Articles

A friend has this on her voicemail; “I’m not available right now, but thanks for your call. I am making some changes in my life. Please leave a message. If I do not return your call, you are one of the changes.” It is impossible to overestimate the importance of friendship as a spark plug for laughter. A…

If you think practice makes perfect, you haven’t driven with a cab driver recently. They say that driving a car is the most dangerous form of travel. That is unless you count driving a motorcycle or driving with a teenager. I saw a sign the other day for a driving school that said; “We teach…

Television is called a “medium” because so little of it is rare or well done. Here’s Phil’s tribute to one who swam upstream. All good things must come to an end, they say, and so it is that one of my comedic heroes, Tim Conway, passed away at age 85. You may remember him from the Carol Burnett…

We all like to be in good shape, but it takes work. You gotta move something, lift something. And sadly, lifting a cheeseburger to your mouth doesn’t count. At some point, you’ll have to eat a veggie or two, and I’m not talking about french fries. A few years ago, I took the plunge and…

Have you ever played the game bigger and better? You start out with something like a ballpoint pen, then you trade it for something a little bigger and better, like a pair of socks. Then you trade the socks for an old coffee maker that uses old socks as a filter. No one is better…

Almost every person who makes a living public speaking has experienced a zipper malfunction on stage. This has happened to me twice. The first time I was speaking to a group of pastors in Iowa. Standing there helpless, wishing my sweater was longer. A preacher friend of mine had it worse. As he was speaking,…

When you’re younger, you eat pizza and taco chips by the fistful and chase ‘em down with a gallon of Root Beer. You think a balanced diet is a piece of pizza in each hand. Your dad says, “Be careful. Obesity just snacks right up on you.” You get older, you find out he was…

Early on in my marriage, I realized that my wife and I spoke different languages. When she elbowed me in the middle of the night and said, “Did you hear the baby?” she wasn’t looking for a “yes” or “no” answer. She was saying, “Please, I haven’t slept in four days, would you get out…

Here are some new things you can buy this year: A baby mop. You don’t mop your baby with it; your baby becomes the mop. It’s a baby onesie complete with mop bristles. Wherever she crawls, scoots or rolls, she leaves a trail of lemon-scented awesomeness. Then there’s the Dogbrella. It’s an umbrella attached to…