I can beat up Justin Bieber ... or can I?

Warning: I'm going to give you a little peek into a guy's mentality.  Not every guy, I admit, but most guys.

Seriously, ugly stuff coming up, so read on only if you think you can stomach it.

(last chance to not read on).

Okay,  if you kept reading, it' s not my fault if I change your opinion of guys forever (or at least of this guy).

Here goes ... when a couple guys meet, the reptile brain of each guy goes something like this:

"I can take this dude," one of the guys thinks to himself, smiling nicely while squeezing the toothpaste out of the other guy's hand

"Whoa, not messing with this guy," the other one thinks simultaneously, trying not to wince as his ring bites into his ring finger like an angry weasel.

Or two more closely matched dudes eye each other speculatively, wondering just how things would have turned out - think the Spartans against the Persians - if the situation didn't call for civilized behavior and polite talk about sports.

Of course we get this kind of behavior from Mother Nature. Various male deer rubbing antlers against each other, a couple bulls slamming heads, two gorillas wrestling for control, a couple lions ripping into each other.

It's the way we're supposed to be, so it's sort of natural that when I see some cheeky little punk ass young man, like, say, Justin Bieber, behaving in the way we see on every tabloid in the supermarket, the guy part of me can't help but think, "I could beat up that little punk."And then the little movie theater we guys all keep in our brains would show me a little video of a young, acrobatic me Kung Foo'ing Mr. Bieber's smug little girly face.

I saw a picture of Justin Bieber the other day. All muscular and ripped. I guess he's into mixed martial arts?  I''m 57 now. My karate days are thirty years behind me ... and I realized...

... my worst fear.

Justin Bieber could  kick my butt.

Norm

www.normcowie.com

Restroom Wars

I've decided to weigh in on this whole gender restroom thing that is being
so hotly debated by the courts and state legislators ... of mostly southern
states I can't help but notice.

First of all, speaking as a guy, I don't mind if women, whether identifying
as men or women, come in our restroom. I'd really rather have a woman next
to me in the stall wanting to know if I had a 'square to spare' than former
Congressman Larry Craig trying to play footsies with me.  And if there are
any women who'd like to take a shot at a urinal, like any guy, I'd be
interested in the mechanics of how that would work.

And how would our Founding Fathers weigh in on this debacle? That's how
right-wingers usually like to address Constitutional issues, isn't it?  Did
our forefathers even have bathrooms?  History books are noticeably silent on
the bathroom habits of the colonials; and I have yet to see a PBS
documentary titled, 'Bathroom habits of our Founding Fathers,' which would
undoubtedly be sponsored by the Koch Brothers Foundation, which is used to
wading in doo-doo. I always figured our forefathers just went in buckets,
and then dumped the buckets out the windows. Which likely explains the total
lack of peeping Tom's back in colonial days.

But then I start wondering just what rights the States, or any other
government for that matter, have to impose any kind of rules on where we wee
or dump.  You see, with notable exceptions (public rest stops, public
buildings), the government doesn't provide a place for us to do our business
in the first place. We have to rely on gas stations, which, after stealing
from us at the pump, are somewhat obligated to provide a place for us to
vacate. Especially considering the harm their product causes to our air. Or
we go to restaurants, like the Golden Arches of McDonalds, for our, um,
golden showers. 

(Norm, you didn't just write that, did you?) 

Um, yeah, sorry

But it's McDonalds and gas stations that give us a place to go when our
kidneys need to empty out that Big Gulp or 18.6 ounce can of Monster Energy
Drink. They pay for the toilet paper, the water, the heat, the soap and for
upkeep.  They pay for the parking, the safe environment, and the lighting. 

So what right does the government have to tell men not to go into a women's
restroom (or vice versa),  or men-who-identify-as-women from going in a
women's restroom (or vice versa again)? 

I say none!  

Either stay out of our business, or let us go on the side of a tree, like
our Founding Fathers intended!

