A Mighty Wind Cometh (from an Empty Caveth)

by Roger White

Never let it be said that the Spouseman ignores his readers. I recently checked my inbox and found myself inundated with an e-mail, which lamented the fact that I haven’t tested you guys with a Quizzical Quotes contest in ages. I figured we’d seen the end of QQ, seeing as how the last time we did this, three of you wrote in threatening physical violence (I won’t name full names, Ronnie, Margene, and Achmed) and I ended up in protracted litigation with the estate of Aesop’s Fables claiming copyright infringement.

But.

Ye have spoken, and thee has listened. Besides, the nifty column I had drafted about the quirky personalities in my neighborhood didn’t make it past my copy editor (that being my lovely wife)—so you’re safe for now, Ronnie, Margene, and Achmed.

The object of QQ is simple: give me the more popular version of the quotes, sayings, poems, tidbits, cereal boxtops, song titles, book titles, phrases, expressions, adages, aphorisms, platitudes and proverbs you see below. For example, the more well-known version of “I’ll take freedom or croaking” is … anyone? Bueller? Come on, it’s “Give me liberty or give me death.” Dig? Dug.

First 10 of you who e-mail me at rogdude@mail.com with anything close to the correct answers win a nifty “Jesus Is Coming, Hide the Bong” bumper sticker. First 10 of you who e-mail me your PayPal account information and anything close to the correct answers win two bumper stickers and a VIP seat at my book-signing party (to be announced as soon as I hear back from my guy Larry at Self-Publish America).

So here goes. I was going to go with 50 of them, but I got tired. Sue me.

1. “You are not just puckering your lips and melodiously blowing a tune popular in the Old South.”
2. “Rap on oak.”
3. “Treading on chicken-embryo casings.”
4. “Don’t inspect a free large, solid-hoofed herbivorous quadruped in its oral cavity.”
5. “Each canine possesses its 24-hour period.”
6. “Existence in the Driving Corridor Designated for Speedier Vehicles.”
7. “What’s the latest information, feline?”
8. “Don’t mooch things off other people and don’t loan out your stuff, either.”
9. “The clock doesn’t hang around for anybody.”
10. “In what manners do I really, really like you? Where’s the calculator?”
11. “The puny, soft-spoken guys will get the third planet from the sun.”
12. “A threaded knot at the appropriate interval precludes the necessity for three squared.”
13. “Amalgamated, our posture is upright; split apart, we hit the floor.”
14. “The precipitation in the northern Iberian peninsula comes down principally on the flatlands.”
15. “A snapshot equals a lot of talking.”
16. “Devotion has no eyesight.”
17. “Consume, imbibe, and laugh it up, because two days after yesterday we could kick the bucket.”
18. “An egg-laying winged vertebrate within the extremity has the same value as five minus three in the shrubbery.”
19. “As a pair of ocean-going vessels that came within close proximity of the other after the sun went down.”
20. “Only a couple of items are sure things: pushing up daisies and governmental levies on personal income.”
21. “Confection is nice; however, alcohol has a more rapid effect.”
22. “Being really smug and happy with yourself precedes a sudden drop.”
23. “The neatest items of existence don’t necessitate a trip to the bank.”
24. “My mind processes information, so I gotta be here.”
25. “Grasp this career occupation and push it.”
26. “This is a canine-consume-canine planetary sphere.”
27. “Twelve divided by four bed linens facing the breeze.”
28. “As comfortable as an insect within a floor covering.”
29. “Getting even is sugary.”
30. “Glimmer, Glimmer, Diminutive Gaseous Orb.”
31. “The guy who is the final guy to snicker has the highest-quality snicker.”
32. “Need is the mom of contraption.”
33. “The only item we should be scared of is being scared.”
34. “OK, let’s have the guy who’s done nothing wrong hurl the initial rock.”
35. “To Assassinate the State Bird of Texas.”
36. “Clear liquid’s all around, but we can’t imbibe any of it.”
37. “Every one of the monarch’s large, solid-hoofed herbivorous quadrupeds and every one of the monarch’s male homosapiens failed in their efforts to reconstruct the egg man.”
38. “Bluntly, Red, I do not care.”
39. “I detect spoilage in the Copenhagen area.”
40. “See ya, mean globe.”
41. “Inactive appendages equal Satan’s studio.”

Roger White is a freelance writer living in Austin, Texas, with his lovely wife, two precocious daughters, a very fat dachshund, and a self-absorbed cat. For further adventures, visit oldspouse.wordpress.com.

