Descent Into Madness

It's a troubling feeling when you find that you can't tell fact from fiction.  Take last night for example.  I was rushing through all of my news sites on line before I went to bed.  I was getting more tired by the minute and was attempting to bookmark some articles that I wanted to come back and read in the next day or so.  Finally, I became so sleepy, that I just put the computer to sleep and turned in.  This morning I was working on a project, and suddenly the phrase "Pee Funnel" came into my head.

This stopped me dead in my tracks, and I tried to remember if I had glanced over an article about using a funnel to pee though, or if I had dreamt of myself peeing in a funnel.  I think it stayed with me because it was a really good idea.  When a guy gets older, he just doesn't have that "force"that he used to have to push the old piss out at a high velocity.  As you stand and dribble over the bowl, you long for the days when your mighty piss stream punched a hole in the water with a resounding Niagara Falls type thunder. Not only do you dribble, your aim is severely compromised and you end up going other places besides inside the bowl on occasion.  Very messy.

If you peed into a funnel, your problems would be over and all of your expelled liquid would go exactly where you wanted it.  Problem is, what to do with the funnel afterwards?  If you just get a regular funnel, you've got to have some easy way to rinse it out and store it, unless you're just gross.

So, in a misguided two prong attempt to not only try to find out if I was actually reading an article about peeing into a funnel and find out if they make funnels designed specifically for this purpose, I hit the Google.

And I learned that Google can get away from you like a grease covered pig if you're not careful.

I did find a site selling disposable pee funnels for women ... a lot of sites as a matter of fact.  Women obviously are serious about taking a piss standing up.  Here are the best ones as far as I could tell.

Take Your Pick Ladies!

The Freshette Trough, the Travel Maxi (doubles as a a stake for your camping tent), as well as the Whizzy and EZPee disposables.  I could find no pee funnels for men, but we guys could no doubt use the womens models as long as we didn't make an embarrassing public display of ourselves, unlike this woman who actually demonstrated one on some Australian television talk show ...

Aussie Gals Love To Pee Into Giant Pilsner Glasses

Okay, my question was answered about as adequately as it was going to be ... I still don't know if I read it or dreamt it, but let's move on now.

Except ... that picture of the woman peeing was pretty fuzzy, and I wanted a better one to post.  So I Googled "pictures of women peeing", but just got a bunch of fuzzier pictures, except for one of a Japanese woman peeing in a slit toilet, but the site wouldn't let me copy it. Damn it.  But I looked for more anyway, and you know how the farther you go down a search list, the item that your targeted keeps getting more obscure?  Well, I ended up at one site that was about nothing but women drinking their own urine.  Gross!  And no pictures! Damn it again!

Being lazy, I just went up to my finder bar and started backspacing on what I had written, until I was down to "pictures of women pe" when Google got all excited and suggested that I look for "pictures of women with enormous breasts"  Well, since Google went to all that trouble to look for me, I decided to take them up on their offer.  Which led me to discover that ...

"Twenty Eight-year-old Sheyla Hershey of Brazil is the proud owner of the world's largest breasts - with a staggering, life-threatening, and unfortunately-named bra size of 38KKK."

Congratulations Sheyla!  Definitely More Than A Handful!

Apparently Sheyla underwent eight surgeries and had over one gallon of silicone pumped into her boobies to achieve her epic proportions.  You go girl!

After gawking at numerous pictures of Sheyla for a couple of minutes I continued on until Google asked me if I'd like to look at "pictures of women with three breasts"?  In for a penny, in for a pound ...

This Has To Be Photoshopped, Right?  Right??

Incidentally, there is a medical term for a woman with "accessory breasts"  It is called  Polymastia.  Also incidentally, this was more information than I needed to know.

Frankly, after an hour of reading articles and viewing pictures of pee funnels, pee ingestion, humongo hooters and 3 boobies to a rack, I was feeling a bit "icky".  So I quickly closed my browser so as not to give Google any more opportunities to shower me with depravity.

