Category Archives: Humor

Blast from the Blog for Aug 24, 2017

Why I Dine Alone at Burger King

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Why I Dine Alone at Burger King

I’d like a single cheeseburger with pickles on the side,
cheese but no tomato—a fruit I can’t abide.
Be sure there is no pink to see. I like my burgers brown.
You can also skip the cardboard hat. I do not need a crown.

Grilled onions on the cheeseburger and easy on the goo.
Give me a diet Coke with that. I’d like some French fries, too.
I sit down at a booth to wait, my number on the table,
but if I could, I’d supervise—that is, if I were able.

My sandwich comes. I have a bite. I see no pink or red.
I start to take a drink of Coke but have a fry instead.
It’s hot and oh so crispy. Redolent of grease.
I feel a surge of appetite. My hunger pangs increase.

I alternate the bites I take between the fries and meat.
As regular as clockwork. I do not miss a beat.
For when it comes to fast food, I do not equivocate.
My ratio of fries-to-burger I must calibrate.

I plan it down to the last fry. I don’t allow for glitches,
and woe to folks who borrow one. I do not abide snitches.
If you want a French fry, please buy some of your own.
I have plans for all of mine. I am not sharing-prone.

With one more bite of burger and only two more fries,
the ratio is one-to-two. I plan to synchronize.
I have it all planned out, my friend, so if you’re chancing by,
keep your fingers off my French fries, or somebody’s gonna die!

Unlikely Pairing, for Classic Material

Unlikely Pairing

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Unlikely Pairing

One ungainly orphan elephant, wandering and uncertain
of where his journey’s leading him, comes upon a curtain
of mist that rises from the plain, shimmering, evanescent.
The stars now muted overhead, the moon a fuzzy crescent.
He splits the curtain, comes upon a lone and lost impala
split off from the herd during some wild stampeding gala.
They form a duo and plod on, each looking for a herd.
Such an unlikely couple. Impossibly absurd.
And yet they struck a certain chord, each one with the other.
She was the sister that he lacked, and he her missing brother.
One thing led to another. She fit him like a glove,
and before they knew it, the two were fast in love.
When the baby came, it looked a bit like a nyala,
a bit like a rhinoceros––an elephantiala!!

“Mame” for dVersePoets

Mame

Version 2

Mame

Compose a ballad for Auntie Mame,
famous of body and of name,
and make the music slow and sad
as we revere the moves she had;
for all those parts she chose to wiggle
eventually began to jiggle.

Those shocking movements that won her fame
were finally ones she had to tame,
and all the fellows who once came
to see her at her sexy game
seem to have vanished, to have flown
once her parts moved on their own.

No matter that she lived by art—
how wide her fame, how big her heart—
once revered parts began to swing,
I fear her peeping Toms took wing.
What wives saw as depravity,
I fear she lost to gravity.

Yet years that held her in their sway
could not take her spirit away.
In some assisted living facility,
she still displays agility.
Her movements, true, may be much slower
and certain displayed parts much lower.

Her scarves are larger and tightly wrapped
where once they fluttered and they flapped,
but still admirers hoot and holler
and grace her g string with a dollar.
So sing her praises far and wide.
She’s still the tart she was inside.

Mame..for dVerse Poets

Classic Material from Aug 11, 2018 Breaking Her Diet

Breaking Her Diet

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Breaking Her Diet

I measure her cat food with care from the vat,
but she has such an aptitude, my little cat
for flushing out lizards and others like that.
With delicate paw thrusts, she gives them a bat
’til they barely know where it is that they’re at,
then unleashes her claws for a more severe pat.

Be it lizard or bird or scorpion or rat,
she defeats it as though it were merely a gnat
and lays it out nicely on my front door mat:
one scorpion sting less or a feather for my hat,
then returns to the stool where she formerly sat,
licking her chops, and that’s why she’s so fat!!!

Jumping Jack Flash for Quadrille 353

Jumping Jack Flash

Jumping Jimminy, Jumping Jack.
It really seems like there’s no lack
of “jump” in our vocabulary.
Jump a car? Constabulary
will be there within a flash
if you’ve decided to earn cash
to add to your illegal gain
by jumping on the felon train!

For dVerse Poets

Fibs for Friday, Aug 7, 2026

For Fibbing Friday, the words to define are:

1.  Aurora A loud shout of excitement upon the discovery of gold in them thar hills!
2. Argument  Words of disagreement between pirates.
3. Blessing  The sound that snake with a speech impediment is making.
4. Smack What’s the best fast food hamburger? 
5.  Embarrassment The state of a woman taking a bathroom break in the wild.
6.  Prickle An oriental sour cucumber
7.  Bloat What you are supposed to do to candles on a birthday cake.
8.  Coalition Loud applause when the fuel delivery is made for your fossil-fuel furnace.
9.  Barrel A small lounge that sells alcohol.
10. Zeal Ze aquatic animal most talented at balancing objects on its nose.

