Penmanship of fools

This is  a rough continuation of last months piece...

Costly Pen

What did one balloon say to the other balloon?

"The rising cost of living is killing me!"

Ha, Hal But inflation is no laughing matter. I can’t believe the way prices have been rising. Even yeast keeps going up and up.

Inflation is out of hand, I know. I was just into this discount store, which used to be a little dime store the last time I was there. I went to purchase some pens. Five or so years ago I bought ten pens in this same store, when it was a dime store.

We used to have dime stores, and now our “big discount” stores are dollar stores. That’s an inflation rate of 1000%!

So after running low on ink I took some money and entered the store expecting to buy more pens. But I couldn’t find that ten pen for a dollar special they had last time. And this time I was smart enough to bring a dollar and five cents, the five cents extra for tax, which I managed not to have the last time. Then I had gotten past by telling the counter girl I would bring the five cents next time. But this time I still ran into trouble again. My ten pens for a dollar special was nowhere to be found. So I looked around for six or so pens, anticipating paying fifty cents, hence enabling me to buy two sets. But the cheapest bargain I could find was one pen for fifty-three cents, and even these pens had ink seeping out their backs and were half out of ink. Subtract from this the half of the ink that always ends up on my hands and I would be getting a quarter of pen’s ink to put to use. This didn’t sound like a deal to me. So I went up to the stock boy, who was marking prices, and asked him about the ten pen special. I don’t know if I forgot to wipe the toothpaste off of my mouth that morning or what, because he just laughed at me. 1 was not in a humorous mood.

In my anger I finally found a decent pen for a buck and stormed up to the checkout line. I placed the pen down and handed my dollar and five cents to the lady, somewhat older than the girl who was here last time, I would guess by about five or so years.

She reached out for my money, gazing deeply into my eyes, and for a minute I thought it was love at first sight when she said, "Haven't I seen you before?"

I got all choked up, but before I could say something witty like, "Um… no, I don't think so, I usually dress with my shades pulled down," she barked out "That'll be One dollar and seven cents!"

I handed her my dollar and nickel, not fully in control of my senses. I was busy contemplating what style wedding ring she would prefer, as her voice rang in my head, and I did not hear the words, just the melody.

"You’re two cents short," she said as I started to come back to reality.

I managed a muffled, "Wha ... " as the ring for her finger seemed to be growing in size.

She looked somewhat upset. "That's One dollar and seven cents — seven cents tax, and you only gave me One Dollar and five cents!" she spat out, her enunciation very clear even through her spittle. “I need another two cents.”

I could see the ring I planned to give her in my dreams WAS growing. It was taking the shape of a noose and coming for my head, I knew that only quick talking and a little luck could save me now.

"Bu… But I don't… " I stammered in my most suave turn of phrase, as my hands dug deep into my empty pockets, feeling only the lint there. I prayed for a lot of luck.

"Wait a minute... " she said with an air of recognition, "Now I remember. Five years ago you were short five cents on a pack of ten pens special."

She reached over the cash register and pushed buttons for what seemed to be an eternity. "That'll be seven more cents please." she smiled.

I carefully reached my hand up to the counter…

"And you can't get away this time by saying you'll bring the money tomorrow because today is my last day ... " she rambled on…

...1 grabbed hold of the pen with trembling fingers and took off in a full sprint for the exit. I ran through three security guards and a cop in the street as a crazed lady screamed bloody murder behind me.

"Stop thief! Help! Police! A robbery, help!” she wailed on.

I gave the policeman a straight-arm as I headed out the door, kicking the gun from his hand as he pulled it from his belt. I shoved the pen into my pocket and ran off down the street. People were chasing and hollering, dogs were barking and sirens were wailing as I made a clean get-a-way.

I never stopped running until I was into my house and safe from pursuers. I plopped down on the nearest chair and pulled out my "hot" pen. I had paid A dollar and five cents for a pen that had let-loose during the chase, and now my pocket was stained with wet ink. Well, black goes with anything. Good thing it wasn’t a blue pen. Even the drops that fell upon my white pants really don’t look too bad. 

This was a pen that I had risked life and limb for as I ran from the law in a narrow escape. I made it, but the pen didn't.

And to think now I had to go back to that store to demand a refund for the defective pen.

I tried the pen anyways and it at least writes (as you can see), though most of its insides are still in my pocket.

So not knowing how long this pen will last will force me to keep my hands clean and save and scrape until I can gather together enough money to be able to go back to that store to purchase another pen (the lady did say it was her last day). So I keep my fingers crossed, hoping the pen will hold out, and I'll make my articles as short as possible to try to save ink. So I would end it here ... but I still have so much to say. The story goes on, how I wish it did end here.