And I went downstairs to watch an episode of Maury Povich, featuring brothers and sisters who marry.

Ahhhh, much better.

Life In These United States

When I was a young man in my "tweens", I had great ambitions to become a writer.  By the way, what is the "tweens" anyway?  I think it was coined to describe that period of time in a young persons life when they are not a child anymore, but not yet a young adult.  But what would that time be?  You're either not a teen, or you're a teen.  So, the "tweens" has to be precisely 12 1/2 years old.

Anyway, I had a lot of dreams in my "tweens", and by in large, they were crushed.  The writing thing went the way of Fat Sam when I took my first English Composition class in college and realized I sucked gas.  I recovered later in life, but the result is this blog, so I think the description "crushed" still applies.

But back then I was full of hope and ambition, and was actively looking for someway to break into the word biz. In 1964 (aka, the Bronze Age), I figured the best way was to send articles to magazines.  However they couldn't be any real good magazines, because those editors were highly sophisticated and  would no doubt recognize the musings of a pre-pubescent kid at 100 yards.

At the time, we had a subscription to Reader's Digest magazine, and each new issue was proudly displayed on our toilet tank in the bathroom next to the box of EZ Stryke Matches.  Incidentally, I was 10 years old before it came to me why the matches were on the toilet tank.  I knew my parents always lit one after they had used the facility, but I thought it was some mystic ritual that I would be taught when I grew older.  And then one day, it hit me that the smell of sulfur covered over the horrendous stench after either my mother or father had unleashed one of their cabbage stuffed devil dogs.

I always considered Reader's Digest to be kind of lowbrow, but this made it a perfect choice for me to show off my writing chops.  Even though it sort of sucked, I did like the little features they contained like "Life In These United States".  There were a couple of others that were almost identical, but I forget what they were called.  So, I thought long and hard and crafted together a couple of anecdotes, which were of course, totally fictional, but what did they know?

I never got up the nerve to submit them, but a few months ago, I ran across them in a box of papers in the basement.  Rather than burn them, I thought I'd share ...

***

Halloween is a huge event in our neighborhood.  Spooky decorations, free candy and great costumes.  In fact, many of the adults dress up in costumes when they accompany their kids trick-or-treating.  On our first Halloween at our new house, I answered the door to group of kids whose mother was dressed up like a pirate. I complimented her on her choice of costumes as I distributed treats to her children.


About a month later, I bumped into the same woman at the grocery store.  Imagine my embarrassment when I realized that she was, in fact, a pirate.

***

Early one morning, the phone rang, and I sleepily answered it.  "Hello?"


My girlfriend at the time, who was on the other end of the phone replied "Hello!"


"Who is this?", I asked, still extremely out of it.


"It's me.", she replied.


"Who?"


"Your girlfriend!"


"Yerg Irlfred?" I said confusedly.


"Your girl ... friend!"  She was sounding very annoyed.


"I'm sorry, but I don't know anyone by that name."


"NO YOU IDIOT, IT'S YOUR GIRLFRIEND!"


"I think you have the wrong number Yerg."  I said before groggily hanging up the phone.


I guess you had to be there ....

I wonder if they still publish Readers Digest?  Just maybe ...

Bizarro World

This morning I was looking up some information using our village website when I realized that I was not looking at Lindenhurst, Illinois, but Lindenhurst, New York.  The site must get a lot of this, because the first message that came up said something like "if you were looking for Lindenhurst, IL, you're in the wrong place, but come on in and take a look anyway".  Well, shit like this intrigues me, so I decided to see what was going on in our sister village half-way across the country.  I was surprised at some of the similarities, but of course, there are some differences besides the obvious geography.

Both villages have about the same population and occupy approximately the same amount of land.  Both are governed by a mayor and a board of trustees.  And just for fun, Lindenhurst, NY is the birthplace of singer Pat Benatar and 50's game show host Jack Barry.  Alas, Lindenhurst, IL has no favorite celebrity sons or daughters.

