By James Harvey Stout (deceased). This material is now in the public domain. The complete collection of Mr. Stout's writing is now at http://stout.mybravenet.com/public_html/h/ >
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That's either the largest dog I've ever seen or the smallest horse I've ever seen.
It's unfortunate that the "endangered species" list includes interesting animals like the black rhino and the bald eagle. I'm waiting for it to include cockroaches and mosquitoes.
If my hamster escapes from her cage, and she runs into a drain, I'll have to call Rodent Rooter.
My hamster likes to live in a messy cage; she glares at me after I clean up the place. The phrase, "Your home looks like a rat's nest," is actually a compliment to a hamster.
I'm bored with my exercise equipment -- the stair-stepper and the weight machine. What I want is a human-sized hamster wheel.
A hamster runs about 8 miles per night. Since its tiny legs are only 1" long, and my legs are 40" long, my nocturnal rodent runs an equivalent of 320 human-miles every night. It's no wonder that her "hamster wheel electrical generator" lights up half of the western hemisphere.
Definition of "cat rocket": The furry projectile that shoots out of a dumpster when you throw in a bag of trash.
Cats cannot be trained. I tried to train my cats not to walk on the kitchen counters. When I gave up, I realized that they had trained me -- to let them do whatever they want.
A cat almost always wins a battle of wills. When I give my cat a type of cat food that he doesn't want, he sits and stares at me, as though he is thinking, "This isn't good enough." I argue with him: "But it was advertised on television. And you liked it last week. And it's got a wonderful fishy smell." And so on. Still the cat quietly gazes at me in front of his full food bowl. But I'm supposedly the boss, so I walk away smugly, saying, "There's nothing wrong with that food. You'll eat it when you are hungry enough." As the minutes pass, and the hours pass, and the food still hasn't been eaten, I begin to wonder, and then worry, and then feel bad about my hungry kitty. But I can out-wait him, can't I? Besides I'm busy. And I don't want to drive to the store to replace good food. ... And besides ... And besides ... Oh, where are my car keys?
When I bought two pet mice, I noted the irony of having these pets in a cage, and having my old mouse traps in a drawer nearby. I warned the rodents in the cage: "If you stay in there, you are my adorable pets. But if you escape, you are no longer 'pets'; you are 'vermin,' and I'll put out the traps for you." ... Hmmm, maybe the cage isn't so bad.
My hamster has "pouches," which are sacks inside of her mouth, alongside each cheek. She uses the pouches to carry food from her little buffet table to her nest. I believe that human beings should have pouches. Think about it. We wouldn't need pockets or purses, and we would always be able to find our car keys. We'd just reach into our mouth -- into our pouch -- and take out whatever we had put there. And as we grew older, and our pouches began to sag into droopy jowls, we could get a "pouch job" or a "pouch tuck" to lift them. Our pouches could hold all types of small items:
I have been spending too much time with my computer; I need to go out and get a carbon-based girlfriend.
The U.S. federal government has been slow in responding to the Y2K computer problem -- expanding the two-digit "year" fields to four digits, in preparation for the year 2000. Considering this slowness, I suggest that the government should start immediately to work on the Y10K problem -- expanding the year field to five digits, in preparation for the year 10,000. That's only 8,000 years from now.
A powerful computer is the "muscle car" of the 1990s. It can go from zero to a billion in a nanosecond.
I refuse to work with a computer that has more quirks than I have.
When people ask me what kind of computer I own, I have two answers -- one for computer people, and one for non-computer people. I tell the computer people, "It's a 166-MHZ Pentium with a 2-gig hard drive, 32 megs of RAM, and an 8x CD-ROM." I tell the non-computer people, "It's a white one."
When I die, I don't want to be buried or cremated; I want to be digitized.
She wants to have a computer that's as powerful as mine; I think she has a case of "Pentium envy."
I'm really lonely now; my imaginary friend ran off with my imaginary girlfriend.
I sneaked a peek at my psychiatrist's diagnosis of me: "I detect no indications of psychopathology. The guy is just goofy."
During my adult life, I have felt successful, even though that's not really true. That attitude would be diagnosed as "grandiose delusions." If I do become successful, will that mean I'm cured?
To try to determine the cause of my stuttering, I had a brain scan. The brain scan didn't find anything. ... I mean, it found a brain, but it didn't find anything wrong with the brain.
