How I Met Someone Else’s Mother

“Clarissa Emmet Grayson – this is Reginald Powell Hunnicutt, lawyer, adventurer and perhaps the most eligible bachelor at our New Year’s Eve Masquerade Ball. Reggie, Clarissa is co-chairperson of tonight’s do and last year was voted  The Girl Boys Were Most Mad For.”

“Charmed to meet you, Reginald.”

“And I you, Clarissa. I’d be forever in your debt if you’d allow me the next dance. And if the dance seemed adequate to you, perhaps we could steal away later for a candlelit midnight supper aboard my sloop, Fandango.  If we hit it off, which I am certain we will, we could fly to Rio and be married as the Brazilian sky turns pink with dawn. We’ll have three kids: two boys and a girl – but each will have initials starting with G. We’ll be known as America’s finest family.  And we’ll grow old together and die in each other’s arms.”

“I’m sorry, Reginald I can’t dance.”

“Ah, well.  Punch, then?”

Where Babies Go When the World is Too Much For Them

Her eyes droop like a flag at half-mast. Her little hands rub them as if sleep were a cobweb she could brush from her face.

She turns into a tiny Jekyl and Hyde swinging from mad laughter to tears. Her mood is now as grumpy as a pensioner being informed that his deductible is going up another fifty bucks.

Her eyes grow heavier. She fights it. She tries to fling the drowsiness from her body, twisting and turning every which way. Whimpering with small cries of desperation.

Up onto a shoulder she’s flung. One final moan as she is abandoned by her most favorite pal on earth. Gentle rocking. The world grows soft, warm and lazy.

She drifts away to a long ago place where she bobbed among the waves of a pink sea and her Mama’s voice was a distant murmur.

“They Will Soon Be Men”.

More often than not they will argue from ignorance.

They won’t hunt for food but they will spring from their cars, at the slightest insult, ready to rip out the throats of other drivers.

They will look forward, all year, to their vacations.  Then they will spend their time worrying about how their office is faring in their absence and complaining about how few of the comforts from home their hotel has.

They will never truly learn to dress themselves.

They will go on and on about how the world is going to hell in a hand basket but instead of doing anything to help they will watch Monday Night Football or Sunday Night Football.  And on occasion Thursday Night Football.

They will look like their moms and act like their dads.

They will spend their entire lives trying to be like the fathers on television.  They will fail.

Hail Mary: The Amazing Story Behind the Prayer

“Hail, Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee.”

“What?”

“Hail, Mary full of grace…”

“Yes, I heard you – but I’m not getting your drift.”

“I have been sent by the Creator of All  to say unto you, “Hail Mary…”

“Okay, stop.  The words I could repeat in my sleep, but what does it mean?”

“The Lord is going to change your life in a profound way.  You will carry within you His Child.  The Messiah.  King of Kings. Holy of Holies. Son of our Lord God on high.”

“No, thank you. I’m sure it’s a very great honor but it just doesn’t sound like me.  There is a carpenter named Joseph.  He lives in town, and if I play my cards right I could marry him. But if I have… what – God’s Baby?   Then I can just kiss those plans good-bye.”

“But I have been sent.  It’s all been arranged.  Prophesied and everything.”

“Sorry.”

“There’s this great play in football that will be named after you.”

“What?”

“Nothing it’s a joke that Michael told me to say.”

“Wait, are those wings?

“Yes.”

“Hunh…”

“So, come on… You’ll get your name in the Bible.”

“Oh, okay.”

A Rhapsodic Reverie Followed by a Rhapsody

“I would like to dedicate my next number to several souls who should never be forgotten.  My Grandfather, Bublichki who died when I was a baby. He went out to get me a rattle and was trampled by an army horse.  My namesake Great Uncle Sasha who was killed trying to protect me from the saber of a Soviet soldier.  A soldier I had inadvertently referred to as a foul smelling guttersnipe.”

“And who could forget my twin, Kesha who was sent to his grave by some poisoned kolaches from the hand of his jealous wife when she suspected him of cheating with her mother?  A tragic case of mistaken identity since it was I who was dating her mother.”

“Lastly, my eternal thanks to the various members of the Stedelijk clan who disappeared after they aided me in my escape from the Iron Curtain…  Ready, boys?  One-two-three — The Hungarian Rhapsody.”

Naughty and Nice at the North Pole

Note: Commander Peary and Dr. Cook both claimed to have reached the North Pole.

Commander Peary greets the men at breakfast with a heart felt inspiring verse to buck them up before the day’s perilous trek.

Dr. Cook sneaks in before the guys get out of their warm sleeping bags, flings dirty slush in their faces and saunters away whistling a bawdy ditty.

Commander Peary declines to have a hand at cards. He much prefers to quietly read the Bible.

Dr. Cook has an elaborate scheme using mirrors and drugged coffee that allows him to cheat the men at pinochle. On payday all checks are immediately signed over to him.

Commander Peary, shortly before departing on the expedition, stripped to his undergarments to help the mechanics with a broken boiler.

Dr. Cook was seen the same night flirting (and rumored more) with the mechanic’s wives.

Commander Peary has degrees from Harvard, Oxford, the Sorbonne and the University of Heidelberg gracing the wall of his den.

