Category Archives: funny things

The Rise of the Asterisk

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It’s well-known (by people who know me) that I love punctuation. I read books about punctuation. I have two punctuation tattoos. My favorite mark of punctuation is the semicolon (which is one of the tattoos I have). But lately, when it comes to punctuation, the asterisk is in the ascendancy. And that’s because an increasing number of books have swear words in their titles. Punctuation is how we address the problem delicately.

The first example of the trend and at the time most shocking was Go the F**k to Sleep, a book that purported to be a read-to-kids goodnight book, but was really an expression of parental frustration. It caused quite a buzz.

After that came The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (and the more daintily titled The Subtle Art of Not Caring About People’s Opinion), I Used to Be a Miserable F*ck, Unfu*k Yourself, The French Art of Not Giving a Sh*t, and F*ck Feelings. For those who prefer hashtags, there’s Unf#ck Your Brain. The winner for the longest title is The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck: How to Stop Spending Time You Don’t Have with People You Don’t Like Doing Things You Don’t Want to Do (A No F*cks Given Guide). And Everything is #@%!ed! uses a whole string of punctuation. Fucking This shit Show: A Gratitude Journal for Tired Women dispenses with the veil of punctuation altogether. (I can’t help that inconsistent capitalization. That’s the way it’s written. Maybe shit is supposed to look less threatening in lowercase? But I digress.)

(When marks of punctuation are used as stand-ins for letters or words, they’re called “grawlix,” an almost completely useless word, but one I’m quite fond of. Most people have seen grawlix only in comic books when Popeye, for example, wants to cuss. But I continue digressing.)

What’s the reason for all the daintily disguised sweary titles? It’s not like we don’t know what the asterisks stand for. It’s not fooling anyone. Go the F**k to Sleep was obviously meant to be shocking, though it also expressed humor and frustration. After that, it looks like a bandwagon was jumped on. The book even jumped on its own bandwagon. Now it’s a trilogy, including You Have to F**king Eat and F**k, Now There Are Two of You.

(I note that most of the sweary titles go with self-help books. Does this indicate a certain irreverence regarding the concept of self-help? Frustration with the concepts in the books? I know I’ve wanted to swear at self-help books during various periods of my life. Now I write them, though (so far) none have titles that require grawlix. But I digress some more.)

Personally, I have no objection to swearing. For a long time, I couldn’t do it, but after working as a waitress, I made up for lost time. Now I swear like a sailor, though with better enunciation. Sometimes, a curse word is just the right one. And of course, when I use a swear word in writing, I punctuate it properly. No grawlix here.

My favorite unexpected use of punctuation, however, comes in this brief verse:

Mary’s little lamb / Upon the grass did frisk. / But Mary was afraid / Her little * .

Now that’s creative punctuation!

Saga of the CPAP

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“You want me to put KY jelly up my nose?” I asked.

“Basically, yes,” the tech replied.

It was my first appointment getting a CPAP machine. The tech who fitted the mask warned me of possible nasal irritation and suggested I use a “non-petroleum personal lubricant.” Hence my question.

For those not in the know, CPAP machines are the best solution for sleep apnea, which occurs when you stop breathing multiple times during the night. It can be just as serious as it sounds. Snoring and feeling exhausted all day (which I had) are some of the symptoms, and being overweight is one of the contributing factors (which I must admit to).

I was diagnosed after going through a sleep study with assorted wires glued all over my head and body. I had to sleep like that, if I could. I brought along a stuffed bunny to help. (The tech who applied the wires quizzed me—did I know what EKG meant? Yes, I did. Did I know what EEG meant? Yes, I did. Did I know what EGG meant. “Egg,” I replied, evidently the first person ever to get it right. But I digress.)

It was thus determined that I do indeed have sleep apnea. (Or at least hypopnea, a slightly milder version, from the roots “hypo” for low and “pnea” for breathing. Think “hypoglycemia” and “pneumonia.” Now I digress pedantically.)

I was then fitted for the CPAP machine, which consists of a box and a mask. The box blows air rhythmically into your nose while you sleep, thus forcing you to breathe. The mask channels the air into your nose, along with the smell of whatever you had for dinner, if your bedroom is just above the kitchen, which ours is.

