Category: Funny

And Yet, What’s Most Disturbing Is Those Vertical Blinds

You guys, I don’t usually share images as recent as only 30-something years old, which I’m guessing this is, but we need to talk about this.

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Discounting the obvious crimes of hair and use of cigarettes (and LENGTH of cigarettes; you’ve come a long, long, LONG way, baby), and plaid vest that somehow makes her more street than lumberjack, or even simply the use of THIS as their Christmas card, what bothers me most is those blinds. I remember those blinds in my first years of apartment dwelling. The way they never moved in synchronicity like Venetian blinds or their superior window cousin, plantation shutters. Just try and pull them to the side. You can already hear the swishing and slamming of cheap plastic blind crashing into cheap plastic blind. Erratic! Random!

And oh, what fun to dust them! And even better, what their very existence oft implied, which was sliding glass doors. Who doesn’t love the sliding glass door? You know, the one that only slides seamlessly for a month before catching and stuttering. Or it does that diagonal thing, where it gets off its rollers. Yes, the very same sliding glass door that a criminal attempted to break into in my townhome in the early 90s, when everyone used that same broken broom handle to shove in between the doors as a perfect deterrent. It was only good fortune that my angry queen of a roommate drew said blinds back and showed his horrified face to the thief that saved us. Damn sliding door. Damn blinds. What did they think they would get? A glass coffee table full of Madonna magazines and a TV with an enormous antenna? Hmph.

Tammy Wynette Caught Rolling With Her Homies

1969 Mirage

With a West Texas State University sticker on the window, students Becky, Judy, and Nancy load up the convertible to enjoy the spring of ’69, cruising the beat sans seatbelts, keeping it under 20mph, for fear that the wind may untease their fancy coifs.

My Nuts Make Me Better Than You

Last week, we were in the unfortunate position of being in a Target, which I try to avoid, as they discontinued playing music and always only have one checker, despite there being 1200 patrons in the store and 15 lanes. In a stroke of luck, we found some Planters cashews on sale, and curiously, the wholes were the same price as the halves and pieces. Now, listen, I’m not royalty. I don’t toss my bills into the air all devil may care. I’ve spent my life eating halves and pieces like the lower to middle income person I am.

 

But here was an opportunity–finally–for me to feel superior to everyone, to put a nut in my mouth the way that God intended, whole, not broken, like most of this country. And in a time of unrest and people unemployed and so bored that they look for every opportunity to be offended where no offense was intended, I decided YES this is my moment. My moment to step up that ladder one caste level and taste what I’ve been missing.

To be clear, this was not a short fat can, like short fat poor people. This was a long and lean tin like greyhounds and Windsors and ladies who lunch, despite eating disorders. This was a can of abundance and hope and opportunity. This can was my people, where I truly belonged. No longer was I tossed out “pieces” like a commoner, a prole, a dog begging his master for scraps. Nay! This was the entire brown crescent! Not crushed by the foot of the man, here to oppress me. But untainted, unbroken, uncompromised. And while the image says “lightly salted,” ye who know me know I am nothing if not salty.

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I poured out a handful of the beautiful cashews. Now I am important! This is my mink coat! This is my rapper grill, demanding that others affirm my value! Look at me, I have gold chains! My messy past is erased, and now I matter! But guess what? They taste the same. They simply require more labor from you, as they need to be chewed more. And what is the lower class but not the laboring class? Chew, prole, chew. Fatten up, for there is much labor to be done! So many dichotomies. And it occurred to me that I didn’t need whole nuts to feed my self-esteem. The fact was I was eating cashews, and that still made me better than any peon eating peanuts, no? And “peon” literally means Spanish-American day laborer. So there you go. Can we choose to be offended by that? Now, I’ll go one you one better!

Uh-oh! Don’t say that one out loud.


How Not To Lose Your Poise In 1943

These days, you can’t throw a stick without hitting a mom clutching a glass of vino to temper the hours of “social distance learning” with the reality of 2020.

