The Grocery Bag Scene

August 6-12, 2012, ActorBoy and I will be appearing at the Dakota County Fair, Farmington MN, as part of the cast for the brand new Dakota Chatauqua. It's a tent show full of original songs and both humorous and dramatic sketches (but mostly humorous) based on true events from Minnesota history. This is a resurrection with the production staff and most of the cast members from the 1999-2005 iteration of the show, but with all new material...some of which, I have written.

To give you a taste, and with hopes of enticing any local readers to come see the show, I share with you here the script for one of the sketches. The facts about the invention of the grocery bag with handles are accurate. The plot line of the inventor's wife being a lovely distraction (i.e., a bit of a tart) is fabricated.

Walter Deubener: Hello, my good sir, nice little store you have here.

Abner: Thank you. I do what I can.

Walter Deubener [extending hand]: Deubener’s the name… Walter Deubener

Abner: Abner Singlenite.

Walter Deubener: And this is my lovely wife, Lydia.

Abner: Oh…my…um…pleased to meet you.

Lydia: The pleasure…is mutual.

Walter Deubener: Lydia and I used to run the little grocery stand in the Kresge building in St. Paul…you know, the corner of 7th and Cedar?

Abner [focused on Lydia]: Cedar…riiiight.

Walter Deubener: Well, I noticed a little problem. People would only buy as much as they could carry in a single bag…because they had to use both hands to carry the one bag…isn’t that right, Lydia?

Lydia: Oh yes…they had to use both hands.

Abner: Both hands.

Walter Deubener: We tried all sorts of things. I wrapped up their purchases with heavy string attached to a wooden handle, I supplied market baskets…nothing worked.

Lydia: It was SO frustrating.

Abner: Frustrating.

Walter Deubener: Finally one night, it hit me like a lightning bolt out of the blue: handles.

Abner [coming to]: Handles?

Lydia [capturing his attention again]: Handles.

Walter Deubener: We made up some prototypes, tested them out, and now, as of May 27, 1919, I hold a patent on the Deubener Shopping Bag. You see, with these handles here, customers can carry away up to 50 pounds in each hand. Just look at all the things I can put in this bag.

Abner: Just look.

Walter Deubener: At only 5 cents each, these little marvels will more than pay for themselves with all the extra sales you’ll be making. [Lifts the loaded bag, but all the canned goods are left behind.]

Lydia: How many would you like?

Abner: I’ll take two…er…two hundred.

Observed Absurdities™ 6 - Question of the Half-Month

At Big Brother, Inc., the multi-national corporation that pays me for my epic technical writing and editing skills, there is an attempt to engage The Average Worker, on the company's private intranet home page, called Question of the Week. It's a multiple-choice question, sometimes about general trivia, but mostly focused on a bit of information from BBI's vast storehouse of self-absorbed minutiae.

It gets published once every two weeks.

Yes, that's right. That's a sure sign of how focused BBI is on engaging with its average worker: publishing a "question of the week" every two weeks.

Last week, I was greeted with this brain-teaser:

Just in case the picture isn't clear enough, here's what it says:

For how many years has [Big Brother, Inc.] provided products and services in the Middle East?
   O More than 50
   O More than 30
   O More than 40
   O More than 60
   O I don't know

For the record, "I don't know" is always one of the options, and, with very little thinking  -  methinks  -  one should be able to realize that it could very well always be a correct response.

And then there's this particular array of possible answers, which, if the company-sanctioned Correct Answer is "More than 60," includes FIVE correct responses.

See what I mean, jelly bean?

Missed It By That Much

A true story from an old friend...thank you, Alice Dozenliv Heeranimore.

Alice's car was being worked on, and she had a loaner from the car repair establishment so she could still go to work, run errands, and text her friends as a productive member of society.

Having finished her duties at work, Alice returned to the parking lot, pressed the car's remote door-unlocking-thingy, and tried to open the car's door.

The operative word in the previous sentence is "tried."

She could hear the locks change their position when she pressed the remote, but the doors wouldn't budge. Driver's door, passenger door, front, back...absolutely no luck.

