Month: July 2018

The nun @Hooters

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A nun badly needed to use the restroom, and the only place open along the street was a local Hooters.  The place was hopping with music and loud conversation and every once in a while, the “lights would turn off”.

Each time the lights would go out, the place would erupt into cheers.

However, when the revellers saw the nun come in, the room went dead silent.  She walked up to the bartender and asked, “May I please use the restroom?”

The bartender replied, “Sure! But I should warn you that there is a statue of a naked man in there wearing only a fig leaf.”

“Well in that case, I’ll just look the other way,” said the nun.  So the bartender showed the nun to the back of the restaurant. And all eyes in the room were in her direction.

After a few minutes, the nun came back out, and the whole place stopped just long enough to give the nun a LOUD ROUND OF APPLAUSE!!!

She went to the bartender and asked, “Sir, I don’t understand.  Why did they applaud for me just because I went to the restroom?”

“Well, now they know that you’re one of us”, said the bartender, “would you like a drink?”

“No thank you, but I still don’t understand, ” said the puzzled nun.

“You see,” laughed the bartender, “each time someone lifts the fig leaf on that statue, the lights go out. Now, how about that drink?”

The outcast

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In life, we’re often not treated equally. In school, at work, with friends, in relationships…

There will always be, the odd man out.

It is not often that there are others who give us a chance at life. Or that we get to meet someone who will provide a life changing decision for you.  After all, some of us are broken from the get go.  What are the chances that the people we meet along the way will actually treat us differently, fairly, or see us in a different light? There will come a day that you’ll find that one person who will accept you for who, and what you are.  Broken and all.  Because they too, have been there.  And someone picked up the pieces for them too.

This short story will make you all understand what I mean.

A farmer had some puppies he needed to sell. He painted a sign advertising the 4 pups, and set about nailing it to a post on the edge of his yard.

As he was driving the last nail into the post, he felt a few tugs on his overalls. He looked down into the eyes of a young boy of about 7 years old.

“Sir,” he said.  “I want to buy one of your puppies.”

“Well,” the farmer said, as he rubbed the sweat off the back of his neck, “these puppies come from fine parents and cost quite a good deal of money.”

The boy dropped his head for a moment. Then reaching deep into his pocket he pulled out a handful of change and held it up to the farmer.  “I have $2.30.  Is that enough to take a look?”

“Sure!”, said the farmer.  With that, he let out  whistle.  “Here Dolly!”, he called.

Out from the doghouse and down into the ramp ran Dolly followed by four little balls of fur.

The boy pressed his face against the chain link fence.  His eyes danced with delight.

As the dogs made their way to the fence, the little boy noticed something else stirring in the doghouse.

Slowly, another little ball appeared, this one noticeably smaller.

Down the ramp it slid.  Then in an awkward manner, the little pup began hobbling toward the others, doing its best to catch up.

“I want that one!”, the boy said, while pointing to the runt.

The farmer knelt down at the boy’s side and said, “Son, you don’t want that puppy.  He will never be able to run and play with you like these other dogs would.”

With that, the boy stepped back from the fence, reached down, and began rolling up one leg of his trousers. He revealed a steel brace running down both sides of his leg, attaching itself to a specially made shoe.

Looking back up at the farmer, he said, “You see sir, I don’t run too well myself, and he will need someone who understands.”

With tears in his eyes, the farmer reached down and picked up the little pup.  Holding it carefully, he handed it to the boy.

“How much?” asked the boy.

“No charge,” answered the farmer.  “There’s no charge for love.”

special-needs-dogs.jpg

Get the point?!?

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An 86 year old man went to his doctor for his semi annual check up.

The doctor asked how he was feeling, and the old man replied, “things are great and I’ve never felt better! I now have a 20 year old wife who is pregnant with my child! What do you think of that doc?”

The doctor considered his question for a minute and then began to tell him a story.

I have an older friend much like you, who’s an avid hunter and never misses a season when hunting for beavers.

One day, he was setting off to go hunting and accidentally picks up his walking cane instead of his rifle.

As he was approaching near the lake, he came across a very large beaver sitting at the water’s edge.

He realized then that he forgot his gun at home and so he couldn’t shoot the magnificent creature.

Out of habit, he raised his cane, aimed it at the animal as if it were his favorite hunting rifle and shouted, “Bang! Bang!”

At the same time he shouted, miraculously two shots rang out and the beaver fell over dead.

