Cagle World

I’ve never been a huge fan of hot chocolate. For some reason, I don’t enjoy cauterizing the inside of my mouth after being duped by the deceptively-tepid whipped cream or marshmallow topping.

These days, I mainly have hot chocolate when my three teenage daughters, who I’m pretty sure started drinking coffee as toddlers, invite me and my credit card to join them in the drive-thru of one of our roughly 200 local coffee shops. Since I’ve never learned to relish the scalding bitterness of designer coffee, and I refuse to order anything with a name as silly as “Frappuccino,” I typically order myself a hot chocolate to avoid feeling left out.

Unfortunately, in addition to costing about the same as several gallons of premium unleaded, the hot chocolate from these caffeine dispensaries usually tastes like the water out of an old tire – if the tire was on fire.

And I won’t even get into the abominations inflicted upon the American public by Swiss Miss. I’m not sure who this young lady is, but she should apologize to the fine people of Switzerland for representing them with those so-called marshmallows.

In spite of my checkered history with this classic winter beverage, I was willing to put all of that behind me on our recent family vacation to New York City. We happened to be in the Big Apple during a historically-frigid arctic blast that even made it too cold for native New Yorkers to curse at the tourists.

Since we were in the city during the holiday season, my daughters were keen to visit several famous holiday markets. Our first stop was the Holiday Shops of Midtown Manhattan’s Bryant Park Winter Village, touted as a “European-inspired open-air market” and designed to separate tourists from their cash with multicultural flair.

For me, the highlight of the market was a large cup of Max Brenner classic hot chocolate. This was the hot chocolate my blood glucose levels had been waiting for my whole life. It was the perfect temperature (meaning that it didn’t cause the top layer of my tongue to peel off), and it tasted like a freshly baked and liquefied homemade brownie. It was so good that I nearly forgot about the frostbite.

The next day, we hit the Union Square Holiday Market, featuring 185 local craftsmen, artists and entrepreneurs (all equipped with hand-crafted credit card readers). It was here that my eldest and most expensive daughter introduced me to the social media-famous Rubyzaar Baked Liquid S’mores.

Normally, I prefer to eat marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers in their pure, untainted states, but the combination of ingredients in this molten cup of decadence was something to behold. It’s really difficult to describe, but let’s just say that if preparing hot chocolate requires the use of a miniature blowtorch, sign me up!

Our visit to New York opened my nostrils to new levels of freezer burn, my wallet to new levels of emptiness, and my taste buds to new levels of chocolaty deliciousness. Until I return, I guess I’ll somehow make do with Swiss Miss–and my own miniature blowtorch.

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Copyright 2023 Jase Graves distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Graves is an award-winning humor columnist from East Texas. His columns have been featured in Texas Escapes magazine, The Shreveport Times, The Longview News Journal, and The Kilgore News Herald. Contact Graves at [email protected].

In the 1980s, I repeatedly watched a recorded copy of the film “Escape from New York” on my family’s Panasonic VCR – complete with tuning knobs the size of hubcaps.

Little did I know that I would star in my own version of the movie (as a domesticated, tattoo-less and slightly flabby version of Snake Plissken) on a recent holiday vacation to the Big Apple.

Of course, my family and I chose to travel to New York City during one of the coldest Christmas seasons on record– so cold that even the subway rats were wearing The North Face.

One of our most exciting adventures while visiting NYC with a family of five was finding public toilets, which apparently must be booked in advance and require a tour guide. This may explain why, when nature calls, some folks just use the floor of the subway stations.

NYC’s subway system is a true masterpiece of comprehensive filth – to the point that it makes my eldest and most expensive daughter’s bedroom look positively pristine (and that’s saying something). Anytime we had to enter the subway, I felt compelled to apologize to my own germs.

Despite the grime and cold, though, I’m glad I finally made it to this iconic city and thawed my retinas long enough to see the Brooklyn Bridge, Rockefeller Center, Central Park, the Empire State Building, Times Square and the inside of several high-end retail centers where I defrosted my giblets while my three teenage daughters nuked our credit cards.

Although getting to New York and going bankrupt was easy enough, leaving was another matter entirely.

On our ride from Manhattan to LaGuardia airport for our departure, my wife checked our flight status online and informed me that our flight had been cancelled. At first, I wasn’t too alarmed, assuming that we could catch a later flight and undergo a more leisurely strip search in the TSA line.

