Frequently Asked Questions: Butt dialing

Posted on September 17, 2015 by PMcG

Q. You keep talking about butt dialing. What does that mean?
A. Sometimes when you sit down with your smart phone in your back pocket, the weight of your butt pressing against your key pad inadvertently activates a phone number.

Q. Okay, back up for a second. You said something about my key pad. Is that the same thing as, you know, my, uh my bongo drums?
A. The key pad is a grid with numbers on it. You touch one and it registers on your screen. Just like when you touch the pad on your laptop.

Q. Touch the what? On my what?
A. Um, a number key on your computer.

Q. Okay, so phone numbers are kinda long. Wouldn’t you need a pretty twitchy butt to moosh around and grind out an entire telephone number?
A. You mean ants in your pants?

Q. Not my pants. I have a strict policy against anyone being in my pants at the same time as me.
A. Well, your butt doesn’t actually punch individual numbers.

Q. That’s because some butts don’t have a pointy end, like a finger, right?
A. I think it’s safe to say that, except for one or two functions, all butts are pointless.

Q. You don’t get around much, do you? Because I have seen some pretty edgy Heinekens in my day. If you’re picking up what I’m laying down.
A. In my day we just said the rosary.

Q. So tell me. How does your butt know which number to call?
A. Actually your butt doesn’t know anything.

Q. Then how come people keep calling me a smart ass?
A. I think you’re conflating your ass with your brain.

Q. Did you just call me a shithead?
A. No, but I’ll take a rain check.

Q. So you’re trying to tell me that my stupid butt can dial a number without me knowing about it?
A. It happens a lot. Usually your butt simply triggers a contact list or a recent call list or a favorite list where frequently called numbers are stored. They can automatically connect with one touch.

Q. So let’s say I win the Nobel Prize and the president calls me up and invites me to the White House. Later I plop down on a chair with my cell in my back pocket. Could my butt—without me knowing it—call the president back and cancel the meeting?
A. Can your butt talk?

Q. In a manner of speaking.
A. Right. If the president got a butt call from you it probably wouldn’t be any different than getting a call from any other ass.

Q. What else can my butt do behind my back?
A. Pretty much anything Mother Nature allows. Daily evacuations, getting the wind up…

Q. What about pooping and farting?
A. Always a deadly combination.

Q. I mean, wouldn’t I know if those things were happening?
A. It depends on how much beer you’ve had.

Q. I hear you.
A. No, I think that was you.

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2015, all rights reserved.

Posted in Absurd and/or zany, F.A.Q., News You Can Use (Sort of) | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Naked Trojans

Posted on September 8, 2015 by PMcG

Somewhere between Pittsburgh and Columbus, K-Mac looked out the window and said “Is that a dead armadillo?”

My reply: “I don’t think they have armadillos in Pennsylvania.”

“Maybe it wasn’t an armadillo,” she said.

“Or,” I theorized, “maybe they only have the dead ones in Pennsylvania. That would explain why you never see a live one walking around in the Keystone state.”

“Actually, we’re in Ohio.”

“Still, not a state known to be jumping with armadillos.”

“I don’t think armadillos jump,” said K-Mac, “especially not post-mortem.”

“Maybe they just want you to think they’re post-mortem, when they’re actually pre-mortem, but faking mortimerism.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Who knows what an armadillo thinks?”

“I don’t think armadillos think,” said K-Mac who—and I say this will all due respect and as kindly as possible—has not the slightest background in armored reptilian studies.

“I read a story recently about a guy in Arizona who shot at an armadillo in his back yard,” I countered. “The bullet ricocheted off its armor and came back and gave the guy a free lobotomy.”

“Mrglph,” said K-Mac, her head drooping and beginning to loll on her shoulders as she over-feigned disinterest.

“So,” I said. “We now know that the dead armadillo we may have just passed did not die from a gunshot.”

“Maybe…it…was…talked…to…death,” she mumbled just before pretending to slip into a coma with an overly dramatic sucking sound.

I, however, remained alert, pondering the obvious philosophical point of our exchange.

You see, civilization is based on our collective acceptance of rules and laws. Without that acceptance, chaos would reign cats and dogs and our normal umbrellas would be useless. We would slowly revert to ignorant savages, we’d stop returning library books, we’d make fart noises with our armpits, we’d park in the handicap spots, we’d watch only one reality show a week.