Drinking Gold and Other Extravagances

by Roger White

 

Every columnist, blogger, reporter, broadcaster, tweeter, facebooker, and crackpot correspondent within 500 miles of Austin has had something to say about all the hoopla surrounding the brand-spanking-new F1 Circuit of the Americas auto race here recently, so I thought I’d do something different. I’m going to say something about all the hoopla surrounding the brand-spanking-new F1 Circuit of the Americas auto race here recently, but I’m going to DO IT IN ALL CAPS! FURTHERMORE, I’M GOING TO REPLACE ALL THE G’s IN MY STORY WITH K’s JUST FOR KRINS. HERE KOES:

 

FOR ONE THINK, I HONESTLY DON’T KET ALL THE EXCITEMENT CONCERNINK THIS KOSH DARN F1 RACE. IT’S A BUNCH OF RICH BRAZILIANS AND SOUTHERN EUROPEANS ZIPPINK AROUND IN OVERKROWN HOT WHEELS CARS…oh, forget it, I can’t keep this up.

 

But honestly. I really don’t get it. I watched news reports of what appeared to be sane-looking people standing in snaking lines for hours, just to board a shuttle to take them out to the track way east of town, where they’d stand in line for more hours just to get in to the place. The whole town was so crowded, even days before the big event, that my drive home from work took an extra hour and a half—and the F1 facility is nowhere near my workaday route!

 

I know, I know, local income, healthy economy, good vibes to the world, yadda. I still don’t get it. Plus, on race day, helicopters buzzed over our neighborhood all day and night, ferrying the ultra-rich from their rented villas to their VIP viewing boxes and back. I read in the paper that the champagne being served to these typhoons was on the order of several thousand dollars a pop—and get this, it’s infused with 24-karat gold. Yes, these lords and ladies are so disgustingly wealthy that they’re drinking gold. Some, I heard, were a trifle miffed that they couldn’t have their luxury yachts airlifted into Lady Bird Lake south of downtown.

 

Yep, these aren’t NASCAR fans. These are the crème de la crème de la crème. Crème x 3. I did a little studying up on this, and apparently F1 followers are the Donald Trumps of groupies. They travel the globe following their fave drivers, throwing money around like it’s Enron stock. You wanna know how rich these people are? My journalist pal, Carlos Carlos Moore, was able to tag along with one of these typhoons during race weekend. Carlos Carlos wouldn’t divulge the guy’s name, but he said something about oil, Dubai, and the patent on Styrofoam packing noodles.

 

Here’s some of the stuff this typhoon had:

• Cashmere toilet paper. That’s right. Cashmere TP. It’s all too real. A British company called Waitrose came out with TP that contains not only cashmere extracts but a mixture of jojoba and aloe vera. The science behind this way-over-the-top wipe, according to the developer, is “designed to deliver the most luxurious bathroom tissue yet. The infusion of jojoba and aloe carries the additional innovation of having a scented core, providing a refreshing aroma to the bathroom.”

• A Swarovski-crystal-studded toilet. Yup, this $75,000 can is entirely encrusted in Swarovski crystals. Well, if you’re gonna wipe with cashmere, you gotta have a crystal john. And besides, after imbibing all that liquid gold, it only stands to reason…

 

• The M55 Terminus E-Bike. This electric bicycle, which retails for about $35,000, is plated in gold and silver, adorned with crystals, and rests on a carbon fiber body. It even has disc brakes designed for sports cars. Carlos Carlos reported that the typhoon dude even hired a guy to ride it for him.

 

• A $2.4 million mobile phone. Made by jeweler Peter Aloisson, this handy little iPhone 3G is smothered in 6.6-carat diamonds and white gold. Carlos Carlos said this was the kid’s phone. He wasn’t allowed to see the expensive one.

 

• A bottle of 64-year-old Macallan Scotch, valued at $460,000. This hooch, apparently the oldest whisky ever bottled at Macallan, sold at a charity auction a couple of years ago for nearly half a million bucks. The typhoon told Carlos Carlos that guests have offered him $500 just to sniff the cork.

 

• On an end table in the typhoon’s villa, Carlos Carlos spied what he determined was none other than a slice of what is known as the Sultan’s Golden Cake. This delicacy hails from the Ciragan Palace in Istanbul. The dessert takes three days to make and has figs, quince, apricot, and pears marinated in rum for two years. Two years. It’s topped off with caramel, black truffles, and, yes, edible gold. And I don’t even know what quince is. Anyway, this goes for roughly $1,000 a mouthful.

 

By the way, a Brit named Lewis Hamilton won the actual race, but Carlos Carlos reported that his typhoon friend didn’t get to see the finish. Seems he overindulged and had to have his stomach pumped at a local hospital. ER physicians said that byproducts of the procedure more than covered the man’s bill. I just don’t get it.