However, when we saw the desperate throng at the Southwest Airlines kiosk, I knew something was up, and it wasn’t airplanes. We discovered that all Southwest flights had been cancelled for the foreseeable future, and to that point, we hadn’t received so much as a text message from the airline confirming the cancellation and offering us a monogrammed airsickness bag as a consolation.

And speaking of airsickness, as we approached the back of the customer service line, one nauseated Southwest customer hastily exited the queue to toss his New York cheesecake all over the check-in lobby (three times). For a second, I thought the crowd might applaud him for expressing our collective feelings so succinctly. But nobody seemed to notice much. (They had probably ridden the subway recently.)

To make a long story of a long trip short, we managed to finance another night in a NYC hotel, booked an American Airlines flight to Arkansas the next evening, ate Taco Bell twice, rented a car and drove to Dallas through the night to pick up our own car, then drove home to East Texas and somehow survived it all – including the Taco Bell.

The trip was truly an adventure that brought our family closer together through shared trauma, and we’re still hopeful that Southwest Airlines will reimburse us for our extra expenses. Maybe they’ll even throw in a monogrammed airsickness bag.

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Copyright 2023 Jase Graves distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Graves is an award-winning humor columnist from East Texas. His columns have been featured in Texas Escapes magazine, The Shreveport Times, The Longview News Journal, and The Kilgore News Herald. Contact Graves at [email protected].

For years, I’ve watched friends and acquaintances take family trips during the holiday season to exciting locations like Disney World, Hawaii, Colorado and Cracker Barrel.

Until now, my family has been content to snuggle up together at home, enjoying traditional celebrations that involve exchanging gifts, candlelight church services and severe indigestion.

But not this year. For some reason, my three teenage daughters recently announced that instead of receiving gifts, they want to offer my wife and me the great pleasure of taking them on a trip to New York City.

At first, this didn’t sound like such an unreasonable option. After all, I’ve never experienced the excitement of New York’s giant rats or the thrilling risk of being pushed in front of a subway train. This plan would also relieve me of the unending task of shopping for my daughters’ numerous and exorbitantly-priced Christmas gifts, almost exclusively manufactured by the Apple corporation.

Little did I know, however, that a trip to New York City for a family of five during the holidays costs roughly the same as a decade of traditional family Christmases at home­–maybe subtracting the price of ingredients for Velveeta dip.

I also didn’t realize that one doesn’t simply “go” to New York City and wander around dodging taxicabs and cowboys singing in their underwear. Apparently, you are required to book expensive tickets to Broadway shows so you can brag to your friends that you’ve seen a musical that will probably be featured on Disney+ in the near future – if it’s not already there.

And then there are the dinner reservations that must be made days in advance in order to secure a table at one of the really cool restaurants (“cool” meaning “the price of this meal will require the sale of at least one kidney”). Otherwise, my daughters tell me, you’ll have to resort to battling rodents the size of schnauzers for New York street food like pizza slices and those hot dogs the competitive eaters wolf down on July 4th at a rate of around 7 per minute. (Personally, I’d be ok fighting the rats.)

Seriously, though, the expenses involved with just planning for the trip never seem to end. For example, we spent several hours at our local shopping mall purchasing enough fleece gear to prepare for an extended rotation at an Arctic research station.

Of course, my daughters insisted that we buy “fashionable” designer clothing – in case we run into a New York modeling agency interested in a wide-eyed family of Texans who have that “We usually shop at Target, but now we’re all fancy cause we’re in a big ol’ city”-look. Besides, I hear that dad bods are “in” right now.

After all of the itinerary planning, shopping, ticket buying and looking at photoshopped images of New York online, I told the girls that it feels like we’ve already taken the trip. Unfortunately for my bank account, they still want to go.

The holidays will definitely be different this year. I’ve second, third and tenth-guessed the decision to take this trip, but at least we’ll all be together making memories. And if things get too weird in the Big Apple, maybe I can make a run to the closest Cracker Barrel.

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Copyright 2022 Jase Graves distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Graves is an award-winning humor columnist from East Texas. His columns have been featured in Texas Escapes magazine, The Shreveport Times, The Longview News Journal, and The Kilgore News Herald. Contact Graves at [email protected].

One of my fondest childhood memories of Christmas in the 1970’s was riding around in the family station wagon, “Bessie,” to look at Christmas lights while I whined to my parents about needing a snack – again. There was something magical about a familiar evening landscape transformed to a radiant wonderland at the expense of someone’s lumbar spine.