Let’s say you’re driving along in the middle of nowhere at 3 a.m. and you come up to a red light and there’s no one else around. Would you stop? Or would you run the light? This is the essence of civilization.

Don’t think so? Ask yourself what would an armadillo do? I’ll tell you what an armadillo would do. He’d mosey on through that red light without the slightest inkling that he was surrendering to animal urges. He would never get anywhere but dead (or faking dead) along a highway in Ohio. Possibly Pennsylvania.

You know, as I’m saying this, it occurs to me that this is the very same truth that Socrates discovered that time he rode his pig over to Plato’s cave for a cave-in.

He stopped at a rest area along the way to rest his sizable area. Suddenly a cohort of naked Trojans overtook him. (In ancient times, before men’s clothing stores had reached Troy, Trojan men fought naked, taking their cue from their leader, Hector the Nudnik.)

Anyway, the Trojans rudely elbowed themselves ahead of Socrates and quickly packed the men’s room. So he went outside to find a tree. And it was while standing at that tree contemplating the epistemology of bark, that the Socster uttered one of his most famous lines:

“The only good is knowledge,” he said, “and the only evil is men without pants.”

Much later, Socrates would earn lasting fame for inventing cargo shorts, which went over very big in Troy after Hector the Nudnik died of a really bad sunburn. The invention of pocket-sized cargo, of course, wouldn’t happen for another thousand years.

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2015, all rights reserved.

Posted in Absurd and/or zany, Mockery and derision, News You Can Use (Sort of) | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Questions that bother me so.*

Posted on September 1, 2015 by PMcG

So. Here’s a question. So, why do so many people, from age zero, up to but not including age geezer, begin every comment, every question, every answer to every question with the word so?

So. See?
So. No seeum.
So. You haven’t noticed?
So. No. So?
So. Just saying. Or soing, if you will.
So. If I will what?
So. If you will say so.
So. So? I don’t get it.
So. (Sigh) Sad.

So. How was your dinner?
So. The Cous-cous? So-so.
So. Should have tried the Mahi Mahi.
So. Or cheeburger cheeburger with foo-foos.

So. Go, my son, and sin no more. Or not so much, anyway. So. In the meantime say 158 Hail Marys. In Russian. So there, Sinbad.

So. Can you sew?
So. Si.
So. Sew my sock?
So. Say what?
So. No, sew what.
So. Sew what?
So. See my sock? Sew it.
So. See that see-saw, Sonny?
So. Is that Sue from the Soo sewing on the see-saw?
So. That’s see-saw Margery Daw you simple so and so
So. So and so?
So. And so, etcetera etcetera.
So. So you win. And you suck. And suck, etcetera etsuckera

So. What are you supposed to do when a truck pulls in front of you on the highway bearing a sign “work vehicle do not follow?”

a.) So. Pull off on the shoulder and hope no one saw you following the truck.

b.)  So. Pull out and pass the truck and shout “You suck!” as you go by. Hand signals optional.

c.) So. Fire forward torpedo tube, blow all tanks and immediately dive.

d.) So. Continue saying the rosary and thank God you’re a more thoughtful, charitable and all around better human being than the sucking suckhead sucking ahead of you.

e.) So. Come to a full stop and text the New York Times. Wait for reporter to show up and lay out the full scandal with colorful quotes. At the same time, call a wrecker (or several) to clear the chain reaction rear-enders you caused.

So. Have you noticed that the rich and the poor have something very important in common? Money is no object to either of them. Yet, ironically—wait for it—it’s still the subject to both of them. So. Can someone please run with this and solve humanity’s problems?

So. I am soooo tired of writers writing “wait for it.” As if waiting for it is somehow a joke. Or easy. I’ve been waiting a long time for it and do you see me laughing? I don’t even know what it looks like. So—wait for it—eat my wrinkled pantaloons.

So. The world’s oldest person keeps dying. Shouldn’t somebody do something? So. Maybe get Congress to fund a study?

So. Did you see where doctors let some guy play his guitar while they performed surgery on his brain? By the time the surgery was over, the guy could play the banjo. Luckily someone reported the doc to the American Medical Association, and they promptly revoked his license.

So. What are you supposed to do if you sit on your cell phone and unwittingly butt-dial yourself–and the line is busy? So. Do you leave a message? Do you stop screwing around and get a job? Do you have a long talk with your stupid butt?

*So. Actually they bother Jimmy Buffet more than me.(Remember when he went to Paris, looking for answers?)

So.©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2015, all rights reserved.

