I saw a commercial where everyone was dancing like mad and popping candy into their mouths — even construction workers! The whole thing gave me hope for the future.

JUDGE: Mr. Gundy, did you remove the official highway sign for Rural Road 218?

GUNDY: Yes I did, Your Honor.

JUDGE: And you replaced it with a homemade sign?

GUNDY: I did, sir. “Drive-Thru Tree Road.”

JUDGE: Now, everyone knows you can’t just put up your own road sign. What was the motive? Were you trying to lure motorists to your souvenir shop?

GUNDY: No sir, not at all.

JUDGE: Is there, in fact, a drive-thru tree in the vicinity?

GUNDY: No, Your Honor. And you’ll notice, I never say there is. My sign doesn’t say, “Come drive through a tree.” It merely celebrates the legacy, and the fighting spirit, of the drive-thru tree.

JUDGE: Well, that sounds very noble, Mr. Gundy. But I’m still going to fine you $500. And that’s if you reinstall the old sign.

GUNDY: Yes, Your Honor. Thank you, Your Honor. (THEN, UNDER BREATH) Dumbass.

You hear the phrase “blood rain,” and you shudder. But then it comes down on you, and it’s ruddy glorious! Sticky tho.

My friend at Wesleyan, who was pre-med, is now studying to be a leprechaun. I asked him why, and he said, “Dude, it is SO EASY.”

I came up with a new sport: Team Boxing. Same ring, same rounds, but ten fighters swinging their hearts out. Talk about action! The other night, the ref got knocked out, but punches from all sides kept him upright for a good two minutes!

What Technology Will One Day Overthrow Us?

A.I. (Even Money)

Robots (2/1)

Alarm Clocks (75/1)

Tire Pumps (250/1)

Ziploc Bags (1000/1)

Ever feel like you’re a complete fraud? Don’t worry, lots of folks feel that way about you.

I wasn’t brought up with religion. The closest I got to moral guidance was Bad Company, in songs like “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” “Ready for Love,” and “Can’t Get Enough (Of Your Love).” They’re about love — and the makin’ of it.

We could learn a lot from geese, if they knew anything.

Isaac Newton is considered a genius. And yes, he discovered the law of gravity. But what if he hadn’t been sitting under that apple tree? What if he’d been sitting under an ANVIL tree? Get my drift?

Okay, he also invented calculus. But does anyone like that?

My business is simple: I sell people talking dogs, then buy them back cheap when the owners can’t handle the criticism.

REPORTER: Sir, China recently tested a hypersonic missile that can deliver nuclear warheads at greater than Mach 5.

PENTAGON OFFICIAL: Yes, and that technology is impressive. But the Chinese are far behind us in other areas. For instance, war canoes.

REPORTER: War canoes?

PENTAGON OFFICIAL: These aren’t your old clunky dugouts. The latest war canoes are all-birchbark, eight paddlers to a side. Each perched on one knee, for a smooth, powerful stroke. Every inch of the craft is sealed with a high-tech cedar gum. When pests try to chew through, all they get is a massive headache.

REPORTER: But are canoes really relevant in modern warfare?

PENTAGON OFFICIAL: All warfare is psychological. When the enemy see a fiercely-painted canoe bearing down on them, war clubs flailing, every throat in full cry, they feel a blind, unreasoning terror. Many try to drown themselves, or hide under piles of clam shells.

REPORTER: Well, that’s all I have. Thank you for your time.

In the metaverse, you’ll interact with friends and family through a cartoon-like artificial persona. In other words: Thanksgiving.

Hey, NFL fans! Got a question for you. When a pass gets tipped by the receiver, and winds up being intercepted, should the QB really be charged with a full interception? After all, the receiver played a hand in it too. Maybe it could count as a half-interception. That way, the stats-- Hang on, there’s someone at the door.

Okay, I’m back. Now that I think about it, the NFL was right all along. A tipped pass should count as a full interception. It really should. Anyone who says differently should be detained. Then maybe sent to a work camp, where they have to make stop signs.

