The most meaningful words you’ll ever write
“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,” I sang along with my 95-year-old aunt a month before she passed away. That she recalled the words to the song amazed me. She was mostly mute by then, living with dementia. Somehow, musical memories linger.
It wasn’t the only surprise my aunt Marion had for me that day. Her daughter later shared with me a letter Marion had written some twenty years earlier, when her mind was still sharp. My aunt had been a homemaker, a pie-baker and an eternally cheerful soul — but a writer? Not to my knowledge. I was…
Satire | Humor
Your deepest question, definitively answered
When in doubt, they say: Ask Siri. So I did.
Me: Siri, what is the meaning of life?
Siri: To think about questions like this.
Me: Uhh, yeah. So what DO you think?
Siri: Be nice to people and avoid eating fat.
Me: Err, what about the healthy fats? You know, Omega-3s?
She shoots me a photo of a “Mega Tree” — a monster 23-foot-tall LED tree some poor bastard was forced to erect by his Christmas-crazed wife.
I try enunciating more clearly.
Me: What. Is. The. Meaning. Of. Life?
Siri: I KANT answer that. Ha ha!
Me: Skip the…
Sorry starts and fiasco finishes you’ll be glad weren’t yours
Horace, Seneca and the gang rip each other’s self-help mottos
Host: Welcome, everyone, to today’s meeting on Zoom. Let’s get right down to deciding the most useful self-help motto of all time so we can get back to partying in the Elysian fields. Socrates is off sick. Horace, you have the floor.
(Silence)
Host: Horace? Unmute yourself.
Horace: Sorry, sorry. I was saying I hope we can all get behind Carpe Diem as the best motto so we can get out of here and, ahem, Seize the Day.
Marcus Aurelius: Whoa. I’d say Carpe Diem has had its day. It’s morphed into a McMotto now. Like YOLO. Or Just Do…
What my most-read stories tell me about YOU
Dear Reader: You’re a nice person, right?
Tell yourself that all you like. Your reading tastes, at least on my site, tell me a different story.
In 2020, I wrote about poets, philosophers, and kings ( a president-elect being an American-kind of king). Did you care? Enough to click? Not so much. My stats say you’re more taken with murderers, mutts and monsters.
This deadly dame sold “divorce-in-a bottle”
Some 600 unwanted husbands were hurried along to meet their maker thanks to the concoctions of this convicted murderess. Even more disturbing? The number of YOU, dear readers, who clicked through to make this my most-read article of 2020. …
HUMOR | SATIRE
And I’m here to demand recognition
My fellow Americans
I am speaking to you today — from inside a sweltering boot!! — to correct some egregious #FakeNews.
To wit:
- Major the dog is not the face of this newsworthy foot fiasco. In fact, Major’s a minor player. He was simply doing his stupid ‘ball drop’ routine. It’s all he’s got, he needs new material.
- Major slipped on a throw rug. A throw rug! He wasn’t even running like a proper dog in a proper field. He just slipped and slid down a flat hallway like some kind of klutzy canine Gerald Ford.
- The President-elect then tripped on the rug…
“i carry your heart with me” doesn’t cut it with collaborator
e.e.:
So far I’ve just got this first verse. Let me know if you’re feeling it:
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
F.F.:
I hate to say it, but you lost me right off. What’s with that lower case “i”? It literally SCREAMS “low self-esteem.” You don’t want to start off sounding like a starving artist who can’t afford to repair his wonky shift key.
e.e.:
My shift key works fine. I was experimenting with a new style of…
“You got me . . . WHAT??”
My birthday came. The hours passed. It was early evening by the time I broke down and blurted, “So you didn’t get me anything?”
“Oh, I almost forgot,” my husband said. He fished around in his pants pocket and pulled out a small package. I ripped off the wrapping paper.
“You got me — batteries??!”
“They’re rechargeables!” he said.
Rechargeables? Oh, all right then.
I admit I’d told him not to get me anything for my birthday because money was tight. To me that meant, “Don’t splurge. Don’t go all crazy.” To him that apparently meant, “Buy her batteries. …
Try these plague and pestilence cures today
Drinking bleach has been ruled out as a remedy for our modern plague. But quack cures have been around forever. Could these once-touted Bubonic plague ‘cures’ have been ahead of their time? Maybe NOW is the time to re-try them. Are you game?
Cure #1: Eat more emeralds
Yes, they’re pretty, but an emerald diet costs way more than the Keto. Unless you’re Bill Gates, you may have to skip cure #1. Guys like Bill can afford gastrointestinal tract repairs after those sharp green shards pass through.
Cure #2: Drink your own urine, twice daily
Well, that’s better than drinking someone else’s, though not by much. At least the price is right. Bonus…
Her Aqua Tofana was ‘divorce-in-a-bottle’
Giulia Tofana was nothing if not an entrepreneur. She saw a need — divorce being practically impossible to obtain for the 17th century Italian woman — and she set out to fill it. Between 1633 and 1651 over 600 unwitting husbands were hurried along to meet their maker after ingesting poison their wives had purchased from Giulia.
Poisonous proclivities ran in La Tofana’s family. Her mother, Thofania d’Adamo, murdered her own husband, Francis d’Adamo, and was executed in Palermo, Sicily on July 12, 1633. …
Judy Millar
Humorist. Essayist. Storyteller. Poet. Lyricist. Writing Coach. 😂 Judymillar.ca Published in Reader’s Digest 🇨🇦, Writer’s Digest, Medium & more. @judymillar
