When Life Gives you Lemons

squirt life in the eye with them cause then you both are blind. No wait. That's not how it goes.

I seem to get my adages messed up from time to time.

When life gives you lemons, make limoncello.


If you've ever seen Molto Mario, he describes limoncello as a "digestivo" or a nice little after dinner drink to help digest a large meal. This stuff is like the rocket fuel of lemonade.

And that's the adage, make lemonade when life gives you lemons. And that got me to thinking.

I'm really good at one thing: getting yelled at by women. Just yesterday, the Crotchety Old Lady yelled at me, one of my online friends (hey, I'm a Modern Old Man, women find new and creative ways to yell at me) and the Spawn all yelled at me.

Now, a normal man would get upset by this. But youse already know by now that I'm not normal. For some reason, I have a Ghandi like demeanor when I get yelled at by women.

Basically, I just make lame excuses on the fly, until they get tired of yelling, and give up. I do have a breaking point, but it is far beyond that of average men.

I decided to use this uncanny ability to make some cash.

Crotchety's Excuse a Rama Yellafone at your service.

You want to yell at your significant other, and have days of fighting? Of course not. Just call me or one of my highly trained staff and vent away, while we make lame excuses to return you to a state of bliss.

You'll hear such great excuses including

"Yes, dear, I understand."

"You are absolutely right."

"I'll get on that right away."

"No, I wasn't looking at her. I was just thinking how great that outfit would look on you."

And, with all calling plans, at no extra charge, the Man's Prayer from the Red Green Show

"I'm a man, but I can change...if I have to. I guess..."

I'm thinking of charging $1.99 a minute for the basic plan, up to $4.99 for the deluxe. With the deluxe plan, we promise to make it up to you at some later point in time.

Don't forget to help out Deb with her feeds fundraiser. It's easier to just do it than to come up with an excuse.




They bring the funny every day and make no excuses at
http://www.humorbloggers.com/

Men and Women Are Different. Seriously.

One of my buddies (rubba) told me his grandson is really into model trains. The little guy just turned 3, so you know he's curious, and into everything.

He was playing with his trains with grandpa, and rubba warned him to not touch the track.

So, he licked the track. Naturally, he got a shock. I hear this, and got the same reaction rubba had~~hysterical laughter.

When Mrs. Crotchety heard, she became upset.

And this describes how we view nearly everything. Shows like America's Home Videos, ( Country Fried Home Videos for my Arkie friends,) where at least once per show, someone gets either a whack in the naughty bits or there is some other potentially injurous event. I'm rolling, and the Mrs. worries. "Look at that poor man," she'll say. Of course, I can barely hear her because I'm laughing so loudly.

And it's the same with sitcoms and all the cartoons I watch. She focuses on the injuries (trust me, Peter Griffin and Spongebob are fine) and misses the hilarity of injuries, real or fake.

It's not that she can't suspend belief. She's a huge Tarantino fan, and the bloodier the movie, the more she likes it. Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, any one of them, she'll watch and barely a flinch.

But have a guy stick a screwdriver in a socket, and she gets upset.

They Always get hit in the Naughty Bits at

www.humorbloggers.com

Taking Questions From the Ladies

For the last few days, I have been taking questions from ladies to help bridge the gap between the sexes and to provide some understanding of the male mind.

I am well qualified to do this for 2 reasons:

1. I took a Sociology class in college
2. I have been a man for most of my adult life

This is for education and entertainment only. Please do not use any of this information for nefarious purposes. I trust you. Questions have been shortened because some of you ladies go on and on, yadda, yadda, yadda for space.

The first question comes from Jenn. She asks “What is the maximum number of words I can use with the average man before he tunes me out? I suspect it’s around 5.”

Jenn, Jenn, Jenn. Have you ever heard the Kenny Chesney song, “You had me from hello?” His attention span is that short. One word. And that is not unusual. Most men start the tuning out process at word 3. By word 5, all but the most resolute of men are hearing the teacher from the Charlie Brown cartoon.

