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Esther Blumenfeld  

The purpose of this web site is to entertain.  My humor columns died along with the magazines where they were printed, although I cannot claim responsibility for their demise.  I still have something to say, and if I can bring a laugh or two to your day, my mission will be fulfilled.

Everyone I know thinks he has a sense of humor.  Here is my unsolicited advice. If you try to be funny and no one laughs, don’t worry about it.  However, if you try to be funny and no one EVER laughs, you might have a little problem.

 

Entries from September 1, 2012 - September 30, 2012

Friday
Sep282012

Simple Simon

We have entered the silly season, and for the next few weeks will listen to politicians make claims such as, “My Daddy is bigger than your Daddy.”

A knowledgeable guest on NPR (National Public Radio) informed listeners that the average reading level of people in the United States is between 8th and 9th grade, so now political strategists have advised their clients to “dumb down” language. They suggest that candidates who have graduated from schools such as Harvard or Princeton use simple words such as “duh” when trying to convince people to vote for them.

Of course, this advice extends to political debates. Beware when a candidate says, “I am speechless!” I can promise you that he will not be at a loss for words---lots and lots and lots of words. So, in our future we will listen to political debates that will go something like this:

Candidate #1:  I started out dirt poor.

Candidate #2:  Well, I am filthy rich and proud of it, and people in this country want to end up as filthy as I am.

Candidate #1:  The cat is out of the bag. I care more about the middle class than you do.

Candidate #2:  You hurt my feelings. I like the middle class. As a matter of fact, I am head over heels in love with the middle class. You started out dirt poor, and I am filthy rich, and they are in the middle. Why wouldn’t I like people who stand between you and me?

Candidate #1:  I am concerned about the health of our citizens. They eat too much junk food.

Candidate #2:  Maybe if the Packers had a running game, they’d be more in shape.

Candidate #1:  You just lost Wisconsin. Yippee!

Candidate #2:  But I’m fit as a fiddle, so the Boston Pops will vote for me.

Candidate #1:  A little bird told me that the job market is improving. That makes me happy as a clam.

Candidate #2:  Fat chance you can make that claim. Tell that to the guy who doesn’t have a job.

Candidate # 1:  I just did.

Candidate #2:  Slim chance you are going to keep yours.

Candidate #1:  Beating you will be easy as pie. You are a bully.

Candidate #2:  That is the pot calling the kettle black.

Candidate #1: You are a racist.

Candidate #2:  I take umbrage to that assertion.

Candidate #1:  Ha! Ha! I made you use big words.

Candidate #2:  I will see you again at the next debate.

Candidate #1:  How about I send you an autographed picture instead?

 

Esther Blumenfeld (I approve this message)

 

Thursday
Sep202012

Class Dismissed

Years later, a teacher will remember the excellent students and the trouble- makers. The rest seem to fall between the cracks. It’s the same when looking back at the teachers who have touched our lives. For some inexplicable reason, I recently took a gander at my high school yearbook. The inscriptions that classmates wrote were unanimous. In those days, I was a “swell gal.” Looking at their photographs, I remembered most of them, but not everyone---especially the girl who wrote, “Remember our year in typing.”

I fondly remember the only teacher with a Master’s Degree. Don’t know how he landed in the one public high school in my small Indiana town, but he valiantly tried to impart a love for Shakespeare and the English language to many students who could care less. But neither this fine man nor my classmates are whom I want to write about.

As Woody Allen so aptly put it, “My education was dismal. I went to a series of schools for mentally disturbed teachers.” It started in grade school, when the beautiful Miss Bowman (whom I adored) whacked one of the boys on his hands with a ruler. I heard the crack from across the room, and from then on sat on my hands and kept my mouth shut. I don’t remember any other teachers from those grade school days, but can’t forget some of odd birds from my high school.

The girls’ Physical Education teacher, Miss Barbarian wound a tight braid of hair around her head to prevent her brain from falling out when she was jumping around. Gum chewing was the worst offence in Barbarian’s class, and if she caught a culprit chewer, she’d make the hapless girl spit the gum on the floor, step on it, and then scrape it up with a spoon---a strengthening exercise for the forearm.

For me, participating in sports was an alien concept, and she tried in vain to make a jock out of me. Climbing a rope hand over hand was not my goal in life, and after getting my ankles bruised black and blue in field hockey, I volunteered to be a referee.

I then reasoned that Home Arts would be a safer class. Little Miss Leo, who wore her hair in ringlets, and washed her clothes in White Shoulders perfume, was my teacher. Between sneezes, I learned that everything you cook has to be smothered in white sauce, which, when thickened, could substitute for paste in art class. Miss Leo also taught sewing. I had trouble threading the spindle, spinning the wheel and pumping the pedal on the old sewing machine—all at the same time. I wasn’t surprised when she made me tear out the crooked stitches in the apron I had fashioned. I wasn’t upset, because the only time I planned on wearing it was to protect my dress from white sauce paste in art class.

Miss Tippler doubled as an English teacher and drama coach. She dyed her hair flaming red, and surreptitiously took sips out of a bottle, that she kept in a brown bag in her desk. She wanted to cast me as Mary in the Christmas Pageant, because she said, “You look the part.” I graciously declined, because neither of us had been in Bethlehem at the time, and consequently didn’t know what Mary really looked like. Besides, I wasn’t going to take any assignment from a teacher who was drunk as a skunk.

