I live kind of out in the boonies in Central Florida. One of the closest towns is a massive retirement community, where you’ll find more gussied-up golf carts in the parking lots than Lincoln Town Cars and Oldsmobiles.
Not coincidentally, this town is the local mecca for medical and dental care, and during our occasional visits for these services, I get to briefly enjoy the sensation of being decades younger and a head taller than anyone else in sight — man or woman.
So I was in the waiting room at the dentist’s office while my daughter was getting her teeth attended to, thinking about the upcoming consult with the orthodontist, who has probably already nicknamed my kid “Porsche.” Suddenly, an elderly gent burst through the door and tottered up to the counter clutching a small vial.
“I brought my stool sample!” he announced loudly, flourishing the vial at the receptionist. She recoiled and told the old man he must be in the wrong office because this is a dental practice and they don’t collect stool samples.
“You’ve got to see my stool sample!” he insisted, and to everyone’s horror, he began trying to pry off the lid of the vial.
The receptionist, thinking the codger must be deaf, was shouting that he was in the wrong office, and swiveled her office chair as far away from the counter as she could in her little enclosure as the old man turned the vial sideways and removed the lid, intent on displaying his stool sample on the counter for all to see.
Which he did. It was a wooden, miniature three-legged stool, about the size of a quarter. The old fellow laughed and laughed and laughed, then made a present of his “stool sample” to the receptionist. People are weird here.
[X-posted at Rumproast]
dr. bloor
I’m a little surprised to hear no one gunned him down.
Comrade Jake
And here I thought John McCain lived in Arizona.
Mudge
@dr. bloor: A stool sample is a bit more threatening than Skittles and iced tea, to be sure.
c u n d gulag
@dr. bloor:
Probably ’cause he was an old WHITE dude.
They’d have made ebony swiss-cheese out of an old black man walking around, showing off his “stool sample.”
Baud
I’m going to have to steal that joke in 40 years.
amk
lol
PurpleGirl
That man started out weird wherever he came from.
Jimbo
Oh man, I can’t wait till I get old enough to pull that sort of stunt (I’m pushing 50 so I’m getting close)!
cmorenc
When you’re 80, you can do whatever the Hell you want, say whatever the Hell you want. People think you’re in your second childhood anyway, but without parents to reign you in.
Neil
That will be me one day.
Maude
Oh, he must have been fun when he was in his teens.
jeffreyw
Cool tap dance
via
lacp
Outstanding! Hope he never loses that sense of humor. My GF lives in Sarasota, and she advises that the local saying is “You retire to Sarasota. Your parents retire to Venice.” From what I can tell on our one jaunt to Venice, that appears to be true.
belle
it is wonderful he went to all that trouble just to entertain that young lady. men. they never get over it.
RossInDetroit
I think some people are natural jokers. They deal with the absurdity of the world by being super-absurd. It’s at least as valid an approach as any other, and pretty entertaining.
jeffreyw
“I am surrounded by morons.”
via
Rosalita
@dr. bloor:
you win the thread…
all I could think about this stunt was “holy crap”!! I loved in Central Florida myself for a bit. I know, I know…
J.
Let she who is without sin cast the first stool sample…
RSA
Poop jokes in front of strangers? I guess it really is a second childhood.
MattF
Only thing missing was a wheelbarrow for his oxygen tank.
Viva BrisVegas
I’ve just come in from standing out in the yard and staring up at the moon. It was so big and bright it nearly hurt to look at it.
You might well ask what is the point of that? I’d say that if life is getting you down or things aren’t working out, just go out at night and look up. Then if you don’t think “wow, isn’t this universe a great place to be”, I suggest you go and find a bridge to jump off because you’re a lost cause.
What prompts such musings? Well tonight the full moon is at perigee and hence this is about as big, round and bright as it ever gets. So get out there tonight and enjoy it folks.
Steeplejack
Norwich City is issuing a (much deserved) beatdown to Arsenal.
Just Some Fuckhead
My aunt lives in Leesburg. I never saw nothing that fancy there.
MattF
@RSA: But did you know that the latest version of the Unicode standard (6.1) has a ‘pile of poo’ character?
http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1f4a9/index.htm
Note the ‘odor lines’.
YellowJournalism
I would say that this story sounded like my late wingnut grandfather, except that he’s been dead for years and he would have had actual poo in there. He also would’ve claimed that Jesus told him to bring it in.
Linda Featheringill
That’s a lovely story!
Thanks.
P.S. Named your girls yet?
Provider_UNE
Imma gonna veer wildly off topic for a moment, but seeing how this is a blog that recognises the possibility of the wingularity, and seeing how I have been contemplating a Grand unified wingnut field theory I would appreciate some cogitation on the following. And if you might pass it along to fellow wingnutologists that might have something to add I would appreciate it.
