Mixed-Metaphor of the Day - 2013-04-08

When life gives you ferrets, make poodles!

A Tale of Mr. Fox

Welcome to Ada, Michigan, just a little South and East of Grand Rapids, where in the woods, lives a neighborly group of woodland creatures, each one playing an important role in the culture of the wood.  On one particular Autumn day, Mr. Squirrel was out gathering acorns for the long winter ahead, when along came Mr. Fox who craved a little… …conversation….

 

“Hello Mr. Squirrel,” said Mr. Fox.

 

“Hello Mr. Fox,” he replied.

“What are you doing there?”
  

“I’m gathering acorns.  Why do you ask?”

 

“Well, what do you do with all those acorns?  You can’t possibly be eating them all.”

 

“Well, we squirrels do a few things with them.  Right now I’m storing them to save them for later.”

 

“Why not just find them when you need them like Mr. Rabbit does, or like the deer do?”

 

“I just like knowing that I have  enough for the winter before the cold air sets in.”  As Mr. Squirrel finished saying this it occurred to him that Mr. Fox didn’t seem to be doing anything, but was simply gazing rather intently upon him.

 

“Mr. Fox, why aren’t YOU saving up for the long winter months?”

 

“Oh, my food won’t keep though the winter.  Besides, I like my food nice and fresh.”  stated Mr. Fox with a not-so-subtle lick of the chops.

 

“You don’t say,” replied Mr. Squirrel with a little hesitation.

 

“Well, while fresh acorns are the best, I’m still a believer in saving because the winter can be a cruel teacher to those who don’t.  Don’t YOU save for winter Mr. Rabbit?”

 

“Heh, heh, heh!  Are you kidding? I ONLY eat fresh food.  Yes, Sir! Only the best for me and my family.”

 

“But why not save up for the times when food is not so easy to get?”

 

“I eat fresh food because I’m worth it!”

 

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” said Mr. Fox.  “Won’t you join me for a little fresh dinner, Mr. Rabbit?”

 

“Well-gotta-go! Got-carrots-to-eat-you-know!  B-B-Bye”  And with a parting tip of his ear, and a quick show of his cotton tale, Mr. Rabbit was gone.

 

“Mr. Cardinal!  You’re just in time.  Mr. Fox and I were just talking about the need to save up for the winter.  Don’t you save up for the winter months?”

 

“Well, actually, I need to be careful of my weight.  I have to fly to be able to find food and building materials for my home.”

 

“But what do you do for the winter?”

 

“Oh, I go to my summer home in Alabama.”

 

“So Mr. Cardinal, won’t YOU join me for supper?”

 

“Sorry-gotta-fly!  I’ve-got-a-tight-schedule-to-keep,” and with a few flaps of his wings, Mr. Cardinal was out of sight.

 

“So, Mr. Squirrel.  It seems that we’re alone again.  Tell me, what do you do with all your extra acorns?”

 

“I go NUTS, of course!"  After an awkward pause he resumed, "OK, well there’s a few things we can do with those acorns.  Of course, when we squirrels get hungry during the winter, we have a ready-supply of food.”

 

“Yes, yes.  You’ve covered that.  What else?”

 

“Well, in the Spring, as we’re planning on a future family, we can drop some of those acorns onto the ground and let them grow into new oak trees.”

 

“What good is that?  You can’t eat an oak tree, can you?”
 

“No, silly.  Of course I can’t eat an oak tree, but oak trees are where the acorns come from.   By planting more oak trees, there’ll be more acorns to harvest for my growing family.”

 

“A growing family you say.  Sounds interesting.  Tell me, what else do you  do with all those acorns?”  

 

As Mr. Fox asked this, he noticed that there were several other squirrels gathering around him.

 

“They’re helpful for letting others know when they’ve worn out their welcome.”  And Mr. Fox was forced to make a hasty exit under a hail of acorns.

 

The Cat from the Frat Comes Back.

Here's a little bed-time reading for the kids.  The link to the video read of this is on my Video Links page:

 The Cat From the Frat Comes Back…
By: Paul Van Huffel – 11/16/2009

This was no time to pray
This was no time to pun
This was no time for dames
There was work to be done.
 

