Jump to content

JIm Pfiffer

Contributor
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content Count

    46

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    4

Blog Entries posted by JIm Pfiffer

  1. JIm Pfiffer
    Look at this photo of me, at 6- or 7-years old Protruding forehead. Widespread nose. Ears so big they looked like dish antennas sticking out of the sides of my head.
    I looked like BoBo The Monkeyboy.
    The doctor didn’t slap me when I was born. He gave me a banana.
    My head was large it got stuck during birth. The doctor had never seen anything like it. He couldn’t believe my mom endured it without sedation. I can’t believe she still talks to me.
    But she got her revenge. She cut my hair as a kid. Did the same for my other seven sibs. When you have that many offspring, home hair cutting, saves enough money to buy a low-milage station wagon.
    Mom had one hair-cutting style. The buzz cut, shaved so close to the scalp that the clippers often cut away the top layers of my brain. (Explains my demented sense of humor).

    Her barbershop was the middle of the linoleum kitchen floor. Her barber cape was a plastic-coated tablecloth clipped together in the back with a clothes pin. Her cutting utensils consisted of scissors and an electric hair clipper that my grandfather used to shear sheep. They buzzed, rattled and clanked louder than a chainsaw, pulled the hairs on the back of my neck and smelled of warm 3-in-1 oil.
    Mom employed the clippers with the deft efficiency and speed of a U.S. Marine barber. She used the wide comb attachment, manufactured by International Harvester, to make a few quick passes over my scalp, leaving me with the stubby and prickly BoBo The Monkeyboy look.
    I fought against the buzzcuts most of my childhood. Protested them as inhumane and mean. Cried, stomped my feet and even threatened to run away. You know what Mom did?
    Packed my suitcase.
    It’s tough growing up, fit in with your peers and attract girls when you look like one of the Three Stooges.
    By seventh grade my classmates regularly entertained themselves by clamping me in headlocks and rapping my skull head with nuggies and knuckles.
    Eventually, I snapped. After one of mom’s combine cuts, I stomped up to the attic and declared that I was going to stay there, and not come down for anything, until my hair grew back.
    In my haste to rebel and make a point, I forgot it was summer and the attic was hot as a kiln. I lasted about 20 minutes before I slinked back downstairs, put on a baseball cap, and sweatingly declared that I was going to wear it, and not take it off for anything, until my hair grew back.
    By eighth grade mom stopped cutting my hair. By my sophomore year, my hair was down to my shoulders. It was bone straight and featured stubborn springy cowlicks on all four corners of my head that had to be held down with Krazy Glue.
    As I grow older, and my hair grows grayer, my haircuts grow shorter, by choice, and are done by a barber, by God.
    As I write this post, my hair is nearly as prickly and stubby as it was in my baboon days. (Kids love to rub balloons on my head and stick them to the wall).
    You know what? Mom was right. I do look better in short hair. Only took me a half century to realize it.
    Better a late learner, than a never learner.
    I think I’ll celebrate by having a banana daiquiri.
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper.
  2. JIm Pfiffer
    Raising kids is difficult for parents.
    Raising eight Pfiffer kids is hell for parents. That’s why Mom and Dad have free-first-class-no-questions-asked-front-of-the-line-all-expenses-paid passes to heaven.
    Nothing, not even a housefly, can keep their eyes on that many kids at once. Hell, it’s hard to just keep track of all of our names. That’s why Mom relied on all her natural senses as well as ESP and eyes in the back of her head to keep tabs on us.
    I was most impressed with her long-distance sense of hearing. It gave her our location in the house, who was with whom, who was crying, who was laughing and who was socking someone else?
    It was the lack of noise that put Mom on red alert. Silence meant that we were up to no good and we wanted to keep it on the down-low. When the sounds of silence reigned, Mom’s antenna popped and did speedy 360s until she locked on to the source of silence. She responded with her famous suspicion-toned “What are you kids doing in there?”
    We responded with our famous innocent-toned “Nothing!”, which increased Mon’s suspicions because it meant we were doing something we were not supposed to be doing.
    That caused Mom to race to the scene of the crime, as I was busy trying to get rid of the evidence or somehow pin it on one of my siblings.
    When I was six, Mom’s early warning systems alerted her to a background noise she had never heard. It came from me and my sister, Sherry, who was five.

    First, some background info.
    My Mom, like many moms of the 1950s and ‘60s, dreamed of owning an Electrolux vacuum. It was the Cadillac of cleaners, expensive, well-built and possessed the horsepower to clean up after eight Pfiffers. It could have used this ad slogan “Cleaning up after the Pfiffers sucks. Electrolux provides that suction.”
    Mom and Dad saved for months to buy an Electrolux canister vacuum with nifty attachments and an extra-long cord. The chrome-trimmed metal vacuum resembled a scuba tank on its side, mounted on pencil-thick wire runners. Its sleek and aerodynamic curves exuded industrial sucking power. One end had the sucking hole and the other end had the blowing hole. The hose was made of thick upholstery-like material. An internal replaceable paper bag trapped the dirt.
    The Electrolux was in our home for a few days when Sherry and I decided to give it the PPDT or “Pfiffer Product Durability Test.”
    We attached the hose to the blowhole, stuck the other end in the toilet bowl water, and blew it into a bubbling boil, leaving us giggling with delight.
    Mom heard the laughter, smiled and thought “Apparently Jim hasn’t started teasing his sister,” and went on with her housework.
    Our product tests were strict. That’s why we tested both ends of the vacuum. We inserted the hose into the end that sucks and dropped the other end into the toilet water.
    We fell back and rolled on the Pine-Sol-scented linoleum floor in fits of belly-holding laughter as the Electrolux sucked up the water in swirling seconds.    
    The crazy mixed sounds of howling laughter and sucking liquid caught Mom’s attention and sent her racing to the bathroom.
    She burst into the bathroom, saw what we were doing, yanked the plug out of the wall, and instinctively hugged us in maternal relief that we had not been electrocuted by the Electrolux. Once she was sure that we were OK, her instincts gave way to irked reality when she realized we had ruined her prized vacuum.
    She yelled at us and grounded us for so long that I just got ungrounded last week. Really.
    Eight Pfiffer kids generated a lot of stupid stunts. Mom and Dad suffered way too many “scary/relieved/angry/gray hairs” incidents because of us. We’re all still here, thanks to their keen senses that sensed when we were being senseless.
    Good job, Mom and Dad.
    P.S. There was a popular TV variety show back then called, “Art Linkletter,” which featured a segment called “Kids say the darndest things.” Our home version was “Kids do the dumbest things.”
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
     
     
  3. JIm Pfiffer

    A Bit About Bitcoins

    By JIm Pfiffer,

    Bitcoins are the latest trendy investment opportunity, thanks to viral stories about people becoming overnight Bitcoin millionaires.
    Bitcoins are one of more than 1,500 cryptocurrencies on the market, with names like Dogecoin, Solana and Ethereum (which sounds like a radioactive element used to make A-bombs or it’s a part of the human body.)

    You’re probably wondering if you should get in on this speculative mania and invest in cryptocurrency. Well wonder no more. I will explain cryptocurrency in a Q&A format:
    Q: Just what the hell is a Bitcoin, anyway?
    A: There’s no need to swear. This is a family column. To answer your question, no one really knows for sure. It’s a virtual currency that is generated by computers (called “mining”), doesn’t exist in a physical form and isn’t backed by a government, bank or individual. It’s a mathematically expressed entity, like Pi, and is not a coin that you hold in your hand.
    Q: WTF? Then how does it have value? I sure could go for a piece of pie right about now. Apple is my favorite.
    A: It’s not that kind of pie, muttonhead. A Bitcoin has value because people say it does, like baseball cards, Beanie Babies and non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. (It’s fun to say “non-fungible.” Go ahead. Try it). BTW, don’t think that I don’t see that you are swearing in initials. Knock it off.
    Q: Dude. Take a nerve pill and chill. I’ll stop cussing, I promise. Just answer my question. Why is it called “Bitcoin?”
    A: Because Bitcoin exists in virtual reality, it’s a perplexingly, confusing and nebulous entity. It was initially hated by the public, and was going to be called “shitcoin,” but the PR people said it would be best to shorten it to “Bitcoin.”
    Q: I hear that Bitcoins can’t be traced back to their owners and are frequently used to buy drugs and other contraband.
    A: That is correct. Are you thinking about online drug dealing?
    Q: What? Are you, a cop?
    A: No, but I don’t want my column to encourage illegal behavior. I advise you not to engage in any illegal online activities.
    Q: I didn’t ask for your advice, now did I, poopy head? (That’s not swearing).  How are the coins ‘mined,’ and have any of the mines ever caved in?
    A: OMG! You’re dumb! The coins are not mined, like gold and silver, you imbecile. Mined is a term used to describe the process of using powerful computer networks and advanced software to solve mathematical problems to create the coins.
    Q: I’m not dumb. I’m uninformed, but not dumb. So, chill out with the constant dissin.’ Are you talking about math problems like “if a train leaves Chicago going 65 mph and another train leaves NYC going 65 mph on the same tracks, how long will it take before they collide, and is that why no one rides trains anymore?”
    A: OMG No! We’re talking complicated algorithms and intricate mathematical equations. I have a question for you: when will the van be arriving to take you back to the home?
    Q: That’s real funny. Haven’t heard that since fourth grade, old man. What the h-e-double-hockey-sticks are algorithms?”
    A: Again, with the weakly veiled cussing? If you don’t quit it, we’re going to end this column right now. Do you understand? Meantime, why don’t you Google it instead of making me do all the work.
    Q: I Goggled it, and it said mining involves “validating cryptocurrency transactions on a blockchain and adding them to a distributed ledger, thereby preventing the double-spending of digital currency on a distributed network.”
    A: There. You have your answer, but I doubt you understand all those big words. People like you really cinch up my BVDs. You’re so quick to go to a “frequently asked questions” format instead of looking up the answers yourself. Jerk!
    Q: Whatever dude. Get a life. Listen, I need to know if bitcoins are like real coins. Can I hold them in my hands?
    A: No numbnuts, they’re not. I answered that question several paragraphs ago. Do me a favor and put the bong down until we’re done. Jackass.
    Q (coughing heavily): Oh-oh! You swore. I’m tellin.’ And how do you know the condition of my nuts? Perv! Tell me, are Bitcoins a good investment?
    A: For your information, “Jackass” isn’t swearing. I’ll answer your “gotta be kidding me” question with a question: Do you think it’s prudent to invest in a commodity that you can’t see or touch, isn’t backed up by a government or bank, isn’t accepted by businesses and industries, is used by drug dealers, and no one understands how it works, where it comes from or where it’s stored?
    Q: Why do you have to be such a jerk? I get the picture. I don’t need some dipshit, two-bit writer, explaining it to me, okay shithead?
    A: That’s it! I warned you. I’m done! Outta here!
    Q (to you readers): Do you think he’s really gone or is still listening in to hear what we say behind his back? If he is, hear this, you pompous prick: You think you’re some hot-shot writer, well you’re not. My third-grade daughter can write better than you and probably color better than you, too. So, I say good-bye. Good night. Good riddance.
    A: F—k you!
    Q: I told you he was eavesdropping. LOL!
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
     
