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JIm Pfiffer

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  1. JIm Pfiffer
    “Rain, rain go away.”
    “I don’t want to friggin’ mow my lawn again today!”
    I’ve been uttering that ditty all summer and fall because of all the !@^%$! MOWING I’m doing because of all the !@^%$! RAIN. (Editor’s note: Upper case letters and exclamation points signify that the writer is really @^%$! PISSED OFF!!!!!)
    My lawn has more mow lines then the outfield at Fenway, and they are deep enough to grow corn.
    My life revolves around a series of repeated lawn aggravations: Mow. Wait for rain to stop. Mow. Repeat.
    I have a double lot, and the adjacent lot is nothing but grass. I call it the “North 40,” but of course it’s not really 40 acres. (It’s more like 38-39 acres). It also has a hedgerow that is so long it covers two time zones and takes me four time zones to trim it.
    My lawn is so large, that when I’m done mowing the last of it, I have to go back and mow the first section, because the grass grows so fast.

    The high and thick grass hides the gazillion piles of dog poop from my dog, neighborhood dogs and even dogs from outside the hood, who bus in just to do their business on my lawns. It’s a regular poop-o-rama.
    I mow with a TORO self-propelled push mower. What I need is a John Deer S690 combine and thresher. My TORO is a mulching mower. It cuts the grass into tiny pieces and deposits them back into the lawn. All that mulched grass has increased the height of my lawn so much, that when I mow, I can see the curvature of the Earth on the horizon.
    I used to reward myself with a cold beer after mowing, but not anymore, because I can’t afford to buy that much brew and my liver can’t afford any more cirrhosis.
    To get a better idea of my mowing blues, here is the ten-step procedure I endure each time I mow:
    I search through the garage clutter for the gas can, only to discover that it’s empty because I neglected to fill it the last time I used it. So, I have to go get gas, but first I have to refinance my home to afford the ridiculously high price of gas. I try, but can never, fill the mower gas tank without spilling it over the mower, my hands and my sneakers. For the rest of the day, I smell like a Molotov Cocktail. As I try to weave the mower out of my cluttered garage I clip bikes, a gas grill, a kayak and a recycling bin, tattooing them with dents, twists and scrapes. My mower, like all mowers, is designed to never start until I pull the cord so many times, my arm falls off. (It is during this “yank period” that I unleash my most torrid, raw and venomous string of cussing. Sometimes I kick the mower, stub my toes and dance about in pain.) The triceps in my right arm are three times the size of their left arm counterparts. Once I regain feeling in my arm, I yank away at the starter cord until it breaks (swearing, kicking and dancing in aggravation) or the engine eventually turns over. My mower has a deadman safety lever, on the handle, that I must hold closed while mowing or the engine will stop. As I move the picnic table, lawn furniture or neighbor kids out of the mower’s path, I must lift them with my right hand, because I’m dragging the mower (with lever held tight) behind with my left. My left arm is now three inches longer than my right. (Yes, I know I should move those obstructions prior to mowing, but that’s not how I do it, OK! If you don’t like it, you do it, you snotty-nosed know-it-all!) It rains so often, that the grass doesn’t have time to dry. Wet grass and dog poop clogs up the underside of the mower until it’s too heavy to push and the rpm’s drop so low that the grass actually giggles from the slow-turning blade tickling it. To remove the clogged grass, I turn the mower on its side, gasoline leaks all over the hot muffler until it smokes or bursts into fiery explosions. I have to go to the garage to get a screwdriver, skin my shins on the “who left this damn kayak in the middle of the floor?” return to the mower, use the screwdriver to stab away at the thick carpet of congealed mower grass and leave behind a steaming wet pile of clippings large enough to ski down. At least once, while mowing, I mow over a hidden tree root or rock and the mower blade screams out in a shrill and loud metallic pain or stops all together. (I also mow over the screwdriver that I forgot and left lying in the grass). The blade has more nicks in it than my shins. 10. When done, I return the mower to the garage, leaving behind a trail of wet grass and dog poop skid marks, from the mower’s wheels, on my driveway, sidewalks and garage floor. 11. Wait. I forgot. There is one more step in the process. My once-white sneakers are dyed chlorophyll-green and covered with sticky wet grass clipping, dirt, dog poop and screwdriver fragments. If I forget to remove my sneaks before I go in the house, the remainder of my day will be spent sweeping, scraping and vacuuming up the grass while listening to my wife explain, in minute detail, why I am such a moron. I’ve read about homeowners using goats to maintain their lawns. I’m going to do that.
    As soon as it stops raining.
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page and the Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Star-Gazette newspaper.
     
     
     
