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JIm Pfiffer

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  1. JIm Pfiffer
    When I was young New Year’s Eve was a big event, celebrated with gusto, daring stunts, mischievous capers and too much alcohol – and that was before I left the house.
    Not now. I’ve circled the sun 67 times and each time I make the trip there is less drinking and partying, and I’m glad of it.
    That’s because I’m old. My mind may want to Wang Chung tonight, but my body wants to go to bed tonight. The last time I saw 12 a.m. on New Year’s Day, phones had dials and cords.
    Now, when the ball is falling at Times Square I’m falling into REM sleep.

    When I was young most everything we did involved alcohol. We could drink at age 18. It was during those early years that I pickled most of my brain cells. Yes, they were fun times. I just wish I could remember them.
    I remember some of them:
    “Hey you guys! Look! Pfif’s up on the snowy roof. He’s trying to climb up to the chimney to get that plastic Santa Clause. He’s almost there. You got it Pfifs! Oh s—t! Wow! didn’t know a person could slide down shingles that fast and fly that far.”
    I’m relieved at how age has tempered my wild side, daring vitality and internal organs.
    Take hangovers, for example. As a young man I could wake up with a wicked bad hangover and recover quickly enough to be quaffing cold ones by noon and out on the town at dusk.
    Today, if I have more than three drinks in one night, I need dialysis, hydration IVs and three days of bed rest.
    It’s my body’s way of saying to me “WTF is your problem? When are you going to grow up and act your age, Grandpa!”
    In college my New Year’s Eve celebrating began around 6 p.m. with friends getting “primed” (i.e., a card game where losers drank shots of Jack Daniels). Then it was off to the parties and the on Elmira’s two bar strips.
    The Northside had Washington Avenue, home to the Branch Office, Michael’s, Stein Haus, Mario’s Pitstop, Harry Reagan’s, Rybak’s, Benny’s, Bald Mouse and several other watering holes that I can’t recall, or I got thrown out of.
    South Main Street was lined with Good Times, Old Pioneer, Water Works, Carl’s Revolving Bar, The Arch, Bernie Murray’s, The 9th Ward, Boathouse, Mac’s Tavern, Lamplighter and others too numerous to list.
    One year we tried to have a drink at every bar on the Southside strip, a foolish crawl that resulted in most of my brain damage.
    Back then drinking and driving wasn’t a big issue. I should have been, but society had not yet woken up to the dangers.
    I was once pulled over by the police for a broken taillight, speeding or driving on the sidewalk, I don’t remember. The cop knew I was DWI but didn’t bust me. Instead, he instructed me to park the car and walk home (at least I think it was my home).
    Today, we all realize the dangers of drinking and driving. It’s dumb. It’s wrong. Don’t do it.
    There was so much drinking on New Year’s Eves of old, that I did the necessary prep work for my celebrations, like checking to see which friends had my blood type in case I needed a liver transplant.
    That’s because back then some bars got temporary alcohol licenses to stay open until 4 p.m. Just what we needed as shown by the following thought process:
    “Ok, I’ve been drinking since I lost those stupid card games, been to two parties, hit dozens of bars on both strips and stopped at a buddy’s apartment to catch a buzz. I’m probably a 3.9 or 4.0. I don’t know where my car is, which is good because I lost my keys hours ago. What should I do? Let’s see. . . I got it! Let’s go to Lib’s. They’re open ‘til 4. I call ‘shotgun!’”
    I’m not bragging about or condoning my irresponsible New Year’s Eve shenanigans. Yes, they were fun and memorable, but they could have resulted in my being maimed, impaled, killed or imprisoned. I was damn lucky.
    I learned a lot from those exploits. That knowledge has served me well as an adult. I know my limit, I don’t drink and drive and I still can’t believe how slippery wet shingles are.
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper.
  2. JIm Pfiffer
    Russia is at it again, threatening to invade another country. This time its Ukraine.
    This happens whenever Russian “President-for-eternity” Vladimir V. Putin, feels that the world doesn’t fear him enough. He threatens to invade and take over some smalltime third world country that you and I couldn’t find on a map.
    Vladi (that’s what all his friends call him, both of them) likes to shoot selfies of him going bare-chested and riding around on a horse or engaging in other manly activities like hunting, fishing and poisoning political opponents.
    To prove that he’s serious, about Ukraine, Vladi recently shot selfies of himself riding atop a tank, while not wearing a shirt or PANTS!
    Whenever Russia threatens the world, it brings back frightening memories of my childhood at Ridgebury Elementary School, in Ridgebury, Pa., in the early 1960s. I was taught that the Russians were our enemy and a threat to world peace.
    Back then, the Russians amassed armies all over the place, including outer space. Vladi was a child at the time, but that didn’t stop him from riding around on a toy Russian tractor, while not wearing diapers.
    We were in a “cold war” with Russia, which I thought meant fighting in Alaska and Siberia.
    They Russians replaced the Nazis as bad guys in our culture, from movies and books to TV shows. Even our cartoons featured evil black dressed Ruskie’s, like Boris Badenov and Natasha of Bullwinkle fame. (Loved that cartoon. Still do).
