I am reminded, for no particular reason except for the need to kill space and time, of a man who was very much in love with his pet duck.  He would take the duck everywhere he went.  One day, the man sought to take his duck to the movies – but the ticket cashier would not allow the duck to be brought into the theater.  So the man went around the corner, hid the duck down his pants, came back and bought himself a ticket for the movies.

However, the duck eventually found it uncomfortable inside the man’s pants.  After the movie started, the man unzipped his fly and the duck was able to stick its head out to breathe comfortably.

Next to the man sat a woman and her husband.  In the darkness of the theater, the woman saw the duck’s head protruding from the man’s open fly and naturally assumed it was something else.  She nudged her husband and said: “Ralph, the man next to me has his penis hanging out of his fly.”

The husband asked: “Is he bothering you?” She said no.  So the husband said: “Just ignore it and watch the movie.”

A few minutes later, the woman elbowed her husband again.  “Ralph, the man’s penis...”

“I told you to ignore it,” said her husband.

“I can’t,” said the woman.  “It’s eating my popcorn!”

In many offices, there are birthday parties.  In many large offices, there are multiple birthday parties.  Needless to say, the excess of birthday parties comes with an excess of birthday cakes.  And if one actively participates in a year’s worth of office-related birthday parties (with their rich and gooey cakes), one can begin to resemble a late-life Marlon Brando.

Now I like birthday cake just like the next slob.  And I also like ice cream.  But I don’t like ice cream cakes.  They are not easy to enjoy, especially if you are standing around a conference room table trying to slice the ice cream cake with one hand while balancing a wobbly paper plate in the other.

One office birthday party some time back, I was given a solid slice of chocolate ice cream cake and a plastic fork.  The fork did not survive its encounter with the ice cream cake.  I obtained a second fork, waited a couple of minutes for the ice cream cake to defrost somewhat, and I did a second attack.  At this point I was back at my desk, where I could do battle from the comfort of a chair – this was not a conflict that could easily be accomplished while standing.

The fork penetrated the slice of ice cream cake and made some progress.  I emphasize the word “some,” as the fork became lodged about a quarter-inch into its target and could neither go forward nor retreat.  And, not surprisingly, this occurred when a telephone call came in.

Thus, I am sitting at my desk with a telephone balanced in one hand while I am enduring an Arthurian struggle in the other hand – but rather than extract a sword from a stone, I was extracting a plastic fork from an ice cream cake.  Or at least that was the idea – for the most part, I was waving the fork-impaled ice cream cake like a gavel, dripping bits of too-slowly-melting chocolate ice cream across the blanket of paperwork atop my desk.

Clearly the person on the far end of my phone call is realizing there is a problem at my end.  “What’s going on there?” he asks.

“I am trying to eat Three Stooges cake,” I reply.

“It sounds like you should be hitting Curly-Joe on the head with it,” he answers.

Since Curly-Joe was not available for cranium crashing, I found myself continuing the unhappy task of having my cake and eating it, too.  The fork was eventually, after several minutes of polite struggle, liberated with a bite-sized chunk.  Upon contact with my teeth, however, I felt as if I was French kissing Mr. Freeze. 

Both the ice cream cake and the valiant little fork found its way into the nearest trashcan.  Whether the ice cream cake ever melted is something I cannot answer – though I suspect even with global warming it is still sitting in a solid block in some distant rubbish dump, confounding the seagulls and rats that try to peck away at it.

I read the news today (oh boy!) that Pluto is no longer an official planet.  After years of being one of the planetary gang, followed by additional years of contentious debate by astronomers who seem to have nothing better to do with their time, Pluto was (to paraphrase the slogan of a tiresome reality show) voted off the universe.

Honestly, I always loved Pluto as a planet.  Being the smallest of the bunch and the furthest from the Sun, Pluto always seemed like the plucky underdog of the heavens.  In fact, no one even knew it was there until 1930 – and it took an amateur astronomer to find it, no less (all of the so-called professionals didn’t even know it was there).  Plus, it moved to its own drumbeat: rather than run in parallel orbit with the other planets, it had the audacity to cut off Neptune and muscle in on its orbital path.

I can also sympathize with Pluto for being told it’s not good enough to belong.  Hell, I think everyone’s been in a situation like that at one point or another.

But I must say that I love the astrology community.  Read this from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s L.A. Johnson:

Planet, schmanet.

Astrologers are unfazed by news that the world's foremost astronomers yesterday kicked Pluto out of the planet club. (And presumably won't allow Pluto to play in any celestial object games.)

"What people call something has very little to do with what it is," said Rob Hand, a leading U.S. astrologer from Reston, Va., who teaches the history of astrology at Kepler College, an online college based near Seattle. "What anybody chooses to call something is irrelevant; it's what sort of effect and use it has."

Fortunately, the astrologers refrained from the obvious response to the astronomers: Take your official designation and shove it up Uranus!

