cold day

Each year the staff at Beloit College in Wisconsin puts together a list to try to give the faculty a sense of the mindset of that year’s incoming freshmen. Here’s this year’s list:
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1. The people who are starting college this fall across the nation were born in 1980.
2. They have no meaningful recollection of the Reagan Era and did not know he had ever been shot.
3. They were prepubescent when the Persian Gulf War was waged.
4. Black Monday 1987 is as significant to them as the Great Depression.
5. There has been only one Pope. They can only really remember one president.
6. They were 11 when the Soviet Union broke apart and do not remember the Cold War.
7. They have never feared a nuclear war. “The Day After” is a pill to them, not a movie.
8. They are too young to remember the space shuttle blowing up, and Tiananmen Square means nothing to them.
9. Their lifetime has always included AIDS.
10. They never had a Polio shot, and likely do not know what it is.
11. Bottle caps have not only always been screw off, but have always been plastic. They have no idea what a pull-top can looks like.
12. Atari pre-dates them, as do vinyl albums.
13. The expression “you sound like a broken record” means nothing to them.
14. They have never owned a record player.
15. They have likely never played Pac Man and have never heard of Pong.
16. Star Wars looks very fake to them, and the special effects are pathetic.
17. There have always been red M&Ms, and blue ones are not new. What do you mean there used to be beige ones?
18. They may have heard of an 8-track, but chances are they probably never have actually seen or heard one.
19. The Compact Disc was introduced when they were 1 year old.
20. As far as they know, stamps have always cost about 32 cents.
21. They have always had an answering machine.
22. Most have never seen a TV set with only 13 channels, nor have they seen a black-and-white TV.
23. They have always had cable.
24. There have always been VCRs, but they have no idea what BETA is.
25. They cannot fathom not having a remote control.
26. They were born the year that the Sony introduced the Walkman.
27. Roller-skating has always meant inline for them.
28. The Tonight Show has always been with Jay Leno.
29. They have no idea when or why Jordache jeans were cool.
30. Popcorn has always been cooked in a microwave.
31. They never took a swim and thought about Jaws.
32. The Vietnam War is as ancient history to them as WWI, WWII, or even the Civil War.
33. They have no idea that Americans were ever held hostage in Iran.
34. They can’t imagine what hard contact lenses are.
35. They never heard the terms: “Where’s the beef?,” “I’d walk a mile for a Camel,” or “de plane, de plane!”
36. They do not care who shot J.R. and have no idea who J.R. is.
37. The Titanic was found? I thought we always knew where it was.
38. Michael Jackson has always been white.
39. Kansas, Chicago, Boston, America, and Alabama are places, not groups.
40. McDonald’s never came in styrofoam containers.
41. There has always been MTV.

A wife, arriving home from a shopping trip, was horrified to find her husband in bed with a lovely young woman. Just as the wife was about to storm out of the house, her husband stopped her with these words:

“Before you leave, I want you to hear how all this came about.

“Driving home along the highway, I saw this young woman looking tired and bedraggled, so I brought her home and made her a meal from the roast beef you had forgotten about in the refrigerator.

“She had only some worn sandals on her feet, so I gave her a pair of good shoes you had discarded because they had gone out of style.

“She was cold so I gave her a sweater I bought you for your birthday that you never wore because the color didn’t suit you..

“Her pants were worn out, so I gave her a pair of yours that were perfectly good, but too small for you now.

“Then, when she was about to leave the house, she paused and asked: ‘Is there anything else your wife doesn’t use anymore?’”

A man died and went to heaven. At the gate St. Peter was there and he said, “What have you done to enter these gates?”

The man replied, “It was very cold outside just the other day and I gave a bum on the street $.15 for a cup of coffee.”

“Is that all?” St. Peter asked.

“No,” the man said, “Yesterday I gave a lady that had gotten mugged on the street $.10 for the payphone so she could call the police.”

Well St. Peter was thinking for some time and finally he told the man, “You can take your $.25 and go to hell.”

A really mean farmer from Georgia had just died, and he had just entered Hell. The devil sensed that he was a real jerk so he decided to torture him a bit.