And if they refuse? No water.

“Original Recipe!” — Good

“New Recipe!” — Good

Recipe Neither Old Nor New — Trouble

“Juxtapose” has gotta be my favorite word that starts with “juxta.”

The other day, a fly flew up my nose, and I managed to catch it on the way out.

FLY: “No! You got it all wrong! I didn’t do it! It was Cary!”

ME: “You lie like a fly with a booger in his eye.”

One autumn evening I was walking in a college town, and I heard a marching band in the distance. I’d stumbled onto the Homecoming Parade! Shimmying sorority sisters and gyrating fraternity brothers sailed my way on festive floats covered in cheery “pomp.” I smiled to see that a century-old tradition was still joyously alive.

Soon the parade passed me and turned onto a side street. Then everything flipped. The students hopped off their floats, and immediately began smashing them to pieces with sledgehammers. They clawed and kicked, ripped and splintered. The rampage was so desperate and frantic, it was as if they’d been told they wouldn’t get any air till it was done.

When the destruction was complete, and every shredded fragment heaved into one of the waiting dumpsters, the young Americans hugged each other and sauntered off to parties. The band tore into one last tune: “All I Do Is Win.”

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead

Who never to himself hath said,

“Oh God, they gave me pineapple!”

The prestigious Fischman Prize for Contemporary Art has gone to “What’s the Rush?,” an umbrella made of birth control pills. The sculpture will be on exhibit through Sunday at WOGA, for those who cannot picture what an umbrella made of birth control pills would look like.

Police have their hands full with a wave of illegal banquets. Says Chief Ed Melendez, “The banquets are set up quickly, often in a city park, with foldaway steam tables and portable chandeliers. The speakers write their remarks on flash paper. Usually, by the time we move in, the perps are long gone. All we find are some petit fours.”

Citizens who come across an outlaw banquet (or luncheon) are urged to call 1-800-BAD-GALA. Do NOT try to stop the banquet yourself.

Shouts and Murders

(what you hear at 4 AM when you live downtown)

“I SENT YOU A LIFEBOAT! AND YOU SHOT IT DOWN!”

THING TO DO: Buy tiny pen with white ink.

ME: I think I’m gonna cry.

AXL ROSE: Don’t you cry tonight.

ME: But I’m really upset!

BOB MARLEY: No, woman, no cry.

ME: But what do I do with these powerful emotions?

NEIL YOUNG: Don’t cry no tears around me.

ME: Too late! (SOBS)

CHRISSIE HYNDE: You gotta stop sobbing.

ME: Does anyone have a tissue?

JERRY GARCIA: Dry your eyes on the wind.

ME: What is WRONG with you people?!

Dear Hallmark Channel,

I am a longtime fan of your movies, particularly the ones about Christmas, and the ones about a wealthy developer who wants to tear down a beloved hotel, until he meets his match in a feisty councilwoman.

That’s why I was so disappointed by the recent movie about an antiquities expert and an ace reporter (Candace Cameron Bure).

The male lead, who must be popular in Canada, was charming and not bad looking — let’s call him “Canadian cute.” But the movie quickly bogged down. “Professor Thorndyke” kept yakking about ancient tapestries this, ancient tapestries that. The ancient tapestries had “much to teach us.” The ancient tapestries were “stories in fabric.” The phrase “ancient tapestries” must have been uttered, no exaggeration, 300 times. At one point I jammed my face in the sofa cushions and screamed, “ENOUGH WITH THE ANCIENT TAPESTRIES!”

When you have an arthritic dog and a baby with food allergies, and a husband who’s a giant baby himself, you want sassy banter and romance, not ANCIENT TAPESTRIES!

Then came the ending:

(THE PROFESSOR FINISHES HANGING SOME ANCIENT TAPESTRIES FROM THE CEILING.)

PROFESSOR: At last. The ancient tapestries are safe!