• Speaking to a driving instructor in Scotland, he asked: "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?"
• After accepting a gift from a Kenyan citizen he replied, "You are a woman, aren't you?"
• "If it has four legs and is not a chair, has wings and is not an aeroplane, or swims and is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it." (1986)
• In 1966 he remarked that "British women can't cook." 
• To a British student in Papua New Guinea: "You managed not to get eaten then?"
• On a visit to the new Welsh Assembly in Cardiff, he told a group of deaf children standing next to a Jamaican steel drum band, "Deaf? No wonder you are deaf standing so close to that racket."
• He asked an Indigenous Australian, "Still throwing spears?"
  
• Said to a Briton in Budapest, Hungary, "You can't have been here that long – you haven't got a pot belly."
  
• To the President of Nigeria, who was dressed in traditional African robes, "You look like you're ready for bed!"
  
• To Lord Taylor of Warwick, who is black: "And what exotic part of the world do you come from?" Lord Taylor: "I'm from Birmingham."
  
• Seeing a shoddily installed fuse box in a high-tech Edinburgh factory, HRH remarked that it looked "like it was put in by an Indian".
• During a Royal visit to China in 1986 he described Beijing as "ghastly".
• "Aren't most of you descended from pirates?" (in 1994, to an islander in the Cayman Islands).
• At Salford University, he told a 13 year old aspiring astronaut: "Well, you'll never fly in it, you're too fat."
  

 While this is not comedy, per se, it should be noted that some sick humor can be found in the furor in the Islamic world regarding Pope Benny’s decision to publicly repeat comments made by a Byzantine emperor’s notion of the violence inherent to Islam and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad.

From this joker’s perspective, I would offer the following observations:

1. When freedom of religion and the right for open assemblies of non-Muslim religious gatherings can be commonplace in the Islamic world, then criticism of Pope Benny is justified.
2. When Muslim terrorists stop bombing churches in Iraq and stop harassing Iraqi Christians seeking the free exercise of their faith (particularly women), then criticism of Pope Benny is justified.
3. When the governments of predominantly Islamic nations cease their policies of persecution of non-Muslim faiths (most notably Iran’s campaigns against its Baha’i population and the state-sanctioned violence against Coptic Christians in Egypt), then criticism of Pope Benny is justified.
4. When people in predominantly Muslim countries have the right to change their religions without the risk of being arrested, tried and executed for crimes against the nation, then criticism of Pope Benny is justified.
5. When the governments of predominantly Muslim country outlaw school texts that slander Judaism and Christianity, then criticism of Pope Benny is justified.
6. When Muslims stop killing each other under the pretext of Koranic principles (Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan), then criticism of Pope Benny is justified.

Until such time, all I can say is “More power to Pope Benny!”

 The year is 1976 and I am 11 years old.  The place is my old neighborhood in The Bronx (pronounced “Da Bronx”) and it is during a lunchtime break from the torture known as sixth grade.  My pal James and I managed to sneak in through a service door to a local high-rise apartment complex with the hope of meeting its most famous tenant, baseball great Willie Mays.

This was not an original idea, as every boy in our school tried to do the same.  No one ever got to see Willie in person, but James and I seemed to get closer than most (we made it to the door of his penthouse apartment, but we were informed by a woman on the other side of that door that our intended target was not home).

As luck would have it, a fellow classmate named Philip lived in that same apartment complex.  So James and I rode the elevator down to his floor with the hope of catching him at home (and perhaps snagging some goodies from his pantry – it was lunchtime, after all).  Admittedly, it was not the most desirable consolation prize (unlike the elusive Willie Mays, we saw Philip every day), but at least it would keep us busy and perhaps well-fed.

Alas, Philip was not home.  Dejected, James and I headed to the elevators.  But for whatever reason, we opted to take the staircase.  And that’s where the trouble began.

I don’t know why (and I still can’t figure it out), but James issued me a challenge at the top of the staircase landing on Philip’s floor: he boasted that he could outdistance me in a urinating contest on the staircase.  Clearly, the idea of using a staircase as a toilet never occurred to me – but at the time, it seemed like a brilliant notion.  Hell, anyone can take a pee into a porcelain bowl.

Furthermore, my sense of adventure was piqued.  Could I pee my way down a staircase?  To the 11-year-old me, those 10 steps from top to bottom landing seemed like an Olympic ski jump.  But I thought I could outdistance James.

So James and I stood at the edge of the staircase landing, unzipped our flies, took out our 11-year-old manhoods, and did the one-two-three-go routine.  Initially James got off to a strong start, hitting the fourth step, while I was stuck at the second step.  But then I began to catch up by making an arc my urine flow.  We tied at the seventh step and went down the stairs in unison until we both hit the bottom landing.  Needless to say, the tie was a disappointment since we both wanted to secure bragging rights.

After zipping up, we remembered the elevators (the staircase didn’t seem like the best place to travel, considering what transpired) and we went downstairs and then went back out the service entrance that gave us access.  We made it to school in the nick of time.