     
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. JIm Pfiffer
    Oh goodie! We now have another number to add to our long and growing list of numbers and passwords needed to survive in our electronically connected world.
    As of October 24, when you make a local call in the 607-area code you must include the area code when dialing. The reason: officials don’t want people mistakenly dialing the newly created 988 national Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
    I’m all for reducing suicides, but I can’t deal with adding another number to my swirling sea of digits, passwords, pass codes, PINS, logons, WIFI, license plates, phone numbers, Social Security cards, DOBs, zip codes and the points spread in today’s St. Louis Rams game.
    For security reasons, we’re told to commit all these meaningless, random numbers, letters and special characters to memory. Sorry, but the average person – me being one of them - cannot do that. Hell, I can’t remember my cell phone number, because I rarely call myself. When I do, I don’t answer, because it’s probably another robocall. That’s why I wrote my number on the back of my phone. I try to use a simple, easy to remember password, but the website says “Nope.” It must be at least eight characters long and include numbers, punctuation, upper- and lower-case letters, Hieroglyphics, holograms, gang signs, pi to the 120th digit and that weird symbol used by the artist formerly known as Prince.
    There is simply no way a person can remember hundreds of unique long and complex passwords. I spend most of my online time clicking “forgot password” links. To make the impossible demand on human memory even more impossible, we’re told not to write down our passwords.
    Yeah, right. I never do what I’m told. I have more passwords and secret ID numbers than all the James Bonds, Maxwell Smarts and Austin Powers combined.
    I write them in notebooks, random slips of paper, envelopes, magazine margins, checkbook, the wall next to my computer, my dog’s flea collar, the back of my hand and the grocery list attached to the fridge with a magnet.
    I signed up for an online service that saves and retrieves all my passwords in a protected file. I can’t access the file, because (you guessed it) I forgot the password.
    I’m going to use this tip that I found on the Internet: change my password to “Incorrect.” Then when I erroneously enter it, my computer will tell me that my password is “incorrect.”
    When I forget my password and username, I get nervous while trying to logon because I have only three chances to get it right.
    Worse, I can’t see what I’m typing because the letters are converted into those silly little stars, in case a snoop is standing behind trying to steal my password. How about this security idea: I spin around, stand up and tell the idiot to “get the **** outta here or you’re going to be seeing stars!”
    On my first login attempt, I try one of my commonly used passwords and usernames. The computer flashes the dreaded red letter “incorrect” warning. I shake my head and cuss under my breath. I try a different password. It’s correct, buy my username isn’t. The computer slaps me a second time. I cuss out loud. By the third attempt, I carefully search my mind’s memory banks until I shout, “I got it! I remember the password.” I take a deep breath, wipe my sweaty palms on my pants and slowly and carefully type each character, one at a time, but miss the “shift” button on an uppercase letter and its three strikes and “yer out!” (Sometimes, I can actually hear the computer laughing at me).
    Now I have to reset my password and go through the hassle of checking my e-mail for the reset code, typing it in and creating a new password. By the time I do all that my laptop battery is dead.

    I get a new code and enter it just as my phone rings. I answer it and by the time I hang up, the pass code as expired. I get so angry that my blood pressure spikes, and I fear that I’m going to expire. I jump up screaming and leaping around like a lemur on crack. (Another snoop standing behind me flees in wide-eyed terror). When I do reset my password, the computer scolds me for not creating one complicated enough. (i.e., One that hackers can’t guess, and I can’t remember). If I do remember my username and password – and type them correctly – I have to answer a security question, like “What was your favorite food as a child?”
    “Oh shit,” I say. “I think I said ‘pizza.’ No, wait! It’s fried chicken or maybe pork chops? Oh God. Why did I choose that question?” Many times, when asked to create a password, I use one of my old passwords, but the computer tells me I can’t because “It’s been used.” 
    “No shit, Sherlock!” I shout at my screen as I pound on the keyboard. “It’s used because it’s mine. Gimme the $@>+^* thing back!”
    This is usually followed by my wife shouting, from the other room, “What’s all the yelling about? Are you trying to logon again?”
    Look, we all agree that the password and ID number systems don’t work. There must be better means of authentication. Why can’t we use our fingerprints, the capillaries in our eyes or dental records as our universal passwords? I’m going to suggest that to Microsoft officials in an e-mail.
    As soon as I remember my Microsoft password, username and the name of my favorite pet.
    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 Star-Gazette newspaper.
  5. 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.
     
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
     
     
  8. JIm Pfiffer
    I’ve always been curious. That’s why I became a newspaper reporter, chasing after the five W questions of life. It’s also why I’ve been punched a lot.
    I have some feline curiosity in me. I also have a lot of stupidity in me. That’s why I’ve burned eight of my nine lives. I’m trying to temper that ignorance by learning and asking “how” and “why” about things that we don’t think twice (or even once). Here are my top ten.
    1.   Telling someone to “Bite me.” If you are angry at someone, why would you insist that they bite you? That brings you pain, and the target of your ire will not suffer, unless you taste bad. We should be saying “Bite you,” and then you bite the person, first checking to see that they’ve had all their shots. Even more confounding is “bite the big one!” I’m not sure what the “big one” is, but I have an idea, and I don’t want anyone biting it. Ouch! And I’m not sure it’s as big as you think.
    2.   Free gift and free estimate. If it isn’t free, it’s not a gift. Nuff said. Have you ever heard of any business, a contractor for example, charging a fee to tell you how much it will cost to do work on your home? Nope. The “free estimate” is advertising double talk, like the phrase “Order now and get a second one for free, just pay an extra fee.”   
     3.   Bad guys love large daylight? Why are daytime crimes always done in “broad daylight?” Every Yin has its Yang, so there must be a “narrow daylight,” and if so, why don’t criminals commit crimes when the light is skinny and there is a slimmer chance that they will be seen or caught?
     4.   Catdrops and Mud poodles. Who the hell came up with the phrase “it’s raining cats and dogs”?  Was it someone who hated animals? Whatever they were on, can I get some?
     5.   Hiding in low-cal air. When someone disappears, without a trace, they do so into something called “thin air.” Yes, air is thin at 50,000 feet, but we’re talking about folks who go missing at sea level. Where is this lite air? Is there fat air? Is it easier or harder to get lost there?
     6.  Dis-what? We often hear about a “disgruntled employee,” walking off the job, calling in sick or telling his/her boss to “Bite the big one!” Again, nature’s duality, means there must also be a “gruntled” employee, as in “We have some of the best employees in the industry because they are all gruntled.”
     7.   WTF was with Franklin and his pennies? Benjamin Franklin, one of the fathers of our country (although he never paid any child support) penned many pithy idioms, like “a penny saved is a penny earned,” or is it “a penny earned is a penny saved? Doesn’t matter because no one saves pennies. Hell, they give them away by the cupful at checkout counters. I think Ben flew his kite one too many times.
     8.   Kruller to dollars? A friend once bet me “dollars to donuts” that my Boston Red Sox would lose to those damn Yankees. I didn’t take the bet for fear that I had to put up cash to win a glazed donut. Instead, I bet him his dollars to my Ring Dings. He took the bet. Need I say more about Yankee fans?
     9.  Lost in the middle again. Most of us have been lost in an unfamiliar place with no landmarks or signs of civilization. You may not know where you are, but we’ve all been there. It’s called “the middle of nowhere,” as in “My car broke down in the middle of nowhere”. Nowhere doesn’t exist. Everywhere is somewhere. And if there was a nowhere, how would you know it’s center point and why would you always be lost there? Why can’t we get lost on the edge of nowhere?
     10. It never fails. This is another bullshit phrase “failure is not an option.” Oh really? Spend time with me and you will see that I can fail and fail big.
    But not so big that you have to bite it.
     