  4. JIm Pfiffer
    It’s the slap felt ‘round the world and discussed ‘round the clock.
    Will Smith’s roundhouse smack of Chris Rock during the Oscars reveals one of the hazards of being a humorist.
    What Will did was wrong and inexcusable. Yes, Chris cracked a bad joke, but it didn’t deserve him being sucker smacked on live TV. I worry that this incident will encourage others to go slap-happy on comedians and humorists if they don’t like the words they say or write. I don’t want to have to wear a mouthguard and Everlast protective headgear when I’m out in public. Hell, I’m lookin’ over my shoulder enough, as it is.
    I’ve never been slapped, hit or otherwise assaulted for anything I’ve written.
    What comes out of my maw, is another story. I’ve been slapped, punched, kicked, hair-pulled and doused with assorted cocktails for many of the dumb and wise-ass words I’ve voiced.
    It taught me the number one hard rule of comedy: It’s ALWAYS at the expense of someone or something. Humor pokes fun. It insults. It harpoons life with lampoons. To do so ALWAYS requires a goat. That is the essence of the sense of humor. Even the simple groan-inducing pun has a goat, and that’s the listener.
    Humor is a complex phenomenon that can’t easily be explained. We laugh because we feel superior during humorous or unexpected situations. That’s why we laugh when we see someone trip and fall or get hit in the crotch with a baseball. We know it hurts and is embarrassing because we’ve probably experienced the same gaff. The laughter brings needed levity and stress relief to an otherwise serious situation.
    It's all based on one’s sense of humor.
    Unfortunately, not everyone has the same sense of humor. Some poor saps have none. They are easy to spot as they are forever proclaiming that they possess “a great sense of humor.”
    Your sense of humor is like your sense of taste. I don’t like garbanzo beans. You may love them. It doesn’t mean that you are or I am any less of a person because of it. We just have different tastes. But that doesn’t stop people from believing that there must be something terribly wrong, for example, with anyone who eats raw oysters.
    “How can you eat that crap?” they ask with such incredulous disdain that they infer that the mollusk lover eats shit.
    Will Smith has a sense of humor, how else could he have done the “Wild Wild West?”
    But his sense isn’t as expansive as Mr. Rock’s. It has limits. Its boundary, the line you don’t cross, ends with making fun of his wife, who lost her hair due to a medical condition.
    Those property lines are where humor runs into trouble and morphs into “I don’t get it,” “I don’t think that’s funny,” “I’m getting pissed” and “KER-SMACK!!!!”
    The joke goats will laugh as long as they see the humor in the joke. When they can’t, they headbutt.
    Surveying, understanding and respecting those boundaries affect your sense of humor.
    Upset readers have told me “You stepped over the line with that last column. You went too far.”
    I stepped over THEIR line. My comedic property lines extend way beyond those of most people. They’re cosmic in acreage.
    Those endless boundaries let me find humor endlessly, which is important, given all the dumb things I say and do. I laugh them off. It makes life more fun and protects my fragile and aging male ego.
    Unfortunately, political correctness, cancel culture and wokeness make it more difficult, and now, hazardous, for us to express our thoughts, ideas, slants on life and sense of humor.
    You have a right to criticize my writing and my humor and explain to me how and why it offends you. That’s freedom of speech. Most writers and comedians want public feedback, good and bad.
    But that feedback doesn’t include violence, or a punchline will become just that.
    If my writing ever makes you so angry that you want to strike me, at least give me a heads-up so I can don my mouthpiece and headgear.
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, Twin Tiers Life.com, and Twin Tiers Living.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper.
     
  5. JIm Pfiffer
    I love trees. They are pillars of strength, patience and longevity. They help clean the air and water and build our homes. When I need to ponder problems or recharge my batteries I do so beneath the peaceful shade and comfort of trees. They do so much for us. The health of Earth and our lives depend on them. That’s why I share the following letter from a tree regarding climate change.
    Dear Humans,
    Hot enough for you? It’s going to get worse. You’re shattering record high temperatures around the world leading to droughts, wildfires, floods and rising sea levels like never before.
    Why? Because of global warming. You’re doing little to nothing to stop it. Worse, many of you insist that it doesn’t exist. Wake up and smell the pine needles.
    We can help you. We’re taking in and storing the global-warming carbon that you exhale and produce by burning fossil fuels. Get this. When we die, we release much of that stored carbon back into the ever-warming atmosphere.
    We’re your ticket (made of foil, of course) to helping reduce global warming.
    We grow most everywhere and thrive in some of the harshest conditions on Earth. There are 60,000 species of our kind, but 30,000 of them are endangered. More than 440 of our species have fewer than 50 individuals left in the world. Yikes! That scares the leaves off of me.

    You think you run the show here on Earth. You don’t. Your legacy is laughably short compared with the more than 370 million years that we’ve been around.
    Life isn’t easy for us. We’re stuck where we take root. We can’t run from fires, escape gypsy moths or move to a new neighborhood when you send in the bulldozers.
    We do so much for you. We produce the oxygen you breathe. Your civilizations were built with our wood for homes, businesses, furniture, boardwalks and pine coffins. We give you fruit, nuts, maple syrup, turpentine, medicines and even pine tar for your ash baseball bats. Want to hang a tire swing, build a treehouse for your kids or make a bark canoe? You need a tree.
    Our roots clean your water, slow erosion and reduce flooding. We provide free windbreaks and snow fences. Our leaves filter air pollutants, provide shade and release water vapor into the air to cool hot streets and cities. We filter the air, pump nutrients into the soil and reduce noise pollution. Birds, animals and insects need us for homes, food and protection.
    We helped Newton discover gravity, tested Eve’s devotion to God and gave you a diagramed framework for your family tree. Our natural beauty calms your emotions, soothes your mental health and empowers your spirit. We inspire poetry and music and happily sit still for landscape paintings. Done so for thousands of years. 
    If not for the “spreading chestnut tree,” where would the “village smithy” stand. We do all this, and you repay us by polluting the Earth and doing dumb things, like cutting us down to make paper and then writing “Save the trees” on that paper. WTF?
    Who the hell came up with the brilliant idea to carve your initials in our bark? And why do you guys pee on us? Do you think we like that? How would you like it, if the next time you stood next to us, we squirted sticky sap all down your pant legs? Why the hell are you so puzzled about a tree falling in the woods and making a noise? Do you know what noise I fear the most? A chainsaw. Shakes me to my root hairs. 
    And don’t get me going about Christmas trees.
    We’ve dealt with Dutch Elm Disease, Gypsy Moths, blight, root rot, wilt, Spotted Lantern Flies, Emerald Ash Borers and more invasive insects than you can shake a stick at.
    Did you know that every 24 hours, 27,000 of my brethren are cut down to make toilet paper? That’s a real pain in my ash. (Yes, we have a sense of humor. How else, do you think we deal with you? 
    We’re not asking you to completely stop cutting us down. Just use common sense when doing so. Repay us by replanting us. We’re renewable. We have a saying among us: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is right now.
    We can’t force you to take real actions to reduce global warming. Our only defense is paper cuts? That ain’t going to work.
    We provide you with so much, improve the environment and assure the Earth’s future. Never mind hugging us. You should be taking us out to dinner. Instead, you pollute us, mow us down and slash and burn us into oblivion, when we can do so much to help reduce climate change.
    It doesn’t make sense.
    You got me stumped.
    Bewildering yours,
    A 250-year-old old oak tree
    Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
  6. JIm Pfiffer
    TV remotes are supposed to make life easier.
    Not mine.
    The remote in our home causes frustration, stress, marital strife and the throwing of things.
    The problems begin when we can’t find the remote. My wife, Shelley, and I  frantically search for it beneath cushions, furniture, piles of magazines and newspapers on the coffee table and under the dog if she is in the room. You never know.
    (For the record: Shelley doesn’t actually “help” look for the remote. Instead, she offers helpful verbal support, like “I’m not the last one who used it, am I?”)
    Shelley: You should see him when he can’t find it. He’ll look under the same cushions several times, just in case he didn’t see it the first three times. The longer he looks the worse he gets, but he won’t use the buttons on the TV set to turn it on. He must possess and control the remote. It makes him feel like he’s in charge. One time he looked for it for 20 minutes. I found it on the top shelf of the fridge where he had absent-mindedly left it when he got a snack.
    Me: First of all, why is she interrupting my column? I didn’t ask for her “alleged” side of the story. Now I must boldface “Shelley” and “Me,” so you know who is talking. See what I must put up with? And yes, I need to have control of the remote because I watch TV like it is supposed to be watched – multiple channels at once, never spending more than a few minutes on each, and changing it as soon as it gets boring. I have a keen ability to multi-task and do it well. Get this: Shelley watches ONE PROGRAM AT A TIME, including commercials! So wrong. So terribly wrong.
    Shelley: Multi-tasking, my foot. He has ADD.                   
    Me: There is a universal unwritten rule of home TV viewing that states that you must be in the room with the TV to officially be considered “watching” it, like when Shelley yells from another room, “Jim. Why did you change the channel? I was watching that.”
    Baloney. You can’t claim viewing and remote rights from another room. If you’re not in the TV room, the remote and TV programming control automatically goes to the person closest to the TV.  Gotta follow the rules, right?
    Shelley: We try to find programs or movies that we can watch together, but we have very different tastes in programming.
    Me: She’s right. We do have different tastes. Mine are good. Hers are bad.
    Shelley: He won’t watch anything unless it contains: sports, violence, car chases, explosions, John Wayne, people doing stupid stunts, nudity, or the possibility of nudity.
    Me: We have hundreds of channels and streaming services, and she watches the E Network, Lifetime, or educational and instructional programs. Can you believe it? She watches TV to learn!
    Shelley: Jim’s hearing is bad because he’s old and he spent his youth listening to loud music on his earphones. So, he must have captions and the volume turned up to “window-rattling.”  He gets so frustrated when he pushes the wrong remote buttons. That’s when I usually leave the room because I know things are going to get ugly.
    Me: Sometimes when I’m switching channels, I hit the wrong buttons and turn off the TV, or worse, change it to the Lifetime channel. One time I hit three buttons at once and my garage door opened. I have all these extra buttons that I don’t need. What I do need is a “mute” button that I can use to make my wife stop dissing me in this column.
    Shelley: Ladies, I have a tip for you if your husband is being a jerk. The next time he has a day off or plans to watch the big game, get out of the house. Take a walk, go to the movies or visit a friend.
    And take the remote with you.
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
     
  7. JIm Pfiffer
    Congratulations. You have survived another Christmas.
    Now, your only holiday responsibility is to start shopping for next year’s presents.
    As a kid, I enjoyed the day after, when I did important things:
    1.    Assemble, play with and become acquainted with all my neat presents.
    2.    Get one of my seven sibs to trade me one of their neat presents (two if they were an easy mark) for a sucky pair of white ring-top socks from Grandma, who gave me socks every year since my first Christmas. (She wanted to give them to me when I was in Mom’s womb, but I hadn’t yet developed feet).
    Today, the day after gives me time to look back and relive the excitement of a childhood Christmas in a large Catholic family.
    My holiday excitement began the night before when we kids were expected to do the impossible – go to sleep. My body was electric with “can’t wait to see my presents” energy. I lay in bed with my mind dancing with images of toy cars, bikes, electric trains, cap guns and how I was going to talk my brother into a sock-related trade.
    For the record, we called them “presents,” not “gifts.” Gifts were for the upper class. Presents went to the middle class. 
    One Christmas eve I was so amped up I tried physical exertion to fall asleep. I did bedside calisthenics, pushups and used my pillow as a war club to beat my bed. My parents used gentle encouragement to coax us into slumber:
    “If you kids don’t quiet down up there and go to sleep, I’m going to start a fire in the fireplace so Santa can’t get in,” announced my parents.
    Mom and Dad tried to trick us into sleep, with advice like:
    “If you go to sleep, Christmas will come faster.”
    “Santa is still watching for bad kids.” 
    “Your father is going out to get an armload of firewood, better be asleep by the time he gets back.” 
    When I finally did achieve slumber, I would awaken around 3 or 4 a.m., still stoked and pumped. I go from bedroom to bedroom waking up my sibs so we could gather at the top of the stairs, jostling for pole position, eagerly awaiting our parents’ permission to go downstairs. Instead, our parents, who had been up all-night wrapping presents and assembling Schwinn bikes and Radio Flyer wagons told us:
    “Go back to bed. It’s not even light out! We’ll get you up in two hours.”
    When you’re a kid-in-waiting on Christmas morning, two hours lasts two weeks. It was like doing hard time in solitaire.  
    By the time the sun rose I had grown a beard and a foot taller. We again crowded the top of the stairs, my parents gave the go-ahead, and we flew downstairs, sometimes two and three steps at a time, and into the living room that was aglow with eight tall piles of neatly wrapped presents. 

    They didn’t stay wrapped for long. We commenced a frenzied hurricane of unwrapping that registered a 3.5 or 4.0 on the Richter Scale and often resulted in injured fingers, deep paper cuts and putting someone’s eye out. 
    Paper, ribbons, bows and name tags whirled about the room in chaos to eventually settle in a massive debris pile. This pile also contained mistakenly thrown out toy parts, batteries and toy instructions. One year, my little brother ended up in the pile and was thrown out with the trash. We didn’t know it until the next day when a neighbor phoned to say that there was a Hefty garbage bag with legs, wandering around our yard. Who knew?
    Christmas cards were ripped open, turned upside down and shaken to see if any cash fluttered out. If not, they were Frisbeed into the paper pile, which by now was spilling over into the dining room.
    If we opened a present that contained socks, mittens, underwear or any educational toy, they were flung over our shoulders. 
    Sometimes, in our manic craze, we would grab a present from a nearby sib’s pile and open it. This resulted in Christmas-spirited fist fights. We didn’t care. We had a whole year ahead of us to be good and make up for it.
    After the unwrapping, we scanned each other’s toy piles to see who had more or less than the others. That’s how you tell how much your parents love you, but the size of your pile, right?
    We were so overjoyed with our new toys, we often forgot about a second treasure trove of joy: stockings hanging from the chimney with care. My stocking always bulged with a favorite present: A Life Saver display box that opened like a book and boasted 12 rolls of the sweet candy rings (Butter rum is my fav). 