  All that deep,
 Deep, deep dough
All that dough had to go.
 

When our speaker went
In to the Inn for the day,
She said, “Somebody has to
Glean all this away.
Somebody, SOMEBODY
Has to you see.”
Then she picked out two Somebodies.
Barney and me.
 

Well…
There we were.
We were trimming like that
And then who should come up
But the CAT FROM THE FRAT!
 

“Uh-oh!” Barney Said.
“Don’t you hire that cat.
That cat is a mad one,
That Cat from the Frat.
He does lots of bad tricks.
He’ll break us I fear.
You know what he did
The last time he was here.”
 

“Do tricks?” Laughed the Cat.
“Oh, my my!  No, no, no!
I just want to get in
And count all your dough.
Keep your mind on your work.
You just stay there, you two.
I will go in the House
And find something to do.”
 

Then the cat slipped right in!
He was up to no good!
So I raced in after
As quick as I could.
 

Do you know where I found him?
Do you know where he was?
He was dealing in sub-prime mortgages!
Yes he was!
He was setting up risk
And deferring his pay
And I said to the Cat,
“When the heck’s your payday?”
 

“But I like to sell homes
In this way,” laughed the cat.
“You should try it sometime,”
Laughed the cat as he tat.
 

And then I got bad.
This was no time for puns.
I said, ”Cat, you get out!
I have work by the ton.
We have no time for tricks.
We must go back and trim.
We can’t have you in here
Wasting funds on a whim!
You get out of the House!
We don’t want you about!”
Then I cut off his funding
And let it run out.
 

The funding ran out.
And then I SAW THE RING!
A ring ‘round our books!
And, oh boy! What a thing!
A big long red cat ring!
It looked like red ink!
And I said, “Will we ever
Shed debt? I don’t think!”
 

“Have no fear of that debt,”
Laughed the Cat from the Frat.
“Why, I can take debt
Off books.  Just like that!”
 

Do you know how he did it?
WITH FANNIE’S NEW DRESS!
Now the books were all clean,
But her dress was a mess.
 

Then Barney looked in.
Barney saw the dress, too!
And Barney and I
Did not know what to do.
We should work on the dough.
But that dress!  What a lot!
“It may never come off!”
Barney said.  “It may not!”
 

But the cat laughed, “Oh, no! 
I can make the debt go!
The way to take debt off a dress
Is just so!”
 

“Look Here!” laughed the Cat.
“It is no feat.
The thing that takes debt
Off a dress is Wall Street!”
Then we saw the cat wipe
The debt off the dress.
Now the dress was all clean.
But the DOW!  What a mess!
 

“Oh, DOW drops!” he laughed.
“Let me drop you a shoe.
To save DOW drops et al,
All I need is your news!”
 

Whose news did he use?
I looked and saw whose!
And I said to the cat,
“These are very bad ewes.
Now the debt is all over
THE SIX-THIRTY NEWS!”
 

“But your news will not
Know about that,”
Said the cat.
“They will never find out,”
Laughed the Cat from the Frat.
“The six-thirty news will have
No debt at all.
I will write them all off
With these cars in the hall.”
 

“But now we have CARS DEBT!”
I yelled. “What the hay!
CARS Debt!  What’s next?
Can you take THAT away?”

“Don’t tempt me,” he laughed.
“Why, you know that I will!”
Then he hopped in his car.
I was feeling quite ill.
 

“I can clean up this CARS debt
Before you count three!
No debt is too big
For a Frat Cat like me!”
 

He ran into the Senate
And then the cat said,
“It is good that your Senate
Has the right kind of bread.”
 

Then he shook the bill!
SMACK!
Now the Fed had the debt.
And all I could say was,
“You’re all wet, Cat!
You’re all wet!”
 

But the cat now looked ill.
He just stared at the Fed.
“This is NOT the right kind of bread
The cat said.
To take debt off THIS Fed
will be hard,” said the cat.
“I can’t do it alone,”
Said the Cat from the Frat.

  

“It is good I have some one
to hep me,” he said.
“Right here in the ACORN
On top of my head!
It is good that I have him
Here with me today.
He helps me a lot.
This is Senator A!”
 