     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 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
    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.
  10. JIm Pfiffer
    I used to be a competent gift wrapper who created neatly wrapped gifts and bows. But as I aged, I lost patience and my wrapping skills took a bad rap.
     Today, my gifts look like they were wrapped by vandals on crack.
     I don’t understand why we invest so much time and effort to wrap a gift when it is going to be torn apart by the giftee.
     It’s like making my bed each morning. Why do it if I’m just going to mess it up at night?
     I’m trying to recapture the gift-wrapping spirit I had when I was younger. Each Christmas I tell myself “This year I’m going to get into the holiday spirit and make gift wrapping fun.”
     So, I set the scene: Put on Christmas music, light pine-scented candles, don a red Santa hat, get our dog to rest comfortably at my feet and lay out all the needed tools and materials on the dining room table.
     It’s no use. Gift wrapping has become such a hassle that my holly-jolly-Christmas wrapping quickly deteriorates and morphs into “Just put the friggin’ gifts in brown paper grocery bags and be done with it. Hell, ‘Feliz Navidad,’ my ass.”   

     To better understand why this occurs, I offer the following example of my gift-wrapping descent into hell.
     I pour a mug of eggnog, sit comfortably at the table and hum along with the 12 Days of Christmas.
     I start by selecting an easy-to-wrap boxed gift. No need to measure the paper. I can tell, just by eyeing it, how much is needed. I’m a pro. I cut a sheet off the roll and get to wrapping.
     “You got to be kidding me!” I cry. “How can the paper not fit? I eyed it. Must be cheap paper.”
     Next, I try the “it’ll never work” trick of moving the box around on the paper, hoping to discover just the right spot, which defies all laws of physics, which will allow the paper to cover the box. Wrong. I set aside the paper in my “mistake pile,” for use on smaller gifts.
     I measure and cut the correct size of paper, place the box in the center and bring the two sides of the paper together on the box top and hold them down with fingers on my left hand, while using my right hand to pull off a short length of Scotch tape, except I yank off six feet of feet of tape that curls over and sticks to itself and my fingers.
     “Ha. Ha,’ I say. “I sure wish those nine lords a leaping, were here a wrapping. This is sooo much fun.”
     I refresh my mug of nog with a strong shot of Captain Morgan (Hell, might as well do two shots. It’s Christmas).
     I pull off a correct length of tape, but I can’t get it to tear on the dispenser’s serrated edge. Now, I have a length of tape, with the dispenser dangling from it like a kite tail, hanging from my fingers. I angrily shake it off, sending the sticky mess sailing across the room where it lands behind a table. Fortunately, I have a second roll of tape for such emergencies.
     (For the record: Scotch Tape should be called “Botched Tape” and the public should file a class action suit against the manufacturer).
     I carefully remove several short lengths of tape and stick their ends to the table edge for easy access. I successfully wrap and tape the paper together and then execute that dope little trick where I fold the paper into triangles on the end of the box and tape them down. But the trick goes south when I can’t locate the second roll of tape. I frantically search for it, under the rolls of paper, ribbons and name tags, but find the scissors. I eventually locate the tape and lose the scissors.
     In end-of-my-rope anguish I shout, “Will someone PLEASE turn down that damn Christmas music? Who the hell thought it a good idea to let friggin chipmunks sing Christmas carols?”
     I tape down the triangles on the fifth or sixth try and search for the red store-bought bow with the adhesive backing, that I saw here just a few minutes ago.
     “Where the @#$# could it have gone?” I spew as frantically fumble around on the mess on the table searching for it.
     I decide, after downing my second mug of The Captain, I make my own ribbon. I cut two lengths of thin red ribbon and do another dope trick where I scrape the ribbons over the edge of the scissors to form them into festive curlicues. I wrap the ribbons around the box and tie them together in a handsome knot at the top (at least I think it’s the top, but who knows or cares, by now?) I hold down the curlicue with my thumb, grab one of the pre-cut lengths of tape to tape down the bow, but instead tape my thumb to the box. When I undo my thumb, I rip the paper.
     My “mistake pile” of paper continues to grow larger, as the rolls of paper get smaller.
     “Screw the bow,” I declare, as my Christmas spirit searches for more bottled spirits. I down a gulp of The Captain straight from the bottle.
     The table becomes more and more cluttered with paper scraps, ribbons, boxes, tissue paper, tape dispensers, markers and several Christmas cards I forgot to mail last year.
     In aggravated desperation, I use a clear roll of stronger and wider packing tape but nix the idea after spending 20 minutes trying to find the invisible hidden end of the tape to unroll it. (Another class action suit, in the waiting).
     “Hell with it! I’m using duct tape,” I mutter as I notice that I forgot to put the “To:” and “From:” tags on two wrapped gifts, and I can’t remember what’s inside the boxes or who they are for. I have to unwrap them, identify the contents and rewrap them.
     The background music tells me of chestnuts roasting on an open fire and Jack Frost nipping at my nose.”
     “Right about now I’d like to roast Jack Frost on the friggin fire,” I vent in aggravation.
     I angrily jump up and step on the dog’s tail, sending her yelping and rocketing across the room with several wads of tape stuck to her fur.
     I go to the kitchen to refresh my drink and discover that The Captain bottle is empty.
     “’Ho, ho, ho’ if friggin figures,” I mumble as I pour myself a stiff scotch and bourbon on the rocks.
     I return to the table, which now resembles a landfill (there are even gull circling overhead), slump into my chair and survey the scene.
     “Why is it so *!@&% difficult to tape a piece of paper to a box?” I ask myself.
     I finish my drink and do what I should have done hours ago:
     Go to the supermarket and get a bunch of brown paper bags. While waiting and thinking to myself “It can’t get any worse,” a lady behind me says, “Sir. Do you know you have a crushed red bow stuck to your rear end?”
     I embarrassingly remove the bow and shake my head in “I give up” resignation, as my brain turns into a sleigh bell jingle-ing, ring ting tingle-ing goo.
     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.
     
