Humor – Page 3 – Walt-O-Matic

So, that, you understand?

This evening a few of us went out to eat. As we walked in the front door the hostess smiled at us, escorting us to a booth that would accommodate our party’s size.

“Excuse me,” I said to her as she was seating us, “which way to the restrooms?”

She looked at me very confused. But, being sure they had some, I deduced what we had was a language barrier.

So, I tried again with a different term. And, briefer. “Bathroom?”

Again, she shook her head indicating she had no clue what I was saying.

Never to be discouraged, and with an audience of many patrons, I said in a baby voice: “Pee pee?”

She instantly smiled, holding back a laugh, and pointed down a hallway. That, she understood.

If you’re not here, raise your hand.

Last night I was watched a very impressive and emotionally compelling seance.

It included objects moving on their own, volunteers themselves channeling spirits not a specific medium, where they’d revealing knowledge they couldn’t have, such as the contents of a sealed envelope. No stooges or actors were used in conducting the actual seance. They were very much freaked out by the experience.

Of course, it wasn’t real; it was an elaborate television special conducted by a famous magician who excels in deception, using magic and psychology, as an experiment to see if a modern day audience would be suckered by such showmanship. Disappointly, they were. And, in the end, the magician even showed the participants how he pulled it off and manipulated them, hoping they’d question their beliefs about the supernatural that made them fall for it. It’s clear that he, like many other magicians, do not have a belief in the supernatural and get very cheesed off when tricks of the trade are passed off as genuine, especially for the sake of defrauding.

It was amazing how easily smart people get suckered. For example, they were all told to look at a set of photographs and let one come to them, but not to reveal it. However, outside the context of the seance, it was no different than when, say, David Copperfield would have you put your finger on the television anywhere and tell you to follow his instructions, revealing your position at the end; this was just more sophisticated. Later on he’d make them reveal that name using a makeshift Ouija board (he also explained how that worked). Sneaky, if not genius, to apparently take himself out of the loop.

Of course, the Ouija board is more psychological trickery, especially since the dead spirit being called on happened to move the glass happened to be an actress sitting outside in a van. None the less, the glass moved, as it had to, with no stooge touching it, leaving them to invent a plausable explaination for the context they were in.

It started with the directions “Everyone ask, ‘Are you here spirit? If you’re here, move the glass to Y, for yes.”

At that point I paused the show, turned to the person next to me and stated, “If you’re not here spirit, move the glass to N, for no.” It was the spooky equivalent of “Everyone who’s not here, raise your hand.”

Never hand someone with a crush a hose.

Never, ever hand a small child with a crush on you a hose.

Elizabeth H. Elizabeth and I go way back, in fact, so far back, that in current day as a teen she has little recollection of events that took place between us, although for me, they seem like they just happened yesterday.

When Elizabeth was a little girl, I worked with her mom and like all happy co-workers, we’d socialize after hours on occasion. Quite often Elizabeth got to tag along. Her mom educated her with an impressive vocabulary and incredible set of social manners; thus it was very much a treat to see her. Although, as I’ll reveal now, even back then as a little girl she was still quite the flirt.

One summer day her mom came over with Elizabeth just as my wife had asked me if I could water the yard. Elizabeth wanted to help in order to spend time with me, so I pulled out the hose and we sat on my front steps talking while I sprayed the lawn. It wasn’t long before she asked if it was her turn, so I let go of the squeeze nozzle, shutting off the water, and handed it to her. In retrospect, that was the key mistake.

I recall Elizabeth was about 5 or 6 at the time. But, she engaged the conversation as all women do: with an entrapment.

“Walt?”

“Yes, Elizabeth?”

“Whenever I come over, Tamara is always here.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

“Does she live here?”

“Yes, she does.”

It was evident that she was not fond of this answer, as she put her little fists on her hips.

“And why is that? Are you married to her?” Her little eyebrow went up.

“Yes, she’s my wife.”

At that point, Elizabeth scolds me, “You Never Told Me That!!!” and she points the hose right in my face and unleashes gallons of cold water all over me in an instant. And doesn’t let up.

Apparently, Elizabeth’s mom caught a flurry of activity through the storm door and came running, “ELIZABETH!”