    Our fears of these warmongering devils reached a fevered pitch when they moved into Cuba with nuclear missiles. This sent America into full-blast, red alert “there goes the neighborhood” mode. This occurred in 1962 or ‘63, I’m not sure, because, like I said, I was in second or third grade and had trouble remembering my lunch money.
    The cold war suddenly got hot which resulted in a paradigm shift in American education. We went from multiplication drills to “duck and cover” drills, in case one of those missiles was aimed at Ridgebury Elementary School.
    We jumped under our desks, covered our heads with our arms and got our pants dirty, resulting in a nuclear scolding by Mom when I got home.
    The desks were supposed to protect us from flying glass. Hell with flying glass. I worried about the 5,000-degree shock wave and bone-melting radiation?

    Those drills, and the howling sound of the air raid sirens, scared the hell out of me. I had seen too many of the grainy black-and-white film clips showing nuclear explosions reducing houses to molecules and making pine trees sway back and forth before bursting into flames.
    The Civil Defense Corps. produced a PSA cartoon to teach the duck and cover. It starred, Bert The Turtle, a seemingly slow-witted bowtie- and pith helmet-wearing character that ducked into his shell at the first sign of a mushroom cloud. It didn’t make sense. I didn’t have a shell to crawl into, and if I did, I probably get yelled at for ripping out the knees of my pants while doing the crawl.
    As I cowered under my desk, I remember thinking, “How in hell (kids swore a lot back then) is this flimsy gum-wadded desk going to save me from a nuclear blast?”
    Hiding in a fetal position under my desk raised several questions:
    “Why would Russia want to blow up Ridgebury Elementary school? Are there missile silos hidden under the playground?”
    “Why isn’t my teacher under her desk? Probably because if this was a real nuclear attack, she and the rest of the s—thead teachers (see what I mean about swearing?) would run to a secret faculty bomb shelter and leave us kids to fend for ourselves. Bastards!”
    “Maybe if I tell Mom I got my pants dirty when I fell on the playground I won’t get yelled at.”
    But back to the Cuban missiles. From what I can remember President Kennedy and Cuban Leader Fidel “patchy beard” Castro decided to settle the issue like real men, by standing face-to-face until one of them blinked, making the other man the winner. They were originally going to play “rock, paper, scissors,” but Castro said he wasn’t good at it, because rocks, paper and scissors were among the many supplies that Cuba never had enough of.
    Castro blinked first and lost. He later claimed it was because his cigar smoke got in his eyes. (Lyin’ commie!).
    Today school kids have it just as bad. The A-bomb drills have been replaced with “lockdown drills,” were frightened kids huddle in a darkened corner behind locked doors because an armed intruder is in the school shooting people.
    Such fears should never be a part of a kid’s life. We live in troubled times. Covid hasn’t made it any easier. We need a hero to make life safe and fun again.  
    I have the perfect candidate.
    Rocky the Flying Squirrel.
     
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
  3. JIm Pfiffer
    When is technology going to invent an easy-to-use garden hose? I’ve tried them all: flat, round, expandable, indestructible, flexible, steel-coil, rubber, polyurethane and even pantyhose. They’re all difficult to use, heavy, stiff, cumbersome, kinky and a big pain in the grass.
    A hose full of water is heavy and stubborn. It fights me like an angry anaconda, wrapping its coils around my ankles and tripping me. I have to tug, lug and slug it around the yard to water my spring-planted grass seed. It retaliates by getting stuck under vehicle tires, knocking over flowerpots, sweeping toddlers off their feet and pinching itself around the corners of the garage.
    I respond by whipping it up and down, sending angry shock waves undulating along its length, trying to unkink the kinks and showing it who’s the boss. Instead, I knock over more flowerpots and occasionally my wife.
    The water-stopping kinks are always at the far opposite end of the hose, where I can’t see them. So, I have to backtrack along the hose until I find the kink, unkink it and help my wife to her feet.
    Meanwhile, because I forgot to turn off the nozzle, the unkinked water flow resumes, sending the nozzle bouncing around, careening off vinyl siding, a picnic table and spraying water through an open window, and all over my wife, who by now, is angrily marching to the garage to get a shovel to smack me in the head.
    Nozzles aren’t much better. They break easily and leak after a few uses, because their cheap washers are obviously made of sugar or some other water-soluble material.
    Nozzles have many settings, from “mist” to “biblical flood.” I mostly use the powerful “jet” setting that produces a laser-like stream that can blow grass clippings from sidewalks, destroy sandy ant nests in the cracks of my driveway and shoo away neighborhood dogs that are pooping in my yard.
    That’s why I own a Yardman 44-caliber, heavy-duty, orbit 10-pattern nozzle that’s so powerful it comes complete with a 10x power scope, holster and silencer. I could use it to dig a Panama Canal in my backyard.
    Worse than unruly hoses are cheap hose caddies. I must hold mine down with a bent knee, turn the spool crank with my right hand while struggling to neatly guide the hose onto the spool with my left hand, but it ends up being a mess of knots, crossovers and crossunders that will take me until next spring to unravel. 
    Meanwhile, at the other end of the hose, the nozzle is being dragged across the lawn and driveway, bouncing and popping along, as pieces of it snap off and fall in its wake.
    When I try to unroll the hose, I get one-third of it off, before the lightweight caddy falls over and plays dead. I let out a streak of cuss words that causes flowers to wilt and leaves to fall from the trees. 
