Carsonmania,Spoofbooks
Wash 5 lbs. whole crabapples. Do not peel or core. Ha! As if you had time to peel 500 tiny crabapples. For that matter, you don’t have time to make this jelly in the first place, but you’d feel guilty letting all those apples rot on the ground. Place apples in large pot; cover with water; turn heat to highest level. Check pot continually for boil at first, then get tired of waiting and go read your email. Return to find pot boiling over. Clean up mess. Using potato masher, crush cooked apples in pot, leaving stains on your t-shirt. Place colander over a large bowl. Pour cooked fruit into colander, allowing best juice to escape around sides of bowl and down the drain. Measure 8 cups of juice into large cookpot. Discover that bowl has only 6 cups of juice. Attempt to refigure standard proportion of Sure-Jell using calculator and directions at Martha Stewart website; decide it’s too complicated. Cross your fingers and stir entire box of Sure-Jell into juice in saucepot. Add 1 teaspoon butter to reduce foaming. Stir constantly while bringing mixture to full boil on highest heat. Check clock, realizing this is taking the whole friggin’ morning. Quickly stir in 6 cups of sugar. Return mixture to full rolling boil, stirring constantly and wiping sweat from brow. With metal tablespoon, attempt to skim off foam. Chase foam across surface for a while as it eludes spoon. Decide a little foam never hurt anybody. Ladle mixture into glass jars and cover with lids. Store in refrigerator. Check batch later and discover mixture never jelled because you used inferior crabapples. The National Association of Trial Lawyers has suggested a new legal plea: temporary stupidity. “Temporary stupidity is easier to prove than temporary insanity,” a spokesperson said. “It wouldn’t require testimony by psychiatric experts. And jurors are more likely to be sympathetic – because, let’s face it, who among us hasn’t done something boneheaded once in a while?” Legal experts speculate that celebrity doofuses such as Anthony Weiner and Ryan Braun could invoke the temporary stupidity defense, but only by establishing that “temporary” extends to periods of several years. Tired of articles like “10 things to ask yourself before you die,” which simply rehash the old “stop and smell the roses” theme? Here’s a more practical list: eight things to ask yourself after you die.
“Can you believe they’re marketing ‘soy milk’? What a crock! That’s not really milk! Have you ever seen teats on a soy plant? I don’t think so. “And the taste – ecchhh! I’d rather drink out of a toilet than swallow that stuff! I accidentally poured some in my coffee once and almost threw up. “Then there’s almond milk. Yeah, right. Like there’s almond trees with udders or something. “Give me real milk or give me death!”
Does this look like fun to you?
Among people with low expectations for a summer getaway, tent camping rates number one, according to a new survey. Survey respondents talked about how tent camping lived up to their pitiful requirements: “Waking up in a puddle after an overnight rainstorm was truly refreshing.” “Softest bedrock I ever slept on.” “Sometimes we even got to remove our mosquito-net hats.” “Each night before bed, we bonded by pulling ticks off each other.” “My teens are still raving about the fun they had digging their own latrine.” “During that magical week, we spotted a chipmunk, a garter snake, and literally dozens of squirrels.” “The evacuation brought everyone in the campground together, like family. We still exchange Christmas cards with the firefighters.” “Nothing compares to hamburgers cooked over an open flame. We could eat them every night of the week. Come to think of it, we did.” “We heard lovely chirping of crickets after 3 a.m., when the neighbors turned off their car stereo.” “I’ve got a great video of those bears tipping my car into the river.” Egyptian tourism officials, rattled by a recent case in which a Chinese tourist scratched graffiti into an ancient artifact, today discovered another act of vandalism: the nose of the Sphinx is missing. Tourism officials would neither confirm nor deny that this case is related to the graffiti "Ding Jinhao was here" that appeared on a 3,500-year-old temple artifact. One representative, speaking on condition of anonymity, remarked: "Ding Jinhao was here, but the Sphinx's nose is not." Archaelogists offered varied opinions