Conspiracy Against Men

Posted on July 29, 2012 by enthusiasmiscontagious

I want to prove that there is a conspiracy in this nation to make men appear stupid through color definition. I noticed it the other day when I was ready to head up to the mountains for the day. My wife, seeing my outfit gasped, “You can’t go out looking like that!”

“And why not?” I asked defiantly, because your sea foam, oatmeal, periwinkle clash.” I exclaimed”My what?”

Looking at me like I was three fries short of a Happy Meal, she spoke slowly as if I were deaf and said, “You don’t match!” “Well, why didn’t you say that in the first place?” I remarked.

Indignant and acting thoroughly disappointed, she walked away muttering, “Do I have to dress you and the children everyday?”

Visualizing later the exchange with my wife, I thought to myself, “How is it that women can go out in public with curlers in their hair the size of ‘D’ batteries, and that isn’t considered unmatched? Yet I have to look perfect for Smoky Bear.” Since my wife’s colors were Greek to me, I picked up a fashion magazine to peruse the pages to learn the “language” of color.

The pages leaped out at me with incoherent sentences like: “Are you a winter or a summer? Choose our salmon, watermelon, or zucchini evening gown.” Now I was at wit’s end. What had I started to learn?Colors, seasons, or a poor excuse for a buffet table?

The whole week I ran this color dilemma through my mind. How did it start? How did women slip this manhood-kicking spectrum into our lives? It all became so obvious as I entered a department store last night. Why hadn’t I detected it years before? The proof was revealed in a box of crayons. To a boy, a box of 12 crayons is just about right. But not my daughter. She has to have the Goliath sized box with 600 colors. Ah, here’s the proof. Girls are being indoctrinated at the earliest of age to make men look dumb in at least one area- colors!

Would it be any better if men were to reinvent the color wheel? Let’s see, Twinkie yellow, Jeep jade, bass bait blue or football brown. Sigh……I guess not!

“Yes Dear, I’ll change out of my sea weed sweater and put on the grenadine button down like you told me.”

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Sandpaper in a Swimsuit

Posted on July 26, 2012 by enthusiasmiscontagious

Being on vacation, I’ll include a best of article from July 2012

My wife has a saying that has always rung true with me, some people are sandpaper. I think all of us have someone in mind when you read these words. We all know that some people can be a little irritating while others can be a high grit hooligan. This is the sandpaper God has placed in our lives to smooth our own deficiencies. We must practice restraint, protect our peaceful aura, all the while blessing the individuals who sometimes rub us raw.

I have a bad back and I find floating in the pool to be both peaceful and therapeutic. Usually my wife and I wrap up a taxing day with a quiet conversation in a serene setting, the pool. Not tonight. A little boy swimming at the pool had zeroed in on me the moment I climbed into the pool. He jumped on my back, and each time I tried to get away from him, he would flail at me and scratch me. I couldn’t even swim into the deep end to lose him because he had big yellow floaties around his chubby little arms.

I was ashamed that my first thought was to make a mental note: bring a huge bobbie pin for my next encounter and pop his flotation device to keep him in the shallow end. Then it hit me, I was so embarrassed, my sandpaper for the day this little kid, had brought out the worse trait in me. I can’t believe that I wanted to pop his floaties! As I reflected on my shame I had an epiphany. If I did pop his gargantuan yellow water wings, it might have sent him flying and careening around the pool like a quickly deflating balloon. That thought made me smile!

Boy, does God still have some work to do on me!

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Making the Most of Worthless Meetings 10/16/97

Posted on July 25, 2012 by enthusiasmiscontagious

Have you ever attended a meeting and wondered what the purpose of it was?

I attended a food service meeting not long ago. The two-days of meetings covered topics from how to make a successful pot of coffee to how to apply makeup successfully. If you are trying to figure out what food service and makeup have in common, join the club. I suppose it is important to know how to secure your false eyelashes lest an unsuspecting customer think a centipede is strolling through his/her potato salad.

The next part of the meetings centered around how to garnish food with food. Did you know you can make a mouse out of a radish? No kidding, you could be a hit at your family’s next gathering. “Mom, I only know how to make mice and gerbils, but I am working on how to make Uncle Ernie out of an eggplant and kiwi.” The possibilities are endless!

Of course knowing how to make all types of rodents out of radishes won’t get you booked as a caterer at your sister’s wedding, but it is a start. You might get asked to do your in-law’s anniversary party.

The meeting concluded with all the participants sculpting someone they know out of fruits, melon seeds, and vegetables. Remember potatoes are acceptable in portraying a husband. The reason is because of their versatility. Most wives already make a connection between their husbands and a spud; stuffed, half-baked, rotten or bland. Then again, do we need to bring up the couch potato thing again?

On the other hand, if the only fruit you have at home from which to sculpt your significant other is a watermelon, follow the warning that’s given a lot on television. DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME.”

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Losing Weight

Posted on July 25, 2012 by enthusiasmiscontagious

If the diet gurus and weight loss centers want you to lose weight, why don’t they make products and services chubby people can use? My place of employment is pushing its employees to use its new fitness center. I found it ironic that at the opening festivities the fitness trainer, whose name should have been Buns of Steel Barbie, served cookies and punch. Imagine a fitness center serving cookies! That’s like having an open bar at an AA meeting. Guilt is a great motivator. You eat half the tray of cookies and instantly feel as if you have to do something to purge your body of the peanut butter and macadamia nut poisons. So off I trudge to the first thing that looks easy. The treadmill !!!

Ah, the treadmill. I now have become a high-tech gerbil minus the aluminum cage. The unit I chose has three speeds: slow, medium and I’m late for my plane. Television is a great pastime for the treadmill fanatic. Sometimes depending on what you watch, time really flies. Why just the other day I was amazed that I had been walking for a full 60………seconds. The fitness trainer told me I HAD to reach my target heart rate before I stopped. So I put on a Cindy Crawford exercise video and reached my target heart rate doing nothing.

My second feat was to use the Aerodyne stationary bike. A great concept: The more you pedal, the more the front wheel fan blows air up your shorts. The real stickler to using the bike has to be the uncomfortable seat. If bikes are intended for weight loss, why are the seats so narrow? The feeling is closely akin to straddling a corn cob and is about as uncomfortable. A novel approach to those individuals who desire comfort yet style, why not use a tractor seat? I know if I had one of those seats, I’d stay on longer than three minutes. Better yet, use a toilet seat and bring a Readers Digest; you could pedal for hours.

The last piece of equipment on my quest for slimness I can’t describe. It was kind of a sit-down lawnmower with a bad pull starter. You sit on a seat that moves back and forth, place your hands on a wooden stick and continually pull on it as hard as you can. The only difference between this equipment and a lawnmower is usually after 40 pulls of a lawnmower handle you say a bad word and kick it. No, I take that back; that is the similarity.

By all accounts, as I walked home, I looked normal. Well, except for the fact that the back of my hands were dragging in the dirt. My wife greeted me at the door with a cheery smile and asked, “How did it go?” I decided to wait and answer the question after my sweat glands stopped dilating.

Have I been back? Occasionally. But I find it easier to tell people that my body roundness is caused by a yeast infection.

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