“Now what do you think of that?”, the doctor asked.

The 86 year old man replied, “logic would strongly suggest that somebody else pumped a couple of rounds into that beaver!”

“My point exactly,” the doctor replied.

Sarchotic

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There are days when I just like being myself.  Some of my friends tell me that I’ve mellowed over the years.  Life brings you to a point where you choose your words and try (that’s the operative word) to be politically correct. But sarcasm becomes me.  It’s a trademark that rubs into everyone.

I don’t make friends for the sake of winning Mr. Congeniality.  And I make enemies even if I don’t say anything for or against them.  To my haters, here’s my take on you:

You don’t have to die to be dead to me.  I have mental funerals on a daily basis.

And there are those that have a real attitude by rationalising what is blatantly wrong!

Don’t show me your attitude.  My BLOCK list is bigger than you FRIEND list.  Don’t forget that whatever has happened it’s because you made it happen.  Our story is like a book. You turned the page.  I burned the book.

If you think you’re being alluded to in this post, then good for you! At least you get the message.  If you’re one of those who actually follow, and like my posts, and find some of my thoughts useful in your daily lives, go ahead and share them till it reaches the idiots that need to get a life!

There are people that think that just because they’re mental, or going through issues in life, some people need to give them a slack.  Well boohoo!!! I hate to rain on your parade, but using health issues that are inexistent are a cop out when facing life’s challenges. There are legitimately mentally ill people. Don’t insult them by pretending to be mental. The solution is to seek help.  Not to drum up fairy tales in order to gain sympathy.

There’s a fine line between crazy and free spirited and it’s usually a prescription.

My friends usually seek my advice when it comes to having to deal with people with personality disorders.  You get what I mean right?  A piece of advice.  You’re not the only one that has to deal with a bitch.  In our life (whether it is personal or work), there will always be the evil queen (or king) who will make our lives unbearable.  They have their own agenda.  In their own little kingdom (of their mind), they hallucinate being the saviour of mankind (or whatever fairy tale lala land they live in). And we feel like giving up because having to live with Alice in lala land is tiring – physically and emotionally.  Here’s a food for thought on those who feel like it’s game over.

Sometimes I feel like giving up.  Then I remember I have a lot of motherfuckers to prove wrong.

But you can fight your battles not in the same arena.  It’s hard to argue with stupid, especially when it’s their daily ritual. I’m sure that there are days that we’re just dying to ask

Are you always so stupid or is today a special occasion?

So here’s to reminding us about walking away from the stress of being bullied or cowed upon or even having to live with stupid or that jerk of a partner.  Walk away while you still have your sanity, pride and respect intact.  There’s a saying about a door closing and a window of opportunity opening. To me, it’s

When one door closes, sometimes you want to get a hammer and nails to make sure the bitch stays shut.

After all, my excuse today is that I’m sarchotic.

The affair

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A woman has long suspected her husband of cheating on her. One day she tells him that she’s going out of town for the weekend for a meeting and will be back in three days.

She doesn’t tell her husband what exact day she would return, hoping to catch him in the act of committing adultery.

True enough, she comes home and quietly walks into their bedroom, opens the door and from under the blanket sees four legs cross crossing one another in various positions and grunting from under the cover. In a state of rage, she reaches for the baseball bat of her son and starts hitting the blanket as hard as possible. She hears the screams but she didn’t care. She just kept hitting and hitting until she couldn’t hear screaming anymore.

When she’s done, she puts the bat down and goes down to the kitchen to get a drink. As she enters, she sees her husband there, drinking beer, reading a magazine with the TV in the kitchen on!

“Hi darling,” he says, “your parents have come over from the province to visit us, so I let them stay in our room! Have you said hello to them?”

The flight

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A woman and a lawyer were seated next to each other on a flight from Los Angeles to New York.  After making a casual greeting, the lawyer asked if she would like to play a fun game.

The woman, tired, just wanted to take a nap.  She politely declined and rolled over to the window to catch a few winks.  The persistent lawyer explained that the game is easy.  And fun.  “I ask you a question, and if you don’t know the answer, you pay me $5.00 and vice-versa.”

She stares at him and says she decline and tries to get some sleep.

After take off, the lawyer gets agitated and says, “okay, if you don’t know the answer, you pay me $5.00. AND, if I don’t know the answer, I’ll pay you $500.00!”

