I Shoulda Listened to Dave

On a late-summer (2008) trip to Minneapolis, I had the opportunity to visit North Dakota. No, North Dakota was not on my way, but I hope to one day bring my states visited count up to 50 and I couldn’t fathom one single reason why I would ever actually go there. I don’t wish to insinuate that North Dakota has no viable reason to maintain a department of tourism (and could therefore save its taxpayers millions of dollars) nor insult this state in any way, (as did columnist Dave Barry, who subsequently now has a sewage processing plant at Grand Forks named in his honor and has since adamantly warned all writers to NOT mess with this state), it's just that North Dakota is so . . . READ MORE

Fat Tom, the devil, and a tattoo parlor

St. Francis said it best, "Evangelize always; use words when necessary." I love that quote so much that I am updating it free of charge for the 21st century: "Evangelize always; use tattoos when necessary." That's right, I am blogging this post while I am getting inked (Read More)

Dad-gum Quiz!

After many years of resisting the devil, I have finally caved in to temptation. I have gone over to the dark side. I have tossed my high principles to the wind.



I have joined Facebook.

Now, if you have to ask what Facebook is, never mind. I don’t want to tempt you with the sordid details. I don’t want to be responsible for your fall from innocence. But for those of you who have long ago joined the ranks of social networking, who have felt the pulls of addiction to this book of every friend that you ever knew from preschool through the present, here I am. I am one of you, now.

I’ve actually had a lot of fun in the short time I’ve been on Facebook. I’ve reconnected with old friends and made lots of new friends. I’ve networked, which is a fancy way of saying I’ve made some casual business connections. And I was really enjoying the whole experience until . . .

Until yesterday. Read the rest of this story . . .

Busting the Bickering

Brandon's principal actually played an excerpt of the Hallelujah Chorus at the end of the day on the last day before the Christmas break. While it was funny and (very accurately!) conveyed the feeling of the school staff, I think parents probably heard the Psycho EH-EH-EH music in their heads.

I love my children. Dearly. But having them in the house, bored, and underfoot for two weeks is extremely grating on my nerves. The wanted to watch TV all day. When I nixed that and told them to play, it worked.

For precisely 3.2 seconds. Then the bickering would start.
"You don't do it like that!"
"I don't want to play that!"
"No, you can't have that!"

Here's a typical conversation from the holidays at my house: Read more...

You Know You've Been Out of the City Too Long When . . .

It’s a scary thought that the entire Baby Boomer generation, large as it is, is going through a mid-life crisis simultaneously. Because my husband determined that the world has enough bikers with gray ponytails, our crisis consisted of starting a hobby farm.

Before we go any further, please note that I am a city girl. Born in East LA, just like the song. I had a few country adventures during childhood summers spent on my grandparents' dairy farm, but, with the exception of my pre-teen years spent in a rural community, I’ve resided in large cities.

For the first few years after we moved onto our quiet 32-acre plot in central Arkansas, my citified lifestyle had, for the most part, remained unchanged. After all, our property is less than three miles from town and not even an hour’s drive from the nearest Lancôme counter. My life changed dramatically, however, the day my husband discovered READ MORE . . .

Colossians 3:23

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men" Colossians 3:23

When I first discovered I liked working with children, I was seventeen and it was Vacation Bible School at my home church.

Mom dragged me there. She was in charge and she must have been desperate to get her angst-ridden, flighty, artistic son to "volunteer." Can you call it volunteering? She said something about never letting me drive my car again if I didn't help her with a good attitude. Sure, I could help her if it meant no wheels during prime dating season, but a good attitude? I thought she gave up on making me have one of those when I was twelve. (Read more at Devotoons.com)

Meltdown Linked to Global Warming

State health officials were called today to a downtown Madison, Wisconsin TCBY yogurt shop in what is being called the latest tragedy in the era of human-induced global warming. (Read More at Humorality.com)

Searching for God in All the Wrong Places

The most recent issue of Parade magazine featured an article about the science world's search for the Higgs boson, also known as "the God particle." After browsing the Internet to learn more about this elusive entity, I'm more confused about the Big Bang theory than I was before. If I understand correctly, some sort of magical field (Think: giant soccer goal) called the Higgs field permeates the entire universe and "catches" massless particles. Apparently, once enough "massless particles" are accumulated, viola! -- mass is created. This "God particle" is said to contain the Higgs field, so if the Higgs boson would give up its game of Hide-and-Seek and run back to base, scientists could then use their federal grant dollars on some other multi-billion research project.