 

Roger White is a freelance writer living in Austin, Texas, with his lovely wife, two precocious daughters, a very fat dachshund, and a self-absorbed cat. For further adventures, visit oldspouse.wordpress.com.

 

 

Yee Haw! Texas Done Done ‘Er Agin!

 by L. Lee Roy Loving

 

Editor’s Note: While your regular host of “This Old Spouse,” Roger White, continues his convalescence from complications of his belly button lift procedure, guest columnist L. Lee Roy Loving has graciously volunteered to sit in the writer’s garret.

 

Garret? What in the sam hill’s a garret? Well ah ain’t sittin’ in it, ah’ll tell ya that raht now. Ah ain’t even gonna step in it.

 

Anywho. Howdy! Ah’m proud, gang! Yeee spankin’ haw, ah’m proud! We done ’er agin! Now, fer yew buckaroos and buckerettes who may not know, L. Lee Roy Loving is a Texan, born ’n’ bred ’n’ buttered. Yes ah am. Ah done thought ah lost mah native accent over the yars, but ah guess ah ain’t. Ya see, when ah found out that the Lone Star State done herself proud like she done h’yar recently, mah twang came back faster’n a three-legged possum a-runnin’ from a mess uh white-bellied sidewinders. (spit, clang!)

 

Now, if’n y’all understan’ that us Texans like to be first, best, biggest, longest, tallest, fastest, an’ everthang-est, then y’all can git why ah’m so giddy. The good ol’ boys ’n’ gals down at the Capitol in Austin figgered out another way to put us at the top o’ the hayloft. An’ believe me, it’s serious bidness in Austin. Y’all did know, fer example, that we had our state Capitol built ’bout 15 feet higher than the nation’s Capitol building way back in the day, didn’t ya? This here top-o-the-hill thang goes a fur piece back. Anyhow, ah got wind that we just got us a stretch o’ road runnin’ twixt Austin an’ San Antone whar you kin git yer truck up to 85 miles pur hour—all legal-like an’ everthang. That thar stretch o’ State Hahway 130 is now the proud owner o’ the fastest speed limit in the hole US of A. Hot dang! Ah’m ah prouder than if ah’s two-steppin’ with a Highland Park painted lady on a dress-up Saturday. Mm. (hitch up belt, spit, clang!)

 

It’s a toll road, mind ya, so yer gonna haf to fork over ’bout six bucks to try ’er out. But shoot, you’d shell out that much fer a basket o’ steak fangers at Dairy Queen, so go on, give ol’ Hahway 130 a try. Asides, if we git a hole passel o’ folks a’goin’ 85, it gives us a better shot at bein’ Number One in anuther category. Ah done looked up traffic fay-talities bah state at that there US Census Burro web thang, and do yew know whut it done said? It said that the last yar they done studies bah state—2009—that Callyfornia had more folks kilt on thar roads than we done. Now, it weren’t bah much, mind ya: Sissyfornia had 3,081 road kills, un we all had 3,071. Heck far, that there’s only ’bout 11 er 12 behind, if’n ah ’member mah fancy math all correct like. We cain’t let that lily-livered left coast state beat us out like that. That’d be as bad as a no-account red-headed baby chicken hawk gettin’ the better of a blue tick coonhound on parade day at the stock show. (insert pinch between cheek, gum)

 

But it looks like we’ll catch ’em. This here city slicker name o’ Jonathan Adkins, he’s what ya call the deputy executive director fer the Governors Hahway Safety Association. Now ol’ Mister Adkins says he wouldn’t want to be in no accident going 85. “Whenever we see a posted speed limit, we think we can go above it,” ol’ Adkins said. “We think we can go 5 or 10 miles per hour above the limit. So the reality is you’re talking about the flow of traffic being 90, 95, even a little bit more. If you’re in a crash, you’re just not going to survive, even if you wear a seatbelt.” There ya have it. Ya git enough ol’ boys tanked up an’ goin’ 95 er a hunderd on Hahway 130 on them dark Texas nights, an’ soon enough we done caught them dadblame Callyfornians. Whee doggies! Ah’m as excited as a potbellied, long-eared jackalope a’ hoppin’ down a Nacogdoches hedgerow with a six-pack o’… ah, whatever. (adjust hat, hitch up belt, swallow Skoal)

Ah reckon mah only problem is ah cain’t get mah truck to go no faster’n sixty-three. An’ that’s ah goin’ downhill. May have to trade ol’ yeller in. But hey, ah saw on the TV set last night whar it’s Truck Month! Boy howdy, ah’m in luck! Truck Month! (realize just swallowed Skoal, turn green)

 

Ooh, fellers, ah don’ feel so good. Mebbee somethin’ ah et. Ah feel ’bout as poorly as a frosted frog in a cast-iron suit caught in a hay-baling harvester at a Methodist picnic on a July ….

