So There, the column is available in newspapers, Tri-City Review and The Call, Saraland and Citronelle respectively. It is also published in Mobilebaytimes.com.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Just like Pluto

This week the International Astronomical Union demoted planet Pluto. One month ago this was our ninth planet, last rock from the sun. Today it is best known as the name of Mickey Mouse’s dog.

But what did Pluto do to earn downgrading? Nothing. It still has moons, orbits the sun, and has mass, just like the other planets. It has not changed its rotation, physical characteristics, or climate. Pluto stood by while people, who really have no idea how it works or what it does, demoted it. Yet the little heavenly body does everything that Venus and Jupiter do. It just got stepped on.

If Pluto had another name it would be Planet Emmett

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Nothing Much

One day, a man came home and was greeted by his wife dressed in a very sexy
nightie. "Tie me up," she purred, "and you can do anything you want."
So he tied her up and went golfing.


A Polish immigrant went to the DMV to apply for a driver's license. First, of course, he had to take an eye sight test.
They showed him a card with the letters: 'C Z W I X N O S T A C Z.'
"Can you read this?" they asked.
"Read it?" the Polish guy replied, "I know the guy."


Two Reasons Why It's So Hard To Solve A Redneck Murder
1. All the DNA is the same.
2. There are no dental records.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Why English Teachers Die Young Every year,

English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual similes and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year's winners:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by aThigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E.Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nosehair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.15.

They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Grand dad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

Friday, August 11, 2006

Smoke Free

This week three news items were revealed totally unrelated. But are they?

Cuban dictator Fidel Castro was reportedly almost dead.
Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner was rumored to have had a heart attack.
Foley, Alabama announced that they are a smoke free city.

Castro inhales cigars, Hefner smokes a pipe.. Foley will not allow these or other tobacco products within its borders.

By implimenting this smoking ban, Foley has ruined any chances of Castro or Hefner visiting.

But there's always Robertsdale.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Ten Things You will Never Hear at The Mobile Airport

Ten things you will never hear at the Mobile Airport, Mobile, Alabama:

1. The cafe food here is so delicious and such an extensive wine list.

2. They should charge more for parking.

3. I prefer flying from Mobile, it's faster, cheaper, and more efficient then Pensacola.

4. Now boarding for Paris.

5. Hurry kids, before the downtown tour is overbooked.

6. Taxi!, take me to Prichard.

7. Just think honey, in one hour we will be in Robertsdale.

8. Mobile's Airport reminds me of O'Hare International.

9. Isn't that Cameron Diaz?

10. If we miss the first flight, don't worry, there are hundreds more.