Elizabeth shut off the hose, and looked at me expectingly, “Tell her what you just told me.”

And so, I had to apologize to Elizabeth, and her mom, for my big secret.

I’m from Hell?

So, I go out to eat this evening and as soon as I walk in the door, the Korean waitress announces to all in the place that I’m from Hell.

Yes, hell.

Not only that, but I’m the devil.

I’m trying to figure out what she’s talking about, and she explains that she had just been telling another customer, who’s also a photographer, about me, and then I just walked in.

Confused for a moment, I figure out her context — she’s starts grabbing her ear and saying it was on fire, all the while pointing at me and professing to all, “You the devil! You from Hell.”

Obviously, the customers weren’t feeling all that comfortable with the revelation.

“Oh, were my ears burning?” She nods.

“You mean ‘speak of the devil’?” I inquire.

“Yes! Yes! You the devil. You from hell!”

Well, damn.

What Animal is the Rezehda?

I like to get my hair cut at the same place by the same Korean barber; it’s enjoyable because he’s learning conversational English, and I find it interesting to get an outsider’s perspective on picking up the language.

He explains, “When on break, I listen to customer.” He points at various barber chairs, “Overhear conversation. Pick up words.”

I nod, “Any other ways? Like the radio?”

“No radio. Also TV. Tried listening to Friends. No understand – use slang.”

Empathetically, I could see how this would be a problem, especially with the double meanings and catch phrases. However, he had an ingenious solution.

“Instead, watch cartoons with son. Words simple. Words slower.”

It made total sense. Shows intended for children took things at a better pace and used a more trivial vocabulary.

“What cartoons do you watch?”

He hung his head in immediate shame. “SpongeBob.”

Quickly recovering, he mentioned that he had some problem pronouncing certain animal names.

“Could you give me an example?”

“Yes! You teach me.” He then took a deep breath: “Re-zeh-da.”

“Come again?”

“RÄ“. ZÄ•h. DÄƒh.”

“Is that English?”

“Yes. No can pronounce.”

“Can you describe the animal?”

“Uh, it has a head…”

“That’s a good start,” I jest.

“It has craws…” (I assume he meant claws, as he made gestured talons with his hands.)

“Is it a Lion?”

“No.”

“Tiger?”

“No.”

“What’s the first letter? R?”

“No. Reh.”

“L?”

“Yes, yes! Reh.”

What’s the next letter?

“Eh.”

“E?”

“No, eeeeeh.”

“I?” By this time I pulled out my iPhone and was typing the letters out.

“Yes. Next is zeh,” and he drew a big squiggle in the air.

“Z?”

“Yes!”

I’m looking down at the iPhone. ‘L-I-Z.’ “Not an O, it’s a Z?” He affirms.

Oh, I get it — LIZARD. The moment I saw the word, he brightens. I also see what’s going on. He can’t pronounce L, and it’s coming out as R. And he can’t pronounce ‘zard’ as one syllable, so he drifted the soft a into an soft e, and added a third syllable to account for the d on the end.

We try a few times, “Lih-zard” “Re-zeh-da.” “Lih.” “Re.” “L-i-h.” “Reeeeee.”

At this point a young Korean girl, also a barber, comes over with her hand over her mouth giggling. She doesn’t speak much English, but she says Lizard perfectly.

Apparently, she learned how to say it, and “taught” him a new word to torment him all day in order to watch him go through a linguistic nightmare, knowing his determination to get it.

It reminded me of the Prell shampoo reference in Drawn Together, where Ling-Ling describes his new shampoo as his worst lingual enemy, asking how “Plerr” can give his hair such shine and body yet leave his soul with shame and embarrassment.

For the record, I saw no “Plerr” in the barber shop.

Home Improvement Goes Horribly Wrong

Anyone who knows me is aware that power tools and I do not get along. At all.

Perhaps it seems from the time my dad handed me a huge power drill with a circle cutter bit on it with instructions to drill holes in dry wall so he could blow insulation into the wall. “What happens if I hit something, inside the wall, like a wire?” was my first question.

“Then, you simply let go. I can replace the wall, I can’t replace you.” Kind words, but seconds later I was about to learn it was a lie.

