bouncing balls off little old ladies," she harrumphed. She was good at harrumphing.
Denny picked up his soccer ball and ran the rest of the way home. It was only a couple blocks.
Denny burst in the door and was greeted by the smell of spaghetti and meatballs, one of his favorite meals.
"Hi, mom," he said as he hugged her. He liked the smell of her and of her apron. The apron had smells of flour and bread and cookies she had baked. She was a good mom, he thought to himself.
"Go wash your hands before supper. Dinner will be on the table in about ten minutes," his mom told him.
Denny parked his soccer ball in the breezeway and trotted down the hall to the bathroom to wash up. As he passed the living room, he said 'hi, dad' to his father, who was parked in his chair, reading the paper, the Midnight Sun. "Hello son," he replied, "how was your day?"
Denny said nothing happened.
Denny started washing his hands and decided his face felt sticky, too. He lathered up his whole face and rinsed off. He decided he felt a lot better as he toweled himself dry.
Denny dug into the spaghetti and waited for the right moment to ask about any accidents in babyhood. When mom put dishes of spumoni in front of him and his dad, he decided now was the time.
"Mom, did anything ever happen to me when I was a baby? Like falling or something? Or getting dropped, stuff like that?" he asked.
"Gee, no, not that I can remember. I mean, you had the usual skinned knees and things like that, but nothing really unusual. Why do you ask?" mom replied.
"Oh, it's just the doc's idea that maybe I got the fear of flying from some accident in babyhood. That's all," he said glumly. He had kind of hoped that there'd be some grisly story about a tragic accident, that he'd been tossed off the roof by a mean older cousin and was lucky to survive. Or that he'd fallen off his mom's back when he was a toddler, while she was flying, and he'd fallen 200 feet before dad flew down to catch him before he would have smashed himself to smithereens on the hard frozen ground. A story that he could dramatize to good effect, and get lots of sympathy for.
Nuts. No such luck. He'd wasted all that work developing some really good sound effects to help tell the story.
"But what was funny was that when you were little, you could fly in your sleep," mom said.
"I did what?" Denny asked.
"You flew in your sleep. All the time. I'd tuck you into bed really tight, but it didn't help. You always floated up like you were dreaming of flying or something."
"I flew in my sleep??? What good is that, anyway? And did I outgrow it or what?" Denny was just full of questions. He remembered nothing about this.
His dad chimed in. "Well, you were about the best natural flyer I ever did see," dad boasted. "You could just about touch the ceiling when you were no bigger than a tadpole. All you needed work on was your landings."
"Oh, my, yes. Those landings were pretty rough," mom added. "Fortunately you only fell a few feet, so it wasn't going to hurt you any. But it was like you came to the end of the dream or whatever, and you just plum dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes." She had to chuckle at the memory, even though it was a bit nerve-racking at the time.
"I was the best natural flyer??? I was the best natural flyer???" Denny kept saying. He was stunned. Here he had always thought that he had absolutely NO talent for flying, whatsoever. And here dad tells him he was the best natural flyer he ever saw.
He needed some time to wrap his head around that. He thought about this new piece of information all evening, while watching cartoons, while doing homework, while brushing his teeth before bed, and lying in bed in the dark.
"I was the best natural flyer???" He just needed some more time to wrap his head around this. Maybe a year, maybe a decade. Twenty years, tops.
That night he had a dream. (Sorry if this sounds too hokey.) Anyway, that night he had a dream. It was the most awesome dream he'd ever had. He was flying. And he LIKED it. He LOVED it.
He flew all over the town, looking down on the school and city hall and churches and everything. And then he flew all over the world. He flew to the Bahamas and looked at the flamingos. He flew to New York and looked at the Statue of Liberty, up close and personal. He flew to jungles and looked at the monkeys and parrots. He flew everywhere, and everything looked so beautiful and amazing that he did not want to come back to his own bed.
When he woke up he felt incredible, like he had really flown all over the world and was a big hero like Charles Lindburgh. With a ticker tape parade and everything. He felt like Superman.
He hop, skipped and jumped all the way to school that morning. His jumps were like mini-flights, though. He leaped about twenty yards by the time he was at the school.
At his next visit to the doctor, he told about his babyhood propensity for flying while asleep.
"What I don't understand is, if I was such a natural at flying while I was a baby, why didn't I want to fly at all when I was old enough for school?" he asked the doc.