Being a resourceful gal, Alice thought she might be able to get in through the trunk's back-seat escape hatch. It would certainly be awkward, and she hoped to the highest heaven nobody would walk by while she was doing it, but it seemed like her only option.

When she popped open the trunk, it was the next car over.

Soopuhstah!

The Associated Press publishes a daily feature called "How Old?!" wherein it lists the names of famous people who were born on the day, what they are famous for, and their ages. Sometimes the ages are a surprise (What?!? Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen are only 26?), and sometimes the relative ages of two celebrities is a shock, as I recently tweeted: KenOsmond/EddieHaskel turned 69 the other day. TheTrueShocker is: Liam Neeson is only 9 years younger. (You can follow me on Twitter, @deweyroth, but don't expect gems like this every day.)

Then there are other times when it's something totally different that gives me pause. Take this quote from Wednesday, June 27, 2012, for example:  Reality star Khloe Kardashian is 28.

Reality Star. What does that even MEAN?!!?

Let's see if taking the words separately helps.

re-al-i-ty...noun: 1. the state or quality of being real; 2. resemblance to what is real; 3. real things, facts, or events taken as a whole, i.e., state of affairs, as in "the reality of the business world" or "vacationing to escape reality"; 4. In philosophy, something that exists independently of ideas concerning it.

So far, I'm not seeing any correlation to Ms Kardashian.

star...noun: any of the heavenly bodies, except the moon.

Ah, well...THERE you have it! Though, even at that, I'm not convinced "reality" has much to do with it at all.

Do These Three Words Really Go Together?

Depending on your age and level of immersion into ancient popular culture, you may or may not know anything about Allan Sherman. He was to semi-classical music and The American Songbook what Weird Al Yankovic is to rock-n-roll. If you've heard anything at all from him, it most probably is his song that reached Number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the summer of 1963, "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah." For the uninitiated, or just for fun, here's a video:

My parents, FlatulenceKing and SweaterGal, had two Allan Sherman records in the family LP collection...which may account for more than half of my warped sense of humor. I count it as a cause for pride that I can still sing "The Drinking Man's Diet" from memory.

One song of Mr. Sherman's was a parody of "Chim Chim Cheree" and included a reference to an advertising campaign for the laundry detergent, Cheer: "What does that blue magic whitener do? Does it make blue things white, or make white things blue?"

I was reminded of that particular lyric from that particular song by that particular artist because of three particular words that jumped out at me from one of those "interesting" catalogs I've been getting lately:

Electric Bikini Trimmer

I'm not really sure how those three words are supposed to relate to each other.

Is this an electric trimmer for bikinis, or are there electric bikinis out there that need to be trimmed?

This Is Not My Fault

Every weekday morning, my FaceBook status becomes a sort of trivia game. On Mondays it's Film's First Lines...I post the first line of dialog from a movie and the goal is for one of my friends to comment on the status with the title of the movie in which the line is spoken (or, in the case of "My mind is clearer now," from Jesus Christ Superstar, sung). Tuesdays are TV Theme Songs. Thursdays, Name That Tune, and Fridays, Film's Final Lines.

Wednesdays are a different kind of treat in that I post a picture...usually cropped in a way to make it a bit cryptic...and the task is to identify who or what the picture is, or from whence it sprang forth.

On a recent Wednesday, the thread of comments took on a level of chaos unreached before in the annals of FaceBookology. Herewith...the picture in question and the unedited "flow" of comments that followed. The names have not been changed because none of these goobers are innocent.

Drew Foster bugs bunny cartoon

Dewey Roth Yeah...but our judges were hoping for something a little more specific...

Drew Foster umm...bugs bunny cartoon the one with the wet paint

L J Sam Helgerson DF -- Yeah. The one with the wet paint. That's my favorite of ALL the Bugs Bunny cartoons--except for the ones with Pete Puma. Gotta love wet paint. (C'mon Dewey, muscle the judges into giving a prize to Drew).

Alley Long Willis ‎^ yes, the judges are getting a little picky these days. He's like Lucy with the football, and we're all Charlie Brown.

Dewey Roth Wow...usually the judges are pretty laid back, but they're really giving me a hard time on this one. They say they're willing to give Drew an Audacity Certificate for thinking he could get away with such a generic response. They are also willing to release Hint #1: Those are Elmer Fudd's toes.