Then Senator A
 took the cap off HIS head.
“It is good I have some one
To help ME,” he said.
“This is Senator B.
And I keep him about.
And when I need funding
Then I let him come out.”
 

And then B said,
“I think we need Senator C.
That debt is too much
for the A guy and me.
But now, have no fear!
we will glean it away!
The three of us, Senators B, C, and A!”
 

“Come on!  Wipe it away!”
Yelled Senator A.
 

“I will hide that old debt
In this room! Do you see?
It comes off the old Fed!
It goes on your T.V.”
 

And then Senator B
Cleaned up the T.V.
 

He wrote up a bill
Put the debt in Japan!
Then C sent it out
of the House with a fan!
 

“But look where it went!”
I said. “Look where it blew!”
You blew the mess
Out of the House.  That is true.
But now you made Dough Debt!
You can’t let THAT stay!”
 

“Let’s consider that now,”
Said C, B, and A.
 

“With some help, we can do it!”
said  Senator C.
Then BANG!  On his head
We saw Senator D.
Then, BANG!  BANG!  BANG!
Senators E, F, and G!
 

“We will launder that dough
If it takes us all day!
If it takes us all night,
We will wash it away!”
Said  Senators G, F, E, D, C, B, A.
 

Then Senator G
Took the cap of his debt.
“I have Senator H
Here to help us he said.”
 

“Senators H, I, J,
K, L, and M.
But our debt is so big
We must have more than them.
We need Senator N.
We need O.  We need P.
We need Congressmen Q, R, S, T,
U and V.”
 

“Come on!  Spread those debts!
Kill the mess!” yelled the cat.
And they jumped at the dough
With new bills and red ink.
They sent some to jails
And they made paper hills!
Ink straw men, Green Taxes
And new healthcare bills!
 

Oh, the money they spent!
And they spent as such rates,
It was all one big debt pile
All over the states!
But the Cat just stood there
And he said, “this is good.
This is what they need do
And I knew that they would.”
 

“With a little more debt,
All the work will be done.
They need one more guy.
And I know just the one.”
 

“Look close at my plan
I have Congressman V.
On his bed are Rep’s W,
X, Y, and Z.”
 

“Z is too fried to free.
So don’t try.  He’s not vet.
But Z is the one
Who will clean up the debt!”
 

“Now here is the Z
You can’t free,” said the Cat.
“And I bet you can’t guess
What he has in HIS Frat!”

  

“He has something called Shroom.
Shroom is so hard to get
You’ve never had anything
Like it, I bet.
Why Shroom cleans up everything
clean as can be!”
Then he yelled,
“Get your Frat on now,
Congressman Z!
Take the Shroom off your head!
Make it clean out the dough!
Hurry! You Congressman!
One, two, three, GO!”
 

Then the Shroom…
It went VROOM
And oh, Boy! What ensued!
Now don’t ask me what Shroom is.
I don’t want to know.
But, boy!  Let me tell you
It SUCKS UP THE DOUGH!
 

“So you see!” laughed the Cat,
Now your reps are all deft!
Now your dough is all gone!
Now your House is all Left!
And you know where my Senators are?”
Said the Cat.
That Shroom blew those Senators
Under the mat.
And so if you ever
Have debt, now and then,
I will be more than happy
To come here again…
 

With Senators A, B, C, D..
E, F, G,
H, I, J, K,
L, M, N
and O, P.
And Q, R, S, T,
And Rep. U and Rep. V,
And Congressmen W, X, Y, and Z.

RE: Terry Jones

 This one's a little more politically bent...

Now Jones was a reverend of lore

Whose greatest ambition was war.

He burned the Koran

Sent pics to Afghan.

To incite a great wrath and more.

Ballad of a Bovine

OK.  I think we all know that Mrs. O'Leary's cow didn't ACTUALLY start the Chicago fire, but this was a funny quip of a limerick.

Ballad of a Bovine

Tis the ballad of Mrs. O’Leary

And her cow on an evening most dreary.

It kicked a lantern

And started a burn

As the Mrs. Cried, “Oh, my, my, dear me!”