Roger White is a freelance writer living in Austin, Texas, with his lovely wife, two precocious daughters, a very fat dachshund, and a self-absorbed cat. For further adventures, visit oldspouse.wordpress.com.

‘Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy

by Roger White

For this installment to make any sense to you, my fellow life travelers, it will behoove you to be of a certain age range—namely, somewhat old to pretty darn old. It will also be of great benefit to your reading comprehension and pleasure if you are listeners of a particular genre of music—i.e., rock and roll that also ranges from somewhat old to pretty darn old.

Let’s put the bandwidth at somewhere grayer than The Cars but not so geriatric as Jerry Lee Lewis. Give or take. So if you don’t currently fit these parameters, I will wait to write the rest of this column until you comply. You have 20 minutes.

Oh, forget it. I got stuff to do. Please continue.

You see, it occurred to me the other day, as I tried with scant success to decipher the words to one of the endless string of hippity-hop rapster tunes my daughters devote their entire afternoons to (see previous column entitled…well, heck, see all previous columns), what wondrous adaptive mechanisms our brains are. If we can’t make out the lyrics to a song we listen to over and over (sometimes under duress), our minds create lyrics for us—and even a backstory to go with those faux lyrics—so we can make sense of what we’re hearing and thus not go entirely insane.

Specifically, I was driving home from a genuinely miserable day at the cube. The radio was still in daughter mode, so when I turned it on, Katy Perry was asking plaintively, “Baby, are you tired of work?” You know it, sister, I replied. Understand that I recognized the singer only because I have been taken to task several times for not knowing who Katy Perry is or realizing her great significance to Western civilization. My daughters truly believe it is my life’s goal to embarrass the bejeezus out of both of them.

So anyway, I got home and relayed with a smidgen of pride to my girls how I related to Ms. Perry’s song. I got the exaggerated eye roll and the pitiful head shake, in unison. “Dad, you are such a goober. She’s saying, ‘Baby, you’re a firework.’”

Oh. Well. It was then I hopped into my lemon-yellow time machine and found myself back in my senior year in high school, working at that tiny self-serve gas station, stacking cans of Havoline in the back. It was 1976, and the cheap box of a radio in the next room was playing the new song by The Eagles, hot off the presses. What follows I must say in my defense transpired mainly because I couldn’t hear that darn radio very well. Did I mention the radio was cheap, and small? Anyway:

Catchy tune, I thought as I strained to listen, and what a unique way to give vent to how things can get so messed up at times:

“Flies in the Vaseline,

Surely make you lose your mind,

Flies in the Vaseline, uh huh…”

I could identify with that. I asked my friend the next day if he’d heard the song. “Neat,” I said, “because it’s true, ya know. Sometimes it feels like there’s just a bunch of flies in your Vaseline. Everything going all wrong.”

My buddy’s face morphed from utter confusion to complete hysterics when it dawned on him that I was talking about “Life in the Fast Lane.”

Just so you’ll know I’m not the only goober in the family (and so I can shine the warm lights of shame on my wife, as well), when I divulged my dark secret some years ago to my lovely spouse, Sue, she laid on me a beauty of a “lyric lapse” of her own. Now, here’s where you may look at me like a medicated cow if you haven’t heard the song.

My dear Sue actually thought that in the song “Peace of Mind” by Boston, where the chorus goes thusly:

            “I understand about indecision,

            But I don’t care if I get behind…”

…that it went like this:

            “I understand about indecision,

            But I’m not scared of the FBI…”

I thought for a while there that she was just saying this to ease my discomfort, but no, you can’t make this stuff up. We surely all have our own versions of tunes, the most classic being, of course, “’Scuse me while I kiss this guy…” I bet Jimi never knew how many people through the years would be pondering his lifestyle choices because of that one line. And, yes, CCR will always and forever be accused of some sort of scatological preoccupation for directing us to the “bathroom on the right.”

There are dozens, probably hundreds of others. There are even books and web sites devoted to this phenomenon. But you can’t really worry about it. It happens to everyone, I guess. You have to just let the water run off your back, like Van Morrison says:

            “Hey, wet amigo!

            Dazed when the rains came…”

Roger White is a freelance writer living in Austin, Texas, with his lovely wife, two precocious daughters, a very fat daschund, and a self-absorbed cat. For further adventures, visit oldspouse.wordpress.com.