Drew Foster ok..bugs bunny cartoon, the one where elmer fudd gets wet paint on his toes

Paul Hattouni wasn't this the Bugs Bunny cartoon that was playing on the Titanic when it sunk? Just before Aliens invaded and are up all our Fried Green Tomatoes near the Win Dixie?

L J Sam Helgerson PH -- No, Paul, I think this was the one where Elmer Fudd chased Bugs Bunny to Pandora where Bugs was helping Charleton Heston lead the Screen Actor's Guild across the Green Screen of Death.

Dewey Roth Paul...are you on medication?

Drew Foster I don't know, but I like where he is going

Paul Hattouni Dewey - always, :( They just sometimes have undocumented side affects.

Paul Hattouni LJ - no no no. This is the one playing on Ed Sullivan while the Rolling Stones played the theme from Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind.

Alley Long Willis Yes, yes! And then Rocky Balboa storms in and knocks out Elmer Fudd. Then Bugs Bunny and the cast of Glee break out into "We are the Champions."

Dewey Roth Okay, people...FOCUS!!! Hint #2: Tonsorial talents gone awry.

Paul Hattouni Pffft....our story is now more fun than the guessing Dewey! lol.

Drew Foster Oh my goodness, if this was Jeopardy..I would have won by now

Paul Hattouni ‎...and then Daffy Duck shows up with Godzilla who eats part of Elmers shoe. And then the Ghostbusters paint his toes so Jaws won't eat them.

Paul Hattouni ‎(in other words, Dewey.....we have no clue!!)

Alley Long Willis ‎...and then Harry Potter cries out "Expeliarmus!" and Elmer's shot gun goes flying away from him and a dragon swoops down and snatches the shotgun away. All the while, Hedwig delivers a very important letter to Foghorn Leghorn.

Drew Foster I really don't know who all you people are (cuz I live in Idaho) but I like the way you think!!!

Paul Hattouni Maybe that's not really a foot at all, but an Idaho spud with ketchup on it!

Dewey Roth Somewhere along the way here, I've lost the will to live. but I've gained a posting for my humor blog, Almost the Truth!

Paul Hattouni oh!! Good Will Hunting?

Dewey Roth Hint #3: The title includes the name of a city in Spain and is a parody of an opera by Rossini.

Drew Foster rabbit of seville

Paul Hattouni Les Miserables de Madrid

Dewey Roth Our judges have collapsed on the floor, gasping for breath, but have managed the strength to award Drewcifer OfCOURSEiDidn'tGoogleAnything Foster a set of hair trimmers and a large cannon!

L J Sam Helgerson Carmen Ghia?

Paul Hattouni ‎*** applause ***

Alley Long Willis ah man, does this mean the story has ended?

L J Sam Helgerson ALW -- This does: *Amen*

Michael J. Weiss Is this Fog Horn Leg Horn?

Dewey Roth Michael J. NotFox gets a Way To Come Late To The Party award!

Michael J. Weiss Awesome! Wait...is that good?

Drew Foster If the judges are going to be so strict...then we should be able to 'phone a friend' like google or youtube, just sayin

Michael J. Weiss Since I did not read through the postings I deserve at least one point. I SAY I SAY LISTEN TO ME SON--I-I-I DESERVE ONE POINT.

Dewey Roth You deserve a point for being late AND wrong? Gotta love America.

Michael J. Weiss So, let me understand the rules: 1) Points awarded for first to answer. 2) Answer must be correct. This is a hard contest!

Dewey Roth I'm 50% German, so that's how I roll - er - march.

Father of the Year

In honor of Father's Day being just around the corner, I am led to pass on to you a picture sent to me by my co-worker, Gigantor the Drummer/Turtle-Man. (To understand that reference, click here.) It apparently was originally posted at TheChive.com, a site for which I take no responsibility nor offer any endorsement.

Nor do I take any responsibility nor offer any endorsement for the pictured means of child transportation...or is that just a very original-and-strange backpack?

"Excuse me? Hello? A little air here, please. Just a...hello?"

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!