The first CPAP machine I got had a tattletale chip in it to record whether I was using it or not. They were in awe when they discovered that I used it even when napping.

Actually, my husband has the full-blown version of sleep apnea and started using a CPAP before I did. His snoring was prodigious as well. He could wake both of us when he really got going. The two of us together created a racket that would raise the dead, if we didn’t both die from sleep apnea first.

He has more trouble with his mask than I do, and his problem can’t be solved with a popular sexual aid. For some reason, probably the stress he puts on them, the straps get tangled, and the plastic parts break. He’s always asking me to untangle or tighten the straps. Sometimes I have to adjust them in the middle of the night when I can’t see well. Inevitably, I velcro the straps to his hair, which is curly enough to be the loops to the hooks.

We take our CPAPs with us whenever we travel. It’s a hassle. The air pressure machine, the hose, and the mask take up half the space in a carry-on. There are smaller ones, including one that’s no bigger than a small bandaid but is way too expensive. Besides, I’d have to go through another sleep study to get a prescription for a new CPAP. My bunny’s up for it, but I’m not.

The Joy of Napping

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Dibujo de una nia en la cama preparada para dormir, es de noche, se est tapando con una manta mientras sonrie

Robert Fulghum tells us that he learned everything he needed to know in kindergarten. I can’t go all the way with him on #1—Share everything—especially when it comes to Facebook, but I’m a solid believer in #12—Take a nap every afternoon. (Well, and #9—Flush.)

I love naps—the sensual pleasure of snuggling into my bed in a cozy little nest of pillows, sheets, and blankets; the quiet purr of the fan and the cat who perches on my hip; the knowledge that, for a time, I can let go of the cares of the day; the promise of renewed spirit and energy; the satisfaction of turning off my phone.

Two of the best ways that I know of improving my mood are having a meal and taking a nap. The one often follows closely on the other, a phenomenon I am told is called “postprandial torpor.” (I’ve often wished I could call in sick to work and claim that affliction. Or “rhinotillexomania.” They sound so serious. But if anyone at your workplace knows Latin, you’re busted. (Which they actually did at one place I worked.) But I digress.)

Naps, however, are part of the reason that I can no longer work regular hours in a regular office. I find that bosses get upset if you take the phrase “break room” too literally. In the past, I’ve contemplated keeping a sleeping bag under my desk, but that would never work. Let’s face it—I snore. Prodigiously. Someone would be sure to notice, and object. (When I was traveling with my mother, she used to beg me to let her get to sleep before I nodded off. But I digress again.)

Fortunately, I work at home, so breaks and naps are entirely my own choice, except in case of deadlines. The transition from desk chair to bed is easy. I’m usually already wearing my jammies, and the commute is just up the stairs. (I can’t nap on the couch. It’s too uncomfortable. I used to be able to nap face-down on an airline tray table. This was useful because the flight attendant, seeing me, would think I was dead and leave me alone for the rest of the flight for fear of alarming the other passengers. But I digress yet again.)

Unfortunately, I’m not able to take “cat naps”—a misnomer if I ever heard one. My cats sleep on average 18 hours a day, and invariably right where a human wants to walk or sit. One of my cats even snores—daintily, but audibly. And no, it’s not a purr. (We’ve been thinking of getting a tiny CPAP machine for her, but we think she’d object to the mask. And cats have unpleasant ways of making their objections known. If you have a cat, you know what I mean. But I digress some more.)

Short, 20-minute naps do me no good. They don’t refresh me at all. In fact, they leave me more muddle-headed than ever. But the real reason I can’t take short naps is that it often takes me 20 minutes or more, usually of reading, to fall asleep. Since that’s the case, it’s hardly worth sleeping less than an hour or two.

But some of the time, even two hours of napping doesn’t do the job. Hence I have invented the Mega-Nap, of at least four hours. Mega-Napping doesn’t usually interfere with my nighttime sleep, either. On one memorable occasion, I Mega-Napped for a good six hours, and woke at 9:30 p.m., just in time to go back to bed and sleep for another 10 hours, giving the cats a run for their snoozes. I also suffer from Nap Attacks, when I hit the wall—hard— and simply must nap, collapse into a heap, or bite someone’s head off. Napping is usually the wisest choice.

