You Can’t See Through a 7-Up Bottle

A Little Ditch Water Gives You Fiber

Have you ever wondered why 7-Up bottles are green? Well, I have. It is one of the many mysteries of life I contemplate. What time is it at the North Pole is another mystery. Yet another mystery concerns physics. If water swirls counter clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere, then what happens when you flush your toilet on the equator? These are the types of things I ponder.

I have a pragmatic answer for the 7-Up bottle mystery however. 7-Up bottles are green because the soda is clear and its inventor, Charles Leiper Grigg, did not want his product confused with plain water. Therefore it is Grigg’s fault my oldest sister, Frances, beat me up when I was seven.

It was a hot summer’s day and we were out of school. Back in those caveman days, there was only one car per family and my Dad used ours to go to work. That was when my sister came up with a business proposal for me. She would give me some money and I would walk to the store, one mile away, and buy her a 7-Up. In my seven year old mind, this proposal seemed equitable, so I accepted it.

I made the trek to the store and purchased the ice cold drink from the owner, Mr. Denham. Mr. Denham, assuming the ice cold drink was actually for me and not for my cruel sister, performed an act of kindness which ultimately was my undoing; he opened the bottle with the opener hanging there (there were no twist off caps in the stone age).

The journey home began with me and an open bottle of ice cold 7-Up but it did not end that way. Did I mention it was a hot summer’s day? I had gone but a short distance before the first inevitable sip occurred. Many more followed and by the time I was in sight of home, the bottle was empty. Panicked and fearing the wrath of my 13 year old sister, I did what seemed normal; I filled the bottle with ditch water.

I knew my sister would be able to tell the difference but the ruse of the ditch water would give me just enough time to escape. I set the formerly ice cold drink on the kitchen table and called my sister to come get it. As she came into the room, I slowly backed out so as to arouse no suspicion. When my sister took a big swig and swallowed some small leaves and twigs, I went into a full sprint.

Although Frances was bigger and faster than I, she could not catch me because I was more elusive. Just about the time she would get within arm’s length, I would dive under a picnic table. This chase went on long enough to acquire spectators. My older brother, Bill, and my middle sister, Julie, were cheering us on from the porch.

The race took a fateful turn when I ran back into the house. After knocking over some chairs and sliding some tables, my sister caught me and beat me up. When the chaos entered the house, it caught the attention of my Mom. She had a unique way of dealing with things. Being the mother of five, if something went wrong, she would line up the four oldest and give us all a whipping. In this way she punished the culprit(s) in an optimum amount of time. My little sister, the accident, was a baby and obviously not the one who caused the trouble. So I came out of the affair with a beating from my sister and a spanking from my Mom.

Having me go for the 7-Up without getting one myself was unfair. If you are unfair to people, you might just be picking twigs from your teeth.

Randy Russ

http://www.randyruss.com/

Teenage Mutant Knucklehead

A Curable Disease

Until you have dealt with a fifteen year old, you are not really a parent. Those of you who have had to deal with a fifteen year old at home will agree with me. Those of you with kids younger than fifteen, just wait. I too, was a non-believer until I had a conversation with the great American philosopher, Red the Electrician.

Years ago, working for a very small engineering firm, I had a lot of bright ideas. I was the youngest employee and did not hesitate to share my parenting ideas with my older co-workers. They listened while smiling politely with that smile you give to someone who is giving you advice on a subject about which he knows nothing. Finally, one of my co-workers suggested I ask Red the Electrician about his philosophy on parenting.

Red the Electrician was a quiet man in his sixties and came by the office to occasionally perform routine electrical maintenance work. One day, I found myself alone with Red so I asked him about his philosophy on parenthood. Red had never spoken more than three consecutive words to me before that day. He was on a ladder working on a light fixture when he began to speak and never looked down from his work. “The only rule you need to know about parenting is this. You take your child and love it, cherish it and nurture it for fifteen years……. Then you take it out back and shoot it!” Thinking it to be a joke, I laughed out loud. Red looked down from his work for the first time and looked me in the eye. He wasn’t smiling. I tried to avoid Red after that.

When my son turned fifteen, I remembered Red and understood a little of his philosophy. Something strange happens to the human brain when it becomes fifteen years of age. I do not understand it, but a normally functioning brain suddenly mutates into a knucklehead brain on its fifteenth birthday. The best way I can explain this phenomena is by example.

My teenage son was allowed to drive our truck to another mutant knucklehead’s house to spend the night. The negotiations went well. He was to go to his friend’s house and nowhere else. All was well until the phone rang shattering the peacefulness at 11:00 PM. A neighbor on the next block, who lived in the opposite direction from the mutant friend, called and said, “Mr. Russ, your truck is in the ditch in front of my house. I thought you would like to know.”