“Okay, Mr. Farmer… I’m gonna let you sit here in this room for a while all by yourself. So, see ya!” The devil said and left the room. He turned the tempurature up to about 100 degrees.

The next day the Devil came in to the room and there was the farmer, sitting there whistling. The devil closed the door, a little disturbed, and turned the temperature up to 200.

The next day, the devil came in and the farmer was smiling and whistling. “What are you so happy for?!?” asked the devil. “Oh, it’s just that this hot weather reminds me of weather out on the farm. It’s kinda nice.”

So, the devil figures that if he wants to torture the farmer, he should make the room really cold. He turned the temperature down to -100 degrees. “That’ll do,” the devil thought.

The next day he expected to come in and see the farmer freezing and mad. But, he walked in and the farmer was jumping up and down screaming, “YES, YES, YES!! ALRIGHT!!!”

Well this enraged the devil. “WHY IN THE WORLD ARE YOU SO HAPPY???” he bellowed.

“The Falcons are gonna win the Super Bowl!!!” said the farmer.

“What!?!?” asked the devil.

“I said, Hell is frozen over, so the Falcons are gonna win the Super Bowl!!!!!”

Calling in sick to work makes me uncomfortable, because no matter how legitimate my illness, I always sense my boss thinks I’m lying.

On one occasion, I had a valid reason but lied anyway, because the truth was too humiliating to reveal. I simply mentioned that I had sustained a head injury and I hoped I would feel up to coming in the next day. By then, I could think up a doozy to explain the bandage on my crown.

In this case, the truth hurt. I mean it really hurt in the place men feel the most pain. The accident occurred mainly because I conceded to my wife’s wishes to adopt a cute little kitty.

As the daily routine prescribes, I was taking my shower after breakfast when I heard my wife, Deb, call out to me from the kitchen. “Ed,” she called, “The garbage disposal is dead. Come reset it. You know where the button is.”

I protested through the shower pitter-patter. “Reset it yourself.”

“I am scared” She pleaded. “What if it starts going and sucks me in? C’mon, it’ll only take a second.”

No logical assurance about how a disposal can’t start itself, will calm the fears of a person who suffers from “Big-ol-scary-machine-a-phobia,” a condition brought on by watching too many Stephen King movies. It is futile to argue or explain; kind of like telling Lloyd Bentsen Americans are over-taxed. And if a poltergeist did, in fact, possess the disposal, and she was ground into round, I’d have to live with that the rest of my life.

So out I came, dripping wet and buck naked, hoping to make a statement about how her cowardly behavior was not without consequence but it was I who would suffer.

I crouched down and stuck my head under the sink to find the button. It is the last action I remember performing.

It struck without warning, without respect to my circumstances. Nay, it wasn’t a hexed disposal, drawing me into its gnashing metal teeth.

It was our new kitty, clawing playfully at the dangling objects she spied between my legs. She (Buttons, aka the Grater) had been poised around the corner and stalked me as I took the bait under the sink.

At precisely the second I was most vulnerable, she leapt at the toys I unwittingly offered and snagged them with her needle-like claws.

Now, when men feel pain or even sense danger anywhere close to their masculine region, they lose all rational thought to control orderly bodily movements. Instinctively, their nerves compel the body to contort inwardly, while rising upwardly at a violent rate of speed. Not even a well-trained monk could calmly stand with his groin supporting the full weight of a kitten and rectify the situation in a step-by-step procedure.

Wild animals are sometimes faced with a “fight or flight” syndrome; men, in this predicament, choose only the “flight” option. Fleeing straight up, I knew at that moment how a cat feels when it is alarmed.

It was a dismal irony. But, whereas cats seek great heights to escape, I never made it that far.

The sink and cabinet bluntly impeded my ascent; the impact knocked me out cold. When I awoke, my wife and the paramedics stood over me.

Having been fully briefed by my wife, the paramedics snorted as they tried to conduct their work while suppressing their hysterical laughter.

My wife told me I should be flattered. At the office, colleagues tried to coax an explanation out of me. I kept silent, claiming it was too painful to talk about.

“What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”

If they had only known.