on a solution. Some believe that the original nose, if found, could be reattached with Krazy Glue and rebar. Others recommend a nose-cloning procedure a la Woody Allen's film "Bananas." Quality AV components? Check. Customized furniture? Check. Light-blocking drapes? Check. And now for the finishing touches to recreate the authentic theatergoing experience: --Spill soft drinks on the floor and let them dry to a sticky residue. --Record the broadcast of an annoying pop radio station, and play it prior to the “feature presentation,” accompanied by dimly lit ads for local businesses. --Ask your spouse to sell you a carton of stale popcorn for $8.50. --Just before the feature, run a dozen onscreen reminders to “silence cellphones.” --Set a batch of cellphones to ring at critical points in the film – say, during a love scene or right before the hero saves the world. Scatter them around the room. --Invite some attention-deficit-disordered neighbor kids to sit behind you, where they’ll whine, argue, and kick the back of your chair. --Invite their dimwitted parents to sit next to you and blab about the movie: “What did he say?” “Hey, that guy looks like John Travolta.” “This movie sucks.” --Set your air conditioner to 46 degrees, and make sure the fan blows directly down your neck. Enjoyed this story? It's from Gimme Shelter: A Spoofbook on Home Decorating -- available free today at Amazon.com. And even if you missed the free promo day, the book costs only 99 cents. Click here for the Amazon sales page. So you're the old-fashioned type who likes to curl up in front of a fireplace with your personal computer? I've got you covered. All of my ebooks are now available as downloadable Adobe PDFs as well. So there's no need to deal with all that newfangled ebook technology! Simply purchase and download any or all of the PDFs and pore over them until you need reading glasses, just like Grandma and Grandpa. For details, visit my Shop page and scroll down to the last heading, "And still more ridiculous stuff."
My love is like a red, red corn dog.
1. Each week, set aside one night for a romantic date, preferably with each other. 2. Enact your secret bedroom fantasies. You’re Howdy Doodie, she’s Lamb Chop. You’re Eva Braun, he’s Adolph Hitler. You’re both Brangelina. Whatever floats your boat. 3. Try a new activity together: visit a landfill, for instance, or cook homemade corn dogs in the deep fryer. 4. There’s nothing like a mutual enemy to create a bond, so find something you both detest (highway roundabouts? February?) and spend quality time kvetching about it. 5. Take a picnic. It doesn’t have to be fancy, as long as you bring lots of booze. 6. Enroll in a cool class together. Consider a foreign language like HTML, or maybe something practical like sofa reupholstering. 7. Feed each other with chocolate-dipped fruit. If fresh fruit is beyond your budget, use prunes or dog treats. As a reader, you probably imagine that writers begin each new book with a grand vision plus a twenty-item list for a killer marketing campaign. As a writer, I’d have to say: Ha! I wish! I write parodies. Sometimes they’re on mainstream topics like pets, weddings, or home improvement, and I know exactly where the book is going. But recently I stumbled upon a spoof topic purely by accident. An email popped up for the Amazon account my husband and I share: “Thank you for your purchase of ‘Fifty Shades of Grey.’ ” Hmmm…I didn’t download that book. I phoned Hubby at his office. “Did you buy ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’?” “Yeah.” An instant of relief: Our Amazon account wasn’t hacked after all. Then a new worry: Is Hubby secretly hooked on overheated S&M? “Um, hon, do you know what it’s about?” “No, but it’s been on the bestseller list for a year, so I figured I should check it out.” A moment of silence. Then: “Ohh-kaaayy. Let me know how you like it.” As it turned out, Hubby never got beyond chapter 2 of “Fifty Shades.” But guess who started reading it on her Kindle? Yup. And when I reached the part about a contract (“The Submissive will walk five paces behind the Dominant, bow when he faces her, and respond ‘Yes, Anjin-san’ to his commands”) it hit me: This book begs to be spoofed. And so I did. Spoof it, I mean, in Fifty Shades of BenGay. Which just goes to show you that accidents sometimes have happy endings. |
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