Risk assessment haiku with generous tip

Not safe Safe No mask
Mask Cut hair myself Just don't
Salon Sane Not sane

© 2013-2020 Nancy L. Ruder

Fungus vs. Snickers

How to write an effective request email to Human Resources:

Joanna,

I had a dumb-as-fungus moment this afternoon when I had a craving for a Snickers. The # is missing for that selection in the snack machine, so I punched in the price 1-0-0. Doh! 100 is the # for those icky cinnamon rolls. That cured my whole chocolate craving, but if you have contact with the snack machine vendor I would appreciate having the selection number back. Otherwise, I will surely do the same dumb thing again.

If you like those cinnamon rolls, there’s one on the break room island for you!

Thanks,

N

Getting results!

1. I received an instant reply requesting information about dumb-as-fungusness.

2. The Candyman vendor got an instant request for snack machine repair with forwarded message.

3.  A young friend showed me a fossilized mosasaur jawbone with six teeth he found at the river yesterday, and it looked more appetizing than the petrified cinnamon roll.

4. There's an amazing fungal growth in the lawn across the street that is larger than a pan pizza from Pizza Hut.

5. I first learned the expression "dumb as fungus" when Dave Barry had a syndicated humor column in the Omaha World Herald when Reagan was president. My father preferred "like a rock only dumber" but I have always been partial to fungus.

6. My sister, an extremely successful,highly-regarded music education professional who shall remain nameless confesses she feels a lot of pressure to punch in the numbers and/or letters as soon as the coins go down the chute in the snack machine, resulting in occasional performance anxiety.

7. Would Betsy DeVos recognize a fungus if it jumped up and grabbed her Snickers bar?

8. How do we define intelligence, and what is the sensitive term for "dumb" in a world where the rules are in constant change?

9. Are you as smart as a  slime mold?

10. Who wrote that book about smart tree roots?

11. Do you take it personally when the vending machine spits back your dollar bill? Yes, it's worse than a quarterly performance review.

SING A SONG OF  SYNTAX

DAVE BARRYTHE BALTIMORE SUN

A significant reason why the United States is having trouble competing in the modern industrialized world is that most Americans, through no fault of their own, are, in the words of U.S. Department of Education Secretary Lamar Alexander, "as dumb as fungus."

That is why this newspaper, at great expense and physical risk, is once again presenting "Ask Mr. Language Person," the educational feature that answers common questions about grammar, spelling and punctuality.

© 2013-2019 Nancy L. Ruder

A whole passel of puzzles

Lettuce pause for a moment of self-doubt followed by the Serenity Prayer and a daily dose of gratitude for my sister who mailed me a whole passel of jigsaw puzzles. She mailed them in a Crate & Barrel box.

Q. How many 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles did she send?
A. A whole passel.

Q. How do you spell "passel?"
A. "Passel" is spelled like "tassel," and unlike "hassle." "Passel" is a real word. Thank heaven! I didn't just dream it up. It's right there in the big red dictionary.

Just seeing the box of puzzles unleashed an inner endless-loop of the Andrews Sisters singing "I Love You a Bushel and a Peck."

Q. How much do I love you?
A. A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.

Q. Is a bushel bigger than a passel?
A. That is comparing apples to oranges with a festive sauce of linguistic idiosyncrasy.

Q. At Christmas dinner the cook opined that peeling 6 lbs. didn't make as many mashed potatoes as it used to.
A. Should that be "as much" or "as many?"

It is still a passel of mashed potatoes. A "passel" is a large quantity although etymologically-derived from "parcel." And "to parcel" means to divvy up and dole out fractions of a whole.

Q. When was Bob Dole on the Republican ticket?
A. Let's skip over this part.

Q. Why do we say "part and parcel?"
A. To mean the whole kit and kaboodle. Also, since part and parcel mean the same thing, the expression is for decorative emphasis with all the bells and whistles.

Q. Does everyone know that The Idiot by Elif Batuman is a really dry funny novel about college, language, linguistics, narrative, meaning, constructed worlds, attending foreign films, Dracula, and conflicted romantic relationships?
A. No, but they need to read it.

© 2013-2019 Nancy L. Ruder

Get that guy an egg timer

How many sudoku do you do, dear, before you call the cops?

One clue.
Assumptions of gender and age.  Male. Teen.
No pounding on the bathroom door. Only child.
Possible crime or accident scene.

You've  read the book. You've seen the movie. 

The victim is only discovered when the water overflows into the next apartment.

Natural causes?
Murder?
Suicide?
Water waster?

Saturday evening just home from work to the plumbing roar of the shower running in the next apartment. Kick off shoes, get a beverage, boot up computer, plug in phone, write to-do list for the weekend. The shower is still running. This guy (I assume) must have a hot Saturday night date. Or, more likely, the tenant has fallen and hit his head on the faucet, his blubbery, wrinkled body blocking the drain, water overflowing down into the vacant show model unit.

Time to dial 9-1-1?

But, no. The shower is off.

Alarm rings at 7:20 this morning and the shower guy is cleaning up again. Unbelievable! I do a sudoku (medium difficulty), write a grocery list, and begin a second puzzle. Water is still running. This is serious. Either the guy is a serial bathtub murderer, or he just uses up all the hot water for the entire building to torture us. He must  be stopped! I'm calling the cops!

P.S. No singing heard.

© 2013-2017 Nancy L. Ruder

Dooby du Bois

I admit I don't know diddly about W.E.B. Du Bois, except my friend's son is writing a paper about him. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes Du Bois as a pragmatic philosopher, among other things, but not as an author, artist, or illustrator. 

Guy Pène du Bois was an artist whose "Beach" series hung in the Sheldon Museum's permanent collection gallery during my Wonder Years. The series of three small oils showed groups of people in 1924 swimming attire, a matter of some interest for a 10 year old student of history, costume, swimming, and the human form. The subjects do not appear to be having any fun at the beach. I was always intrigued by the woman wringing out the skirt of her bathing costume. What would she think about shopping the Lands End swim catalog?

Guy was a student of William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri. He was named for his father's friend, the writer Guy de Maupassant. Much as I don't know diddly about W.E.B., I am clueless about Maupassant. I've reserved a library book of his stories. 

Guy had a large family to support, and wrote for a newspaper besides being an artist. He reported on the police beat, and was a music critic. He was the subject of Peggy Bacon's 1933 portrait etching entitled "Hangover".

One of Guy's children was William Pène du Bois, the author/illustrator of my very favorite Newbery Medal book. That would be the 1948 winner for The Twenty One Balloons. Besides writing children's books, this du Bois was an illustrator for George Plimpton's Paris Review.

But what about Blanche, you inquire. There is no evidence that Tennessee William's fictional character was related to artist/reporter, writer/illustrator, or socialist/philosopher on the Du Bois family tree. I'm mean, she doesn't even have a space between her du and her bois!

And then you have to wonder about Bois-D'arc trees. What's up with them? Are they osage oranges or horse apples? They have a lot of names, but none are Maupassant.

The Twenty One Balloons includes the eruption of Krakatoa, also the subject of a fantastic book by 
Simon Winchester. And that is how I remembered the word "caldera" to answer 77 across, "Name for a depression at the mouth of a volcano."

So, ultimately, du Bois is an antidepressant. And always, dear muse, "Anxiety is the shallow breathing of a narrowed mind."


© 2013-2015 Nancy L. Ruder