The first two holes went just fine, upon the third, I hit a stud, the bit seized up, but the torque on the drill was quite strong an unexpected, wrenching my arm in the opposite direction. So, I let go, and now the drill’s free weight on the bit snapped it, as the circle blade caught the dry wall and tore a huge hole in the wall. He wasn’t pleased.

Or, there was the time I went to vacuum up grout after laying tile. When I was done, I discovered I couldn’t hear — the noise of the shop vac had damaged my ears.

Hand held tools aren’t much better.

Hammers hurt when you miss the nail.

And there was the time I went to help climb a ladder and pry off the shutters with a simple screw driver to bring them down for painting and replace them, only to discover a wasp nest behind them, dropping the shutter, which was made of fragile plastic, shattering it.

Even something as simple as attaching stereo speakers can result in a bloody call to 911.

I’ve been instructed by those closest to me that I’m to always ask for assistance, and my job is to either boil water and tear sheets (though I don’t understand how this helps, but it does keep me busy in the other room away from the project) or go order a pizza.

Given the colorful language and injuries that would often happen from the wood-shop in the basement, even as a child, I knew that despite every safety precaution, tools were cursed. I hated assisting for this reason. Supervision didn’t help. Shop classes in high school only increased the danger. And the expanded vocabulary wasn’t one I was allowed to use anyhow.

Apparently there’s some code of honor, that it’s more important the project survive than the repair person. This difference of opinion is where I and those of the trade-craft part ways.

Do-it-yourself home projects are quite possibly the sole reason I chose software development as a career profession and then pay other people to risk life and limb. I won’t even go into what happens if I attempt to change the oil in my own car.

So you think I would have instantly known better than to freely offer assistance when my friend was trying to install a new oven ventilation fixture. However, this looked pretty safe, hold the unit in place while he manually screws it in. What could go wrong? Indeed.

In all fairness, I did explain my history with tools before we started. So, it turns out he was prepared to deal with my “assistance karma.”

The first step was easy: do nothing and watch. Observing that he was putting wire nuts on exposed wires, I asked the obvious question: “Is the power off?”

The answer was no, as that would impact other places in the house, such as the kids watching television. No problem, I’ve seen it done this way before, and I took a healthy step back anyhow. And, of course, for him, there was no shock or sparks.

Now it was my turn. Lift the unit up, and hold it in place. This, of course, required a gingerly touch as the wires were still hanging out of the wall. So as I slid the unit upwards, and he reached in with his hands and pushed the wires back into the hole.

Except that his hand didn’t fit. So he grabbed a metal screw driver and started jabbing at the wirenut, which promptly fell off.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, it came undone,” I exclaimed as I was now holding a large metal box inches from a live wire while grounding myself through the gas stove with my groin.

We lowered it, tried a better wire nut, and I lifted it back into place. We used the unit itself to push the wires back, and now I’m holding a metal housing with heavy fan in place with outstretched arms, and it’s getting heavier by the second as muscle fatigue slowly sets in. Meanwhile, he’s got to go look for a longer screwdriver. In the garage.

I’m still good for holding, but not for long, and as he’s getting the first screw aligned, I start to smell gas. Then I hear a clicking sound. Then I hear a whoosh. I look down and I see that not one, but both burners on my side have kicked on, and my shirt, which is hanging over them, has flames shooting out of it.

“Need to stop, I’m on fire.” I say this calmly, trying to suck in my gut, but can’t let go because his head is under this metal box which is going to electrocute us both if I let it slip.

“Just a moment,” he tells me, “almost go it.”

“No, no, no. I’m on fire. Seriously, I’m on fire!”

He looks over sees what’s happened, and it would have been nice if he turned off the stove and then put me out in that order. But the stove gets turned off, and he holds the unit in place, and I go to extinguish my shirt.

Checking for damage, I see none, and it must have been the gas cloud that had ignited that shot flames out of my chest.

“See, you’re not on fire,” he reassures me, but I’m still checking for scorched cloth. I smell it.

