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 ...

Keeping house… sorta

April 5, 2015

My wife didn’t think it possible for one person to get into that much trouble in so little unsupervised time. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have left me alone. Personally, outside of that little incident with the strawberries, bananas, ice cream and the blender (tops should fit better than that), I didn’t notice the disaster she kept babbling about when she returned home. “I should never have accepted those assignments. I shouldn’t have left.” I moved my socks off the dining room table, pulled out a chair, suddenly remembered where I left the salmon I set out to thaw, slipped ...

Hurry! Earth is doomed!

March 29, 2015

“There’s no time to lose,” I yelped as I tossed aside the newspaper and popped out of my easy chair. Terry yelped, too. I whirled to face her. “You saw it? Startling, isn’t it?” “Definitely. Usually, I have to pry you out of the La-Z-Boy.” “Not that.” I scooped the newspaper off the floor and thrust it at her. “Right there. Earth is collapsing. We’re doomed! And I have so much left to do.” Terry smoothed the paper and read. “A group of physicists predict the universe will collapse, crushing all matter.” I dashed around the room. “I need a pencil. So ...

Look, up in the sky … it’s a big kid!

March 22, 2015

I didn’t hear my wife come home until her voice cut me down in mid-flight: “What are you doing now?” “I, uh ... Research.” “You tied a blanket around your neck and you’re running around the dining room singing, ‘Da-dat-da-dum!’” “It’s a cape,” I said. “And if you wish any hope at being successful, you’ll wear one too. Or I could loan you my Spider-Man mask.” “Use your muscle to help unload the groceries, Superman.” “Underdog.” “Huh?” “This one’s my Underdog cape. My first superhero, back before kindergarten. I’m trying to ...