Silly Humor by Melody

Urgent News Bulletin

Violence is stupid. I am banning it right now.

Okay, with that out of the way, let's move to the nitty-gritty of my non-violence plan. I know human beings are going to fight, so here is my solution.

Tickle Wars.

As a ten-year-old, I could manipulate my Dad into a pretzel simply by wiggling my fingers under his arms. And even when I'm only threatening to tickle my boyfriend, he curls up and starts negotiating terms of a cease-fire.

I use tickling as an act of revenge, and so should you. It doesn't hurt anyone. It drives my boyfriend crazy. And it makes people laugh.

I know what you're thinking. Non-violence rarely works. But that's because Gandhi never tickled anyone. Have you ever been pinned and tickled? It's excruciating. You flail. You plead. You surrender. See how smart my plan is? People can act out their aggression through pre-appointed tickle marathons.

Now there may be people who are not ticklish. It's hard to imaging Dick Cheney writhing helplessly on the floor, overcome with a fit of the giggles.

But that's okay. Everyone has a weakness. I'm flexible. I approve pies in the face, squirt guns, and whoopee cushions. Anything that humiliates without causing long-term damage.

Back to the tickling. I argue that most people can be incapacitated by expert tickling. Now is the time to explore our tickle attack options.

I propose we create tickle armies. I imagine my tickle army looking something like sumo wrestlers, except they would carry rubber chickens. The really expert tickle master might dress like Jackie Kennedy, just to catch his enemy off guard.

The first army to tickle their opponent into submission wins. Maybe the Tickle Wars could be held every four years, like the Olympics. Every country would appoint ten Tickle Representatives. The top fifteen teams would get spots on the UN's security council. The top two teams would be crowned as Super Powers. And the team in last place would get a consolation prize, like a visit from Carrot Top.

Maybe we could extend this non-violence plan to every aspect of life. Instead of jail time, petty criminals could be sentenced to four hours of being whapped with a pillow. Nasty criminals would still go to jail, but their main punishment would be having to watch the same episode of the Love Boat twenty-four hours a day for eternity.

Yes, the more I think about it, the more I'm certain that tickling is the best solution to the world's violence problem. So, ladies and gentlemen, flex those fingers. We have a lot of issues to straighten out. I'm going to start with my boyfriend. He looked at me funny last night and deserves to be thumped with a good tickle.

Funky Breed of Dog

I'm a little disappointed.  Yesterday, I found a great name for a breed of dog.

THE CAJUN SQUIRREL DOG

Isn't that the bestest name for a breed?  I immediately wanted a CAJUN SQUIRREL DOG.  So this morning, I looked up some pictures of it.  I expected the dog to be like a squirrel: small, with a bushy tail, and maybe it was the color of cayenne pepper.

Nope.  No deal.  The CAJUN SQUIRREL DOG looks just like a normal dog.  Like I said, I'm so disappointed.

No Car Payments, EVER

It's time I revealed the horrifying truth about myself: I don't drive.

For the past twelve years, I've been watching people react when I tell them the truth about myself. People's expressions range from shock to confusion to disbelief. Some people even think I'm mentally ill.

Everyone wants to know why I don't drive. The reason is simple. I'm afraid to turn some unsuspecting pedestrian into a blueberry pancake. You may be safe behind the wheel, but I can't walk twenty feet without bumping into a wall. There's no way I should be driving a speeding hunk of metal.

Not driving makes me an oddball. It affects everything I do. Just think how often people talk about bad traffic. I have absolutely no road rage, so I don't fit in.

My list of grievances goes on and on. I don't know the names of any roads because I don't use them. I can't give people directions. If someone offers me a ride home, I have to tell them to follow my bus. "Quick," I say, "get behind the 64A heading towards the Waterfront." This usually makes the driver really annoyed, because NO ONE likes to be stuck behind a bus.

There are good things about not driving. I don't ever worry about gas prices. I never feel guilty about global warming. And I walk nearly every day. All that exercise means I get to eat a lot more cookies. And in my book that is a huge perk.

Obviously, there are hardships to not owning a car. One year, I lugged seventy-five pounds of groceries to my house for Thanksgiving dinner.  This means I carried four plastic bags, each weighing nearly ten pounds, in each hand for a mile. The weight of the bags nearly tore my arms off.

All you drivers you may find my life unbearable. You might be thinking that I am a lonely idiot who stays home all the time. Well, you're wrong. And here is the perfect story to prove my point. Two years ago, I had an amazing experience. While I was out on a date, the man I was walking beside began to look upset. We'd had a nice evening, so I just thought he had heartburn. But then he said, "I have to tell you something."

My heart sank. Was he going to tell me he had an abnormal addiction to thumb tacks? I said a silent prayer and asked, "What's the matter?"

His face was dark with embarrassment. "If we're going to keep going out, you need to know that something." He took a deep breath and mumbled, "I don't drive."

I shouted with laughter. I grabbed him by the arm and nearly kissed him. I said, "You are awesome! I don't drive either."

On a later date, we had our first kiss in an underground train station. We've been using public transportation together every since. Isn't that a nice happy ending? And all that happiness stems from the horrifying fact that I don't drive. Amazing, huh?