Turns out, in order to catch any fallen screws, he put a towel over the burners. We lift it and discover two large round scorched circles. Had that not been there…

And just as I’m thinking that, he pulls it away so it won’t catch fire, should I unknowingly bump the easy-lite controls again.

He got one side in and switched to the other side where I was holding it. It looked like a vertical men-only game of Twister. This time, however, he brushed against the switch, and flames shot out under me again.

“Fire!”

He quickly turned it off, “wow, it’s easy to do that, huh?”

“Yeah. Screw.”

Anyhow, we get the fixture up and stand back to admire our work.

I’m not kidding, but about 30 seconds after that, we hear a large klunk, and the think falls on one side a few inches, wedging it in at an odd angle. The glue which held the screw support had given way.

He looks at me, “lets go watch a movie.” And we give up for the evening.

Of course, the next day I come over to see how the project is going, and this time he’s got bolts coming down from the top shelves. Brilliant. He’s going to lift it and push it into position, so while he’s doing that I get to push the wires back into the wall and then guide the bolts into the screw holes.

Only, I don’t get that far.

Just as I get my hand back there, “Bzzzzzt!” and I feel a familiar electrical shock — kind of like the time I tried adjusting an old fashioned television antenna but had my bare foot touching a heating vent on the floor. Apparently those are grounded, despite looking like they sit in carpet.

I pull my hand back, “I’m pretty sure a wire nut wasn’t fastened very well.”

“You get shocked?”

“That’s how I figured out it wasn’t fastened so quickly.”

So finally tally, to get it hung, I was set on fire twice and shocked once. This could have very well been one of my smoothest projects ever.

I Have an Autograph!

From Dec 20th, 2008 through Jan 3rd, 2009 the artists at ArtKlub have art on display at the Atlanta Bread Company near the Dulles Town Center mall.

This Saturday and Sunday various local artists, including myself, got to hang out, and chat with the public. We were even pleasantly surprised by the visit of Frank Cho.

During lunch, a young lady came up to me and asked me for my autograph and pushed a pad and pen in my hands excitedly.

Now although I have drawn comics, I’ve recently taken up more of an interest in photography, which I had on display. And while I have a heavy internet presence and can be found in some technical books, I doubted either of these were contributing factors and that she was just collecting names for the enjoyment of the experience.

So, I whipped up an original cartoon with her in it and signed my name. She was very pleased.

However, I wasn’t able to return to my lunch, because her considerably younger brother came up and mimicked the request. Almost.

“Can you have my autograph?”

I smiled, “Sure you can give me your autograph!” And I pushed a blank napkin at him.

He looked down at it and asked, “What’s an autograph?”

“Do you have a name?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know how to write it?”

He got all excited, “…yes!”

“Then,” I explained, “you have an autograph.”

At that point, he was simply thrilled and went running to his sister and accounted loudly, proudly, and slowly for all to hear: “I have an awe-toe-graph!” and kept writing his name to himself in his pad.

Leaf the Red Ones

After returning home today, I hopped out of the car and saw our next door neighbor’s little girl raking leaves. Although the small child-sized rake still towered over her by a good foot, she was doing her best at the apron of the tree. Nearby was a small colorful pile.

“Make sure you only do the red ones.” I pointed at our tree, which was a solid bright orange. It was also the the only color of leaves scattered over our unraked lawn.

She looked up at her red sugar maple, which was littered in bright red and orange leaves, down at her pile, and pushed the rake away, “Why didn’t someone tell me that? I’ve been working all day!”

I quickly went inside. Mission accomplished.

Paper or what?!?

I was given an odd choice on election day…

So, I go to the polls to vote today, show my id, and the woman wants to know what kind of ballot I want.

“Paper or plastic?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry. Paper or electronic. I keep doing that.”

“Let’s do paper, it’s better for the environment.”

Now that’d be funny…

So, we’ve just finished eating at Arby’s and are backing out of the parking space when suddenly we see white van whip behind us at incredible speeds, clueless that we were in motion backing out.

“He almost hit us!” exclaimed our driver.

I looked out the rear view matter and read the sign on the van, which as now in drive thru. Point it out to the others, I stated “wouldn’t have mattered, it’s a Progressive auto insurance evaluator — we’d be reimbursed on the spot.”