    By the time I get the hose unrolled, unkinked, lugged around and the leaking nozzle screwed on tightly, the birds have eaten the grass seed.
    Several years ago, I bought one of those “magic hoses” advertised on TV, which shriveled up like an accordion when not in use, and guaranteed to never kink, bend or pinch. If I left the water on while not using it, it ruptured with a loud pop and sent water shooting into the air. I tried several others and they all ruptured. Magic hose my butt.
    Technology has given us cordless phones and computers. It needs to invent a hoseless nozzle that provides water flow without a hose.
    In the meantime, I have to go water the lawn and do it quietly, cuz my wife has that damn shovel again. 
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and ElmiraTelegram.com Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
  4. JIm Pfiffer
    Summertime means fishing time on the Chemung River. Mark Twain spent many summers in Elmira writing about Huck and Tom, and most likely fishing the river when he needed to clear his mind of writer’s block. If Huck and Tom were here today, I bet we would witness something like this:
    The scene: Huck and Tom are sitting on a grassy bank on the Chemung River, the sun warming their backs, long stems of grass dangling from their mouths, straw hats on their heads and cane poles in their hands.
    Huck: “I sure am glad we played hooky today and went fishin’.”
    Tom: “Me too. Fishin’ is powerful and more enjoyable when you’re not supposed to be doin’ it, but supposed to be doin’ somethin’ that ain’t a lick of fun, like readin’ and ‘rithmatic.”
    Huck: “You speak the truth, mostly, Tom, but dang my luck, the catfish ain’t bitin’ today. I ain’t had so much as a nibble. Do you reckon my worm is done drowned by now?
    Tom: Best way to find out is to lift your hook out of the water and take a look see.
    Huck (doing just that): “Well, blame it all! Ain’t nothin’ but a speck a worm left on my hook. Them sneaky fish done stole it bit by bit without so much as a tug on my line.”
    Tom: “It sure ain’t fun bein’ a worm. Have you ever wondered how worms came to be fishin’ bait? They are ugly and squirmy and you can’t tell the head from the tail nor what’s in between. But the fish sure like em. I wonder what a worm tastes like.”
    Huck: “My pap ate a worm once. Claims he was sufferin’ from the fantads and in need of a drink to settle his shivers and quivers. Said he ate a worm on a dare for two fingers worth of whiskey. Said a worm tasted like a worm and was easy to swallow, being all slick and slimy. Said he’d eat a pickle barrel full of em for a bottle of whiskey. Then he cuffed my ears a few times for askin’ bout such nonsense.’”
    Tom: “Why would a soul think a fish would be attracted to a worm, all drowned and droppy and hangin’ off a hook like a wet stocking draped over Aunt Polly’s clothesline. What must that man been a-thinking?”
    Huck: “Never mind what he was thinkin’. I wonder what the worm thought, gettin’ yanked out of his home, impaled mid-body with a hook and then throwed in the river for the fish to have at it, piece by piece.”
    Tom: “I never seen it that way, but you’re right as rain. The worm just mindin’ his business and he got evicted in a most violent manner, then thrown into a coffee can in a tangled wriggling ball of neighbors, in-laws, strangers and probably some worms he ain’t never got along with.”
    Huck: “Yeah, and we make the messy hookin’ ordeal easy on our minds by tellin’ ourselves that ‘worms can’t feel a tinge of pain, but we know better, cuz when that hook goes in, they writhe, squirm, wriggle about like water on a hot skillet.”
    Tom: “Then we toss them in the river, where they try with all their worm worthiness to tread water for as long as possible, but even the most ignorant being known that’s worms can’t tread water for long. It’s a good thing worms can’t talk cuz if they could I dare say they would let out a fiery string of cuss words that could stop a river in its bed.”

     
    Huck: “Jim told me that, one time, he found a bewitched worm that could talk. The worm had once been a man, a man who was the grandest and most celebrated fisherman on the Chemung River. Fished it day and night, sun and rain and ice and snow. Said he knew every fishin’ hole, beaver dam and hidden snag. Said a water witch turned him into a worm cuz he trespassed on her island without her say so. Jim was about to hook that worm when it started begging and pleading with him to spare him. Promised he would tell Jim about the best fishing spot on the whole darned river, a place where the fish are so hungry and plentiful, you have to hide behind a tree just to bait your hook.”
    Tom: “So did Jim let that worm go free and discover the secret fishin’ hole?”
    Huck: “Nope. Before he could answer the worm, a big old catfish jumped clean out of the river and swallowed the worm, hook, line and cane pole in one big gulp, and dove back into the water faster than a lightnin’ bolt on the fourth of July.”
    Tom: “I sure would like to know the whereabouts of that secret fishin’ hole cuz the fish here are especially stubborn and ornery and won’t cooperate. I say we put away this fishin’ foolishness and go exploring on Clinton Island.”
    Huck: “That sounds like a right good adventure, and maybe we find some buried pirate treasure. What we gonna do with the rest of the worms, toss them in the river, like we usually do?”
    Tom: “No, I reckon that today we let those worms go free. Find them some good rich river silt where they can start a whole new worm village. You never know, there might be a talkin’ worm in there.”