REPORTER: (ROLLS EYES) You and your ancient tapestries!

PROFESSOR: But… I thought you liked ancient tapestries!

REPORTER: I DO, mister! (CHUCKS HIM PLAYFULLY) You think it was easy to find that ancient tapestries barbecue cover?

PROFESSOR: I suppose not… But ancient tapestries—

REPORTER: Gerhard. Will you shut up about your ancient tapestries and kiss me?!

(SHE PULLS HIM CLOSE. THE ANCIENT TAPESTRIES SUDDENLY BREAK LOOSE AND LAND ON THEM.)

REPORTER (CONT’D): The ancient tapestries!

PROFESSOR: (LOVESTRUCK) I can get more ancient tapestries. But I can’t get more Brandy Gastineaus!

(THEY KISS AMID THE ANCIENT TAPESTRIES.)

(THE END)

Bad Hallmark. Don’t make me go to Lifetime! WEDDINGS. WEDDINGS.

I have disquieting news about the Mariners Noise Meter.

Last night, I’m sitting in the Hubbub Club (Sections 334-336), screaming my head off, and the Noise Meter is bouncing up from green to yellow to orange. Then a strange thing happens. The roar starts to cool down, but the needle keeps moving up! The volume is clearly petering out, but the gauge is punching into the red (“DANGER”), and then, with the stadium nearly silent, the needle SMASHES through the end of the instrument(!)

Something is very wrong.

One hesitates to use the word “sabotage” — but I guess I just did.

My Roomba is really old. It mostly sucks up its own parts.

HOT TIP: If you always call moccasins “mocs,” you’ll save valuable time — time that can be used for tongue-scraping!

NEW on the GAME SHOW NETWORK:

“STAR PILE!” — Contestants must race up a vast heap of celebrities in shoes made of butter.

“HOG WILD!” — Feral pigs wearing GoPros blast through flimsy paper barriers to savage old folks and eat their scrapbooks.

NURSE: Nurses’ station, this is Jeremy.

PATIENT: Jeremy? This is Anna Robart in Room 1009. Short brown hair?

NURSE: Of course. How can I help you?

PATIENT: I feel as if I’m finally reaching the end. I think I’m dying — and I’m just SURROUNDED by family.

NURSE: Is that a problem?

PATIENT: Well… yeah. Don’t you have a family?

NURSE: I do.

PATIENT: All right. So get ‘em out of here!

NURSE: I—

PATIENT: They’re right by my side, all of them!

NURSE: Okay! There’s no need to bark at me.

The Riddler? He can be entertaining, but you don’t want to be behind him in the Starbucks line!

Every lime in the valley is gathered in a natural amphitheater. The vast crowd goes silent as Leonidas Lemon strides to the Speaker’s Rock.

LEONIDAS LEMON: Sisters! Brothers! My soul is sick today. Why must yellow and green annihilate one another? Both are valorous. Both are refreshing!

The crowd considers this. An impetuous lime stands.

IMPETUOUS LIME: Talk is cheap, lemon! In fact, it’s free!

The limes mutter agreement.

LEONIDAS LEMON: I salute this young firebrand! He is quite correct. How could a thousand centuries of intercitrus savagery be undone by a mere… NOW!

A shrieking horde of lemons sweeps down from the hills, bashing at the startled limes and impaling them on cocktail skewers. Juice spurts everywhere.

MOLDY LIME: (HISSING) The bastards!

OVERHEARD IN THE LOCKER ROOM:

“Hey, do you mind? This is a private conversation.”

WHAT TO ORDER FOR YOUR LAST MEAL

- Slow-Roasted Tomatoes

- Twice-Cooked Pork

- Refried Beans

- Sun Tea

- All-Day Sucker

MONTANA MINING TOWN, 1882

MRS. DIGBY: How do you like my boarding house, Zeb?

ZEB: I like it fine, Ma’am. Your flapjacks are better’n my mama’s!

MRS. DIGBY: Why, thank you! (BEAT) I noticed you didn’t sleep in your bunk last night.

ZEB: No, Ma’am, I did not. I kilt a grizzly out in the yard, sliced it open, and crawled inside.

MRS. DIGBY: (LOOKS OUT WINDOW) Now, why did you do that, Zeb?

ZEB: Why? It’s nice and toasty in there! At first, anyways…

MRS. DIGBY: Isn’t your bed cozy and warm?

ZEB: Sure it is. But then I’d have to make it in the morning.

MRS. DIGBY: Well, that is the rule. But isn’t it easier to make a bed than to kill a huge animal, hack out its innards, and wriggle into the abdominal cavity?

ZEB: For you, maybe!

MRS. DIGBY: And now look at you! All smeared with blood and goo… Flies everywhere…

ZEB: (SMILING) Guilty as charged!

MRS. DIGBY: Zeb, listen. The preacher will be visiting this afternoon. I don’t want the first thing he sees to be a dead, rotting bear.

ZEB: But Ma’am—

MRS. DIGBY: No buts! You drag that bear from last night — and all them other bears you knifed open — into the woods. Get Rowdy to help you.

ZEB: Yes, Ma’am.

MRS. DIGBY: Entrails too!

ZEB: Yes, Ma’am… Can I have some coffee first?

MRS. DIGBY: No.

When our son Dino was three, we took him to his first movie, “Curious George.” He was transported by the little monkey’s antics, laughing and clapping his hands with glee.

Then, as we were leaving the theater, Dino pulled away from us and scampered up to the screen. He started patting it, as if trying to find a way inside. “I want to play with the monkey,” he said.

My blood froze. Was our son having a psychotic break? Fortunately, the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Hospital was just blocks away. I ran all the red lights, and after a tense four hours of testing, he was given the all-clear. I was so grateful I wept. And needless to say, there were no more movies after that!

I never said I liked airplanes. I said I liked that Mission Impossible movie, the one with the helicopters bashing into each other. HELICOPTERS, not airplanes. The next thing I know, my daughter-in-law has gotten me a “Wing Walking Experience” at Ocala Regional Air Ranch.

Naturally, I put it off for a while, but the certificate said the Experience expired in six months. (WHY?) It cost $795, no refunds. That’s how I found myself on a cloudy May morning, pulling on a musty flight suit and cracked helmet.

The pilot/instructor, Iggy, said the wing walking would be “pretty straightforward.” On his signal, I was to clamber out the window and hoist myself onto the wing, which was “fully equipped” with anti-slip tape. He advised me to “face front” and not to “screw around.” I assured him that I didn’t plan to do the Charleston; in fact I would consider it a smashing success if I managed to stay on the wing.

I didn’t. I blew off almost immediately. And let me tell you, you feel pretty sheepish when you’re hurtling toward the ground with no parachute, and the softest thing below is a gem and mineral shop.

On the video, you can see me tuck into a frightened little ball, but that only sent me spinning wildly. I tried to croak out a prayer, but I sounded like a retching coyote.

What saved me was a humble smokestack. Somehow I plopped into its mouth, and after a dark sooty plunge, landed in an enormous vat of warm duck feathers. They gentled me to a stop, and I quickly sprang to my feet, startling the poor pillowsmith.

I know… I got lucky. Real lucky. And these days I mostly lie around on the rug, drinking health shakes. As Bogie used to put it, “You can’t fall off the floor.”

At the Pro Football Hall of Fame, other sports are treated like dirt. There’s a small wing of baseball exhibits, and two floors devoted to hockey, but that’s it.

Life is like one of those German board games you find at a vacation cabin. It seems promising, but turns out to be way too complicated, with baffling rules, and pieces missing, so you end up on the porch watching a chipmunk.

New Play: “More For Me”

Plans go aslosh when REG, a greedy banker, and AURORA, an avaricious foot surgeon, meet DAISY, an acquisitive babysitter; LEON, a money-grubbing statistician; ZELOTES, a covetous tentmaker; BIGGO, a lucre-loving footballer; and TAKARA, a grasping social worker. An incisive new work by JIMMY ANTWELL, “Britain’s most cash-hungry playwright.”

My password manager, TeraCrypt, turns my unsafe passwords into incomprehensible strings — robot love poems. Then it keeps changing them on me, “for your protection.” The whole thing is intimidating. When I tried to cancel my subscription, they said, “I DON’T THINK SO, FATBOY.”

A Line from My Daughter’s Story:

“Then the witch disguised herself as an ugly hag.”

I once had a nasty dispute with a neighbor over our shared driveway. I lay awake at night thinking about his volatile temperament, and what he might do to me. One night I was walking down the driveway to the mailbox, and beside the pavement I saw a tiny green light. I stooped to look at it, and it went off. I stood up, and it went on again.

This paranoid nutjob had installed some kind of infrared camera! He was watching me.

Standing in the dark, I plotted retaliation. Fiendish schemes whirled in my head. That’s when the little green light started blinking. It was almost as if the device could read my thoughts.

I decided to disconnect it. I got a flashlight and some wire cutters from the house, and my granddad’s old shillelagh, in case my nemesis confronted me.

I marched to the green dot and shone my flashlight on the ground. To my amazement, there was no surveillance cam — There was nothing. But then I bent lower, and squinting at the dirt, I could barely make out a squirming half-inch creature: a glowworm.

I learned a lesson that night. Life’s too short to fight over a driveway. I sold my house and got a job as a lemon sorter. They have machines that can do that, and much faster, but I bring a personal touch.

It’s a horrible feeling when someone plagiarizes your writing. A year ago, a worker at Kinko’s took one of my screenplays, slapped his name on it, and submitted it to Paramount. The guy changed almost nothing. Wherever I had the word “shrimp,” he replaced it with “prawn.” Now I gotta watch this creep win an Oscar with ”S Is For Prawn.”

A friend of mine was a P.A. on “Two Broke Girls,” and now works for God. Sharla says the Creator is a decent boss, but He’s always late, and complains a lot about things He sees on Earth, including:

Face tattoos (“They’ll never get a job.")

Organic Valley brand foods (“Organic Valley?!”)

Hanging traffic lights that sway in the wind (God feels they could snap off and land on a car.)

Double-sided tape (???)

“Despacito” (“Catchy, but enough!")

Cashiers who say, “Thanks much.”

Steph Curry constantly chewing on his mouth guard (“Yuck!”)

As Sharla puts it, “He’s basically your Grandma.”

I’m in a real jam. I’m a court stenographer, and Judge Siebel just told me I couldn’t bring my iguana to the courtroom anymore. She said he was distracting!

Now, I’ll admit that Carling started hissing at just the wrong moment, and wouldn’t stop, and has been known to regurgitate a snap pea or a strawberry or a June bug mid-trial. Pobody’s nerfect! But most of the time he just perches on my shoulder like a little pampered pasha, basking in the rays of his (very discreet) heat lamp.

Okay, that one time, he did launch himself at a juror, an older man, and latched onto his face, until I managed to pry my sugarbun’s jaws open. Not the done thing — I get that. Not an aid to jurisprudence. But let me say this slowly, so everyone can comprehend: HE’S A REPTILE. HE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND OUR WAYS.

And Judge? If you really want to eliminate distractions, what about a certain clerk’s sweaty, bulging cleavage? Which she drenches in expired Charlie from the Dollar Tree, to the point where you don’t want to live anymore? That’s right, I went there. CHECKMATE!

“Nomadland” is the story of wealthy retirees who frisk about the American West, dancing, skinny-dipping, and working when they please. You’ll enjoy the carefree esprit of these well-to-do gadabouts.

ALPHA-LOBSTER: “None can tame my fearsome claws! Unless you happen to have a couple of rubber bands…”

BETA-LOBSTER: “A couple of what?”

ALPHA-LOBSTER: “Nothing! Now bring me your wife!”

This book is a classic. The second edition adds a new chapter on lollygagging (bad!) and explains what to do if you land on a kid.

Never get in an argument with someone who’s sitting on the ground.

Free Heist Movie Dialogue

MASTER OF DISGUISE: “I make masks. I do not undergo plastic surgery.”

HEIST LEADER (SHAKING FIST): “UNDERGO IT…”

VAULT MANAGER: “We’ve been duped. DUUUUUUUUUUUPED!”

HEIST LEADER: “I told you to crawl through the vent!”

VENT GUY: “And I told you, it’s WEBBY!”

HEIST LEADER: “Great. We’ve all been shot.”

MASTER OF DISGUISE: “I know.”

VENT GUY: “Klopfer! Are you okay?”

KLOPFER: “Me? No.”

VENT GUY: “Were you shot?”

KLOPFER: “Yes. In the fanny.”

HEIST LEADER: “I knew we shouldn’t trust that rival gang.”

An embittered Scientologist has just revealed the religion’s ultimate secret, known as OT VIII. In the leaked document, longtime Clears are taught to make a crude tomato soup out of hot water, ketchup, and sugar.

“It’s worse than Campbell’s!” the insider complained. “Goddammit!”

It’s almost worth destroying the earth with nuclear missiles if it’ll muck up Ticketmaster.

I want my daughter to live in a world where abortion is not only safe and affordable, but also rollicking, and footstompin’.

I don’t care what they say /

I won’t stay /

In a world without love /

“Oh, you’ll stay all right. You think it was easy to eliminate love from the world? Well it wasn’t! We busted our asses on this thing — which, if you’ll recall, was your idea! And now you want to leave? Criminy!”

This morning my car windows were partly rolled down, and I got that horrible “wubba wubba” feeling in my ears. And of course it had to happen when I was racing a doll to the doll hospital. Life!

Writers have to adapt to the marketplace. Me, I’ve been writing a lot of witches’ spells. The witches are appreciative and pay on time. They even hex people for me, mostly old bosses.

I do have to stay current. Did you know that the modern witch’s brew is concocted in an Instant Pot, often to manipulate U.S. Treasury futures? Witches really know how to pivot.

SETLIST

1. Hard-Rocking Classic That Changed Everything

2. Song About Tainted Love (That Isn’t “Tainted Love”)

3. Song With Irresistible Chorus But Dumb Lyrics About The CIA

4. Song From Latest Album That I’m Trying To Like

5. Obscure But Unassailable Cover (Pixies? Social Distortion?)

6. Wistful Ballad That Almost Has A Scottish Flavor

7. Fast Song To Get Things Going Again

8. Horrible New Song About Kites

9. Song I Was Listening To When I Hit That Shuttle Bus

10. Song That Starts Out Slow, Then Kicks It To The Next Level

11. Underrated Song From “Batch” That Only Cool People Like

12. Funky Groove / Boozy Band Intros

13. Stirring But Overplayed Rocker Featuring Local Saloon Belter

14. Showstopping Anthem I’ve Never Been That Wild About

    (Band Makes Us Clap For Way Too Long)

15. ENCORE: “Gimme Some Lovin’”

Take This Job And Shove It

ALTERNATIVE ENDING FOR A SLASHER MOVIE IF YOU RUN LOW ON FUNDS AND CAN’T SHOOT THE FINAL CONFLAGRATION

The wounded slasher escapes to the woods, where he slowly heals. Enrolling in grad school to study Abnormal Psych, he discovers he’s insane, so he delivers himself to a mental institution in a homemade straitjacket.

Biggest Gap Between a Metaphor and its Origin…

MAN ON CRUISE TO WIFE: “I think we’ve crossed the Rubicon on tips.”

I still wince when I think of that party in Malibu. I tried to start a conga line, but it somehow turned into a human centipede! The hosts were NOT pleased.

FUN FACT: Facts aren’t fun.

All Outta Chances

A disgusted COACH is at his desk reading a TEAM MEMBER’s arrest report.

COACH: Looks like you had quite a weekend, Bradstock. Drunk and disorderly… Disobeying a police horse…

TEAM MEMBER: Sorry, Coach.

COACH: Grand theft mini-van… (THEN, HURT) Aw, now why would anyone want to poison the old campus oak tree?

TEAM MEMBER: Sorry, Coach.

COACH: With all your God-given ability…

TEAM MEMBER: Sorry, Coach.

COACH: (SUDDEN THOUGHT) You’re drunk right now, aren’t you?

TEAM MEMBER: Yes, sir.

COACH: What else?

TEAM MEMBER: Pills, sir.

COACH: And?

TEAM MEMBER: (SMALL VOICE) Spray paint, sir.

COACH: (EXASPERATED NOISE, THEN) Says here you started a fire at the zoo… then tackled people when they tried to save the flamingos.

TEAM MEMBER: Coach, alls I can say is, I’d be starting a lot MORE fires if I WEREN’T on the team.

COACH: You shut your mouth. You’re all outta chances, mister!

He stares at the Team Member for a long beat.

COACH (CONT’D): Are you gonna straighten up and fly right?

TEAM MEMBER: Yes sir, Coach!

COACH: Am I gonna see anymore of this nonsense?

TEAM MEMBER: No sir, Coach!

COACH: I’d better not! ‘Cause I can get a new team mascot in here like THAT! (SNAPS FINGERS)

TEAM MEMBER: I know, Coach.

The Team Member picks up the goofy-looking buffalo head from his mascot costume.

TEAM MEMBER (CONT’D): Thank you Coach. I love you, Coach.

COACH: (BEAT) Did you say, “I love you, Coach?”

TEAM MEMBER: (SUDDENLY CRACKING) Oh, what if I did? Now LOVE is a crime? I’ve had it with you!

He pulls out a hatchet and swings it wildly at the Coach.

COACH: That’s it! You’re suspended.

A TRUE STORY

One night around dinnertime, the phone rang. A woman said, “You’re Jay Claffey’s friend, right?” I said yes. “Did you know that Jay Claffey is bathing in water that’s cleaner than the water you drink?”

I was speechless for a moment. All I could think was that Jay had installed a new water filter, then handed the company his friends’ phone numbers, to get some kind of “rat bastard” discount.

Apparently, I was supposed to be driven to white-hot envy by the image of Jay lowering his ample haunches into some pure, pure water — water I might later have to drink, in the tortured logic of the unconscious.

Sadly, the tactic worked. I was about to order an even better water filter than Jay’s, the Ultragard ZQ, when a little voice inside me said Stop. Stop this insane arms race. Wouldn’t it be easier to simply sabotage Jay’s water filter, at his next party? And so I did.

It always bugs me when cartoon characters’ butts catch on fire. They usually run around screaming, then plop down in a barrel of cool rainwater, with a huge sigh and a dreamy smile. Apparently, going up in flames is a net positive!

What You Call Crayfish Reveals Your Fitness for Office

“CRAYFISH” — You’re a born leader. “CRAWFISH” — You have a flair for statecraft. “CRAWDADS” — Your virtue will inspire many. “MUDBUGS” — Governance is your metier. “WATERDOGS” — You’ll do fine.

“GUMBADIES” — No.

zoom | verb [intransitive]

1. To move or travel very quickly

2. (2020) To sit motionless

Shocking new documents released today reveal that the true mission of the Alan Parsons Project was never music. It was the reanimation of the extinct Megatherium, or Giant Ground Sloth. Once brought to life, Parsons believed that the lumbering mammals could, with great patience, be hypnotized, and sent out to wreck enemy radar installations.

The art-rocker’s scheme eventually came to grief when vocalist Lenny Zakatek, trying to nail a complex harmony on the song “Games People Play,” knocked over a beaker of cytoplasmic RNA.

