Humor Writing - Jour 488

Journal Assignment

The purpose of this assignment was to write a humorous 400-500 word column that might be published in a newspaper or magazine. The following are examples of the students' articles for print media.

'The Birth' by Danny Bachman (W/02)

After making the hospital run with my wife seven times I feel that I have acquired enough knowledge of the matter to assist first-time Dads with preparations for the 'big event'. There are several areas to consider:

1. Pack the suitcase at least six weeks in advance. This is necessary because the expectant mother will change her mind several times about what she wants to wear wile at the hospital. Thus, she will pack, unpack, pack, unpack, pack, unpack, and pack again before the baby gets here. None of this will matter though, since in your rush to hurry to the hospital you will forget the bag (luggage) and end up at K-Mart buying all new stuff anyway.

2. Make sure the car is ready. At least six weeks in advance have the engine replaced with something that is built for a NASCAR racer, and put speed rated tires on the vehicle. This is necessary only because no matter what the doctor (what's he know anyway) tells you, you are going to drive that Geo Metro like Jeff Gordon, hell-bent on winning the Daytona 500.

3. Pick out a name. At least six weeks before the 'blessed day' (do you see a pattern developing here?) sit down with mom-to-be and decide on a boy's name and a girl's name. Then tell all the relatives what you have decided on. This will allow time for all of the arguments over your choices to be settled well in advance, and the child isn't stuck with a handle like: Ebenezer Walter or Herminie Gertrude. Plus, you still have time to change your own mind several times.

4. Do not; I repeat DO NOT decorate the baby's room. NO matter what all of the tests have determined the baby's sex to be you will only suffer great embarrassment when you have to return all of that boy/girl furniture, curtains, blankets and other stuff to Babies-R-Us. A new mom isn't really in proper physical shape to be lugging baby furniture back to the store. Sit down at least six weeks in advance (surprise) and decide together what you will need to furnish the baby's room. Then Dad can go to the store while mother and child are still in the hospital and set up the nursery. Take pictures to the hospital to show the new mom, that way she can chew you out for getting all of the wrong stuff, leaving dad time enough to exchange all of that crap for the correct items.

5. Prepare yourself for some rough language. Yes, that delicate little woman that is going to be the mother of your child is going to curse you, curse your family for bringing you into the world, curse your body parts, threaten to remove certain of your appendages, and swear that you will never get close enough to her again to even read the writing on her sweatshirt. So, sit down at least six weeks in advance (getting old isn't it?) and reassure each other of how deep and lasting your love is. This way while your pedigree is being read to you in the delivery room you can resist the overwhelming urge to choke the life out of her.

6. Don't make jokes in the delivery room. Enough said!!!

If you are wondering why it is necessary to make of all these plans six weeks in advance it is because you need to keep busy toward the end of the pregnancy. You won't do, or remember any of this garbage, but the little woman is going to be unbearably nasty during this period. The best you can hope for is to get through it alive!

'My Weekend with Arnold' by Jennifer Brock (W/02)

Over the weekend I attended the Arnold's Fitness Expo in downtown Columbus. I don't know if I can really say that I had a good time, but rather had an experience. It was kind of scary to be shoulder to shoulder with carnie look-a-likes, women who were stacked like Arnold used to be (before all of the triple bypass surgeries), and bench-pressing midgets. I have to admit that I never knew there were so many strange people out these and I can profess that I saw them all in the same place at the same time.

As soon as we arrived in Columbus, I started to realize how interesting my experience was going to be. The Holiday Inn we were staying at was completely full, with guests ranging from GI Joes with muscles bulging out everywhere to eight-year-old Dominique Dawes wanna-bes with their hair pulled back in neat buns that were coated in glitter.

We were going down on the elevator and overheard a conversation between two gymnastic moms who were discussing one of their daughters, who appeared to be quite anorexia-stricken.

'Carol, little Sara doesn't look good today. Is she tired or what?'