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and ElmiraTelegram.com Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
  5. JIm Pfiffer
    As we stumble into a third year of COVID we are more confused, uncertain, worn out and frustrated than ever. We think we’re beating the virus, then we’re not, then we are and then a new one comes along and we’re back to square one, we don’t pass Go and we don’t collect $200. We’re living our own “Groundhog Day” movie.
    As for helpful COVID information and advice, we might as well use a Ouija Board or Magic 8 Ball, instead of listening to the alleged experts.
    Who do we believe? Should I take advice from the CDC, FDA, AMA, WHO, WHAT, WHERE or WHEN?Why do the recommendations keep changing and contradicting each other? I expect the CDC to soon release this message: “Do the opposite of whatever we told youthe last week, but it really doesn’tmatter, because no one pays attention, anyway.”
    COVID has turned our lives into an eternity of questions.
    Do the kids go to school or doremote learning, and what if we can’t find the remote because it fell down between the couch cushions? If I send my kids to school, will I have to drive the school bus?
    If I have to isolate at home cooped up with the kids, like last year, I’ll go insane and need rabies shots tocalm me down.  
    Do I need to test every time I get a cough or get a headache? Are the tests accurate, and if so, which ones are the best? Where do I get them? What about a “false positive?” or a “little white lie negative?” 
    Which vaccine is the best: Moderna, Pfizer or J&J? How about a PB&J? Right arm of left arm? (At least I don’t have to drop my pants). How many shots do I need? Can I mix them? Damn, my arm is sore. Can I still get the virus if I get my shots, and do I need to wear a mask? I heard that the vaccines containmicrochips, potato chips and poker chips. Is that true?
    Are we going to be dealing with a new variant every few months, how the hell do you pronounce “Omicron” and who named it? It sounds like a company that makes robots. Its slogan: “We’re Omicron. Spreading around the globe and never going away.”
    Mask advice is the worst. Cloth, paper or plastic? Homemade, store-bought or picked up off the street? How many layers? What about those plastic face shields that make you look you’re going to weld something? 
    Should the mask cover my mouth and nose? I read on Facebook that the virus can enter your body through your ears, eyes and evenyour butt. (Do I have to wear a mask there, too?)
    We don’t have to wear masks in private unless we’re with several people or doing a home invasion. Can I use the virus as an excuse to stay physically distanced from people because I hate their guts?
    What about restaurants and bars?  Why do we have to wear a mask when we go in, but not when we sit down? Maybe the virus can’t infect seated people. (Probably because it can’t enter through their butts).
    Is it OK to sneeze into my mask or should I sneeze into my elbow or the elbow of the person nearest me? 
    I found this observation online: “Masks are like bras: they’re uncomfortable, you only wear them in public and nobody notices until you take them off.”
    Do I have to stand 6 feet away, or 3 feet away and I don’t want to stand on some stupid footprint stickers on the floor.
    Have you heard of the “15-minute rule, where you should not talk with anyone face-to-face for more than 15 minutes? Does that mean you can end the conversation in 14 minutes, leave, return and continue the conversation for another 14 minutes? 
    How often should I wash my hands? Do I use soap or hand sanitizer and why do they put those useless hand blow dryers in public bathrooms that turn off before your hands are dry, so you have to wipe them on your pants?
    What about wearing latex gloves, L.L. Bean winter gloves or boxing gloves? If I wear boxing gloves? If can I punch the guy in the airline seat next to me who isn’t wearing a mask and keeps breathing his stinking alcohol and cigarette soiled breath on me?
    Can I get COVID from touching stair railings, doorknobs or myself? Is it OK to touch elbows, do fist bumps and mimed handshakes? Will I ever be able to hug people again? Should I wear one of those plastic Queen Ann-style dog collars so I can’t keep touching my face? 
    What about kerchiefs, plastic face shields, coffee filters, panty liners, holding your hand over your mouth or wearing a Darth Vader facemask and helmet?
    I can deal with what we’re calling the “new normal,” but not when it keeps changing. That’s not normal. This uncertainty is the new normal, because we are not going to completely wipe out the virus, but must live with it indefinitely.
    Of that, I’m certain.
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper. 
  6. JIm Pfiffer
    I love trees. They are pillars of strength, patience and longevity. They help clean the air and water and build our homes. When I need to ponder problems or recharge my batteries I do so beneath the peaceful shade and comfort of trees. They do so much for us. The health of Earth and our lives depend on them. That’s why I share the following letter from a tree regarding climate change.
    Dear Humans,
    Hot enough for you? It’s going to get worse. You’re shattering record high temperatures around the world leading to droughts, wildfires, floods and rising sea levels like never before.
    Why? Because of global warming. You’re doing little to nothing to stop it. Worse, many of you insist that it doesn’t exist. Wake up and smell the pine needles.
    We can help you. We’re taking in and storing the global-warming carbon that you exhale and produce by burning fossil fuels. Get this. When we die, we release much of that stored carbon back into the ever-warming atmosphere.
    We’re your ticket (made of foil, of course) to helping reduce global warming.
    We grow most everywhere and thrive in some of the harshest conditions on Earth. There are 60,000 species of our kind, but 30,000 of them are endangered. More than 440 of our species have fewer than 50 individuals left in the world. Yikes! That scares the leaves off of me.