This started at Sadly, No!, and was modified at alicublog. I usually do not do any cross posting, but i thought I might be on to something. thanks in advance for you consideration.
Some of those commenters can’t have two brain cells to rub together.
Wish that it were so, but most of them have the requisite number yet choose to imitate the cognicense of a single celled organism…Wait, I might not be looking at this in the right way, and you might in fact be correct.
If fear is the mind killer, and I think we have an abundance of evidence to support that hypothesis, then the minimal number of neurons required to keep the lizard brain alive + 2 might come close to equaling one Hoft.
In fact I think that the Hoft should represent a measure of somekind, like the Kelvin. Though I have not figured out whether it should measure a quantity of cognitive dissonance or a “black hole” causing a negative IQ.
Suggestions will be welcomed.
We have our Friedman unit, courtesy of Atrios. I see no reason that we should not have at the very least a Hoft and or a Geller or even an Earnest T Bass, aka a Heh Indeedy, to explain in scientific terms certain elements of wingnuttery.
I Think a Geller should be the unit for Projection, a Hoft for Stupid, and an ETB for smug self satisfaction.
Anyhoo this is a start, I am open to options.
TIA.
As someone who has been working on a Unified wingnut field theory and one of a scientific bent we should start thnking of getting all Planck’s constant on their ass. it does occur to me that an ETB aka a Reynold should stand in for Authoritarianism.
So if you take a Hoft, Multiply its fears by a Geller in submission to a Reynold what does one end up with? I think we are within the territory of a winger.
I miss the Poorman.
MikeTheZ
Cantor’s approval hits the Crazification Factor.
bemused
I just want to know if Fox News is on in the waiting room.
Provider_UNE
A Zim (or Zimmerman) could represent bowel evacuating panic…
Really if anybody else has suggestions to add to the wingnut calculus please jump in.
.
Amir Khalid
@Steeplejack:
3 — 3 with ten minutes to go. Just crazy, man.
Provider_UNE
Charming tale BC thanks for sharing. The prankster is strong in that codger.
:)
.
WereBear
While growing up in Florida, and encountering so many retired people in one place, revealed to me that some people just don’t know what to do with themselves. I’ll never forget helping a friend paint his new apartment and so being able to observe the house next door for 10 straight hours.
The retired guy would come out with a little bathroom trash can, upend it over the big trash can by the garage; and a single tissue would fall out. He would carry a pair of scissors to the side of the driveway, snip off a couple of errant blades, and go back inside.
For all of a beautiful day.
RSA
@MattF:
My god. That’s pretty funny. Of course, when I was learning to program, we used ASCII. But you know, we were happy in those days.
RalfW
It struck me, looking at the photo, that half these old folks probably think the Chevy Volt is Obama’s communist command economy disaster.
But they all drive battery operated vehicles. IOKIYAG (Its ok if you’re a golfcart)
serge
Oh, that’s really funny. Many years ago, I accompanied my wife (who’s a doctor herself) to an ENT for a bad throat problem. She’s in the back being seen, and this man walks in, clearly agitated, and he screams at the receptionist “I’M PSYCHOTIC, AND I DON’T LIKE TO WAIT!”
I’ve never seen anyone served so quickly.
Sally Rakowski
@Provider_UNE,
I’m sorry, but this sounds somewhat delusional and nonsensically stream-of-conscious. I see from your blog that you’re in a bad way and I’m more than happy to contribute to your tip jar, but this post makes the commentariat at Geller’s and Hoft’s blog look like geniuses in comparison.
What in the world are you talking about?
Randy P
Much to my wife’s horror, I’ll probably be that guy.
You gotta get your laughs where you can find them.
Randy P
@Provider_UNE: Being a physicist by training, I like this line of thought a lot. I’m thinking that something like a singularity is needed to capture obsessive focus of a functioning brain down to a single meme.
Analogous to neutronium, some wingnuts probably have their brain reduced to a half-dozen sentences which they spout out as responses to all questions. But for some, those few ideas achieve an extra state of compression…
handsmile
@Amir Khalid:
With passage to next year’s Champions League in their control, the Arse decides that maybe fifth place and the Europa League wouldn’t be so bad after all. Infuriating doesn’t even begin to describe what it’s been like to be an Arsenal fan this season.
Spurs have a comfortable run-in to the end of the campaign and, sentiment overruling sense perhaps, I fancy Newcastle at home tomorrow against Sheikh Mansour’s mercenaries.
Should the all-too-thinkable occur for the Gunners, the final defense of those who insist that Wenger must be coach-for-life (“He’s always taken them to the Champions League”) will at last be scuttled.
Xecky Gilchrist
The old fellow laughed and laughed and laughed
Good Lord, if I didn’t know my dad was right here in Utah I’d have thought he was visiting down there. He was making jokes like that in his 40s.