Dr. Cook has the same degrees framed in his office.  He also has a page from the Gutenberg Bible and the Deed to Paradise up on the wall.

Commander Peary is the toughest, bravest, smartest, most heroic man most people have ever known.

Dr. Cook looks pretty darn dashing when his face is swaddled in fur.

Commander Peary is a man of the new century.

Dr. Cook is a man of the new millennium.

But Anastasia, Annabella and Clementine were waiting for someone entirely from the North Pole.

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like a Christmys-tery

THE CLUES:

A crushed 1/2-gallon carton of eggnog with the entire ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas printed on the back.

Reindeer-prints on the roof, but none next to the house.

A half-smoked pack of Elf cigarettes (most popular brand of woodland creatures).

A white facial hair: Caucasian in origin, age indeterminate.

A large, empty bag with toy-sized dents in it.

A Joan Baez Christmas CD with the words “Eat fruitcake and die!” scrawled over Joan’s face.

An Entertainment Weekly with all 3,008 Christmas TV specials circled in red and green.

An ornately-wrapped present that can mysteriously be easily unwrapped by lifting the top off the box.

One very dead Douglas Fir (the man, not the tree. But also the tree the corpse was leaning against.  And it’s true the tree was also dead).

All of these, dumped into Sgt. Quinn Peggington’s lap.  It was going to be one hell of a Boxing Day.

If Not Moses (“Pulled From the Water”) How About…?

SHLECTA– To leave the door open and the cat gets out.

POLYBUS — Being able to breathe under the waters of the Nile by using a shore line reed.

ONONONO — Noticing that a full glass is about to tip over but not being able to catch it in time.

PFEFFERNACHT — Buying a sibling something for their birthday that you really want for yourself.

KLONIMINI — The last little bit of food that the child won’t eat so the mother just shrugs and scarfs it down so it won’t go to waste.

MAMARUSH — The smelly silt of the Nile even the poorest farmer refuses to use, but makes all the neighborhood dogs go nuts when they find it dumped in the bushes.

CLUCHETTA — The moment at which all the furniture that has just been moved around the room is put back in its original spot.

ABLOMANSTY — The sugar of a donut that remains in the bag it came in.

TEETERITI — When somebody gets your name wrong over and over again.

QUOP — Picking up a box by the wrong end so everything falls on the ground with such a clatter that everyone looks up from what they’re doing and starts to point and go “tsk” as if it had never happened to them.

Always Make a Background Check on Service Providers on Craigslist.

“Greetings, Steinkellner children.  My name is Stashu Smykowski. I am an ex-warrior and semi-retired death merchant. I have been hired to instill cold, logical discipline in you.  Your parents are too soft-of-heart.  That is why I am here. My heart is a piece of anthracite, a faceful of gravel, the dark side of the moon. Your dimpled smiles, clever come-backs and whimsical logic will be wasted on me.

My life stinks.  Anyone I ever loved was been lost through war, political turmoil or cataclysmic weather. No need to detail those losses. I only bring them up so you will know how beautiful your life is. And you will realize you are not dealing with some Montessori kindergarten teacher.

We begin.

Rule Number One: Failure to put your dirty dishes in the dishwasher will require you to spend the afternoon in a small wooden hot box the size of B’rer Kitty.

Number Two: The eating of purple or red jawbreakers without permission will be punished by having you consume a like amount of gopher livers and sand.

Three: Failure to rise from bed quickly will be punished by buckets of ice  in the undergarments until verticality has been achieved.

Back talk, cursing, refusal to leave for an appointment on-time, or vocal disagreements concerning last minute changes of plans will be punished by flogging with wet clothes that you have long-since outgrown. Any direct command of mine will cause me to go all volcano on you.  You will never wish to see that.

To show how serious I am, I will now punish your father.”

Paranormal Sightings and Men’s Beards

One day Uncle Dockweiler woke up to find an apparition of St. Dominic peeking out of his beard.  His wife of some fifty-three years, Clarice, looked up from her porridge and saw it. Her first response was to run screaming from the kitchen. Her second response was to never return. Uncle Dockweiler received a fairly newsy postcard from her that had a picture of the Winchester Mystery House  on it – but that was it.

So, Uncle D. was forced to withstand all of the unwanted attention alone. He made the front page of the Gentileschi Gazette. It was against his nature but he figured that was your obligation, when a miracle is sighted just below your chin. He allowed himself to be studied like a split-open frog.  For several weeks his beard became a must-see.  Among the hundreds who eye-balled him were a fair amount of clergymen, a handful of scientists, and two barbers.

Of course the day came when he would have to make a visit to the Holy Father himself. It irked Uncle Dockweiler that he had to cool his heels while the Pontiff blessed a troop of Webeloes. And he definitely became out-of-sorts when the powers-that-be in the Vatican had the nerve to say that the apparition looked more like a young chimpanzee than the leader of a holy order.

Eventually the novelty wore off.  The public became more enthralled by a chicken that clucked the Lord’s Prayer and a baby with a birthmark that was the spitting image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Uncle D.’s  life returned to normal.  Except his wife never came back.  Whenever he had pie, he sure did miss her.