I bought a ventriloquist's dummy, but then I returned it for a refund, because it didn't work right. It was okay for other people; I don't know why it stuttered when I used it.
A capella: A Latin phrase which means "I can't afford a piano."
Cuticle: A small cute girl.
Elitist: Anything I can't afford.
Professional wrestling: That curious combination of choreography and bad acting.
Thesaurus: A book which implies the absurd idea that there are adjectives which are better than the word, "nice." (Aside from that fault, it's a nice book.)
Thesaurus: A dinosaur which was known for being talkative, verbose, wordy, gabby, effusive, loquacious, garrulous, and long-winded.
Workaholic: A grindstone cowboy.
We've all heard of "deja vu" -- the feeling that we have been here before. Someone came up with a variation: "deja moo" -- the feeling you have heard this bull before. I have added a few other dejas:
I wanted my steak to be rare, not well-done. By the way, what is the Recommended Daily Allowance for carbon?
I am "lactose intolerant." I hate cows.
I'd like to have Thousand Island dressing, but I'm on a diet. Do you have any 900 Island dressing?
I don't know why, but I always start laughing when I pass a certain billboard south of Austin, Texas. According to the sign, the restaurant serves: "Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Jerky."
My favorite bachelor recipes:
Life is simple for people who are either very stupid or very intelligent. It's the people in-between who have complicated lives.
Don't you just adore the pitter-patter of little minds?
I scored 176 on an I.Q. test. You probably can't even spell I.Q.
I'm glad that the Mensa test didn't have any questions about how to open child-proof medicine bottles.
There are spell-checkers and grammar-checkers. Some people need logic-checkers.
When I was in a supermarket in July, 1995, I wrote a check for my groceries, and then I gave the check to the clerk. She looked at it, and said, "I can't accept this check; the date is incorrect." I thought that I might have written the wrong date -- but, no, the mistake was much worse: I had written the wrong year -- 1983! Embarrassed by my outrageous mistake, I wrote another check. I'm glad that I didn't make that error on the Mensa test. I would have received a letter in response: "I'm sorry, Mr. Stout, but we must reject your application to Mensa. While you performed very well on the verbal portion of the test, and your mathematical prowess would have humbled even Albert Einstein, we noticed that, at the top of the page, where we asked for 'Today's Date,' you wrote in THE WRONG DECADE!"
"The eenie-meenie-minie-moe stuff is very effective on multiple choice questions," said James Harvey Stout after receiving test scores equivalent to an I.Q. of 133 and 150 on two Mensa tests. When the news of Stout's Mensa membership was announced in major newspapers throughout the world, he received thousands of letters of apology "from everyone who ever thought that I'm an ignorant dork," Stout said.
Independence Day. This film is thumbs-downed because there is way too much demand upon one's "suspension of disbelief." For example:
I have been spending too much time with my computer; I need to go out and get a carbon-based girlfriend.
My life is going well; I'm into six figures. But if my girlfriend finds out about those other five women, I'll be in trouble.
An older women asked me, romantically, "Where have you been all my life?" I responded, "Well, during your first seven years, I hadn't been born yet."
I plan to get married again someday, but I'm waiting to find a woman who can say those "three little words." No, not "I love you"; the words are "I can cook."
Sure, I enjoy dating her. But before you know it, the dates will lead to ... the "c" word. Next thing you know, she'll be using the "e" word, and the "m" word. Soon, I'll be hearing the "p" word and the "b" word. Eventually, we'll probably use the "d" word and the "a" word. (For those of you with limited verbal skills, the words are commitment, engagement, marriage, pregnancy, baby, divorce, and alimony.)
My wife was sloppy when she made pancakes; she'd get the stuff all over her. She was a battered wife.
I'm not demanding with regard to a woman's appearance. In fact, I choose my women like I choose a shirt from my closet: as long as the shirt is reasonably presentable, clean, and doesn't stink, I figure that's good enough.
It's better to have loved and lost ... and had your heart torn into little tiny pieces, and felt like your insides have been ripped out of you, and ... uh, or maybe not.
People who think they know all of the answers haven't heard all of the questions.
I have been reading too many books about eastern religions; I caught myself contemplating the "suchness" of the "thusness."
Thoreau said, "Simplicity simplicity simplicity." If he had
really believed in simplicity, he would have said it only
once.
Successful people don't become philosophers.
And, of course, we are all familiar with the quote by Rene Descartes: "I stink, therefore I am."