    As an adult, I still get excited about Christmas morning, but the real joy comes in watching kids and grandkids rip into their presents. As I age, I realize that kids have one big advantage over adults. When kids open presents, they don’t like they can remark “This sucks!” or “Grandma needs to stop mixing her meds.””
    Adults, however, must pretend to like a bad gift by saying, “Ohhhh. Tube socks. Just what I wanted.”
     
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page and Twin Tiers Living.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper.
  8. JIm Pfiffer
    Tis the season to praise the pine.   I love Christmas trees. We bring the outdoors indoors to fill a home with Christmas cheer and spirit. I love to come downstairs in the morning to the refreshing scent of pine.   The Christmas tree is the holiday icon, like the turkey at Thanksgiving, the Easter Bunny at Easter and the blown off fingers on July 4th. I have a forest full of childhood memories of going out and cutting down our family Christmas trees. We didn’t buy from a tree farm or roadside stand. Hell no. We ventured out into nature to hunt and harvest a trophy tree in its natural habitat, like our forefathers, foremothers, forekids and forepets.   Mom and Dad loaded us eight kids into the station wagon to begin the hunt, which basically consisted of driving around until we spotted a stand of likely trophy trees near the road.   I don’t know whose land we were on, if was public, private or a toxic waste dump. It seems like we just cut trees from most anywhere we pleased -- forests, fields, golf courses and city parks.   As the station wagon pulled over, someone yelled “release the hounds!” and we kids poured out of the wagon before it came to a stop. We ran and scattered about in the snow hoping to be the first to find the Perfect Pfiffer Pine (AKA, the “Three Pees.).” Dad carried a hand saw and Mom toted blankets for warmth, Kleenex for runny noses and Valiums in case she needed them if we kids got out of hand with Christmas joy.   We enjoyed the winter outing by throwing snowballs, making snow angles and writing our names in the snow, at least the boys did. The girls lacked the balance and agility.   Christmas tree hunting was an exciting tradition that tightened the family ties and created sweet lifetime memories. The crisp winter air filled with the sounds of childhood laughter, Christmas songs and my little sister yelling “Mom! Tell Jim to stop trying to put pinecones up my nose!”   Mom was too busy downing a Valium and warning us “Don’t eat the snow. It’s got radiation in it.” Apparently, back then, there were so many A-bomb tests that the radiation drifted into the atmosphere and somehow radiated things like snow and milk. Eventually one of us kids would find the PPP and shout the ocean whaling equivalent of “Thar she blows!” by singing out “I found the PPP!” (This was an appropriate bellow, as you will soon see, the Christmas tree was Dad's white whale). We gathered around the tree studying it, walking around it, measuring it, tugging branches and giving it a good shaking looking for loose needles. No Charlie Brown trees for us.   If it was the PPP, Dad crawled under it in the snow and sawed it down, a process that apparently was more difficult than we kids imagined. If the tree trunk was especially difficult to get to or to saw, Dad would encourage its cooperation with torrid strings of totally un-Christmas-like words and phrases that melted the snow, while mumbling something about Moby-Dick.   I remember the first time Dad let me crawl under the tree with him and saw it down, a proud rite of passage in our family. I’ll never forget it, because, in my haste to topple the mighty spruce, I nearly sawed off his fingers. I also remember it being the last time Dad asked me to saw the tree.     We dragged the tree to the station wagon and lashed it to the roof with clothesline. The ends of the rope were slammed shut in the rear doors, with kids holding them tight like straps in a crowded subway car. When we got home, we dragged the tree into the house and discovered that it had magically grown two feet taller. It wouldn’t fit in the living room. Dad called it a “Christmas miracle.” Mom called it “Told you to bring a tape measure,” as she filled a glass with water to help with the Valium.   Dad trimmed the tree to interior dimensions, took a few deep breaths and steeled himself for the dreaded battle with the tree stand, or what we called the “mano a pineno” fight to the finish.   Science has yet to invent a sturdy and user-friendly Christmas tree stand that actually does what it’s supposed to do: keep the tree straight and upright. Many of our crooked Christmas trees that were held upright by broom sticks, fishing line attached to furniture or simply pushed tightly into a corner for wall support.   Dad’s annual holiday battle with the tree stand brought about another recital of adjectives one would never read in a Hallmark card., but are common in Herman Melville novels.   If you think about it, the Christmas tree tradition is a bit creepy. Let’s pretend that an alien lands on Earth and witnesses the Pfiffer family tree hunt. This is what he would see:   A herd of swarming Earthlings hunt down and surround a helpless tree that can’t run away. They saw it off, at its only foot, and let it bleed out. Next, they unceremoniously drag it through mud and snow, insult it further by roping it to the roof of a primitive internal-combustion conveyance, exposed to the elements, propel the vehicle and take the tree to their home base, drag the tree into the domicile, saw it and cut it some more, only to then place it on a pedestal to be brightly decorated and honored for weeks WTF?   While it may be an unusual custom, I still love it. I can honestly say that all our Christmas tree expeditions were fun, exciting and memorable, except for one time when we had to take my sister to the emergency room because she somehow got pinecones up her nose.   Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper.
  9. JIm Pfiffer
    When it comes to sports, we want more of everything – speed, scoring, tackles, slam dunks and car crashes. Major league baseball has few if any of these. The game is slow, boring and loses fans every day.
    Baseball is like us Baby Boomers, the older we get the slower we get. If the game gets any slower, it will go backwards. Games will end in negative scores.
    Today’s average nine-inning Major League Baseball game takes three hours and 10 minutes, and only 18 minutes of that is actual play.
    Fans like fast-paced action at the speed of light. Baseball is played at the speed of smell. If it doesn’t change soon, it will become more boring than soccer. That’s why Major League Baseball is trying to improve and speed up the game.
    It can start by ending the big lie called the World Series. This end-of-season playoff doesn’t include teams from around the world, but only teams in North America.
    That’s one of the reasons that the sport is losing fans, interest and ratings.
    Here’s an idea, make the game affordable for fans. For a family of four to afford a trip to the ballpark, they must refinance their home, cash in their life insurance, visit a loan shark and win the lottery, and that just covers parking costs.
    It doesn’t help that greedy owners and players regularly delay the season, like the recent 99-day lockout, demanding more money because they can’t possibly live on mere multi-million-dollar salaries. The poor things are forced to own used Ferraris and Lamborghinis instead of brand-new rides. So sad.
    The sport is trying to re-brand itself, become more exciting, and stop its waning appeal with fans. 
    The sport is experimenting with pitch clocks, removing the defensive player shift and letting runners use the relief pitcher golf carts to run the bases. (I made up that last one, but wouldn’t it be an exciting game if the baserunners could use a speeding cart to mow down the second baseman and stop the double play?)
    Here are a dozen more ideas to make the game more exciting:
    1.   Batters can hit the ball off a tee or toss it in the air and hit it, or just throw it wherever the hell they want.
    2.   Every fielder has a ball and can get the runner out by throwing it at him and hitting him like kickball.
    3.   Once a team is ahead by more than 10 runs, all of the team’s batters must stand the bat upright on the ground, put their forehead on the bat knob, and spin around it ten times before batting.
    4.   If a fan catches a foul ball, the batter is out.
    5.   Narrow the outfield warning track to 5-feet-wide to make for more fun and exciting player collisions with the wall that can be shown on the “Ridiculousness” TV show.
    6.   If a pitcher purposely plunks a batter, the batter can stand a few feet away from the pitcher and throw a fastball into the pitcher’s crotch.
    7.   Each team manager controls the outfield sprinklers and can turn them on when an opposing player is running to make a catch.
    8.   When the kiss cam points to a player he must immediately run into the stands and kiss the nearest person to him, be it a man, woman, child, usher, mascot or baseball commissioner Manfred (if it is Manfred, he must be kissed on the mouth).
    9.   Batters can doctor their bats by stuffing them with Superballs, springs and plastic explosives.
    10. Baserunners caught in a rundown can use two fingers, to poke infielders in the eyes, ala the Three Stooges.
    11. Everyone loves fireworks. Each player gets one bottle rocket that he can use, any time during the game or warmups to fire at opposing players who are batting, running bases or fielding balls.
    12.  Baserunner must chug a beer and eat a hot dog at each base before advancing to the next base.
    Bonus idea: Every time there is a player strike or owner lockout, all fans get free game passes, one for each day of the work stoppage.
    I’m sure you readers have ideas on how to improve the game. Share them on the comments site on this page.
    If Major League Baseball doesn’t incorporate some of my suggestions soon, it will be going, going gone.
     
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and Twin Tiers Living.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
     
  10. JIm Pfiffer
    I’ve had pet dogs all my life. They are loyal, playful and great companions. I’ve learned a lot from my canine friends and discovered that they have their own set of social rules and norms. Below are some of those rules:
    Toilet bowl cocktails should never be served before 4 p.m. and always remember to put the seat up. Never wear those silly dog sweaters. If your owner insists that you do, run away. Run Spot, run! If you unexpectedly pass gas, blame the cat. When walking on a leash and you see a squirrel, always wait until there is no traffic before violently yanking your master’s shoulder out of the socket and pulling him into the street while giving chase.  During social gatherings, refrain from talking about your “bad case of worms.” Bad dog! It’s never acceptable to say, “It’s a dog-eat-dog-world,” even in jest.  When riding in a car, bring paper towels to wipe your nose prints off the window. If you stick your head out the front passenger window to enjoy the rushing air, make sure no one sits in the rear passenger seat with the window down because your slobber will splatter all over their face. Remember, all breeds of dogs are created equal – except those annoying yapping poodles. If your wagging tail accidentally knocks over someone’s drink, it’s acceptable to use a cat or poodle to wipe up the spill. Good boy! Pointing is acceptable when hunting pheasants or grouse, but not in social settings. Never lick yourself and then lick your master’s face. After your master bathes you and brushes and trims your fur, it is acceptable to find some stinking garbage or dead animal to roll in. When on a date, the male dog should always let the female dog select the rotting and festering dead animal carcass. It’s okay to run away if you hear your owner spell any of these words: “b-a-t-h, v-e-t and n-e-u-t-e-r.” To not embarrass your master, when on a walk and you have to poop, wait until your master is looking the other way and pretending that he has no idea what you are doing. Good girl! When out on the town with friends, don’t act like a pack of wild dogs. Remember, we’re domesticated. Sit! Stay! If you accidentally soil the carpet, blame the cat. Blame the cat for everything. When a human scratches your belly, be sure to respond with that cute and allegedly uncontrollable “rapid leg thumping.” It will likely get you a few biscuits. Rollover! When your master tries to hide pills in your food, it is acceptable to spit them out, but be sure to cover your mouth to avoid spreading germs and bad dog breath. No matter how mean your master may be, seeing eye dogs should never ever walk them into utility poles, not even on a double-dog-dare.  Don’t race to the door barking every time the doorbell rings, because it’s hardly ever for you. Stay! When in doubt, sniff it, pee on it and walk away. When your master comes in the house, even if he has been away for a few minutes, excitedly wag your tail, bark, jump around and lick his face like you haven’t seen him for seven dog years (It may get you a belly rub and a biscuit). Your bark may be worse than your bite, but your farts are lethal. Go lay down!  If you are in obedience school, never use the excuse “I ate my homework.” When on a dinner date, and you’re not sure which fork is your salad fork, don’t worry. Real dogs don’t eat salad. Never ever attend a flea market. Duh!  Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and ElmiraTelegram.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
  11. JIm Pfiffer

    Fluff Enough

    By JIm Pfiffer,

    Here is a generational trivia question:
    “What is the name of a sandwich made of peanut butter and marshmallow spread?
    If you answered “Fluffernutter,” you are likely a Boomer reminiscing about your favorite childhood food. The Fluffernutter is a gooey, sweet marshmallow spread layered atop peanut butter between two slices of white bread to produce a “roof-of-the-mouth” sticking treat.
    Fluffernutter is finally getting the recognition it deserves, as it was recently included in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. You know you have reached the pinnacle of sandwich stardom when you make it in Merriam-Webster.
    Those 7.5-ounce jars of thick, sticky and sugary “Fluff,” were invented by Archibald Query, who sold it door-to-door in Somerville, Mass in 1917. He later sold the business for $500 to the Durkee Mower Company in Lynn, Mass. Today their factory makes eight million pounds of the white stuff annually, or 1,066,666,666 jars. (Damn! There’s plenty of the devil in that number).