With apologies to Robert Fulghum, I do see one glaring difference between kindergarten naps and grown-up naps. Children resist them and resent them and get cranky when they have to take one. Adults seek them and savor them and get cranky if they can’t have one.

I Can’t Do That!

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There are some things I just can’t do or at least am very, very bad at. There are the obvious ones like flapping my arms and flying or walking on water. There are things I just never learned to do like playing the harmonica or doing the hula. But there are also things that I simply can’t do, don’t want to do, or do miserably badly.

The most annoying one is in that last category—singing. Oh, I do sing, mostly alone in my own house at the top of my voice. I’ve tried singing in other places. I was in choir in junior high and was always last chair or next-to-last chair. One other poor singer and I swapped places regularly. (I must mention that taking choir meant that I was part of a heinous concert in which 40 white kids with no rhythm or soul whatsoever performed “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay.” But I digress.) I will sing in a large audience where everyone else will drown me out. I once even took singing lessons, which had no effect whatsoever. The problem is that I may start roughly on key, but over the course of the song, I sing flatter and flatter until by the end I’m in some other key altogether. I desperately wish I could sing well, though.

(Once my husband, in an effort to cheer me up, said, “There are people who sing worse than you.” “Name three,” I replied. Long silence. Then he said, “That wheelchair guy.” I was appalled. And I didn’t know whether I was more appalled that he couldn’t name Stephen Hawking or that he couldn’t think of two more people. I mean, he could have mentioned Shel Silverstein or my sister. But I digress again.)

Another thing I’m not reliably capable of is riding carnival rides. I can handle most of them okay, but there are ones that I absolutely refuse to go on. First are roller coasters that flip you upside down. The second are those towers that spin and then drop the floor out from under you as you’re pasted to the walls. I understand the physical principle of centripetal acceleration that keeps you from falling out, but they still look iffy to me. Maybe I’m just not confident in the maintenance and repair of carnival rides.

(For a long time, I was leery of Ferris wheels, because I had nosebleeds as a child and my mother wouldn’t let me go on them because she feared the height would bring one on. This despite the fact that every nosebleed I ever had was when I was lying in bed, which was at a height of only a couple of feet off the ground. (I do admit that the idea of having a nosebleed when the wheel stopped at the top and dripping blood on everyone else below me was pretty appalling.) As an adult, I have ridden the ride and never experienced a nosebleed. But I digress some more.)

And then there’s eating liver and onions. I’m not fond of that many onions in one place, but that’s not the problem. It’s the texture of the liver, grainy as well as meaty. I simply, literally, gagged on it. It wouldn’t get past my uvula. (That’s apparently its only function—guarding against liver.) After several valiant attempts, both my mother and I simply gave up trying. (I can eat other foods with peculiar textures. Octopus. Gizzards. Tongue. Snails. In fact, once when I was going on a business trip, I had a hint that the boss, who used to order dishes for everyone at the table, would present us all with escargot. I went to a local restaurant where no one knew me and ordered some before we went, just to see if my uvula would object. I found that snails go down quite easily. They have the texture of gizzards, which don’t bother me, and taste like scampi since both are served in garlic butter. And yes, the boss did order escargot for all. But I digress yet again.)

That’s all for this week. I’m going to try again to flap my arms and fly. Maybe sing while I’m doing it. But I’m not going up on the roof to experiment. That would be crazy.

Chopped Rules!

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I love the Food Network show Chopped. It’s calming. It is a competition show, but there are no hosts or contestants who yell or sound like wrestling announcers. (I’m looking at you, Guy Fieri.) They don’t even provide recipes. (That’s okay with me since I hardly ever have to make dinner with pork bung, stinging nettles, and green bean ice pops.) I do pick up a few tips: When they say “lacks seasoning,” they mean salt. (This is something my husband doesn’t understand.) You can glaze turkey with tangerine juice. (I used orange juice.) You can’t plate the way a normal person does. It has to be piled up like food Jenga. But I digress.)

There are everyday rules that apply to the show…well, every day. If you get blood on your plate, the judges won’t eat it (unless blood is one of the basket ingredients, which is not altogether impossible). Honor the ingredients (no, I’m not sure what that means either—bow to them, maybe?).

But beyond the official rules, there are “rules” that ought to be Rules. These are the things that a contestant should absolutely not do.

