Category: Humor (Page 1 of 4)

Apartment living

December 22, 2024 /

My 13-year-old son has been playing clarinet since fourth grade: first on a lark with friends, then more seriously, as he joined the middle school orchestra. In recent months, he really began to enjoy it, and he’s playing a lot—sometimes for two hours at a time, sometimes as late as 10 p.m. before bed.

His bedroom shares a wall with our neighbors, an older husband and wife who we don’t speak to all that much. So I was surprised when the wife stopped me on the building’s front steps a few weeks ago, as I was returning from a dog walk and she was on her way out.

“Is your son playing an instrument?” she asked. “Like a woodwind, maybe an oboe?”

In my head, I cringed, ready for a complaint. “Yes, that’s our younger son. It’s a clarinet.”

Her face brightened. “He’s getting good!”

An incomplete list of things younger than the comp sub that gave me full access to wsj.com until its cancellation today after 24 years

July 15, 2024 /

3G cell phone service
the George W. Bush presidency
Carlos Alcaraz
Verizon
iPod
Beyonce’s solo career
Fall Out Boy
Olivia Rodrigo
9/11
Myspace
Blu-Ray
the AOL-Time Warner merger
Fandango
“Gilmore Girls”
“Monsters Inc.”
USB flash drives
Montenegro
Chrysler’s PT Cruiser
Real Simple magazine
The South Beach Diet
Mile High Stadium
West Elm
Spanx
The entire 21st century

Thank you, Joy, wherever you are.

Nontravelblog

May 19, 2020 /

My annual Ideapad “The Year in Cities” roundup is going to be a real humdinger for 2020, isn’t it.

Bus route

December 30, 2016 /

I’m at the M79 bus stop on Amsterdam Avenue, where the bus has to hang a left turn before heading crosstown. An elderly couple walks up to the stop, haltingly, looking around a lot, loitering in the street.

Her: “Is this the bus stop?”

Him: “Yes, it is.”

“Do you think this is the one that goes across town?”

“Yes, this is it.”

“It’s a funny stop.”

“I guess it is.”

They look around some more.

The wife turns to me. “Does this bus go across town?”

“Yes,” I say, “this is the crosstown bus.”

“Thank you,” she says.

She turns back to her husband, who looks at her, impassively.

Her: “I believed you…!”

Helpful cashier, I

December 18, 2015 /

The lottery is $202 million tomorrow. On the way out of work I stopped in the little shop in my office building to give it a shot.

“One Powerball ticket, please,” I asked the manager behind the counter.

“A winning one?” he asked.

Hey, Master DJ

August 31, 2015 /

As the parents of two perceptive and opinionated children, my wife and I grant a substantial amount of self-determination in their young lives. So when, on a lengthy road trip, our seven-year-old son asked to control the iPod, I saw no reason not to hand it to him. We stretched the cord as long as it could go, I handed over the iPod—a Classic model, with 17,000 songs on it—and he started exploring from the back seat.

The result, blasted into the car after a minute or two of silence: AC/DC’s “Caught with Your Pants Down.”

This track immediately became the soundtrack to our vacation. “Can I DJ?” followed by a big guitar riff and, roughly a minute later, lots of laughter at the chorus.

Our story would end here, with a smirk, were it not for our four-year-old, who, of course, also asked to DJ, and who, it should be noted, is a very good reader already. The first time he got ahold of the iPod, he clicked into albums, directly into Genesis’s “Abacab” (thanks, alphabetization!) and landed on “Keep It Dark.” Nice choice. He decided he liked the song and played it several times, not least because he knew how to find it.

His second track: “Rape Me.”

We’re thinking on the next road trip we’re going to have to bring the kids’ iPod with us.

Funny, I’d have called it plumber’s butt

June 29, 2005 /

I don’t care what one does for a living—it can’t feel good to have one’s name attributed to a quote like “Ass cleavage is really in right now.”

Leading with paper

April 29, 2005 /

Me, 2001: Paper. Rock. “You went paper! No one opens with paper—that’s unprecedented!”

Tokyo, 2005: “Christie’s was the winner: scissors beat paper. It will sell most of the major paintings in its evening sale of Impressionist and modern art on Wednesday. It hopes the star of the group, CÃ©zanne’s “Large Trees Under the Jas de Bouffan” (1885-1887), will sell for more than $12 million.”

Shows what I know.

In this activity, everybody wins

November 3, 2004 /

New York Times: In a Game of Shirts and Skins, They’d Be the Skins. Hamilton College has a “team” of streakers that, rather than just run across its own quad in the buff, has invaded Middlebury College and Colgate recently.

“We kept referring to ourselves as a team,” said Craig Moores, a senior studio arts major, “and then it dawned on us that if we were truly a team, we’d have to have away games.”

And with that, I’m off to China. See you in December.

Anecdote (true story)

April 23, 2004 /

Guy works at Citibank as a full-time employee with insistent bosses. His wife is about to have their baby and he sets aside time off to be a good husband and new dad.

The time comes, the wife goes into labor, and Citibank calls him into work! He has to spend the day in the office with just an hour or so granted for him to run back to the delivery room and see mother and child. The following day he gets brought into work again, this time for a meeting.

When all was said and done, mom and dad had a happy new baby boy.

They named him Chase.