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
That was a wild finish. I don’t see how Arsenal makes the Champions League after this. Their fate is no longer in their own hands.
arguingwithsignposts
@Provider_UNE:
I was under the impression that this blog had conclusively disproven the concept of the wingularity.
Omnes Omnibus
@arguingwithsignposts: Peak wingnut has been debunked. The wingularity remains a possible in theory.
Provider_UNE
@Sally Rakowski:
“What in the world are you talking about?”
Sorry Sally, I was riffing on a concept that i have come across in this space, the concept of peak wingnut, and was trying to come up with a “scientific framework” with which to continue.
I grew up as a junior astronamer and my first college choice was MIT and while the cosmologists have been attempting to reconcile Gravity, special relativity and quantum mechanics, I have been attempting to reconcile the various facests of wingnuttery.
Hope that helps. And hope that it don’t sound so stupid as to make the gellertariat look like genii in comparison.
.
arguingwithsignposts
@Omnes Omnibus: thanks for the clarification. I think I’m an Anthropogenic Global Wingularity denier. Maybe I can get some sweet, sweet Koch Kash to trash this theory?
ThresherK
When I was a lad, my Dad and his buddies pulled off the birthday cake with Ex-lax ‘candies’ gag at his workplace. It was the first time I’d heard of it. And to be fair, that apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree.
This is just the kind of thing Dad would enjoy. If I didn’t know he hasn’t been in Florida for several years, I’d suspect it was him.
Omnes Omnibus
@arguingwithsignposts: Are you in favor of tax cuts to remedy the situation? I think that is needed for the Koch Kash.
arguingwithsignposts
@Omnes Omnibus: Drat! The purity test kills me every time!
Provider_UNE
@Randy P:
Agreed
i like this bit in particular.
Analogous to neutronium, some wingnuts probably have their brain reduced to a half-dozen sentences which they spout out as responses to all questions. But for some, those few ideas achieve an extra state of compression…
Another goal of mine is to associate certain perjoritives with thier champions ala “three Hoft’s and your out” (Stupid) “Don’t put your Geller on me” (Projection) and “Your Reynolds is showing.” (Tory)
Did Arsenal get the beating that they richly deserved or did the match end in a tie?
.
Sally Rakowski
Except that you’re being intellectually dishonest, Provider_UNE. You’re not trying to reconcile anything, you’re only trying to mock.
You cannot understand something in which your only intention is to mock and ridicule.
Provider_UNE
@arguingwithsignposts:
I was under the impression that this blog had conclusively disproven the concept of the wingularity.
I am not entirely convinced or as Omnes Omnibus says Peak wingnut may never be measured, or at least have its state determined like a famous cat in a box, but working on a framework with which attempts to describe the phenominon in greater detail may remain a worthy cause.
.
gbear
If my father were still alive, he would die again from laughing at that story. Honest.
arguingwithsignposts
@Sally Rakowski:
Perhaps understanding leads to the mocking and ridicule. Cole’s turnaround has proven that, if nothing else.
ETA: “Your Reynolds is showing.” (Tory) – shouldn’t that be “Your Sullivan is showing.” (Tory) I would think a Reynolds would be technological libertarianism.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sally Rakowski:
The internet is very confusing for you, isn’t it?
Provider_UNE
@Sally Rakowski:
Except that you’re being intellectually dishonest, Provider_UNE. You’re not trying to reconcile anything, you’re only trying to mock.
You cannot understand something in which your only intention is to mock and ridicule.
I think the accusation of dishonesty is a stretch, but i will grant you that attempting to shame those that seem not to possess any is a goal. reprehensible bastards that hate with impunity deserve my contempt, and if a framework can be established that helps prevent certain sociopathic attitudes from coming into being, while simultaneously helping gain an appreciation of what spawned them in the first place, looks to me like a win win.
I apologize if you have taken offence unintended.
.
Genine
Oh, my god! Did John Cole go through a wormhole where he ended up 40 years older and in Florida?
Someone check on him. Stat!
Sally Rakowski
It’s not at all, Omnibus, and please stop stalking me. If you want to engage or understand my point, then just ask. I’m asking Provider what his point is, and he’s not being honest about it. He wants to throw something out there as red meat and then be a hero when he reports back to a couple other websites. He’s not attempting to understand anything, even though he just told me that he was. You can be fine with the mockery, and you apparently are, but don’t try to pass if off as something other than that so that it looks intellectual. That’s called fakery. And fakery is something to be mocked.
Provider_UNE
@arguingwithsignposts:
“Your Reynolds is showing.” (Tory) – shouldn’t that be “Your Sullivan is showing.” (Tory) I would think a Reynolds would be technological libertarianism.
