Curmudgeon club will pad your obituary

April 15, 2018

I need to start padding my obituary. Otherwise, it’s going to read, “Who?” I’ve taken to glancing at obituaries lately and noticed that every last one of them is for a wonderful person who was loved by all. I tried being wonderful once but it was exhausting. I gave it up after three and a half minutes. Obituaries bubble over with glowing phrases such as, “He was a kind and generous person.” Mine would read more along the lines of, “He was a kind of grumpy old coot who generously gave his wife more headaches than she could handle.” I’ve read that the dearly departed ...

Marital ESP fades slowly into the sunset

April 8, 2018

Terry looked thoughtful. “Is there a side road that I can take to get there?” “Oh, sure,” I said. “Six or seven of them.” “Which one would you take?” “That depends. ... Where might you be going?” She had done it again. She had dropped me into the middle of her internal streams of thought. I had no clue where to paddle. Some people claim that the longer a couple stays together, the more they finish each other’s sentences. Not us. Terry’s and my marital ESP seems to be swimming in reverse. Half the time, she doesn’t know what I’m talking about either. I ...

Keep the high-tech away from my low-flow toilet

April 1, 2018

Enough! Not even our bathrooms serve as refuges from technology invasion anymore. I quivered and quaked enough when I read an article a couple weeks back about high-tech homes. No, I’m not opposed to carpets that vacuum themselves. That’s neighborly technology. I understand the convenience of adjusting the temperature and lighting at home remotely from anywhere with your cellphone. And automated home theaters and Wi-Fi-enabled home security systems — cool toys, bro. But when my refrigerator tattles every time I snitch a hunk of roast beef my wife made for the church dinner, ...

I’ve decided to bulk up on fitness for fat health

March 25, 2018

My doctor talks dirty. If words like “diet” and “exercise” aren’t profanity, then I don’t know what are. Trouble is, I’m beginning to suspect that she might be right. When I was in my teens, people shoved food at me out of fear that a mild gust would blow me away. I gobbled pizza and Coke but became even thinner. Back then, I owned a surplus of metabolism. But one day I set down my metabolism, just for a minute, but forgot where. I haven’t seen it since. In my 20s, even out of shape, I could lace up running shoes and keep pumping half of forever. With three or four ...

Fountain of pens lies drying, dying

March 18, 2018

Editor’s note: Because of a family emergency, we present this Cole Classic, excerpted from April 2, 2000. Burt will be back with fresh adventures next week. I dug furiously through the desk drawer trying to find a working pen. One after another, I tossed dried out and chewed up pens back into the drawer, and rummaged for the next one. “If they don’t work, why are all these pens still in the drawer?” I bellowed, throwing another inkless wonder back into the pile. Oh. Yeah. They’re there every time because instead of throwing them into the wastebasket, I, like many ...

‘Writer Boy Burt’ would make a boring action figure

March 11, 2018

Sgt. G.I. Joe crept through the weeds in his black scuba gear and rubber flippers. He ducked as the Hot Wheels car full of bad guys jumped the green sand bucket. With his perpetually frozen fingers, G.I. Joe signaled Chief Cherokee and Johnny West, who waited in shrubs on the other side of the pail. Batman, peeking from behind a cardboard box, saw it too. It was go time. Suddenly, a shout rang out. “Burton William, I told you to stop playing with your dolls and come in for lunch.” “Mom, they’re action figures.” “They’ll be inactive figures if you don’t get in ...