However, as I investigated further, I began to discover some not-so-fun things about our New York cousin. While Lindenhurst, IL (LIL) was incorporated from a farm in 1956 by gentile farmy folk, Lindenhurst, New York (LNY) was founded by descendants of fierce Germanic tribes from Silesia in 1873.  Originally named Breslau, the name was changed to the more innocuous Lindenhurst in 1891.

As Arte Johnston of Laugh-In fame would say:

Verrrrrry Suspicious

I dug further and found that  Nazi sympathizers of the German Bund were centralized in Breslau Lindenhurst in the early part of the 20th century.  In the 1930's many LNY residents were tried and convicted for treason.  And in 1937, up to 40,000 bundists would blow into town on any given Sunday to celebrate Nazism in America, greeted by young Siegfrieders lined up to meet them at the train station.

Just In Case You Wondered What A Siegfrieder Was

Hmmm ...  I looked at some pictures from the website ...

Parks Department Employees

Wehrmacht Welcome Wagon Members

Christmas Parade

Village Mayor and Trustees

And then to top it off, I found this headline ... ripped from the local Topix page:

Village of Lindenhurst is Corrupt

Oh my ... the things you learn on an innocent data search on a Sunday morning.

Postcript:  Just in case any of you litigious leaning Lindenhurst, NY residents read this ... I'm just kidding! I'm sure you have a wonderful little community!  Except, what's up with those two middle pictures which are actually on the village website?  I mean, really?

I'm Aware I Shouldn't Laugh

I'm admittedly a fairly cynical individual.  Present me with a positive situation, and I'll tear it apart until I find something negative about it.  Show me a light at the end of the tunnel and I'll wait for the speeding train that's behind it.

As a result, I don't laugh very often.  I do that "social laugh" thing when I'm in a conversation with someone and I don't want to seem like a stick-in-the-mud asshole, but that's about it.  Some people have said that I have a "dry" sense of humor, but Jan says that they're just being nice and they really mean warped, macabre or bizarre.

I suppose that's about right.  I do like to watch comedy, but I'm not moved to laugh very often.  In fact, I consciously try not to laugh.  This works most of the time, but there are exceptions.  Ron White used to be one, but I grew tired of his cigar, bourbon and tater salad shit.  Lately, Demetri Martin makes me snort at some of his skits, but he's becoming a little tiring too.

There is one person that I'm almost ashamed to admit that I like to watch.  I'll find myself laughing at some of his crap even if I'm trying not to.  As an example, one Saturday night Jan and I found ourselves watching "Step Brothers", only because we didn't have any ears of corn that needed shucking.  Try as we did not to, we found ourselves snorting at several of the scenes in the movie.  And each time we'd look at each other sheepishly and shake our heads.

Yes ... I like Will Ferrell.  Not all of the time, but he's just goofy and off-the-wall enough that he catches me off balance on occasion, and I laugh at him.  Maybe that's all that comedy is ... catching you off guard.

The other night, I was drifting through the inter-tubes and came across a piece with Ferrell in it.  Yeah, this is the kind of stuff I laugh at.  I probably need professional help.

Enjoy Bat Fight.

You Know You've Had It With Winter ...

You know you've had it with winter when:

Parking your salt encrusted vehicle at work is actually embarrassing.

You shovel a spot in the back yard so you can see grass from your kitchen window.

The Burpee's Seed Catalog is more interesting reading than the Victoria's Secret All Bra Catalog.

You empty the bottle of Aveeno Hand Healing Lotion that you just bought in December.

A 37 degree day with a 25 mph wind is "refreshing".

You realize that there has been snow on the ground since Thanksgiving weekend ... OVER 90 DAYS AGO!

You run out of blankets to put on your bed.

White tennis shoes with slacks don't look so bad because at least you're not ruining your dress shoes by slogging through the slush and salty muck.

You have terminal "hat hair".

The skin on your ankles starts cracking.

You store frozen food in the garage ... and there's no freezer out there.

Florida starts to sound like a nice place to live.

You've actually experienced all of the above.