Norm Cowie



Norm is an award-winning columnist and founder of the Humor Writers of
America. He has authored nine books, mostly humor. Visit Norm at
www.normcowie.com 

Moo

I was sitting at lunch at the Erma Bombeck's Writers Workshop, chatting with Kansas, who was sitting to my left.

Her name wasn't really Kansas. It was, um, er, I don't remember. That's because there were over 500 people at the conference, each of them possessing, not only a first name, but a last name. That's five hundred names, one thousand if you include the last, and even more if you include middle or maiden names. There's no way I can remember 500 names!  I can't remember two names. Ask my kids, Critter 1 and Critter 2.

So when I was meeting all of these bright, energetic writers and lovers of humor, my brain simply shut down, and blanked out everybody's name. But here's where it gets weird. I could remember their states. I guess my mind decided that remembering fifty states was a whole heck of a lot easier than remembering five hundred names. So at one lunch, I was sitting with Massachusetts, three Californias, New York, Washington and Virginia. That night for dinner, I was sitting wth Texas, Kentucky, North Carolina and another Virginia. North Carolina's accent sounded a whole lot like Clay Aiken's.

Anyway, back to my story. I was talking to Kansas, and then turned to my other lunch companion, California, but before I could say anything I noticed a perfume sized black box had appeared next to my spoon. It was all black except for the word "Moo," which was embossed on its side.

I looked at California. She wasn't paying any attention to the box. I closely, using fine tuned man-skills, determined that the box was nearer to my spoon than to her water glass, which was the closest thing to it of hers. Was this a joke? I mean, we're all humorists, right? Maybe she, seeing my last name from my name tag, thought it funny to put a sinister black box with the word 'Moo' next to a guy named Cowie.

I tried ignoring it, but I was transfixed, staring at it from the corner of my eye. I wanted to touch it, see what would happen.  I took a few bites of food, watching the box to see what it would do. Then I looked away, then back at it. It hadn't moved, and simply sat there in sinister and silent contemplation. For I knew it was evil. It was a black box -
that's evil, right? And the only thing it had to say was "Moo,' Which we all know is from the bovine language, and it means, "stupid humans, we cows are destroying the ozone layer with our methane-laden farts."  Yes, I speak Cow, for I am Cowie, which means, 'understander of the bovine language."

I wondered how a cow had sneaked into the packed dining room, and secreted this box to me. Perhaps disguised as one of the servers?  Cows are tricky beasts, you know. There's a reason they've taken over over our Congress.

Nobody else noticed the small box. The states were all happy chatting to each other, oblivious to the dark secret emanating its invisible evil beams at everyone at the table. It would cause later calamities, a dropped napkin, a forgotten spoon, the need to burp. It was evil, I tell you, evil. I could just sense Hell's hands on this box.

Feverishly, I looked around. There had to be a priest in the building! Someone who could banish this fiendishly innocent looking demon from our presence.

And that was when California stood up, swept the box into her purse, gave me a cheery smile, and went off towards the bar, leaving me, the defender of insidious cow attacks, frantically trying to wave down a religious warrior while holding off servers who thought I wanted them to take my dinner plate.

Oh, I found out after the fact that Moo is simply a business card company.

My bad.

(Next time:  Marriott and their sinister 'Deluxe Dental Kit")

Norm

www.normcowie.com

Gnat Attack!

It was a typical Monday morning, I was at my office, fingers tapping on my keyboard sending figures dancing along my computer screen.

Then a gnat zipped by my nose. My eyes followed it until it disappeared and I remembered thinking how rare it was to see a gnat in January, even more so in an office building. I resolved to mention it to my wife over dinner, how a gnat was surviving the winter by hiding in my office feeding from whatever nutrients it might get from my ivy and aloe plants.

Suddenly, the gnat dive bombed in front of my nose again. This time I frowned, not so amused.

A third strafe and it actually flew between my eye and my eyeglasses. This time I swiped at it, knocking my glasses off and missing the gnat by a hundred gnat body lengths.  By the time I’d rearranged my glasses, the gnat had disappeared.