'Oh, don't worry, Sharon. She just took her steroids. They always make her a little woozy.'

To start the Arnold saga, I must first begin with the challenge of finding a place to park in Columbus. Every parking garage was full, the streets were lined bumper to bumper, and even the local parks were loaded with cars belonging to people attending the expo. Finally, we decided to park at a Big Bear and take a two-mile hike to the Convention Center.

Once we bought our tickets and made our way inside. I got my first glimpse of what was to come. Just to give you an idea of how packed this place really was, imagine taking all of the people in the Zanesville Wal Mart and cramming them into the post office at the Colony Square Mall. There were huge guys everywhere that you just didn't want to piss off. They were all escorting tiny little girlfriends who probably robbed a transvestite's closet for their clothes. The scene reminded me of Hollywood Boulevard after midnight.

There were booths everywhere, ranging from muscle enhancers to tanning products to energy drinks. The booths all had either really stacked guys, really stacked girls, or just half-naked porn stars running them. There were free samples sitting out everywhere and the power bar samples smelled like dog food.

We started to watch the bench press competition, but there were so many people crowded around that you could barely see the TV monitor. I did manage to see a 4 foot midget bench over 500 lbs. and a 150 lb. woman, who looked like Jean Claude Van Damme with a butch haircut, bench 350. At this point, I was starting to be overwhelmed by the smell of sweat and b.o. mixed with fart. There were just too many strange and dirty people rubbing against me, and I desperately wanted to shower.

We passed a booth where Playboy girls were charging guys to let them get their picture taken with them. This was very humorous to me and I wondered if the profits were going to pay off those three huge sets of boobs. There were a lot of girls who were wearing nothing but thongs and groups of frat boys would bring the flow of traffic to a halt when they stopped to gawk. Their mouths dropped and they acted like they'd never seen as ass before. One guy even had a camcorder he was filming with and I didn't want to know what he was going to do with that!

We finally decided to move out of this scary area and over into the gymnastic competition, where we saw bony girls with broad shoulders and no chests flip around and swing on bars. This was interesting to me, especially when we started to watch the male competition. We watched one guy sack himself about twelve times on the pommel horse and another fly off of the high bar and land on his head. Ouch.

One thing that was ironic was the fact that the snack bar was located in the gymnastic area. We saw little girls pigging down French fries and hot pretzels and I wondered if they had ever even tasted a snow cone before. They knew that once they got home, it was back to salad and slim fast shakes, which reminds me of how psychotic some of the parents of these little gymnasts were. After one girl finished her routine, her mother stood up and started shaking these huge pom poms and bawling hysterically. It was quite a scene and I felt embarrassed for her.

Going back to the snack bar, which was an experience all in itself, I was almost positive that the workers had all been laid off by the circus. No one had a full set of teeth and most of them either had a twitch or seemed to be suffering from schizophrenia. There were carnies running stands that featured popcorn, cotton candy, and sno cones. Normally, sno cones come in about a zillion flavors and it's so hard to choose. But the toothless lady who was running the booth made the choice for me ¾ she only had cherry, plus she charged me twice as much. I paid $4.50 for a Dixie cup full of iced Kool Aid.

The climax of my experience came when Arnold himself came out on stage to address the crowd. He only talked for about five minutes, but that was enough time for me to realize how small he was and also how stupid he seemed. He was about as tall as the girl who introduced him, which looked to be about 5'6'. This surprised me and made me wonder if he hired all midgets to play in his movies with him. He then told us that he had to do some promotional work, and that 'There will be two thousand people and I be smiling to all of dem and den shaking their hands like dis,' where he then stuck his hand out and began to demonstrate.

Overall, my experience has led me to believe that fitness fanatics are scary and that gymnasts are crazy. My day at Arnold's Fitness Expo will go down in history not only because I saw Arnold, but also because I was exposed to some pretty amusing and freaky stuff.