Some people reject "the pearl of great price" because they don't approve of the oyster it came in.
There are mythological gods and goddesses for every aspect of life. For example, the Koreans have No-Il Ja-Dae, the goddess of the toilet. And I was wondering: what type of ritual offering would one give to the goddess of the toilet?
I believed in reincarnation during my last lifetime, but I no longer do.
Some days, I follow the tao; other days, I follow the Dow-Jones. (The word "tao" is sometimes pronounced "dow.")
He is so open-minded that his brain has fallen out.
Don't let my golden aura fool you; it's only because I ate lunch at McDonald's.
My favorite song: "Hello Dalai. Well, hello Dalai. It's so nice to have you back where you belong."
Some people have a coin collection; other people have a stamp collection. I have a karma collection.
I like my daikinis shaken, not stirred.
A Bachelor of Arts degree in English is worthless in the job market. But I have a philosophical perspective: Before I got my B.A. in English, I chopped wood and carried water; after I got my B.A. in English, I chopped wood and carried water.
Sometimes I feel like a Sat-upon guru.
My guru quit; he said, "I'm tired of teaching the obvious to the oblivious."
Before we are born into an incarnation, we select the circumstances of our upcoming life; this would include selecting our parents and even our body. Prior to this incarnation, I had a meeting with God to decide what circumstances I wanted. But in the room where we had our meeting, there was loud music, so God and I had to shout, and I don't think God heard me clearly. For example, God shouted to me, "What kind of mind do you want?" And I shouted back, "A mind that does not vary from the path." Apparently, God thought I said, "A mind that's not very good at math." ... Why am I so tall? Because God asked me, "What kind of legs do you want?" And I was thinking, "I want legs that I can walk on, to go to a grocery store, or go to the spiritual center." So I shouted to God, "I want legs that can take my immortal soul to the spiritual center." But God must have heard: "Legs that can play for the Chicago Bulls as a center." ... Next, God asked me, "What kind of feet do you want?" I was thinking, "I want feet that maintain my grounding, regardless of my circumstances in life." So I shouted, over the loud music, "Feet that are as strong as roots in any spell of weather." God thought I said, "Feet that are as long as canoes and smell like mozzarella." ... God asked me, "What kind of ears do you want?" I was thinking, "I want ears that can hear the voice of God." So I shouted to God, "I want ears that can hear you anywhere I'm going in the world." God thought I said, "Ears that are huge and have hairs growing out of them." ... This went on for a while, and finally God asked me, "What kind of belly do you want?" And I thought, "I want to be in good physical condition." So I shouted to God, "I want a belly that's flat ..." Oh, I know what you're thinking: "flat" rhymes with "fat." I beg your pardon! God heard me correctly on that one.
Imagine receiving these press releases from a fictitious religious organization:
In order to deliver billions of gifts on Christmas, there must be more than one Santa Claus. Here is a list of some of the others:
I need to buy a better radio. With the cheap speakers that I'm using, I misunderstood the following song titles:
My favorite love songs ... I mean lunch songs:
"Are you growing a beard?" Stupid question. Yes, I am always growing a beard, 24 hours a day; it's just that I usually shave it off every morning. Even if I don't shave all weekend, I am not "growing a beard," because I intend to shave on Monday morning. The proper question is this: "Are you allowing your facial hair to grow, with the intent of not shaving for a long enough period of time that the hair-length would be sufficient to qualify as what we call a beard?"
"Where are you from?" Stupid question. The implication is that I spent my whole life in one place, and just recently moved here. "I'm from Texas." Since I have lived in 8 states, I don't know how to answer this question. I was born in New Jersey, did most of my growing up in Pennsylvania, spent a significant amount of time in Oregon, and then traveled in an RV for several years. The proper question is this: "Please tell me the location of your previous residence -- or, if you were at that location for just a brief, uneventful period, tell me the location where you (a) were born, (b) grew up, or (c) did something interesting that would make for a pleasant response to this idiotic question."
"What's your sign?" I'm a Capricorn, with my moon in Aquarius, a Sagittarius ascendant, a Libran midheaven, a strong Scorpio on the 3rd cusp, a Pluto Leo, Neptune as the sole ruler of the 10th house ... Shall I continue?
"How did you quit smoking?" I stopped putting cigarettes into my mouth.
"Are you a typical Gemini?" Well, yes and no.