A Night with No Extras?

I've had a trying night with movies.  I got three DVDs from Netflix today.  I was excited about each one.

That's Entertainment was supposed to be a collection of the greatest musical numbers ever.  It's alright, but most of the clips are edited and done with a voice over.

Ocean's Twelve, which I saw in the theater has no extras.  I live for extras.  Give me a making of, a director's commentary, and plenty of interviews with the cast and I feel like I'm in movie Heaven.  But there are NO EXTRAS for Ocean's Twelve.

And finally, The Village, which I thought would be too scary but was actually fabulous, only had about a half an hour of extras.  This is not enough.  Dang them.

I'm mad at Hollywood tonight.  If they don't start entertaining me better, I am going to have to make my own movie...with tons and tons of extras.

Want fries with your wig?

Do you think Carrot Top dyes his hair so that he can look like Ronald McDonald? 

Peach Pit Chin

My loyal friend and reader told me that when he scrunches up his chin it looks like a peach pit.  I begged him to send in a picture of it.  And look what he sent me.  Hehehe.

Thanks, Kip.  That is truly disturbing.

Silly Scale:  1.  We have a winner.  This is a post worthy of the highest Silly Scale honor.  Three cheers for Kip.

Bored at Work? Cubical Warfare!

Please don't use any of the suggestions on OfficeGuns.com to hurt anyone.  All of these projectiles can be made from office supplies, and they are really fun to make, as long as you are ONLY aiming at a paper target or a wall.

Now go have fun at http://www.officeguns.com/

Silly Scale - Two.  Just don't poke your eye out!

Toothpicks: Not Just for Tooth Pickin'

Are toothpicks interesting? Can a person actually write six hundred words about a sliver of wood? I don't know, but I'm going to find out.

In my top kitchen drawer, I have a box of 250 toothpicks. This box has lived in my house for at least a year and a half. I haven't used many of these toothpicks. I'm not going to count, but I guess I've used about thirty of them. That means I'm going to have the same box of toothpicks for a long, long time.

I've always thought of toothpicks as a crafty item, along the lines of glue guns and play dough. Sometimes, in my daydreams, I've wondered, "Could I build a miniature house out of toothpicks?" It's a neat idea. So I took out about twenty toothpicks and started taping them together to make a "floor" for my mini house. This took me nearly a half an hour. That's when I decided that I am way too lazy to build a house from toothpicks. I renamed my "floor" a rafting device and tried to feel a sense of accomplishment.

But there are people who do build things out of toothpicks. My favorite is a man from Ligonier, Pa. He carves toothpicks. Keep in mind that toothpicks are skinny and fragile and not much longer than two inches. I don't know what tools this man uses, but he carves little baseball players and aliens and sea captains on the top third of a toothpick. You have to go to his website (www.shamey.com/tooth/tooth.htm) to believe what I'm talking about. One of his toothpicks is even in the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum.

Okay, now that you are done looking at unbelievably small toothpick sculptures, let's talk about people who collect toothpick holders. Maybe you already knew about the National Toothpick Holder Collectors' Society, but I am in awe of them. They have 700 members! They charge a yearly fee of up to twenty-five dollars. And 700 people still want to be a part of the toothpick-holding fun. I can't get four people to come over to my house for free cake. How do these 700 people find the time and the money to talk about toothpick holders?

Moving on, I'm actually partial to plastic toothpicks. They tend to be more whimsical. I like purple toothpicks. I like flamingos sitting on top of my toothpicks. And I'm not sure if this qualifies as a toothpick, but I'm still fascinated with those little umbrellas you get on a very expensive summertime drink. I love to open and close them. Up Down. Up Down. Up Down. (You can only open them about three times before they break, but they're still more fun to play with at dinnertime then your soupspoon.)

As I was surfing the web, I saw a lot of people using toothpicks to teach math. This sounds cruel to me. I think teaching math in any form is cruel, but that's for another essay. Toothpicks in math are just going to gum up the works. I had a hard enough time learning to divide 56 by 7 when I was in grade school. Just imagine if my teacher would have dumped 250 toothpicks right on top of my notebook? It would have taken me fifteen more minutes to figure out what to do with the toothpicks. Maybe I would have wanted to build a miniature house? And the teacher definitely would have yelled at me for not paying attention. Then she would have ordered me to clean up all 250 toothpicks off my desk. And by the end of class I still wouldn't be able to divide 56 by 7 because my math-challenged brain would be melted like Velveeta cheese.

Wow. Can you believe I've written an entire essay on toothpicks? I didn't think I'd succeed. But it was so much fun that I might go write an essay about the many uses for a peach pit.

On second thought---I think I'll just go play with my toothpick "raft".

(fake) Credit Card Collecting

My boyfriend likes to collect those fake credit cards you get in the mail.  He has 32 of them.  When I spread them out, they take up half of our coffee table.

I've been trying to collect umbrellas, but every time I get a new one, the old one gets destroyed by an evil rain storm.  So right now I have a collection of ONE umbrella. 

Do you have anything unusual that you collect?  Please tell me about it in the comments section.