One problem I'm having with this scenario is that . . . Read More

Today's Jesus meter reads...

There was a time when I had delusions of grandeur. I guess it is natural and not unnecessarily unhealthy. I mean what kid that plays hoops doesn't fantasize about being the next Michael Jordan? Or what golfer doesn't occasionally dream of a Tiger Woods type shot? Well my delusions always took the form of me being the next Christian Dave Barry. In case you don't know who Dave Barry is, he is the host of the Gong show. Wait, that Barry isn't even spelled the same, Dave Barry is a very funny writer. Yeah I enjoyed my dream for a very short while, until I discovered Read More

Health Hazards

After weeks of an ongoing discussion about my weight with our dog, (”How big do you think Mommy will get before she pops?”), Hubby devised a different tactic to steer me toward weight loss: he cut a walking path through our property. He even offered to walk with me. “We BOTH could use the exercise.” (He’s right, of course.)

So, I started off with him on Morning Number One, walking stick in one hand, Dasani in the other, while “Miss I’m Too Cute and Adorable to Potty Outside” darted back and forth barking at birds, chasing butterflies, and sniffing the scent residue from whatever critter lurked across our lawn during the night.

Why the walking stick? Read More . . .

Call me

You've seen the bumper stickers on commercial vehicles that say, "How is my driving? Call 800-555-1212." There are many, many drivers who could use your advice. So here are a few bumper sticker ideas that should be on a cars, along with the driver's cell phone number:

Where am I going? Call 555-1212.

Why am I allowed to have a license? Call 555-1212.

How do you steer this thing? Call 555-1212.

Who am I and why am I here? Call 555-1212.

Thrown Out of My Own Home

I know the day I teetered on the edge of change. My emotions tumbled inside, and I thought for a few seconds of morphing into my mother.

Not that my mother is a bad person. Quite the opposite. She’s the best person I know, but a more emotional person you will not find. I’m analytical. Logical. The first to say, “Let’s figure this out.” One of my favorite Beatles songs was “We Can Work It Out.”

As a teenager, arguments with my mother grew more frequent and intense. To my dismay, she could engage me every time. I had a bedroom in the finished basement of our ranch house, and I would stand at the bottom of the steps with Mom at the top, both of us screaming, our words echoing through the stairwell.

When I had my own daughter, I vowed we would never have the same kind of relationship my mother and I had. It helped that my child and I seemed evenly matched in temperament. That is, until she hit puberty. Overnight, my even-tempered sweetheart turned into a volatile volcano. Anything I said or did caused eruptions, and left me trembling.

One day I came home, said something inane to my daughter, and we were off and running - our voices raised, our tempers rising. I needed to let the dog out through our back patio door, and even while trying to argue my point, I slid the glass door to the side. Before I realized what happened, my daughter had pushed me out onto the deck, and closed the door behind me.

So there I stood. Now what?

READ MORE . . .

The Sky is Falling!

How dark is dark? Is it not as bright as the sun shining? or “you can’t see your hand in front of your face” or something in between? My definition starts at somewhere in between. Brandon’s is “not as bright as the sun shining.” This child refuses to go into his room alone unless the light is already on. Not even with the nightlight.

Isn’t that why the nightlight is there?

Don’t get me wrong – I love my kid, but something’s wrong with this person. He’s a walking paranoia freak show. Not that I’m not my own kind of freak show (who isn’t?), but some days it borders on “Call Ripley’s – we got a live one!”

I can see it now: Read more...

Busted at the Donut Shop

On a recent trip to Nashville, I lunched with some friends from an online weight-loss support group. Not only did these women order plain salads and wave off the garlic-butter-ladened breadsticks, they had the audacity to order black coffee sans dessert. Deciding I’d earned a reward after enduring the 43-calorie meal, I snuck by a donut shop on my way out of town. I figured I’d paid my penance for the pastry when a car backed into me in the parking lot.