    You think you run the show here on Earth. You don’t. Your legacy is laughably short compared with the more than 370 million years that we’ve been around.
    Life isn’t easy for us. We’re stuck where we take root. We can’t run from fires, escape gypsy moths or move to a new neighborhood when you send in the bulldozers.
    We do so much for you. We produce the oxygen you breathe. Your civilizations were built with our wood for homes, businesses, furniture, boardwalks and pine coffins. We give you fruit, nuts, maple syrup, turpentine, medicines and even pine tar for your ash baseball bats. Want to hang a tire swing, build a treehouse for your kids or make a bark canoe? You need a tree.
    Our roots clean your water, slow erosion and reduce flooding. We provide free windbreaks and snow fences. Our leaves filter air pollutants, provide shade and release water vapor into the air to cool hot streets and cities. We filter the air, pump nutrients into the soil and reduce noise pollution. Birds, animals and insects need us for homes, food and protection.
    We helped Newton discover gravity, tested Eve’s devotion to God and gave you a diagramed framework for your family tree. Our natural beauty calms your emotions, soothes your mental health and empowers your spirit. We inspire poetry and music and happily sit still for landscape paintings. Done so for thousands of years. 
    If not for the “spreading chestnut tree,” where would the “village smithy” stand. We do all this, and you repay us by polluting the Earth and doing dumb things, like cutting us down to make paper and then writing “Save the trees” on that paper. WTF?
    Who the hell came up with the brilliant idea to carve your initials in our bark? And why do you guys pee on us? Do you think we like that? How would you like it, if the next time you stood next to us, we squirted sticky sap all down your pant legs? Why the hell are you so puzzled about a tree falling in the woods and making a noise? Do you know what noise I fear the most? A chainsaw. Shakes me to my root hairs. 
    And don’t get me going about Christmas trees.
    We’ve dealt with Dutch Elm Disease, Gypsy Moths, blight, root rot, wilt, Spotted Lantern Flies, Emerald Ash Borers and more invasive insects than you can shake a stick at.
    Did you know that every 24 hours, 27,000 of my brethren are cut down to make toilet paper? That’s a real pain in my ash. (Yes, we have a sense of humor. How else, do you think we deal with you? 
    We’re not asking you to completely stop cutting us down. Just use common sense when doing so. Repay us by replanting us. We’re renewable. We have a saying among us: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is right now.
    We can’t force you to take real actions to reduce global warming. Our only defense is paper cuts? That ain’t going to work.
    We provide you with so much, improve the environment and assure the Earth’s future. Never mind hugging us. You should be taking us out to dinner. Instead, you pollute us, mow us down and slash and burn us into oblivion, when we can do so much to help reduce climate change.
    It doesn’t make sense.
    You got me stumped.
    Bewildering yours,
    A 250-year-old old oak tree
    Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
  7. JIm Pfiffer
    My kitchen throw-rug stinks of pickle juice and “squishes” when I walk on it.
    Got that way because I tried to do one of the most difficult tasks of modern life: open a jar with my bare hands.
    I tried both hands. No luck. Got miffed. Ran it under hot water. Nada. Got pissed. Pried it with a spoon handle. Still stuck. Got furious. Got my pliers, clamped them around the lid, clasped the far ends of the handles for max leverage, took a sturdy feet-apart stance and twisted with all my might (I even used my grimacing, “I’m not playin’” face for effect). The lid gave way.
    And gave me a fright. The pliers flew from my grip and slid under the fridge, pickle juice sloshed from the jar and a pair of pickles ejected and tumbled across the dog-hair-covered floor There is nothing more disgusting than a dirty, hairy gherkin.
    Why is it everything is so difficult to open? Are jars, cans, bags, boxes, bottles, capsules, pods and pouches sealed with nuclear forces, 1,000-ton presses and NASA-strength adhesives? You need power tools and improvised explosive devices to open a jar of peanut butter.
    You need an engineering degree to open a prescription medicine bottle. Each one has its own unique entrance procedure. Push down while turning, pull up while pushing, squeeze the sides while turning or push, pull, squeeze and turn while swearing. Yes, there are instructions printed on the cap, but you can’t read the letters because they are quantum size and white on white. Thanks a lot.
    I worried that opening all these stubborn containers would cause me carpal tunnel syndrome. The problem has become so bad I now worry about getting Holland Tunnel syndrome.
    The no-open technology goes back to 1982 when someone laced Tylenol bottles with cyanide in Chicago. Seven people, who popped the pills, died. The killer was never found.
    That caused product manufacturers to do what they do best -- cover their butts from lawsuits. Their solution: “If you can’t open it, you can’t tamper with it.”
    Then they lie to us with phrases like “Easy to open,” “Peel here to open,” and “Pray here to open.”
    The side of my box of mac-and-cheese has a perforated tab telling me to “push here” to open. When I push, the box top collapses into itself and a product design engineer, somewhere, is laughing his ass off.
    Why do I have to get past a series of roadblocks to open an aspirin bottle? First is the layer of clear plastic that is spot-welded to the bottle cap and neck. I can’t get a fingernail or an incisor under it to start the rip. It teases me with a red dotted line indicating where it can allegedly be easily torn. (More engineer laughter). The line is put there to give you hope. In frustration, I grab a steak knife and hack away at it like a psycho at the Bates Motel, until it comes off. Now I must decipher the cap combination to remove the lid. Next, I face the dreaded foil seal, made of an alien spaceship material that can’t be pierced, peeled or pulled. I stab at it with a screwdriver and spit ugly epithets at the Bayer company until I get it half open.
