I know that Jim Varney died of lung cancer a few years ago. He’s the guy who played Ernest in those movies and commercials. You know, the ones where the hillbilly pokes in the window and shouts HEY VERN!
If you think about it, we’re all Vern. Ernest is shouting all this stupid crap at us, over and over.
But if we were Vern, wouldn’t we lock our doors? Or latch the windows shut?
Sure, Ernest was an idiot, but letting him back in over and over, what does that say about us.
Maybe Vern left out packs of cigarettes?
Tag: cliche
Zilla
Nobody knows why Godzilla keeps attacking Tokyo, but the insurance companies learned their lesson after the first time.
They tried to add “zilla” to the end of “Act of God” in their policies, but that didn’t quite work out with Kanji characters. So, they said that Godzilla had used his atomic fire breath on the building that warehoused all the records and paperwork.
When that scam didn’t work, the insurance company called the bankers and worked up a deal.
“Godzilla destroyed our vault and records,” the bankers said.
They pocketed the cash, fled to Singapore, and lived happily ever after.
The Heat
I don’t know how people can stand the heat in Phoenix. Is there some secret underground tunnel system, because there aren’t enough skybridge tubes full of chilled mercy from one building to another.
Maybe they go around at night after the sun grants temporary reprieve from its searing wrath?
Centuries ago, my people wandered 40 years in the desert before they reached The Promised Land.
Me, I’d have given up after a day.
“Was Pharaoh really all that bad? I bet the labor market would be in our favor now.”
I step into a building.
Cool, refreshing air conditioning.
Amen.
If the shoes fit…
Bob lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident. Bill had his left leg blown off after he stepped on a land mine in Iraq.
“Hey, you could buy a pair of shoes together,” said a girl at the bar. “Bob gets the left shoe and Bill gets the right.”
They heard that kind of patronizing crap one too many times, and they both snapped.
When they were both convicted for murder, they shared a prison cell. Sure enough, the warden did the “shoe joke.”
As they beat the fuck out of him, they shouted “We’re not the same size!”
Jason
When I go to sleep, I play camping sounds on my phone.
Crickets, a crackling fire, owls, and frogs fill the air.
It helps me to dream of when we’d go camping long ago.
Back at Crystal Lake.
Yeah, there was this Jason kid that we harassed and drove into a homicidal fury. He put on a hockey mask and chopped up a bunch of hot teens.
Thank goodness I was a pimply nerd back then. Jason just passed me by without a single look. Dude just snickered. Jerk.
I still came down with poison ivy. Man, did that suck.
as a
Freddy says that he’s sick as a dog, so he can’t meet up with me at our favorite bar.
Sick dog? Is one of your dogs sick? I ask.
I’m a vet. I take care of Freddy’s dogs. He’d have said something if one was sick.
“No, as sick as a dog!”
Oh, I must have misheard him.
I guess I’m getting to be as deaf as a post.
Freddy works for The Post. As an ombudsman. He has to listen all day to readers.
He swore and hung up. I guess he heard me the wrong way or something.
Change The Names
Not only did we change the names to protect the innocent, but we’ve changed them to condemn the guilty.
So, instead of just keeping Monica Smith’s name out of the papers for writing bad checks, which was all just a big misunderstanding and a simple math error by the bank, we’ll put Christina Bloomgarden’s name in there for drinking up and gambling away all of her kids’ college funds.
What? Monica wrote those bad checks to Christina when she bought Christina’s old car? So the college fund thing all her fault, not Christina’s.
Stop the presses. Change the names again!
Ricky The Rat
Back in the day, Ricky The Rat would drop a dime and rat you out to the cops.
The Syndicate never managed to finger Ricky, so they muscled the phone company into raising the price of a call from ten cents to a quarter.
“Exact change, please,” said the operator to Ricky.
That kept Ricky quiet for a while… until 911 made it to the city. That was toll free.
Ricky would still drop a dime out of habit, and get it back.
Then, cell phones took over. Phone booths vanished.
The Syndicate tracked Ricky with GPS, and whacked him.
Sleepy Androids
Philip K. Dick wrote a book with the title “Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?”
He never answered the question. So, I built a bunch of sleepy androids.
Most of the androids didn’t dream at all. They just went into their power-saving modes. A few ran some core system apps in the background, but nothing that could be considered a dream.
Then there was Beepy Seven. And he dreamed of sheep.
“Were they electric?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said Beepy Seven. “I was too busy fucking it.”
Beepy Seven turned out to be a janitor in a robot costume.
Otters
The teacher said on the report card that Bobby doesn’t play well with otters.
Otters? Doesn’t she mean others?
I scheduled a parent-teacher conference for the following Tuesday, and I was horrified to find the classroom covered with blood and hair and gristle.
“What kind of slaughterhouse do you run here?” I exclaimed.
“It’s your son Bobby!” answered the teacher. “Didn’t you read my note? Your little monster doesn’t play well with otters.”
“Otters?” I looked around. “These are dead otters?”
The teacher nodded.
I apologized to the teacher, grounded Bobby for a week, and suspended his annual zoo membership.