Monkeys don't try to spare your feelings

I hope when the aliens come they can’t read our minds.

You nice people probably wouldn’t have a problem. Your first reaction to any situation is invariably positive, wholesome and, if need be, sympathetic. I can’t help but compare your positivity and goodness with my own sarcasm and downright uncharitable nature.

If someone tells a nice person that Aunt Jill has passed away, he coos something like, “Poor thing! She’s with the Lord now.”

When I’m told the same thing, my first thought is “How can you tell?” or “Not surprised, since she’s been saying she’s dying for 50 years.”

I don’t say those things aloud — anymore. Instead I mumble something like, “Poor thing. She’s with the Lord now.”

Telepathic aliens would nail me to the wall for the things I don’t say. (Unless they had taken the time to get to know Aunt Jill, that is.)

I have a young friend, Paula, who is so nice that probably her first, unexpressed thought is actually nicer than what she comes out and says. I think she censors herself the other way, probably because people in the past have suspected sarcasm where there was none. She always find the good in people, looks on the bright side, turns the other cheek and blah blah blah. I’ve tried to get her depressed and cynical about the world, but it never takes.

Mind-reading aliens could be a little dangerous. The last thing I need is a little green guy named Skirzuk following me into Walmart and telling everybody what I really think of them.

He’d point at a woman and say, “You’re wearing pajama pants? In a store? What happened, did you accidentally sleep in your dress clothes?” He’d point at a guy and say, “That dude’s balder than I am, and that rug ain’t fooling anybody. Get a hat, you loser.”

That would get me beat up a lot. What’s worse, when the people came to beat me up, Skirzuk would tell them that despite my impressive defensive posture, I don’t really know kung fu.

Eventually, the world might be a better place with Skirzuk and his intergalactic cronies running around. They say honesty is the best policy. We might get to a point where we no longer need Skirzuk’s clan. Folks would just say what was on their minds naturally without considering the consequences, like I assume monkeys must do. I have never had a monkey try to spare my feelings.

I’m guessing a lot of our leaders wouldn’t get re-elected, but the tar and feathers industries might experience a boom, and that means jobs, jobs, jobs!

***

Joyce and I have a new grandson on the way, and we’re coming up with potential names. The last name starts with a “Z,” so we’re all coming up with “Z” first names (I’m not sure why). My submission, “Zebulon,” has been rejected, but that’s no big deal, since the primary role of the step-grandfather is to dub the poor child with a nickname that sticks despite the wishes of the unfortunate parents.

I pointed out to Joyce that the little guy is going to have the initials, “Z.Z.,” which could prove very funny should he ever suffer from narcolepsy.

You have to be careful with the initials when you’re working with a “Z.” You can’t name him “Edward” or “Ethan,” because if he grows up to be a little gullible everyone will call him “EZ.” Likewise, you can’t name him “Ken” or “Keith,” because if he marches to the beat of a different drummer, people will laugh and say he’s “KZ.”

“Ulysses” is out, unless you want Homeland Security watching “Uzi” all his life.

I think anything starting with an “F” or “S” is safe, but I have to think about it some more.

Why is the gov't secretly making beer for Bigfoots?

I like reading on the Outdoors page of our local newspaper every Thursday about the critter of the week, usually one that's rare or endangered. But while the article always gives a lot of info about habitat, lifespan and whatnot, it almost never has a recipe.

I'm not saying I would ever intentionally hunt down a protected species, knock it on the head and throw it in the deep fryer. I'm just saying if I should happen to stumble across a recently deceased Bigfoot, I'd like to know the best way to handle the opportunity.

Nobody on the Internet has a decent Bigfoot recipe. I think that's why our little corner of the Ozarks is overrun.

I can't claim I've seen any around our place myself, but they're there. When your min-pins start barking every 10 minutes for what seems like no reason, you've either got a Bigfoot problem or your little dogs are stupid.

I admit to wondering whether it wasn't the dogs being a little daffy, but there's other evidence. Seems like whenever Joyce and I both have to work, when we get home, some critter has dragged trash all over the place.

Bigfoots are partial to potato chip bags, peanut butter jars and styrofoam cups, and sometimes they play mean tricks. We've found Gizmo, the matriarch of our canine clan, with a peanut butter jar stuck on her head more than once.

The reason I know it must be Bigfoots is that the mess is both inside the house - usually on my side of the bed - and outside. No animal without opposable thumbs would be able to open the door.

I think Bigfoots also terrorize the chickens when we're not home. Thelma, Louise, Lucy and Ethel all show symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. No matter what you do around them, they're convinced you're trying to kill them.

Try to fill their water dish outside, and they go flapping and squawking away in a panic. Scatter some feed in their pen and they almost have heart attacks. "Aaaahh! He's trying to kill us! Again!"

I can't imagine that they're idiot chickens. They've all done well on standardized tests, at least the multiple choice parts. Ethel's the only one who's any good at essay questions. We home-school.

Something has those chickens scared, and it's Bigfoots, mark my words.

There's a recipe on the Internet for Bigfoot burgers, but it calls for ground beef. What kind of idiot makes Bigfoot burgers out of dead cow meat? I wrote an angry letter to the website, but I haven't heard back.

Lots of recipes are out there for Bigfoot beer. The only thing that I can think is that those recipes must come from some secret government program.

It only makes sense. A normal person like you and me would take pictures if we captured a Bigfoot long enough for it to taste-test beer. Probably, once the Bigfoot was a little tipsy, we'd put it in a dress and try to teach it to ride a bicycle or something. Or let it loose in the courthouse. Oh man, I would pay to see that.

Come on, you know you would too.

Whatever we did with it would no doubt make the papers, if not CNN. Since that hasn't happened, the Bigfoot beer brewers have to be the only ones in the world humorless enough to get a Bigfoot drunk and not eventually break some kind of law.

That just screams "secret government program" to me.