This is exactly what i am looking for. A Sullivan for autoritarianism, a Reynolds for techno-Glibertarian triumphalism. Over at S,N! if the thunderdontgetya made me swap Geller or a Bolton for bugshit insanity
With an Althouse for projection.
Thanks awsp! :)
.
Provider_UNE
@Sally Rakowski:
I’m asking Provider what his point is, and he’s not being honest about it. He wants to throw something out there as red meat and then be a hero when he reports back to a couple other websites. He’s not attempting to understand anything, even though he just told me that he was. You can be fine with the mockery, and you apparently are, but don’t try to pass if off as something other than that so that it looks intellectual. That’s called fakery. And fakery is something to be mocked.
OK, I tried to answer you honestly at comment 56, which either you did not read, or ignored, because it did not fit your preconcieved conjecture.
I’ll try to make it clear for you. my only goal here is in service of an elaborate gag. I never pretended to be attempting a thesis level acedemic study. i don’t think any reasonable person would have thought I was. Have you looked at the Balloon Juice lexicon?
If my attempt at using mockery to codify some aspects of wingnuttia, and to use a psuedo scientific method in some way indicates fakery on my part, then I am guilty as charged and you can feel free to ignore me.
As to accusations of being stalked by arguingwithsignposts, it is but to laugh and suggests that you may be burdened with excess paranoia. As far as my “reports back to a couple of other websites” is concerned (a similar example of paranoia), where I am from that is called collaberation. I had what I thought was an interesting idea, posted it on a couple of sites where I happen to comment a bit and thought that some of the folks here might have some ideas that might help flesh out the gag, or mockery to use your term. I don’t comment here that often, but do lurk quite a bit and so figured that I would not be out of bounds with sharing my idea here, and thankfully that has managed to bear fruit.
I am sorry if I rained on your lovely Saturday with the attempt to make an elaborate gag on the internets, on a website that trades in mockery, which you apparently revile. If my formula needs a constant for a hot house flower, I may very well call it a Sally.
.
Sally Rakowski
Perhaps understanding leads to the mocking and ridicule. Cole’s turnaround has proven that, if nothing else.
Seems it’s lead to Cole being mocked back at Sadly No!, awsp.
Apparently someone named Big Bad Bald Bastard thinks his turnaround is not complete enough.
Provider_UNE
@Sally Rakowski:
As are you honey! By me, on another blog which, like this one, traffics in the mockery of the inane.
You might be famous by the end of the day.
.
arguingwithsignposts
@Provider_UNE: Wow, the clueless superiority complex is strong in that one, no?
Provider_UNE
@arguingwithsignposts:
Indeed.
BTW I crossed streams and gave you a thanks at that other and nefarious blog. I think you might know where to find it.
:)
.
Jebediah
@Randy P:
Like when the only thing that can escape is the occasional short gamma burst of “Nobama! Nobama!”
Jebediah
@arguingwithsignposts:
I thought it had been shown not to be disproven but to be asymptotic. It exists in theory, but you never quite reach it.
Jebediah
@Sally Rakowski:
Wet blanket is wet. (And blankety.)
Sally Rakowski
Ok, I get it now, P_UNkEd, when exposed for intellectual dishonesty, just throw up your hands and declare “Oh c’mon now, this is a snark blog. It was all a gag.”
How bold. And that’s all well and good, but tell me, why do you act like the people you claim you want to understand?
Jebediah
@arguingwithsignposts:
That is a lovely phrase that describes far too many people. But you cant get hired as a villager pundit without a high score on the CSC scale.
Jebediah
It looks like I might be the only one here right now, and I have to leave in a second to tkae the dogs for their walk, but I would like to suggest the Rakowski Index. Maybe ((cluelessness)*((superiority)↑(smugness)))/(inverse of the number of people enjoying the thread)
Obviously this would be subject to peer review.
Jebediah
@Sally Rakowski:
OK, now I get it, too. You aren’t the SS Clueless, adrift in the Snarkasso Sea, you are a blogthropolgist experimenting with new flavors of trollery. Clearly I am in over my head, so I dasn’t offer an opinion on whether or not you have discovered a new subtrollic particle.
Lavocat
Now THAT is some funny shit!
Evolving Deep Southerner
@Sally Rakowski: You aren’t a very happy person are you, Sally?
This whole thread is creeping into Michael Gass territory.
Tehanu
@Provider_UNE:
Well, I left this for you over at Roy’s place but I dunno if you saw it — hope you didn’t just think it was too lame:
In fact I think that the Hoft should represent a measure of somekind, like the Kelvin
No, no, it’s the subatomic particle of stupidity, the Hoft Boson. A Geller is a mole’s worth of Hoft bosons. A bolton is the parallel particle (with negative charge, of course) for aggression.