     
  11. JIm Pfiffer
    Here’s a great way to make dining out exciting, fun and aaah-inspiring: do it with year-old identical twin bonus grandsons.
    My wife, Shelley, and I recently had a restaurant lunch with the twins, Remy and Leo, and their parents, Allie and Matt. (For the record, I still can’t tell the boys apart. The look identical to me, thus I will refer to them as Remy/Leo in both the singular and plural).
    Everyone knows that it’s a common curtesy of civilized society, that anytime toddlers are out in public, the public must repeatedly “oooh” and “aaah” over them, and remark how “cute” and “adorable” they are, as if they were the first toddlers every seen in public. (For added effect, you should hold your hand over your heart to indicate that the toddler’s total cuteness is causing your heart to palpitate with sheer joy).
    As luck would have it, we were seated near a table with another set of young twin boys. When you have that many cute and adorable twins in one place it creates a critical mass of adorableness that causes everyone in the restaurant (and even people in the parking lot and in passing cars) to go into hyper-chronic fawning mode. There was so much “ooohing” and “aaahing” that pictures and posters started falling off the walls.
    Remy/Leo was on one side of the table. And Remy/Leo was on the other side, sitting next to me. I supported his fine dining experience by giving him sips of water through a straw, spoon-feeding him applesauce and playing peek-a-boo with cucumber slices, from my salad, held over my eyes. (The twins and I hit it off well because we’re all at the same maturity level).

    When you are seated next to a toddler in a restaurant you must always be alert for incoming pieces of flying food pelting you from many directions. The boys get so excited when dining out that their little arms and legs start flaying about, and food and utensils start flying about.
    Stupidly, I tried to eat some of my meal, and didn’t pay attention to my surroundings, which were under a foodstuff mortar attack. I suffered heavy casualties. There’s no way the dry cleaners will be able to remove the ketchup stains.
    Dining with twins is a great way to reduce your caloric intake because you don’t have time to eat. You’re too busy helping feed the boys, laughing, ooohing and aaahing and picking pieces of hamburger buns out of your clothing.
    And don’t forget pictures.
    You must photograph every frame of the kids’ every action and save them on your phone where they will be lost forever amid the 10,000 other photos of the kids.
    Enjoying a meal with the twins is always a rewarding treat. I may leave with an empty stomach, but my soul is filled with laughter and hilarious memories.
    I wish I could remember back to me carefree highchair days. (Hell, I wish I could remember what I did yesterday). What fun I must have had, because mealtimes for toddlers are some of the greatest times of their lives. Here’s 10 reasons why:
    1. Let’s eat. You’re safely strapped into a chair with a tray of food in front of you and a bib around your neck. You’re psyched and ready for some serious consumption.
    2. Silverware? As if. You eat with your fingers, hands and feet, and no one yells at you.
    3. Unlimited eating surfaces: Who needs plates when you can eat off a tray, table, floor or pick off pieces of hamburger off your forehead and the face of the grandfather next to you.
    4. The big swipe: When your highchair tray is full of food scraps, spilled beverages and pieces of drool sodden napkins, you simply brush it all away, with one swipe of your arm, letting the spiraling debris scatter and fall where it may.
    5. You don’t have aim for your mouth. Hell no. The food can go anywhere on your person, clothing and the very surprised lady sitting at the table behind you.
    6. Within arm’s reach: You can quickly, and without warning, snatch away food, utensils, the waitress’s pen and anything else you can reach. When you get it, immediately put it in your mouth.
    7. Center of attention: People at nearby tables are laughing, pointing and taking photos of you as you use your greasy spaghetti-covered hands to snatch grandpa’s glasses off his face and throw them to the floor. “Ha-ha! How cute,” grandpa is required to say as he steps on his glasses and crushes them.
    8. Wipe me: When you spill food or smear it all over yourself, someone is always there to wipe it clean with a napkin, towelette or grandpa’s sleeve.
    9. You can do no wrong. In fact, if you do something wrong, like knock over grandpa’s glass of expensive craft beer, you don’t get scolded. Instead, everyone laughs, takes your picture, kisses you and never offers to cover grandpa’s dry-cleaning bill.
    10. After dinner treats: You don’t have to worry about diving up the bill and how much to tip the waitress who is still combing pieces of French fries out of her hair.
    And here’s the icing on the cake. Once you are sated, done making a mess and posing for photos, someone drives you home, gives you a warm bath, zips you up in a cozy onesie and tucks you in for a nice eight-hour slumber.
    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 and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper.
  12. 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.
     