Good Grief

A typical conversation with me is, “Crotchety, would you mind if wahh wahh wahh wahh wahh wahh. If you toss in a few salacious words, and perhaps the mention of a food item, it may get you a few extra words. Generally, though, consider anything after 3 the bonus round.

Dani asks, “What the frig is in the remote control that a man can’t put it down?”
Dani, the need for the remote is hardwired into a man’s brain. Back when the first Caveman, Bob, sat around, he needed to have his trusty spear with him at all times. Whether hunting, or protecting his brood, Bob needed his spear at the ready. Modern man needs his remote to hunt for quality programs, and protect his family from feminine hygiene commercials.

Both Anok and Shyne were concerned with men’s seeming inability to carry their own keys, glasses, etc.
First, no way, no how, is a man ever to carry a man bag. It’s in bold print on page 11, 3rd paragraph in the Man’s Handbook. You have to just accept it, just as we accept that you say my green pants don’t go with my purple shirt.

The Get Smart Gal wants to know how men really feel about chicks who know more about sports than they do?
While I have never witnessed this phenomenon, the handbook clearly states that a man should celebrate the fact that he doesn’t have to explain to his lady for the millionth time that if the Yankees are wearing pinstripes, they are in New York, at Yankee Stadium. Or that, no, he’s never noticed how cute the running back’s butt is. And that he still wants to wear his A-Rod jersey even though A-rod may have cheated on his wife. And yes, he knows wrestling is fake. Please note, these are hypothetical scenarios, and the Crotchety Old Lady would never do that.

snicker

Both Jeunelle and Arcticulates expressed concern that men seemingly hold on to their clothes, basically, until the last Fruit of the Loom guy is barely hanging on.
We need to go back to Bob, once again. Bob had to work pretty hard to get his clothing. He couldn’t just go to J.C. Penney’s. Oh no, he had to go and slay a dinosaur, or a bear, or something for his duds. And once you have done that, you are not about to just toss them because of some minor imperfection like a hole.

Nosireebob.

In fact, I have a T-shirt from a Milli Vanilli concert that is just a collar and one sleeve.



While on the subject of clothing, both Dani and Anok (they were very inquisitive) wanted to know why men seemingly leave clothing haphazardly. This practice dates back to the Middle Ages. Clothing was scarce, and marauders would often ransack villages seeking it. By leaving their clothing in no discernable pattern, men would outsmart the marauders.

The last question for today comes from Jan. She wants to know why men don’t call when they promised to.

I‘ve researched this.

Back in 1914, Guy Whistlebritches met a lovely woman named Ethyl Woodmyre at the fashionable Dew Drop Inn. They exchanged numbers, and Guy promised to call later that night.

On the way home that day from the toaster factory, Guy decided he wasn’t going to call Ethyl.

Since then, well, it just kinda became a guy thing.

I’m sorry I didn’t get to all the questions. I may do a part 2 in the near future if anyone found this useful.
Thanks for stopping by, and as usual, I'm always glad to be the helpful blogger.

Looking for Love

Did you ever do something goofy for no apparent good reason?

Before I start, let me enlighten everyone about my day. I get up about 6 a.m. Sometime between then and 9 a.m. I go to the bathroom to wash up and do normal morning stuff. I go to bed around 1 a.m.

That's pretty much my day. So, I have a lot of time to fill. I have some ambulatory problems, so, for all intents and purposes, I sit on my couch 23 hours a day.

I try to do productive things like write a few blogs, and I read a lot of blogs. This is pretty helpful, for two reasons, first, I learn valuable things that I usually forget 2 minutes after I read them, and second. Heck, I forgot the other thing. I'm sure I'll remember around midnight.

Back to the topic at hand.

To fill my time, I like to occasionally click on ads on blogs if I see something I may be interested in. Those clicks that you never expected, they were from me. You're welcome. Consider the 11 cents a gift from me to you.

Last week, I saw one for a dating site. Now, remember, I am in a wonderful relationship with the Crotchety Old Lady. She takes good care of me,

and puts up with all my daily nonsense. So, I'm not looking, but I am curious as to how these things work. I know eharmony and those places must be legit, because they have been around forever, advertise on TV, and all that. But I question "Meet singles in your area" ones.

