Radioactive Home Remedies

Learn Fun Facts recently posted a blog entry I wrote on the subject of radioactive nostrums.

Thanks, Edmark!

Guest Post: My Angels (Anne P.)

I’ve always seen angels. Hallucinations or schizophrenia, they’re real to me. They walk beside me and talk to me. Not always, but sometimes. One at a time.

Usually a  girl, although once in college and once when I was coaching a male lacrosse team for the company, they were uncertain boys.

All were my age, until I approached forty. Then they began to get younger as I got older.

The girls preferred the diaphanous. The boys preferred leather. They all stayed buttoned up, so some simple questions about them remained unanswered.

None were beautiful or ugly, but they were all attractive to me, and intriguing. At some point I learned that the Persians invented angels and for a while all my visitors had black curly hair and black curly beards, male and female alike.

We never discussed religious matters. Being old immortal Persians, they might have tried to convert me to a belief in Ahura-Mazda or another of their gods. Instead, we strolled along talking about whatever came into our heads.

What I discovered about angels:

• They’re a lot like me.
• They don’t ask questions.
• Their strongest response to my confessions was “Oh. Huh.”
• I never met one I didn’t like.

My Most Humble Thanks

I have spent fifty years building and managing some of the finest hotels in the world. My top priority has never been to profit, only to provide the best possible guest experience to my patrons.

When I decided to move on to other career opportunities, I found it difficult to deal with the sadness associated with the severance of ties with the friends that I’ve made. Therefore, imagine my surprise when so many of you, my valued customers have chosen to follow me!

For-profit prisons occupy a prominent space in the economic high-growth sector. Their challenges are manifold, something to occupy me in my twilight years. Let us pray that my experience and continued energy provide me with the tools I’ll need to meet these challenges.

My most special thanks and kind wishes are reserved for those of you who have committed heinous and unforgivable crimes, which you have not even especially wanted to commit, only for the purpose of drawing multiple life sentences to be with me! We shall meet again! Gruel and bread crusts for everyone!

Guest Post: Hyrum Smith

On the occasion of his wedding (50th wife), welcome, Hyrum, and congratulations.

***

Thank you, DWEW.

Yes, I have 50 wives.

It’s a religious thing.

Don’t ask about the sex. That’s always the first thing to come up. I don’t talk to my wives about it. I won’t talk to you about it. Once the subject comes up at home, I can’t get a word in edgewise, so if a wife tries to sneak sex into the conversation, if a wife even looks like she’s thinking about sex, if she even glances anywhere below my belt, I tell her,  forget about it for the next year or two, period.

I mostly pay for sex in town. Much simpler. Note, however, that I do have 241 children, just in case you think I’m a closet homosexual or something.

Also, don’t ask about food. The cooking competition is worse than the screwing competition, pardon my French. I walk into the dining room, sit down, and eat what’s on my plate. Then I say thanks and get up and leave. You want a review of your dinner? Check my plate. If the food is still lying there, your dinner stinks.

Keep the kids away from me. One hint of favoritism on my part and all hell breaks loose. We’ve got 50 moms here (ages 12 to 92). Take care of your kids! If they want to go to college, make sure they get a scholarship. You can’t beat being a member of a cult for moving to the top of various lists.

If you’re my mother, one of my sisters, or one of my daughters, don’t try to marry me. This means you, Mom. It’s embarrassing to have a whirlwind romance and find myself at the alter, only to discover you’ve used a wig and contacts to disguise yourself.

If this is about money, talk to Sariah (the 92-year-old). She keeps the books. Cult finance is not taught in Accounting 101.

I don’t talk politics, except to say, where do you think Romney got those debating skills? And Jon Huntsman felt right at home as a diplomat in China, a country with a population of 1.3 billion.

One last thing about sex. If you consort with a prostitute on a steady basis, ensure that she has at least one child by you, if you want to keep straight with God.

Guest Blogger: H. Cain

We all make mistakes. It’s only human.

The important thing is, do we learn from those mistakes? Do we grow?

I’m sure that all of you have done things that you aren’t proud of. Think back. Why did it happen? Would you make the same mistake again today? I think not.

Let he who is blameless throw the first stone. He whom is blameless.

I was with a woman. Why not? I’m a man, per se. But I misread a couple of her signals. I responded. You could say I reacted. Once corrected by her, or restrained and slapped you might say, I learned. I’ve moved on. I shouldn’t be punished for a person I no longer am.

I’d like to thank this young fellow here for lending me his blog for a minute. I was going to tweet about the incident as soon as I stepped out of the elevator, but with the screaming and so forth, I decided to hold off until I got out of the hallway and away from building security, to gather my thoughts.

Which reminds me, why is a beautiful woman like a pizza with extra cheese? I’ll answer that at the next debate.

Guest Post: Concerned Mom

Thanks for giving me this chance to make a plea for advice.

I have a wonderful son named Tommy. He is very bright, but he wets the bed, starts fires, and hurts small animals. I’m told that these are the three clear indications that he’ll grow up to be a serial killer.

I took him to our family priest, but that’s when he started with the fires. I took him to a family therapist, but that’s when he started torturing kittens and puppies. I’d like to take him to a child psychiatrist, but I’m afraid that if I do, he’ll kill someone. Possibly the psychiatrist.

