Wrong Hands by John Atkinson is one of the funniest cartoons I have read. Atkinson way of making fun of life is to the point yet gentle. When I feel hit by one of his arrows that gentleness makes it easier to actually think about what he is trying to point out than to become ornery.
As part of a lecture by Julien S. Bourrelle my husband was handed The Social Guidebook to Norway: An Illustrated Introduction. When he showed to me, I stole it.
In some ways Norway is a dream come true for an Aspie. Touch and chit-chat are not recommended. In other ways, not so much. Facial expressions, understanding when people are joking and when conversation is allowed are areas where I mess up a lot. Our non-verbal language is extremely controlled, something that can make us stimming highly visible. “Janteloven”, that Bourrelle has translated to English, as presented in Bourrelle and Lund’s book, is one that I have yet to understand and am not certain is correct any longer.
The Social Guidebook is designed with a short text that explains a social rule on the left-hand page. On the right-hand page there is a cartoon that partly illustrates that text. All of the cartoons must be read together with the text for the cartoon to make any sense. Bourrelle first gives an example of what “the rest” of the world does in a given situation. Then he gives an example of Norwegian behaviour in a similar setting. As he points out, these are stereotypic examples. I believe I have seen all of them in real life.
When travelling to Norway, or any country, finding easy to understand explanations of social rules can be difficult. The Social Guidebook to Norway, illustrated by Nicholas Lund, helps solve that problem. I liked it.
Yesterday I was buying a large bag of Purina dog chow for Athena the wonder dog at Wal-Mart and was about to check out. A woman behind me asked if I had a dog. What did she think I had, an elephant? So since I’m retired, with little to do, on impulse, I told her that no, I didn’t have a dog, and that I was starting the Purina Diet again.
Although I probably shouldn’t, because I’d ended up in the hospital last time, but that I’d lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms.
I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pants pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry and that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again. (I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was by now enthralled with my story.)
Horrified , she asked if I ended up in intensive care because the dog food poisoned me. I told her no; I stepped off a curb to sniff an Irish Setter’s ass and a car hit us both.
I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack, he was laughing so hard!
WAL-MART won’t let me shop there anymore.
I cannot trace this joke back further than 2008 when it was sent as email to Chris Pietschmann.
humanitysdarkerside 