    “Finally!” I exclaim. “I’m in.”
    Nope. Still have a wad of cotton to remove. The opening is too small to insert two fingers to pinch and pull the wad. I must use one finger to remove it piece by piece, and use it to blot-up the blood oozing from the knife and Phillips’ head cuts on my hands
    By the time I get in, I can’t take the aspirin because they are past their expiration date.
    Truth: There is an online site called “Opening Jars with Arthritis: 21 Tips,” including “start with the correct form,” “hold the jar close to your body” and “whatever you do, don’t ask that Pfiffer dude to do it.”
    Here are some other common “you can’t open me – nah, nah, nah-nah-nahhh” containers.
     Disposable plastic bags in a supermarket’s produce section. You can’t tell which end of the bag opens. It’s too thin and adheres to itself. I stand there rubbing it between my thumb and forefinger praying it will open, while the baby onions I want to put in it, grow into adult onions. The clear, thin ridged plastic (used for 2-liter soda bottles) that can only be cut with hydraulic shears, leaving razor sharp edges that can easily sever fingers. (Hint: soda bottle manufactures should include a tin of Band-Aids with each purchase.) Those friggin’ tiny oval-shaped stickers welded to individual pieces of fruit. You can’t remove them with a fingernail or knife edge without gouging out most of the fruit. Snack bags with tiny pre-cut slots where you are supposed to be able to start tearing open of the bag top. My dog loves these bags, because I always end up ripping them wide open and potato chips scatter across the floor for canine pickup. Roll of clear plastic packing tape: The tape is so transparent you can’t find it’s end and if you do you can’t pull it from the roll in one piece without it sticking to itself. I think we should make jar opening with bare hands a summer Olympics event.
    Better yet, we need legislation that forces manufacturers to give us easy-to-open products.
    We can call it the opening containers law.
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, TwinTiersLife.com and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper.
  8. JIm Pfiffer
    TV remotes are supposed to make life easier.
    Not mine.
    The remote in our home causes frustration, stress, marital strife and the throwing of things.
    The problems begin when we can’t find the remote. My wife, Shelley, and I  frantically search for it beneath cushions, furniture, piles of magazines and newspapers on the coffee table and under the dog if she is in the room. You never know.
    (For the record: Shelley doesn’t actually “help” look for the remote. Instead, she offers helpful verbal support, like “I’m not the last one who used it, am I?”)
    Shelley: You should see him when he can’t find it. He’ll look under the same cushions several times, just in case he didn’t see it the first three times. The longer he looks the worse he gets, but he won’t use the buttons on the TV set to turn it on. He must possess and control the remote. It makes him feel like he’s in charge. One time he looked for it for 20 minutes. I found it on the top shelf of the fridge where he had absent-mindedly left it when he got a snack.
    Me: First of all, why is she interrupting my column? I didn’t ask for her “alleged” side of the story. Now I must boldface “Shelley” and “Me,” so you know who is talking. See what I must put up with? And yes, I need to have control of the remote because I watch TV like it is supposed to be watched – multiple channels at once, never spending more than a few minutes on each, and changing it as soon as it gets boring. I have a keen ability to multi-task and do it well. Get this: Shelley watches ONE PROGRAM AT A TIME, including commercials! So wrong. So terribly wrong.
    Shelley: Multi-tasking, my foot. He has ADD.                   
    Me: There is a universal unwritten rule of home TV viewing that states that you must be in the room with the TV to officially be considered “watching” it, like when Shelley yells from another room, “Jim. Why did you change the channel? I was watching that.”
    Baloney. You can’t claim viewing and remote rights from another room. If you’re not in the TV room, the remote and TV programming control automatically goes to the person closest to the TV.  Gotta follow the rules, right?
    Shelley: We try to find programs or movies that we can watch together, but we have very different tastes in programming.
    Me: She’s right. We do have different tastes. Mine are good. Hers are bad.
    Shelley: He won’t watch anything unless it contains: sports, violence, car chases, explosions, John Wayne, people doing stupid stunts, nudity, or the possibility of nudity.
    Me: We have hundreds of channels and streaming services, and she watches the E Network, Lifetime, or educational and instructional programs. Can you believe it? She watches TV to learn!
    Shelley: Jim’s hearing is bad because he’s old and he spent his youth listening to loud music on his earphones. So, he must have captions and the volume turned up to “window-rattling.”  He gets so frustrated when he pushes the wrong remote buttons. That’s when I usually leave the room because I know things are going to get ugly.
    Me: Sometimes when I’m switching channels, I hit the wrong buttons and turn off the TV, or worse, change it to the Lifetime channel. One time I hit three buttons at once and my garage door opened. I have all these extra buttons that I don’t need. What I do need is a “mute” button that I can use to make my wife stop dissing me in this column.
    Shelley: Ladies, I have a tip for you if your husband is being a jerk. The next time he has a day off or plans to watch the big game, get out of the house. Take a walk, go to the movies or visit a friend.
    And take the remote with you.