"Well, there could be many reasons for that. But I suspect the fact that the landings were so unpleasant for you, pretty well turned you off to flying. It's like you were programmed not to fly, by associating it with a negative result, such as the painful landings. That's what I would guess, anyway," he explained to Denny.
That made perfect sense to Denny.
Since he'd been bumped out of the flying class the previous semester, he had to start over in the following semester. Well, he passed with ahem, flying colors. (sorry)
He was scared in his first flying class back. His knees shook when he was concentrating on his liftoff. But he made his running start, and jumped, and only went about five feet. That was nothing. But on his next turn, he jumped for all he was worth, and got airborne. Airborne! Wow, did that feel terrific. He flew about a hundred feet and while his landing was a bit clumsy, he kept his feet.
After the first semester of flying lessons, he even joined the air polo team. It's like regular polo or water polo, except you fly while carrying a two-legged player. You can see Denny on the far left side of the winning all-conference championship team.
He also served in student government, and played flute in the band. He was a well-rounded student.
But because of the delay in passing reindeer flight education certification, he missed being picked for Santa's team. You had to be tracked early to get into that elite unit.
However, when he graduated he was hired by the Lapland Postal Service, where he served with distinction for many years. He held a perfect on-time delivery record, and he never lost a letter. Upon his retirement, he was awarded the Lapland Postal Service Golden Wings Medal of Honor, which came with a handsome pension.
With those funds he took care of his wife and aging parents, and even provided a scholarship for poor reindeer children to go on to school. His own grand-reindeer were of course sent to the best schools in Lapland, too, and some of them DID make it onto Santa's team. So there.
Copyright Minnie Apolis 2010
[This is an original story by Minnie Apolis and it is copyrighted 2010.]
PART ONE
To be charitable, none of Santa's reindeer are very bright, so it was very unfair to single out Denny the Ditz as being a, um, simpleton. The fact that when he was told to take a hike, he actually went out the doors and took a walk in the woods should not be held against him. The fact that sometimes he pasted a clown nose on his snout should not be held against him, even tho Rudolf took it as a personal insult.
None of the reindeer were ever going to solve the problem of the missing mass of the universe. None of them were ever going to sniff out a frozen kid in the snow and get hailed as a hero. None of them was even going to remember their place in the harness, for Pete's sake, so we will just have to cut them a little slack here.
Don't get me wrong, they were all decent, hard-working four-legged folk who never went to school a day in their lives, so who am I to judge? I'm just saying that sometimes, lowered expectations can save everyone a lot of grief.
A Tale of Two Reindeer Buddies
Denny the Ditz (everyone called him that) was just the average reindeer. He liked to cut up in front of the other little reindeer, when they all should have been paying attention to instructions. But he wasn't a BAD boy, not at all. He just wanted some attention, and I can't blame anyone for that.
So let me explain what Denny was like. He was of average size and build, maybe on the scrawny side. Liked dessert. Pulled the girls' pigtails. A very average kid.
Now McKenzie was a bit smarter than the average reindeer, though that isn't saying much. But he tried to look out for Denny, and keep him out of trouble. If Denny got upset because he couldn't understand something, McKenzie would sit by him till he calmed down, then show him how to do it.
This sounds so nice and simple. But when Denny was upset, he did not just sit down or scrunch up his face or even cry. He made a SCENE.
Take the day that the whole class of yearlings was first introduced to the harness.
This was such a simple lesson. All the class had to do was walk around the playground, hooked up to a long harness with each other. They did not even have to PULL anything, just propel their own body weight plus a few ounces of leather. Was that so difficult? You would have thought that the teachers expected them to haul the entire temple of Abu Simbel from Egypt to the North Pole, the way that Denny carried on.
He'd flop down and moan "Why are you doing this to me?" over and over. Then he'd get up, hobble forward a couple feet, and flop down and wail for another five or ten minutes. This could get annoying after oh, a whole afternoon of this. The only reason he moved forward at all was that the other reindeer were all pulling on the harness and half-dragging him along. He was just making more work for the rest of them, and so they all started to hate him.
Meanwhile MacKenzie would follow him around from flop to flop, and lie down next to him. He was a year older, so he was not anchored to the harness. This was very fortunate otherwise the harness would have gotten hopelessly tangled.
Though Denny and MacKenzie were both members of the same species, they could not be more unlike each other. As I have said, Denny was, shall we say, mentally challenged. Perhaps I am being harsh, and he was merely suffering from low self-esteem issues.