  13. JIm Pfiffer
    It’s interesting how our changing culture dictates what body part is the sexually attractive appendage de jour, from implanted breasts and collagen-filled Donald Duck lips to six-pack abs, protruding pecs and thigh masters.
    There is one body part, shared by both genders, which has always been a sex symbol: the two large fleshy halves of the posterior known as the buttocks. Fashion culture decided that it’s time for Americans to shake their booties and enlarge them with cosmetic surgery called a “Brazilian Butt Lift,” or BBL.
    Here’s how it works: A plastic surgeon uses liposuction to suck excess fat from the patient’s hips, abdomen and lower back and injects it into their butt. WTF?
    (FYI: “Lipo” is Latin, meaning “ridiculous misuse of a Dyson,” and “suc” is Latin for “WTF?”).
    Ridiculous and dangerous medical procedures have never stopped Americans from partaking in the latest body marring trend. That’s why the BBL is the fastest-growing cosmetic surgery in the world.
    It’s also environmentally friendly because the fat is being recycled, and it has turned the phrase, “fat ass,” into a compliment.
    According to an article in the U.S. Sun tabloid (motto: “We don’t let facts get in the way of our reporting.”) bum size depends on how we’re doing financially.
    “When there’s financial stability women tend to be happy with themselves and it shows in the shape of their bottoms, which are generally flat and square,” reads the article. “When we fall on hard times — for example during recessions — women tend to focus on balance and symmetry, which means a full, round butt is desirable.”
    Monitoring derriere sizes may be a clever way to predict the stock market. Buy small. Sell large.
    It’s no surprise that the BBL was invented by those wild and crazy fashion-lovin’ Brazilians. I guess they figured that after giving us the “Brazilian Wax,” a painful process that rips away body parts, they felt obliged to introduce another trend that adds body mass.
    Titanic behinds have been hip since the 1980s, popularized by songs like “Bootylicious,” by Destiny’s Child; “My Humps,” by The Black-Eyed Peas and “My Big Bootie Got a Backup Alarm,” by Pfif Daddy and the Rumpsters. (I made up that last song, but I think it would be a hit.)
    Our gluteus maximus are the largest muscles in the body. That’s why I’ve seen people whose keisters are so large they don’t need a butt lift. They need a forklift.
    I’m talking about booties so big that they have their own sovereignty. I’ve seen bodacious butts so big that they form a ledge off the side of each hip, where you can easily set a can of beer, cell phone or a Mini Cooper (with turbo).
    There are plenty of people with enough excess body fat that it could be used to make a whole other person, or two. Call it lipocloning.
    I’ve seen colossal behinds do some serious swaying, bouncing and jiggling. They could use a lift. But the BBL doesn’t actually lift the butt, it shapes it to the butt owner’s specs.
    There is one segment of the population that could use BBL. I’m referring to guys who have absolutely no butts. Their backsides are a flat plane from waist to thighs. Truth: Science calls it “dormant butt syndrome” or DBS.
    Plastic surgery is expensive and rarely covered by health insurance. That’s why we should start a nonprofit butt fat repository where individuals could donate their extra fat to those in need, much like blood drives. Something to think about.
    (FYI: You can get a do-it-yourself BBL by eating a lot of BLTs).
    I think it’s unnatural and unhealthy to move body tissue around willy-nilly.
    What’s next, moving entire body parts?
    Will doctors in the future be able to transplant your junk in the trunk to your shoulders, creating an actual butthead? (Ha! That’s a good one! Sometimes I make myself laugh.)
    Listen, I have nothing against curvy and voluptuous buns, when the goal is to achieve tight and symmetrical C-shaped Jay-Lo behinds.
    But when you romp the rump and that C grows to the size of a municipal parking garage, I get concerned, cuz big booties are unwieldy and can cause a lot of collateral damage. If the caboose owners aren’t careful and are unaware of their surroundings, they knock things over and break them.
    I once saw an intoxicated and dangerously derriered booty poppin’ man take a stumble and tumble. Fortunately, he landed on a chair to break his fall.
    Unfortunately, there was a poodle sitting on the chair.
    It took doctors and veterinarians several hours to safely remove the poor pooch from the man’s cheeks crack. The poodle was shaken up, but uninjured.
    In addition to lookin’ all Kim Kardashian, there are several advantages to high end hind ends:
    ·      Great for sitting on your hands and the hands of nearby people to warm them up.
    ·      Built-in cushion for sitting on hard chairs, bleachers and pews.
    ·      Your hams continue shaking and baking hours after you stopped twerking.
    ·      Great for crushing cardboard boxes, cans and enemies.
    ·      Ability to leave people with lasting images when you exit a room.
    ·      More square footage for people to kiss it.
    ·      Gives you more ass to kick.
    Most trendy body augmentations are for women. Eventually we ‘ll see a male-only body enhancement. I bet I know what it will be called:
    Brazil Nuts.
    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
    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.
     