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I’ve got your enormous butt

Posted on August 24, 2015 by PMcG

Dear readers of AHintOfLight

Please excuse Patrick for not posting to his blog the past two weeks. He has been in Disposed, Kansas, attending a workshop on the use of caution. As he is a painfully slow learner, we used some of our own caution and held him back a couple of weeks.

Our workshop is for motorists tired of highway signs that urge caution without further detail. Part of the problem is that highway department sign makers tend to assume we know basic things like left from right, the young Elvis from the old Elvis or the Holy Grail from Holy Jumboly.

Take the classic “No U-turn” sign. It seems to say that, while U-turns are illegal, there’s nothing wrong with A-turns, W-turns, I-before-E-turns or even complete word turns such as YIKES or NYUK NYUK. Wouldn’t a sign saying “No alphabet turns” be much safer? (Hint: The answer is yes).

Patrick came to us after passing a sign that warned “Work Zone ahead. Use caution.” He recalls turning to his woman, the legendary K-Mac of song and story, and saying “Here I am, using caution the whole time and I could have been darting in and out of traffic like an escaped convict on a Zamboni.”

To which K-Mac replied “But dear, why would a convict be driving a Zamboni?”

“How should I know?” yelled Patrick softly. “Maybe there was a hockey arena next to the prison. Maybe he was a Zamboni driver who got fired for running into the goalie on a power play. And the guy who replaced him was probably some dope named Mel who was the owner’s nephew. So he hijacks the Zamboni and runs Mel down between periods. When the players come out they see Mel, frozen and dead in the ice, but they just keep on skating because, hey, it’s hockey.”

K-Mac responded with one of those little frowns that can easily be misinterpreted as “I married a walnut.”

“Hey, I’m not saying it would happen,” said Patrick. “But it could happen.”

In fact, the use of caution is not as simple as saying “Watch your head” or “I’ve got your back and your enormous butt.” One size does not fit all. The caution required to keep the Titanic from hitting an iceberg is not the same as for cleaning out the lion cage at the zoo.

(The cautious Titanic captain would have required the crew to sing–every fifteen minutes–“Oh, yes, we won’t hit an iceberg; we won’t hit an iceberg today.”

The cautious zoo attendant makes sure the lion is not in the cage while cleaning. In rare cases when the lion refuses to leave the cage because he “Doesn’t feel like it,” the cautious attendant never vacuums too close to the beast and never asks him to “Lift up a leg, would you Sally?”)

Caution, as we know, is an invisible gas as plentiful in the atmosphere as oxygen or halitosis. It is one of the so-called “noble gases” such as Krypton (Kr), Xenon (Xe) and Leon (Le) that do not make a rude noise unless stepped on. In fact, noble gases smell a little like bacon, although, granted, Canadian bacon.

For maximum results, we find that caution must be absorbed in a concentrated form. One common method involves squeezing the rubber bulb on a gravy baster and then releasing it to draw in concentrated caution. You then squirt the invisible caution all over yourself and/or a loved one.

Make sure you get all the odd corners and rivulets of the human body. There’s nothing more useless than left over caution (or Canadian bacon to be honest).

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2015, all rights reserved.

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Thinking with your beak

Posted on August 3, 2015 by PMcG

Although debate over same sex marriage has temporarily cooled, a new assault on the I-do-I-do tradition has been sucked into the 24-hour news cycle. I speak of the controversial and very delicate some sex marriage movement.

Champions of the movement, known colloquially as “somers,” argue that if God had not wanted there to be at least some sex in marriage, he never would have invented urologists or RCA jacks.*

In fact, without at least a teeny bit of electrical connecto between the male Jack and the female Jacqueline, the only amplifier for the calliope of life would be the flapping of the human gums through the adenoids. The resulting static could cause a short-circus in the marriage, ending with the daring young man on the flying trapeze letting go too early. Metaphorically speaking.

(Only a guy in a some sex next summer, maybe, marriage could have looked at an RCA plug and a connector and thought of the male-female paradigm. Had a woman invented the RCA jack there’s a good chance she would have called it the RCA rolling pin and referred to its connector as the bottom drawer next to the sink behind the broken waffle iron.)

Critics of some sex marriage insist that nowhere in the modern Bible (i.e., Wikipedia) does it say anything about marriage partners being required to “do the slapstick” multiple times in the same year, let alone the same night–especially if one or both partners have headaches, elapsed Prozac prescriptions or herniated discs caused by carrying matching bathtubs around on their backs.

