Silver Spraypaint
First published 7/15/1999

A lot of people keep boxes of junk. Odds and ends that have no specific purpose but seem neat or potentially useful. Maybe, sometimes, you reach into your box, pull out an item, and use it to repair something. Maybe you pull out a bunch of them, glue them together, spray paint them silver and call it a craft. Some items, though, don't fit into anything: they sit in the box, collecting dust, and as you remove the relatively-useful items and use them for something, the leftovers become stranger and stranger.

I don't have a box like that. But I do keep a file of ideas for this column. Sometimes I pull things out of the file and fit them into a column I'm writing. Sometimes I stick a bunch of them together and call it a column. Over the years, though, the leftovers have gotten stranger and stranger, until no amount of glue and silver spray paint will turn them into a craft.

Anyway, time to clean the box out.

One-Liners That Don't Fit Into Anything:

There comes a point when you realize that, in spite of the fact that you just brushed your teeth, it's time for lunch.

I wouldn't join any club that would have Groucho Marx as a member.

They say people have skeletons in their closets, but I've found shoes to be much more common.

Some would say that glass was all empty. Others would say its none full.

Sorry, that was the booze listening.

If we don't learn from the future we're condemned to repeat it.

It wasn't wit, but what it was rhymed with wit.

The pen is mightier than the sword. The Bic pen is mightier than the sword - and disposable!

Ideas That Can't Be Turned into Columns:

Ad for a mutual fund: ensuring the comfort of your kid's future by making some other kid work in a sweatshop 20 hours a day.

I'm getting a crack den put in at my place. Some nice bookshelves, a fish mounted on the wall. I'll be smoking some crack in there.

Pointless Observations:

Summer is the one time of year when people who live in basement apartments aren't losers.

I bought a new car with a lock on the gas cap. It's handy, because I used to have a problem with thieves and punks taking off my old gas cap and buying me gas.

Why do they call Speedstick "Speedstick?" It's not particularly fast. I don't see how you could characterize a stick as being fast or slow -- velocity isn't really a characteristic of a stick. The defining characteristic of Speedstick is its odor. That's why they should call it Smellystick.

Earth must have wrecked its asteroid insurance. We almost got hit by two comets last year -- Armageddon and Deep Impact. And there was that Asteroid TV movie too. Our rates must be through the roof now! And things were going so well... no accidents since that dinosaur thing then, bam!

Watching Jerry Springer: people all riled up at some neo-Nazis, one of whom is dressed like Santa. As if getting angry at the Nazi Santa accomplishes anything. "Down, down, down, with the Nazi Santa!" Chanting against Nazism is like drinking for sobriety.

Irrelevant Definition:

Procraturbation: when you put off masturbating.

Like the column? Buy the book! 100 Years of Subatomic Humor now on sale!