I went to bed that night dreaming of murderers and car thieves. I hardly was able to get any sleep what with all that running.

And it wasn't until late this morning, after I was up for over an hour, that I finally got fully awoke when I opened up my mail. I found a letter from "that" store with a credit card in it.

A pamphlet also came with the letter, describing all the great uses of my new "Super Card" and ways to spend more money with it.

The smile faded, rather quickly, from my face when a small piece of paper fell from the envelope. As I bent to pick it up I could see that it was a bill.

Yes, seven cents was charged to my account. But then I noticed the total due at the bottom and that smile that left me before came back… upside down.

"There must be some mistake!" I thought aloud.

I waited for an answer, but didn’t know what to say…

I owed three dollars and fifty-eight cents! I went for my coat, psyching myself up to go back to that store to demand an explanation for that extra three dollars and fifty-one cents.

Then I noticed that the total did add up to three dollars and fifty-eight cents! It was a good thing I had noticed this before I marched back down to that store and made a fool of myself.

Sure, they were only charging me seven cents from the other day. But then there is the tax on that seven cents, which brings the total up to eight cents. The other three dollars and fifty cents is for the service charge.

                                                  A credit to be yours,

èim  Uhr

P.S:

Now I don't have to worry about having the correct change when I go to that          store. I can always charge my pens. 

Credit???    

           Are pens a Major purchase?

My bill is small...

If I can't pay my bill maybe I'll give Jack a call

Jerks are only human

Jerks Are Only Human

"The trouble ain't that people are ignorant: it's just that they know so much that ain't so." – Josh Billings.

I'm sure that everyone has had an encounter with a jerk. Just to clarify things, a jerk is someone who is dumber than you. If you don't know very many jerks that means that many people consider you to be a jerk. To be a jerk is not necessarily bad, everyone is someone else's jerk. A jerk is neither good nor bad. A jerk just is.

Did you ever take the time to get to know a jerk? I mean, did you realize that they're people too. Dumbness is not necessarily a qualification for one fitting the jerkism category. I have known some very intelligent jerks in my day.

It is common to have, at one time or another, said or thought, "Hey, that persons a jerk!" But have you ever thought about whether or not that person can help it? Maybe he was born that way. No one knows for sure if jerkism is hereditary or not. Is it in their genes? Should a person be ridiculed and condemned for something that they have no control over?

Is it fair? Doesn't anyone care? Do people have to stare? Do they always get into innocent beings hair? Do they really foul the air? Do they come only as a pair? A jerk! – where?

In honor of those afraid to stand up and admit to jerkism I officially declare that for one week a year, from this day forward, all will celebrate a National Jerk Week. Parades and festivities will be forthcoming.

There are many ways to celebrate this grand occasion, and I'm sure that many more will surface once word hits Wall Street and People Magazine.

So take a jerk to dinner without laughing as food drips down his chin. Smile at a jerk (Don't Laugh!) when she does something dumb. When a mechanic works on your car, who you find later to be a jerk because your car runs worse than when you brought it to him, don't say anything about the problems, just pay with a smile. When you listen to a jerk weatherman and have a picnic on a "beautiful day", just keep quiet and eat the soggy, rain soaked, sandwiches. Please remember, at least for this one week, if a jerk smiles – try to refrain from knocking out all his teeth.

If a jerk is crying for no reason – don't give him one.

If a jerk is dying of laughter – don't tell your favorite joke to him, he probably wouldn't understand it anyway.

If you see a jerk pounding on the chest of your mother, who is suffering, not from a heart attack, but from sunburn – calmly point out what he is doing wrong.

If a jerk puts out his cigarette on your waterbed-- don't suffocate him with your pillow.

If a jerk criticizes your writing – don't stab him with your pen.

If a jerk is driving his car in the wrong direction on an exit ramp on interstate 999 – please don't honk at him, it will only add to his problems.

Even though a jerk is calling your mother names as he hangs from a 2,000 foot ledge – help him.

If a jerk is taking you to lunch this week – offer to pay half the bill.

But how does one spot a jerk if he wishes to take one to lunch as part of one’s civic duty?

 You can usually tell that it's a jerk when …

He stops you, just short of electrocuting yourself as you reach for a light switch, because he remembers that he screwed the bulb in backwards.

When he tells you not to worry as you see your car start to roll, because he cut the wheel toward a brick wall so it wouldn't roll out into the street.

When he heaves rocks through your window to see if you are up before he knocks on your door because he doesn't want to make you mad by waking you.

