Author Archive for M. Toole

Back in the USA

VATICAN LAUNCHES WEBSITE

(ROME – UPS) The Catholic Church this week announced the establishment of a new website. Three years in the making, the website VATICOM.ORG will provide Catholics worldwide with online spiritual services at the click of a mouse and at unheard of prices.

The free portion of the website features most current Catholic dogma, along with an extensive liturgical calendar and bulletin boards such as ASK THE PRIEST, NUN CHAT, and ALTAR BOYS FUN. Although communion is not available in the free area, virtual pews are offered along with sermons both in Latin and the vernacular.

For just $19.95 per month (credit card, web check or debit authorization) members are treated to a vast panorama of products and services: 1. Communion is dispensed via wine and wafer cookies. 2. Confession is taken for all sins, original or otherwise. 3. Water can be made holy with a mere dip of the mouse. 4. Virtual candles can be lit, and burned for as long as you pay. 5. Blessings and last rites are available 24/7. By clicking on the shopping cart, members can take advantage of many additional products and services.

Due to the recent changes in banking security and the stock market shifts, there has been a massive reorganizing  of the catacombs, freeing up a number of relics at the lowest prices ever. In order to make room for the numerous new saints, remains and artifacts of many past minor saints must go. Prophet is not a major consideration. They’ve all gotta go at rock bottom prices.

Annulments are available in all cases where either or both parties to any marriage realize that their marriage was never really spiritually consummated. For a reasonable fee, any member can be virginally remarried in an official church ceremony. Prior dispensation can be obtained for certain contemplated sins of omission. Violations of the Catechism can, in most cases, be expunged seamlessly in exchange for an appropriate payment. Admission to heaven itself can virtually be insured, and without the tedious trappings of virtue.

The website will be particularly useful to parents who want their young boys to be brought up in the church without being directly exposed to priests. Online classes are taught by real nuns, armed with rulers and anger. All government educational vouchers will be accepted. Vatican officials emphasize that actual churches and schools will still be operated as they have been for 2000 years. Exorcisms and extreme unction will only be available live and with appointment.

– Dolores Alegria

Toole Frightened by ghost writers

(Mildcat Creek) It was supposed to be a secret. It was kept under wraps for decades but now the goose droppings have hit the hot tin roof setting off shockwaves as far away as your own backyard.

Yes, longtime supporters expressed shock at the seemingly childish relationship between the retired scribe and his literary support group.

“Sometimes you just have to write the boring, pointless story that goes with the funny headline if for no more than the affect on people skimming the news,” said one ghost writer who begged anonymity.

“Bad writing is bad writing either way even if the writer is simply whitewashing the scene with the wave of a tinker’s damn,” said another spirited scribbler, adding that Toole would have trouble writing his way out of a marshmallow bag.”

One former publisher defended the frightened journalist saying that for years Toole had been afraid of his own shadow and that separate cubicles had been employed to allow for word drainage and security.

“His reluctance to accept these helpers is the root of the issue,” explained the publisher. “He didn’t even show up at this year’s Bad Grammar Awards even though he was a late-inning shoe-in for some mindless trinket or another.

And all this amid confirmations that people all over the world are drinking more and enjoying it less.

– Mrs. Snowbody

“And you want to reform people like these when dynamite’s so cheap?” 

– Carol Kennicott to Vida Sherwin in Main Street by Sinclair Lewis. 

GAMES FOR THE BRAINS

Sounds Right But It’s Not

Hey chopper heads! The sound of some words can be defined by other words that mean something else altogether. Can you match the definition of the word in Group A with that is associated by sound and elaborate nonsense to a word in Group B?

Group A

1. Capital S

2. Male escort

3. Wedding Day

4. Judge’s garb

5. How Dali paints

6. Faint noise

7. Lousy poet

8. Ready hat

9. Ex-spouse

10. Fake Diamond

Group B

a. Stalemate

b. Shamrock

c. Locomotion

d. Cereal

e. Largess

f. Bombard

g. Mandate

h. Lawsuit

i. Maritime

j. Handicap

Answers: 1-e, 2-g, 3-i, 4-h, 5-d, 6-c, 7-f, 8-j, 9-a, 10-b.

The Games People Play

Each of the games listed in Group C originated in a locale listed in Group D. Can you put the right game with the right place on the planet?