    Peanut butter is what gives the sandwich its nutter flavor. It’s not surprising, because peanut butter, like bacon, makes everything taste better. You could spread peanut butter or bacon on foam packing peanuts and they would become a top selling snack.
    You could spread Fluff on bacon, and it would become a top selling source of artery clogging plaque.
    I wasn’t a big Fluffernutter fan. I didn’t like the texture, nor that fact that “Fluff” was so bright white that it must have been created by a mad scientist in a laboratory and contained some type of plastic polymers. It was so white it hurt your eyes to look at it. Even Elmer’s glue is less white than Fluff.
    The few times I ate Fluffernutters were at sleepovers or when there was nothing else in the house to make into a sandwich. Some of my sibs ate Fluff directly out of the jar with their fingers. They didn’t want to have to wash a knife.
    I did enjoy using Fluff for practical jokes, like the time I put some in my sister’s bottle of hair conditioner (She’s still trying to get it out of her hair, today).
    It also made a great adhesive when we ran out of paste or glue.
    Fluffernutters reminded me of the unusual sandwiches my seven siblings and I munched on as kids. Back then, there were few, if any, artisan bread bakers. We ate Stroehmann’s sliced white bread that had all the nutritional value of a claw hammer.
    Sometimes, we cut our sandwiches diagonally, and I swear they tasted better. When we wanted to appear sophisticated, we cut them into four small triangles.
    I had a few wussy picky-eater friends who didn’t like bread crusts and their moms would cut away the crusts. Those kids got beat up a lot in school.
    You can tell a lot about people by the sandwich they eat:
    1. Wealth: French’s yellow mustard vs Grey Poupon Dijon Mustard.
    2. Taste: Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise vs Miracle Whip.
    3. Education: BLT vs GED.
    4. Desperation: Bacon or Beggin’ Strips Bacon Flavor Dog Treats.
    5. Location: According to Google, Fluff isn’t popular west of the Mississippi (apparently it doesn’t have the right immigration papers to cross the river).
    My sibs and I created sandwiches with most anything we could find in the cupboards and fridge, including: butter and white sugar, Capn’ Crunch and butter, imitation maple syrup, honey, Hershey’s syrup, jellies, jams and preserves, potato chips, barbecue chips, and when desperate, poker chips. (That’s what happens in a large family with card-playing parents).
    My dad showed us how to use white radishes and cucumbers, fresh from the garden, to make sandwiches with butter or mayonnaise. I loved peanut butter and banana or apple slices sandwiches.
    We even made bread sandwiches – a slice of Stroehmann’s between two slices of Stroehmann’s. When we tired of that, we rolled the bread into a ball and kneaded it in our hands to later be enjoyed as a handy snack or a Nerf-like projectile.
    I’m curious to know what your favorite sandwiches were. Let me know in the comment section below this column.
    While you are at it, let me know if you have any tips to help my sister get that Fluff out of her hair.
     
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper.
  12. JIm Pfiffer
    As you probably know by now, this year is the 50th anniversary of the devastating flood of ’72. You know this because the media loves over-reporting on the anniversaries of historically terrible events, like natural disasters, wars and the Jerry Springer show.
    Not everything flood-related was bad. It helped me get a job as a bartender and
    bouncer.
    The bar was the Pub, located at the site of today’s Southport Town Hall in Bulkhead. It was owned by a sweetheart of a woman, the late Ann Savino, and was one of a few taverns in the region that didn’t get flooded, making it one of the hottest bars in town.
    Every night, the place was packed with people drinking 25-cent Miller drafts, grooving to Sly and the Family Stone on the jukebox, eating cheeseburgers and French fries from the grill, and sharing flood stories.
    Back then, the legal drinking age was 18. The place became so popular and so crowded with young people that Ann turned to me for some help.
    “Pfif, we’re having a problem with a lot of underage kids coming in here,” she told me. “You seem to know everyone. How would you like a job checking proof at the door for $2 an hour and free drinks?”
    I accepted the offer and hugged her with “I can’t believe it” thanks before she finished her sentences.
    There was one small problem.
    I was only 17 and about to start my senior year at Southside High School.
    Ann thought I was 18, because I had shown her a fake ID my first time in the bar. Yes, I know it was wrong for me to use a fake ID, but you have to remember, it was the summer of the flood I was only 17 and I had no moral compass.
    I wasn’t going to let that minor detail get in the way of my responsibility to see that no underage guests got through the door.
    So, there I was, all skinny 140 pounds of me, sitting on a bar stool, next to the open door, a rum and coke with lime in my hand and ready to proof anyone who looked as young as me.
    I was on top of the world, controlling who got in and who didn’t at one of the most popular night spots in town — I let in the pretty girls and threw out their boyfriends—while enjoying free drinks and getting paid for it.
    This resulted in some interesting encounters, like this:
    Me: “Hold it there, buddy. I need to see ID.”
    Customer: “You’re kidding, right? Hell, you’re not 18. Let ME see YOUR ID!”
    Me: “That’s the wrong thing to say to a bouncer. You’re outta here, pal. And don’t come back until you’re of age.”
    Most of the time, the underage wannabes left without issue. Sometimes they wouldn’t leave without a fight. A good bouncer prevents fights.
    I wasn’t a good bouncer. When challenged, I stood my ground. I had three things
    going for me regarding my self-defense abilities.
    I was crazy.
    I knew how to wrestle and box.
    I was crazy.
    Back then, we settled our differences with fists, not guns, knives or drive-bys. The fights were short and rarely resulted in serious injuries, except for one’s ego. For me, the summer of the flood made my life like that of a razor, always in hot water or a scrape. 
    When I wasn’t checking ID and dodging punches, I was behind the bar, learning how to pour a good draft and mix a tasty cocktail. Back then, mixed drinks were popular and they had crazy names like “Grasshopper,” “Harvey Wallbanger,” “Singapore Sling,” and “Rudy Giuliani.” 
    Thankfully, I had an “Old Mr. Boston” bar book that listed the ingredients for almost every cocktail.
    During one really busy night, an impatient guy was pounding his fist on the bar for me to get his order. I told him to take a nerve pill and that I would be with him as soon as I could.
    When that time came, I asked him what he wanted, and replied “I want an American Quarter.”
    I didn’t know how to make an American Quarter, so I got out the bar book and turned to the “A” section, scanning it for the recipe.
    “What the hell are you doing now?” he asked with impatient scorn.
    “I’ve only been bartending for a few weeks. I don’t know all the drinks so I’m looking yours up to see how to make it. So, cut me a break, okay?”
    “What are you talking about?” he said as he held up a quarter in his fingers. “This Canadian quarter doesn’t work in the cigarette machine. I need an American quarter.”
    The flood not only got me a cool job but it taught me three important skills:
    How to make a perfect martini.
    2. How to duck a punch.
    3. How to do a foreign currency exchange.
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and Elmira Telegram.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
  13. JIm Pfiffer
    Russia is at it again, threatening to invade another country. This time its Ukraine.
    This happens whenever Russian “President-for-eternity” Vladimir V. Putin, feels that the world doesn’t fear him enough. He threatens to invade and take over some smalltime third world country that you and I couldn’t find on a map.
    Vladi (that’s what all his friends call him, both of them) likes to shoot selfies of him going bare-chested and riding around on a horse or engaging in other manly activities like hunting, fishing and poisoning political opponents.
    To prove that he’s serious, about Ukraine, Vladi recently shot selfies of himself riding atop a tank, while not wearing a shirt or PANTS!
    Whenever Russia threatens the world, it brings back frightening memories of my childhood at Ridgebury Elementary School, in Ridgebury, Pa., in the early 1960s. I was taught that the Russians were our enemy and a threat to world peace.
    Back then, the Russians amassed armies all over the place, including outer space. Vladi was a child at the time, but that didn’t stop him from riding around on a toy Russian tractor, while not wearing diapers.
    We were in a “cold war” with Russia, which I thought meant fighting in Alaska and Siberia.
    They Russians replaced the Nazis as bad guys in our culture, from movies and books to TV shows. Even our cartoons featured evil black dressed Ruskie’s, like Boris Badenov and Natasha of Bullwinkle fame. (Loved that cartoon. Still do).
    Our fears of these warmongering devils reached a fevered pitch when they moved into Cuba with nuclear missiles. This sent America into full-blast, red alert “there goes the neighborhood” mode. This occurred in 1962 or ‘63, I’m not sure, because, like I said, I was in second or third grade and had trouble remembering my lunch money.
    The cold war suddenly got hot which resulted in a paradigm shift in American education. We went from multiplication drills to “duck and cover” drills, in case one of those missiles was aimed at Ridgebury Elementary School.
    We jumped under our desks, covered our heads with our arms and got our pants dirty, resulting in a nuclear scolding by Mom when I got home.
    The desks were supposed to protect us from flying glass. Hell with flying glass. I worried about the 5,000-degree shock wave and bone-melting radiation?

    Those drills, and the howling sound of the air raid sirens, scared the hell out of me. I had seen too many of the grainy black-and-white film clips showing nuclear explosions reducing houses to molecules and making pine trees sway back and forth before bursting into flames.
    The Civil Defense Corps. produced a PSA cartoon to teach the duck and cover. It starred, Bert The Turtle, a seemingly slow-witted bowtie- and pith helmet-wearing character that ducked into his shell at the first sign of a mushroom cloud. It didn’t make sense. I didn’t have a shell to crawl into, and if I did, I probably get yelled at for ripping out the knees of my pants while doing the crawl.
    As I cowered under my desk, I remember thinking, “How in hell (kids swore a lot back then) is this flimsy gum-wadded desk going to save me from a nuclear blast?”
    Hiding in a fetal position under my desk raised several questions:
    “Why would Russia want to blow up Ridgebury Elementary school? Are there missile silos hidden under the playground?”
    “Why isn’t my teacher under her desk? Probably because if this was a real nuclear attack, she and the rest of the s—thead teachers (see what I mean about swearing?) would run to a secret faculty bomb shelter and leave us kids to fend for ourselves. Bastards!”
    “Maybe if I tell Mom I got my pants dirty when I fell on the playground I won’t get yelled at.”
    But back to the Cuban missiles. From what I can remember President Kennedy and Cuban Leader Fidel “patchy beard” Castro decided to settle the issue like real men, by standing face-to-face until one of them blinked, making the other man the winner. They were originally going to play “rock, paper, scissors,” but Castro said he wasn’t good at it, because rocks, paper and scissors were among the many supplies that Cuba never had enough of.
    Castro blinked first and lost. He later claimed it was because his cigar smoke got in his eyes. (Lyin’ commie!).
    Today school kids have it just as bad. The A-bomb drills have been replaced with “lockdown drills,” were frightened kids huddle in a darkened corner behind locked doors because an armed intruder is in the school shooting people.
    Such fears should never be a part of a kid’s life. We live in troubled times. Covid hasn’t made it any easier. We need a hero to make life safe and fun again.  
    I have the perfect candidate.
    Rocky the Flying Squirrel.
     