When he won't answer his ringing phone knowing that it doesn't work, because every time he dials his own number it's busy.

He is the biggest fan of a team that is a rival of your favorite team,

When you ask him for the keys to your car and he tells you not to worry because they are locked safely in the car.

When he takes an umbrella into the swimming pool because of the 100% chance of rain today.

When you realize he was going to take you to dinner this week…

How can you tell if you are a jerk – so you can know to skip food shopping this week?

When you are constantly lending your car to jerks.

When people are calling you weeks in advance to reserve a dinner date with you this week.

When you step into the shower before adjusting the temperature.

When you can't tell the time because the little  “ : ”  burned out on your digital watch.

You throw out your pens when the wax runs out.

You can't tell the eminent from the facetious.

You are in charge of blindfolding the condemned man in front of a firing squad, and when the handkerchief rips you curse by saying, "Shoot!"

You find a ten-dollar bill in front of an apartment complex and spend the rest of the day looking at all the mailboxes for the name Hamilton.

You wear a windbreaker because you’re feeling gaseous.

You have a solar lighting system installed inside your house.

You read in the dark because bright lights give you eyestrain.

You want to wear glasses because they make you look intelligent.

You try to fall asleep, but your vivid dreams keep waking you.

You want to wear contacts because you want to change your eye color.

You have at select times proved that it is possible to trip up stairs.

You read articles by people who write about dumb things…

                                                              Leaving you Dumbfounded,

                                                            èim  Uhr

                   P.s.      To all my readers —                 

   Eat a light breakfast all week. 

Some Smart People(my readers???)

Dating Stupidity (caution - watch at own risk!)

*

From the archives... "Article Worth Framing"

#written over 30 years ago - dredged up from the pits#

A R T I C L E    W O R T H    F R A M I N G

Typing my life away. Words appearing on paper, with nothing to say. But today is different. No, my typing has not quickened its pace, I have not taken typing lessons. Typing is just as tedious as ever. No, I have not sat down with something special to say ahead of time. This article will probably drift by word by word just like all the rest in a sea of paragraphs, being fed from a babbling stream of consciousness. Yes, this writer has his "Gone Fishing" sign up.

So what, you ask, is different about today's article? Today I face the typewriter alone. I have, for the first time, not written any of this down ahead of time in longhand. The thoughts flow directly from my head to the printed paper, with no middle pad involved. No change, no chance to update, cross out, add, or disintegrate. Leave the editing to the editor.

Darn, I'm not done yet. I don't want to let this paper sit in the typewriter too long. I don't want the editor to think the paper was yellow before I started. A true vintage work of art.

I have always believed in honesty, and anyone who says they believe differently is a liar. I have always told my readers how it is. If I'm having trouble writing a particular piece I come right out and admit it. If I doze off every now and then when writing I tell of the experiences of my dreams upon awakening. I try to get as close to my readers as possible. I have a theory that the majority of my readers are between the ages of 20 and 30, female, and beautiful. Now you can understand why I want to get as close to them as possible.

But of course this only applies to my articulate writing, when I know that the reader knows that she is reading me, and not just something about one of my characters that I made up, as in a novel. When writing a story about other people and places I really don't care how close and personal I bring my readers in to their particular lives. When I want to bring my readers close to my characters I just use a frame. By using unsung characters as a way to tell and develop a story about other characters whom the readers never come in direct contact with is my ploy to keep the readers far away from the story. After all, my characters have their own personal lives, and letting you into their minds might hurt their feelings. Me, I don't mind you coming into my mind. Don't worry-- there is plenty of room to wander about. But I think of my characters as people in their own right, and I wouldn't feel right about letting you trample around in the mind of someone else. My mind doesn't mind trampling, but I cannot speak for others. It's good to have my mind occasionally filled with something, even if it is unceremoniously trampling and generally mucking about of others, for it cuts down on the echoes and reverberations of thoughts past.

Most of the time my writing is intellectual and emotional, so it is not hurt by distance. My stories can be told just as well from the overhearing of another's conversation as from the contorted drivel from one of my main characters' brain. Creating distance in stories also can create new characters. The people you eavesdrop on become a secondary part of the story. These people must somehow be related to the story they are revealing.

Yes, creating a distance between the reader and the story can be useful in works of fiction. First of all, it doesn't embarrass the characters by letting a total stranger see something that they do not wish to show to just anyone. It resolves the writer from the sin of letting another beings brain be trampled on. It keeps with the intellectual aura of my usual writing. I don't like my stories exaggerated and overblown like the common "fish story." There is an art to creating new, unimportant characters and confusing the readers. I have often noticed that the more confused the reader is, the better he likes the story. Also the use of more characters makes the story longer just by having to take the space to explain their presence, and remember – writers get paid by the word count. So the more words I can force on to the paper … the greater the masterpiece.

