I was in Gettysburg this weekend and took a “ghost tour,” in which a guide in Civil War-era civilian garb and toting a lantern took a group of friends and me around at night, talking about the many ghosts said to haunt the town. The guide said the man who wrote the first “ghosts of Gettysburg” book has been so busy lately he doesn’t write them anymore, but hires (wait for it) ghost writers. I suggested that, if he’s really pressed for time, he could do the writing while taking long flights, with… ghost writers in the sky.
Any groaners you’ve come up with and are inordinately proud of?
I changed the ending of “Stupify” by Disturbed from “look in my face, step in my soul, I begin to Stupify” to “look in my fizzle, step in my sizzle, I begin to Snoopify.”
Just today at lunch, someone mentioned how something had been made in Akron, Ohio. I referred to it as “an Akron-ism” and got no love whatsoever for my effort.
My daughter’s father (obviously, my ex) used to work in a Danish bakery, whenever people would ask about his job, I would tell them he works in a bakery, he hates it, but he needs the dough! Yeh, it’s really lame, but always makes me giggle.
I had a character in a game once that you could partially name. It had to be ____ Yan, Yan being the name he came with, the blank part of it the part you named.
I called him “Flaming Yan”. Say it out loud.
I still laugh my fool head over it.
Well, in Akron, it’s not all that original . . . there used to be an antique shop on South Main Street called An-Akron-Ism. Right about where the ballpark is now.
I used to know a guy who, in his early years of his Spanish teaching career, raised eyebrows when he talked about Cuba. People thought he was a commie or something. I said, “Well the important thing is that you made good Marx in school.”
It was very good! Not too overplayed, either; you don’t see it on every street corner. “Norka” is another"; it’s Akron spelled backward. It was a soft-drink company a long time ago and people still collect the bottles. Now Norka Futon is a pretty successful small chain of furniture stores. A fair number of business are called “Rubber City.”
One time, my grandmother was trying to open a package of cheese with a knife or scissors or something. I heard her say “Ouch!” while trying to open the package, so I said, “Hmm… That must be the sharp cheddar.”
A couple of years ago, there was a lot of debate raging here in Jersey about the number of bears finding their way into residential neighborhoods, and whether or not they should allow bear hunts.
While having a family talk about it, someone mentioned allowing the bear hunts, and donating the meat to homeless shelters. That prompted the following conversation between myself and my sister-in-law.
Her: Yeah, but can you eat bear meat?
Me: Sure…I’ve had it before.
Her: Really? How was it?
This will date me, but back in college, my roommates were watching baseball, and the announcer kept talking about a player named Darryl Strawberry. I don’t watch baseball, so on the off chance there was a pun in there, I asked my roommates what position he played. Turned out he was a fielder, to which I replied: “So will Strawberry field forever?”
Not long after, I went to my intro biology prof’s office hours. He was looking over the class roster, and remarked there were a lot of Smiths in the class. So I asked him how many Joneses there were, and he said there were about as many, to which I replied, “So I guess the Smiths are keeping up with the Joneses.”