Group C

1. Awari

2. Hus

3. Pachisi

4. Shove Ha’penny

5. Alquerque

6. Go

7. Senet

8. Chess

9. Shogi

10. Yote’

11. Asalto

12. Caroms

13. Dice

14. Dreidel

15. Knucklebones

Group D

a. Israel

b. Ethiopia

c. Germany

d. India

e. Spain via Egypt

f. Sumeria

g. West Africa

h. Japan

i. Greece

j. Surinam

k. England

l. China

m. Egypt

n. Zimbabwe

o. India

Answers 1-j, 2-n, 3-o, 4-k, 5-e, 6-l, 7-m, 8-d, 9-h, 10-g, 11-c, 12-b, 13-f, 14-a, 15-i.

Bright Menu

In each of the words clued below, whether at the beginning, at the end or in between, you should be able to find something edible. Examples: Loud Cry-Scream-cream. Irritate, annoy-tease-tea. NOW YOU TRY…

1. Alms seeker

2. Outer garments

3. Sailing vessel

4. Width

5. Gravity

6. Smooth

7. Tool

8. Satisfy

9. Sharp-pointed weapon

10. Mottled

11. Fixer of fixtures

12. Move in haste

Answers 1. Beggar, egg; 2. Coats, oats; 3. Windjammer, jam; 4. Breadth, bread; 5. Sobriety, Brie; 6. Sleek, leek; 7. Hammer, ham; 8. Appease, peas; 9. Spear, pear; 10. Dapple, apple; 11. Plumber, plum; 12. Scurry, curry. Now make up about 200 of these clues to spring on your friends. Don’t panic. It’s going to be a long winter.

ARE YOU RIGHT WITH GRAMMAR?

by Edwin R. Whom

     Today most Americans cannot spell, make correct change, take responsibility for their own actions or tell us where Canada is located. It is sad. But where, you may ask, did the tragic breakdown first occur? I’ll tell you…It was in the subject of grammar. It is the mastery of this elusive study therefore that stands as the hero of our legacy, the bastion of rock and roll lyrics, the saving grace of the culture. Tread lightly ye rudimentary heretic!

In the following sentences identify the subject, the predicate, all adverbs, adjectives, pronouns, action verbs, prepositions, articles and dangling participles.

1. A penniless Lorain could not find her way out of the suspended paper bag only because the Gypsy prince had relieved her of the master key, among other things.

2. In his tiny head Cal was still the everyday left fielder even though he had not signed so much as one autograph since 1956 and, off the field, was often mistaken for a hockey puck.

3. Suddenly Ben’s peruke slid into the jello salad exposing him for exactly what he was–a confused, though not unattractive, after hours parasite!

4. Maureen didn’t enjoy rats but was often overheard to say, “Mongoose make suitable companions after a flash flood or other tropical storm.”

5. A tentative Maurice tossed down a quick domestic six-pack before heading off into the harsh Montana swampland and into a horizon known locally as Alberta.

WORDS  ARE  OUR  FRIENDS

Can you define the following words?

1. GOOGOL: a.) Ten to the hundredth power; b.) To stare at someone stupidly; c.) A turncoat lieutenant in the service to Genghis Khan; d.) To purposely goose someone and later pretend the victim was one’s wife or husband.

2. ZONDA: a.) a small Japanese car; b.) The name of Dobbie Gillis’ girlfriend; c.) A hot wind of the Argentine pampas; d.) A cheese made from the pasteurized milk of a adolescent yak.

3. JEHU: a.) A Himalayan rope suspension bridge; b.) Someone who drives too fast; c.) A hayseed, a yahoo or someone from Hooterville; d.) The practice of eating dirt, gravel or yellow snow; e.) All of the above.

4. AGRESTIAN: a.) of the land; b.) A tribe inhabiting Northern Albania; c.) Growing wild in irrigation ditches; d.) Someone who is stupid but thinks he is way cool.

5. BUCKEEN: a.) A young man of lesser gentry aping the manners of the greater; an idle shabby young dandy (Irish); b.) Change for a Ten-spot in Wales; c.) Bad knees resulting from athletic abuse and unfortunate genetics; d.) The habit of jockeying back and forth on the potty in an fruitless attempt to relieve discomfort caused by Xiuhtecutli, the Aztec fire god.

Gravity Levels Dangerously Low Friday

What with Ukraine, Gaza, Immigration woes, the worthless election and global warming it is surprising our scribes in the the literary trenches have time to tell us that our gravity levels are reaching epidemic proportions. They say we are approaching emergency levels with lines boiled in the sand.

What does it mean for the average American?