One of the best teachers I ever met was my son Josh’s second grade teacher, Mrs. McIntyre. Every child in her class achieved excellence to the best of his or her ability. For example, the children in her class gave “morning talks” that taught them to gather, analyze and present material in a meaningful way. 

Josh had a friend, Joey whose father was a physician. The doctor took the boys to the hospital for a tour, and while there, each of them were treated to a urine test, which they gingerly carried to Mrs. McIntyre’s class for a joint presentation. When they finished their talk, Mrs. McIntyre asked if any of the children had any questions. That’s when Sammy, in a jealous pique, said, “My Dad had a vasectomy. Can I bring him for Show and Tell?” For the first time, Mrs. McIntyre said, “No, but thank you.”

Good teaching is filled with ideas. The brain should be used for more than white sauce.

Here’s an idea for you from the author, Flannery O’Connor: “Everywhere I go, I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There may be a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”

Esther Blumenfeld (Hall Monitor. Do you have a pass?)

Friday
Sep142012

A Moving Experience

Last night I went to hear a trio of girl singers called Triple Threat at the Gaslight Theatre. They performed “A Century of Song,” singing melodies through the ages starting with the 1920s.

The house lights dimmed, the entertainers came on stage and began to belt out their first song, when a bug flew down my bodice and landed in my brassiere.

I was sitting near the front of the stage. I couldn’t get up to leave without the entire audience becoming aware of my exit. So, as the bug began to crawl around, I figured if it didn’t sting me, I’d be okay until intermission.

Every time the trio finished a song and the audience clapped---I beat my chest.

The bug didn’t die until the 1960s. The ‘60s was a time of the Viet Nam War, drugs, free love and now a dead bug in my bra. I shook it out in the Ladies Room at intermission, and the women in there were laughing so hard that I drew a crowd. One woman said that my act was better than the show, and I didn’t even have to sing.

For you purists out there---No, I don’t know what kind of bug it was, because it was well smushed by the time I got rid of it.

The moral of this tale: Curiosity kills more than cats.

Esther Blumenfeld (So, what’s the latest buzz?)

Friday
Sep072012

Sleep On It

Labor Day officially became a Federal holiday in 1894. It recognizes economic and social contributions of American workers, as well as the end of summer. To celebrate the occasion, folks enjoy parades, cookouts, athletic events and mattress sales.

After 18 years of good service, I decided it was time to replace my lumpy mattress. I had kept the original paperwork, and thought, “This will be easy. I’ll go to the mattress store and just order the same kind of mattress I had before.” When I showed the sales lady my old bill of sale, she said, “This was a really good mattress. Unfortunately, the company is no longer in business, but we have many, many, many new brands for you to consider. Our price range goes from $500 to $10,000, but we can order a more expensive mattress if you so choose.”

I responded, “I don’t want to have to replace it again in a year, but I don’t want to drive it out of here either.” She said, “Before we begin. Do you have any sleep problems? What is your night like?” I replied, “I go to bed when it’s dark and get up when it’s light.” “So, you don’t have any body problems,” she surmised. “Well,” I answered. “I’d like to lose 5 pounds, but I don’t think that is mattress related.”

At this point, I think she wearied of our conversation, so she suggested that I try out some of the beds in the store. Eying a snotty nosed kid with his sneakers on one of the mattresses, I said, “I don’t think I want to try that one.”

First, I sprawled out on a Memory Foam mattress. “Unless, it can tell me where I misplaced my earrings, I don’t think this one’s for me,” I told her. “Do they make water mattresses anymore?” I asked. “We don’t carry those,” she replied. “Great,” I said. “Getting seasick is not my idea of a good night’s rest.”

After jumping from bed to bed, I decide that foam is not for me, unless it’s on top of a glass of beer. The “spring forward, drop back” mattress would be too confusing since I live in Arizona and we don’t have Daylight Savings Time. I’d probably be springing and dropping at the wrong time. Also, I was never good with numbers in school, so why would I want a Sleep Number” mattress that would be smarter than I am?

“Does the Temper-Pedic snap at you in the middle of the night?” I asked. The patient sales lady explained that the mattress isn’t angry and it is spelled Tempur-Pedic.

Finally, lying on one of the mattresses, I shouted, “This one is for me!” It was as close a match as I could get to replace my old one. Because it was a Labor Day sale, my sales lady took $400 off the listed price, and since she had a special deal on sheets and a super-duper mattress cover, I used the discount to complete the order.

Two days later, two men who must have been hired right out of the circus delivered my mattress. One carried my king-sized mattress on his shoulder, and the other one carried my old one out the same way. “You are the strongest men, I have ever met,” I exclaimed. “We do it all day long,” one man replied, “and after work, we go to the gym.”

My new sheets arrived a day later, which was a good thing, because the old sheets didn’t fit and I awakened that morning with the bottom sheet wrapped around my neck. I’ll bet the store doesn’t give a refund for a hanging!

Esther Blumenfeld (The princess should have removed the pea. It would have been cheaper.)