My dad always made sure that our house was exemplary in its presentation of illuminated holiday décor, and even now, his legendary displays make my own attempts look like those of an unsupervised toddler with a Lite-Brite toy.

Little did I know as a child exactly how much work goes into producing a respectable home display that delights passersby and annoys the neighbors. But now that I’m an adult (sort of), I take pride in climbing on the roof and crawling around the yard for the sake of an electrified Christmas spectacle that makes me feel like I’ve sprained everything except my belly button.

Maybe because of the intense effort I put into my own residential Christmas lights, I’ve become a bit of a snob when evaluating those of others–to the point that I’ve come up with the following categories:

The Griswold

This is the type of display for which I strive each year. It includes every string of lights that can be scrounged up from the attic – along with a cartload purchased as soon as Walmart replaces the Brach’s Mellowcreme Pumpkins with Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cakes in late October. This is the kind of overwhelming display that might cause acute retinal damage with prolonged exposure. It’s truly a sight to behold – if you dare.

The My-Wife-Made Me-Do-It

This display (if you can call it that) is clearly installed under duress-and probably during the commercial breaks of a Dallas Cowboys football game. The jumbled lights look as if they’ve been strung by someone being attacked by hornets, and they include the absolute minimum – maybe one string of bulbs and a mildewed inflatable Nutcracker sagging toward the storm drain. It’s better than nothing–but just barely.

The Cheater

It’s obvious that someone paid big bucks to have professionals do all the work on this geometrically-precise display with meticulous ridge line coverage. It’s beautiful, no doubt, even bordering on the Griswold, but I say that if you aren’t in a bad mood and in need of prescription painkillers when you’re done, it doesn’t count.

The Grinch

This is the house without so much as a plastic baby Jesus glowing on the porch, a single cheap light-up deer in the yard, or even a wreath of dilapidated pine cones on the front door. It’s almost ostentatiously dark and gloomy.

When I see these houses during the holidays, I often catch myself mumbling something like, “How can they not put out a single decoration? Are they out of Tylenol?”

My wife inevitably replies, “Maybe they can’t afford decorations. They could be ill or elderly. Or maybe they don’t celebrate Christmas.”

Then I feel like The Grinch, Scrooge, The Abominable Snow Monster, Heat Miser, Mr. Potter, Frank Shirley and Scut Farkus all rolled into one insensitive naughty-list doofus.

It’s at those times that I need a good lecture from Linus in “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Sure, Snoopy has the best lights, but Linus knows what Christmas is all about.

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Copyright 2022 Jase Graves distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Graves is an award-winning humor columnist from East Texas. His columns have been featured in Texas Escapes magazine, The Shreveport Times, The Longview News Journal, and The Kilgore News Herald. Contact Graves at [email protected].

Imagine, if you will, a tranquil late-autumn evening. It’s the first day of your Thanksgiving holiday, and you are reclining in your easy chair, enjoying the warmth and gently dancing flames of your fireplace insert – with semi-realistic gas logs – and sipping a cup of warm tea from your new Keurig machine that Bed Bath & Beyond put on sale for 50% off immediately after your purchase.

Suddenly, the serenity of the evening is shattered by the slamming of the garage door, the harsh jangle of keys against the kitchen counter and the raucous rumble of wheels from an unnecessarily large and expensive suitcase across the kitchen tile, followed by shouts of “I’m home! Where’s Mom!?”

Our family is now experiencing the chaotically sweet phenomenon of our two older daughters coming home from college to enjoy their holidays with family and reconnect with hometown retail centers.

When our daughters left for college this year, we conducted a deep cleaning and reorganization of their bedrooms so that they could come home to fresh and relaxing spaces when they visit. Exactly 24 hours after their arrival for Thanksgiving break, their bedrooms resembled disaster relief donation centers – with open suitcases strategically positioned to rupture my ACL when I came in to kiss them goodnight.

After informing us of her urgent need for a cell phone upgrade, our eldest and most expensive daughter spent the first evening of her break hanging out with her high school friends – who were also home from college sharing memories and soiled laundry with their parents.

And speaking of laundry, I had almost forgotten what it’s like to spend what seems like hours loitering in our laundry room and battling against the laws of physics to reinsert numerous floppy bra pad thingies back into holes that seem entirely too small for floppy bra pad thingies – praying that I match the correct bras and floppy bra pad thingies, and don’t get them upside down or backward – which might cause chafing or some other unthinkable malady.

