Conan O’Brien
Just taught my kids about taxes by eating 38% of their ice cream.
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It is spring of 1943 during World War II. Standing among hundreds of new soldiers at Camp Grant, in Illinois, my father, Sam, just 18 years old, waits as a truck slowly drives by. A full field pack is randomly tossed to each soldier. “How strange,” my father thinks, as he sees his last name, Litrenti, marked on each item in his pack. “How did they know it was me when they tossed the pack?” He was impressed! Beating all odds, my father was tossed a field pack from World War I—his own father’s.
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On a cool night lit only by the orange glow of fire, we rushed to my grandfather’s home as his decades-old barn burned to the ground. The firemen let us stand nearby as they pumped water from the creek a quarter mile away. We watched the barn go up in flames, which stirred memories of jumping off foot-wide wooden beams into the hay below. The real sadness came as my elderly grandfather, who did not get out of bed, quietly asked if his cows were safe. He hadn’t had dairy cows in a dozen years.
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I have always worn my children’s birthstones around my neck. One morning, when I was late for work, my infant son Larry’s topaz birthstone fell from my gold chain. I frantically searched for it, whispering to myself, “I lost my Larry, but I will get him back.”
That day, Larry’s cardiologist called with test results from one of his first checkups. He would need emergency heart surgery. Happily, the operation was a success, and I whispered in Larry’s ear, “I thought I lost you, but I knew I’d get you back.”
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Our 25-year-old son moved back home with an eye toward socking away money to buy a condo. We never bothered asking how long he’d planned to stay, but I got a pretty good idea when I walked into his room recently. In the corner was a milk jug with a few coins in it and a label that read “Condo down payment.”
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My wife is a by-the-recipe baker. But that attention to detail still hasn’t made her chocolate chip cookies taste any better. One day, after the cookies had been in the oven a while, I smelled a familiar odor. “They’re burning,” I shouted.
“I know,” she said nonchalantly.
“Aren’t you going to take them out?”
“No. They still have six minutes.”
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“What’s the difference between an optimist and a pessimist?” I asked my husband. He thought for a minute before responding, “An optimist is the guy who created the airplane. A pessimist is the guy who created the parachute.”
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I was not thrilled with the idea of letting my clueless 13-year-old son babysit his younger sisters, even though he begged me to.
“What about a fire?” I asked, referring to my No. 1 concern.
“Mom,” he said, rolling his eyes, “I’m a Boy Scout. I know how to start a fire.”
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At age 70, my grandfather bought his first riding lawn mower.
“This thing is great,” he bragged to my brother. “It took me only an hour and a half to mow the lawn. It used to take your grandmother two days to do it all!”
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When my father ran out of gas, he called my mother to pick him up in her car. They went to a gas station, filled a gas can, and returned to his car. After a few minutes, he got into her car again. “We need to go back to the gas station,” he said.
“One gallon wasn’t enough?” she asked.
“It would have been if I’d put it in the right car.”
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Anyone can eavesdrop, but not everyone thinks to record conversations for posterity. We thank those snoopers who alerted overheardinnewyork.com to these:
Guy: Your glasses can’t be bad—you just got them!
Girl: Yeah, but I cheated on the eye exam, so it’s really my own fault.
Guy: That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
Girl: I’m very competitive.
Girl: Why would he say that I was not educated?
Friend: Well, that’s not exactly what he said, now, was it?
Girl: No. He said I was tapid and voided of thought.
Friend: Vapid and devoid of thought.
Girl: Same thing.
Girl #1 (picking up box of baking soda): I didn’t know soda was baked.
Girl #2: Thank God it’s not fried! Do you know how many extra calories that would be?!
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My mother asked me to hand out invitations for my brother’s surprise birthday party. That’s when I realized he was her favorite twin.
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Brevity is next to confusion in the insurance business. When a client died, her daughter told our agency that she would cancel the home policy the following week, once her mother’s belongings were removed. Simple, right? Here’s the note that was placed in the client’s file: “Deceased will call next week to cancel moving her things out.”
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Good morning everyboomie.
Welcome to the weekend!
Today I'm driving out to Bokchito, near where I hunt the sod farm, and visit a little museum that has a lot of artifacts. The guy that owns it is friends with my neighbors. He heard I collected points and he stopped by my house to see my collection.
I hear he has quite a collection.
I wish I could go hunting afterward, but it's going to be another smoker.
94 degrees today, but I see we're dropping all the way down to 84 Tuesday, and 81 Wednesday.
Something to look forward to.
Have a happy day everyone.
joe
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witter
Good Morning Joe, soot, Ana and all. Joe hope it cools off enough to enjoy your head hunting next week! Soot enjoy your day along with the coffee and danish! Ana sounds like you could use a nice long massage today! Coffee and tea are ready.