     
  15. 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.
  16. JIm Pfiffer
    Do kids dance anymore?   When I was a kid, schools and churches held teenage dances almost every weekend, featuring live bands, chaperones and underage kids puking from drinking Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill wine.   If you are a Boomer, you remember Boone’s Farm wines, or maybe not, because Boone’s Farm wines contained formaldehyde, for real. If you drank it, you’re lucky if you can remember your name.   Fortunately, I only drank enough to forget my last name (I have it sewn into tags on all my clothes).   Anyway, what the hell was I talking about? Oh, yeah, dances.   Dances were as much a part of growing up as pimples, skipping class and after-school detention.   We never had DJs at our dances. Hell no. We grooved to live music by local bands with totally hip and cool names like Ma’s Apple Pie, The Puzzle and The Boone’s Farm Boomers. (I made up the last one, but wouldn’t that have been a great name for a groovy Boomer band?)   Dances provided us the opportunities to work on our social skills, meet girls and get beat up. Every dance, in every grade, had at least one oversize bully who had flunked so many times he was dating the female teachers. Every dance also had at least one big mouth wiseass who got punched by the bully.   That wiseass was me.   My friends and I didn’t go to dances to actually dance. Hell no. “Dancin’ was for nerds” was our motto. It was a great motto because we didn’t know how to dance, even though some of us, after our second or third bottle of Boone’s Farm, tried to dance, but we always ended up looking like nerds stricken with a neurological disorder that made us jerk about like fish flopping around on shore.   There were always a couple of guys who were good dancers. One of my close friends, Tony, was one such guy. All the girls wanted to dance with him. Of course, we made fun of him, for it, to compensate for our dancing disabilities and to make us feel better because we knew he would be holding hands with a pretty girl as he walked her home after the dance, while we would be stuck holding hands with a National Geographic magazine.   So, if we didn’t dance, what did we do at a dance, you may ask?   I’ll tell you what we did. We practiced dance segregation. We spent the entire dance standing around on one side of the gym, punching one another in the arms and making farting noises with our armpits, while secretly watching the girls, on the other side of the gym, and wondering why it was cool for them to dance together and go to the bathroom together. I still don’t get it.   One time, I tried dancing with a guy, as a joke.   Got punched in the mouth.   Slow dancing was a different story. Every guy can slow dance. Put your arms around a girl and move from side to side, hopefully in time with the beat and without kicking her ankles.   “Hey Jude” by the Beatles, was my favorite slow dance because it lasted nearly as long as eighth grade (the first time). I was never sure where to put my arms around a girl while slow dancing -- her neck or waist, hold her hands or grab her by the shoulders like she was in for a good shaking. So, I stood there with my arms limp at my side and let the girl position them (usually tied behind my back).   It was during these slow dances that I realized I was the closest I was going to get to kissing a girl for a long long time and I wanted the song to last a long long time. I tried to impress the girl by softly singing along, in her ear, to “Hey Jude:” “Remember to let her into your heart, then you can start to make it better, better AAAHHH!” I know I impressed her, because she whispered back, “Your singing voice sucks, you’re spitting in my ear and if you don’t get your hands off my butt, I’m going to retie them behind your back.”   In sixth grade, when everything in life was awkward, I thought girls were icky. We had to dance with them in gym class. I think we did the foxtrot, cha-cha or some other lame dance we would never again do in our lives. I didn’t hold my dance partner close back then. Nope. I held her so far away that I was in the locker room and she was on the gym floor.   In seventh grade, most girls had a growth spurt and were taller than the boys. When I slow-danced, my head was at just the right height to rest on my partner’s bosoms.   Got slapped in the face.   One time, on a dare, I asked our really hot junior high French teacher if she wanted to dance. She didn’t have time to answer before I got punched in the face. How was I to know she was engaged to the class bully?   Que diable?   Now that I think about it, I know why kids today don’t go to dances, because those dances make memories that will last a lifetime, no matter how much counseling you undergo trying to erase them.   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
    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.
  18. 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.
  19. 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.
     
  20. 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.
     
     
     