I was wrong.

My real punishment came when Read More . . .

Obama Replaces Cabinet with Entertainment Center

In an afternoon press conference in Atlanta, Georgia, President Barack Obama today announced the replacement of his cabinet with a solid-oak entertainment center. The announcement came just after a speech discussing the difficult time that Atlanta residents have had due to the fires set by Union troops, a speech which ended with the president’s promise to “provide hope” to whoever loaded the teleprompter with selections from Gone with the Wind. (Read More at humorality.com)

Do We Understand Each Other?

Communication is vital in every relationship – whether it be husband and wife, pastor and congregation, parent and child, and, yes, even among those we spend possibly the largest chunk of our days with -- co-workers.

I managed to survive a brief but memorable career in the high-stress behind-the-scenes arena of the trucking industry known as dispatch. Basically, the job of a dispatcher is to appease the tempers of salesmen, customers, management and, of course, truck drivers. Days were spent in a vast room filled with partitionless cubicles, breathing the ever-present aroma of coffee mingled with diesel fumes that crept in from the adjacent shop.

When the trucker-turned-dispatcher seated next to me slammed down his receiver and muttered an expletive, I momentarily ignored the four flashing lights vying for my attention from my own phone and peered around my computer monitor.

“What’s wrong?” I dared to ask.

“I gotta make a delivery appointment in Laredo, Texas, and this guy don’t speak English!”

Ignoring his own lack of skill with the language, I thought, “Ah, Spanish.” All those years spent sweltering in Yuma, Arizona, would at last come in handy. And, while I'd always taken an interpreter on my frequent trips to Mexico, I had mastered all the necessary phrases: “How much?”; “No, thank you”; and “Where’s the bathroom, please?” Read More . . .

Announcing Humorality.com

The sponsors of the Internet would like to take a moment to introduce you to a new humor web site, Humorality.com. A spendid site for humorous news and social commentary, Humorality.com is suitable for those who are the life of the party, as well as those who prefer to sit on the sidelines and watch the Type A's make things happen.

Humorality.com is the brainchild of Tim Patrick, which in itself is somewhat gross given that brains don’t have children, at least not male brains. Tim has been a software developer since the early days of personal computers, so you know he’s qualified to write offbeat humor. And that’s just what you find in the pages of Humorality.com.

That's it for the announcement. There's nothing more to read here, so why not head over to Humorality.com and see what all the fuss is about.

Weinermobile Crashes Into Home

You might wish you were an Oscar Meyer weiner, but from the looks of this photo, if you were it might be hard to move around your house.

On Friday, the Weinermobile crashed into a home south of Milwaukee. Both the Weinermobile and the home incurred minor damage, which will be covered by insurance. No one was home when the accident happened.

Apparently, the driver of the Weinermobile was trying to turn the giant hot dog around in the driveway and put the vehicle in drive instead of reverse. According to the story at FOXNews.com, no citations were issued.

Ummm...I'm not sure that is really the problem

So I guess I've got a mini-me. My wife swears that my two year old daughter is exactly like me. Of course when she tries to convince my two year of this she gets, "Nooooo....just because we look identical!" Huh? Anyway, I have recently discovered one trait of hers that she definitely gets from her old man: neither of us could save an edible treat for later if our life depended on it. Read More

Top Ten Travel Tips for the Navigationally Challenged

Lost has been such a recurring theme throughout my travels that frankly, I'm shocked the producers of ABC's popular television series haven't retained me as a consultant. Even so, traveling is one of my favorite pastimes, and since we're in the midst of the summer vacation season, I'd like to share some tips I've learned during my trek-filled life.

Travel Tip #10 -- Be advised that not all states enforce the same interstate speed limit as your home state. If you choose to ignore this fact and drive 15 miles above your host state's posted limit, it is best to do so immediately after another car has hot-dogged past you driving an additional 15 miles above said limit.

Tavel Tip #9 -- Not all four-letter words are bad. For example, the word "LEFT" can be pretty important when attempting to navigate through big cities, and while "ZERO" doesn't typically add up to much, if you accidentally leave it out while entering an address into your GPS, you may learn just how valuable this seemingly worthless number really is (especially if you're in say, downtown Philadelphia).

