Mild Amusement

A little while ago, we had some family stay with us. Among other people, one of my younger cousins stayed with us for a few days. I hadn't met her before, so I was actually a bit worried how everyone would react. I mean, I can handle adults, but I'm never quite sure how to deal with teenage boys and girls. They talk differently, they have far different interests, and they tend to regard anyone who is older than them as strange. All in all, it's a dicey proposition. Still, I happen to be the youngest of the adults in the house, and I am also the youngest at heart (being a smart aleck tends to do that). So, on more than one occasion, I found myself trying to engage this cousin in conversation or otherwise keep her company. It wasn't horribly awkward or anything, but it took a little bit of time before that initial shyness passed. And, at one point, we were talking about school or something, when she mentioned handball. Now, we just so happen to have these little balls...

A few days ago, I went to a holiday party with some friends. This is actually something that we've done for several years in a row, and we always look forward to it. It's fun to see old friends and catch up, and there's always some delicious grub to be had. Mix in some alcohol and the fact that we've got a few jokers in the bunch, and we always end up having a good time. However, there is one very interesting turn of events that tends to crop up at these parties that scares me just a little bit. I always refer to it as the moonshine. You see, one of the friends has some relatives overseas. During one of the early incarnations of this party, she had just returned from a trip to visit these relatives. She figured she'd share some of the spoils from her trip, so she brought along a bottle of "plum wine" to the party. It was something that her relatives had brewed themselves, so we were definitely getting a unique experience. In fact, it was so unique that...

In case it isn't already patently obvious from some of my posts, I tend to be a bit of a smart aleck ( this is a pretty good example ). I have a quirky sense of humor and I am not afraid to use it. It means that other people bring their wits, too, so it's not at all rare for other people to make fun of me . It comes with the territory, so I don't begrudge anyone their jokes, especially since I tend to find it funny, too. And heck, if I've earned it, I'll take my lumps. Sometimes, though, I get some lumps that I may not have earned. Those are almost always universally amusing, because they involve some sort of wacky misunderstanding or some sort of goofy lead up. These, my friends, are a couple of those stories: A while back, a few of us decided to have lunch together. We needed to settle on a time for lunch, but the other two had relatively free schedules. That left it to me to decide on the time. It just so happened that I was chatting with one of the two lun...

There are quite a few Calvin and Hobbes cartoons that make me laugh, but one of them has always stuck with me. It cracks me up more so than the usual ones. Calvin is standing outside in the snow, and he has shoveled said snow into large piles blocking the driveway, the garage, the front door, and pretty much any useful path into or out of the house. With a very matter of fact tone, he tells Hobbes that if you do something poorly enough the first time, you don't get asked to do it again (I can't find a reputable site that hosts that comic, but you can do a Google image search and it comes up readily enough). It's exactly the sort of smart aleck thing that I would find funny. Anyhow, I also have a few friends with whom I routinely have dinner. They're old friends, and it's good to catch up with them, so we tend to do this fairly regularly. We don't have a go-to spot, either, so we always try to go to a different place. It's more fun that way, since we get t...

Starting a couple of years ago, I resolved to write a blog post at least once a week  (also, holy crap, I can't believe I've been on this schedule for two years now. It really doesn't feel like it's been that long). I remember being slightly concerned that I wouldn't have something to write about every week, so I would have to figure out how to pace my posts. After all, just how amusing could my life be? As it turns out, I've either got more amusing things going on around me or I'm really good at embellishing the mundane things that happen around me . However, I don't always write about these things in the moment. That means that if I don't write them down somehow, I'm liable to forget about them. This is particularly true if I hold off on writing about the amusing anecdote until the following week to make sure I don't fall behind on my schedule. So, I keep a whiteboard and write down things I can write about on it. When it comes time to w...

At work, we tend to hear about cultural differences a lot, since we work with people from lots of different parts of the world. Even if you've never actually had someone tell you this, you probably understand this on a gut level. People from different cultures eat different foods, have different customs, and even ask about different things when it comes to small talk . Now, it's all well and good to understand this on a theoretical level, but it gets far more interesting in practice. I remember the first time I visited the Philippines, some of my coworkers there asked me about my love life within an hour or so of meeting me. They were especially interested to hear about the Filipina Mild-Ex, since that was one of their people. It was all sorts of interesting, and pretty amusing all the way around. More recently, I had some foreign coworkers discuss marriage. One of the guys got engaged recently, and all of the married guys were giving him a hard time. In fact, one of the ma...

A while ago, a buddy of mine invited me along on a hike. A bunch of her other friends were there, and they seemed nice enough, so I made friends with a few of them, as well. Fast forward a couple of months, and the new-found friend asked if I wanted to have dinner with her and the hiking buddy. They wanted to go to a ramen place that was supposed to be really good, so I happily accepted the offer. Little did I know the laughter that would result from this. Shortly after I agreed to go, my hiking buddy commented that she could provide some company on the ride back across the bridge, since she had to come back the same way I was going. A couple of days later, she asked if I would mind giving her a ride back home after dinner. Now, let me be clear: it was all very innocent and given that the we were heading in the same direction, riding together made a lot of sense. Let me also be clear about this, though: I am a smart aleck and I couldn't pass up the chance for some friendly ribbin...