Don’t try to make risotto or polenta. Most of the time there’s not enough time (the rest of the time, there’s too much). If there’s not enough time, risotto will come out so al dente that the dente means tooth of the chipped variety. If there’s not enough time for polenta, you’ll have grits. Also, they both require a lot of attention—adding liquid and stirring—so if you want to make anything else (you do), it won’t come out right either.

Don’t try to make panna cotta. There just isn’t enough time for it to set up, even in the blast chiller. You might as well just put some strawberries in and say you’re serving cold fruit soup for dessert. Cold fruit soup is a thing and a yummy one at that.

Don’t use truffle oil. You may be tempted. After all, truffles are a high-end ingredient. But truffle oil overwhelms anything it touches. (Another common trap is using extracts. Almond. Amaretto. Anise. Rose water (which will make your dish smell and taste like soap). You should probably take the hint when you learn that rose water is used for make-your-own lip gloss (if you’re into that kind of thing). But I digress some more.)

Beware of garnishes. In the world of Chopped, NFG means Non-Functional Garnish. (Never mind what it means in the rest of the world.) Basically, it means any garnish you can’t eat or wouldn’t want to. They’re put on a dish just to make it look pretty. Think parsley, which used to garnish everything and now simply isn’t seen. Whole ghost peppers added for color. Even the little mint leaves that, like parsley on dinner plates, used to decorate any dessert are now out of vogue.

Beware of the oven. Ovens are tricky. They will never (I repeat, never) cook that puff pastry in time. Or the phyllo dough. Or the croissants. Probably not even the cookies, and definitely not the cupcakes. (The cupcakes will also not release from the pan, which means you have to dig out the tops and call the result “deconstructed.”) On the other hand, if you put streusel in the oven, it will burn. And if you keep opening the door and peeking in the oven, you’re toast, so to speak, though your bruschetta won’t be.

How do I avoid these pitfalls in my own daily life? That’s easy. I make peanut butter and jelly or bologna and cheese sandwiches, or microwave some soup. (If you’re thinking Dan would object to this, he doesn’t. My efforts are for lunch. He does the dinners. Except when I have to make the cornbread to go with the cowboy beans. But I digress yet again. I guess I’ve digressed a lot this week if you’re keeping score. I just can’t help myself. Just like I can’t help myself when a cooking competition comes on. I’ll even turn off InkMaster to watch Chopped.)

It’s a Bird! It’s a Hat! It’s a …

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What it is, is a fascinator. Better known as that silly thing the women in the British Royal Family wear on the side of their heads.

They’re almost the only ones who wear fascinators anymore, and theirs are so large that they’re often mistaken for hats. And like hats, they often include elements such as netting, veiling, organdy, beads, flowers, and even feathers (hence the bird reference).

They’re different from hats, although. In general, they’re worn on the side of the head, though again the British Royal Family’s fascinators are so large that they perch on the side and spill over to the top of the head, or vice versa. They look like they want to grow up to be the hats that women wear to the Kentucky Derby but still have a ways to go.

You sometimes see fascinators on brides who don’t want to do the whole veil routine. Or you see them on the kinds of ladies who go to high tea and try to impress each other. (You don’t see them on me, largely because there’s this stupid rule that you don’t wear a fascinator with glasses (unless you’re the Queen of England (or Queen Consort, I suppose, if she wears glasses, which I don’t know, not being a Royal follower, though I’ve never seen a picture of her wearing glasses)), and I’m not willing to sacrifice sight for fashion. Or comfort for fashion, for that matter. I’m pretty sure there’s also a rule about not wearing a fascinator with pajamas. There’s also a rule that the escort of a woman wearing a fascinator should stand to her left, as the fascinator is worn on the right side of the head and this would impede conversation. That’s a lot of rules for a piece of headgear or an accessory or whatever. But I digress. At length.)

Fascinators impinged themselves on my consciousness recently because there’s a writer’s conference here in town this week. People have been posting on Facebook about rides to and from the airport and what to pack due to the weather in Dayton (layers was the best suggestion).

The writer’s conference is held in honor of Dayton native Erma Bombeck, and focuses on humorous and human-interest writing. There are sessions and seminars featuring noted writers and comedians, speed-pitch sessions with agents, a stand-up comedy contest, and a writing contest, as well as decadent chocolate cake and killer brownies. (There is a lot of chocolate around here. Some of the presenters even pass out M&Ms. It’s thought to spark creativity, and, as we learned in the Harry Potter books, chocolate really does help. I don’t think there are any studies on the effects of chocolate on creativity. All the evidence is bound to be anecdotal. But I digress again.)

