As much as I love the finer things in life, there’s nothing I love more than a simple store-brand can of vegetable soup with a cup of rice for dinner.
No, I won’t pass up a good sushi dinner, or wave away a steak if you’re offering, but there’s just no beating soup and rice on a lazy evening.
Just dump the rice in the rice cooker, add water, and then push a button. An hour later, microwave the soup in a bowl and dump in the rice.
Oh, and don’t forget to call a cab for the two hookers.
Category: My stories
The Old Men
Old Man Winter complains a lot about the bitter cold and his joints hurting, but that’s nothing compared to having to look at Old Man Spring’s ghastly bleached-white hairy shins.
And once you stumble across Old Man Summer laying out at the beach, well, you’ll wish you’d been born blind.
Old Man Fall tends to just stay in his rocking chair on the patio, drinking cheap beer and watching the leaves turn.
He’d be the most agreeable of the bunch if he didn’t sit there with his rifle, threatening to shoot people if they don’t get off of his lawn.
Warm
Sometimes, when it’s cold and dark and rainy and windy, I like to put on shorts and a T-shirt and carry the trash out to the dumpster.
It’s a minute walk to the dumpster to drop off the trash, and then a minute back.
Just enough to feel the chill.
Then I slide open the patio door, walk inside, and slide it shut again.
It feels so good warming back up again.
I lay back on the sofa, and I pull the blankets back over me.
It feels even better, to be reminded how good it feels to feel warm.
Reno
Johnny Cash once sang that he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.
So, I stayed out of Reno. Even if he was on tour on the other side of the world.
Just couldn’t take a chance, you know.
Now that he’s dead, I go to Reno all the time.
I walk along the sidewalk, smiling wide, and laughing when someone tells me that acting like a greenhorn will get me shot.
“No way,” I say calmly. “Because Johnny Cash is dead.”
They draw their guns and scowl.
I hope they’re not related to him. Or clones.
Super Pirate
It’s hard enough hosting a Super Bowl party, but my drunk friend Sylvia decided to bring Pirate Lord Redbeard along as her date, and things were getting tense.
He kept calling for grog, but all we’ve got is light beer.
Then, someone pissed him off by saying “On the other hand” when you can see clear as day that he’s got a hook on his other hand.
“Sorry, I got off on the wrong foot there” was their attempt at an apology.
Redbeard stomped the jackass with his peg leg and stormed off.
Well, shit. Better prepare to repel boarders.
Crawdads
THIS IS THE 4,000TH EPISODE OF THIS PODCAST
I love crawdads.
Back in college, Ellen taught me how to eat crawdads, and I’ve been eating buckets of them ever since.
Nardo the cat loved the crawdad smell on my fingers, so I’d set aside a few tails to bring home to him.
He’d meow and beg and snap at the bits of crawdad I offered him.
“No more,” I’d say, and he’d lick my fingers for awhile.
This is my first crawdad season without him. And our two black cats don’t like crawdads.
I ate the entire bucket myself.
Except one, left atop the pile of empty shells.
Pieces Of Eight Medal – Talk Like A Pirate Day
Most pirates spend their downtime at their favorite watering-hole, dockside brothel, or the local jail awaiting trial.
On the other hand (assuming you have another hand, and not a hook), Walter the Pirate had always dreamed of winning an Olympic gold medal.
He was a pretty good windsurfer, and none of his shipmates could beat him at Ping Pong, but he was best at freestyle swimming.
But what national team would sponsor him?
France?
England?
They had bounties on his head.
Eventually, Somalia sponsored him. (Somalia loves pirates), but he was disqualified for having a dagger clenched between his teeth.
George The Pirate ‘s Diction
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He never learned proper pirate-speak.
So, he scrawled a cheat sheet on his arm, but the ink washed off every time he fell into the water.
George fell into the water a lot.
He wanted to get the cheat sheet tattooed on his arm, but no self-respecting tattoo artist would agree to do it.
“We do mermaids and anchors,” said the Tattoo Artist’s Guildmaster. “If you’re too stupid to remember the words, just say YARRRRRR! a lot, okay?”
George smiled and said AVAST!
“Landlubber,” grumbled the captain.
George The Pirate Disfigurement
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
All the other pirates had some sort of disfigurement, such as a pegleg, a hook hand, or an eyepatch.
George tried to wear a pegleg, but it’s much easier when you have an empty pant leg.
The same goes for hooks and empty shirtsleeves.
George flopped and stumbled around on the deck like a fish out of water, his peg and hook waving in the air helplessly, and the entire crew laughed.
The captain couldn’t bear to watch the spectacle, so he put on a second eyepatch and sighed.
George The Pirate Ransom
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
A family had refused to pay the ransom for a prisoner taken in a recent raid, so the captain shouted “Keel-haul the landlubber!”
Keel-hauling involves tying a rope to someone and dragging them under the boat, scraping them along razor-sharp barnacles that have grown on the hull.
George, who was in charge of the keel-hauling crew, ended up tangling the entire boat in ropes, and the prisoner escaped.
After the ropes were untangled, the captain hung George upside-down from the mast for a week.