Prior to the phone call, my son, with his mutant brain, decided to walk home and get our other car. He and his fellow mutant stealthily walked home, quietly pushed the car down our driveway in order to drive to a third mutant’s house. The third mutant had a truck and the plan was to pull my truck out of the ditch before I would find out. In his way of thinking it was no harm; no foul.

Meanwhile, back inside the house, worried my son may need medical attention; I opened the door to get my car. Surprise, surprise, surprise, there were exactly zero vehicles at my house. Clearly, this is mutant knucklehead behavior.

There are many other examples of teenage mutant knucklehead behavior such as the time he and some of his mutant friends sunk my boat in Bayou Manchac. In lieu of notifying anyone about the status of the boat, he decided it was much more important to take his girlfriend home. We passed each other on the road and he smiled and waved at me; what a nice boy. There were no cell phones in those days and he called thirty minutes after his curfew wondering if he could stay out later. When I questioned him about the missing boat he told me he only sank half of it. Right; the half with the motor!

The teenage mutant disease is most difficult but, blessedly, temporary. The mutant mind returns to normal functioning once the teen years are over. We can all be greatly encouraged by the words of another great American philosopher, Will Rogers. Will Rogers recognized the mutant knucklehead when he said, “When I was fifteen years old, I knew my father was the most ignorant man in the world. When I turned twenty, I was surprised at what the old man had learned in five short years.”

If you have a mutant knucklehead in your home, just hang in there.

Randy Russ
http://www.randyruss.com/

Toilet Paper Does Not Grow In The Bathroom

Unless You Have Puppy Dog Eyes

Shortly after my son, Scott, started living on his own, I knew my work was done. I knew it when he spoke the ten little magic words,”Toilet paper doesn’t just grow in the bathroom, you know.” These ten magic words were uttered after his mother asked him why he was using a generic brand of toilet paper instead of the name brand to which his derriere had become accustomed when I was buying the stuff.

When he lived at home, I tried, unsuccessfully, to make him fiscally responsible. Scott was always a generous person. He would give my money to anyone. I even gave him seminars on monetary responsibility, an activity which was destined to fail. I had only logic on my side while he had an ultimate weapon; he had two sad puppy dog eyes and his mom on his side.

Whenever I thought I was making progress with him, he would roll those sad eyes in his mother’s direction and money would flow his way. Seeing how well this worked for Scott, I tried it once myself. If you can’t beat them, join them. I needed a new set of golf clubs. This was a need and not a want because a new set of clubs would surely lower my golf score. I saw how well Scott’s technique worked for him, so I tried it myself. When I rolled my sad eye look at his mom, she made an appointment for me with an optometrist.

Once, I tried to outsmart him by giving him money to buy his own clothes. Each month I gave him a sum of money with which to buy clothes. Bear in mind, Scott had never spent a dime of his own money on clothing. He knew there was a law somewhere which said I had to feed and clothe him. Month after month, he spent the money on fun and never on clothes. I was confident the day would come when his underwear would get so ragged, the boy would be embarrassed enough to buy some new drawers. That day finally arrived and I was confident he would do the responsible thing. Instead, he rolled his sad puppy dog eyes and his mother bought him a new wardrobe.

My work is done now since he is out on his own. He asks his mom for chicken recipes and reminds her he only buys legs and thighs. My work is done now; he asks for work clothes for Christmas. He shops at the marts, K and Wal. My work is finally done.

Shortly after my work on Scott was complete, my daughter, Rachael, walked into the room, rolled her big beautiful eyes and declared how nice it would be if I gave her twenty dollars to go to the mall.

Vacation was over; it was time to go back to work.

Randy Russ
http://www.randyruss.com/

Skinny Al

Grin and Bear It

At one point in my life, my roof was leaking and my driveway was a quagmire, but I did not get depressed. If Skinny Al could survive everything he endured in Navy boot camp, I can bear whatever comes my way now.

Skinny Al was an inner-city kid from New York who had never been in water deeper than a bath tub. Needless to say, he could not swim. It remains a mystery to me why anyone who could not swim would join the Navy; one of the first things you did in Navy boot camp was take a swimming test. To start training, you had to jump from a high diving board, tread water for five minutes and swim to the far end of the pool. Boot camp did not begin until you could accomplish this.

The Navy was an equal opportunity employer. With no regard to swimming capabilities, everyone jumped or was shoved into the pool. When it became Skinny Al’s turn to jump off the diving board, he froze at the end.

The Drill Instructor (DI) below took this as a rather personal insult. After all, the mere fact you could not swim and would drown without assistance from a total stranger was no reason not to jump. Just because this stranger had been yelling and threatening you since you arrived at boot camp was not proper justification for a lack of trust.