So I decided to almost sign up. I was going to go as far as possible without giving any personal info or money. That way I knew nothing was going to actually happen.

I put in the following information:

Me: 90, ugly, in poor health, very low income, not willing to travel more than 10 miles
Seeking: Beautiful, 18-35, college educated, $100,000 per year, never married, not interested in kids, red hair, Asian, or Caucasian (I had to be flexible.)

How many woman do you think the site claims it has that meets my criteria?

5? 3? None?

Nope. Not even close. They claim to have 737 women in their data base that meet my ridiculously crazy "standards."

What I described



But why do I think I'd wind up with



Disclaimer: No women were harmed in the making of this blog post.

Stinky Feet

I worked for a number of years with developmentally disabled adults. Everyone knows this can be an intersting job. At times it can be quite taxing, yet it is highly rewarding on a personal basis. I had the chance to meet and interact with plenty of interesting characters, people who were kind of "off the wall" and not exactly like the average person you would run into on the street. And then, I got to work with some of the clients.

This is about one of the clients, Stinky Feet. That was not his Christian name.

I'm using past tense, but I'm sure Stinky Feet is still around and doing well, so not to worry about some evil surprise ending.

Stinky Feet's nickname came about because he absolutely went crazy over the phrase "Stinky Feet." It was his universal word. It was exactly like some folks use the eff bomb.

If he was angry at someone, they had stinky feet. If he was really happy, he would run around the room, and singing stinky feet while giggling hysterically. Occasionally he would get in a "debate" about who in the program had stinky feet. He liked to laugh a lot, and his laughter was infectious.

But the only difficult time I ever would have with him was when we went out in the van. He was fine under most circumstances, but heaven forbid if he ever saw a woman. He would invariably hang out of the car, and yell out something innappropriate. Nothing too terrible, but it was always something like "Hey Baby, or Whoa Momma"



but the worst was when he would say, "Hey Crotchety, check her out," as if I were in some way complicit in this. At this point, I should point out when he said things, it was loud, loud enough that everyone in the immediate area and then some heard him. It wasn't too bad if the lady who was the object of his misplaced affections was driving because that meant she would just flip me off and drive on.

But if they were walking, and we were stuck in traffic--oy vey. You can only imagine the embarassment.

The absolute worst of the worst was that he did not possess the ability to understand that as bad (but, in retrospect, funny) as it was to yell at women, it was beyond inappropriate to yell stuff like that at girls. I was always shocked when I was able to make it back to the center without getting arrested, or at the very least attacked by roaming bands of angry women with torches and pitchforks.

Women are clueless about...

thermostats. I have no idea why, but I have yet to meet the woman who understands the intricacies of the home thermostat. Whether it is used to regulate heat in winter, or control the air conditioner in summer, they remain totally unable to comprehend it.

I do not mean the inner workings of one. No, many people don't understand bimetals (no, not a sexual preference for metals) used on older models, nor the electronics of the newer models. I'm talking about the simple idea that the temperature is regulated absolutely independently of the outside weather conditions.

Today, during part 489 of our ongoing discussion called "please stop adjusting the friggin' thermostat," I asked the Crotchety Old Lady to please turn down the thermostat on the air conditioner as it is too cold at night. Her womanly response? "It's going to be 100 today."

AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

This makes every bit as much sense as when she turns off the furnace in spring because it will be 70 during the day. Naturally, we wake up to the home being a crisp 57 F. For my metric reading friends, that's quite a bit on the chilly side.

OK, here's my lesson for any ladies reading this:

Set the temperature where you would like the room to be heated or cooled to. Turning it higher or lower does not warm or cool the room faster or slower. You want it 70? Set it at 70. It matters not whether the temperature outside is 12 or 112. The thermostat doesn't care. It just does its job.

I wonder where this gender bewilderment about such a simple thing as a thermostat comes from?

Perhaps it is coded in their DNA, passed down from generations of women.



A thermostat is a simple thing to control. Think of it as a man. Simple, with only a few buttons that shouldn't be pushed.