“It’s hit rural America the hardest with many smaller livestock samples remaining up in the air,” said one agro-economist in Greeley. “You have to realize that there are more livestock out in the country that have always counted on gravity as the enforcer. Maybe that is not the same now.”

Scientists fear that the assault on gravity is somehow linked to contaminated air and water in Third World countries. “Not our fault,”said one MAGA Republican. “I am so tired of people blaming my America for everything.

“It’s payback for colonialism, racism and the hype of everything from baseball to blueberries,” said a white liberal with a Black Lives Matter sign in his gated community in Foggy Bottom.

While in the major cities people have begun to question the need for gravity at all. “We have our cellphones and that keeps our feet on the ground,” said one.

Environmentalists continue to harp about methane farts to blame while Republicans continue to call for more control (of everything but them) and ban books that divert the public attention from an assault on democracy.

Democracy and gravity go together hard-in-hand,” said the liberal voice. “It just kinda does.”

He did not elaborate further.

The Republican-led (for today) House has moved to ban gravity since it has not once been mentioned in the Bible. Not wanting to alienate a bone-chilling segment of its faith-based constituency, the extreme right continues to hold out for the Second Coming of the Dulles Brothers.

“How dare you insinuate that I would warm a proletarian bar stool in some concrete cathedral of cold beer and rum, hobnobbing and imbibing to the fullest extent of the law with the local peasantry?” – Tom Paine, anarchist

IRS LEANING ON ILLEGAL ALIENS

(Ogden) The Internal Revenue Service has announced an aggressive plan to extract over 4.9 billion dollars of overdue taxes from illegal aliens. The plan, which is to be implemented on Christmas Eve, targets aliens from as far away as Neptune and Pluto.

     “We’re tired of these deadbeats taxing services, using our airways, and conducting under-the-table business operations,” said Manuel Turnip of the Treasury Department. “Claims that they are non-profit are bogus. Just because they don’t file the correct paperwork on employees and claim $200 business lunches doesn’t place them above our regulations.”

     It has been surmised that most inhabitants of the colder planets require immense portions of earth food due to generations of exposure to frigid weather. One alien, exhibiting the color and general bone structure of an aspen tree in July, was observed eating 150 pounds of lettuce at a local salad bar last Friday while his date, a reasonably cute purple-haired Western State coed gnawed on a barbecued rib bone throughout the evening.

     “So what?” piped Turnip. “Let them eat cake.”

     One former inhabitant of Riobaldo, the fifth star in the Bingo Galaxy, says the IRS is picking on aliens since the average voter doesn’t believe they exist. He says there are millions of humanoid types in the United States alone, citing the high attendance at such cultural events as the opening of Brawl Marts and the number of successful monster truck rallies held annually.

     “Who do you think those people are?” asked the Riobaldonian, who has been incarcerated for evasion of income taxes, since 1964. “We’ve been watching earth for some time now and, despite what your schools say about test scores and with due respect to your occasional achievement in the fields of arts and science, you, at least in an intellectual sense, peaked just after World War II. The IRS, along with television, mass merchandising, freeways and professional sport broadcasts are among the leading factors of validity’s collapse.

     The alien went on to say that he has read over 4500 books since his arrest.

     “I’ve only got another decade to go and I’m out on parole,” he smiled. “Fortunately we Riobaldo lads live up to 1000 and our mates often reach 1200 or more if they take the right vitamins.”

     The IRS stopped short of verifying alien sightings even though it plans to investigate leading space creatures before April 15.

     “We don’t have to see a suspect walk out of a space ship to audit him,” clapped Turnip. “The red flag goes up when we see an antenna coming out of his accountant’s head or a 28-letter name on computer that contains nothing but consonants. They can’t hide from us even with the phony checkbooks and that silly monopoly money that has been in circulation for the past year. Have you seen the Ben Franklins? Who’d be dumb enough to take one for debts public or private?”

     Still the aliens hang on, claiming that light years are a deduction, winning a six-month quart battle over taxable child care, gritting their bicuspids over plans to cut capital gains.

     “The deep-rooted problem is that none of us aliens has ever wanted to work for the IRS and they resent us for it,” said a silver-sheathed accountant from Barlparami, an upstart planet in the Chin-Mahoney Galaxy. “They just hate to see anyone, especially small business aliens, succeed and then beat them with their own rules.”

– Ripple Van Winkle 

“There is nothing the rabble fears more than intelligence. If they understood what is truly terrifying, they would fear ignorance.”

– Goethe