Dream a little nightmare with me

May 17, 2015

My heinous deeds were horrible. Incomprehensible. Indefensible. Except that I hadn’t really committed them. My wife dreamed them all up. Literally. She shook me awake and glared. “How could you?” “Oh, just a bit of talent and finesse,” I yawned. “Wanna see me do it again?” Never toss out a wisecrack when you haven’t a clue what brought on the question. After watching the frost harden for a bit, I asked, “So, uh, what are we talking about?” “I told you the GPS was wrong. But you kept driving. Right into the ocean. In my car! You wouldn’t even stop to ask the ...

Little kids teach the best way to play the game

May 10, 2015

My new favorite spectator sport is soccer as played by 5- and 6-year-olds. The game is simple, fun, unpredictable — and free of tedious technical points, such as, say, scoring. A flock of kids not much taller than their shin guards scramble around a grassy field, kinda kick a ball mostly in the general direction of a net that’s loosely guarded by a goalie who might be watching an entirely different game on the next field over. Or a butterfly. It’s hard to tell. No matter. The kids have a blast. So do I. The game doesn’t tax my ignorance of the rules. It’s "See the ...

Get a whiff of research, sweat and happiness

May 3, 2015

Science, in its never-ending quest to amaze, amuse and amplify weirdness, now claims sniffing a happy person’s sweat makes you feel better. If that’s so, why not jump the joy factor by placing party hats on a pack of skunks? (I wouldn’t recommend it, no matter how happy the sweaty skunks appear.) The new study published in Psychological Science asserts that women showed more signs of bliss when they sniffed the sweat of happy men than when they inhaled perspiration of guys in a blase state of mind. Astounding! Research scientists actually convinced women to poke their ...

A purpose for those pesky mag inserts

April 26, 2015

(Editor’s Note: Beginning next Sunday, find Burt’s Eye View on the Tribune Chronicle Sunday Life page.) xxx It’s time once again for practical decorating tips from Uncle Burtie, your home interiors answer man. And if you’re too busy to home decorate because you can’t figure out what to do with all those pesky cards that fall out of your magazines every month, stick around. I have the answer for that, too. Let me introduce you to the Burt’s Eye Magazine Card Stuffings Wallpapering System. I came up with this piece of sheer brilliance thumbing through a magazine while ...

How brain improves with age

April 19, 2015

I stopped in the middle of the living room, a magazine in one hand and a bottle of ketchup in the other. “Terry,” I hollered to my wife. “What was I supposed to do with the ketchup and magazine?” I heard something that sounded like the gushing of wind. “Put the magazine in the door of the refrigerator and sit in your chair and read the ketchup bottle label.” So I did. “This seems odd,” I told Terry when she walked into the room a few minutes later. “You think?” “Yeah. There’s no fat, no protein, no cholesterol and no dietary fiber in this bottle, but ...

Memories taste sweeter than cookies

April 12, 2015

Two brats and their sweet, long-suffering mother were struggling through the grocery store one day as Brat No. 1 wailed, “Mommy, PLEEEEEEEEEEEEASE buy us some cookies!” A total stranger noticed, as total strangers often do when sweet mothers’ kids are behaving at their worst. “Aren’t they allowed to have cookies?” he asked. Brat No. 2 yelled, “Not real ones. Just the ones she makes!” As my mom tells the story, she was the sweet, long-suffering mother who always was baking batches of homemade cookies for her unappreciative brats for boys. Brat No. 2 was my ...