This catches the woman’s attention and, figuring there will be no end to this torment unless she plays, agrees to the game.

The lawyer asks the first question. “What is the distance from the Earth to the moon?”

The woman doesn’t say a word, reaches into her purse, pulls out a $5.00 bill and hands it to the lawyer.  “Okay”, says the lawyer, “your turn.”

She asks, “What goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four legs?”

The lawyer, puzzled, takes out his laptop computer and searches all his references.  No answer.  He taps into the earphone with his modem and searches the net and the library of congress.  No answer.  Frustrated, he sends emails to all his friends and co-workers, to no avail.  After almost two hours into the flight, he wakes the woman and hands her $500.00.

The woman says, “Thank you”, and turns back to get some more sleep.

The lawyer, who more than a bit miffed, wakes the woman and asks, “well…what’s the answer?”

Without a word, the woman reaches into her purse, hands the lawyer $5.00, and goes back to sleep.

Back at you

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So here’s to those memes who troll the internet.  Defending incompetence has never been arguably this tough.  I guess that’s because incompetence is built by other incompetent people.  Like two peas in a pod, it takes two to tango.

It’s funny (and sad) that in spite of how the political scenario evolved in the last two years, there has never been a time when the word of the year INCOMPETENCE, has really hit the core of leadership.

So here’s some reality check. And here’s saying it right BACK AT YOU…

There are 7,632,819,325 people in the world.

Why are you letting one of them ruin your life?

Yup! It’s weird how one nut job actually affects our lives.  Emotions don’t right what is wrong.  Rational thinking does.

Why, for heaven’s sake, does everything get splattered out of proportion? He says, she says, they say.  Social and mainstream media just seem to center on what are (to me) IRRELEVANT issues.

Never argue with someone who believes their own lies.

You’ll never win that argument.  It will be just one issue piled on top of another. Look at how the troll patrols (keyboard warriors) are so busy when a political issue hits the very core of incompetence. Rabid exchange of opinions and curses.

If you don’t like something, just take away its only power:

YOUR ATTENTION.

But NOOOOOOOOO!!!! We give it so much attention that it’s like flooring the gas pedal! By the time we put on the brakes, the impact would affect all the passengers.  There are bigger issues at hand.

I get it! Whatever is ongoing with the government is reportable.  Then again, there are a lot of events (good and bad) that deserve front page news as well.  But a lot of media don’t focus on what is relevant.  The intricate use of PR that spins an issue to divert other issues or praises irrelevant projects when it’s actually their job to do what they are praised for is paid advertisement.

The bad news is, a lot of people CANNOT differentiate between a paid PR (public relations) columnist who receives payment to “slant” an issue.  The newspaper will always claim that the writings of these columnists are “personal opinions” and have nothing to do with the stand of the newspaper.  That’s why these columns are found in the OP/ED (opinion/editorial) page.  Only the EDITORIAL expresses the newspaper’s or publications view towards an issue and reflects the majority vote of the editorial board.  A COLUMN is a recurring piece or article where the writer (usually part of the stable of the publication, but sometimes they invite a guest writer) expresses his/her own opinion on an issue.  The operative words here: HIS/HER OWN OPINION.

It’s sad, no, AGONIZING, that there are people who think that just because a column provides an opinion, IT IS THE GOSPEL TRUTH, and that all attention and resources should focus on this.  To those who give attention to half truths and half lies are poor in discernment.  And that, is GULLIBILITY.  (Well, alright, it’s called politics. I’m trying to be polite here.)

A good columnist is objective.  Takes no sides.  Is not biased.  Checks all the facts and gets the other side’s story.  Is not PAID for a PR job.  And it’s easy to spot a bad columnist.  They flip-flop.  They change sides easily (depending on who is in power). They have a penchant for lying through their teeth.  Their stories are never consistent.

With so much publications flying around (including this one), being a rational thinking human being in the time of digital technology can be quite challenging.  After all, we all don’t have the luxury of checking and cross validating the vast information that is being fed our way.  Most of us bank on EMOTIONS. No matter how wrong the scenario is, they just “share” away because of political survival.

Excuses are the tools of the incompetent.

We usually forget that there are only two options in decision making:

  • make progress or make excuses

I wrote about the Dunning-Kruger effect a few months ago.  To reiterate, the DK effect addresses people who are ignorant or unskilled in any area and are too inept to notice.  They end up thinking they’re far more competent than they actually are.  Big mouth, bad words, all ego.