When it came at me again, I was ready. It flew directly at me like a WW2 Japanese fighter pilot giving his life for his Emperor, and I smacked it against my forehead.

Silence.

I got it, I was sure.  So I checked my palm, but there was no bug.  Gnats are small, their bodies so fragile that my hitting it would obliterate its tiny body. So there was no way its corpse would have fallen to the floor.

Did this mean there a black gnat smashed on my forehead? I swiped my palm across my forehead and searched for a black smudge.

Nothing.

My assistant chose that moment to walk in.

She saw me frowning and her expression blanked.

“Is there a dead bug on my forehead?” I asked.

She giggled, “No, there’s no gnat.”

I give her the stink eye. “You’re not lying, right? You wouldn’t let me walk around all morning with a bug on my face to get me back for pranks I pull, right?”

“Nope,” she assures me, wide-eyed and innocent. She gave me some papers to sign and left with a look and smile.

Okay, good. No dead bug guts on my head.

Back to my spreadsheet, crunching the numbers and wondering.

What if she was lying? I replayed the giggle and the last second smile. Was it a giggle because her boss had a smushed bug on his forehead? Or was she just amused that I’d been at war with a gnat? It could just as easily be either one.

But I’m her boss. She wouldn’t do that. Of course not.

So content, I went back to work.

There wasn’t a smashed bug on my face. If there were, she would have told me.

Of course she would.

But somewhere deep in my consciousness it bothered me that I hadn’t found the gnat’s body. My shallow consciousness wasn’t as confident either.

My nine o’clock appointment was in a few minutes. Important client.  There’s no bug on my forehead, right?

I told myself this the whole way to the restroom to check the mirror.

Norm

www.normcowie.com

www.humorwritersofamerica.org

Yeah, I know. It's been awhile since I blogged. I was thinking of just writing that I lost my password, but I knew sharp readers would point out that all you have to do is use the 'password and recovery' function, so I decided not to lie. I suck at blogging. Although the truth is, I did lose my password and I did have to use the 'password and recovery' function. That's sixty seconds of my life I'll never get back again.

That said, I can move on to what I wanted to blog about. Last weekend I attended Windycon42 in Lombard Illinois, where this year's theme to the convention was humor in sci-fi, particularly The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Because Douglas Adams passed a number of years ago, and his ghost wasn't available, the guest of honor was best-selling author Christopher Moore. Not to be confused with the artist Christopher Moore, who by happy coincidence was also a guest of honor. Of course, when you're talking about the Hitchhiker's Guide, you know there are going to be coincidences.

Even if you've never been to a sci-fi convention, you probably have seen pictures because attendees tend to dress a bit peculiarly, with a emphasis on Klingon. And the ones not dressed up often look like a biker gang members with an affinity for pocket protectors. So lots of grizzled beards and long graying hair. But like nerds everywhere, there's no shortage of brain power. It's more likely that the geeky guy in the corner is a chemical engineer than someone who would take your order at McDonalds. During lunch one day at what was dubbed Milliways, the  Restaurant at the End of the Universe for the duration of the conference, one of said chemical engineers demonstrated how to twist a lidded plastic bottle, and then release the gasses amid a loud 'pop' when he opened it.

Chris Moore, the author, was charming during panels, and he was amenable to selfies, even from dorks like me who have trouble with the concept of creating them. After about a dozen tries, we got a picture where we don't look like dorks.

Windycon43 will feature our own Adam Selzer as host! Adam gave us a preview this year by playing a set of music from his new album Every Man Has His Price and Mine is $300.  Funny stuff, and a side of Adam I hadn't seen before. (Get yours here: http://www.82ndstreetrules.com/

Norm
www.normcowie.com

)

Grammar Snobulist

   I have to admit, mostly because my wife accuses me, that I’m a bit of a grammar snob. This sort of makes it a bit emotionally scarring to pen realistic dialogue like, “me and Joe are gonna grab a burger.”

   Seriously, Me and Joe?  Grrr, this just grates.