The DI’s first response was to shout curse words at Al. This went on for about five minutes, greatly increasing my vocabulary, but Al, still terror stricken, did not respond. This really agitated the DI. He began climbing the ladder to the diving board, cursing at Al the whole time. When the DI reached the top, Al still would not take the plunge. The DI started shaking the diving board. Skinny Al responded by laying flat on his stomach while clutching the board with his arms and legs.

The DI, beet red with anger, rushed to the end of the board and began prying Skinny Al’s arms and legs. You would not expect a little guy to have such a grip. Skinny Al seemed to have become part of the diving board.

Finally, with one last mighty tug, the DI slipped and fell over the side, grabbing Skinny Al’s head as he went. At this point, it seemed as if everything went into slow motion. They stayed there, the DI dangling from Skinny Al’s head, for what appeared to be an eternity, but was in reality, only a few seconds. Skinny Al, fearing decapitation, released his death grip, plunging both of them spread-eagled into the water.

The DI swam to the side leaving Skinny Al floundering and on the verge of drowning. The DI extended a six foot pole to Al who frantically grabbed it. The DI then did what seemed perfectly natural to him; he let go. A six foot pole in twelve feet of water is not much help to a drowning man. The DI toyed with Al a little longer before finally diving in and saving him. He then made all of us do push-ups because Skinny Al made him get wet.

Skinny Al survived this with a smile on his face. I never saw Al depressed at any point during the remainder of boot camp. Al always had a big infectious smile on his face. You could not come away from a conversation with Al without feeling better.

When life gets me down, I remember Skinny Al. Now if I can just remember where I put his phone number.

Randy Russ
http://www.randyruss.com/

Dinosaurs and Derrieres

A Nesting Woman Will Always Win


The very first piece of furniture my wife and I owned was a sofa. Eighteen years later, we still had it. I really loved that old sofa; it was very comfortable and had molded itself to fit my bodily contours. That was no small feat.

My dog also loved that sofa. Her greatest joy in life was to wait patiently by the back door and when it was opened a crack, run full speed into the living room plunging her one foot tall, forty pound frame happily into the corner of the sofa.

With all of that love and happiness, you would think the old sofa had a revered place in the Russ household. That would be a logical conclusion, but it would be wrong. You see, my wife hated it.

I made a valiant attempt to save the old sofa. I bribed my kids into voting to keep it. Evidently, my vote and the votes of the kids as well as the dog comprise only forty-nine percent of the total votes cast.

Failing at the ballot box, I next tried psychology. I watched Oprah once. I gave each of us a sheet of paper and suggested my wife write the single-most reason why she hated the old sofa and I would write the number one reason why I loved it. My wife wrote she hated the sofa because it was eight feet long and looked like a big brown dinosaur.

Now I had her exactly where I wanted her. She hated the sofa for the same reason I loved it. I loved that sofa because it was eight feet long. I could stretch out on it and the dog could comfortably fit in the corner. There was plenty of room for everyone.

I decided it was time to deploy my big weapon in this battle. I reached deep into my bag of tricks and pulled out the weapon of logic. I was going to utterly destroy my wife’s argument with this awesome weapon.

I confidently got out my calculator and noted you could fit two additional people on an eight foot sofa. Also, you could re-upholster the old sofa for half the cost of a new one. It made economic sense to keep the old sofa. You could get more derriere for the dollar with an eight foot sofa. Surely no normal human being could deny such cold calculating logic. I was feeling pretty smug with the knowledge I had saved the old sofa.

The day they delivered the new sofa, I was sulking in my recliner. Life was now horrible. My dog became a nervous wreck. She ran into the house, full speed as usual, and jumped where the old sofa used to be. Unfortunately for the harried dog, the new sofa was there now. Somewhere, about mid-flight, my wife saw the dog and…the English language contains no word which can accurately describe the sound which came out of my wife.

The poor dog, sensing she had made a serious faux pas, cowered and did the one thing all dogs do in that situation. She lost control of her bladder.

As for me, I am afraid of that sofa. I just sit in the recliner and tell the kids and the dog to fend for themselves.

Shortly after the great sofa war, my wife told me something very disturbing. As I was sitting in my refuge, my recliner, she looked at me and said, “Honey, that old recliner is so big, it looks like a dinosaur and besides, it does not match our new sofa.

Randy Russ
http://www.randyruss,com/

Listen To The Dead Woodpecker

Things You Can Learn From A Dead Bird

What is the biggest difference between men and women? The death of the poor woodpecker gave me the answer. Women have a far-sighted view of life and men are near-sighted.

