Category Archives: humor

PROMPT: Stronger

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Daily writing prompt
What’s a moment that made you realize you were stronger than you thought?
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Many times. In many ways. Not always good. One time in a packed conference room for a mandatory graduate seminar, I realized I’d forgot to wear deodorant on an Indian summer day in Georgia, and — thus — smelled stronger than I’d thought. (Maybe, I’d put on the deodorant, but it — being as exhausted as I — hadn’t the will to stay in the fight.) Of course, when I first caught a whiff, my internal monologue was like, “Oh man, who skipped the shower!” But after a couple pit sniffs made as surreptitiously as I could manage, there was no lying to myself further. (No lying about the smell, and no lying to myself that pretending to wipe my lip on my collar was really any less gross than just owning the sniffing my own pit.) I — on that occasion — was the stinky kid.

Drunkard’s Cask [Limerick]

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A drunkard put a cask atop his car
 so he wouldn't always have to find a bar.
   Under that kind of weight --
   The car's range: km - 8,
 But his own range per liter wasn't that far.

BOOK: “New Comic Limericks” ed. by Ivanette Dennis

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New Comic LimericksNew Comic Limericks by Ivanette Dennis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This anthology consists of 63 pages of whimsical limericks with amusing cartoon illustrations by Louis Marak. There aren’t laugh-out-loud yucks to be had here, but the wordplay of these poems is clever and the limericks are more well-crafted than most. It should be pointed out that there is nothing risqué in the collection either. The most best-known limerick writers included are Ogden Nash, Edward Lear, Gelett Burgess, and Charles Barsotti. [Incidentally, the most famous writers included are Rudyard Kipling, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., and Robert Louis Stevenson.]

The pieces take a wide variety playful approaches to the limerick from eye rhymes, slant rhymes and the shape poetry of Charles Barsotti.

If you’re interested in limericks and wordplay, there is a lot to learn from the examples presented in this anthology.

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Dandelion [Limerick]

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“Spring has lined all roads with dandelions.”
 At this a young girl started cryin’
     You see, to her ear,
     ‘Twas rational fear,
 For she was afraid of Dandy Lions.

PROMPT: Underrated

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Daily writing prompt
Who are some underrated people in history?
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Alfred Krupa, Bernard Sadow, and Robert Plath, men whose inventions over thirty-three years during the late twentieth-century ushered in a new epoch in human history — the era of the wheeled suitcase.

Now, the fact that we didn’t figure out putting wheels on a suitcase until the late 20th century (and that when we did it took several long-fought permutations before wheeled suitcases were worth a damn) is a chilling testimony to how quickly General Artificial Intelligence will leave our species in the dust.

PROMPT: Productive

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Daily writing prompt
When do you feel most productive?
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Generally, I feel most productive when I’m in the act of producing something, but I have had some measure of success in tricking myself into feeling productive when I’m actually goofing off at high intensity.

PROMPT: Positive Thing

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Describe a positive thing a family member has done for you.
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Not slapped me in my stupid face when I said or did something idiotic. (Or is that a “negative thing,” since it involved inaction, rather than action.) Anyhow, it always feels like a rather positive thing to me.

PROMPT: High School

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Daily writing prompt
Describe something you learned in high school.
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The one thing I learned in High School was that I really should have learned more than one thing in High School.

PROMPT: Pandemic

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How have you adapted to the changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic?
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That’s so far in the rearview that I can’t remember. I’m thinking about the next one. It’ll be here before you know it.

I’m not quite sure what to do about it now that the CDC guidelines are to drink a shot of bleach each morning for the germs and take one bath in raw sewage before bedtime each evening for a robust immune system.

PROMPT: Laugh

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What makes you laugh?
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Comedy… and select instances of tragedy.