He’s a loving boy. When I ask him a question, he’ll say “Yes, Mommy Dear” or “No, Mommy Dear.”

He likes to climb into bed with us at night, and wedge himself in between my husband and me. Last night, however, I noticed that he brought a butcher knife along with him.

I want to sit down and hash this whole thing out with my husband, but I haven’t seen him in two days.

Helpful hints welcome!

Guest blogger: Emily Dickinson

Hello everybody.

Warning: I won’t be including any new poems here. Those of you who know something about me know that I keep my poems to myself. Out of 1,800, I’ve published fewer than a dozen. In fact, perhaps I won’t publish this bit of prose, either.

joem18b volunteers here at the Union Psychiatric Facility, which is how I met him. Strangely enough, he teaches a class in basket weaving. Basket weaving used to be the principal activity with which mental patients in asylums passed the time, but it has become a lost art in the padded cells of America. I specialize in the use of soft spaghetti and other noodles. This sounds crazy, I know, but that’s par for the course here on the ward. At least I don’t use human excrement!

Of course I am a woman suffering from the pathological delusion that I am an historically famous poetess, dead these 125 years. If I work hard, hard enough, I can recover a reality beyond these, my own personal confusions.

I earn my current permissions level here on the ward by repeating those two sentences to staff whenever appropriate. Naturally I include the statements here in my post. I believe them to be true. Really.

Having said that, let me answer the question most often put to me: How can I be so placid when I am locked in a secure building with no option to leave? My answer: I never went out anyway. I’m perfectly agoraphobic. This is the ideal situation for me. I write new poems every day. I’m allowed to wear a white dress.

My boyfriend is Napoleon. Stereotypical? Not so. There are virtually no Napoleons left in American mental institutions. The emperor is out of favor. Or perhaps the current level of historical ignorance in this country has turned him into an unknown. But this instantiation of him, my Napoleon, has sold me. Ask him a question and his answer is either true when you check it out on Google, or there is no answer available online.

Why Napoleon? If you know anything about the man, you know that he can’t keep it in his pants. That is in no way a problem for me. I’ve been taking care of myself my whole life. My relationship with Nappy, as I call him, is not based upon physical considerations. And please don’t bother googling “Emily Dickinson” and “lesbian” together. The poems that you’ll find referenced there came to me on exceptionally hot and muggy days, when wearing my usual starched garments became unbearable.

Anyway, my father was an extremely erudite man. I believe that is why I am attacted to Napoleon. We can sit and gab about history for hours.

I’m looking out the window now, and I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a pine tree, or is that a juniper? Kilmer stole the line from me, by the way.

Guest blogger: my mom

You don’t phone. You don’t write.

Ha Ha. Just kidding.

Move out of the house.

So this is where you spend all your time. The crumbs in this keyboard! No wonder we have rats.

They aren’t squirrels. They’re roof rats. Google it.

Hello, everybody. I’m glad to meet you.

To the shiksha who my son has been hanging out with online: Invite him over. If you live at home like he does, that’s ok. He can sleep on the couch. Don’t feed him pork. Have some protection handy, although to tell you the truth, I don’t think he knows much about that side of life yet.

To the boys who my son plays games with online: If the shiksha don’t invite him over, you invite him over. He can sleep on the floor.

Who do I have to screw to get this kid a job?

Son, if you don’t go down and apply at Carl’s Junior this afternoon, you’re dead to me, although I will keep doing your laundry and ironing, including your sheets and underwear.

The Upcoming Election

Guest poster: Mabel Brown

Every four years, I hold an election to determine who will be my husband for the next term. My current husband is ok. He’s black and I’m white, which is good for bed but bad for joining the local country club. Also, he’s no help in finding me a job.

I’ll choose one individual to run against him. There will be one voter in the election. Me.

The candidates interested in making the run are debating tonight at the VFW, with me watching and asking the questions. Participating will be:

Rick – Looks good in a suit. Not too bright.

Mitt – Looks good in a suit. Bright. Wears funny underwear.

Michelle – Looks good in a suit. The trouble begins when she opens her yap.

Newt – Told him I had a breast lump and he was out the door in the wink of an eye.

Ron – A coot. Tells me that marriage is “illegal government interference.”

Herman – All the pizza I can eat!

Guest Post: Representative John Jakobs

Greetings, voters of the 51st District. Today I want to respond to the most frequent question that I hear: “Which is more important to you, serving the United States or getting reelected?”

All professions are faced with variations of this question, including my profession of politics.

For example:

Doctors are asked whether the life of a patient or the timely payment of that patient’s bill is more important to them. This is apples and oranges. Some patients live, some die.  Nothing you can do about that. Likewise, some pay, and some you’ve got to go after with Collections and sue them for every damn cent that they’ve got.

Lawyers are asked whether justice or “getting the rat off” is more important to them. This question doesn’t make much sense, because any lawyer doing his job right will end up screwing his client no matter what the jury decides.

The plumber is asked, is it better to do quick and shoddy work in order to maximize profit and spend more time at home, or to “do a good job”? Answer: quality trumps everything. Quality family time at home, I mean.

With respect to politics, the answer is simple: to serve the country, I’ve got to get reelected first, right?