Our middle daughter spent her first full day at home lounging in her queen-sized bed, relishing the fact that she didn’t have to break out her rappelling equipment to take a nap in her twin-sized dorm loft. Once re-energized, she quickly headed out for reunions with some of her favorite people – namely, the employees of the local Target and Starbucks.

Our youngest daughter was enjoying her break from high school by intermittently raiding the pantry for snacks (approximately once every 20 minutes) to allow her overheated retinas time to recover from marathon YouTube sessions. She seemed fairly oblivious to the homecoming of her sisters, casually asking me when they would arrive – after they had already been with us for about 8 hours.

The highlights of the girls’ visits have been the home-cooked meals we prepare at their request – giving them a break from the near-starvation rations they are allotted in college cafeterias where they are forced to survive on an all-you-can-eat array of buffet style salad bars, dessert stations, international cuisine and retail dining franchises. Apparently, though, the mashed potatoes at college just taste weird.

Although I miss having little girls, it’s great having them all at home together–even all grown up. My only complaints are that their visits are never long enough – and the floppy bra pad thingies.

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Copyright 2022 Jase Graves distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Graves is an award-winning humor columnist from East Texas. His columns have been featured in Texas Escapes magazine, The Shreveport Times, The Longview News Journal, and The Kilgore News Herald. Contact Graves at [email protected].

The whole concept of a bed and breakfast is pretty ingenious and fits almost perfectly with my lifestyle. In fact, the words “bed” and “breakfast” are fair representations of my favorite activities, namely eating, sleeping and eating. I only wish I could reinvent the idea and call it “bed and breakfast food eaten in the early afternoon” since my wife and I both identify as late sleepers and, on most Saturdays, are finishing our pancakes at around 2:00 p.m.

Speaking of my wife, who would prefer that I leave her out of this, we spent our wedding night in a historical bed and breakfast in Jefferson, Texas. The most memorable aspect of our stay–other than my relief that she actually went through with the wedding – was what has become known as “The Bathtub Plug Incident.” Now, before you let your imaginations get carried away, let me explain.

Our honeymoon suite featured an antique, clawfoot bathtub with brass fittings, into which I was looking forward to performing my most romantic cannonball after swamp-soaking my penguin suit throughout the wedding ceremony on a sweltering East Texas August’s eve. Unfortunately, in our post-wedding delirium, we couldn’t locate the tub’s antique drain plug.

Sporting my luxurious rented bathrobe, I crept downstairs to the owners’ quarters and lightly knocked on the partitioning French doors. When they opened, a bleary-eyed fellow appeared–enveloped by billows of pungent smoke. Now, I’m not 100% positive about the source of the fumes, but let’s just say that this guy probably had a raging case of the munchies.

After I very slowly and deliberately explained my dilemma, the owner stumbled up the stairs, into our room and over to the bathtub where he pointed to the brass drain plug resting in and camouflaged by the brass soap dish, peered at me suspiciously with his mouth hanging slightly open and simply said, “Dude.”

Needless to say, hilarity and cannonballs ensued.

Recently, my wife and I decided to relive the whole bed and breakfast experience – minus the stoned proprietor – at the charming Brazos Bed and Breakfast, a countryside cottage suite in Washington, Texas, a short drive from Texas A&M University where our eldest and most expensive daughter attends. We thought it would be nice to have some peace and quiet out in the country while also being close enough to go watch the Aggie football team run out of time – again – and visit our daughter so she could ask for money in person.

(Incidentally, the nearby Washington-on-the-Brazos Historic Site is where the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed in 1836, and I’m pretty sure the armadillo was designated as the official roadkill of the new republic.)

And speaking of armadillos, upon our arrival, the owner warned us about the electric fence encircling the picturesque property just off the ground in order to keep the nocturnal creatures from having pasture parties and breaking in to use the bidet.

Yes, there was a bidet! I’d never used a bidet before and wasn’t sure exactly how it worked, but I did give the opposite bathroom wall a thorough pressure washing.

Despite having to get up before noon to eat, the breakfasts were ample and delicious. The cordial owner served breakfast in our suite and reminded us, “Don’t ever feel like you have to eat everything. We have chickens, and they love leftovers!”

My only thought was whether or not we could eat the chickens, too.

Although I would have liked a little more bed to go with the breakfast, we had a wonderful trip. I’m even thinking about purchasing a clawfoot tub for our own house someday – right after I figure out how to install the bidet.

