Humor

Contents

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“President Pence”

Vice President Pence has been overheard talking about his becoming president after Trump is impeached. “It would be a short presidency, I know, maybe just a day or two, but I’ll always be able to say ‘I was president.’ And I’m wondering about my presidential library. Every president gets a presidential library. But I guess it’ll probably be a small library, with maybe only one book.”

“Folding”

(In the spirit of Mark Twain)

Last night as we were driving back from a restaurant my step daughter mentions an essay about Jays and Death that I had written the day before and posted on Facebook. She said, and I think it was a compliment, “You’ll write about just about anything, won’t you Art?”

I said, “Yah, pretty much.”

“Well how about ‘folding’?”

“Folding?” I said. “You mean ‘folding’ as folding when your bluff has been called in a poker game? Or ‘folding’ as when you’re down 5-0 in the third set of a USTA tennis match?”

She said, “No, I mean ‘folding’ as in ‘folding clothes’. Isn’t that a life skill?”

Ah, so there I think I detected some sarcasm. She was obviously poking fun at my “skillful living theory of human happiness.” I was just a tiny bit annoyed with this. I’ve been working on this theory for years. She shouldn’t be making fun of it. Of course I would never say this to her face. She looks like a kind, gentle younger lady. But you don’t mess with her. She’s constantly at the gym working on her fitness. I tried for years to get muscles as big as hers, but I folded on that one.

Folding. Obviously she doesn’t understand my theory of skillful living. Folding is definitely not a life skill, at least not for most men. I don’t mean that folding clothes is not manly. I mean that we, at least most of us men, are incapable of doing it. We’ve tried and tried, but eventually we (not the clothes) folded. How many of us when we were first married spent 10-15 minutes trying to fold one of our wife’s blouses, only to have her immediately take up the blouse and re-fold it (in about 15 seconds from start to finish)? That was wasted time on our parts, better spent doing something that our wives would actually like, maybe something they can’t or won’t do, like mowing the lawn, cleaning the toilet, or taking the rat out of the trap.

One of life’s skills is in knowing what not to do and folding clothes is definitely one of those things. Skillful living doesn’t require that we become skillful at every gall darn thing. Otherwise we, at least the men, would spend all of our time trying to learn how to balance pencils on our noses and burping the “Star Spangled Banner”.

For most men, folding clothes is like trying to balance a pencil on our noses; it’s something we would like to do when we’re drunk or stoned or in love, but then we sober up.

After I read this much to my wife she suggested that I stop, and I folded.

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“The Incredible Cowboy”

We were told this story in Santa Fe many years ago.  The man who told us the story claims it’s true, but I haven’t been able to verify it, even though I’ve spent hours looking on the internet for more information about the cowboy in the story.

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The salesman was young and new to the game, so he often was given the terrible assignments.  This time he had fly to a small town in South Texas and then drive another hour and a half to another small town.  And he had had to change planes twice just to get to the first town. 

After checking into his hotel, he walked around the main street of town looking for something to do.  The town didn’t even seem to have a decent restaurant.  He spotted a poster hanging on a pole:  “Come see the Incredible Cowboy.”  Well, he didn’t have anything else to do.  Why not?

When the salesman got to the small outdoor theatre he sat near the front.  The room was crowded.  He was surprised to see this many people.  Where did they all come from?  The only thing on stage was a table.  It looked like the legs had been shortened a bit, so that the table stood about waist high.

After being announced the cowboy walked out.  He looked about 30 and had a slight limp.  After looking at the audience and tipping his hat, he said:  “Last time some of you were questioning whether my walnuts had been tampered with so they would break easily, so I’ve asked Marcy at the grocery store to bring some walnuts here directly from her store.  Marcy?”  Marcy got up and handed him three walnuts which he placed about a foot apart on the table.

The cowboy then proceeded to unzip his pants and pull out his, uh, wanger.  He grabbed it with two hands much like you would grab a baseball bat, took aim, and then smashed it down on the first walnut.  The walnut shattered, with pieces flying almost as far as the first row.  Then one after another, he took aim and shattered each of the remaining walnuts to pieces. 

The cowboy then tipped his hat and began walking off stage to tremendous clapping and hooting.  The salesman quickly jumped up and caught up to the cowboy.  “Wow.  That was incredible!  Doesn’t that hurt? Why not use something like grapes instead of walnuts?”

“Doesn’t hurt if you do it right.  What would be the challenge in using grapes?”

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Thirty years later the same salesman, with the same shitty job, found himself in the same shitty town.  He had nearly forgotten about the incredible cowboy until he noticed the poster advertising the circus and still featuring the “incredible cowboy.”

He sat down in the first row.  The short-legged table was again the only thing on stage as the cowboy came on.  More than 30 years later and the cowboy had aged considerably.  His hair was all grey.  He wore thick glasses.  And he shuffled to the table behind a walker.

The cowboy looked up at the crowd and tipped his hat.  A pretty young cowgirl came up from one of the seats with a basket.  Out of her basket she took three coconuts and placed them on the table side by side, spaced about a foot apart.  As before, the cowboy unzipped his pants, pulled out his wanger, grabbed it with two hands, and smashed the first coconut into pieces.  He proceeded to do the same to the other two coconuts.  Then he tipped his hat and began shuffling offstage to thunderous applause.

The salesman caught up to him.  “Wow!  I saw your act 30 years ago and you smashed three walnuts.  That was incredible.  But now coconuts?  Why coconuts?”

“Well, my eyes just ain’t what they used to be.”