Dodo Eggs

The clock ticks past the top of the hour and an English professor at a local university finishes his lecture.  Let’s listen in…

“That concludes my explanation on why you cannot blame spell check for the F on your composition paper.”  He writes BE and BEE on his white board.  “We call that a bug in the spellchecker!  Ha!”   

Students murmur a bit shoving books into backpacks.

The English professor isn’t finished though.  “Wait, this one is my favorite.  One year I had a student write a descriptive essay on his morning bowl of cereal only he kept typing BOWEL instead of BOWL!  And I quote, ‘The amazing texture of Sticks & Twigs makes my bowel sing.  Throw in a splash of cold milk and I hardly need a spoon to empty my Bowel quickly.”  He smiles and shakes his head.  “As you can tell, that student’s meaning was quickly lost.”

“Dr. Burlican?  Do we have a test on Tuesday?”

“No, Miranda this is a Monday, Wednesday, Friday class.  We’ll see everyone later.”

Dr. Burlican nods and the room quickly begins to empty.  He glances at the students as they file out.  There is a tremendous amount of chatter but no one is speaking to each other.  As quick as lightning, each and every ill groomed student has produced a cell phone. 

“Has the earth tilted off its axis in the last hour and a half?  What could they possibly need to share with someone else that can’t even wait for them to leave the room?”

The student’s voices weave together but most of the threads are the same.  Let’s listen with him…

“Hey, what’d are you doin?”  (Pause)   “Not much just gettin out of class.  What are you doin tonight?”  (Slightly longer pause) “Yea, me too, bye.”

The student’s cell phone would clap shut and Dr. Burlican would silently congratulate him or her on another life changing conversation.  The last young adult meanders out before he probes his satchel’s outside pocket for his own cell phone.  With a flick of his thumb, it opens and he punches the digits he knows so well.

Let’s listen in…    

“Yea, the federal government still has no idea.”  (Pause)  “But they don’t make diapers that big!”  (Slightly longer pause)  “Laxatives and lubricants are interchangeable that’s why the words sound so similar.  I thought you knew that.  Ok, bye.”

Sometimes being so sophisticated is hard to rationalize.  I have National Public Radio on my first preset and I listen to in the morning as I travel to work.  On weekends, I’ll listen to the just to see how they are filling the airwaves.  The fare is an easily ignored medley of travel shows (significantly less interesting because it’s RADIO), cooking shows (just let me know when they start serving duck la rue at the drive-through), variety shows (think Lawrence Welk without the bubbles or the dynamic personality), and game shows (how many words can you pull out of the phrase ABSOLUTLY DISINTERESTING?)

Above all this, the worst offences are the music reviews.  Each time one of NPR’s critics assumes the airwaves I roll my eyes in advance.  Here are their guidelines as well as I can determine.

1. All music reviewed by the critics of National Public Radio must not receive any airplay on a regular commercial station.  We want exclusive content.

2.  The music should create the following responses in listeners: confusion, bewilderment, or incomprehension.

3. Preference is given to foreigners who play an instrument no one has ever heard of yet are very popular in several remote African villages. 

4. “Come backs” by music artists who never really arrived are approved material.

5. If it were played in an elevator, would complete strangers look at each other and shrug their shoulders?

On a somewhat related note…My brother and I attended a professional football game in Nashville a couple of weeks ago.  During the half time show, the public address blasted this good news, “Ladies and gentleman!  Look to the screens at either side of the stadium for an introduction to the latest country music recording sensation, Sally Tallboots!

Before her image erupted onto the screen, I elbowed my brother.  “Just wait, she’s going to be really hot.”

We waited for Sally to appear on the screen.  When she showed up, every guy in the stadium looked over.

“Yep,” My brother responded.  “She’s attractive.”

I continued.  “Now, let me ask you a question.  If she could sing her lungs out, and looked like Miss Piggy would we still be marveling at Miss Tallboot’s talents?”

My brother took a sip from his five-dollar soda.  “No, I suppose not.”

“I mean, in what profession, other than music, does you ability to do the job come second to something unrelated, like how you look?  Why don’t we go to doctors based on how well they play poker or home builders on how many children they have?”

“Surprisingly,”  Nate deadpanned.  “My ability to find you interesting is related to you buying me another soda.”

This is DodoEggs.com
Recently discovered to be the geographical center of the Internet!

Dear Employees,

Our cooperate headquarters was recently notified that the New York Department of Health has issued our Manhattan office building almost one hundred citations!  The multiple violations stem from an inspection done on the same day as one of our weekly potlucks.  Darn the luck!

To avoid being immediately shut down, I promised to teach the inspectors how change lead into gold.  (Attn Eugene:  Get to work on this immediately.)  Nevertheless, I am forced to address several serious issues.

We know someone in Advertising is buying up the uneaten portions from the previous week, throwing them into a bowl, and calling it “Second Youth Medley Deluxe.”  Well, that is going over almost as well as your new ad slogan, “DodoEggs.com - Read Secrets of the Ancient Dodo before it killed itself.”  For the sixtieth time, being extinct does not mean the bird killed itself!

Also, I am informing Human Resources that they are no longer allowed to crush ED drugs into their shepherd’s pie and call it “Aroused Shepard’s Pie.”  Please keep in mind, the showing of the sexual harassment video is immediately after the next potluck and we cannot have our male employees wolf whistling at the actresses again!

Payroll is no longer in charge of deserts.  I have received too many complaints from workers whose candy bowls were relocated to the potluck table without their consent.  Additionally, fingernails were found at bottom of Eugene’s jellybean bowl last week and the starlight mints didn’t dissolve in anyone’s mouths!  That was sixteen health violations right there!