  21. JIm Pfiffer
    Aging slows me down. Everything takes longer, especially my body’s plumbing. It’s leaky, no longer up to code, and a hassle to prime the pump, especially in the middle of the night, when it wakes me up to play “red light green light” at the toilet.
    Many guys my age have the same problem and will try most anything to be able to pee at will. Some of them talk to it, trying to coax it into action. (Not me. Not my style. Besides, it wouldn’t listen to a word I say.) I imagine that one of those other guys’ conversations would go like this:
    Some other guy: (Standing in the dark, bare shins pressed against cold porcelain for support, trying to stay semi-asleep so he can quickly fall back to sleep while waiting for it to get flowing.) “What’s the deal? You woke me out of a sound sleep at 3 a.m. mumbling about having to go ‘like a racehorse,’ and now you sit there doing nothing. What’s the holdup?”
    It: “You’re standing at the side of the bathtub, you idiot. The toilet is behind you.”
    Some other guy: “Screw you. I’m half asleep? Get a move on. We don’t have all night.”
    It: “I’m doing the best I can at my age (the sound of a few dribbles that slowly becomes a sporadic stream). 
    Some other guy: “Was that so hard? Why do I always have to threaten you to get you to behave? When are you going to grow up and act your age?
    It: (Suddenly stops in midstream).
    Some other guy: “WTF? Why did you stop? You know how hard it is to get going again. Do you want me to really grab a hold of you and give you a good shaking?”
    It: “Cut me a break, okay? It’s your prostate’s swollen ego that’s causing all the delays. Get in his face, not mine!”
    Some other guy: “OK, I won’t yell anymore. Here look, I’ll even turn on the faucet and run the water to help you get into the right stream of consciousness.”
    It: (A tinkle, a sprinkle, a spurt and finally a strong stream).
    Some other guy: “That’s a good boy. That feels a lot better, now, doesn’t it?"
    It: (Nods in agreement.) “Yo, dude! Watch where you’re going! Stand closer. I’m not as big as you tell everybody.”
    Some other guy: “YOU just pay attention to what you ARE doing, okay? You don’t have the mental capacity to do more than one thing at a time.”
    It (muttering): “What did I do to get stuck with you? I’ll never know.” (Retaliates by suddenly turning down the spigot to “water torture drip” and giggles).
    Some other guy: “You think this is funny, huh? Keep it up and I’ll slam the seat down on you so fast it will make your head spin. We’ll see who laughs last.”
    It: (Grimaces and shrinks back in fear, but quickly returns, ready for business. It takes aim, but nada). “Damn that prostate! Looks like he’s in a tizzy again. We’re shutting down again until he takes a chill pill.” 
    Some other guy: (Grabbing the toilet seat and threatening to slam it) “I got you ‘chill pill’ right here, mister. You get a move on, or so help me god, this seat is coming down hard and fast.”
    It: (lets loose with a powerful stream that would make a firefighter proud, strip paint, and win a sword fight).
    Some other guy: “Was that so hard? Why do we have to get into a pissin’ match every time we do this? We’re partners, remember? Let’s get some sleep and we’ll discuss this further in the morning.”
    It: “Whatever, dude.”   
    Some other guy: (Getting back in bad and quickly falling asleep, but suddenly awakened 20 minutes later) “WTF? Now what?”
    It: “I guess I wasn’t done. I gotta go again. I’m sorry (snickers).”
    Some other guy: “You can stuff your sorries in a bag, buster. I’m not getting up. You’re going to have to hold it ‘til morning.”
    It: “Suit yourself, but there’s an old saying, where I come from: ‘Better to wake up and pee than to pee and wake up.’ Looks like I’ll be getting the last laugh.
    “By the way, I heard, from a reliable source, that the writer of this post not only talks to his plumbing, but he also whines, begs and grovels trying to get it to cooperate. Pitiful. I’d hate to be connected with that guy.”
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page ElmiraTelegram.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.
     
     
     
        
  22. JIm Pfiffer
    Christmas season is a time of unending parties, celebrations and social gatherings.
    It’s a perfect time for me to try and do something I’ve wanted to do for most of my adult life.
    Become a socialite.
    It goes back to 2004, when I watched a no-talent, marginal-IQ Paris “Hotel” Hilton become mad wealthy and insanely famous by just standing around and looking good, toting a tiny yapping dog and over-using the phrase “that’s hot” to describe anything that’s cool (she actually copyrighted the phrase. True).
    Then came the Kardashians, an entire family that became wealthy and famous by being spoiled, whining and doing nothing more productive than changing their nail colors and revealing their boobs.
    They all became famous by being famous.
    “I could do that,” I told myself. “I’m retired and adept at doing nothing. I don’t have the good looks or big boobs, but I can make up for that with my skills at partying and standing around. My dog, Sammi, is too big to carry, but maybe I could ride her around. My cool catch phrase would simply be “That’s chilly most!”
    Now that I’m retired and holiday parties are booming, I’m going to give it try. H ang with the fashion elite, wear outrageous eye-catching ensembles, get invited to all the must-attend gigs, clubs, soirees, openings and closings. If successful, I can get paid for it.
    There is a major downside. I’ll have to make a scandalous sex tape, leak it to the media and then defend myself on the talk show circuit. Hope my wife is cool with that.
    What is a socialite, anyway? According to Google, it’s “a person, usually from a wealthy and aristocratic background, who plays a prominent role and is very frequently involved in high society and spends a significant amount of time attending various fashionable social gatherings, instead of having traditional employment.”
    I’m not sure of how much fashionable society exists in Elmira. If it does, I doubt it is as sophisticated and expensive at it is on a national level. Think about it. High society in Elmira means meth, bongs and rolling papers.
    That’s why E-Town is such a great place to start climbing the social ladder. There’s little competition, the rungs are easy to hold, and you don’t need a private jet. I call it becoming a “Social Lite,” because it’s less filling and has fewer caloric requirements than other socialites.
    You can become one too. It’s not that difficult. That’s why I offer the following list of one dozen online tips on becoming a Social Lite. With each suggestion, I’ve dumbed it down, to include tips on becoming a Social Lite in Elmira:
    1. Online: Wear expensive fashions, jewelry and shoes.
        Elmira: Don’t wear pajamas in public, sport homemade tattoos and plastic Dollar Store clogs. (Bonus tip: make sure your fly is zipped).
    2. Online: Build a social media platform on Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, Instagram, etc.
        Elmira: Build a social media platform with hand-written flyers stapled to utility poles and community bulletin boards at the bus stations.
    3. Online: Dye your hair blonde, lose weight and cap your teeth.
        Elmira: Wash your hair xxx and remember to put your dentures in when you ge t up in the morning.
    4. Online: Wear fashions by Dior, Balmain, Celine, Hilfiger and other famous designers.
        Elmira: Wear camo clothes designed by Carhartt, Duluth Trading and John Deer.
    5. Online: Be class conscious.
        Elmira: Just be conscious.
    6. Online: Become involved in community fund-raisers.
        Elmira: Become involved in random drive-by shootings.
    7. Online: Be seen in public with an expensive and annoying purebred lap dog.
       Elmira: Be seen in public with a ferret or boa constrictor. (Bonus tip: Do not go out in public if you have pending arrest warrants).
    8. Online: Be sure the paparazzi follow you wherever you go.
        Elmira: Be sure to avoid bail bondsmen following you wherever you go.
    9. Online: Sit in front-row seats at all public events.
        Elmira: Bring a lawn chair and sit wherever you can until security throws you out because you don’t have a ticket.
    10. Online: Get invited to A-list parties.
         Elmira: Dress like the caterer to sneak into A-list parties.
    11. Online: Gain social media clout and be and influencer.
         Elmira: Get busted for driving under the influence
    As you can see, becoming a local social lite is easy. But I still need your help in making my high society dream come true by inviting me to your holiday parties and swarming me in public for photos and autographs.
    It would be really nice if you paid me to attend your events.
    That would be chilly most.
    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
    Several months ago, my wife, Shelley, and I lost our best friend and soul mate. Her name was Sammy. She was our pet dog of a dozen years. She had cancer and we had to end her suffering. I’m still grieving the loss.
    I’ve had pet dogs all my life and I’ve had to decide when to end the lives of five of them. It never gets easier. I’m never sure if I’ve made the right decision. Did I end their lives too soon, when they still had many “good days” ahead of them; or did I wait too long, because I wasn’t ready to “goodbye,” and my pets suffered needlessly?
    It was more than a dozen years ago that Sammy came into our lives. She was a beautiful brindle-hued Heinz 57 mix that we adopted from the local SPCA. Before that, Sammy had been a stray that animal control officers caught while she was eating from a deer carcass in the grass median of Route 328 in Pine City.
    I became her adopted dad and she became my best friend, always eagerly and excitedly waiting to greet me at the door every time I returned home as if I had been away at war for years. She would meet me with a smile on her face and her tail wagging so rapidly it wiggled her rear end. Her tail wagged through her heart.
    Dogs instinctively know how to be kind and share unconditional love. It takes people years to do the same. That’s probably why dogs don’t live as long as we do. They are born with life’s lessons deep in their hearts. She shared those lessons with me. I learned so much from her.
    She was my constant companion and a respite of happiness and stress relief at the end of a difficult day. She loved to be loved and petted. She would lie next to me on the couch with her head on my lap, as I read or watched TV. If I stopped petting, she would gently nudge me with her paw or nose to get me back into petting gear.
    She was friendly to everyone she met. She taught me not to judge people and to not be too hard on myself when I made mistakes.
    She loved car rides, with her head out the window, ears flapping in the wind, and her nose savoring the countless fragrances that blew by her.
    Sammy didn’t chase sticks, play catch or do tricks. Instead, she fetched fun and love in everything she did. She showed me how to enjoy life’s little moments of glee and wonder. To love and be loved by a dog is one of life’s greatest pleasures.