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
     
  9. JIm Pfiffer
    I’ve had pet dogs all my life. They are loyal, playful and great companions. I’ve learned a lot from my canine friends and discovered that they have their own set of social rules and norms. Below are some of those rules:
    Toilet bowl cocktails should never be served before 4 p.m. and always remember to put the seat up. Never wear those silly dog sweaters. If your owner insists that you do, run away. Run Spot, run! If you unexpectedly pass gas, blame the cat. When walking on a leash and you see a squirrel, always wait until there is no traffic before violently yanking your master’s shoulder out of the socket and pulling him into the street while giving chase.  During social gatherings, refrain from talking about your “bad case of worms.” Bad dog! It’s never acceptable to say, “It’s a dog-eat-dog-world,” even in jest.  When riding in a car, bring paper towels to wipe your nose prints off the window. If you stick your head out the front passenger window to enjoy the rushing air, make sure no one sits in the rear passenger seat with the window down because your slobber will splatter all over their face. Remember, all breeds of dogs are created equal – except those annoying yapping poodles. If your wagging tail accidentally knocks over someone’s drink, it’s acceptable to use a cat or poodle to wipe up the spill. Good boy! Pointing is acceptable when hunting pheasants or grouse, but not in social settings. Never lick yourself and then lick your master’s face. After your master bathes you and brushes and trims your fur, it is acceptable to find some stinking garbage or dead animal to roll in. When on a date, the male dog should always let the female dog select the rotting and festering dead animal carcass. It’s okay to run away if you hear your owner spell any of these words: “b-a-t-h, v-e-t and n-e-u-t-e-r.” To not embarrass your master, when on a walk and you have to poop, wait until your master is looking the other way and pretending that he has no idea what you are doing. Good girl! When out on the town with friends, don’t act like a pack of wild dogs. Remember, we’re domesticated. Sit! Stay! If you accidentally soil the carpet, blame the cat. Blame the cat for everything. When a human scratches your belly, be sure to respond with that cute and allegedly uncontrollable “rapid leg thumping.” It will likely get you a few biscuits. Rollover! When your master tries to hide pills in your food, it is acceptable to spit them out, but be sure to cover your mouth to avoid spreading germs and bad dog breath. No matter how mean your master may be, seeing eye dogs should never ever walk them into utility poles, not even on a double-dog-dare.  Don’t race to the door barking every time the doorbell rings, because it’s hardly ever for you. Stay! When in doubt, sniff it, pee on it and walk away. When your master comes in the house, even if he has been away for a few minutes, excitedly wag your tail, bark, jump around and lick his face like you haven’t seen him for seven dog years (It may get you a belly rub and a biscuit). Your bark may be worse than your bite, but your farts are lethal. Go lay down!  If you are in obedience school, never use the excuse “I ate my homework.” When on a dinner date, and you’re not sure which fork is your salad fork, don’t worry. Real dogs don’t eat salad. Never ever attend a flea market. Duh!  Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and ElmiraTelegram.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
  10. JIm Pfiffer
    Memorial Day weekend kicks off the summer grilling season, so I decided to grill the old-fashioned way – with charcoal briquettes. It’s one of the few times that I can play with fire and accelerants and not get yelled at.
    I normally use my cheap Wal-Mart gas grill. It’s fast, convenient and relatively easy to use. But it doesn’t give my steaks that tasty, smoky flavor that comes from cooking over charcoal. The gas grill makes my strip steaks taste like, well, Wal- Mart. Ick.
    That’s why I used my old Weber kettle-style grill with the rounded top and a half- bag of Kingsford Briquettes that I found in the garage. I followed the standard backyard three-phase/four-step-phase process for trying to light.
     
    Phase I
    1. Shake my head and say some bad words at the billowing cloud of charcoal dust that enveloped me, blackened my face, hands and clothes, and incited a
    coughing and choking fit.
    2. Pile the briquettes into a pyramid shape that kept collapsing and falling apart until the third try.
    3. Douse the pile with lighter fluid.
    4. Hold a lighter flame to the briquettes going from one to another trying to get one to ignite, for Christ’s sake!
    After several tries a corner of one of the briquettes took a flame and began to burn, making me smile and giving me hope. After a few seconds, it fizzled out in a mocking wisp of smoke, making me swear and giving me grief.
    Phase II
    1.Angrily squeeze the lighter fluid bottle emptying it all on the pile. The pile is now primed with accelerants and ready to explode when lit.
    2. I stand back several feet, as the strong smell of petrol permeates the air. I use wooden kitchen matches to light the fire. The first few matches don’t light or snap in two. When one finally flames to life, I use the recommended “light it and throw it” by tossing the lit match into the pile, but the match goes out as it arcs toward the petrol pyre. After several tries, a match stays intact and stays lit as it lands on the pile. The backyard explodes in a mushroom cloud of blinding yellow and orange light and intense heat that fries a nearby plate of hot dogs waiting to go on the grill.
    3. I go in the house and have a beer while waiting 10-15 minutes for the briquettes to turn into that perfect cooking heat of glowing orange-red embers with white and gray ash trim.
    4. Return to the grill to discover that the briquettes are still black and as cold as the beer I go get while telling myself to “stay calm” and “be an adult.”