Where was I? Oh, yes, fascinators. Well, people who attend this conference—the women at least (I think)—sometimes wear tiaras. And feather boas. And bunny slippers. Sometimes all at once, I suppose, at least for the overachievers.

Several first-timers noted the suggestion of such accouterments and wondered if they were seriously proposed. One anxious newbie asked if they were required, as she had been viewing “How to Wear a Tiara” videos on YouTube (which I didn’t know is a thing) and decided she couldn’t make the requisite bobby pins (are they still called that?) work with her short hair. I suggested she try a fascinator. She wasn’t sure whether that was a fashion tip or not. But, she said, she is fascinating, so it probably would be appropriate.

(Where she’d find one is a different matter. I don’t know where the Ladies Who Lunch (or Take High Tea) shop. And I suppose a bridal salon would be too pricey as well. I think I’d start in secondhand shops or antiques stores. I think I’ve seen one at such a shop and even tried it on, though it of course looked stupid with my glasses. But I digress for the last time this week. I promise.)

At any rate, I find the subject (cue Mr. Spock)…fascinating.

(And I hope you’re impressed by the number of parens I opened and closed in this discussion.)

What We Deserve

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I saw a mattress commercial once that said something like, “You’ll get the good night’s sleep you deserve.” Or maybe it was good dreams. I was taken aback. Do we really deserve a good night’s sleep? The ad appears to not have taken into account new babies and new puppies, known destroyers of a good night’s sleep and neither one a problem solvable with a new mattress. If you’ve recently acquired either a baby or a puppy, a good night’s sleep is not so much something you deserve as something that you desire.

Especially in commercials, there seem to be many things that folks apparently deserve. The most recent one I’ve heard is toilet paper that tears off neatly in pretty scalloped lines. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never desired—or deserved—ass-wipe that made pretty patterns on the roll. I’m satisfied if there is a roll and not just a brown paper tube on the holder. After being stranded once or twice, I won’t even insist on it facing the right way (over the front) as long as it’s there when I need it.

When it comes to what we deserve, I generally think of the very basics. We all deserve to have shelter and food and physical safety. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs has these physiological needs as the foundation of its levels of development. Maslow’s theory is that we can’t move on to higher levels of the pyramid until we have completed the ones below. So, until we have our basic needs met, we can’t move on to higher needs like love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.

But apart from our basic needs, what do we deserve? Singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter has some thoughts (or rather Lucinda Williams, who wrote the lyrics). In her song “Passionate Kisses,” she lists “a comfortable bed that won’t hurt my back”—so maybe that mattress is something we deserve after all. Other needs she wants fulfilled are “pens that won’t run out of ink and cool quiet and time to think.” And of course, those passionate kisses. “Shouldn’t I have all of this?” she asks. Yes. Yes, you should, I find myself thinking. Especially the pens. (Those don’t appear on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and neither do passionate kisses, except as a part of the love and belonging tier. But I digress.)

Williams was really onto something. While the comfortable bed and the pens cost money, the cool quiet and the time to think don’t, and neither do the passionate kisses.

I can think of a few other things we deserve as well. Healthcare that won’t bankrupt us. Enough food to stave off hunger, especially for children. Low-cost housing that the working poor can afford. Just to name a few. You know, stuff on the lowest level of Maslow’s Hierarchy.

Unfortunately, those do cost money, which really needs to be provided by social programs that require government funding, either national or local. Charitable organizations can help too, but they can’t shoulder the entire burden. And in the current political climate, funding for social programs is increasingly on the chopping block.

(And no, I’m not suggesting that there should be social programs that would offer funding for pens that don’t run out of ink or passionate kisses. That would be crazy. Maybe there should be a research effort to work on the pen thing, though. But I digress some more.)

For me personally, I think I deserve a mouse and keyboard that won’t run out of juice, a refrigerator that won’t run out of juice, and passionate kisses that won’t run out of juice. My old mattress works just fine.

Yes, No, and OMG NO!

