Winter is a great way to work out

February 22, 2015

There’s no need to buy memberships in one of those big fancy expensive gyms to get a good winter workout. My wife and I exercise together, using whatever equipment is lying about the place. The key is to constantly yell encouragement at one another. “OK, now PUSH!” one of us will yell encouragingly. “I AM pushing. Stop gunning the engine!” the other of us yells back, even more encouragingly. “Rock it gently.” “I’ll rock you if you don’t push harder. I’m late for work.” “Well, why’d you drive the car into the snow bank?” “It’s not a snow ...

Scales just lie there, snickering

February 15, 2015

Bathroom scales are born liars. I mean, seriously, they just lie there on the floor, snickering. My first mistake was buying a brand new, high-tech set of scales that exceed the weight limit of my old scales. Never do this. It’s one of those laws of nature that when capacity increases, so does volume occupying that space. My second mistake was curiosity. I had to know. So despite the fact that bathroom scales are known liars, I stepped on them. The problem with owning scales with more numbers is that if the digits are there, the little electronic sadists spinning the dials inside ...

How do I love thee? Let me write the ways

February 8, 2015

Because I am a fully licensed professional writer, a veritable master of verbs, nouns and hyperbole, it is only reasonable that my wife receive a well-crafted love letter now and again. With Valentine’s Day bearing down on us faster than the speed of light (to use a hyperbole — or possibly a cliche), I figure it’s time to sling some sentimental sentences of swoon. Something like... Roses are red, Violets are blue, My name is Burton, And I truly love you. Sigh. That’s the problem. Like a lot of guys, I stink at love letters. I don’t mean we’re slightly off-base. ...

Bulldozer is best friend for home repairs

January 25, 2015

I once heard a man claim he finished a home repair project on time and without a hitch. Later, I regretted laughing like a loon at a man so obviously suffering delusions. It’s like that sinking feeling you get when a favorite uncle claims aliens beamed him to their spaceship, unzipped his skin, put it back on him backwards, then beamed him home. It’s sad to witness a once-lucid loved one losing a grip on reality. I never met a home improvement project that turned out to be simple. The how-to guys make it sound as easy as baking a cake. But when the boxed mix says bake for 35 ...

Get fit until the cows come home

January 18, 2015

Getting fit used to be easy. I’d jam on shredded Keds and spend the day with my brothers and cousins climbing trees, playing baseball in rutted fields, and diving into barns and sheds for games of hide-and-seek / sneak attack. Oh, and we slung beat-up buckets of water and loaded pitchforks at chore time. It’s amazing how toned tossing manure can make a kid. So I figure I’m not fit now because I don’t have any cows. Also, my metabolism conked out 20 or 30 years ago. That logic did not satisfy the medical professional assigned to cluck over my case file. “Put down that ...

Bug bites whiny, er, sick writer

January 11, 2015

There will be no column today because I’m sick. It took me until October to do it, but I finally caught the summer cold that’s been flittering about the office. I never was much good at catch, and I hadn’t intended on improving now. But even if you lounge around right field with your eyes closed, a ball occasionally plops into your glove, quite by accident. Apparently, I spent too much time lounging about the office with my eyes closed because the cold bug flew through the air, and I caught it. I had a three-day weekend with which I wasn’t planning to do much of anything ...