American Humour
Jim Burns
Before You Sit Down At The “FAMILY TABLE” You Better Take a Look At Your FAMILY TREE
It never ceases to amaze me how we can believe that an actor/actress on a commercial is really the character he or she portrayed on a sit-com. I was watching T.V. the other night and Roseanne Barr was doing a commercial on Nick@Nite talking about the importance of having dinner at the “family table.” So the commercial flashed back to her and John Goodman on a Roseanne episode sitting at the dinner table engaged in an argument which was supposed to be funny to the viewer. The point of the commercial was that it doesn’t matter what goes on at the family table as long as you have one. As a kid we had a family table; it was a war zone. I’m sure that many people can relate to my family table, and I am sick of calling it that too. (What is this new term –family table- anyway?) In my house, the family table was more like the family zoo. It didn’t really dawn on me how crazy it was until my sister started dating, and she would bring one of her boyfriends home for dinner. The poor guy would sit there and watch as my father cooled a baked potato. You know, the way everyone does it. Take the potato out of the skin with a fork and hold it about two feet in the air for about 15 seconds and stare at the steam. Then wave it up and down like a magic wand 4 or 5 times until you think it is cool. We all knew it was still hot. He would start to eat it, and then he would leave his mouth half open while he sucked air in to try to cool it. You see, my father was a short order cook when he was younger, and he was also a mess sergeant in the army. I guess he thought that made him some sort of chef. He always complained about my mother’s cooking. She wasn’t very open to his comments either which led to the battle lines being drawn between the two of them. My dad also watched his diet; his dinners consisted of a small piece of protein, a vegetable, a potato, and a slice of bread. My mother consistently made those meals for him every night for dinner. But she always fed my two sisters and me the good stuff; you know, all starch and no protein. That really got to him. The question he always asked was, “Why are you feeding them that?” I tell you, he was purely disgusted by the meals we ate. My father didn’t want me to get fat, but I did. I never knew when he was going to make another negative comment about my diet. One night I ate about a pound of macaroni and meat sauce and a loaf of Italian bread for dinner while he had his standard sparse dinner. He didn’t say one word to me about what I was eating; he just watched. It was almost fun eating dinner with him. I was surprised, but very relieved that he had let me eat my delicious dinner in peace without making one negative comment about my unhealthy dinner. About two hours later I sneezed. I said, “I think I’m getting a cold.” That was a mistake. He couldn’t wait to jump on that. He said, “Well that stuff you ate for dinner tonight, you could catch anything from that, and you gobbled it up like dog food.” My father, the general, won that battle after all. He got me.
Stuff I Always Thought About
EVER WONDER
Why the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin?
Why women can’t put on mascara with their mouth closed?
Why don’t you ever see the headline “Psychic Wins Lottery”?
Why is “abbreviated” such a long word?
Why is it that doctors call what they do “practice”?
Why is it that to stop Windows 98, you have to click .”?
Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons?
Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
I Don’t Believe Some of This Stuff
On a Sears hairdryer: Do not use while sleeping. ( that’s the only time I have to work on my hair).
On a bag of Fritos:! ..You could be a winner! No purchase necessary. Details inside. (the shoplifter special)?
On a bar of Dial soap: “Directions: Use like regular so ap.” (and that would be how???….)
On some Swanson frozen dinners: “Serving suggestion: Defrost.” (but, it’s “just” a suggestion).
On Tesco’s Tiramisu dessert (printed on bottom): “Do not turn upside down.” (well…duh, a bit late, huh)!
On Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding: “Product will be hot after heating.” (…and you thought????…)
Some Real American Humor
1. Only in America……can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.
2. Only in America……are there handicap parking places in front of a skating rink.
3. Only in America……do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.
4. Only in America……do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke.
5. Only in America……do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.
Bare Feet and White Flour
Have you ever wondered why your parents did some of the things that they did. I did lots of times. My dad had so many regimented activities that I thought he had a screw lose or something. I’m only going to talk about two here because there are too many to put into one essay. I really spent time observing my dad as a kid and listening to him, and it wasn’t until I was about forty that I realized some of the benefits of his behavior and very recently some of the real benefits of his behavior. My dad had an unbelievable fear of getting a cold. He came home from WWII with malaria and tuberculosis. He was always cautious of sharing food, towels, cups, and silverware. Any watermark on silverware in a restaurant was sent back immediately. I remember one time in a restaurant in New York a fork went back three times. Some people send food back he sent the silverware back. It got so bad that one guy sitting close to use told my dad that the he thought that the waitress was on Candid Camera. If you sneezed you were accused of trying to bring a cold into the house, to try and kill him. He was hospitalized on December 27, 1967 due to a reoccurrence of the TB and was sent to the infirmary at the veteran’s hospital in East Orange NJ for 3 months. When he came out thats when anything and everything could give him a cold. Two things were absolutes, cold feet and white flour. I never saw my father walk around without shoes or slippers on. He wouldn’t walk three feet without putting on a pair of slippers. If you sneezed he would always ask you what you ate. My sister, my mother, and I thought he was crazy. Bare feet and white flour would make you sick and if you got sick, well as he put it, “If I get a cold I am finished.”
