|
home > literaria > Funny Papers Funny PapersAs a comedy writer, I don't ever have to look far for inspiration... no, it's right in the daily paper. The CR Gazette last month helped me out with an article in which a knife was referred to as "a potential murder weapon." I love that. It's like calling air a potential inhalant or water a likely wetting device. Then there
was the article on the guy who'd been stealing medical equipment
and reselling it on the black market. They actually said that some
bladder scopes were missing. Plus some intubating fiber optic devices.
Next thing you know they''ll be dealing in sphygmamometers. I wonder
how much a sphygmamometer goes for nowadays down at Joe's (Fencing
and) Pawn. I also gotta
wonder what it's like when the thieves get together and one says,
"So, Hubert, what's yer haul this week?" and our medical
guy says, "Well, I got two bladder scopes, three intubators
and what I thought was an enema bag, but it turned out to be a whoopee
cushion." I just have to think that the really macho types are going to start edging away. Right now I'm
working in a sales gig. Mostly calling ad agencies in New York.
Which is better than that non-profit I worked for last year, testing
our channel changer at home. Even so, I can't help but notice that
there are some funny ways that people talk to each other on the
phone. For example,
the receptionist is always saying: “May I have your name?”
Golly, even my wife is conflicted on that one. And I just MET this
gal on the phone. So she wants my name... and, I want to ask her,
"Will you give it back?" What if they
really had my name for a while, and I had to send a self-addressed
stamped envelope to get it back. And in the meantime people had
to call me "Hey, you!" or, “the guy, formerly known
as Paul.” Or what about
that other thing they do, when they say "Can you spell your
name?" And I say, "You mean both parts?" So demanding! But I understand,
they're all big city types, stuck in some tall building, no time
to waste, distracted, one hand on the phone, and one on the anti-aircraft
gun. But me, no,
I live in a small town. Where everyone is laid back, and honest.
Lots of people here never lock their cars, or even their houses. In New York,
if you don't lock your car,, people assume it is a kind of mobile
Goodwill distribution center. This winter I bought 24 cans of tennis balls at Wal-Mart and tried to get the back hatchback door of the Jeep open to stick them in, but it was frozen shut, so I had to wrestle it into the back of the car from the side door. Then, after
work, the air had warmed up all afternoon and when I came back to
the car, I saw that, in the afternoon thaw, the back door that I
had tried to open had come open on it's own, and there were 50 dollars
worth of balls and 500 worth of racquets just sitting there naked
in the breeze. I was amazed
to find that it was all there, not even touched. So, either Iowan's
are honest, or, less face it, too damn cold to steal stuff. Or maybe
thieves in Iowa are afraid that if they show up at the Joe’s
Pawn with tennis balls they'll end up next to the guy with a box
of tongue depressors. But I think
that Iowans are really honest. You can leave anything in your yard,
usually, and it will be there forever. Hoses, bicycles, Buicks.
There is one exception, however. If you leave it in your yard between
the sidewalk and the CURB, everyone will think you're donating it
to the dump. Because that’s where you put it for the annual
city junk pick-up. One guy (and
I'm not making this up, unlike all the other stuff), took his truck
bed cover off by the roadside to wash it and left to buy some car
wax and when he came back it was gone. You’ve got to watch
that one thing. People will take anything that's left by the curb.
I saw my wife out there sunning herself one day and a few minutes
later, whoosh... Then I had to go down to the pawn shop to get her back. But I did get these really cool bed pans. 4/12/02
|