Marriage, these critics intone, is a sacred institution, in which partners from any two genders, geniuses or species–or novel combinations thereof–must be committed. Usually to an institution for at least 90 days for Rohrschact spelling tests and neenu nanna noonu nana counseling.

Without the bare minimum of a some sex marriage, proponents correctly point out that the birds and bees paradigm would be reduced to a paranickle. Bees would forget about their honey and sting anything that moved; birds would have to work two or three nests just to keep up with the duckbills.

Society might even revert to babies coming from beneath lily pads and delivered via storks. And storks may not even remember what storks do. They may even confuse themselves with tooth fairies and end up leaving triplets, say, under the pillow of a gap-toothed six-year-old expecting fifty cents. That would resurrect unkind phrases like “You’re so full of stork nork it isn’t even funny,” and “Just like a stork, always thinking with your beak.”

Critics of some sex marriage are a widely disparate bunch, from those who propose some more sex marriage to those content with same old sex marriage, to those desperately experimenting with sim sex marriage. And then there’s the platonic love crowd.

The latter is named for Plato who considered getting down and/or getting funky to be vulgar, as well as dangerous at his age. He was the first to refer to sex as “rubbing me the wrong way,” saying that love should be aimed at the spiritual.

His most famous student, Aristotle of Funkland, disagreed. Writing in his autobiography “It’s Greek to Me” he said “Plato was one homely dog with no moves at all. You should have seen him trying to do the monkey.”

*Also, Adam and Eve wouldn’t have been naked in the Garden O’Eden, but clothed in gardening duds or, at the very least, matching barbecue aprons.

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2015, all rights reserved.

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Sweating like a pig

Posted on July 28, 2015 by PMcG

Note: This post may be monitored by government agents (travel) for training purposes.

Note: In the interests of transparency, transgenderparency and Saran Wrapency, the purpose of the above stated training is to make sure that the travel agents being trained can read without moving their lips.

Because, think about it. If an agent were to break into a good/bad ambassador’s office to find secret documents and, upon finding said documents started to read them just a teeny bit to make sure they were the said documents, and if the agent ineptly said the words in the said documents out loud, a napping security guard could easily awake and say to his groggy partner “I think said documents in Ambassador Bob’s office just said something.” His partner would likely say “You’re hearing things.” To which, said guard predictably says “Isn’t that what I just said?”

Note: No individuals were sacrificed in the writing of this post, although the fannies of said inept security guards were rudely removed and, after some serious butt chewing by the head drone, handed back to their mortified and recently unemployed owners, whose insurance either did not cover tush re-attachment or had a big rump deductible.

Note: I would be remiss if I did not thank the many people who generously gave me crap of their time (but not their money, oh no) to help me write this instruction sheet for assembling a combination book shelf/sauna.

  • Thanks to the good folks at the Reading in the Sauna Movement, who suggested I call Bjorn at the Swedish Embassy and ask him to explain the appeal of sweating like a pig in a small box.
  • Thanks to Jim at Poetry Nerds for helping me find words that rhyme with sauna, like idontwanna, iguana, iguana guano, bwana, bwana guano, quando quando quando guano and wooden oven (blank verse).
  • Thanks to copy editors Jill and Jack for not giving me the “i before e, except after c” lecture or saying anything about intransitive verbs or transgrammarlady nouns.
  • Thanks to Ralph, the Part editor for making sure Part A went into Part B and not Part C.
  • Thanks to my literary agent, Thor Elbowhorn, for nothing.

Note: This is a work of fiction. Everybody in it is pretend, i.e., made up out of whole cloth (but, please, not cloth with holes in it.) Any resemblance between made-up characters in this story and made-up characters in real life, especially those with the same name, same big mouth, same awful toupee and same enormous methane release valve–big enough to be seen from outer space without a telescope–is purely a service to mankind.

Note: Get broccoli, lettuce, extra firm tofu, extra gooshy tofu, extra dead fish, tomato juice, ground beast, taco shampoo, black beans, white beans, green beans, yellow beans, red beans, three cases of beano, garlic gunpowder, beef bullion, chicken bullion, gold bullion, bullion whip, pretzels, green olives with that hideous, tongue-like red thing stuck inside, fake eggs, fake butter, fake milk, shredded dreams, ice cream, donuts, mouth wash, mouth dryer sheets, toilet paper, beodorant, beef stick, yard stick (back yard), chap stick (for hanging chaps), lip stick, dead fish sticks, AK-47 polish.