It was a dismal winter’s day as the four of us drove along. The trees were bare and the sky was gray. There was no color in sight except for the splash of bright red in the middle of the road which was the woodpecker standing there.

It was such a striking animal all eyes in the car focused on it in order to drink in the beauty. All eyes, that is, except for the driver, my wife. I am still not sure at what she was looking, but as we rapidly approached the woodpecker in the middle of the road, it became apparent she was looking elsewhere. It also became apparent the bird was suicidal when it refused to move.

I would have warned my wife about the approaching collision, but my ears were still burning from the time I tried to warn her about the pot hole which had jolted us earlier.

Thump… thump, the poor bird bounced twice under the car. “What was that,” my wife asked. The three of us answered in unison, “A woodpecker!” But now it was just a dead bird.

The death of that poor bird made me realize women have a far-sighted view of live and men are near-sighted. This woman, who cannot see a bird directly in front of her and who is on a first name basis with everyone at Al’s Alignment, can spot a kid on a bike at 3000 yards. “Watch out for that kid on the bike with the blue tennis shoes riding his bike in the back yard.”

“I will watch out for him when he gets in the same area code as us.” My wife is not unique among women in her view of the world. If two women meet and one of them has a bad haircut, the other woman will say her hair looks good. “Why, Alice, that new haircut looks so good on you. You are lucky, that haircut would look bad on me, but it looks great on you.” This is a far-sighted view of life. A woman will look into the future and realize she wants to remain friends, so she will not do anything which might jeopardize the friendship.

If two men meet and one of them has a bad haircut, the response is quite different. A man will look at his friend, laugh hysterically and say, “Bill, what happened, you get a little too close to the weed-eater this week-end?” It does not stop there, a man will summon all nearby men so they can all enjoy the new haircut.

A man will look into the future, just like a woman, and want to remain friends. Since men have a near-sighted view of life, they cannot look past the bad haircut.

The world is certainly more interesting with men and women viewing life from different perspectives. How do I know this? A little bird told me; a dead little red headed woodpecker bird.

Randy Russ
http://www.randyruss.com/

The Big Hormone

Woes of a Father of Fifteen Year Old Girl

That day had been just like any other day. I went to work and then went home. Shortly after entering my house, I noticed the large array of flowers sitting prominently on the bar and became confused because I knew I had not sent them. I was so panicked; I could not even remember the date as I quickly went down the checklist of things I may have forgotten. Let’s see, birthday?....No. Anniversary?....No. Mother’s Day?...No.

My wife was standing there quietly enjoying my dilemma as she let me twist in the wind. As I ran down the dates in my mind and finally came to the conclusion I had not forgotten something important, I became indignant. If I did not send the flowers to my wife, then someone else did. I wanted to know exactly who would be sending flowers to my wife and I wanted to know why. I finally blurted out, “Who sent you these flowers?”

With a mysterious smile on her face, my wife retorted, “No one.”

“What do you mean no one? The flowers are right there in front of me.”

My wife was enjoying this way too much when she replied, “They are not for me.”

Now completely perplexed I said, “But if they are not for you, then whose are they?”

This was the moment for which my wife had been waiting all day. “The boy across the street sent them to Rachael.” I had not even considered the fact someone would send flowers to my little girl. My wife said the look on my face was priceless as it went from relatively smooth to the many wrinkles you see today.

The big hormone from across the street began shuffling its way into my house wearing its baseball cap backward. Knowing where the hormone lived made hormone defense easy. I adjusted all of my floodlights so they lit the hormone’s bedroom window. I planted shrubbery that blocked the hormone’s line of sight. I could aim all of my guns in the same direction, just in case of emergency. All of the defensive maneuvers would inhibit unwanted hormonal activity. I had things under control.

Sensing her Dad was too confident, Rachael broke up with the hormone across the street. This made her a hormone free agent. Hormones began descending upon my house in droves, throwing me into a state of confusion. I planted shrubbery in the living room. I did not know where to aim my guns.

I am now a hormone expert. I will share my knowledge with those of you who have not yet experienced hormone warfare. There are certain characteristics of all hormones. All hormones wear their caps sideways. All hormones wear their father’s pants. All hormones keep their hands in their pockets. The only time they remove their hands from their pockets is when they are about to grope your daughter. If you see a hormone at your house with its hands out, knock it over the head, wrap it in duct tape and put it out front with the rest of the garbage. All hormones are deaf. You can hear their music two minutes before they get to your driveway. This is an early warning system, giving you time to prepare for the battle.

If you all will follow this advice, we can win this hormone war together. I will have to go now; I hear the sounds of Twisted Sister. I need to get my duct tape.

Randy Russ
http://www.randyruss.com/