He stumbled into the bar, rejected again. It was tough to be an unsold writer in New York City with revenues as well as patience dwindling. Five rejections in as many weeks! Maybe he was forcing out the novels a bit too fast…

He needed a drink…

Tom Collins. Didn't his brother used to be a wide receiver for the Browns? He dug the folded money from his wallet. The money he was counting on lasting until he started selling was running low. And not yet even one sale. He placed his head in his hands, trying to clear his head. He couldn't, wouldn't! go back home without a sale. As tears welled up in his eyes and trickled down through his fingers, his ears popped, and as they did the mull of mixed conversation dropped to a level of inaudibility and from the table behind him he could just make out what the participants of an interesting conversation were saying. He listened in a half dreaming state …

"…broke into the New York Times with a bang." a man's voice was saying. "He comes from Ohio. Already he's got a huge following, and to think that just weeks ago he was an unknown!"

I think he's gorgeous," came the lovely voice from a girl over twenty, but certainly not more than thirty.

"Certainly the new sensation. By his third article he had made the front page!"

“It's destiny."

"Truly words of wisdom. This one is something special…"

"Where has he been hiding all his life?"

"They say he's only in his teens. I think he's so gorgeous!"

"Surely words so wise could not possibly come from one so young. Where does he get his vast knowledge and experiences?"

"Truly a gift from above…"

"Yet, his words are so deep…"

"Deep, reaching the bottom of my heart... "

"…and meaningful…”

"Bringing his soul along with every word…"

"Did you read his latest masterpiece in today's paper?"

"First thing I do every morning!"

"Wouldn't miss it."

"Well, actually no. I save it for the night. When I can read him all alone in bed at night, sharing our inner feelings. Every time I read him I feel so close to him, like he's right there with me… He's so gorgeous!"

"Well, then let me tell you what he wrote today…"

"No! I told you! I save him for the night! I don't wanna hear…"

"That's not all you save for the night, Sally."

"Actually I get more of a thrill from reading the dictionary than I would if I was with you…"

"But Bob, I thought that you said that you and Sally, last weekend… "

"Shut up, Phil!"

"All a writer has to do to get a woman is to say he's a writer. It's an aphrodisiac." smiled Saul Bellow as he passed by their table on his way out, catching part of the conversation.

"He typed his article today directly from his head, he didn't write it first out in longhand like he usually does."

"I told you," Sally was growing furious, "I don't want to have my night spoiled. So shut up!"

"Hey, I wonder if the editor had to read yellow paper…?"

Ha.Ha.Ha.Ha!

"Hey, I have the article right here…"

"In your pocket?"

"Yes, I cut everyone out and carry it around with me for a week and then I have them framed. They hang nicely over the fireplace. I'm running out of room to hang them, though. I think I might have to buy a bigger house."

"Come on. Come on! Read that article out loud. I haven't memorized the third paragraph yet!"

"Ahem… Typing my life away." Bill read in his best voice, standing and waving his arms about, "Words appearing on paper, with nothing to say. But today is different… No, my typing has not quickened its pace, I have not taken typing lessons. Typing is…”

"I can not hear you! I can not hear you… I can not hear you… I can not he… " Her voice fades away as she leaves the bar.

As the dramatic reading of the article continues people gather around the table. Most of them are very good-looking girls… Those who haven't already, are busy memorizing every word coming from Bill's mouth. Soon the whole bar, as most of them already had the article submitted to memory, joined in with Bill and recited the article, and it sounded no less than a choir of angels, a symphony of words.

For one moment in one bar in New York City people forget everything and simply listened. All forgot their private worries and for one brief moment all was right with the world. Peace and harmony were plentiful and men were brothers as they finally found a commonality that could unite the world and solve all differences. One light that could shin for everyone for the common good and benefit of all mankind and lead us all to enlightenment.

The tears of sorrow turned to tears of joy on the young writer’s face, for young Isaac Asimov now knew that there was hope for him, and that soon he too, would find his place in the writing world, and maybe also write a thing or two.

                                                    Successfully Yours,

                                                           èim  Uhr

P.S. Don't feel too sorry for poor Isaac,

I feel that after his 200th book he is gaining

 some confidence and will soon grow up to be

 a better than average writer. 

old things sometimes crash

And people do too (and I thought Browns fans were  ridiculous )