    We spent hours hiking in the woods, cross-country skiing on nature trails or sitting in the grass next to the river on a sunny day. Often, while hiking, she would run ahead of me, and I would duck behind a tree and hide. When she would look back and see that I was gone, she would stop and perk up her ears, before darting back to find me. I would jump out from behind the tree to startle her and send her tail and butt into hyper-wag, as I laughed hysterically. She would tilt her head quizzically and look at me as if to say, “You’re so immature. What am I going to do with you?” Then she was off and running ahead again searching for more fun and adventure.
    Now, when I hike those trails, I envision her up ahead, glancing back to be sure I was still in pursuit. At times like those, her loss feels unbearable.
    She was the most lovable dog I’ve known. If I sat down and leaned forward, she would come up to me and rest her head against my forehead, and just sit there quietly, head-to-head, as I rubbed her belly.
    At night, she lie next to my wife and me in bed, slowly taking over more and more of the mattress as the evening progressed, until I would awaken precariously balanced on the edge, about to fall to the floor, while she comfortably hogged the rest of the bed, snoring, with legs outstretched and head tucked into her chest.
    Dogs, like all animals, are good a hiding their pain and infirmities, an evolutionary defense that keeps them from being preyed upon by predators looking for the weakest in the pack.
    After he cancer diagnosis I paid close attention to her behaviors, physical condition and her eating and sleeping habits, looking for signs that would tell me “It’s time, Jim. It’s time.”
    As her health grew worse and I struggled with making the heartbreaking final decision, I took her to one of our favorite outdoor spots, beneath a quiet stand of shady white pine trees in Big Flats. She laid next to me on a soft bed of pine needles as I petted her, prayed and asked the universe to give me a sure sign that it was time to bid her farewell. Tears filled my eyes, as they do as I write this column. She crawled closer to me and rested her head on my shoulder to tell me that it will be okay and that she would let me know when it was time to say farewell. I hugged her and wept like a baby.
    Sammy taught me that it was okay to cry.
    They say that losing a pet is one of the saddest and most difficult traumas we deal with in life. It’s true. Her death was a double whammy because she was my rock of strength and she always made it easier for me to deal with loss and sadness. 
    Her death carved out a hard emptiness inside me that I’m still struggling to fill.
    Sammy was true to her word about telling me when it was time to say goodbye. One day, in a matter of hours, she started showing signs of a “vestibular disorder,” of balance. To her, the room was in a never-ending nauseous spin. She couldn’t stand up or walk without stumbling and falling over. 
    I knew it was time. I called the veterinarian, who came to our home to help us end Sammy’s suffering. The farewell was painless for Sammy. She died softly and comfortably in our arms, amid our hugs and tears.
    I try to ease my sadness by telling myself that my deep grief shows that Sammy was loved and had a great life.
    Sammy, old girl, this one is for you in honor of your life, our wonderful times together and all the love and happiness you shared with us. You made my life more enjoyable, joyful and meaningful.
    Best of all you taught me to be a better man.
    And that is one damn good tail-waggin’-and-butt shakin’ Father’s Day gift.
    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.
  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
    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.
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