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
  14. JIm Pfiffer
    As we stumble into a third year of COVID we are more confused, uncertain, worn out and frustrated than ever. We think we’re beating the virus, then we’re not, then we are and then a new one comes along and we’re back to square one, we don’t pass Go and we don’t collect $200. We’re living our own “Groundhog Day” movie.
    As for helpful COVID information and advice, we might as well use a Ouija Board or Magic 8 Ball, instead of listening to the alleged experts.
    Who do we believe? Should I take advice from the CDC, FDA, AMA, WHO, WHAT, WHERE or WHEN?Why do the recommendations keep changing and contradicting each other? I expect the CDC to soon release this message: “Do the opposite of whatever we told youthe last week, but it really doesn’tmatter, because no one pays attention, anyway.”
    COVID has turned our lives into an eternity of questions.
    Do the kids go to school or doremote learning, and what if we can’t find the remote because it fell down between the couch cushions? If I send my kids to school, will I have to drive the school bus?
    If I have to isolate at home cooped up with the kids, like last year, I’ll go insane and need rabies shots tocalm me down.  
    Do I need to test every time I get a cough or get a headache? Are the tests accurate, and if so, which ones are the best? Where do I get them? What about a “false positive?” or a “little white lie negative?” 
    Which vaccine is the best: Moderna, Pfizer or J&J? How about a PB&J? Right arm of left arm? (At least I don’t have to drop my pants). How many shots do I need? Can I mix them? Damn, my arm is sore. Can I still get the virus if I get my shots, and do I need to wear a mask? I heard that the vaccines containmicrochips, potato chips and poker chips. Is that true?
    Are we going to be dealing with a new variant every few months, how the hell do you pronounce “Omicron” and who named it? It sounds like a company that makes robots. Its slogan: “We’re Omicron. Spreading around the globe and never going away.”
    Mask advice is the worst. Cloth, paper or plastic? Homemade, store-bought or picked up off the street? How many layers? What about those plastic face shields that make you look you’re going to weld something? 
    Should the mask cover my mouth and nose? I read on Facebook that the virus can enter your body through your ears, eyes and evenyour butt. (Do I have to wear a mask there, too?)
    We don’t have to wear masks in private unless we’re with several people or doing a home invasion. Can I use the virus as an excuse to stay physically distanced from people because I hate their guts?
    What about restaurants and bars?  Why do we have to wear a mask when we go in, but not when we sit down? Maybe the virus can’t infect seated people. (Probably because it can’t enter through their butts).
    Is it OK to sneeze into my mask or should I sneeze into my elbow or the elbow of the person nearest me? 
    I found this observation online: “Masks are like bras: they’re uncomfortable, you only wear them in public and nobody notices until you take them off.”
    Do I have to stand 6 feet away, or 3 feet away and I don’t want to stand on some stupid footprint stickers on the floor.
    Have you heard of the “15-minute rule, where you should not talk with anyone face-to-face for more than 15 minutes? Does that mean you can end the conversation in 14 minutes, leave, return and continue the conversation for another 14 minutes? 
    How often should I wash my hands? Do I use soap or hand sanitizer and why do they put those useless hand blow dryers in public bathrooms that turn off before your hands are dry, so you have to wipe them on your pants?
    What about wearing latex gloves, L.L. Bean winter gloves or boxing gloves? If I wear boxing gloves? If can I punch the guy in the airline seat next to me who isn’t wearing a mask and keeps breathing his stinking alcohol and cigarette soiled breath on me?
    Can I get COVID from touching stair railings, doorknobs or myself? Is it OK to touch elbows, do fist bumps and mimed handshakes? Will I ever be able to hug people again? Should I wear one of those plastic Queen Ann-style dog collars so I can’t keep touching my face? 
    What about kerchiefs, plastic face shields, coffee filters, panty liners, holding your hand over your mouth or wearing a Darth Vader facemask and helmet?
    I can deal with what we’re calling the “new normal,” but not when it keeps changing. That’s not normal. This uncertainty is the new normal, because we are not going to completely wipe out the virus, but must live with it indefinitely.
    Of that, I’m certain.
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper. 
  15. JIm Pfiffer
    Summertime means fishing time on the Chemung River. Mark Twain spent many summers in Elmira writing about Huck and Tom, and most likely fishing the river when he needed to clear his mind of writer’s block. If Huck and Tom were here today, I bet we would witness something like this:
    The scene: Huck and Tom are sitting on a grassy bank on the Chemung River, the sun warming their backs, long stems of grass dangling from their mouths, straw hats on their heads and cane poles in their hands.
    Huck: “I sure am glad we played hooky today and went fishin’.”
    Tom: “Me too. Fishin’ is powerful and more enjoyable when you’re not supposed to be doin’ it, but supposed to be doin’ somethin’ that ain’t a lick of fun, like readin’ and ‘rithmatic.”
    Huck: “You speak the truth, mostly, Tom, but dang my luck, the catfish ain’t bitin’ today. I ain’t had so much as a nibble. Do you reckon my worm is done drowned by now?
    Tom: Best way to find out is to lift your hook out of the water and take a look see.
    Huck (doing just that): “Well, blame it all! Ain’t nothin’ but a speck a worm left on my hook. Them sneaky fish done stole it bit by bit without so much as a tug on my line.”
    Tom: “It sure ain’t fun bein’ a worm. Have you ever wondered how worms came to be fishin’ bait? They are ugly and squirmy and you can’t tell the head from the tail nor what’s in between. But the fish sure like em. I wonder what a worm tastes like.”
    Huck: “My pap ate a worm once. Claims he was sufferin’ from the fantads and in need of a drink to settle his shivers and quivers. Said he ate a worm on a dare for two fingers worth of whiskey. Said a worm tasted like a worm and was easy to swallow, being all slick and slimy. Said he’d eat a pickle barrel full of em for a bottle of whiskey. Then he cuffed my ears a few times for askin’ bout such nonsense.’”
    Tom: “Why would a soul think a fish would be attracted to a worm, all drowned and droppy and hangin’ off a hook like a wet stocking draped over Aunt Polly’s clothesline. What must that man been a-thinking?”
    Huck: “Never mind what he was thinkin’. I wonder what the worm thought, gettin’ yanked out of his home, impaled mid-body with a hook and then throwed in the river for the fish to have at it, piece by piece.”
    Tom: “I never seen it that way, but you’re right as rain. The worm just mindin’ his business and he got evicted in a most violent manner, then thrown into a coffee can in a tangled wriggling ball of neighbors, in-laws, strangers and probably some worms he ain’t never got along with.”
    Huck: “Yeah, and we make the messy hookin’ ordeal easy on our minds by tellin’ ourselves that ‘worms can’t feel a tinge of pain, but we know better, cuz when that hook goes in, they writhe, squirm, wriggle about like water on a hot skillet.”
    Tom: “Then we toss them in the river, where they try with all their worm worthiness to tread water for as long as possible, but even the most ignorant being known that’s worms can’t tread water for long. It’s a good thing worms can’t talk cuz if they could I dare say they would let out a fiery string of cuss words that could stop a river in its bed.”

     
    Huck: “Jim told me that, one time, he found a bewitched worm that could talk. The worm had once been a man, a man who was the grandest and most celebrated fisherman on the Chemung River. Fished it day and night, sun and rain and ice and snow. Said he knew every fishin’ hole, beaver dam and hidden snag. Said a water witch turned him into a worm cuz he trespassed on her island without her say so. Jim was about to hook that worm when it started begging and pleading with him to spare him. Promised he would tell Jim about the best fishing spot on the whole darned river, a place where the fish are so hungry and plentiful, you have to hide behind a tree just to bait your hook.”
    Tom: “So did Jim let that worm go free and discover the secret fishin’ hole?”
    Huck: “Nope. Before he could answer the worm, a big old catfish jumped clean out of the river and swallowed the worm, hook, line and cane pole in one big gulp, and dove back into the water faster than a lightnin’ bolt on the fourth of July.”
    Tom: “I sure would like to know the whereabouts of that secret fishin’ hole cuz the fish here are especially stubborn and ornery and won’t cooperate. I say we put away this fishin’ foolishness and go exploring on Clinton Island.”
    Huck: “That sounds like a right good adventure, and maybe we find some buried pirate treasure. What we gonna do with the rest of the worms, toss them in the river, like we usually do?”
    Tom: “No, I reckon that today we let those worms go free. Find them some good rich river silt where they can start a whole new worm village. You never know, there might be a talkin’ worm in there.”
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and ElmiraTelegram.com Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
  16. JIm Pfiffer
    When is technology going to invent an easy-to-use garden hose? I’ve tried them all: flat, round, expandable, indestructible, flexible, steel-coil, rubber, polyurethane and even pantyhose. They’re all difficult to use, heavy, stiff, cumbersome, kinky and a big pain in the grass.
    A hose full of water is heavy and stubborn. It fights me like an angry anaconda, wrapping its coils around my ankles and tripping me. I have to tug, lug and slug it around the yard to water my spring-planted grass seed. It retaliates by getting stuck under vehicle tires, knocking over flowerpots, sweeping toddlers off their feet and pinching itself around the corners of the garage.
    I respond by whipping it up and down, sending angry shock waves undulating along its length, trying to unkink the kinks and showing it who’s the boss. Instead, I knock over more flowerpots and occasionally my wife.
    The water-stopping kinks are always at the far opposite end of the hose, where I can’t see them. So, I have to backtrack along the hose until I find the kink, unkink it and help my wife to her feet.
    Meanwhile, because I forgot to turn off the nozzle, the unkinked water flow resumes, sending the nozzle bouncing around, careening off vinyl siding, a picnic table and spraying water through an open window, and all over my wife, who by now, is angrily marching to the garage to get a shovel to smack me in the head.
    Nozzles aren’t much better. They break easily and leak after a few uses, because their cheap washers are obviously made of sugar or some other water-soluble material.
    Nozzles have many settings, from “mist” to “biblical flood.” I mostly use the powerful “jet” setting that produces a laser-like stream that can blow grass clippings from sidewalks, destroy sandy ant nests in the cracks of my driveway and shoo away neighborhood dogs that are pooping in my yard.
    That’s why I own a Yardman 44-caliber, heavy-duty, orbit 10-pattern nozzle that’s so powerful it comes complete with a 10x power scope, holster and silencer. I could use it to dig a Panama Canal in my backyard.
    Worse than unruly hoses are cheap hose caddies. I must hold mine down with a bent knee, turn the spool crank with my right hand while struggling to neatly guide the hose onto the spool with my left hand, but it ends up being a mess of knots, crossovers and crossunders that will take me until next spring to unravel. 
    Meanwhile, at the other end of the hose, the nozzle is being dragged across the lawn and driveway, bouncing and popping along, as pieces of it snap off and fall in its wake.
    When I try to unroll the hose, I get one-third of it off, before the lightweight caddy falls over and plays dead. I let out a streak of cuss words that causes flowers to wilt and leaves to fall from the trees. 
    By the time I get the hose unrolled, unkinked, lugged around and the leaking nozzle screwed on tightly, the birds have eaten the grass seed.
    Several years ago, I bought one of those “magic hoses” advertised on TV, which shriveled up like an accordion when not in use, and guaranteed to never kink, bend or pinch. If I left the water on while not using it, it ruptured with a loud pop and sent water shooting into the air. I tried several others and they all ruptured. Magic hose my butt.
    Technology has given us cordless phones and computers. It needs to invent a hoseless nozzle that provides water flow without a hose.
    In the meantime, I have to go water the lawn and do it quietly, cuz my wife has that damn shovel again. 
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and ElmiraTelegram.com Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
  17. JIm Pfiffer
    Technology is great, but I long for the days when I was smarter than my truck.
    I bought a new 4WD Toyota Tacoma pickup truck two years ago, and I’m still trying to learn the purpose of the scores of switches, buttons, knobs, levers, dials, gauges, meters, lights, vents and portals. The truck’s dashboard is called an “instrument cluster” (sounds like a candy bar, to me), and bristles with more electronics than the Space Shuttle. It overwhelms with flashing lights, buzzers, bells, multi-information displays, and enough menus to open my own restaurant.
    I don’t know what most of them do.
    It tells me when I’m due for a tune-up, tire rotation, oil change and haircut, and has more microphones and speakers than a recording studio.
    There are so many options that I have three owner’s manuals, and some of the pages are written in other languages, requiring me to hire a United Nations translator to help me find the fuse box.
    One of the manuals recommends that I learn about the truck’s functions by watching a 30-minute Tacoma video or calling my dealer for instructions. See what technology has wrought? I have to take an online course, study with a dealership tutor and spend my spare time reading manuals in order to enjoy my truck. Doesn’t make sense.
    The manuals require a lot of cross-referencing, repeated visits to the glossary, and fist-pounding frustration when I don’t know the name of the part or function, I’m trying to look up.
    I tried to find the wattage for one of the two interior lights on the overhead console. It took me 10 minutes to discover that the light is called a “front personal lamp.” By the time I found it, the bulb on the other light had burned out.