A gentle reminder to everyone.

Friedrich Nietzsche once said “They muddy the water, to make it seem deep.”

What are you willing to trade to see the sun rise one more time?

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I recently had a conversation with a friend who was diagnosed to have stage IV pancreatic cancer.

Dealing with terminal illnesses take a toll on the social, economic, financial and emotional aspects of our lives. It affects not only people who are afflicted with it, but the family and closest friends as well. I guess the most unsettling part of my friend telling me  this was that he needed to know what was happening.  Why everything came so fast. Why it had to be him.  What are the treatment options? When was he going to die?

I sat there in silence, listening to him talk about the circumstances that led to him being diagnosed with the terminal illness.  He said that it all started as a tummy ache and took some medicines given out by the pharmacist in a local drug store.  But the pain never really went away.  He thought that his dieting was causing the dyspepsia and bloating and experienced some back pains a few months before this diagnosis.  He had not really taken these symptoms seriously.  After all, he was young, a frequent traveler, didn’t smoke and socially drank, a successful businessman with a beautiful family.  Too busy for anything, he sought my professional advice a few months later.  I told him that he needed to see a gastroenterologist.  The “tummy aches” and other symptoms needed a professional medical attention.  He was hesitant for a few weeks.  Busy, according to him.  Afraid, according to me.

What do you talk about when one comes face to face with death because of a terminal illness? How do you cope a rollercoaster of feelings? What do you talk about when one knows he/she is going to die?

I have no answer for these questions.  What I do know, however, is that it is difficult to face death alone. There is nothing in this world that will prepare us for the inevitable face-to-face meeting with death.  Whether it is like a thief in the night that takes someone you love suddenly, or it’s a lingering illness where suffering and pain make the journey towards dying something we look forward to – nothing prepares us to meet death.

Things we love, we will lose one day. Things we fear, we will face one day. God sometimes put us in the dark to prove He is the light. That’s why we should live life one day at a time.

I’ve often asked myself the question – what would we be willing to trade to see another sunrise or sunset? I searched my mind for a good reply but sadly found none.  Even if the journey is fraught with suffering and pain, many of us fight to have one last look at another day.

Life is a little jar of memories.

Fill it with people worth remembering.

Make it matter.

Cheater!

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Little Johnny watched his father’s car pass by the school playground and go into the woods.  Curious, he follows the car and sees his father and Aunt Jane in a passionate embrace.

Little Johnny found this so exciting that he could hardly contain himself as he ran home and started to tell his mother, “Mom!! I was at the playground and saw dad’s car go into the woods with Aunt Jane.  I sneaked to look and he was giving Aunt Jane a big kiss, and then he helped her take off her shirt.  Then Aunt Jane helped daddy take his pants off, then Aunt Jane…”

At this point his mom cut him off and said, “Johnny, this is such an interesting story.  Let’s save the rest of it for supper time.  I want to see the look on your father’s face when you tell it tonight!’

At the dinner table that evening, mom asked little Johnny to tell his story.  Johnny started his story, “I was at the playground and saw dad’s car go into the woods with Aunt Jane.  I went back to look and he was giving Aunt Jane a big kiss, then he helped her take off her shirt. Then Aunt Jane helped daddy take his pants off.  Then Aunt Jane and daddy started doing the same thing that Mommy and Uncle Bill used to do when daddy was out of town!”

(And that’s when the mom faints)

Moral of the story:

Sometimes you need to shut the f*ck up and listen to the whole story before you interrupt!

The popsicle

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A couple wanted to have sex but their son is in the house.  The only way they pull off a Sunday afternoon “quickie” with their 8-year-old son in the house is to send him out on the front lawn with a popsicle and tell him to report on all the neighbourhood activities.

“There’s a car being towed from the parking lot”, he shouts.

He began his commentary as his parents put their plan into operation!

“An ambulance just drove by…”

“Looks like our neighbours at the corner have company…”, he called out.

“Jose is riding a new bike!…”

“Looks like the old man a block down the road are moving…”

“Peter is on his skateboard…”

After a few moments he announced, “THE GARCIAS ARE HAVING SEX!”

Startled, his mother and dad shot up in bed.

Dad cautiously called out, “How do you know they’re having sex?”

“Juan Garcia is standing on the lawn of their house with a popsicle!”