Perhaps he came from a severely dysfunctional family, leaving him stressed by every demand made upon him. Perhaps he was even a victim of PTSD, possibly after a sleigh blew up, or some mass murderer visited the North Pole.
But MacKenzie was a sweet, kind, long-suffering soul who only tried to make everyone happy.
Learning to Fly - Not
This brings me to the current matter of trying to proceed with Denny's training as a reindeer, as a proper member of Santa's working herd. Eventually he got over his fear of being strapped in to the harness. But then had trouble getting the hang of flying.
Denny was hitched up with the other trainees in a harness. He had finally accepted these ropy strips of leather tying him to the other reindeer. He had given up pretending he was being hung; he used to hold the harness up from his neck, like a man pretending he was being hung by his necktie.
The next phase of training was to learn to fly. This is a bit similar to the scene in the first Harry Potter movie when the class is introduced to brooms for the first time, and most of the class cannot make the broom rise off the ground.
The reindeer ran around the training ground in circles for an hour. Some of the reindeer started to float right away. Some were jumping up as they ran, trying to get airborne. Then there was Denny. As luck would have it, he was behind another student who was a natural flier. And what was Denny doing? Denny was grabbing that reindeer's hooves and jerking them down to the ground.
"I DON'T WANT TO FLY UP," he yelled at the deer ahead of him, who was named Sandy. Sandy craned his head around to stare at this lunatic, Denny, who did not seem to know that they were born to fly.
"I LIKE having my feet on terra firma!!" Denny yelled. The other deer who were near enough to hear him started to giggle.
The teacher, Miss Deerfield, could not see or hear what was going on. She stomped over to where the line had stalled to a dead stop. "WHAT on earth is going on here? Did someone call a lunch break and forget to tell me about it?" she asked sarcastically.
(Sarcasm did not become her.)
Denny by this time was writhing on the ground in agonized fear of being airborne. Mackenzie had joined him at this point, and was sitting next to him, whining softly.
Denny wept a bucket of tears while declaiming how much he liked having his feet on 'terra firma' as he kept calling it. Actually they lived year-round on a layer of perma frost, which is NOT so 'firma' as you might think, but that is another matter.
"I'M GONNA DIE IF YOU DRAG ME UP IN THE AIR," he screamed. "IF WE WERE MEANT TO FLY, WE WOULDA BEEN BORN WITH WINGS AND FEATHERS," he continued.
"Stop that nonsense this instant," Miss Deerfield scolded him. After about an hour and a half of his hysterical flopping and crying, Miss Deerfield sent him to the school psychologist for evaluation and counseling.
His mother, Mrs. Derry Browning, received a letter from Miss Deerfield about it.
"Dear Mrs. Browning," the letter began.
"After several attempts to convince young Denny that reindeer do indeed fly, and it does not kill them, the school has decided that perhaps he might benefit from some counseling.
"I hope that you will sign the attached permission slip, which will allow the school psychologist to conduct an evaluation of young Denny's emotional preparedness for reindeer school.
"It is hoped that young Denny will overcome his mental block in regards to flying, and rejoin his fellow pupils in the class. I am sure that young Denny will make a fine addition to Santa's flight crew one day, and be a credit to the race of reindeer."
"Signed, Yours Truly, Miss Deerfield," it ended.
Well, you can imagine the consternation in the Browning household when Mr. and Mrs. Browning received this letter. They discussed it, of course, like well-adjusted couples do. And they decided that if that was what it took to help young Denny learn to be a proper reindeer, well then, they just had to let the counselor talk to him and hope for the best.
Denny Goes to the School Counselor
"How long have you had this fear of heights?" the counselor asked Denny.
(to be continued)
PART TWO
"How long have you had this fear of flying?" the doctor asked Denny, who was lying stiffly on the couch.
"I dunno, about as long as I've known that we were expected to fly. I mean, about as long as I knew that most of us reindeer can fly," Denny replied.
"I see," the doctor replied. "And how do your parents react when you panic at the thought of flying?"
"Well they mostly are embarrassed. Mom will say, 'oh for heavens sake, Denny, stop making such a big thing of it.' And dad just clears his throat and asks if I'm OK."
"I see. Does this make you feel better or worse, the way that your parents react?" the doctor asked.
"Well, I dunno. It doesn't seem to help, that's for sure."
"Have you ever had any bad things happen when you've flown, like when you were a baby?" the doctor inquired.
"Not that I remember. Do you want me to ask mom and dad about that?" Denny replied. He looked puzzled when he tried to remember back to being a baby. There was almost something there, but he couldn't bring up a memory.