     
    The truck has radar in case I want to track incoming enemy fighters. I’m searching through the manuals to see if it also has sonar or a Tomahawk missile system.
    I discovered an automatic “garage door opener switch” on the console. I keep pushing it, but my garage doors don’t open. Maybe it’s because they are “lift-by-hand doors.
    According to the manuals, the truck also has several functions that I haven’t used because I don’t know what they do: “active traction,” “crawl control,” “slip indicator” and “jettison external solid-fuel boosters.”
    With all those buttons, I constantly fear that I might push the wrong button by mistake and my transmission will fall out or the passenger seat will eject my wife out the window.
    One time I pushed the wrong buttons and dimmed all the lights on my dashboard making it difficult to see what I was supposed to see. I spent hours going through the manual trying to discover how to rectify the problem but was unsuccessful. Truth: I had to drive the truck to the dealer, and the manager and a technician spent 20 minutes figuring out how to make the lights bright again.
    My truck has more warning lights and alarms than a nuclear reactor operations center, and they tell me when a door is ajar, a seat belt isn’t buckled, or my fly is open.
    My instruments are decorated with tiny stick-figure people and icons that are supposed to be recognizable worldwide. My cluster is decorated with lightning bolts, skid marks, sunbeams, and what appears to be a tiny stick man sitting on a toilet. I will NEVER EVER press that button. I put a piece of duct tape over it. Can’t be too careful.
    The manuals list all the functions and options available on all Tacoma models. I don’t know which ones I have and which ones I don’t. The manuals list a “brake override system,” a “BSM outside rearview mirror indicator,” and a “longitudinal and lateral inclination indicator.” I’m inclined to believe that I don’t care about my truck’s longitude or latitude, but I do care about its attitude, especially when it gets stubborn and locks the doors without permission or locks one door and not the other, depending on its mood, I guess.
    When it’s in a really foul mood, the truck makes it difficult for me to use the driver’s seat shoulder harness. I’ll try to pull the harness across my chest, but it keeps stopping short, and I have to play the “yank and tug” game until it surrenders, and it lets me pull it smoothly across my chest and buckled it. I get mad, during this tug of war, and angrily jerk at the belt, trying to show it who is boss, but to no success. By the time I’m buckled in I’m in full road rage mode before I even leave my driveway.
    Friggin’ technology.
    I expect it will take me several more years to learn about all my truck’s functions and options.
    That will give me the rest of my life to figure out how to reset the truck clock back to daylight savings time and program my Sirius radio stations.
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page TwinTiersLife.com and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper.
  18. JIm Pfiffer
    A year ago, this weekend, I began posting this weekly humor column.
    It’s been a fun ride, after retiring from writing a twice-weekly humor column for the Elmira Star-Gazette (Motto: “Yes, our news is two days old, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s wrong.”)
    I hope you have enjoyed my musings. If not, that’s cool. Not everyone shares my disturbed sense of laughter. I hold no ill regard for people who think that my writing “bites the big one.” But, if I run into you in public, I’m going to sock you a big one.
    Ha! Not really. That was an example of my sharp sarcastic humor. I would never accost a critic, unless he/she/other was small and had their back to me.
    Ha. Ha. See, I did it again. I’m a riot. You never know when I’m going to get silly like that. Often, I don’t know. Sometimes, while writing, I get into “The Zone,” and the column comes to life, takes over and writes itself.
    (This is the Column speaking: “I have to take over to stop him when he goes all Jack “The Shining” Nicholson and writes some creepy shit. He’s not typing with a ‘full keyboard,’ if you catch my drift.”)
    This marks my 53rd weekly Facebook column, thanks to my friend and local Realtor, J.D. Isles, who suggested I start columnizing again, and do it on his “Hidden Landmarks TV” Facebook page. My column also appears on several other sites.
    Hidden Landmarks is a collection of Twin Tiers related history and content that is, without a doubt, the greatest Facebook page ever. (J.D. said I had to write that, or he would stop running my posts.)
    (Column speaking: See what I mean about his lose grip on reality? He’s publicly dissin’ J.D., even though J.D. reads this column. Idiot).
    I like to laugh. It makes it easier to accept all the embarrassing things I do.
    I was born with the ability to see humor where others cannot.
    (Column speaking: “All he has to do is look in a mirror.”)
    I use humor to highlight life’s absurdities. My “laugh-so-I-don’t-cry” philosophy goes back to 1990 when I began writing my Star-Gazette humor columns. By the time I retired in 2008, I had penned more than 3,000 columns.
    Many of my columns are controversial and irks some readers. But, like they say, “controversy sells,” and “controversy” is my middle name.
    (Column speaking: “No, his middle name is ‘garbage,’ because that’s where most of his columns end up. Yes, he had a loyal core group of readers, but they gradually disappeared as they were picked up on arrest warrants).
    I get my column ideas from observing people, life and myself. All three generate silos full of idiotic and “I can’t believe it” column fodder.
    I use a laptop to turn that silage into entertaining wit. I write most every day, starting on Mondays, when I decide on a topic, craft and outline and develop a theme.
    If I’m unfamiliar with the topic, I research it or make it up if I’m in a hurry. I write several hours a day, usually in the morning, sometimes at home, and sometimes at the library where I sit in the “humor and satire” section hoping some of it will osmose into my prose.
    (Column speaking: “Bullshit! He goes to the library to plagiarize from REAL humorists.” What a liar.)
    Throughout the week, I tinker with the column as it peculates in the back of my mind. I add, subtract and rewrite it a dozen times or more, culling deadwood and polishing the prose until it glows, or at least reflects a relatively sane sense of comedy.
    It’s difficult to self-edit because humor depends on a surprise punchline. That’s why a joke is funny the first time you hear it. After that, you know the ending. The more you hear the joke the more tiresome it becomes.
    It’s the same when editing my column. By the second and third time I’ve read it, the punchlines are punched out. I’m careful when editing so that I don’t remove the good lines, because I no longer find them funny.
    I also don’t let anyone read my column before I post it, because their suggestions, criticisms and disgust could influence my editing. You regular readers share my sense of humor. What someone else may find objectionable, you find hilarious.
    (Column speaking: “I wouldn’t be proud of that if I were you.”)
    When I’m confident the column is done, I let it sit for a few hours and then go back and cut it by at least 10%. Most writers write too much. There’s always fat to trim.
    By Friday, I email my column to my editor, a good friend and talented scholar of the English language. Her name is Marilyn. She weeds out my misspellings, punctuation problems and grammatical garbage. I worry that she may develop chronic headaches from all her “I can’t believe he wrote that,” head shaking.
    I get the edited version by Saturday afternoon, and it’s posted by 7 a.m. Sunday.
    You readers take it from there.
    Thanks for your support, comments, good humor and realization that life is too important to take seriously and is much more fun when you laugh at yourself.
    (Column speaking: “I wrote that ending. Pretty good, huh? The author’s version was a childish ranting, whining and pouting temper tantrum about how readers don’t ‘understand’ his humor and how hard it is to write every week. It was pitiful. Made me just want to puke.)
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, Twin Tiers Life and TwinTier Living.com Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
     
     
  19. JIm Pfiffer
    I see that Kanye West legally changed his name again, this time to “Ye,” with no middle or last name.
    For real. He said he did it because Ye is the most common word in the Bible, as in “Yo Ye. Thou art a narcissist.”
    Most rap and hip-hop entertainers change their birth names, like J-Z, Dr. Dre, 50 Cent, Eminem and my main man Snoop Dogg, whose many monikers helped him go from rap star to Martha Stewart to the pinnacle of stardom, TV beer commercials.
    Snoop was born Calvin Broadus Jr., and went by prior names of Snoop Doggy Dogg, Snoop Lion and just Snoop. (Truth: His mom called him Snoopy because he loved Snoopy in Charlie Brown cartoons).
    Why do they do it? According to my Internet research, hip-hop’s first artists were in gangs, which gave out street names to create a bond and protect identities in times of crimes. (I’d need a sick load of aliases to cover-ID all my stupid stunts, capers and pranks).
    Real names aren’t always catchy or easy to remember. Ice Cube is easier to recall than, O’Shea Jackson Sr., his birth name.
    It’s not just rappers who name change. Retired NBA player, Ron Artest, rebranded himself “Metta World Peace.” (Metta gotta a lotta work ahead of him).
    Some stage names are creative and reflect the artist’s desire to quickly roll in the bling, as in “A$AP,” whose birth name is Rakim Mayers. (He could have changed his name to “Rakim-In-The-CA$H,” and it would have been just as dope).
    Names are important. They elicit images, can make life difficult or embarrassing, reflect your lineage and can just be plain dumb, like Richard Head (real name of a kid I knew in my youth). His parents must have been huffing glue when they named him.
    I’m happy with being James Michael Pfiffer, although my last name is pronounced “Pie-fer,” not “Fife-er,” as it’s spelled. I’ve been called “Pa-fifer,” “Piper” “Pisser” and “Pie face,” by my good friend, Stoney, when he’s had a few beers.

    I’m a man of many names, most of them bestowed upon me by schoolteachers. I liked to have fun, create laughter, play the dare devil and generally be the center of attention. My classmates called me “class clown.” My teachers called me “a future drain on society.”
    Don’t get me wrong. I loved Southside High School in Elmira. It was six of the best years of my life.
    I found it odd that I repeatedly got sent to see the principal, Mr. Harrigan, for “being smart,” as in “don’t get smart with me, mister!”
    Isn’t getting smart the purpose of education? When a teacher told me to stop being “smart,” I cleverly replied, in a low and slow voice, “Duhhh. I’ll try to be dumber in the future, teach.”
    That resulted in a trip to Harrigan’s office, where I was a regular. Had my own desk and chair. The office secretary asked me why I was there, again. I sarcastically explained that I was “guilty of being smart in class.”
    She glared at me, and even more sarcastically, retorted “Are you, some kind of a wise guy?”
    So, you see, I was right back where I started from – too smart for my own good.
    That’s why teachers routinely labeled me: “troublemaker,” “immature,” “instigator,” “incorrigible” and “the F#!@>* reason I’m quitting teaching and joining the F#!@>* French Foreign Legion!”
    My favorite moniker was “rambunctious.” I thought it meant I was joyful and lively. I looked it up and discovered it means “uncontrollably boisterous” (see: “fidgety loudmouth with ADD”).
    Bummer.
    An English teacher called me a “provocateur,” which I liked because it had a savvy French-sounding sassy sound. I even wore a beret to better provoke.
    A visibly angry and shaking substitute biology teacher told me that I was “waaay out of line.”
    I replied, “Whaaat line should I be in?”
    Another visit to the principal.
    I didn’t know the meanings of many of the labels affixed to me, like pernicious, truculent and insolent. I assumed they all meant bad things, so I didn’t look them up.
    I’ve had enough given names. Now it’s my turn. I’m considering adopting a hip-hop street moniker. A good columnist needs to keep current and hip to the slangy language of the people. A totally coolio name might attract younger readers.
    Know what I’m sayin’?
    I checked online to learn the latest hip-hop lingo. I think I got it down pat and won’t sound like a Boomer when I rip-rap this riff:
    “I was a high school pranksta’,
    Not a ballin’ gangsta’.
    Teachers didn’t know me,
    Tried to mofoe me.
    Gotta see the principal again,
    Rap some more with Harrigan.
    Don’t matter, cuz nothin’ t phaze me.
    I’m not lay-Z or cray-Z.
    I’m flexin for ‘shizzle,
    Off da hook in da drizzle.
    I’m stillin’ ‘n’ ‘trillin,’
    Cuz I’m willin’ and chillin’.”
    You feel me?
    I’m going to initially change my name to “Pfif Daddy.” Has a nice and easy to remember three-syllable cadence.
    When my column goes viral, I’ll change it to “P. Daddy,” “P. Diddy” or maybe “P. Diddy Daddy.”
    When I publish my first book, I’ll shorten it to “PD.”
    When I shoot my first rap video, I’ll cut it to “P,” which is what I must do now cuz I drank too much green tea.
    Word!
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper.
  20. JIm Pfiffer
    Don’t you hate it when you have something simple to do and you think “No sweat. It’ll take but a few minutes,” but it doesn’t because, like everything else, it’s become more complicated?
    (That wasn’t a rhetorical question. So, if you really don’t “hate it,” you might as well stop reading).
    My latest “thought it would be easy” task is buying new bedsheets.
    I discovered that sheets have greatly evolved from the standard white, sorta-scratchy, non-fitted twin bed sheets of my younger years. I think they had a thread count of 14 or 15.
    Sheets have become high-tech. Bed, Bath & Beyond sells sheets with “Tru Grip technology for a non-slip fit.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to sleep in sheets that grip. Who knows what they might grip hold of during the night? Yikes!
    Thread counts are paramount, with numbers in the thousands.
    Sheets that “breathe” are popular now. I don’t need them. I have enough snoring, sighing and open mouth breathing in my bed, as it is. I don’t need sheets adding to these respirations and breathing down my neck.
    Sheets are no longer made of simple Dixie cotton. Nope. Today’s high-end sheets are made of Egyptian cotton. I wonder if you sleep in those sheets when you wake up and get out of bed, do you walk like an Egyptian?
    (Do they make sheets from Egyptian papyrus? Hope not. You could suffer serious paper cuts while tucking in the corners).
    They make sheets out of bamboo. Don’t know how or why. They would make me feel like I was in an Asian jungle. I’d never get to sleep worrying about what poisonous vipers and hand-sized hairy spiders were hiding between the sheets at the bottom of the bed. Not putting my bare feet down there. No way Jose!
    Some sheets are “thermal regulating,” to “regulate your body temperatures, so it will warm you up if you’re cold and cool you off if you’re warm.” Really! How do my sheets know if I’m warm or cold? Do they use a hidden thermometer? If so, I sure hope it’s an oral.
    My research showed that silk and satin sheets still exist. Don’t like ‘em. They remind me of shiny Hugh-Hefner-porn-pajamas. Worse, I would slide off the bed and injure myself in my sleep.
    My sheet-buying research showed me that the textile industry is still trying to convince us that there are such things as “wrinkle-free,” “no ironing,” and “permanent-press.” Bullshit. You know it. I know it, even the manufacturers know it, but the lie persists. Same goes for self-cleaning ovens.
    I was amused to read some of the syrupy and silly copy that is written to describe sheets and to play on your subconscious.
    Here are a few examples of actual descriptions. The words in parentheses explain the copy’s subliminal images and messages:
    “Crisp, Cool Percale” sheets that “feel like a lightly-starched dress shirt.” (Gives you that itch to dream of doing office work while you sleep. Great for buttoned-up Type A personalities, go-getters and butt-kissers.)  “Egyptian Cotton Butter-Soft Sateen Collection” with “sheets so soft you can’t help but melt into them.” (Like enjoying a warm midnight snack while you sleep or making you dream about adding warm butter to your love-making repertoire, or maybe a pyramid). “Soft Jersey Knit. Like sleeping in your favorite t-shirt every night.” (For people who don’t wear PJs to bed, but don’t want to be completely nude.) While sheet material and manufacturing have improved, one bedding problem still exists the dreaded fitted sheets. The elastic corners make it difficult to determine the sheet’s top and bottom from its sides. So, you must do the trial-and-error spin and tuck method, until you get it right.