    Phase III
    1.Pour copious amounts of lawnmower gasoline, paint thinner and tiki torch fluid on the smoldering pile. It sends a thick column of white chemical-laced smoke into the air that causes passing birds to fall from the sky.
    2. Do the light it and toss kitchen match routine until I get so frustrated, that I throw the whole damn box into the grill. Still no flames. I crouch down to blow on the smoking briquettes hoping to raise a flame. My wife shouts from inside the house “When are you going to learn? I’m calling the fire department!”
    3. The pile explodes into a conflagration that burns my face, singes my eyebrows, and sends me falling backward on my butt.
    4. I hold the top half of the grill by the handle and use it as a heat shield while I use the extra-long-handle spatula, in my other hand, to push around the flaming briquettes to reduce the flames to a forest fire and show the now- arriving firefighters that I have everything under control, and they can return to the station.
    I stay by the grill tending to the steaks until they have a nice charred crust and are a pink medium-rare inside. I remove the steaks and let them rest for several minutes to trap the tasty juices and maximize their full flavor potential.
    I plate the steaks cut off a tender piece and place it in my mouth-watering maw in anticipation of the first taste of summer.
    “Damn it! Tastes like a can of gasoline!” I shout.
    From inside the house, my wife shouts “When are you going to learn. I’m calling for a pizza.”
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and Elmira Telegram.com.
    Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
  11. JIm Pfiffer
    “These rock! I can’t believe how great they sound.”
    I said that after trying on my Bose audio sunglasses that played music from my smartphone. The glasses were a birthday gift from my thoughtful little sister, Pat. The microscopic speakers in the frames produce a clear and deep sound that rivals any full-size stereo system, and they don’t need an extension cord.
    How we listen to music has changed drastically since my high school and college years in the ‘70s. Back then, stereo systems were large, cumbersome, expensive and needed a U-Haul truck to move them.
    Today, that same system fits in the frames of my glasses. Love technology.
    When I was trying to grow up, my generation’s sound systems reflected our status and coolness. If you wanted to make the sweet stereo scene you did so with speakers like JBL, KLH and SOL if you couldn’t afford a top brand. 
    We rocked the Casbah with stereo components by Marantz, Kenwood, Sansui, Sherwood, Sanyo, Phillips, Technics and Pioneer. These electronics had more knobs, dials and switches than a nuclear power facility.
    They had something called “Dolby noise reduction,” which didn’t make sense because we wanted more noise. It was supposed to improve the listening experience. I don’t know if it did or what it did. Neither did most of my friends, but that didn’t stop us from pretending that we did know and were forever asking “Does it have Dolby?” “I want Dolby!” “I need Dolby.” “Do me with Dolby!”

    Big was better. Gigantic was best. We engaged in speaker wars, as they were the most important music system component. We were forever asking, “Who made them?” “How much did they cost?” and “Can they make the neighbors call the cops?” 
    We rocked on to the pulsating pressure waves of speakers that were so tall they had penthouse apartments. The more speakers the better. We had woofers out the wazoos, tweeters ‘tween ten and twenty, and mid-ranges loud enough to be heard in the mid-Atlantic. I had more decibels than common sense. That’s why today I often say, “Could you repeat that? I didn’t hear you.”
    If you were really cool, you removed the foam fronts of your speakers to expose the beat-throbbing black paper diaphragms pulsing out the tunes with sound waves you could actually see compressing the surrounding air molecules at Mach 1 (Of course, you had to do several bongs to be able to see those compressions).
    Big was better and more was mandatory. We went from one speaker mono Hi-Fi to two-speaker stereo, four-speaker Quadra-sound, mucho-speakers surround sound and anything more than that was a live arena concert.
    My stereo system in college took up an entire wall in my apartment and had to be wired into the Tennessee Valley Authority to provide enough juice to pump up the volume. It put the “BOOM!” in Baby Boomers, baby.
    One time, I played a George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers album so loud that the spare light bulbs in the hall closet glowed to the beat. If I stood directly in front of the speakers, it would cause me temporary sterility. (My girlfriend, at the time, loved George Thorogood.)
    Back then, there was a popular magazine ad for high-end speakers (I don’t remember the brand) that showed a dude sitting in front of his speakers and the sound waves were knocking over his drink, blowing back his hair and pushing back his chair. That was my sound system goal – using acoustics to move solid objects. 
    We equated loudness with good times, good parties and good chances that our ears would bleed. The more we drank, the louder the tunes. Give me more Budweiser’s, more watts, more amps, more channels, more decibels, more mega-hits and more bleeding eardrums. The louder the tunes, the more we drank. The more we drank the louder the tunes. Today, my liver quivers thanks to listening to Thorogood’s “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One beer” with the volume turned up to “rattling windows.” 
    My sound system featured a: turntable, receiver, amplifier, tuner, cassette deck, reel-to-reel tape deck, two speakers, mixers, boosters, pre-amps, post-amps, amplified amps and an extensive collection of albums, 45s and tapes.
    Today, all that is packed into my sunglasses frame, featuring the “revolutionary Bose open ear audio design” that lets me listen to George and his Delaware Destroyers without destroying my eardrums, and still “hear the world around me at the same time.” An online tutorial explains how they work, how to use them and how to control the volume. But it doesn’t answer my one pressing question.
    Does it have Dolby? 
    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.
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