The long way around

The indoor vacuum came with a hard floor attachment that
requires an MIT engineer to hook up. Swirls of foam spewed
forth like a Niagara, mixing with the cat hairs, dust balls and
spilled food. It took me two hours to take it apart, clean it, and
re-install it on the garage shelf where it belongs. Then I put a rag
on a stick and cleaned up in ten minutes. The floor looks great
and I get to use the rag over and over - for free.

One day my wife couldn`t resist buying a food chopper for
$29.95. The pictures show mounds of colorful vegetables
chopped and ready for cooking. Trying it out for the first time,

an onion disappeared into its maw, and was quickly reduced
to a mass of gooey sludge with a ragged ball in the middle. Next,
a potato magically turned into liquid followed by an apple laced with
inedible seeds and mangled peel.

After one cut on a finger of each hand ( I swear I only touched the
blade lightly), I somehow got it into the original box and returned
it the same day. Observing this fiasco was my Grandma who snidely
suggested I use the paring knife she gave us twenty years ago.
She was right.

Did you ever succumb to the siren song of the seed catalogs and
the pictures on the seed packets at the store? When you total up
the cost of seed, fertilizer, chicken wire fencing, tools and bribery
money to your kids for weeding, the figure is staggering. On the
other hand, twelve large tomatoes, ten green peppers, ten pounds
of onions and a large bag of green beans cost only $30.00. No
waste, no digging, no bugs, and no garden. I know you can`t buy
time, but it certainly is easy to waste it.

One flower packet caught my uneducated eye. It promised dozens of
beautiful pink daisy-like flowers without the hassle of planting the seeds
indoors in March, transplanting them three times in progressively larger
pots and transferring them to the garden in June. Just throw the seeds
on the ground and wait for the flowers. They were called cosmos and
all the information on the packet was true. Just to give them an added
edge, I did plant them in April and transferred the seedlings to small pots
in May. By June, I was giving four plants a week away to friends but no
flowers appeared on the stems. By July, the plants had grown to three feet
tall but no signs of blooms. Some of my victims thought it was a joke and
threw them away, others stuck in there, watering and fertilizing and hoping.
Eventually, some of the plants reached a height of seven feet, taking over
the whole garden with a forest of stalks Jack would have been proud of.
The flowers were magnificent. Next time I’ll pay more attention to the back
of the seed packet. In small print it said, “Height four or more feet”. Another caution said. “Do not fertilize”.

One modern invention used by millions of people is the computer printer.
In five years the price for a top printer has come down from $400. To $60.
What they don’t tell you that a week’s printing will exhaust the original
ink cartridges. A new set will cost you over $90. Every week. It’s like
buying a car for $10,000 and spending $15,000 a week on gas to get to work.

Every car owner is faced daily by ads for magic scratch removers, fancy car
wash formulas and brushes, wheel cleaners, and dash board renewers. None
of these products work as well as a bucket of water with an ounce of dish detergent
and a rag. I have plenty of rags.

Frustrated in Morristown, NJ

Rating : 0.00, 0 votes. Reviews : 0 [add review]

Previous story [ Funny stories index ] Next story
Previous story [ humor stories index ] Next story

Random pics