"Well, you could ask them. Maybe they don't remember anything, either. But it's worth asking them or a grandmother, or whoever might recall. It's OK if nothing comes up," the doctor assured Denny.
Denny walked home, kicking a soccer ball all the way. He'd much rather play soccer than fly. So who passed a law, anyway, that all reindeer had to fly? It was un-American, is what it was.
Then he remembered. He's not American, anyway. He lived in Lapland.
OK, then. He'd emigrate to America, land of the free, home of the brave and all that jazz. He'd have to go to Ellis Island, and tell them that he left his native land on political grounds. He objected to the reindeer government that mandated all reindeer learn how to fly. That made him a political prisoner, didn't it? Right.
He would get an agent and sign a contract for a gazillion dollars to play soccer in the US of A. That would show 'em all back in fuddy-duddy Lapland. Flying reindeer are a dime a dozen. Reindeer that can play soccer, now you're talking.
His daydream was interrupted by an old lady. "You want to play soccer? Play in the street, alright already, instead of bouncing balls off little old ladies," she harrumphed. She was good at harrumphing.
Denny picked up his soccer ball and ran the rest of the way home. It was only a couple blocks.
Denny burst in the door and was greeted by the smell of spaghetti and meatballs, one of his favorite meals.
"Hi, mom," he said as he hugged her. He liked the smell of her and of her apron. The apron had smells of flour and bread and cookies she had baked. She was a good mom, he thought to himself.
"Go wash your hands before supper. Dinner will be on the table in about ten minutes," his mom told him.
Denny parked his soccer ball in the breezeway and trotted down the hall to the bathroom to wash up. As he passed the living room, he said 'hi, dad' to his father, who was parked in his chair, reading the paper, the Midnight Sun. "Hello son," he replied, "how was your day?"
Denny said nothing happened.
Denny started washing his hands and decided his face felt sticky, too. He lathered up his whole face and rinsed off. He decided he felt a lot better as he toweled himself dry.
Denny dug into the spaghetti and waited for the right moment to ask about any accidents in babyhood. When mom put dishes of spumoni in front of him and his dad, he decided now was the time.
"Mom, did anything ever happen to me when I was a baby? Like falling or something? Or getting dropped, stuff like that?" he asked.
"Gee, no, not that I can remember. I mean, you had the usual skinned knees and things like that, but nothing really unusual. Why do you ask?" mom replied.
"Oh, it's just the doc's idea that maybe I got the fear of flying from some accident in babyhood. That's all," he said glumly. He had kind of hoped that there'd be some grisly story about a tragic accident, that he'd been tossed off the roof by a mean older cousin and was lucky to survive. Or that he'd fallen off his mom's back when he was a toddler, while she was flying, and he'd fallen 200 feet before dad flew down to catch him before he would have smashed himself to smithereens on the hard frozen ground. A story that he could dramatize to good effect, and get lots of sympathy for.
Nuts. No such luck. He'd wasted all that work developing some really good sound effects to help tell the story.
"But what was funny was that when you were little, you could fly in your sleep," mom said.
"I did what?" Denny asked.
"You flew in your sleep. All the time. I'd tuck you into bed really tight, but it didn't help. You always floated up like you were dreaming of flying or something."
"I flew in my sleep??? What good is that, anyway? And did I outgrow it or what?" Denny was just full of questions. He remembered nothing about this.
His dad chimed in. "Well, you were about the best natural flyer I ever did see," dad boasted. "You could just about touch the ceiling when you were no bigger than a tadpole. All you needed work on was your landings."
"Oh, my, yes. Those landings were pretty rough," mom added. "Fortunately you only fell a few feet, so it wasn't going to hurt you any. But it was like you came to the end of the dream or whatever, and you just plum dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes." She had to chuckle at the memory, even though it was a bit nerve-racking at the time.
"I was the best natural flyer??? I was the best natural flyer???" Denny kept saying. He was stunned. Here he had always thought that he had absolutely NO talent for flying, whatsoever. And here dad tells him he was the best natural flyer he ever saw.
He needed some time to wrap his head around that. He thought about this new piece of information all evening, while watching cartoons, while doing homework, while brushing his teeth before bed, and lying in bed in the dark.
"I was the best natural flyer???" He just needed some more time to wrap his head around this. Maybe a year, maybe a decade. Twenty years, tops.