Note: We have your husband. We don’t want him anymore. If you want him, put $100,000 in hundred-thousand-dollar bills in an envelope and mail it to Kidnapped, Division of Husbands, 123 Avenue of Losers, Las Vegas, NV. No cops. No kidding. (Get it? Kidding? Kidnapped?) Seriously.

Note: The part of Mahatma Ghandi will be played tonight by Jumpin’ Jack Flash (It’s a gas.)

Note: Dear Grammy. Happy Birthday. We’re still saving up to get Grampa out of Las Vegas. Or we could go to Aruba. (Rhymes with Yabba Dabba Dooba)

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2015, all rights reserved.

Posted in Absurd and/or zany, Mockery and derision, The human comedy | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

FAQ: The rhetorical que…Hello? Where is everybody?

Posted on July 21, 2015 by PMcG

Q. Is it a rhetorical question if I ask you “Is this a rhetorical question?”
A. Who hates me so much they would send a lunatic with the brains of an after-dinner mint?

Q. Speaking of which, can you eat an after-dinner mint before dinner?
A. Who gives a herbaceous shoot?

Q. So, what exactly is a rhetorical question?
A. One might just as easily ask “What is a Texas Ranger?”

Q. One what?
A. Look, it’s a question you ask to make a point and, therefore, you expect no answer.

Q. Like ‘How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?’ Because I know that answer. I used to be a woodchuck. I mean, woodchuck-like. Or woodchuckian. It’s why they wouldn’t let me into the Navy. Or Manitoba.
A. Will no one rid me of this blathering gerbil? No? This is the thanks I get? Am I out of here? Are two mimes worse than one?

So listen up. Here is a brief guide to rhetorical questions. Why don’t you read it and get your donkey out of here?

Often, a rhetorical question is a verbal way of sighing and feeling sorry for yourself.
• Do I have to do everything myself?
–God, Day Three

Sometimes it’s the utterance of one who has seen the light too late in life.
• Why didn’t I join the Coast Guard?
–Custer at the Little Big Horn

A rhetorical question can answer a sudden “Hey, whaddya doin there?” question:
• Julius Caesar: Et tu Brutus?
• Brutus: Will you stop with the Latin all the time?

Sometimes the rhetorical question can serve also as a rhetorical answer.
• Holmes: The murdered pianist’s stool is missing. Do you know what that means, Watson?
• Dr. Watson: No shit, Sherlock?

Sometimes the aim is biting (or gumming) sarcasm.
• Martha Washington: George, are you mad because I accidentally dropped your wooden teeth in the fire?
• George Washington: Buz Belly Pourj bolber ban a bwaff poilit peep atta Norf Poe?

Sometimes it’s just a way of expressing wonder at life.
• Why do dogs always want to hump my leg?

Beware: Some rhetorical questions should never be answered honestly.
• Vladimir Putin: Do I have stupid written all over my bare chest?

Sometimes rhetorical questions are a way of using sarcasm to answer an obvious yes or no question.
Obvious Q: Is that guy an idiot?
Rhetorical Q: Does a bear poop in the woods? (i.e. yup)

ObQ: Will I ever get rich?
RheQ: Does Donald Trump ever poop? (i.e. nope)

ObQ: Won’t The Donald eventually explode?
RheQ: Does a bear poop in the woods? (Aiiieee: I just got hit with a flying toupee)

Sometimes rhetorical questions are a more polite way of asking WTF (What the freen), as per Moses on Mt. Sinai.
• “Holy God, there’s ten of ‘em?”

Rhetorical Questions for any occasion

• What planet are you from?
• Why does this always happen to me?
• Why am I always the last to know?
• Did I ask you?
• Do you think I’m made of money?
• How crappy is that?
• Why on earth would you do that?
• Why don’t they fire that bozo?
• Is he going to eat that whole debenture?
• Is that a pile of crap or what?
• Where’s an armored car when you really need one?
• Does he ever shut up?
• Isn’t that the biggest bunch of crap you’ve ever heard?
• Why is that baby looking at me?
• How could anyone be that stupid?
• If tin whistles are made of tin what are crap heads made of?
• Are we ever going to eat?
• What kind of crap is that?
• Why don’t I ever shut up?

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2015, all rights reserved.

Posted in Absurd and/or zany, Mockery and derision, News You Can Use (Sort of) | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment