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T. Michael Barclay's "Asylum Earth" takes a slightly different look at people, places and events that shape the planet we are confined to. It's overwhelming evidence that the patients are indeed running the asylum.
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
HALLOWEEN SONG* -
Turns Out, You Can’t Get Here From There . . .
For those of you that do not know that ‘song’ is the Thai word for *two, let this be a lesson. For those of you that just don’t give a rat’s ass, then just accept that this is the second part of why my two year old son is dressed like a frog. Taking a leap of faith that my son is indeed not a frog, I decided to take a look at how in the heck we got into this bazaar habit of Halloween traditions.
Assuming you have read part I and been waiting with baited breath, we were up to our hips in Druids when we left off and the Romans were coming. And come they did, somewhere around A.D. 43, if your plotting a time-line. Given that the Celtic’s were sort of between a Samhain and a really good hangover, they hardly noticed that the Romans hung around for just over four hundred years. It helped that the Romans were real party animals and just combined a couple of their festivals, Feralia and Pomona, with the traditional Samhain and ended up with the ‘killer’ of all festivals to commemorate the passing of the dead and, you guessed it, ‘bobbing’ for apples.
What’s even stranger? I didn’t make that up!
Seems that the symbol for Pomona is the apple and in the process of trying to sober up enough carriage drivers to get everyone home, they would dunk their heads in large barrels filled with apples, to sort of knock some sense in them, and wouldn’t stop until they came up with an apple in their mouth.
What’s even stranger? I made all of that up . . .
Enter the Christians . . . you knew they would. In the seventh century (you know it’s the seventh century because all the years start with eight), Pope Boniface IV, in an attempt to replace the Celtic Festival of the dead, designated November 1 All Saints’ Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. No one had the heart to tell the Pope that he missed the date of the Celtic Festival by one day and that pretty much, saints and martyrs were dead.
Not to leave bad enough just the hell alone, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. In later years it was determined that three straight days of celebrating the dead is what killed most of them . . .
The American tradition of “trick-or-treat” probably dates back to the early All Souls’ Day parades in England, but how do I know, I wasn’t there. During these festivals, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called ‘soul cakes’ in return for their promise to pray for the family’s dead relatives. Given that they were just giving you food to pray for someone already dead, it didn’t take long for some enterprising fellow to figure out that he could extract all sorts of bounty if he went directly up to the house and offered to kill that pesky brother-in-law for a sandwich and a beer.
Well, they passed laws that kind of put the kibosh on that scam, but the tradition lived on as they decide to just send the kids to do the begging and to dress them up in silly outfits so you wouldn’t know which neighbor had the candy fetish.
I may have left out a couple of things about roaming spirits, ghosts and goblins, but I think I pretty much covered the important parts.
Confused? Well, maybe that’s why my son is a frog.
T. Michael Barclay
Turns Out, You Can’t Get Here From There . . .
For those of you that do not know that ‘song’ is the Thai word for *two, let this be a lesson. For those of you that just don’t give a rat’s ass, then just accept that this is the second part of why my two year old son is dressed like a frog. Taking a leap of faith that my son is indeed not a frog, I decided to take a look at how in the heck we got into this bazaar habit of Halloween traditions.
Assuming you have read part I and been waiting with baited breath, we were up to our hips in Druids when we left off and the Romans were coming. And come they did, somewhere around A.D. 43, if your plotting a time-line. Given that the Celtic’s were sort of between a Samhain and a really good hangover, they hardly noticed that the Romans hung around for just over four hundred years. It helped that the Romans were real party animals and just combined a couple of their festivals, Feralia and Pomona, with the traditional Samhain and ended up with the ‘killer’ of all festivals to commemorate the passing of the dead and, you guessed it, ‘bobbing’ for apples.
What’s even stranger? I didn’t make that up!
Seems that the symbol for Pomona is the apple and in the process of trying to sober up enough carriage drivers to get everyone home, they would dunk their heads in large barrels filled with apples, to sort of knock some sense in them, and wouldn’t stop until they came up with an apple in their mouth.
What’s even stranger? I made all of that up . . .
Enter the Christians . . . you knew they would. In the seventh century (you know it’s the seventh century because all the years start with eight), Pope Boniface IV, in an attempt to replace the Celtic Festival of the dead, designated November 1 All Saints’ Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. No one had the heart to tell the Pope that he missed the date of the Celtic Festival by one day and that pretty much, saints and martyrs were dead.
Not to leave bad enough just the hell alone, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. In later years it was determined that three straight days of celebrating the dead is what killed most of them . . .
The American tradition of “trick-or-treat” probably dates back to the early All Souls’ Day parades in England, but how do I know, I wasn’t there. During these festivals, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called ‘soul cakes’ in return for their promise to pray for the family’s dead relatives. Given that they were just giving you food to pray for someone already dead, it didn’t take long for some enterprising fellow to figure out that he could extract all sorts of bounty if he went directly up to the house and offered to kill that pesky brother-in-law for a sandwich and a beer.
Well, they passed laws that kind of put the kibosh on that scam, but the tradition lived on as they decide to just send the kids to do the begging and to dress them up in silly outfits so you wouldn’t know which neighbor had the candy fetish.
I may have left out a couple of things about roaming spirits, ghosts and goblins, but I think I pretty much covered the important parts.
Confused? Well, maybe that’s why my son is a frog.
T. Michael Barclay
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
The Asylum Is Open For Business
Friday, October 15, 2004
HALLOWEEN Part I –
Or, Just How Did We Get Here From There . . .
Historians would have you believe that ‘Halloween’s’ origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). Well . . . not so we would recognize it.
Everyone knows that ‘Celtic’ is just a fancy schmancy word for ‘Irish’ and all they did was festival. They would festival so long and hard that they would finally just pass out and it would take them a day to get over it. This became a month. Sometimes they would festival so hard that it would take them two days to get over it and that became a month with 31 days. Once they took a collective cold shower and sobered up early, well you know all about February. And, they pronounced these festivals ‘Samhain’, only people who could not pronounce it, pronounced it Sow-in. Sometimes after a particularly raunchy month they pronounced it ‘hangover,’ but that never really caught on.
Believing that the rest of the world’s celebration of the New Year on December 31st was pure panty waste, they celebrated their New Year on October, 31st to mark the end of summer and the beginning of a dark, cold new year that, not hard to believe for this group, became associated with human death. Given their propensity for memory lapses, no one bothered to tell them they missed the end of summer by a good Samhain and the New Year by a Sow-in and a spectacular hangover. Trying to get them to understand these small calendar differences actually caused ‘leap-year’ and we don’t want to chance that again.
Considering that their New Year began on November 1st, an absolute accounting nightmare, they believed that on the night before, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred, something they knew a lot about. This gave them a pretty good reason to start a new Samhain and watch the ghosts of the dead return to earth causing considerable trouble and damage to crops, neighborhood pubs and couple of paddy wagons. This, as you know, is now a ritual practiced after sporting events in most college towns, but I digress.
Enter the ‘Druids,’ or Celtic priests, who took this opportunity to make predictions about the future to a basically incoherent mass of humanity. But, why not, the winter was long and dark and who can be expected to remember anything they promised the little a bar ‘winch’ in the heat of passion . . .
Oh, I’m sorry, the Druids, right . . .
To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.
The previous paragraph was copied, word for word, from the ‘History and Customs of Halloween’ and was done so to show you how little I had to detour from the real history to come up with my version . . .
In the next addition of, “Halloween, Just How Did We Get Here From There,” we visit the Romans, who knew a little about how to party hardy and saw no reason to dash the Samhain thing just because they had taken over. We then morph into the Christian stuff where they somehow managed to blame the whole mess on a Saint with the help from, you guessed it, the Irish, who by fleeing the great potato famine of 1846 helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween on a national scale, not to mention bringing near Sainthood to Mr. Potato Head.
I can hardly wait to see how I do this . . .
T. Michael Barclay
Or, Just How Did We Get Here From There . . .
Historians would have you believe that ‘Halloween’s’ origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). Well . . . not so we would recognize it.
Everyone knows that ‘Celtic’ is just a fancy schmancy word for ‘Irish’ and all they did was festival. They would festival so long and hard that they would finally just pass out and it would take them a day to get over it. This became a month. Sometimes they would festival so hard that it would take them two days to get over it and that became a month with 31 days. Once they took a collective cold shower and sobered up early, well you know all about February. And, they pronounced these festivals ‘Samhain’, only people who could not pronounce it, pronounced it Sow-in. Sometimes after a particularly raunchy month they pronounced it ‘hangover,’ but that never really caught on.
Believing that the rest of the world’s celebration of the New Year on December 31st was pure panty waste, they celebrated their New Year on October, 31st to mark the end of summer and the beginning of a dark, cold new year that, not hard to believe for this group, became associated with human death. Given their propensity for memory lapses, no one bothered to tell them they missed the end of summer by a good Samhain and the New Year by a Sow-in and a spectacular hangover. Trying to get them to understand these small calendar differences actually caused ‘leap-year’ and we don’t want to chance that again.
Considering that their New Year began on November 1st, an absolute accounting nightmare, they believed that on the night before, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred, something they knew a lot about. This gave them a pretty good reason to start a new Samhain and watch the ghosts of the dead return to earth causing considerable trouble and damage to crops, neighborhood pubs and couple of paddy wagons. This, as you know, is now a ritual practiced after sporting events in most college towns, but I digress.
Enter the ‘Druids,’ or Celtic priests, who took this opportunity to make predictions about the future to a basically incoherent mass of humanity. But, why not, the winter was long and dark and who can be expected to remember anything they promised the little a bar ‘winch’ in the heat of passion . . .
Oh, I’m sorry, the Druids, right . . .
To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.
The previous paragraph was copied, word for word, from the ‘History and Customs of Halloween’ and was done so to show you how little I had to detour from the real history to come up with my version . . .
In the next addition of, “Halloween, Just How Did We Get Here From There,” we visit the Romans, who knew a little about how to party hardy and saw no reason to dash the Samhain thing just because they had taken over. We then morph into the Christian stuff where they somehow managed to blame the whole mess on a Saint with the help from, you guessed it, the Irish, who by fleeing the great potato famine of 1846 helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween on a national scale, not to mention bringing near Sainthood to Mr. Potato Head.
I can hardly wait to see how I do this . . .
T. Michael Barclay
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
HOW TO PET YOUR PEEVE –
Or, Giving ‘Road Kill’ A Good Name . . .
I once owned a ‘ferret’ and was convinced that there was nothing on earth that could be more useless. That was until I ran into my first ‘peeve’! At least the ferret went to sleep and was, in that state, sort of cute. I could get in my car and leave the ferret at home. I could give my ferret away (don’t bother trying to sell one). You very seldom saw a ferret out and about. But, a peeve, they never sleep. No matter where you go, somebody has their peeve with them, always. You cannot even pay somebody to take a peeve. A ferret gets into your brain, however, you can go to sleep and dream about something else. A peeve gets under your skin and there is no ointment known to man that will get rid of it. As usual, man refuses to ask woman about this as they just might have a solution . . . but I digress.
It doesn’t matter what kind of peeve they have either. They can have the verb kind of peeve that is described as being “annoying” or “resentful”, and that is their good side. They can have the noun type of peeve whose best features are noted as being; “A vexation; a grievance.” Knowing this, why in Sam’s hell do so many people have one, some even have several? And, just how do you pet one?
Now, given the most liberal description of a peeve makes you want to smack your own forehead in bewilderment, one would think there would be a few laws at least attempting to control them. One would think that anyone with a peeve would be required to leave it at home or at the very least keep it on a leash. But, nooooo . . . no such laws exist and the damn things just run amok. And, if an amok is not enough all by itself, a peeve running amok has to be the most irritating of irritants. Well, maybe second to that sentence, but you get the point.
So, just how do you know when someone has their peeve with them? I’m sure that everyone has their own idea, but I can give you a real good idea of some of them; first merely having one in the car can cause the driver to sit idly, blocking a long line of traffic, while they wait for someone to pull out of a parking space . . . one spot from a completely open space! It seems that anyone with a peeve simply refuses to walk an extra four steps for their physical health or the mental health of the twenty drivers waiting to get on with their lives.
Another sure sign that someone has brought their peeve with them is their refusal to replace their shopping cart where they got it in the first place or even leave it in a blatantly marked ‘corral’ for such use. Apparently in order to keep their peeve from going completely berserk, they are required to park the offending cart directly behind your parked car or squarely in the middle of the adjacent open space. The fact that you may go completely berserk not withstanding.
Other signs that someone is driving with their peeve, unrestrained, is the fact that they cannot remotely find their turn signal or bother to notice that a traffic light had turned ‘red’ 200 feet before they got to the intersection. Having a peeve in the car also requires the driver to wear ear plugs so they only notice the windows shaking, but are oblivious to the bombastic level of the nauseating bass solo accompanying gagging rap references to someone’s Mother. Of course you might not notice the ear muffs at all if the windows are not up because the embarrassment of having their peeve with them makes them tent their windows darker than a moon eclipse.
This leaves us with the question of how to pet a peeve? Resisting the sudden urge to ‘key’ the offending morons’ car or liposuck their tires, the very best way to stroke the offending peeve pervert is to wave passionately at them (here I will note that this should be done with the entire hand and not just one part of it), get their attention and then mouth “Thank You” and continue driving. While this may have absolutely no affect on them or their peeve, it will go a long way in helping you remember who the rational human being is and that no peeve is worth losing ones sanity over.
Of course, if that doesn’t work, dead peeve is at the very top of the road kill delicacy list. Yum, yum . . .
T. Michael Barclay
Or, Giving ‘Road Kill’ A Good Name . . .
I once owned a ‘ferret’ and was convinced that there was nothing on earth that could be more useless. That was until I ran into my first ‘peeve’! At least the ferret went to sleep and was, in that state, sort of cute. I could get in my car and leave the ferret at home. I could give my ferret away (don’t bother trying to sell one). You very seldom saw a ferret out and about. But, a peeve, they never sleep. No matter where you go, somebody has their peeve with them, always. You cannot even pay somebody to take a peeve. A ferret gets into your brain, however, you can go to sleep and dream about something else. A peeve gets under your skin and there is no ointment known to man that will get rid of it. As usual, man refuses to ask woman about this as they just might have a solution . . . but I digress.
It doesn’t matter what kind of peeve they have either. They can have the verb kind of peeve that is described as being “annoying” or “resentful”, and that is their good side. They can have the noun type of peeve whose best features are noted as being; “A vexation; a grievance.” Knowing this, why in Sam’s hell do so many people have one, some even have several? And, just how do you pet one?
Now, given the most liberal description of a peeve makes you want to smack your own forehead in bewilderment, one would think there would be a few laws at least attempting to control them. One would think that anyone with a peeve would be required to leave it at home or at the very least keep it on a leash. But, nooooo . . . no such laws exist and the damn things just run amok. And, if an amok is not enough all by itself, a peeve running amok has to be the most irritating of irritants. Well, maybe second to that sentence, but you get the point.
So, just how do you know when someone has their peeve with them? I’m sure that everyone has their own idea, but I can give you a real good idea of some of them; first merely having one in the car can cause the driver to sit idly, blocking a long line of traffic, while they wait for someone to pull out of a parking space . . . one spot from a completely open space! It seems that anyone with a peeve simply refuses to walk an extra four steps for their physical health or the mental health of the twenty drivers waiting to get on with their lives.
Another sure sign that someone has brought their peeve with them is their refusal to replace their shopping cart where they got it in the first place or even leave it in a blatantly marked ‘corral’ for such use. Apparently in order to keep their peeve from going completely berserk, they are required to park the offending cart directly behind your parked car or squarely in the middle of the adjacent open space. The fact that you may go completely berserk not withstanding.
Other signs that someone is driving with their peeve, unrestrained, is the fact that they cannot remotely find their turn signal or bother to notice that a traffic light had turned ‘red’ 200 feet before they got to the intersection. Having a peeve in the car also requires the driver to wear ear plugs so they only notice the windows shaking, but are oblivious to the bombastic level of the nauseating bass solo accompanying gagging rap references to someone’s Mother. Of course you might not notice the ear muffs at all if the windows are not up because the embarrassment of having their peeve with them makes them tent their windows darker than a moon eclipse.
This leaves us with the question of how to pet a peeve? Resisting the sudden urge to ‘key’ the offending morons’ car or liposuck their tires, the very best way to stroke the offending peeve pervert is to wave passionately at them (here I will note that this should be done with the entire hand and not just one part of it), get their attention and then mouth “Thank You” and continue driving. While this may have absolutely no affect on them or their peeve, it will go a long way in helping you remember who the rational human being is and that no peeve is worth losing ones sanity over.
Of course, if that doesn’t work, dead peeve is at the very top of the road kill delicacy list. Yum, yum . . .
T. Michael Barclay
Monday, September 20, 2004
THE ART OF COMMUNAMACTION -
Or, Well What I Meant To Say . . .
We all make mistakes, you know, little typo’s when we are in a rush and our mind is going in one direction and our fingers in another. However, I am currently in a business relationship with a person who can take this ‘human frailty’ to a new high on occasion. Just talking to this person one would never guess that he is afflicted with the little known disease, ‘dyslexic phalangeitis’, a rare condition where the connection between the brain and the fingers is more confused than a Hollywood actor trying to answer a ‘Final Jeopardy’ question.
This business partner has a very sharp mind and thinks in a ‘big picture’ sort of way. However, this does not seem to translate to the written word. We usually get a kick out of his emails and try and avoid having him write too many to customers, etc, which will become obvious in a short while. In an email communication on this date, this particular partner wanted to express the desire of a business associate. He thought he had written . . . “He said he would like to talk about using the stock options as collateral . . .” Simple enough, one would think, however, this is actually cut and pasted out of his email to the other partner in our venture and forwarded to me for comments (and for grins):
I talked to Gary
He said he will lilac to Mock about suing the stock options as collateral.?
Having recently sent an email to the other partner saying that I thought I always got his best material, the following is the email that I sent in response to getting the above;
"Well . . . on second thought, you're right, I don't get the best ones. To start with he means 'would,' not 'will,' so he even gets it wrong when he spells it right!
Then . . . and this just boggles the mind, to get 'lilac' out of 'like' takes manual dexterity that very few people have. While the 'l' and the 'k' are next to each other, the 'e' and 'c' live in two different area codes.
Then, of course, you come to the word Mock . . . Outside of proper names and names of books, etc., one would not expect to find the word 'make' capitalized in the middle of a sentence, let alone so badly misspelled. But, to give him his due, using his philosophy, "The glass isn't half empty, it's full, the container is just twice as big as it is supposed to be . . .," I have to admit that he did get two of the four letters correct.
Utilizing a technique formally known only to Houdini, he expertly managed to use the correct finger, be it on the wrong hand and smack the 'o' dead on, fooling both the reader and his own left little pinkie that was thinking, all the while, that an 'a' was in the making. This was then followed up, and in rather quick fashion I might add, by striking the 'c' instead of the 'k,' obviously another well timed diversion just to let his right hand know who was in charge. However, here is where instinct took over and allowing his sharp wit to concur that the word 'make' did in fact start with an 'm' and end with a 'k' (some words are just that way), his now totally confused hands managed to find the 'k' and make one last grand stand . . . Mock!
I can understand mixing the 'u' and the 's' and getting 'suing' instead of 'using', but might suggest a quick tutorial in "Reading What You Just Wrote Prior To Clicking On SEND", before I fired off too many emails that used the word, 'suing' in them. As for the ‘period’ and the ‘question mark’ at the end of the sentence . . . well, who hasn’t made that typo.?
I am reminded of an old saying (actually said to me by many old people . . .), “It is far better to be thought of as an idiot than to put something down in writing and prove it!”
Hmmm . . . let’s see, where is that article I was working on?
Wordsmith
Or, Well What I Meant To Say . . .
We all make mistakes, you know, little typo’s when we are in a rush and our mind is going in one direction and our fingers in another. However, I am currently in a business relationship with a person who can take this ‘human frailty’ to a new high on occasion. Just talking to this person one would never guess that he is afflicted with the little known disease, ‘dyslexic phalangeitis’, a rare condition where the connection between the brain and the fingers is more confused than a Hollywood actor trying to answer a ‘Final Jeopardy’ question.
This business partner has a very sharp mind and thinks in a ‘big picture’ sort of way. However, this does not seem to translate to the written word. We usually get a kick out of his emails and try and avoid having him write too many to customers, etc, which will become obvious in a short while. In an email communication on this date, this particular partner wanted to express the desire of a business associate. He thought he had written . . . “He said he would like to talk about using the stock options as collateral . . .” Simple enough, one would think, however, this is actually cut and pasted out of his email to the other partner in our venture and forwarded to me for comments (and for grins):
I talked to Gary
He said he will lilac to Mock about suing the stock options as collateral.?
Having recently sent an email to the other partner saying that I thought I always got his best material, the following is the email that I sent in response to getting the above;
"Well . . . on second thought, you're right, I don't get the best ones. To start with he means 'would,' not 'will,' so he even gets it wrong when he spells it right!
Then . . . and this just boggles the mind, to get 'lilac' out of 'like' takes manual dexterity that very few people have. While the 'l' and the 'k' are next to each other, the 'e' and 'c' live in two different area codes.
Then, of course, you come to the word Mock . . . Outside of proper names and names of books, etc., one would not expect to find the word 'make' capitalized in the middle of a sentence, let alone so badly misspelled. But, to give him his due, using his philosophy, "The glass isn't half empty, it's full, the container is just twice as big as it is supposed to be . . .," I have to admit that he did get two of the four letters correct.
Utilizing a technique formally known only to Houdini, he expertly managed to use the correct finger, be it on the wrong hand and smack the 'o' dead on, fooling both the reader and his own left little pinkie that was thinking, all the while, that an 'a' was in the making. This was then followed up, and in rather quick fashion I might add, by striking the 'c' instead of the 'k,' obviously another well timed diversion just to let his right hand know who was in charge. However, here is where instinct took over and allowing his sharp wit to concur that the word 'make' did in fact start with an 'm' and end with a 'k' (some words are just that way), his now totally confused hands managed to find the 'k' and make one last grand stand . . . Mock!
I can understand mixing the 'u' and the 's' and getting 'suing' instead of 'using', but might suggest a quick tutorial in "Reading What You Just Wrote Prior To Clicking On SEND", before I fired off too many emails that used the word, 'suing' in them. As for the ‘period’ and the ‘question mark’ at the end of the sentence . . . well, who hasn’t made that typo.?
I am reminded of an old saying (actually said to me by many old people . . .), “It is far better to be thought of as an idiot than to put something down in writing and prove it!”
Hmmm . . . let’s see, where is that article I was working on?
Wordsmith
Sunday, August 29, 2004
THANKS FOR INVITING US OVER
Now, Please Sign This . . .
In order to save time and money, lots and lots of money, we wish to provide the following form for all parents with male children between the ages of one-half year and thirteen. Our personal experience has shown that we could have saved an average of $3,000 per visit had we implemented this little policy prior to our sons second birthday. It’s still not too late for you . . .
VISITATION DISCLAIMER
(AND HOLD HARMLESS AGREEMENT)
On this ____ (Day), of ________ (Month), ______ (Year), we, ________________________________ (hereafter known as ‘visiting parents’), pursuant to your _________________________________(Insert name of parents, guardians and/or caregivers involved, hereafter known as ‘victims’) invitation to have said ‘visiting parents’ visit said ‘victims and their family at, ________________________________ (Domicile of record), do agree, as witnessed by your signatures, fingerprints, and DNA samples enclosed, to hold the ‘visiting parents’ harmless for any damage, destruction and/or annihilation of any structure, household appliance, furnishing or living plant/pet, at the hands (or any other appendage) of our male child, _________________________ (Insert name of male child, hereafter known affectionately as the ‘Taz’).
This disclaimer covers, but is not limited to; anything with a knob, dial or toggle switch not enclosed in a keyed double lock cabinet and/or bullet proof glass enclosure, kitchen appliances with exposed electrical cords or like lamps, radios, clocks and/or vacuum cleaners, animals with hair, or animals without hair, but with ears, tail or any other appendage longer than one inch (2.54cm), computers (for God’s sake hid the computer), printers, fax machines, answering devices or camera’s with or without film, pots, pans, dishware, silverware (fine or plastic), collectables of any kind, but especially of a value exceeding $9.00, vases, flower pots, trophies, pictures (framed or not) and any wall covering not duly adhered with Super Glue™, furniture (especially the reclining type), tables, chairs, and, if you have bar stools, anything the ‘Taz’ can reach while standing on same and probing with a mop handle.
Should the ‘victims’ decide to provide food and/or refreshments (hereafter known as piling mistake on top of mistake), said ‘victims’ agree to hold the ‘visiting parents’ harmless for, spills, drips, dribbles, oppsies, dropped food, spitting and/or projectiles vomited accidentally or on purpose by the ‘Taz’. The ‘victims’ agree to provide the ‘Taz’ any required protective covering, including, but not limited to, bibs, napkins, paper towels, newspaper and/or room size tarpaulin if required. All food items and/or beverages will be provided at a temperature not to be considered by the ‘Taz’ as “Hot, hurt that baby”, “Cold, yuck!” or “just right, but I don’t really care” and the ‘visiting parents’ will accept no responsibility for any food or beverage item served to the ‘Taz’ that is green.
Should the ‘victims’ have one or more humans residing at said domicile of record that may be considered children, regardless of age, and said ‘children’ wish to and/or are allowed to ‘play’ with the ‘Taz’, the ‘visiting parents’ shall not be held accountable for any toys or garage tools irretrievably lodged in an orifice not heretofore intended for that purpose. Any shortages or overages in physical ‘toy’ inventory resulting from this activity will simply be classified in the, ‘Well, what did you expect’ category and result in no monetary claim against the ‘visiting parents’.
During the duration of said approved visit, the ‘victims’ agree to bare total responsibility for all instruments of writing, including, but not limited to, pencils, pens, crayons, lipstick, eyeliner, toothpaste, nail polish, or permanent marking freezer pens, and any surface, attached or portable, that may come into contact with said instruments of writing, including, but not limited to, load-baring walls, bed spreads, counter tops, photo albums, rare autographed books, couches, tables, TV screens (all sizes including plasma), glass surfaces, dishwasher interiors, curtains, and automobiles within a three square mile radius.
This agreement is not meant to be absolute in its coverage, but merely a broad guild line encompassing representative examples of similar activities deemed not too embarrassing to admit to by the ‘visiting parents’, but far from some behavior that, having been dealt with by local HASMET teams, has so baffled judges as high as the Supreme Court, that special dispensation has been given the ‘visiting parents’ allowing them to respond to requests for visits without divulging their results. By implication and the fact that the ‘Taz’ is prone to inventing new ways of wreaking havoc on a daily basis, the ‘victims’ are required to maintain adequate facility replacement insurance including, but not limited to, flooding (both internal and external), fire, wind, smoke, and a screaming case of, ‘something died in my diaper’, odor.
Once signed this agreement is irreversible and binding on the ‘victims’ and their surviving family members.
We look forward to our visit, thank you and have a nice day.
Signed: _____________________ Signed: ____________________
Visiting Parents Victims
Wordsmith
Now, Please Sign This . . .
In order to save time and money, lots and lots of money, we wish to provide the following form for all parents with male children between the ages of one-half year and thirteen. Our personal experience has shown that we could have saved an average of $3,000 per visit had we implemented this little policy prior to our sons second birthday. It’s still not too late for you . . .
VISITATION DISCLAIMER
(AND HOLD HARMLESS AGREEMENT)
On this ____ (Day), of ________ (Month), ______ (Year), we, ________________________________ (hereafter known as ‘visiting parents’), pursuant to your _________________________________(Insert name of parents, guardians and/or caregivers involved, hereafter known as ‘victims’) invitation to have said ‘visiting parents’ visit said ‘victims and their family at, ________________________________ (Domicile of record), do agree, as witnessed by your signatures, fingerprints, and DNA samples enclosed, to hold the ‘visiting parents’ harmless for any damage, destruction and/or annihilation of any structure, household appliance, furnishing or living plant/pet, at the hands (or any other appendage) of our male child, _________________________ (Insert name of male child, hereafter known affectionately as the ‘Taz’).
This disclaimer covers, but is not limited to; anything with a knob, dial or toggle switch not enclosed in a keyed double lock cabinet and/or bullet proof glass enclosure, kitchen appliances with exposed electrical cords or like lamps, radios, clocks and/or vacuum cleaners, animals with hair, or animals without hair, but with ears, tail or any other appendage longer than one inch (2.54cm), computers (for God’s sake hid the computer), printers, fax machines, answering devices or camera’s with or without film, pots, pans, dishware, silverware (fine or plastic), collectables of any kind, but especially of a value exceeding $9.00, vases, flower pots, trophies, pictures (framed or not) and any wall covering not duly adhered with Super Glue™, furniture (especially the reclining type), tables, chairs, and, if you have bar stools, anything the ‘Taz’ can reach while standing on same and probing with a mop handle.
Should the ‘victims’ decide to provide food and/or refreshments (hereafter known as piling mistake on top of mistake), said ‘victims’ agree to hold the ‘visiting parents’ harmless for, spills, drips, dribbles, oppsies, dropped food, spitting and/or projectiles vomited accidentally or on purpose by the ‘Taz’. The ‘victims’ agree to provide the ‘Taz’ any required protective covering, including, but not limited to, bibs, napkins, paper towels, newspaper and/or room size tarpaulin if required. All food items and/or beverages will be provided at a temperature not to be considered by the ‘Taz’ as “Hot, hurt that baby”, “Cold, yuck!” or “just right, but I don’t really care” and the ‘visiting parents’ will accept no responsibility for any food or beverage item served to the ‘Taz’ that is green.
Should the ‘victims’ have one or more humans residing at said domicile of record that may be considered children, regardless of age, and said ‘children’ wish to and/or are allowed to ‘play’ with the ‘Taz’, the ‘visiting parents’ shall not be held accountable for any toys or garage tools irretrievably lodged in an orifice not heretofore intended for that purpose. Any shortages or overages in physical ‘toy’ inventory resulting from this activity will simply be classified in the, ‘Well, what did you expect’ category and result in no monetary claim against the ‘visiting parents’.
During the duration of said approved visit, the ‘victims’ agree to bare total responsibility for all instruments of writing, including, but not limited to, pencils, pens, crayons, lipstick, eyeliner, toothpaste, nail polish, or permanent marking freezer pens, and any surface, attached or portable, that may come into contact with said instruments of writing, including, but not limited to, load-baring walls, bed spreads, counter tops, photo albums, rare autographed books, couches, tables, TV screens (all sizes including plasma), glass surfaces, dishwasher interiors, curtains, and automobiles within a three square mile radius.
This agreement is not meant to be absolute in its coverage, but merely a broad guild line encompassing representative examples of similar activities deemed not too embarrassing to admit to by the ‘visiting parents’, but far from some behavior that, having been dealt with by local HASMET teams, has so baffled judges as high as the Supreme Court, that special dispensation has been given the ‘visiting parents’ allowing them to respond to requests for visits without divulging their results. By implication and the fact that the ‘Taz’ is prone to inventing new ways of wreaking havoc on a daily basis, the ‘victims’ are required to maintain adequate facility replacement insurance including, but not limited to, flooding (both internal and external), fire, wind, smoke, and a screaming case of, ‘something died in my diaper’, odor.
Once signed this agreement is irreversible and binding on the ‘victims’ and their surviving family members.
We look forward to our visit, thank you and have a nice day.
Signed: _____________________ Signed: ____________________
Visiting Parents Victims
Wordsmith
Thursday, August 26, 2004
GETTING SMARTER –
Or, Everything I Should Have Know I Am Now Learning From My Two Year Old Son!
Like all parents we couldn’t wait until our son spoke his first words. What we didn’t know is that he was able to speak since he was about six months old, he just hadn’t heard anything that he thought would give him an advantage. Well, he had actually figured out that repeating ‘Mommy’ and ‘Daddy’ over and over was worth the price of popcorn watching his parents bump into each other and gush until dribble came out of the corners of their mouth’s, but since he wasn’t yet subject to corporal punishment, this trick wasn’t of any real value.
As he closed in on his second birthday, we began to notice that he could not only repeat the term ‘please’ (this of course came out more like ‘peas’), he had figured out that if he said it before he even indicated what it was he wanted, he stood a much better chance of getting it as Mom and Dad were so besides themselves they would forget of any logical reason he couldn’t have it. He ‘peased’ himself all over the house until the new wore off of that and we were beginning to restore some balance in what he could have and what he couldn’t have and the sound reasoning behind our decisions. This is when all of a sudden he began to say, ‘thank you’ (this came out, ‘tankum’, but he had done a real good job of teaching us, so we understood). Now he just added, ‘tankum’ to the ‘pease’ and we handed over cookies, juice, TV remotes and the family car keys.
Now, being his Dad, I had always thought that he was pulling one over on his Mother, but just didn’t want to crush her delusions of grandeur that we just had this incredibly polite child. Again, as time passed we began to accomplish the primary parents goal of getting our son to understand the we, the parents, were in charge and we made decisions about what he could have or do based on our knowledge and experience and that he, our child, should always respect our decisions and learn the fine art of obeying us.
This is when it dawned on me that our son thought that his Mother and Father were possibly the two dumbest humans to ever breed, and he had good reason.
Thinking that we had finally gotten him to understand that just asking for something and then launching into a pleading of ‘pease’ and ‘tankum’ was not always going to get him what he wanted, and certainly not going to keep him out of the dog-house when he did something wrong, I made the fatal mistake of telling him to go give his Mother a hug and tell her he was ‘sorry’ (here he managed to get an ‘L’ involved and announced to his Mother, ‘solly,’ which got him kisses and hugs galore). It did not take this child two minutes to figure out that his parents would not only describe in great detail what was right and what was wrong, they would also give him a way to get out of trouble when he just did whatever he wanted to in the first place. He could now just ‘pease’ and ‘tankum’ his heart out and when we forbid his request, he would just do it anyway and ‘solly’ the whole event under the rug. Not only that, he also knew that his parents would take until after his graduation from high school to figure out a way around the situation.
I can hardly wait to see what he does with, ‘excuse me’, ‘I didn’t know that’ and ‘the dog did it!’
Wordsmith
Or, Everything I Should Have Know I Am Now Learning From My Two Year Old Son!
Like all parents we couldn’t wait until our son spoke his first words. What we didn’t know is that he was able to speak since he was about six months old, he just hadn’t heard anything that he thought would give him an advantage. Well, he had actually figured out that repeating ‘Mommy’ and ‘Daddy’ over and over was worth the price of popcorn watching his parents bump into each other and gush until dribble came out of the corners of their mouth’s, but since he wasn’t yet subject to corporal punishment, this trick wasn’t of any real value.
As he closed in on his second birthday, we began to notice that he could not only repeat the term ‘please’ (this of course came out more like ‘peas’), he had figured out that if he said it before he even indicated what it was he wanted, he stood a much better chance of getting it as Mom and Dad were so besides themselves they would forget of any logical reason he couldn’t have it. He ‘peased’ himself all over the house until the new wore off of that and we were beginning to restore some balance in what he could have and what he couldn’t have and the sound reasoning behind our decisions. This is when all of a sudden he began to say, ‘thank you’ (this came out, ‘tankum’, but he had done a real good job of teaching us, so we understood). Now he just added, ‘tankum’ to the ‘pease’ and we handed over cookies, juice, TV remotes and the family car keys.
Now, being his Dad, I had always thought that he was pulling one over on his Mother, but just didn’t want to crush her delusions of grandeur that we just had this incredibly polite child. Again, as time passed we began to accomplish the primary parents goal of getting our son to understand the we, the parents, were in charge and we made decisions about what he could have or do based on our knowledge and experience and that he, our child, should always respect our decisions and learn the fine art of obeying us.
This is when it dawned on me that our son thought that his Mother and Father were possibly the two dumbest humans to ever breed, and he had good reason.
Thinking that we had finally gotten him to understand that just asking for something and then launching into a pleading of ‘pease’ and ‘tankum’ was not always going to get him what he wanted, and certainly not going to keep him out of the dog-house when he did something wrong, I made the fatal mistake of telling him to go give his Mother a hug and tell her he was ‘sorry’ (here he managed to get an ‘L’ involved and announced to his Mother, ‘solly,’ which got him kisses and hugs galore). It did not take this child two minutes to figure out that his parents would not only describe in great detail what was right and what was wrong, they would also give him a way to get out of trouble when he just did whatever he wanted to in the first place. He could now just ‘pease’ and ‘tankum’ his heart out and when we forbid his request, he would just do it anyway and ‘solly’ the whole event under the rug. Not only that, he also knew that his parents would take until after his graduation from high school to figure out a way around the situation.
I can hardly wait to see what he does with, ‘excuse me’, ‘I didn’t know that’ and ‘the dog did it!’
Wordsmith