That night he had a dream. (Sorry if this sounds too hokey.) Anyway, that night he had a dream. It was the most awesome dream he'd ever had. He was flying. And he LIKED it. He LOVED it.
He flew all over the town, looking down on the school and city hall and churches and everything. And then he flew all over the world. He flew to the Bahamas and looked at the flamingos. He flew to New York and looked at the Statue of Liberty, up close and personal. He flew to jungles and looked at the monkeys and parrots. He flew everywhere, and everything looked so beautiful and amazing that he did not want to come back to his own bed.
When he woke up he felt incredible, like he had really flown all over the world and was a big hero like Charles Lindburgh. With a ticker tape parade and everything. He felt like Superman.
He hop, skipped and jumped all the way to school that morning. His jumps were like mini-flights, though. He leaped about twenty yards by the time he was at the school.
At his next visit to the doctor, he told about his babyhood propensity for flying while asleep.
"What I don't understand is, if I was such a natural at flying while I was a baby, why didn't I want to fly at all when I was old enough for school?" he asked the doc.
"Well, there could be many reasons for that. But I suspect the fact that the landings were so unpleasant for you, pretty well turned you off to flying. It's like you were programmed not to fly, by associating it with a negative result, such as the painful landings. That's what I would guess, anyway," he explained to Denny.
That made perfect sense to Denny.
Since he'd been bumped out of the flying class the previous semester, he had to start over in the following semester. Well, he passed with ahem, flying colors. (sorry)
He was scared in his first flying class back. His knees shook when he was concentrating on his liftoff. But he made his running start, and jumped, and only went about five feet. That was nothing. But on his next turn, he jumped for all he was worth, and got airborne. Airborne! Wow, did that feel terrific. He flew about a hundred feet and while his landing was a bit clumsy, he kept his feet.
After the first semester of flying lessons, he even joined the air polo team. It's like regular polo or water polo, except you fly while carrying a two-legged player. You can see Denny on the far left side of the winning all-conference championship team.
He also served in student government, and played flute in the band. He was a well-rounded student.
But because of the delay in passing reindeer flight education certification, he missed being picked for Santa's team. You had to be tracked early to get into that elite unit.
However, when he graduated he was hired by the Lapland Postal Service, where he served with distinction for many years. He held a perfect on-time delivery record, and he never lost a letter. Upon his retirement, he was awarded the Lapland Postal Service Golden Wings Medal of Honor, which came with a handsome pension.
With those funds he took care of his wife and aging parents, and even provided a scholarship for poor reindeer children to go on to school. His own grand-reindeer were of course sent to the best schools in Lapland, too, and some of them DID make it onto Santa's team. So there.
Copyright Minnie Apolis 2010
Sunday, December 23, 2012
No, I Do Not Want a New Thesaurus! Will Stick with Falling-Apart Oldie, Thanks
by Minnie Apolis
My thesaurus (BTW what’s another word for thesaurus?) is falling apart. So am I, but that’s another story. The cover of the Roget’s has been affixed to the rest of it with clear packing tape. The first three pages are not affixed to the rest of it by anything, which reminds me I should sit down with the scotch tape and do some more repairs. Pages 145 through 158 are also loose, so that I have to open it carefully or else I’ll have to pick up pages from the floor. The cover bears the original price: 60 cents. Washington Square Press edition from 1962, 6th printing, May 1962.
Since I really do not think I bought it during my primary school years, I somehow clung to this keeper of a reference even though it has delivered its money’s worth many times over.
I have looked at new copies of a thesaurus from time to time, my head turned by a shiny cover and freshly trimmed edges. Ooh, the smell, tang, scent, odor, reek, pungency, whiff, aroma, bouquet, perfume of a new book’s glue can be addictive. If I were some faithless hussy (dame, broad, wench, baggage), I might let it show me a good time. But I do not judge (assess, appraise, rate) a book by its cover!
I page through new editions and just do not find them as helpful as the oldie I have. Flip open my 1961 version to a word, any word.
How about FIGHTING? There is about a whole column (a half page) of synonyms for the noun (strife, brawling, pugilism, fisticuffs, battle, conflict, clash, combat, skirmish, donnybrook), verb (battle, brawl, tussle, scuffle, box, spar, duel, fence, tilt, joust) and adjective (warlike, aggressive, belligerent, bellicose, martial, jingoistic, combative, pugnacious, scrappy). Then if that is not enough, it refers the gentle reader elsewhere for another word fix: “See also ARMS, ATTACK, CUTTING, DEFEAT, KILLING, OPPOSITION. Antonyms – See PEACE, SUBMISSION.”
