The Cajun Night Before Christmas

Click on the image in my sidebar to hear Justin Wilson read the Cajun Night Before Christmas. This book is a modern classic here in Louisiana and sure to give you a taste of something different. So gather the kiddies around the computer with some hot chocolate and enjoy the story.



Until the next time

John Strain

The Limits of Procrastination

I have been standing on the train tracks of procrastination, watching the oncoming locomotive of Christmas with its many cars of buy presents, decorate the house, send Christmas cards, honey do, and you'd better do. Today, I need to dive off of those tracks like Harrison Ford did in the motion picture, The Fugitive, to save my life.



I think I have reached the limits of my procrastination. To go any further would require another descriptive word, like stupid or suicidal.



I better post this and get those boxes out of the living room and up into the attic before Barbara catches me at the computer, hehehehe.



Until the next time, if there is a next time

John Strain

Friday Night

In about 30 minutes, I will be headed to a very low key, but promising to be lots of fun work Christmas party. It is so low key; I am wearing jeans and a bright red shirt. The music is blaring; I am sipping a Jack Daniels and Diet Coke, and I am wondering what the poor people are doing right now. I suppose they are getting ready to go to a low-key work Christmas party . . .



So anyway, as I was getting ready for the party, I was reminded of Christmas parties past. When money flowed more easily, the hospital usually rented a hotel ballroom and hired a band. We enjoyed open bars, lots of food, and the usual gossip. In those days, Barbara and I had to hire a babysitter to be with John. I mentioned that memory to Barbara and we did our usual marveling about how freaking fast the time has gone by.



Then as I free-associated in my brain, I recalled an incident that occurred when I was 5 or 6 years old. This is a vivid memory of which I can still see in my mind like a rerun. If I was 5 or 6, then my brother was 11 or 12. We were standing in our dining room. We had a babysitter for some reason and it was at night. It seems like she just got there. My brother was trying to impress her. Even then, I could tell when someone was full of it. What a sight it was, my brother, my sister, and myself, standing around in our pajamas. I was the tag along and out of the loop, so I usually wandered around oblivious to any conversation. It was without that conversation to hold my attention, I would think about other things to do. For some reason, I got the bright idea to pull George's pants down. So I did. I am laughing right now, just remembering the scene. He was just talking away when I came up from behind and pulled his pajamas down around his ankles. There was about a second with him just standing there in his underwear while it sunk into his mind that his little brother just exposed him to the same babysitter he had been trying to impress.



George quickly pulled his britches back up and shrugged off the incident. The babysitter took it in stride as well. I can't remember being beaten to death by my brother or even getting in trouble with my parents when they returned. They probably wrote it off as me being young and not knowing any better, hehehe.



It’s just one funny memory from more than 40 years ago.



Here's to a good weekend and next week at this time, Santa will be on his way.



Until the next time

John Strain

A Friday Smile

I am at the same time everyone in this cartoon, hehehehe.



Until the next time and keep laughing

John Strain

Urban Legends

One of the funnier stories making the email circuit was about gerbiling or felching. If you do not know what I am talking about, consider yourself lucky and stop reading now. If you want to be enlightened about things sordid, then read on pilgram.



The following text was a supposed news story from 1998:

"In retrospect, lighting the match was my big mistake. But I was only trying to save the gerbil," Eric Tomaszewski told the bemused doctors in the Severe Burns Unit of Salt Lake City Hospital. Tomaszewski and his homosexual partner, Andrew "Kiki" Farnum, had been admitted for emergency treatment after a felching session had gone seriously wrong.



"I pushed a cardboard toilet paper tube up his rectum and slipped Ragout, our gerbil, in," he explained. "As usual, Kiki shouted out 'Armageddon,' my cue that he'd had reached nirvana, so to speak. I tried to retrieve Raggot but he simply would not come out, so I peered into the tube and struck a match, thinking the light might attract him."



At a hushed press conference, a hospital spokesman desribed what happened next.



"The match ignited a pocket of intestinal methane gas in Kiki's colon. Flames shot out the tube, ignited Mr. Tomaszewski's hair and severely burning his face. It also set fire to the gerbil's fur and whiskers, causing it to scurry further up Kiki's colon, which in turn ignited a larger pocket of gas further up the intestine, propelling the rodent out of the cardboard tube like a cannonball."



Tomaszewski suffered second degree burns and a broken nose from the impact of the gerbil, while Farnum suffered first and second degree burns to his anus and lower intestinal tract.



Sadly, Ragout the gerbil did not survive the incident.

If you thought that was funny, listen to the poor guy who tried to read the story on a radio newscast: (requires Real Player)

That is some funny stuff. I hope it made you smile.



Until the next time

John Strain