   Or how about this one?  “I did it on accident.”

   On accident?

   That’s like saying, “I did it by purpose.” 

   I mean, sure, it makes sense that if you do it ‘on’ purpose, the opposite would be doing it ‘on’ accident, but no, it doesn’t work that way folks!  You do it ‘on purpose’ and ‘by accident.’

Jeesh.

   See what I mean? I’m a bit snobbish about it. I mean what really did it hurt to say ‘on’ instead of ‘by’? Well, other than my sense of propriety.

   Fortunately, I persevere, and my characters can have convincing (but improper) dialogue.

   But that’s their problem, not mine.

Norm

www.normcowie.com

Breaking Badly

   My head was clogged. It was like half a dozen voles had crawled up my nose and were digging for worms behind my eyeballs. My internal mucus factories were working overtime, pumping out more of the gunk necessary for flushing invading plant life spores from my system. When I leaned over, or god forbid, sneezed, a mini explosion would jostle my cerebellum, cerebral cortex and medulla oblongata into spasms of quivering  jelly.

    So my wife sent me to the pharmacy to get some Sudafed … where I learned I might be a criminal.

    First, I roamed up and down the aisles looking for the Sudafed, which my wife had helpfully printed out a Google image of so I wouldn’t come back with hair restorer instead, not that I couldn’t use some  help up there. But there was no boxes of Sudafed on the counters.

    I’m a guy, and we can find stuff, so I intensified my search, and then my eyes went to a row of plastic cutouts lining the top shelf like warriors up on a cliff edge ready to rush down and take what’s left of my scalp.  I really do need that hair restorer.

    Anyway, it was the Sudafed. But not the Sudafed, just pictures of them with small cards that said to go to the pharmacy counter.

    I shrugged, plucked one down, and headed for the counter.

    The pharmacist gave me a sympathetic look. Did I mention the gunk and mucus?

    “I deed dis,” I said, handing her the card.

    “Okay,” she chirped, and plucked the card from my fingers.

    When she came back with the box of Sudafed, she started entering stuff on her computer while I awkwardly waited, shifting from foot to foot.

    Without looking up, she pointed to the card reader on the counter. “Read that and then sign.”

    I blinked. “Huh?”

    She looked up from her screen.  “Just read and sign there. Also, I need your driver’s license.”

    “My what?”

    She straightened up.  “Your driver’s license.”

    “Why do you need that? Is it dangerous to drive on that medicine?”

    “No, it’s a controlled substance.”

   “But, but, it’s just Sudafed. Why is that a controlled substance?”

    She smiled, not yet aggravated by my obtuseness. “People can make crystal meth from it.”

    I blinked again.

    “Haven’t you seen Breaking Bad?” she asked helpfully.

    “Um, well, I’ve been meaning to …”

    “It’s a great show. Anyway, you need to sign for it.”

    “Okay,” I said slowly, handing her my license, and I checked the box on the card reader where I agreed I’d read the instructions I didn’t read and signed my name, and paid for my controlled substance.

    A week later, I took my 18 year old cat to the vet, who said he wasn’t feeling well mostly because he’s the equivalent of 88 years old in human years, but she said he had some treatable issues and prescribed some special food to help his kidneys.  I bought some cans of the special food and shuffled off back to my car.

    Later, I went to a pet store to pick up some more, and then I tried to pay.

    “Um, sorry, Sir,” the cashier said.

    “What’s wrong?”

    “Er, you need a prescription for this,”  she continued.

    I looked at the bag, and then at her.

    “A prescription?” I parroted.

    “Uh, yes.”

    “For cat food?”

    “Well, yes.”

    “Is this one of those crystal meth things?” I asked.

    “I don’t know, Sir,” she said.

    Fortunately, I had a prescription in my wallet that the vet had handed me I thought as a joke, and I paid for the food.

    But it got me thinking, how did the meth heads sucker cats into this whole drug culture thing? I really thought cats were cooler cats that that. 

Norm

www.normcowie.com