Perhaps all this talk of war is offensive to the gentle reader’s sensibilities.
Perhaps it will soothe you to think about the gentle art of painting, or drawing, illustration, design, picture, piece, canvas – See FINE ARTS. OK, back to the F’s.
FINE ARTS: Here we have over a half page about the various fine arts or the aspects of art. Synonyms are grouped under Painting, Style, Picture, Portrait, View, Picture gallery, Sculpture, Statue, Dummy, Relief, Architecture, Paint, Pictorial, and Sculptured. “See also ARTIST, COLOR, ENGRAVING, ORNAMENT, PHOTOGRAPH, REPRESENTATION.”
Perhaps you prefer to just chat a bit. Or discuss, palaver, converse, dialogue, banter, speak, say, utter, pronounce, soliloquize, rhapsodize, drawl, cite, enumerate, chatter, babble, gabble, jaw, prate. But by all means do not equivocate! More synonyms take up three-quarters of a page. But wait! There’s more! “See also ABSURDITY, EXPRESSION, GREETING, HINT, INFORMATION, LANGUAGE, RUMOR, STATEMENT, TEASING, VOICE, WORD, WORDINESS. Antonyms – See SILENCE.”
You see? It helps you zero in on words that focus on different aspects of the idea of TALK. Is it the vocal expression, is it the use of language, is it communicating information -- or mere rumor, or are you searching for something about idioms? I don’t find this kind of helpfulness in the other paperback thesauruses (thesauri??) that I have perused, read, or pored over.
While it is great to have a large vocabulary, one must remember to keep the message uppermost in mind when crafting a speech or article like this one. Or, to cite the old injunction (advice, counsel, suggestion, recommendation, exhortation, admonition, directions, prescription) titled “Elegant English:”
“In promulgating your esoteric cogitations and in articulating your superficial, amiable and philosophical observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity. Let your extemporaneous decantations and unpremeditated expiations have intelligibility and veracious vivacity, without rodomontade and thrasonical bombast. Avoid sedulously polysyllabic profundity, psittaceous vacuity and ventriloquial verbosity. In other words, talk plainly, simply, naturally. Say what you mean, mean what you say – BUT DON’T USE BIG WORDS!”
Or to put it another way, KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID!
My thesaurus (BTW what’s another word for thesaurus?) is falling apart. So am I, but that’s another story. The cover of the Roget’s has been affixed to the rest of it with clear packing tape. The first three pages are not affixed to the rest of it by anything, which reminds me I should sit down with the scotch tape and do some more repairs. Pages 145 through 158 are also loose, so that I have to open it carefully or else I’ll have to pick up pages from the floor. The cover bears the original price: 60 cents. Washington Square Press edition from 1962, 6th printing, May 1962.
Since I really do not think I bought it during my primary school years, I somehow clung to this keeper of a reference even though it has delivered its money’s worth many times over.
I have looked at new copies of a thesaurus from time to time, my head turned by a shiny cover and freshly trimmed edges. Ooh, the smell, tang, scent, odor, reek, pungency, whiff, aroma, bouquet, perfume of a new book’s glue can be addictive. If I were some faithless hussy (dame, broad, wench, baggage), I might let it show me a good time. But I do not judge (assess, appraise, rate) a book by its cover!
I page through new editions and just do not find them as helpful as the oldie I have. Flip open my 1961 version to a word, any word.
How about FIGHTING? There is about a whole column (a half page) of synonyms for the noun (strife, brawling, pugilism, fisticuffs, battle, conflict, clash, combat, skirmish, donnybrook), verb (battle, brawl, tussle, scuffle, box, spar, duel, fence, tilt, joust) and adjective (warlike, aggressive, belligerent, bellicose, martial, jingoistic, combative, pugnacious, scrappy). Then if that is not enough, it refers the gentle reader elsewhere for another word fix: “See also ARMS, ATTACK, CUTTING, DEFEAT, KILLING, OPPOSITION. Antonyms – See PEACE, SUBMISSION.”
Perhaps all this talk of war is offensive to the gentle reader’s sensibilities.
Perhaps it will soothe you to think about the gentle art of painting, or drawing, illustration, design, picture, piece, canvas – See FINE ARTS. OK, back to the F’s.