On a positive note, Eddy “the Plunger” Bartovich has finally submitted his sworn affidavit stating that he indeed does wash his hands before preparing his Mexican bean dip.  Ole!

Once again, I will be not be able to attend due to a lunch meeting with a high profile client.  If you need to reach me, call the hot dog vendor on the corner of 43rd and Wall Street.  Ask for Buba.

Regards,
ChiefDodo

What is the difference between the sweet feelings of infatuation and a love that is more precious than diamonds and twice as resilient?  The answer is simple:  true love has been tested.  The gloss that comes with young love has been worn away and all that you have left is the relationship as it truly is.  This trial came for Mrs. Teply not long after we began dating. 

At the time, both of us worked part-time at a day care center in a decent part of Memphis.  The daycare was housed in a massive church, which also built the large family life center next door.  (A family life center is three parts gym, two parts convention center and one part a reason to join the church.)  During the week, large groups of day care children would be funneled to the FLC for open gym and the chance to run around like the heathens they were.

I was still in my semester of student teaching.  Rushing into work at the last possible moment, I would still have on my nice cotton slacks and dress shirt.  The tie was usually but little else before picking up a basketball.  I would play an easy pickup game with some of the older kids.  Yet, even just fifteen minutes of tomahawk jams and ankle breaking, double clutch, jaw-dropping moves can cause perspiration.

A fifth grade girl approached Mrs. Teply.  “Miss Melissa, aren’t you going out with Mr. Matt?”

Mrs. Teply replied.  “Yes, why do you ask?”

(While this conversation was beginning, I was in the middle of a quadruple pump fake from just over the half court line.  It’s a tactic that NBA players haven’t picked up yet but I’ll tell you this…it freezes a defense!   They will come out of their ready positions and just put their hands on their hips.  This leaves me free for another pump fake.)

The girl arched her eyebrows and gestured toward me.  “Well, he’s a little sweaty.  Do you like that?”

Melissa watched my lithe form dance up and down the court.  Since I couldn’t take my eyes off the ball and dribble at the same time, I always displayed powerful concentration.  Yes, there was a glint on my brow but what the girl was referring to was the wet streak down the middle of my seat. 

Mrs. Teply grimaced a bit and assured the girl, “Well, no but Mr. Matt’s hindquarters isn’t always like that.”

Au contraire!  It was at least three times a week!  That’s how often we went to the FLC and each time I did the same thing.  Many kids laughed and giggled but they didn’t understand the strengthening process that was taking place between Mr. Matt and Miss Melissa.  She looked upon the sweaty band in my slacks and loved me anyway.

Miss Nomar:  I’m Miss Nomar a seventh year journalism student at Dakota University – Medora Branch (Go D U M B Midgets!) and special correspondent to DodoEggs.com.  I bring you the interviews that the mainstream media is afraid to touch. 

Today I’m talking with Franklin Huff.  Mr. Huff, otherwise known as “The Camel,” is world famous for taking modified catheter collection bags and hiding them under his sweatshirt.  He then fills them with funneled soda from fast food soda fountains.  Welcome and good day to you Mr. Huff.

Huff:  No, (loud belch) thank you Miss Nomar it’s a pleasure to be here.

Miss Nomar:  Just to be clear, these are unused bags am I correct?

Huff:  (Gives Miss Nomar a confused look and then slowly nods.)

Miss Nomar: So how did you get started with this strange, sick hobby.

Huff:  Well Miss Nomar, I remember when fast food joints didn’t give you free refills.  The teenagers who worked behind the counter acted as gatekeepers protecting the soda fountain and denying the rest of us the carbonated beverages we all deserved.  I mean who did they think they were?  The food they served is chuck full of sodium and that makes you thirsty!  And don’t think they didn’t know that the salt in the meal accentuates the sweet taste of soda!

(Stands up and shakes fist)  But we won!  We (belch) won! 

Miss Nomar:  Please remain seated Mr. Huff.  (Waits for Huff to sit down.)  So you do this because you think the fast food restaurants are cheating you?

Huff:  Oh yea.  (Nods head vigorously)  Have you seen how much ice they put into your cup?  It takes up half the entire cup!  I can’t tell you how many angry letters I wrote before I finally began drinking my cup then throwing the ice at the teenagers behind the counter.  I would hide in a booth near the front register and pelt those evildoers with one cube of ice at a time.  You know, it was like laying seize to the world’s evil soft drinks captors.  It was how I got my first nickname, “The %^*#$ Idiot.”

Miss Nomar:  So am I right to presume that your fridge at home is crowded with slouched plastic sacks all filled with soda?

Huff:  Well not completely.  I still have a box of baking soda open in the back to keep things fresh.

Miss Nomar:  What do you do with all these catheter bags?  Surly you can’t drink them all!

Huff:  As long as my pancreas is pumping that insulin, I’m good.  But I don’t expect that to last too much longer. 

Actually, I’ve been giving my extra bags to the needy neighborhood kids.  Sure the soda is flat and the bags filled with the yellow soda looks a little fishy but the to see the looks in their eyes…  (Wipes a tear)… (Turns head down).

Miss Nomar:  (Questioning glare) How do you give them to the underprivileged? 

Huff:  Well, I usually park on street corners near private schools.

Miss Nomar:  (Shocked expression crosses her face) You stand on street corners near schools and hand out plastic bags filled with soft drinks!  Haven’t you been…

Huff: (Interrupting)  Arrested…yea.  It’s happened a couple of times.

I’ll tell you one of the challenges I had to face during all this is having to use the bathroom all the time.  I mean that soda goes right through me!  Of course, that’s less of an issue now that I use some of the catheter bags the way they were intended to be used.  Pretty cool, huh?

Miss Nomar:  Mr. Huff, (pauses) you have a hard time meeting women don’t you?

Huff:  (Belches then shrugs)