Small & Big

Under bed sheets, pretend you’re a sweaty ghost Wage sleeping contest against cat Update cheek swab collection Pamper yourself—diapers reduce bathroom trips Practice downhill luge Use used tissue to line gift boxes Rack mead to carboy, add half-pint NyQuil® Be the houseplant Re-watch World Series, see who wins Fly snotty hanky flags for benefit of all feverish sentient beings Munch through bowl of cherry cough drops Dial random phone numbers, see who else is sick

Incontrovertible Evidence of String Theory

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Boston, Massachusetts | November 28, 2007 | The Small & Big weblog today announced that it has added a link to its blogroll. It now goes directly to Readers and Writers Blog , a blog for readers and writers. Afterwards, the blogroll was slashed crosswise, glazed, and baked. "I urge people to go to smallandbig.blogspot.com and experience this for themselves," said Small & Big 's Vice President, P.L. Frederick. "This blogroll uses the finest ingredients, including organic clicks. They're free-range!" While rolls are found in homes, a blogroll is found on Internet home pages. It is a list of recommended blog and website links that runs on the You Bake My Bread and I'll Bake Yours principle. Links are reciprocated, and this cross linking generates increased dough, or bread, should the analogy hold up. "Links are on a roll! A hot, scrumptious current roll," insisted Frederick. "This is no half-baked scheme. Some...

There's only one animal at the zoo for me: the giraffe. Even after all these years it remains exotic. Other animals are commoners. I mean, I can imagine owning a pack of zebra horses. I'd hitch them to a cart and haul junkmail back from the mailbox. Elephants are smart, just like my neighbors with their double-wide garage. Snakes are giant earthworms, with fangs. But the giraffe! Now that's a unique beast. That endless neck, that loping gait, those handlebars. Besides admire it, what would a person do with a giraffe? Rent it out for necklace ads? I could never do that to somebody I look up to. This is my drawing for the Illustration Friday ( IF website ) assignment to illustrate "The Zoo".

Well-heeled cabana furnishings. Lamp/dresser & matching end table in Caucasian Rush. Good starter set. B.O. For the backstory, read I Can Learn To Be Funny? Image from the Library of Congress Olympic photographs .

Ahh, but June 6, 2007 was quite the day, as you can see from the photo there. After safely landing my airplane—on my first try!—I spent a few quiet moments contemplating the picturesque sunset (or maybe the sunrise). Then I read the small print to see that one of Small & Big 's postings gotted Post o' thee Day over at Rising Blogger. Here's the spiel about the Morning Migration poem-story post. Five months later and the thing's still giving.

True story. For a fortnight I have been receiving telephone messages concerning baptisms, funerals, confirmations, and the like. Callers wish that I perform said duties straightaway. I find this curious because my standard out-of-office recording—“Hey I’m away from my desk leave a message BEEP”—contains no evidence of my being a Holy See of the Roman Empire. Hold up. I looked up the definition of fortnight. Apparently it only means 14 days, not five years. So what I mean to write up there—for I am far too lazy to move my cursor up a few lines and edit it—is, For many, many fortnights this has been happening. It happens a couple times a month; just enough so that I figure I should do something about it but just enough so that I don't. When I answer the phone, this is how it goes: Ring ring. Me: “Hello. This is P.L. Frederick.” Cute Little Old Lady Voice: “When is Father H---- in?” Me: “Uh. I think you ha...

Back at the elephant Q-tip factory Image from the USDA historical photographs . All you need to know about Q-tips on Wikipedia .

I've got a memory like an elephant . This also explains my big painted toenails. " Gimme a break! A big break," yelled the hotshot young orthopedist. I hear that drinking like a camel increases your chances of being humped. Think outside the box : avoid allergies to cardboard. In his job he wears many hats . He enjoys it though; it hides the bald spots. Don't cry over spilt milk, unless it's breast milk. Whoever said "life is not fair" probably didn't enjoy carnivals much either. I may be over the hill but at least I'm not under arrest. If there's no such thing as a free lunch , who's enslaving them all? Who would want a bee in their bonnet ? Bonnets are ugly. A picture is worth a thousand words but I'm tired of reading. Remember, anyone claiming to be as busy as a bee has 29,000 assistants. Wow, that man is a tall drink of water ! Luckily, my doctor recommends 8 a day. She didn't just raise Hell , she gave it an allowance ...