Month: October 2022

Can’t Be Sure

Bob was driving home on a moonlit night. As he rounded the curve in the darkness on a quiet road, flashing lights, flares, and police officers came in view beside an overturned car. When he tried to pull over, the officer tried wave to wave him on.

“Move on, Buddy. No rubbernecking,” said the officer.

“But officer, that looks just like my my buddy Joe’s car.” answered Bob.

“”Oh yeah, “ said the officer. “

Then you might be able to help us out. We haven’t found an ID yet, but I have to warn you, the guy is dead. It’s actually worse than that. He’s decapitated. You need to think about it first. It might be too much for you.”

Bob was horrified, but didn’t want to look unmanly in front of the officers. “I can do this,” he thought.

Screwing up his courage, he replied. “I’m ready. Take me over.”

The officer led him a short distance away where a bloody body had been thrown from the car and piled into a tree. In the dark, some distance away lay a head. The officer asked, “ Is this your friend?”

Bob took a long look.”Well, that’s the way Joe had his hair cut.” Taking a closer look, he said, “and Joe’s got a gold tooth like that with a star in it, but I still can’t be sure.”

Picking up the head, he held it up in the moonlight to get a better look. “It sure looks like Joe, but I don’t remember him being this tall.”

Things Happen

“They’re in the dishwasher, but should be finished by now.”I told him.

During my errands yesterday, I got a phone call from Bud. “Didn’t you tell me you washed those jars of corned beef you canned? I was going to put them in the pantry and I can’t find them. Where did you put them?” He sounded totally bewildered.

“Why in the world did you do that? Oh, never mind!” He blustered.

We’ve been married more than fifty years, but Bud still forgets it makes perfect sense to me to wash jars of canned goods in the dishwasher. We paid a lot for that dishwasher and need to get full value. Why run a sink full of soapy water to wash them by hand and risk having a slippery jar crash and break? The dishwasher does a great job.

I’ve always felt appliances should be multi-functional. I’ve already done my own research and can tell you some pitfalls, but the idea is great.

Ovens make excellent emergency dryers, but don’t do your hair. Putting your head in the oven makes a bad impression. Properly done, ovens could be used for clothes, shoes, and other stuff you might not want, or be able to put in your clothes dryer. Also, the dryer might be on the blink. (Possibly from Multi-Function Appliance Use)I do have a couple of cautions, however. When drying your dainties in the oven, pre-heat it to a nice warm temp, then turn it off. Be sure to put them on a nice cool cookie sheet before you slide them in. When mine hit the hot oven rack they sizzled and melted. Long crosswise burns across the butt was not a look I could live with.

I ran into a little problem drying my son’s tennis shoes in the oven before I’d worked all the kinks out of my system. His only pair had to be dry for school the next morning, so in the oven they went. It’s a lot easier to set the temperature higher than you think, believe me. I forgot to set the timer. In just a bit, I smelled rubber burning. By the time I got to them, melted shoe soles dripped to the oven floor. Still thinking they could be salvaged, I worked the shoes free, hoping I could saw the drippy soles off smooth. Didn’t work. The toes curled up till the shoes looked like skis. We ended up making a flying trip to the store with him in his socked feet, getting there just before the store closed at nine.Bud was totally unreasonable about the whole situation

To be continued

One Small Thing

The snake had some questions for God about his latest creation.

“What’s this?” Snake.

“its a man.” God

“What are these two round things?” Snake

“Those are eyes, so they can see my other creations” God

“and these things?” Snake

“They’re called hands, so they can create things just like i did” God

“and these?” Snake

“Those are feet. The four toes will help man balace when he walks.” God

“”Can I add just one thing, big toe for the furniture?” Snake

“ what is furniture? God

“trust me, it will be hilarious” Snake

Fifty-Two Pies

I love a well-stocked pantry. It makes me feel good to can and freeze food so that I can pull out good, wholesome “fast food” to serve at a moment’s notice. My husband, Bud loves pie. One summer, we had a bumper crop of butternut squash, so I reasoned it would be a great idea to make some of these up into pies and freeze them. I rolled
enough piecrust to build a driveway, prepared large kettles of pie filling, and kept my oven going till I had fifty-two beautiful butternut pies ready for the freezer. My kitchen looked like a bomb had gone off, but I was proud of those pies as I wrapped them and stacked them in the freezer, anticipating the pleasure of pulling out a pie from time to time to enjoy after a good meal with family and friends, along with a good story.

It didn’t exactly work out as I planned. I hadn’t taken Bud’s love of pie into consideration but I did get a good story out of the deal. Bud was delighted with “his” pies. All the food at our house undergoes an immediate conversion the minute it is cooked and becomes “his” as in, “Is there any more of my apple pie?” or “Who ate the last piece of MY pie?” I wouldn’t dream of making a dessert to take to work without making an identical one for home. I don’t know if he would be more hurt if I “ran around” or “cooked around” on him. He still hasn’t forgiven me for giving away a strawberry-rhubarb pie over twenty years ago and still brings it up regularly.

Anyway, Bud and I had pie after dinner that night. It was delicious. He finished the pie off the next day after lunch. When he went to get “his” pie after dinner that night and found the pies all frozen, he was horrified. I explained to him, again, that I made them to freeze and serve over the next few months. Apparently, my first explanation had gone straight over his head, like so much of my mindless babbling. (We’ve been married fifty-four years That’s how it works.) Frozen, in relationship to food he was planning to eat right then, is the F word at our house. We try to avoid it.Heartbroken and betrayed, he self-righteously pulled a pie from freezer and left it on the counter to thaw overnight. He consoled himself with butternut squash pie for breakfast the next morning, adding it to his new breakfast menu. That was just the start. Unless there was another dessert on the menu, you can bet Bud had butternut squash pie, sequentially going through that mountain of pies in less than three months. When I had the satisfaction of eating the last, lonely piece of the final pie, Bud spoke what were very nearly his last words, “You ate my pie!”

All’s Fair

A trucker stopped at a roadside diner for lunch and ordered a cheeseburger, coffee and a slice of apple pie. As he was about to dig in, three bikers stomped in.

One stared him down, grabbed his cheeseburger and took a huge bite from it. The second one drank the trucker’s coffee, and the third gobbled down his pie. The truck driver didn’t say a word as he paid the waitress and left.

As the waitress walked up, one of the motorcyclists growled, “He ain’t much of a man, is he?”

“He’s not much of a driver, either,” the waitress replied. “He just backed his 18-wheeler over three motorcycles.”