FINE ARTS: Here we have over a half page about the various fine arts or the aspects of art. Synonyms are grouped under Painting, Style, Picture, Portrait, View, Picture gallery, Sculpture, Statue, Dummy, Relief, Architecture, Paint, Pictorial, and Sculptured. “See also ARTIST, COLOR, ENGRAVING, ORNAMENT, PHOTOGRAPH, REPRESENTATION.”
Perhaps you prefer to just chat a bit. Or discuss, palaver, converse, dialogue, banter, speak, say, utter, pronounce, soliloquize, rhapsodize, drawl, cite, enumerate, chatter, babble, gabble, jaw, prate. But by all means do not equivocate! More synonyms take up three-quarters of a page. But wait! There’s more! “See also ABSURDITY, EXPRESSION, GREETING, HINT, INFORMATION, LANGUAGE, RUMOR, STATEMENT, TEASING, VOICE, WORD, WORDINESS. Antonyms – See SILENCE.”
You see? It helps you zero in on words that focus on different aspects of the idea of TALK. Is it the vocal expression, is it the use of language, is it communicating information -- or mere rumor, or are you searching for something about idioms? I don’t find this kind of helpfulness in the other paperback thesauruses (thesauri??) that I have perused, read, or pored over.
While it is great to have a large vocabulary, one must remember to keep the message uppermost in mind when crafting a speech or article like this one. Or, to cite the old injunction (advice, counsel, suggestion, recommendation, exhortation, admonition, directions, prescription) titled “Elegant English:”
“In promulgating your esoteric cogitations and in articulating your superficial, amiable and philosophical observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity. Let your extemporaneous decantations and unpremeditated expiations have intelligibility and veracious vivacity, without rodomontade and thrasonical bombast. Avoid sedulously polysyllabic profundity, psittaceous vacuity and ventriloquial verbosity. In other words, talk plainly, simply, naturally. Say what you mean, mean what you say – BUT DON’T USE BIG WORDS!”
Or to put it another way, KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID!
Thursday, November 1, 2012
How We Got That Fake Tree, and Other Mysteries of Christmas
The very first fake tree that I ever saw was the one in my grandparents sun room. During the holiday season this room was occupied by the tree; the rest of the year it was my grandmother's sewing room. She had her plants arranged near the windows to catch the ample east light, and her mother's old treadle sewing machine (which at that time still worked).
Now this fake tree of my grandparents was not anything that would fool the average bird, much less a kid intent on finding presents under it.
It was aluminum. Your basic metallic-colored aluminum. I know there were colored one like pink or blue available, but this was the basic aluminum. Then of course one had to have the electric-powered color wheel that slowly rotated through blue, green, red, and amber to lend some color to this tree.
It sufficed, I suppose, for the festivities held every Christmas eve at my grandparents bungalow. The good thing about this tree was that there was plenty of room between branches for large ornaments. The two main events were the dinner – with a large dining table covered in the aromatic dishes – and the opening of presents.
Somewhere in between, all of us kids would huddle by the tree counting how many were for us. This seemed to be the main practical application of the ability to count: ascertaining whether you had been gypped in the gift distribution.
The funny thing was, now that I look back on it, was this was a house that would have been able to do justice to a grand tree, perhaps a full six or seven-footer. It had high ceilings, dark wood wainscoting. The living room was a modest size but there was a glass chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Just about any corner could have accommodated the tree. Yet they settled for a dinky aluminum tree. Yeah, well, gramps was a cheapskate anyway.
But I digress.
It was sometime in the 1980s when tree prices began to rise steeply. Dad was outraged at the idea of forking over what was then a chunk of change for something that was only used for about two weeks. He grumbled but handed over the money.
Then one year, probably while simmering over how much he'd been robbed for a mere Christmas tree, he had enough. It was the tree that broke the camel's back. A lovely tree, all in all, but it caused so much aggravation that dad finally decided enough was enough.
He arrived home with our purchased tree. Untied it from the trunk of the car. Dragged it to the front door because that was closer to the destination, the front living room. Put the trunk end into the stand and tilted it upright. And it was too tall. Arrgghhh.
Took the stand off. Dragged the tree out of the front door, to the side door and down to the basement workshop. The tree cried green needles all the way. There he sawed off a couple inches from the trunk.
Reversing the procedure, he dragged the tree out the side door and in the front door again. Back in the stand it went. STILL TOO TALL. Double AARRRGGHHH.
Back to the basement shop where it submitted to the saw blade a second time.
Once more out the side door, in the front door, and this time the tree was an appropriate height for our modest living room.