    As for folding them, forget it. You need square corners to fold squarely.
    Yes, I know there are online videos demonstrating the super-secret-magic method of folding a fitted sheet, but who has the time or the desire to watch them? I have laundry to do and beds to make. How ‘bout you watch the video and then come fold my sheets, you obsessive-compulsive duvet-loving loser. You probably iron your sheets, don’t you? Get a life.
    Recently, I lost one of my favorite t-shirts. Couldn’t find it anywhere, until I did the laundry and took a folded sheet from the dryer. The shirt was tucked into one of its corners. Friggin’ fitted sheets.
    Fitted sheets do have one advantage. They’re easy to spot amid the piles of neatly folded bedding in the linen closet. The fitted sheets are balled into a wrinkled, crinkled and ruffled smushed-down pile.
    Why must our linen closet shelves be neat and look like a Bed, Bath and Beyond Me? We’re only going to unfold the sheets and put them on the bed where they will get wrinkled.
    A closet is a handy storage space where you hide unsightly things that you don’t want guests to see. I’ve never visited a friend’s home and had him say “Welcome to our home. Let me show you around. I’m especially proud of our linen closet. I think you will be too.”
    So, after looking at hundreds of sheets online, I selected a set and saved it to my laptop. But I can’t remember where I put it.
    There’s only one thing to do.
    Order some memory foam pillows.
     
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
  21. JIm Pfiffer
    Age plays mean on the mind. It makes me more forgetful and scatter-brained. I’ve lost the use of the area of the brain that remembers where the hell I left stuff, like my truck keys, my phone, my wallet and my way home.
    It’s a three-fold problem.
    First fold: I forget where I put things, because my mind doesn’t pay attention to what I’m doing and make a note of it.
    Second fold: Ummm. . . it’s when I . . . ummm . . . what was it I was writing about?
    Third fold: What’s with all the “folds,” anyway? Weird.
    My typical keys search begins under the couch cushions, a black hole that sucks keys, TV remotes and potato chips deep into its bowels. I hate sticking my arm down into the “crevice of crap” where the couch back meets and seat. If you’ve seen photos or videos of veterinarians sticking a gloved hand and arm into the bung hole of a dairy cow, you know how I feel when I do a couch rectal exam, worrying what disgusting thing I might grab hold of. Ewwww!
    After the couch search, I check counter tops, dresser top, the key slit in the door lock, the driveway and sidewalk and the interior of my truck, coat pockets, pants pockets and sometimes Hot Pockets. You never know.
    If that fails, I get desperate and look in places, where I know 100 percent, that I won’t find the keys, but I look just in case, because I really don’t know what else to do, right now and I’m already late for my appointment! Thus, I search the fridge, freezer, bathtub, the junk drawer and anywhere else where I loiter about.
    If that fails, I enter the “WTF phase?” where I do a second search of the places I already searched, thinking that the keys may have somehow crossed the space-time wormhole continuum and reappeared under the cushions. 
    I do this, because I once patted down all the pockets of the pants I was wearing, and no keys. I was sure of it. But 10 minutes later, when I searched those pockets a second time, out of desperation, they mysteriously appeared in one of those pockets.
    As I run out of places to look, I reassure myself by saying things like “They gotta be somewhere.” “As soon as I find them, I’m going to get them copied (Yeah, right). “Maybe the dog ate them.” 
    As my search continues, I grow more frantic, until my wife notices. That’s trouble. 
    “What did you lose this time?” she asks.
    “Nothing,” I lie reply as I attempt to slink out of the room.
    “You lost your keys again, didn’t you? I told you to put them on the key rack by the back door, but you wouldn’t listen.”
    She is correct, but because I’m immature, I don’t acknowledge it. Instead, I start a pathetic whine hoping she take pity and help me.
    “I’ve looked everywhere,” I plead, almost in tears.
    “No, you didn’t, or you would have found them, wouldn’t you?” she matter-of-factly replies.
    (Damn it! She’s right again.) 
    She then asks the obligatory question that every key searcher has been asked throughout history: “Where was the last place you had them? 
    “If I knew that I’d have them, now, wouldn’t I?” I wanted to retort but think better of it. 
    If the two of us, can’t find them, I go into the “knees phase,” and pray for dear life.
    “God, I know I don’t always obey or know all of the Ten Commandments, but if you help me find my keys, this one time, I promise to go to church every Sunday. Plus, I can’t drive to church if I don’t have my keys.”
    He sees through my thinly veiled ruse, and I get no divine assistance. But I do get another red check mark on my soul’s permanent record.
    Eventually I give up and realize they are gone forever, so I do what I must do.
    I buy a new truck.
    I lose my cell phone more than my keys. The remedy: Ask my wife to call my cell so I can find it when it buzzes. 
    “Shhhh. Listen,” I say to my wife, as I put my finger to my lips while we stand in the living room straining our four ears for that tell-tale “buzzzz” vibration.
    “I hear it,” I shout. “It’s upstairs.” I bound up the stairs and begin the childhood of game of “You’re getting warmer, you’re getting colder.” 
    The warmth leads me to my bedroom and toward the bed. I’m getting warmer, almost upon it, when the buzzing stops
    “Damn it! Dial it again,” I shout down to my wife.
    By now I’m tilting my head, like our dog listening for the can opener, the buzzing resumes and I follow its trail that leads beneath a pillow, where it fell out of my pocket, while I was reading.
    Lost keys are a hassle, but a lost wallet is a calamity. “Do I cancel my credit cards or wait, because I know I’m going to find it as soon as I cancel the cards?”
    I try to recall everything in the wallet that will need replacing: license, library card, health insurance card, vaccination card (thanks COVID), shoppers club cards and “Oh shit! I just remembered. I have a $100 Amazon gift certificate in there! Damn it all!”
    I expect these losses to mount as I age and more and parts of my brain shut down.
    Hopefully, by then, it won’t matter, as I will have lost my mind.
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
     
     
     
  22. JIm Pfiffer
    When I was young New Year’s Eve was a big event, celebrated with gusto, daring stunts, mischievous capers and too much alcohol – and that was before I left the house.
    Not now. I’ve circled the sun 67 times and each time I make the trip there is less drinking and partying, and I’m glad of it.
    That’s because I’m old. My mind may want to Wang Chung tonight, but my body wants to go to bed tonight. The last time I saw 12 a.m. on New Year’s Day, phones had dials and cords.
    Now, when the ball is falling at Times Square I’m falling into REM sleep.

    When I was young most everything we did involved alcohol. We could drink at age 18. It was during those early years that I pickled most of my brain cells. Yes, they were fun times. I just wish I could remember them.
    I remember some of them:
    “Hey you guys! Look! Pfif’s up on the snowy roof. He’s trying to climb up to the chimney to get that plastic Santa Clause. He’s almost there. You got it Pfifs! Oh s—t! Wow! didn’t know a person could slide down shingles that fast and fly that far.”
    I’m relieved at how age has tempered my wild side, daring vitality and internal organs.
    Take hangovers, for example. As a young man I could wake up with a wicked bad hangover and recover quickly enough to be quaffing cold ones by noon and out on the town at dusk.
    Today, if I have more than three drinks in one night, I need dialysis, hydration IVs and three days of bed rest.
    It’s my body’s way of saying to me “WTF is your problem? When are you going to grow up and act your age, Grandpa!”
    In college my New Year’s Eve celebrating began around 6 p.m. with friends getting “primed” (i.e., a card game where losers drank shots of Jack Daniels). Then it was off to the parties and the on Elmira’s two bar strips.
    The Northside had Washington Avenue, home to the Branch Office, Michael’s, Stein Haus, Mario’s Pitstop, Harry Reagan’s, Rybak’s, Benny’s, Bald Mouse and several other watering holes that I can’t recall, or I got thrown out of.
    South Main Street was lined with Good Times, Old Pioneer, Water Works, Carl’s Revolving Bar, The Arch, Bernie Murray’s, The 9th Ward, Boathouse, Mac’s Tavern, Lamplighter and others too numerous to list.
    One year we tried to have a drink at every bar on the Southside strip, a foolish crawl that resulted in most of my brain damage.
    Back then drinking and driving wasn’t a big issue. I should have been, but society had not yet woken up to the dangers.
    I was once pulled over by the police for a broken taillight, speeding or driving on the sidewalk, I don’t remember. The cop knew I was DWI but didn’t bust me. Instead, he instructed me to park the car and walk home (at least I think it was my home).
    Today, we all realize the dangers of drinking and driving. It’s dumb. It’s wrong. Don’t do it.
    There was so much drinking on New Year’s Eves of old, that I did the necessary prep work for my celebrations, like checking to see which friends had my blood type in case I needed a liver transplant.
    That’s because back then some bars got temporary alcohol licenses to stay open until 4 p.m. Just what we needed as shown by the following thought process:
    “Ok, I’ve been drinking since I lost those stupid card games, been to two parties, hit dozens of bars on both strips and stopped at a buddy’s apartment to catch a buzz. I’m probably a 3.9 or 4.0. I don’t know where my car is, which is good because I lost my keys hours ago. What should I do? Let’s see. . . I got it! Let’s go to Lib’s. They’re open ‘til 4. I call ‘shotgun!’”
    I’m not bragging about or condoning my irresponsible New Year’s Eve shenanigans. Yes, they were fun and memorable, but they could have resulted in my being maimed, impaled, killed or imprisoned. I was damn lucky.
    I learned a lot from those exploits. That knowledge has served me well as an adult. I know my limit, I don’t drink and drive and I still can’t believe how slippery wet shingles are.
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper.
  23. JIm Pfiffer
    Memorial Day weekend kicks off the summer grilling season, so I decided to grill the old-fashioned way – with charcoal briquettes. It’s one of the few times that I can play with fire and accelerants and not get yelled at.
    I normally use my cheap Wal-Mart gas grill. It’s fast, convenient and relatively easy to use. But it doesn’t give my steaks that tasty, smoky flavor that comes from cooking over charcoal. The gas grill makes my strip steaks taste like, well, Wal- Mart. Ick.
    That’s why I used my old Weber kettle-style grill with the rounded top and a half- bag of Kingsford Briquettes that I found in the garage. I followed the standard backyard three-phase/four-step-phase process for trying to light.
     