 

 

 

“Lazy Bones” for Friday Writings

Lazy Bones

The greater portion of the day
had already passed away
by the time she raised her head
and deigned to quit her lonely bed.
She fed the cat and fed the dog,
then hit the button and fed her blog.
The words poured out like kibble, then
she went back to bed again!
It’s true she is a lazy bones,
ignoring doorbells, texts and phones
until it is her choice to rise
to face the possible surprise
that the night might still present—
wondering where the daylight went.
‘”Here sleeps,” her epitaph  will say,
“one who slept her life away.”

In case you are wondering,

(This is not me. I’m up at eight
to answer pounding on my gate.
It is my alter-ego, perhaps—
that side of me that I let lapse—
that draws me into daylight naps
and tempts me to ignore the phone.
That asks for afternoons alone.)

For Poets & Storytellers United, the prompt was “Bones.”

Stubborn as a . . . . for “Classic Material” Prompt

This blog was published on Aug 6 ten years ago.


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Stubborn as a . . . .

I must admit I’m stubborn, argumentative and such.
All these adverse qualities have me in their clutch.
But my mother’s from Missouri and my dad’s family is Dutch,
so they’re  the ones to blame for it, thank you very much!

If you call it tenacity it ends up sounding better.
I go from being mulish to being a go-getter,
and my stubborn tendencies cease to be a fetter.
They serve me as an asset instead of as a debtor.

As dogged as a pit bull,  determined as a cat.
A bull can be most bullish, you can’t argue much with that.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink,
and nothing’s stubborn as a pig, no matter what you think.

So if you say I’m mulish, it’s neither here nor there.
Stubborn is one quality that’s not so very rare.
And when you point a finger and say I’m being rancorous,
the animal you’re channeling might be just as cantankerous!

“Unscheduled Visitor ” for : Cracking Open the Content Time Capsule for Aug 5

This blog was posted  on this date (Aug 55) in 2017. I am reposting it for the prompt,”Cracking Open the Content Time Capsule.”

 

Unscheduled Visitor

I hear a rapid rapping and I’m wondering, “Who is it?”
It’s too early in the morning for a casual drop-in visit.
I’m still in my pajamas and the dogs and cats aren’t fed.
How can company be calling while I’m still here in bed?

The knocking is insistent but I have no way to spy
upon whatever passer-by refuses to pass by.
My intercom is broken, so I call out from the door,
“Who is it?” but it’s obvious they aren’t there anymore.

I wander back to bed again, feeling somewhat tense.
Only when I’m sleeping does the knocking recommence.
“Who is it?” I scream out again, accenting every vowel.
The dogs sense my frustration and they begin to howl.

My bedroom sliders are open, so my voice soars over the wall.
Any passerby could hear if they could hear at all.
But still nobody answers. This Saturday morning’s still.
There are no other noises up here on my hill.

No car horns and no dog barks. No children’s noisy play.
No birdcalls. No construction to mar this quiet day.
Except for my invectives as the rappings start again—
louder, oh much louder than they have ever been.

As I charge out of my front door, I grab for an umbrella—
in case I need a weapon to fight off some unknown fella
intent on ruining my day, but when I turn the key
and open wide my front wall gate, there’s no one there but me!

I roar in my frustration. The whole town must hear my wails.
I throw that damn umbrella. Over the wall it sails.
I stalk back to my room and pull the covers over my head,
praying for more silence, but what I get instead

is the steady rat-tat-tatting that now upon reflection
seems to emanate from a different direction.
I draw aside my bedroom drapes and wonder, “What the heck?”
sweeping my sight across my yard, I finally crane my neck

and see it far up in a palm—an industrious woodpecker
whose ruthless drilling is the thing that’s been my sleep-in wrecker!
I cannot throw a shoe at him for I can’t throw that far.
If I tried to knock a golf ball up, I’d be far over par.

At last I view with humor this ridiculous affair,
and so I pull on Levis and smooth my ruffled hair.
I shuffle off to feed the dogs, the kittens and the cat
and just accept as music this rat-a-tat-tat-tat.

 

The prompt today is casual.


  • I Love this! Beautiful writing!!!

  • Thanks so much. After I finished the poem he/she continued his knocking into the afternoon.

  • One morning a woodpecker aroused me from my comfy recliner by hammering intermittently on the steel chimney cap of our wood stove. I thought someone was banging on the pipes!

  • It’s a long time since I’ve heard a woodpecker! This is a wonderful poem, and a great photo of your visitor!

“I (Don’t) Pardon Your French” for Word of the Day

I (Don’t) Pardon Your French

I’m a hayseed sort of girl. I don’t believe in fancy.
To me, anything foreign is likely to be chancy.
I don’t eat things like escargot. I shudder at foie gras.
I buy my shoes in canvas, but never peau de soie.
When folks speak French to order food, I find it most pretentious,
and when they draw me into it, I’ll likely grow contentious.
I don’t like words that prettify. I view them angrily.
Like au courant, je ne sais quoi, pardon or vis-á -vis.
Why don’t folks just eat and say what comes naturally?
I think it’s done to irritate simple gals like me!

The Word of the Day is Pardon. Illustration created making use of AI.