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Copyright 2022 Jase Graves distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Graves is an award-winning humor columnist from East Texas. His columns have been featured in Texas Escapes magazine, The Shreveport Times, The Longview News Journal, and The Kilgore News Herald. Contact Graves at [email protected].

When I was growing up in 1970’s East Texas, my experiences with international cuisine were pretty much limited to pizza, spaghetti and an occasional tamale.

Now that I have my own children, I’ve tried to expand their experiences by taking them out to Mexican, Italian, Asian, Mexican and Mexican restaurants.

We even cook ethnic dishes (mostly Mexican) on a fairly regular basis, but my youngest daughter has recently taken our culinary experiences to a new level.

When she’s not deploying a YouTube video to procrastinate from doing her homework, completing chores, eating, bathing, sleeping or otherwise engaging in reality, she’s pestering my wife and me to share in her mania for Asian food culture.

Unfortunately, she’s no longer satisfied watching me eat my weight in hot and spicy chicken at the local Chinese buffet.

No, she actually wants us to cook it!

Now, I’m marginally competent with basic Southern dishes, like mashed potatoes, biscuits and gravy, banana pudding and other mostly white or yellow foods that prompt warnings from the American Heart Association. And I can make a mean ground beef taco­­–as long as the seasoning mix comes pre-measured in an easy-to-open packet.

But so far, my attempts at preparing Asian cuisine have been embarrassing failures – despite following recipes from websites like “Cooking that won’t add to your other disappointing qualities.com.”

For example, my chicken fried rice had all of the zest and snap of moist lawn clippings.

My Asian pork chops looked and tasted like surgical malpractice.

The only saving grace of these meals were the oven-baked, frozen egg rolls that only take around three hours to cool to the temperature of fresh magma.

Despite these debacles, I have learned a few tips about Asian cooking for novices.

First, be prepared to purchase at least 17 ingredients per recipe at your local Asian market. Most of these items only come in bulk, and you may have difficulty pronouncing some of them as they seem not to contain vowels.

Next, be ready to soil every utensil and piece of cookware you own–including the wedding gifts you thought would never see the light of day until you bequeathed them to a distant relative you don’t really like.

My daughter decided to take charge of our latest foray into Asian cooking and told me she wanted to make kimbap–or seaweed rolls. Yes, seaweed!

When I think of seaweed, my mind conjures images of the semi-decayed plant matter that lurks around in the shallow water and sometimes grazes my lower leg, causing me to let out a shriek like a little girl–only less masculine.

But this seaweed is a whole different animal – or plant – or something, and it comes in thin, dried sheets (with or without a 3-hole punch). The seaweed is used as the wrapper in which you roll up various fillings like sticky rice, carrots and pickled radish (which is the same neon-yellow as some parachute pants I’m pretty sure I wore in the 1980’s). The recipe we used even called for beef franks!

At least I can relate to hot dogs and rice that sticks together!

Once my daughter prepared the rolls and cut them into miniature hockey pucks, they weren’t half bad. (I only ate about two dozen.)

Even though I’ll probably never master Asian cooking, my wife and I have enjoyed spending time with our youngest daughter on this culinary adventure. In fact, the next recipe she wants us to try is soybean paste soup with clams.

I think I’ll buy a few tamales as a backup.

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Copyright 2022 Jase Graves distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Graves is an award-winning humor columnist from East Texas. His columns have been featured in Texas Escapes magazine, The Shreveport Times, The Longview News Journal, and The Kilgore News Herald. Contact Graves at [email protected].

I’ve experienced a lifelong identity crisis, of sorts, because of my name (or names), and I’ve actually kind of enjoyed it  – most of the time.

The controversy began in 1970, around the time that I made my almost 10-pound newborn debut (sorry, Mom). Apparently, the discussion between my parents centered on whether to name me “Jase” or “Jason,” both names originating from a Greek word meaning “healer” or “royal pain in the rear.”

Other than referring to me as their massive baby who was like delivering a propane tank, my parents finally settled on the more formal “Jason” for my birth certificate–thinking that I could later go by “Jase” if I wanted to pretend to be cool.

They then proceeded to call me by my family nickname, “Bub,” from that point forward. In fact, it didn’t really sink in that I had any other name than “Bub” until I entered public school. All I had heard myself called for the first 5 years of my life was “Bub.”

“Bub, get that battery out of your nose!”