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Sometimes I’m like a toddler who turns up her nose at any new food. Sometimes I’m like a teenager who will eat anything that doesn’t move. But I have my rules.

“Yes” foods. I will eat (and have eaten) sushi, octopus, eel, snails, and goat. (I first ate sushi when it was impossible to refuse, hand-made by my martial arts instructor’s wife.) I even once ate a raw oyster, though it just tasted briny. Now that I’ve at least tried it, I have no desire to do it again. It was the texture I objected to, and raw oysters pretty much have only one texture—slimy. (You may say that octopus, eel, and snails all have a slimy texture, but not if they’re prepared correctly. Octopus can be gelatinous or rubbery if you under- or overcook it, but is tender and toothsome if cooked for the right length of time. Eel is great when barbecued. Snails have the texture of chicken gizzards, which I learned to eat as a child, and have a flavor just like scampi because they’re served in garlic butter. But I digress. At length.)

“No” foods. My husband trained himself to like okra just so he could say he’ll eat anything. Except veal. He has humanitarian concerns about veal. I say good for him! But not good for me. I won’t eat okra no matter how it’s cooked. I just can’t get over the combination of slimy and hairy textures of okra.

Mustard is another of my nos. I had to tell my husband a reason I didn’t like it so he would stop bugging me to “just try it.” I told him that it tasted metallic. I did manage honey mustard dressing that I couldn’t avoid on a salad, but I didn’t enjoy it. (I once had dinner at a sushi restaurant with a group of people. The high point of the evening was when a husband asked his wife, “Do you really want me to tell the kids you wouldn’t even try it?” Her glare was positively poisonous. But I digress some more.)

Brussels sprouts were a big no for me until I had them in Slovenia. I didn’t know enough Slovenian (none, that is) to ask for the recipe, but they were delicious. We’ve tried roasting them and sprinkling them with parmesan cheese, and they’re tolerable that way, but I still long for the Slovenian version, whatever it was.

Most of my aversions are governed by texture. For instance, I never cared for egg salad because it’s too often mushy. (One time I ate mushy egg salad because it was impossible not to. My sister’s MIL served the sandwiches to us as we were passing through the area. My husband finally made it agreeable by the simple technique of making it chunky rather than pureeing it with an immersion blender or, as we refer to it, a motor boat. But I digress again.)

“OMG NO!” food. Liver-and-onions is the one food I can’t eat no matter how it’s prepared or how I try. And boy, have I tried. My mother used to serve it pretty regularly when I was a kid. She finally gave up on trying to get me to eat it when I literally (not figuratively) gagged on it, which upset the rest of the family’s dining pleasure. I feel that since I actually did try it in childhood, I’m under no obligation to try it again. I know tastes can change with age, but gagging isn’t likely to. I just hope I never get into a situation where the only polite thing to do is to try it.

The Edible Elephant

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When you think about therapists and elephants, you probably think of family therapy and the “elephant in the room.” As you may know, it refers to a not-so-secret secret—something everyone in the family knows but won’t talk about, like a family member’s alcoholism. But what if the room the elephant’s in is the kitchen? And what if the necessary thing to do isn’t to talk about the elephant but to cook it up and eat it?

There’s another saying among therapists, “Eat the elephant one bite at a time.” (Yes, I’m in therapy—have been for decades. (I can hear you saying, “Well, that explains a lot.” Don’t deny it.) But I digress.)

What it means, essentially, is “You’re going to be in therapy a long time. Maybe decades. Like Janet.” Thanks to insurance companies (or no thanks to them), therapy that takes six weeks or fewer is preferred. But there you are, some of us take just a tad longer. “Eating the elephant one bite at a time” is like “baby steps” (only much more vivid).

(I don’t know what sauces or side dishes would go with roasted elephant—or, more likely, pressure-cooked elephant. Maybe a peanut sauce. (Sorry not sorry.) But I digress again.)

My father also had an animal metaphor he used on me more often than I’d like to say: “You don’t have to go at it like killin’ snakes.” It’s related to the one about the elephant. It was advice that I didn’t have to do whatever it was I was doing (like filling out college applications) in a desperate hurry. I could take my time.

(I think if they were actual snakes, though, like the tomb full of ones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, I would want to kill as many of them as I could as soon as possible. The saying only applies to metaphoric snakes, I guess. But I also guess that the elephant is metaphoric, too. But I digress some more.)