    Phase I
    1. Shake my head and say some bad words at the billowing cloud of charcoal dust that enveloped me, blackened my face, hands and clothes, and incited a
    coughing and choking fit.
    2. Pile the briquettes into a pyramid shape that kept collapsing and falling apart until the third try.
    3. Douse the pile with lighter fluid.
    4. Hold a lighter flame to the briquettes going from one to another trying to get one to ignite, for Christ’s sake!
    After several tries a corner of one of the briquettes took a flame and began to burn, making me smile and giving me hope. After a few seconds, it fizzled out in a mocking wisp of smoke, making me swear and giving me grief.
    Phase II
    1.Angrily squeeze the lighter fluid bottle emptying it all on the pile. The pile is now primed with accelerants and ready to explode when lit.
    2. I stand back several feet, as the strong smell of petrol permeates the air. I use wooden kitchen matches to light the fire. The first few matches don’t light or snap in two. When one finally flames to life, I use the recommended “light it and throw it” by tossing the lit match into the pile, but the match goes out as it arcs toward the petrol pyre. After several tries, a match stays intact and stays lit as it lands on the pile. The backyard explodes in a mushroom cloud of blinding yellow and orange light and intense heat that fries a nearby plate of hot dogs waiting to go on the grill.
    3. I go in the house and have a beer while waiting 10-15 minutes for the briquettes to turn into that perfect cooking heat of glowing orange-red embers with white and gray ash trim.
    4. Return to the grill to discover that the briquettes are still black and as cold as the beer I go get while telling myself to “stay calm” and “be an adult.”
    Phase III
    1.Pour copious amounts of lawnmower gasoline, paint thinner and tiki torch fluid on the smoldering pile. It sends a thick column of white chemical-laced smoke into the air that causes passing birds to fall from the sky.
    2. Do the light it and toss kitchen match routine until I get so frustrated, that I throw the whole damn box into the grill. Still no flames. I crouch down to blow on the smoking briquettes hoping to raise a flame. My wife shouts from inside the house “When are you going to learn? I’m calling the fire department!”
    3. The pile explodes into a conflagration that burns my face, singes my eyebrows, and sends me falling backward on my butt.
    4. I hold the top half of the grill by the handle and use it as a heat shield while I use the extra-long-handle spatula, in my other hand, to push around the flaming briquettes to reduce the flames to a forest fire and show the now- arriving firefighters that I have everything under control, and they can return to the station.
    I stay by the grill tending to the steaks until they have a nice charred crust and are a pink medium-rare inside. I remove the steaks and let them rest for several minutes to trap the tasty juices and maximize their full flavor potential.
    I plate the steaks cut off a tender piece and place it in my mouth-watering maw in anticipation of the first taste of summer.
    “Damn it! Tastes like a can of gasoline!” I shout.
    From inside the house, my wife shouts “When are you going to learn. I’m calling for a pizza.”
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and Elmira Telegram.com.
    Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
  24. JIm Pfiffer
    I’m glad that vinyl record albums are regaining popularity. I grew up listening to music on records. They were an essential a part of my life, like family, education, sports and reform school.
     Records are simple to operate. No moving parts. No rewinding. No batteries. No apps or subscriptions. You set the needle in the groove and soon you’re groovin’ between 33 1/3 and 45 rpms.
     Unfortunately, vinyl records are fragile and easily damaged. You can ruin the acoustics with fingerprints, dust flecks and half a cup of Genesee Cream Ale spilled on my Door’s “Strange Days” album, by an intoxicated gal who was trying to “Love Me Two Times.”
     You handle records like you would a 5,000-year-old glass museum piece. Gently slip the record out of the cardboard sleeve. Slide it out of the inner paper sleeve. Take a shot of whisky to calm your nerves before you execute the most important final step: grasp it by the edges and hold it gingerly between your palms, like you were indicating the size of the fish that got away. Never EVER touch the playing surface, which is so fragile you can warp it by just giving it a dirty look.
     All my records were pocked with scratches, gouges, scars, chips and drink glass rings. Often, during one of our many parties, my records became coasters for the “Four Bs”: bottles, bongs and bare bottoms.
     My Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields” 45, was so badly scratched, that when I played it backwards, it said, “I buried Jimmy Hoffa.”
     Deep scratches made the needled bounce about, so I Scotch-taped a stack of pennies atop the needle to force it deeper into the groove. Such was my high-tech repairs. My records had a shelf life of a few weeks.
     But the album covers lasted years, and they too, were an important part of my youth.
     They made great work surfaces. You could put an open double album cover on your lap and use a credit card to remove stems and seeds from various vegetable matter.
     Shortly after the vegetable matter was consumed, you could stare deeply at the album artwork, which featured cool photos of the bands, psychedelic drawings, iconic illustrations and freaky things that didn’t make sense, like Zeppelin’s “Houses of the Holy,” cover showing naked children crawling over a mystical rock formation towards a glowing light. Looked like a stairway to hell.
     Here are some of my favorite and unusual album covers:
     ·      “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” Beatles: A colorful and dazzling illustration of modern art (especially if you had just done a dazzling doobie). It featured the Fab Four amid a crowd of 58 celebrities, from Mae West and Lenny Bruce to Aldous Huxley and my main man W.C. “My little chickadee” Fields. The art won a Best Album Cover Grammy in 1967. I suspect that it was designed by artists enjoying “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds.” 
     ·      “Bloodshot,” J. Geils Band: The record was bright red, to match the album title. Because I grew up on Elmira’s Southside, one of songs, hit home with these bust-a-move lyrics: “Do you want Dance? (yeah). Movin’, groovin’, slip and slide (yeah). Come on baby don’t you hide (yeah). Do the Southside Shuffle all night long!” 
     ·      “Dark Side of the Moon,” Pink Floyd: An elegant prism radiating the color spectrum across a black background. One of the most popular albums of all time. Made the Floyds mucho “Money.” I don’t know what a “pink Floyd” is, but I sure would like to party with one.
     ·      “Sticky Fingers,” Rolling Stones: Gotta love an album cover that boasts a real zipper on a photo of a pair of tight jeans, holding back what looks like an angry pepperoni trying to get out of its confines while yelling “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking?” Add in the sticky digits and you have a cover that would make Freud’s cigar go limp.
     ·       “Santana,” Santana (lion drawing): At first glance you see a marvelously detailed black pen drawing of a roaring lion face. Look closer and you see nine tiny faces hidden in the drawing. The feline’s chin is a hula skirt worn by a “Black Magic Woman” hula dancer. One time I looked so long and so closely at the drawing that I saw God. He wasn’t happy with me. 
     ·        “Diamond Dogs,” David Bowie: This album cover because it still freaks me out. It’s a creepy air brush drawing of Bowie’s androgenous head and face on the body of a furless and gaunt Doberman. It still brings him “Fame” in his music’s “Golden Years.”
     ·        “Big Bambu,” Cheech and Chong:  I know every word of this hilarious hippie pot-smoking album by heart. My friends and I played it so many times we wore out the grooves. It was released during the summer of the Flood of 1972, that we spent shoveling flood mud while repeating the album’s best lines – “Dave’s not here,” and telling each other to SHUT UP! ala “Sister Mary Elephant.” Best of all, the album included a double-album-size rolling paper. No, we never used it. If we did, we would still be shoveling mud and looking for Dave.
     ·        “You can tune a piano, but you can’t Tuna Fish,” REO Speedwagon: A great play-on-words album title made better by a photo of a fish with a tuning fork sticking out of its mouth. The REOs weren’t on the wagon, and whatever kind of speed they were snorting, sure fueled their creative juices. I hope you enjoyed my records reminiscence. Share yours in the “comments” section. And now I bid you goodbye because it’s “Time for Me to Fly.”
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, TwinTiers Life.com and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
     
     
     
     
  25. JIm Pfiffer
    My kitchen throw-rug stinks of pickle juice and “squishes” when I walk on it.
    Got that way because I tried to do one of the most difficult tasks of modern life: open a jar with my bare hands.
    I tried both hands. No luck. Got miffed. Ran it under hot water. Nada. Got pissed. Pried it with a spoon handle. Still stuck. Got furious. Got my pliers, clamped them around the lid, clasped the far ends of the handles for max leverage, took a sturdy feet-apart stance and twisted with all my might (I even used my grimacing, “I’m not playin’” face for effect). The lid gave way.
    And gave me a fright. The pliers flew from my grip and slid under the fridge, pickle juice sloshed from the jar and a pair of pickles ejected and tumbled across the dog-hair-covered floor There is nothing more disgusting than a dirty, hairy gherkin.
    Why is it everything is so difficult to open? Are jars, cans, bags, boxes, bottles, capsules, pods and pouches sealed with nuclear forces, 1,000-ton presses and NASA-strength adhesives? You need power tools and improvised explosive devices to open a jar of peanut butter.
    You need an engineering degree to open a prescription medicine bottle. Each one has its own unique entrance procedure. Push down while turning, pull up while pushing, squeeze the sides while turning or push, pull, squeeze and turn while swearing. Yes, there are instructions printed on the cap, but you can’t read the letters because they are quantum size and white on white. Thanks a lot.
    I worried that opening all these stubborn containers would cause me carpal tunnel syndrome. The problem has become so bad I now worry about getting Holland Tunnel syndrome.
    The no-open technology goes back to 1982 when someone laced Tylenol bottles with cyanide in Chicago. Seven people, who popped the pills, died. The killer was never found.
    That caused product manufacturers to do what they do best -- cover their butts from lawsuits. Their solution: “If you can’t open it, you can’t tamper with it.”
    Then they lie to us with phrases like “Easy to open,” “Peel here to open,” and “Pray here to open.”
    The side of my box of mac-and-cheese has a perforated tab telling me to “push here” to open. When I push, the box top collapses into itself and a product design engineer, somewhere, is laughing his ass off.
    Why do I have to get past a series of roadblocks to open an aspirin bottle? First is the layer of clear plastic that is spot-welded to the bottle cap and neck. I can’t get a fingernail or an incisor under it to start the rip. It teases me with a red dotted line indicating where it can allegedly be easily torn. (More engineer laughter). The line is put there to give you hope. In frustration, I grab a steak knife and hack away at it like a psycho at the Bates Motel, until it comes off. Now I must decipher the cap combination to remove the lid. Next, I face the dreaded foil seal, made of an alien spaceship material that can’t be pierced, peeled or pulled. I stab at it with a screwdriver and spit ugly epithets at the Bayer company until I get it half open.
    “Finally!” I exclaim. “I’m in.”
    Nope. Still have a wad of cotton to remove. The opening is too small to insert two fingers to pinch and pull the wad. I must use one finger to remove it piece by piece, and use it to blot-up the blood oozing from the knife and Phillips’ head cuts on my hands
    By the time I get in, I can’t take the aspirin because they are past their expiration date.
    Truth: There is an online site called “Opening Jars with Arthritis: 21 Tips,” including “start with the correct form,” “hold the jar close to your body” and “whatever you do, don’t ask that Pfiffer dude to do it.”
    Here are some other common “you can’t open me – nah, nah, nah-nah-nahhh” containers.
     Disposable plastic bags in a supermarket’s produce section. You can’t tell which end of the bag opens. It’s too thin and adheres to itself. I stand there rubbing it between my thumb and forefinger praying it will open, while the baby onions I want to put in it, grow into adult onions. The clear, thin ridged plastic (used for 2-liter soda bottles) that can only be cut with hydraulic shears, leaving razor sharp edges that can easily sever fingers. (Hint: soda bottle manufactures should include a tin of Band-Aids with each purchase.) Those friggin’ tiny oval-shaped stickers welded to individual pieces of fruit. You can’t remove them with a fingernail or knife edge without gouging out most of the fruit. Snack bags with tiny pre-cut slots where you are supposed to be able to start tearing open of the bag top. My dog loves these bags, because I always end up ripping them wide open and potato chips scatter across the floor for canine pickup. Roll of clear plastic packing tape: The tape is so transparent you can’t find it’s end and if you do you can’t pull it from the roll in one piece without it sticking to itself. I think we should make jar opening with bare hands a summer Olympics event.
    Better yet, we need legislation that forces manufacturers to give us easy-to-open products.
    We can call it the opening containers law.
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, TwinTiersLife.com and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper.
×
×
  • Create New...