“Bub, don’t drink the aquarium water!”

“Bub, stop licking the television screen!”

I initially responded with disbelief when my parents advised me that my kindergarten teacher would call me “Jason” anytime she asked me to stop eating the Elmer’s glue. But I eventually accepted the idea – sort of.

Shortly before kindergarten began, I proposed that I be called “Bub-Jase-Jason” at school – until my big brother assured me that such a name would probably guarantee me a weekly wedgie from my classmates.

I finally settled on “Jase” for educational settings, which, by the time I entered high school, had been corrupted to “Jass” by my thoughtful and loving closest friends. (The “J” was silent, by the way.)

In my post-mullet teen years, I worked as a lifeguard during the summers and wore a pair of knock-off Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses, which prompted some of the more nearsighted swimmers to boost my ego by calling me “Maverick” after the “Top Gun” character. My abs were actually out of the closet back then. I miss them.

By the time I went off to college at Texas A&M University, I was back to “Jase,” thank goodness, but the fun didn’t end there. On the first day of my Spanish III class, I noticed that I was the only student in the entire room whose name was of non-Hispanic origin, and when the professor reached my name on the roster, I guess she didn’t want me to feel left out, so she pronounced it “José Grávez.” (I still ask my wife to call me that when we’re eating Mexican food.)

These days, the most fun I have with my name is when my social media friends hit the wrong key and address me as “Jade.” I always just laugh it off and tell them I expect to see them in the front row at my next drag show.

Yes, my names have been varied throughout my life, but I’ve appreciated them all in one way or another, especially after becoming a father. At home, I’m mainly addressed as “Dad,” “Diddy” or “Can I use the credit card?”

And it surely is comforting that I can still go visit my parents and hear their familiar advice, “Bub, get that battery out of your nose!”

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Copyright 2022 Jase Graves distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Graves is an award-winning humor columnist from East Texas. His columns have been featured in Texas Escapes magazine, The Shreveport Times, The Longview News Journal, and The Kilgore News Herald. Contact Graves at [email protected].

For those of you who don’t know, my more respectable gig for the past quarter century, or so, has been teaching college English. (Scary, I know.)

Teaching English is sometimes like teaching a teenager to drive a car – including the sensations of intense frustration, looking away in terror, and dreading a catastrophic pileup of letters, words, and sentences.

Take, for example, these 100% real writing samples I’ve collected from my students over the years. I truly love them all – the students, I mean.

These first specimens come from the “unintentionally violent/gruesome” category:

“In the second stanza of the poem, the speaker is telling a little boy to stop crying while he’s getting his head shaved off.”

I think I had that hair style once.

“Many people think of organ donation as a grouse disfiguring procedure”

I’m not sure what that writer has against grouses.

“Pet owners should not use toothpaste made from humans as it could give the pet an upset stomach.”

Student writers are always looking out for their pets–unless the pets are grouses.

“During the process of trying to find a cure, I had undergone several colonoscopies, which is where the doctor incinerates a small camera up the patient’s gluteus maximus and takes pictures of their Colin.”

Who’s Colin, and where is he, exactly?

The next group comes from what I call the “tru dat” category:

“All men have an air around them that the majority of women I know would disagree with.”

My wife and daughters would concur with that sentiment, especially after I’ve had Mexican food.

“Some areas of the medical field reek more than others.”

Just ask Colin.

“I figured that my brother could teach me to drive, and we would get our brother-sister bonging time while learning from each other.”

What a brother!

And speaking of bonging,

“With his thought-provoking verses, Wordsworth is often known as the Pot of Nature.”

Maybe after a little bonging (or Wordsworth), you’ll appreciate these next few from the “Is this a dream?” category:

“His liver broke all of the promises she made to him.”

Apparently, he turned to alcoholism–and his liver identifies as female.

“In the summer time, my pet coon, Moon, loved to climb up my leg and onto my shoulder to watch me wash dishes while wearing shorts that was very uncomfortable.”

Is this racoon wearing Daisy Dukes?

“My grandmother was a small, bluish, gray headed woman that was always cheerful and witty.”

Commas and hyphens are important, especially when describing blue grandmothers.

And speaking of grandmothers,

“I will always be touched by my grandmother’s Sunday dinner.”

Somebody grab the Pepto!

While we’re on the subject of touching, these next few come from the “unintentionally erotic” category:

“As I jumped from cement block to cement block and headed toward the front steps, I could hear something rutting under the porch.”