The next day, our friend Philip confronted us in a decidedly non-friendly manner.  It seems the janitor for his apartment complex was making the rounds and came upon that staircase.  Oddly, the janitor blamed Philip for the mess and informed his parents.  Now why the janitor would blame Philip (since he lived on the floor in an apartment with a working toilet) made no sense, but Philip nonetheless added two and two and came up with the only two goofs he knew who could turn a staircase into a urinating championship forum.  Naturally, we denied everything.

Still, I look back in awe at this accomplishment.  I’ve never won any sporting trophies, so the knowledge that I could pee like a champ means a great deal to me (even more than meeting Willie Mays).

"SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Five people trying to sneak into the United States from Mexico became trapped in a narrow tunnel and had to be rescued Tuesday after the largest of them, a nearly 200-pound man, got stuck trying to climb out through a storm drain, authorities said.

Firefighters used jackhammers at the city's border with Tijuana to widen the opening and free the man, who had become stuck at the hips, said James Jacques, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Then they pulled out the four others who had become trapped behind him in the drainage tunnel."

 It’s 1984 and I am walking up Fifth Avenue in New York one summer afternoon when I am stopped by a police barricade at 51st Street.  No one is allowed to cross over, and on both sides of the barricaded streets there are crowds of pedestrians.

“What’s going on?” I asked a bystander.

“The Vice President is coming by to give a speech,” I was told by the bystander, who pointed in the direction of a building opposite from us.

For those who don’t recall, the Vice President in 1984 was George H.W. Bush, who was elected President in 1988.  We won’t talk about his offspring here.

While I was not a fan of the older Bush, the idea of actually seeing him in person was rather exciting.  After all, it is not every day that you walk up the street and view the Vice President.  

As I was waiting for the Bush motorcade to arrive, I heard a telephone ring.  These were the days before cell phones, so a ringing telephone usually meant a street payphone was making the noise.  Sure enough, I was standing next to a payphone.  Since no one was taking the call, I picked up the receiver.

“Hey, is this the bakery?” said a gruff man’s voice from the receiver.

“No, this is a payphone,” I said.  “You have the wrong number.”

Suddenly, there was a huge cheer from both sides of the street.  Being I was ducked half-into the phone booth, I couldn’t see the inspiration of the cheering (Vice President Bush, whose motorcade came to a screeching halt before its destination).  However, the noise clearly aroused the curiosity of the wrong number caller.  “Hey, what’s that noise there?” he asked.

“The Vice President just pulled up on the street,” I replied.  

“Bush?” the caller said.  “Tell him to go suck my dick!”  And then he promptly hung up in my ear.

As I ducked out of the phone booth, all I could see of the Vice President was his hand from the doorway of his destination.  He waved a wacky-happy display of fingers and then disappeared into the building.

My disappointment in the moment was twofold: I never got to see the Vice President as a whole (just his hand), nor did I get to deliver the message that the caller asked me to share. Oh well....

One night during a romantic tryst, my cutie du jour paused to gaze upon me and then exclaimed: “You know, you look just like Bob Saget.”

Needless to say, my cutie didn’t seem so cute anymore.  Which is not meant as a slur against Bob Saget (I am sure he is the object of panting desire among a devoted audience of admirers).  But being told I resemble Bob Saget, especially during the attack of Cupid’s arrows, isn’t quite the same thing as “you are so handsome” or “you are soooooo sexy” or “you look just like Matthew McConaughey” (which would confirm that I would be in the midst of pleasuring someone who is either visually impaired or hasn’t seen Matthew McCounaughey lately).

I am rarely told I look like anyone famous.  One person swore I was a dead ringer for "Today Show" talker Matt Lauer, which I couldn’t understand.  Aside from the fact we are both white male bipeds, Matt Lauer and I have nothing in common – certainly not in regard to our exteriors (Matt's not better or worse...he's just not me).

In fact, during the course of my life I’ve only twice been seriously mistaken for other people.  The first time was outside of a liquor store in Yonkers, NY, where a woman came out and started yelling “Tony!” at me.  After looking at her dumbly for a few seconds, she stopped and looked at me dumbly.  Then she conceded her error by proclaiming: “My God, you look just like a travel agent who works near here.”

Okay, I look like Tony the travel agent in Yonkers, NY.  I should’ve asked where Tony worked – I could’ve walked into his agency and pulled a lost-twin routine on him.  Or maybe the woman was enjoying the merchandise of the liquor store when she made that observation.  After a couple of gins, every guy could look like Tony!

The second time was outside of an ice cream parlor in Meriden, CT.  (I tend to circulate in second-tier Northeastern cities, in case you are wondering.)  A large woman who might be mistaken for the comic strip witch Broom Hilda came bouncing out of the store, stopped, did a double take, and announced: “Oh, my, you look just like my son!”

The notion that someone like me could resemble the offspring of this creature from the wrong side of the gene pool did little to boost my self-esteem.  And to make matters worse, I didn’t even get a free ice cream cone for being the dead ringer for her son.

Perhaps being mistaken in a half-naked and dimly lit setting for Bob Saget was more flattering?