"Is your cat a male or a female?" I don't know. In order to find out, I would have to roll my cat onto its back for the express purpose of spreading its legs to look at its genitals -- and I don't know my cat well enough yet to do that.
"Aren't you going to pick up the ice cube that you dropped onto the floor?" No, it will melt into water, and then the water will evaporate. (Example #327 of "Bachelor Logic.")
"Is the glass half-empty or half-full?" It's completely full; the bottom half is filled with water, and the top half is filled with air.
"Did you wipe your feet before you came inside?" No, my feet are clean; it's my shoes that have crud on them.
Do professional criminals have resumes? (Job skills: forgery, safe-cracking. Previous employer: Jimmy "The Hatchet" Scarponi.)
At a clown college, is there a class clown?
A home-decorating book said that a bathroom can be brightened up with flowers and plants. Does mildew count?
I abhor "senseless violence." Why can't we have more sensible violence?
If "an apple a day keeps the doctor away," will two apples a day keep two doctors away? How many doctors will be kept away if we eat half of an apple a day? Will we keep a doctor away if we eat apple pie? What about applesauce? Pineapples?
According to a well-known beer commercial, when your work-day ends, it's "Miller time." But if you work for the Miller Brewing Company, what time is it when the work-day ends? Non-Miller time?
Why do we call a building a "building" after it has been built? We should call it a building while it's being constructed -- because we are building it -- but then we should call it a "built" -- because it is built.
If those who can, do, and those who can't, teach, what do those who can't teach, do?
If a person who studies weather is called a meteorologist, what do we call a person who studies meteors?
Back in the old days, when men were men, weather forecasters gave definitive predictions: "We will have rain tomorrow." And I could go ahead and cancel my picnic. Now they give those cowardly percentage predictions: "a 65% chance of rain." What am I supposed to do with that? Cancel 65% of my picnic? Forecasters might as well go ahead and predict rain or no rain; in that prediction of 65%, they are admitting that there is a 35% chance that they'll be wrong anyway. Show some guts; take a stand. What I really dislike are the predictions of a "50% chance of rain." In other words, "We don't know; it could go either way." They might as well not say anything. But my biggest complaint is when there's a raging thunderstorm outside, and I hear a report on the radio: "We have a 70% chance of rain today." Okay, I'm not good at math, but when there's a storm at that moment, it seems that the chance of rain is pretty close to 100%.
Why do meteorologists bother to use the expressions "Tornado Watch" and "Tornado Warning" when they know that they will have to define the terms for those of us who have heard the definitions hundreds of times and still can't remember which is which? Let's simplify it, okay? "A tornado might occur" or "a tornado is occurring."
That's a small electric heater. What is its watt rating?
... What?
Yes.
... Yes, what?
Watt.
... No, I'm asking you what.
I don't know. That's why I'm asking you.
... You're asking me ... what?
Yes.
... What are we talking about?
We're talking about watt.
... I just asked that. What is our topic of conversation?
Watt.
... The topic of conversation.
Watt.
... The conversational topic.
Watt.
... The thing we are talking about.
Watt.
... Our subject matter.
How many watts do we have here?
... So far, you have seven whats.
I don't have any watts.
... Yes, you do. I heard them. And, the way this conversation is going, you probably have more of them.
How many watts does the heater have?
... It doesn't have any whats. It doesn't talk.
It's not supposed to talk. It's supposed to make hot air.
... Your whats make hot air.
Do we have fifteen hundred watts?
... Not yet, but we're getting there.
Just tell me the watts.
... Your first what was when you started this conversation. Your second what ...
Okay, I'll try this. Do you know the volts in your home?
... Yes, my home has thousands of bolts.
Thousands of volts?
... Yes, thousands of my bolts.
Oh, you're nuts.
... Yes, thousands of nuts, too, one for each bolt. ... What does that have to do with my heater?
I'll try again. Do you know "amperes?"
... Amperes? You mean the horns on bucks?
Bucks?
... You know what I mean: deer.
No, I don't know what you mean. And don't call me "dear."
... What?
Okay, now we're back to watt.
... We're back to what?
Well, at least we agree on that.
... Agree on what?
Yes.
... I don't understand you.
Just look at the label on the heater. Can you see it?
... Yes.
Do you see watt?
... Do I see what?
Yes.
... What am I looking for?
Watt.
... What?
Just read the label. Is there a description of the heater?