And speaking of rutting,

“As we opened the door, I heard a screech-like noise. I humped with terror.”

No comment!

“When I stepped onto the green, I was ready to probe myself to everyone at the tournament.”

Finally, some golf worth watching!

“When he got his divorce and started dating, more problems aroused for Dad.”

I’ll bet they did.

“After all of the sightseeing, we were hungry, so we found a spot to feel our bellies.”

Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

Finally, these last few come from the “fun with invented language” category:

“During Geoffrey Chaucer’s time, the Medieval Church and some of those associated with it were put on a pedal stool they didn’t deserve.”

Is that like an antique unicycle?

And my personal favorite,

“My father was always cheap, so we had the most dreaded fishing boat that didn’t ever want to crank. That day, for some reason, it crunk on the first try!”

That was one crunk fishing boat!

I hope it’s obvious by now that teaching English is not all fun, games and pedal stools.

But the love teachers have for students does make the job rewarding–just not enough to feel our bellies.

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Copyright 2022 Jase Graves distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Graves is an award-winning humor columnist from East Texas. His columns have been featured in Texas Escapes magazine, The Shreveport Times, The Longview News Journal, and The Kilgore News Herald. Contact Graves at [email protected].

My adult life has been full of transitions–from single to married, from childlessness to fatherhood, and from virile coolness to cringey blobfish. I now find myself in the midst of a change from occupying a nest literally bursting with hatchlings frantically pecking at my wallet to now watching one last teenage fledgling perched on the edge of a limb and hoping I don’t do anything embarrassing.

Since two of my daughters are off at college and my youngest daughter would rather watch a video on YouTube about vegetables that resemble Harry Potter than hang out with me, I recently became aware that I have been unconsciously satisfying my need to be needed by devoting an unhealthy amount of time and attention to my daughters’ pet dogs, who might be mistaken for two large tufts of mutant fuzz from under our couch cushions.

Yes, I fear that I’m turning into the “crazy cat lady” of the household, or, in my case, the “annoying doglet dude in his 50s who bears a passing resemblance to Herman Munster.”

(We do also have a cat, by the way, which is a lot like having another aloof teenager–only less messy.)

One result of this closer relationship I’ve developed with our grandmongrels is that I speak to them more. I’ve always communicated with our dogs in a sort of Scooby-Doo baby-talk, usually asking them if they would prefer to go outside and kill our grass or stay inside and stain the carpet. But now I find myself carrying on extended conversations with them, asking them about their day, if they’ve sniffed anything (or anyone) interesting lately, and why they still haven’t eaten the expensive veterinarian-approved dry kibble from Petco and are, instead, begging at the table for a bite of my taco.

They don’t ever reply, but at least they maintain eye contact, look interested, and sometimes drool, which is more response than I usually get from our daughters.

I’ve also taken a much greater interest grooming – the dogs, I mean. In the past, maintaining our dogs’ hygiene primarily involved tossing them into the bathtub once I could smell them without seeing them. Nowadays, though, I not only brush their coats daily (usually not with my wife’s hairbrush), but I’ve also started brushing their teeth (usually not with my wife’s toothbrush).

I don’t know if you’ve ever brushed your dogs’ teeth against their will, but imagine trying to wipe pizza sauce off of an impatient toddler’s face while she’s frantically trying to run to the gift shop at Chuck E Cheese. It’s almost as relaxing.

And speaking of toddlers, I’ve recently been known to chase the dogs around the house with a baby wipe when they come in from decorating our lawn – in a preemptive attempt to avert the dreaded living-room booty scoot. (Luckily, they usually only do that when we have visitors.)

Watching our daughters grow up, become more independent (except financially) and begin to leave home has been hard for me, but the companionship provided by their pets has been a comfort, even if the dogs don’t respect bathroom boundaries.

These days, when I’m in the recliner at home and I’ve got a lap full of dogs licking my face, I often reflect happily on all the sweet times in the past when I had a lap full of girls kissing my cheeks­–only, back then, I didn’t have to worry about what they’d been licking beforehand.

Yes, dogs and daughters are different, but until I get the chance someday to chase grandkids around with a baby wipe, the dogs will have to do.

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Copyright 2022 Jase Graves distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Graves is an award-winning humor columnist from East Texas. His columns have been featured in Texas Escapes magazine, The Shreveport Times, The Longview News Journal, and The Kilgore News Herald. Contact Graves at [email protected].