Funny Thing: Waaah Wahhh

So, I have been spending time recently with a young lady who has a five-year-old kid.

You know how parenting a young kid can woefully warp your sense of appropriate conversational riposte.

My brother tells me of the time, when his first-born was 2 years old, that he visited the auto supply shop looking for a cab light replacement bulb for a late '80s Mazda and they gave him the wrong one but the guy behind the counter didn't believe it so he came out to the car to install it himself. The mechanic couldn't, of course, get the incorrect bulb to actually fit into the housing but he didn't want to be wrong so he kept trying to force it. Suddenly, the bulb snapped out of his hand and rocketed off the windshield and around the front of the car, landing on the passenger floor mat. My brother involuntarily yelped, "Uh oh!" in a sing-song voice.

A colleague of mine recalls the time--when her son was a toddler--that her high-end Congressional reporter husband was at a swanky Hill fete and a US Senator in line in front of him at the buffet dropped a croquette on the floor. As the appetizer plunged off the Senator's plate toward the hallowed marble of the Capitol, the reporter sang out, "Oopsie!"

Which brings me to a funny thing:

This young lady and I were recently, how you say in Amreeka, fooling around. I'm all amped up AND trying to get her to give me her earlobe or something AND she isn't reading me AND then I'm trying harder to get around to her neck AND she's getting confused AND I am OCDing on that earlobe AND there is hair in everyone's face AND hormones are raging AND it's about 90 degrees AND the windows are fogging up AND she still has no idea what I am gunning for ... and she takes my face in her hand and blurts out, "Use your words!"

Waaah Wahhh.

PS - Still, we laughed our butts off. Oh, and "Let's Go Surfing" by The Drums is a sassy little number; now playing on iTunes.

Funny Thing: Kids Today

Time for another "funny thing happened" anecdote. This one highlights the truly sublime nature of intergenerational change.

I have a colleague who was recently in an elevator with a 13-year-old girl and a few 7-8-year-olds. No, no, not like Michael Jackson; he was just in the elevator with them.

The younger kids were discussing their distressing lack of phone signal in the elevator and the 13-year-old turns to my colleague and says without irony "Wow, what's happening these days? When I was 7, I didn't even have a cell phone! Today's kids are just ridiculous. Right?"

PS - I am flabbergasted by the woeful lack of perspective that some kids have these days, although I am quite sure that I came off this way a bit when I was a kid -- "You had to have big ICE BLOCKS delivered to cool the refrigerator?!" Still, I didn't have a cell phone until I was 37, much less seven years old. Oh, and "Amsterdam" by Guster is download-worthy, kids; now playing on iTunes.

Funny Thing: Metro Pain

I am starting a new category for blog postings of humorous stories. These entries will feature a sort of "funny thing happened to me" set of anecdotes. Since Valentine's Day is coming, I am reminded of something woefully and hideously horrible--yet hilarious--that happened not to me but to a friend of mine on the Metro.

I have this pal who was once a bit of a predator. He roared through college and his 30s with a harem of accomplished lookers. Even as a grey-haired middle-aged man he used his looks and atheleticism to hunt a few demos below himself on the age pyramid. He has settled down these days, but he was quite the ladykiller when I met him. In fact, he did not actually date anyone over 30 until, in his 50s, his then-girlfriend turned 30 on him. Eventually they broke up around Valentine's Day and, truth be told, he was devastated. For months he was blue. Poor fellow couldn't even summon the simple enthusiasm to hit on production assistants. Then, one day after time had applied its healing balm, he found himself, in a new suit and fresh off a flattering haircut, standing in a Metro car hanging from the center pole and feeling, for the first time in recent memory, pretty fit and perhaps ready to get back in the saddle. Scoping absently on his fellow passengers he spied a young beauty who caught his eye and gave him a big smile. Not to appear too eager, he averted his gaze, made a pretense of checking his watch, and counted to 10 before looking over again. She once more deliberately caught his eye and smiled broadly. "May/December be damned," he thought. "Quickly, man, say something smashingly clever." Too late. She took the initiative, scooting forward on her chair and giving him a beckoning finger. She smiled again. He leaned closer. Tension built. She spoke: "Sir, would you like to have my seat?"

PS - Hey, man, I've been living in a glass condo so I am throwing no stones. But, daymn, when he told me the story I fell out of my chair laughing. Plus, points for self-deprecation. Oh, and Johnny Clegg's "Scatterlings of Africa" is one of my favorite songs; now playing on iTunes.