THIS THURSDAY!

His Holiness Pope Francis

with very special guest

Kesha

Gorilla Glue Field

No Protestants

I’ve Just Gotta Get a Message to You…

Lots of people hold out cups of water for passing triathletes. My sister and I thought we’d offer some heartier choices: a rich oyster stew, and a cheddar cheese soup you could stand a fork in.

That’s when we learned that triathletes are little delicate babies.

World class complainers!

Sometimes you get so doggone discouraged you feel like tying a big rock to your neck and heaving yourself into a river. When that happened to me, I sought out a trusted manhole cover for advice:

What’s the coolest department at any food company? THICKENERS. Those people are FUN.

ASK A CARDINAL

Q: Is Heaven ritzy?

A: Heaven is so, so ritzy. Everywhere you go, you can see the quality. Why, it’s almost sinful!

Some of you have asked if a turtle can actually climb out of its shell, as cartoon turtles do. Yes, but only for prom.

It’s a good thing machines can’t feel, because my dishwasher has been telling me to “Refill Rinse Agent” for about eight years.

Love to donate books to the school library…

Expect fireworks tonight as an international team of linguists, codebreakers, demolitions experts and trauma surgeons attempts to repair the name “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest 2021”

We who work in the fudge industry hear a lot of jokes about fudge-packing. But what do you WANT us to do with it?

We Are One

With our nation so torn by division and mistrust, it’s heartening to know there’s still one cause every American can get behind: Messing with our DNA.

Disturbing new revelations about Australia’s famous “Surfin’ Koala.” Authorities say the marsupial did not actually “teach itself to surf,” and frequently had to be bribed to get in the water, using hallucinogenic leaves. “I don’t even remember the Rip Curl Invitational,” the koala said. Friends say that might explain his sixth-place finish.

Freezing rain spattered me as I bent over the parking lot kiosk. It was blighted with graffiti and stickers for struggling bands. I hit the greasy start button, and a message appeared on the little screen. “Welcome to A-4305.”

The benevolence of those words just flooded my being. How could any ticket machine, even A-4305, have known that my parched soul craved a simple, sincere WELCOME?

Later that day, a gas pump thanked me. It didn’t have to do that.

Some say technology is making the world colder. I think you mean warmer!

I have a friend who works in a print shop. He doesn’t want me to use his real name, so let’s call him Angela Bessarabian. Angela told me that when his shop prints theater programs, they often have a few extra pages at the end. The customers tell him to label these blank pages “NOTES.” But really, they were never intended for notes. They’re just an artifact of the printing process.

Big Drama, drown in your lies!

Flaws in “The Wizard of Oz” That Bring It Crashing to the Ground

- When Dorothy arrives at the enchanted land over the rainbow, "where troubles melt like lemon drops,” we’re cheered that she's found the place she yearned for in song. But after a spirited welcome, she's ambushed by the nightmarish Wicked Witch, who vows to destroy her. So the alluring premise of a refuge from earthly cares is quickly shit-canned.

- The Tin Man croons “If I Only Had A Heart.” We might expect such a “heartless” figure to shove others out of the way, or cruelly exploit them somehow. Instead, this gentle soul seems almost homosexual in his empathy and tenderness.

- When Dorothy returns to Kansas, the howling tornado is conveniently over. The bicycle bitch who threatened to grind little Toto into hamburger isn’t around. But she still lives down the road! She’s still crazy!

And like that.

REGRETS

I’ve never been friends with anyone named Johann. And that bothers me.

Years ago, I saw an old dusty painting in a junk shop. They wanted ten bucks for it, and now I’m kicking myself. Why did I buy that thing?

I regret going to Catholic school... but the bus kept taking me there.

I wish I’d been born in Imperial Rome, because I’d know to bet on the hippo, not the ostrich.

You should get that Apple Watch app that keeps track of your regrets, and the mean things your partner has said to you. Without that, you forget.