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I, for one, am happy to have a senior, whose studies I can entirely ignore. The days of monitoring or supervising are nearing an end. College acceptance takes precedence over anything left in this rotten semblance of a schoolyear. Any reminders for tests or homework go unheeded. So why bother? After a constant barrage of uninformative teacher emails and daily school texts, stating, “Yes, another coronavirus case has been detected on campus,” we shrug and move on. Every day is the same. It’s easily the worst time to be a high school senior since the threat of being shipped off to Vietnam, and I imagine the emotional and social repercussions will be heavy and long-lasting. God, do I need a drink!

In any event, I am not drinking wine nor spirits. Fate has deemed that all alcohol gives me a headache lately, and it could not be timed any worse. So coffee and tea it is, with my beloved Coke at interims. Yes, 2020 has been a nightmare on every level. But at least we have the luxury of Netflix and Amazon in quarantine. We can still be comfortable and feel relatively safe, even without the company of fermented grapes.

During WWII, however, moms had more at stake, fearing for their husbands overseas as well as wondering if bombs would drop on our very soil. Were they encouraged to sample pinot? Alas, no. The power of pulling it together lay in Alka-Seltzer.

Alka-Seltzer kept the “unjust words” at bay. And it had already been time-tested. Even Will Rogers had stamped his approval a decade prior.

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The post-war would see the addition of Speedy. Serenity now! Pronto!

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But it wasn’t just for ladies about to lose their minds. Anyone indulging in food or drink could make use of it. Instead of a daydrinking suburban mommy, your pre-diabetic uncle kept a roll of A-S in his pockets. Just in case.

https://www.retrofair.co.uk/

As Americans continued to eat up, sales continued to soar. While my association with the product is limited to the “Plop plop, fizz fizz” of the 70s, children of the 60s would have seen a more animated endorsement.

These days, when every other commercial pimps a prescription drug, meant to feed your fears as well as line the pockets of Big Pharma (O-O-O-OZEMPIC!), you have thousands of other choices to provide comfort for what ails you. Most of you probably take a daily prescription to address the imperfections of your mortal coils. But do any of you still take Alka-Seltzer?

If Puerto Ricans Can’t Choose Decent Shoes, How Can They Choose Decent Presidents?

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Let me qualify that. Male Puerto Ricans. Puertorriqueños. From his bangs to his jaunty mustache, to his feminized clunky yellow sandals, to his flesh belt matching flesh socks, to his choice of stool, everything is wrong wrong wrong. Even 41 years later, his lady friend looks stylish and composed. But Enrique, not so much. I mean, look at his jean hem! Look at the cut of it!

I know Puerto Rico wants to be able to vote, and I don’t blame them. Really, the main barrier I can see is that we’d have to add another star to our flag, and OCD people would go nuts with an odd number of states. It wouldn’t line up correctly on the flag. We’d have to adopt yet another state to make it even. Or Texas could secede! Most folks my age still think we have nine planets; we’re not going to suddenly remember 51 states. Or we’ll say it with finger quotes, as if it isn’t real yet.

But maybe Enrique’s problem was that he was lit, juiced up on the rum for which he was plugging in this ad.

The thing is, they knew they were being photographed. Ingrid should have offered spously guidance. Could they even possibly still be married, after this atrocity? Or is the rum that good?

How I Feel When Another Guest’s Fajita Plate Sizzles Past Me

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We lunched at Chuy’s today, where I’ve eaten since about 1983. They’re still using their crappy limited quarantine menu, while every single other restaurant around here has been full menu for months. Still, though, I can’t quit them, as their creamy jalapeno dip runs in my veins. And just as in every trip, someone with far deeper pockets than mine has ordered the fajitas. My head cocks quickly as I smell the meat and hear the sizzle from a black skillet passing our table. The fajitas seem to wink at me, as if to suggest today is my day to give in. I sigh longingly. No, fajitas, not today, my friend. But one day. One day, we will be together. 

https://www.trifoodies.com/