This was in a December that was unseasonably cold so early in the winter. We had browsed an outdoor tree lot and all of us just wanted to get back indoors. But poor dad was schlepping this tree up and down and in and out of the house, probably cussing under his breath all the time.
Decoration progressed without further incident but a sea change had occurred. Never again would our loving father subject himself to this annual ordeal. No matter how we might beg or wheedle, we would never smell the scent of pine unless it came from a spray can, or bottle of Pine Sol. This from a dad who was generous to a fault when it came to indulging his children. He would buy what he could, he would fix anything that we'd broken, but never again buy us a tree.
That is, except for the last tree he ever bought. The trusty, perfectly symmetrical six-footer had reasonably lifelike green (vinyl?) needles on heavy twisted-wire branches. Surprisingly, it still shed a few needles in the process of setting up and taking down. But we did not have to water it, and we could have it up as long as we wanted – sometimes, oh gosh, it was as late as January 10 or so when we took it down at last. Or whenever Mom wanted her living room back.
The only drawback, really, was that you had to live with this tree year round. It filled a large cardboard box and we had to reserve a spot in the attic or basement to store it in the long months when it was not used.
Should have bought the can of pine scent, though.
Monday, October 8, 2012
I've Been Shoe Hunting, and I Still Haven't Tagged Any
The days are growing shorter, a nip is in the morning air, and the hunt is on. Like the men who are starting to dream of the six-point deer they will defeat come November, I too will hunt.
Shoes are a wily prey.
They seek safety in the company of dozens if not hundreds of other pairs of shoes. They warn each other of approaching hunters, and dive deeper into their boxes or their online skid numbers. How they can tell anyone is coming is a mystery, since they lack noses. But they do.
Man may hunt for food, but woman hunts for shoes (and clothes). Men have it easy. They can use guns. They can hunt in pairs or in groups to help each other fill their tags. They are allowed to go without distractions such as shaving or showering – even for days at a time – until at last success strikes.
But woman tracks a wilier, trickier quarry. The men may pair up, but here it is the shoes that pair up to make her look silly for thinking she could outwit her opponent. The men do not have to worry too much about what size or color their quarry is – just about any size will do although larger is better. And the deer's coat is not the primary deciding factor in whether to shoot or let that one go
Women let pair after go until they feel that they have the right one. I mean the right pair. The pair that will make her look and walk like a queen in her court. The pair that will match that suit or shirt just right, in a color that brings out one's eyes – no matter that the shoes are as far from the eyes as they can be without running for the safety of a closet. No matter that the average man will not notice the shoes on the average woman's feet even if she steps on his toes.
Men do not understand why women will have dozens of pairs of shoes in her closet. It is all right for men to capture just one deer in a given year. It is all right for men if they only capture one trophy-worthy buck in their lifetimes.
But women who are so seldom validated for their skills in anything, whether at work or at home, the shoes in their closet represent so much more than mere footwear. They are TROPHIES.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Witnesses Testify That Obama NOT Natural-Born [Satire]
Today the Supreme Court heard conflicting testimony as to the real circumstances of the birth of Barack Obama, the president-elect.
While official documents state that Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii as a result of a normal birth to a mortal human, witnesses gave sworn testimony to a decidedly unnatural birth.
Several testified that they saw the baby Barack pulled from a woven basket found drifting in the reeds along the Nile River. Hard evidence is lacking, as the basket (and its DNA cargo) no longer exists.
The Nile River is in Africa, and this implies that Obama was not born in the United States and is therefore ineligible to serve in the office of president. The implications of this testimony are obvious.
Yet other witnesses state that he sprang from the head of Zeus, fully formed as an adult. The witnesses were administered Breathalyzer tests, which most of them passed. Because there were still three witnesses whose stories corroborated each other's, the tale cannot be summarily dismissed.
The absence of records by an attending physician complicates the court case. Unimpeachable sources have been hard to come by in this controversy. He may as well have sprung from the ocean foam like Venus, aka Aphrodite. That was another famous and legendary birth not attended by a physician.
There were also rumors of witnesses claiming that the birth of Obama was heralded by a huge star in the firmament, which led three Wise Men to a stable in Nazareth, but no credence was given to such outlandish claims.
Was Barack Obama born to his alleged mother Stanley Ann, or was he delivered to the world by extraordinary means not usual among mere mortals? Could Obama really be The One?
Inquiring minds want to know.
(This has been SATIRE. This is NOT a real news report.)
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