... Yes.
What's on the first line of the label?
... The manufacturer's name is on the first line.
Who?
... The manufacturer is on first.
What's on second?
... No, watt's on third.
Who's on second?
... The name of a copyright attorney. Maybe we should stop this sketch before we get into trouble!
Grammar is for people who have no imagination.
I finally fixed the "s" key on my computer keyboard, after I
realized that publishers aren't interested in books on "elf
improvement."
I am a good speller; I can spell every word in the English language:
E-v-e-r-y-w-o-r-d-i-n-t-h-e-E-n-g-l-i-s-h-l-a-n-g-u-a-g-e.
As a writer, I have noticed something: the more I use my thesaurus, the more you use your dictionary.
Definition of "subscribe": an inferior writer.
I have discovered a new oxymoron: press release.
My car-insurance company got an injunction which prohibits me from attempting to parallel park.
I had a to-do list, but now it's all to-done.
I was disappointed when I saw the movie, "The King and I"; I had thought that it would be about Elvis Presley.
I knew that the 1960s were really over, and I was really out of school, when "I Want to Take You Higher" turned into "I want to get hired."
My daydreams are interrupted by commercials.
My attitude about the game of chess: If I have to think that hard, I want to get paid for it.
Being misunderstood is a good thing sometimes; it prevents people from realizing what an incredibly stupid statement you actually said.
I'm 6'4" tall, so I frequently bump my head on things. Actually, I'm only 6'2"; the top 2 inches is scar tissue.
I'm not happy with my appearance; I'm fat, so it looks like I have big bones.
Some people are very organized; they have lists of everything. I am so organized that I have lists of my lists.
I went to the school of hard knock-knock jokes.
I'm not afraid of dying; I'm just afraid of dying in a stupid way:
I wanted to buy a trumpet, but it was too expensive; instead, I bought a frugalhorn.
In our little ways, we try to make the world a better place for ourselves and our posterior ... I mean, our posterity.
The former United States First Lady, Nancy Reagan, was opposed to drugs; her phrase was, "Just Say No." Or, for people who were currently taking drugs, "Quoth the Reagan, Nevermore."
I don't separate my laundry into whites and colors. I like surprises -- not knowing what color my white undershirts will be.
I'm glad that I have long legs. My hips are high above the ground, so I need long legs to reach all the way down to the ground.
The snooze-alarm shuffle:
In my job, I am a "decision-maker"; I decided to come to work today.
People who have a Ph.D. expect us to use the word, "Doctor," whenever we refer to them, e.g., "Doctor John Smith." I think that we should all put words in front of our name, to tell about the characteristic which distinguishes us. For example: "Accountant Bill Jones." "Three-Handicap Golfer Waldo Donne." "Realistic Toupee Peter Bradshaw." "Stud Michael Porter." "Not Nearly As Fat As My Father Was At This Age Jack Ronner." "Driving An Ice-Cream Truck For A Living But Planning To Retire To The Bahamas As Soon As That Multilevel Marketing Plan Starts To Earn Money Ronald Meder."
I am an efficient mechanic. When I finish putting a machine back together, I have parts left over.
When I see that a product is labelled, "new and improved," I translate that statement into "we didn't get it right the first time."
I am a body-builder; so far, I have built my body up to 230 pounds.
At the rock concert, I relished the lead singer's archetypal, quasi-neo-Dionysian numinosity -- but what I really liked was his cool haircut.
I never judge people's intelligence by the number of opinions they express.
Losing one's dignity is like getting a bad haircut; it will grow back.
The way to stifle would-be world conquerors is to give them a hobby. Get them involved in, say, stamp collecting; then they'd collect stamps instead of countries.
For the next election, voting booths are being set up at some new sites. There is something disturbingly surrealistic, yet truly American, about going to a mall to vote for the President of the United States.
The reason we put someone onto a pedestal is to make the person into an easier target.
The Texas Legislature passed a law that allows people to carry concealed handguns as a deterrent to crime. But this seems like a Catch-22 situation: people who are paranoid enough and aggressive enough to want to carry a handgun are so emotionally unstable that they shouldn't even be allowed to own a gun.
Don't try to say a $20 word with a 50-cent mouth.
I have heard that two of the worst social problems are ignorance and apathy. That might be true -- but frankly, I don't know and I don't care.
People who aren't motivated on the job need a kick in the ca-rear.