Travel Tip #8 -- If you opt to wear special audio tour headgear (available at many popular attractions), be aware that to those tourists not participating in the audio tour, you appear as though you've been assimilated into the Borg collective.

READ MORE ...

Deadly Weapon

Today, I experienced one of the most terrifying moments of my life. I survived, but just barely. And I am certain that the moment will live on in my memory for decades to come.

As I write this, I am sitting in a dorm room at a camp for girls. Just in case you are considering becoming a camp counselor, I must warn you. It isn’t a job for the faint of heart. Or for anyone over the age of forty. The hours are long. The noise level, at times, will break the sound barrier. And sleep?

What’s that?

But honestly, I think I could live with the long hours and the noise and the lack of sleep. After all, I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to serve as a counselor. But then, this afternoon came, and I am almost afraid to tell you what I saw, what I took part in.

But I’m going to tell you anyway.

Today, I watched a bunch of eight to twelve year-old girls practice their rifling skills. Yes, you read correctly. A bunch of rosey-cheeked, pigtailed little girls with BB guns in their hands, target shooting. And more than once, I had to do some fancy footwork as one of those girls accidentally swung her gun barrel in my direction like a quail-hunting vice president. It’s the stuff nightmares are made of, I’m telling you.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think it’s great that an expert in the rifling field took the time to teach these girls gun safety, and how to handle guns correctly. It is a life skill every true Texan needs to have, after all. You never know when the bad guys are gonna ride up on their black horses with bandanas tied around their faces. If that happens, I won’t need to fear. I feel safe. My twelve-year-old daughter can protect me.

I’ve heard it said that guns are the most dangerous of all weapons. After all, they are easily accessible, and they can greatly injure or kill a person. And while I agree that guns are extremely dangerous, I know of one weapon that is even more accessible. In fact, everyone I know has one.

READ MORE . . .

Check 1-2

Hey everyone, Dave Weiss here testing my connection, to make sure I can in fact post to this blog. Since I don't want to be totally humorless, and utterly cliched, I thought I would muse on the above statement, the official quote of "sound checkers" everywhere, "Check 1-2." Did you ever wonder what "sound checkers" in the non-English speaking world say? Believe it or not, I asked that question of a sound guy at a concert who had toured the world. He claimed that regardless of where you go, anywhere in the world, the phrase remains the same, "check 1-2" usually followed by a long chain of "check, check, checks." Maybe it's that percussive "K" sound at the end of check that makes it useful. I don't know if the sound man was pulling my leg or not and it's not in the Weiss family budget to go on an international sound check fact finding tour...(I wonder if I could get a grant?!?) so I'll have to take his word for it.

I think I am going to urge my brothers and sisters who read this blog to rebel. After all we are children of the ultimate creator, surely we can come up with something unique and original. Next time you speak and someone wants to check your mic, say something unusual. For example if your sound check is frustrating or you had a rough trip, you may want to call out, "James 1:2, James 1:2" (Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds.). Performing on a cruise ship and you're feeling a little sea sick? Why not use "Genesis 1:2, Genesis 1:2" (Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.)? Traveling with four guys with Hebrew names? No sense calling them all, just sound check with "Exodus 1:2, Exodus 1:2." (This will only work if their names are Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah). Ladies, if you're on the road and missing your husband, call out "Song of Solomon 1:2, Song of Solomon 1:2" (Yeah I know that one is a little "clunky" but c'mon, who can argue with "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—for your love is more delightful than wine.") Or if you're really, really, really tired of your speaking ministry and ready for a career change just call out "Ecclesiastes 1:2, Ecclesiastes 1:2" which says, "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." There are more, but you get the idea.
Have fun and be creative!
Dave Weiss
http://www.amokarts.com

Did you miss us?

The Christian Humor Writers blog has been on haitus for ... well, you can see. A long time. That's because everyone has been tied up with other things. Not literally tied up; that would be another column.

Enter a new batch of writers! Watch this blog over the next few weeks as a new group of humor writers start offering their stuff.

All the best!
Joanne