Once when I was editing educational magazines for a living, I had a writer I liked very much. He had good ideas, wrote them to the right length, and turned them in on time—he was very reliable, and I used him a lot. But one day he sent me an article about not letting paperwork pile up. It was full of animal metaphors, though not, as I recall, elephants or snakes. But when he got to the point of describing a huge stack of overdue papers on one’s desk, he compared it to a rotting water buffalo. It was certainly vivid. And memorable. And, much as I hate to admit it, apropos. But I gently let him know that it was a little too vivid. I told him he could keep the other animals but the water buffalo had to go. (He was not in the least upset. That’s another thing I liked about him. He never kicked about being edited. But I digress yet again. (I just typed “digest” instead of “digress.” I need to wrap up this post.))

The end. Or, rather: You may think that this is the end. Well, it is, but there is another ending. This is it. (Just to get a duck in here with all the other animals.)

Music From Hell!

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Whenever you see a cartoon about someone arriving in hell, they’re issued a musical instrument—almost invariably an accordion or bagpipes. Sometimes a banjo.

Why is that? Are they played badly every single time? Are there no tunes that they’re really the best instrument for? Why all the hate?

Let’s start with the accordion. Unquestionably, the virtuoso of the accordion is “Weird Al” Yankovic. He has made fun of the instrument by using it to mimic the sound of an iron lung in one of his early songs. (Not politically correct, I suppose, but very funny, which, now that I think about it, sums up a lot of Al’s repertoire. But I digress.)

The Weird One is particularly well known for his epic medleys of famous tunes played on the accordion. Among the tunes he’s given the polka treatment are “99 Red Balloons,” “Hey Jude,” “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” “Hot Blooded,” “Jumping Jack Flash,” and “My Generation.” Just wrap your head around that.

Another much-maligned instrument is the bagpipes. About the only song that people will tolerate from a bagpipe is “Amazing Grace,” which is what was played every night when Dan and I were on a “barefoot cruise.”

But in general, the Scottish instrument is usually held in the same esteem as Scottish cuisine. (Never having been to Scotland, I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the slight on their cooking. I have been to England and Ireland, also often derided for their food, but I enjoyed eating both places. In England, I actually ordered a dessert called “spotted dick” and ate it, mostly so I could say, “I ate a spotted dick.” But I digress again.)

Yet another instrument that has a bad rep is the banjo. I think this is primarily due to that scene in Deliverance, where it became shorthand for mentally challenged Appalachian children and perverts. “Dueling Banjos” is the only banjo tune most people can name, and that’s half guitar.

But as Weird Al is to the accordion, Bela Fleck is to the banjo—a virtuoso, I mean, not a comic genius (though Fleck does have a tune called “Cheese Balls in Cowtown”). Fleck plays mostly jazz banjo, of which he is the only practitioner, to my knowledge. However, he has been known to dabble in classical banjo, recording an entire album that included the Keyboard Sonata in C Major, which can be heard here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ych7SiJ1pjg.

(I actually tried to learn to play the banjo once, but I was caught up in my perpetual music loop—when I had time, I had no money for lessons; when I had money, no time. Eventually, when I was broke, I sold the banjo, which solved the problem. But I digress some more.)

Some of my favorite music stories involve an old friend of blessed memory, Bill Maraschiello, better known as Bill-of-Many-Instruments Maraschiello. If it had strings, keys, pipes, or anything else, Bill could play it. Guitar, mandolin, hammered dulcimer, lap dulcimer, and more. I swear if you put an old shoe in front of him, he could play it and make it sound wonderful. Once I once saw him play two pennywhistles at the same time—a different melody on each. It was nothing short of amazing.

Bill was short, just 5’2″, and sometimes he played miniature versions of accordion and bagpipes—concertina and uilleann pipes. (I suppose, since the haters often say that bagpipes sound like someone torturing a cat, the uilleann pipes would be blamed for abuse of kittens. Also, I couldn’t find a picture of them to go with this post. But I digress yet again.)

It’s said that music soothes the savage beast. I guess accordions, bagpipes, and banjos simply make them more savage. Perhaps it’s safest to avoid them, but I don’t think I can. Some of my musical heroes have played them. And I don’t think they’re going to hell for it.