ivman's blague

Many adults enjoy taking evening and weekend classes to continue learning, to pursue special interests, or to fulfill requirements for their work. Enjoyment, of course, may depend on the reason/s for taking the classes and the mix of individuals present. With Valentine's Day this next weekend I thought I would share some classes I have heard about — one list for men only and one list for women only.

New training courses for men:

1. Introduction to Common Household Objects I: The Mop
2. Introduction to Common Household Objects II: The Sponge
3. Dressing Up: Beyond the Funeral and the Wedding
4. Refrigerator Forensics: Identifying and Removing the Dead
5. Design Pattern or Splatter Stain on the Linoleum?: You Can Tell the Difference!
6. Accepting Loss I: If It's Empty, You Can Throw It Away
7. Accepting Loss II: If the Milk Expired Three Weeks Ago, Keeping It In the Refrigerator Won't Bring It Back
8. Going to the Supermarket: It's Not Just for Women Anymore!
9. Recycling Skills I: Boxes that the Electronics Came In
10. Recycling Skills II: Styrofoam that Came in the Boxes that the Electronics Came In
11. Bathroom Etiquette I: How to Remove Beard Clippings from the Sink
12. Bathroom Etiquette II: Let's Wash Those Towels!
13. Bathroom Etiquette III: Five Easy Ways to Tell When You're About to Run Out of Toilet Paper!
14. Giving Back to the Community: How to Donate 15-Year-Old Levis to Goodwill
15. Retro? Or Just Hideous?: Re-examining Your 1970's Polyester
16. Knowing the Limitations of Your Kitchenware: No, The Dishes Won't Wash Themselves
17. Strange But True!: She Really May Not Care What "Fourth Down and Ten" Means
18. Going Out to Dinner: Beyond the Pizza Hut
19. Yours, Mine, and Ours: Sharing the Remote
20. "I Could Have Played a Better Game Than That!": Why Women Laugh
21. Adventures in Housekeeping I: Let's Clean the Closet
22. Adventures in Housekeeping II: Let's Clean Under the Bed
23. "I Don't Know": How to Be the First Man to Say It
24. The Gas Gauge in Your Car: Sometimes Empty Means Empty
25. Directions: It's Okay to Ask for Them
26. Listening: It's Not Just Something You Do During Halftime
27. Accepting Your Limitations: Just Because You Have Power Tools Doesn't Mean You Can Fix It

New training courses for women:

1. Silence, the Final Frontier: Where No Woman Has Gone Before
2. The Undiscovered Side of Banking: Making Deposits
3. Social Events: New Outfits Are Not Mandatory
4. Man Management: Minor Household Chores Can Wait Till After The Game
5. Bathroom Etiquette I: Men Need Space in the Bathroom Cabinet Too
6. Bathroom Etiquette II: His Razor Is His
7. Communication Skills I: Tears — The Last Resort, Not the First
8. Communication Skills II: Thinking Before Speaking
9. Communication Skills III: Getting What you Want Without Nagging
10. Telephone Skills: How to Hang Up
11. Driving a Car Safely: A Skill You Can Acquire
12. Introduction to Parking a Car
13. Advanced Parking: Backing Into a Space
14. Water Retention: Fact or Fat?
15. Cooking I: Bringing Back Bacon, Eggs, and Butter
16. Cooking II: Bran and Tofu are Not for Human Consumption
17. Cooking III: How Not to Inflict Your Diets on Other People
18. Compliments: Accepting Them Without Reading Into Them
19. PMS: Your Problem ... Not His
20. Classic Clothing: Wearing Outfits You Already Have
21. Household Dust: A Harmless Natural Occurrence Only Women Notice
22. Integrating Your Laundry: Washing It All Together
23. Oil and Gas: Your Car Needs Both
24. TV Remotes: For Men Only
25. Combating the Imelda Marcos Syndrome: Do You Really Need Those New Shoes?
26. Introduction to Petrol: You Too Can Fill the Tank
27. Advanced Petrol: How to Remove the Gas Cap!!!

Obviously those courses are not for real ... maybe.... Do you have a favorite Adult Ed class you've actually taken? Maybe you have other ideas for course suggestions for men, for women, or for both? Just remember, we may ask you to teach any course/s you suggest.

quotation...

"Why can't women ever put the seat back up when they're done?!" - anonymous man, still living

=^..^= =^..^=
Rob

Her husband does the work of three men — Larry, Moe and Curly.

Recently our son Mark sent me a picture of a sign he passes frequently. The unfortunate sign that has somehow lost one letter:

When I looked in that folder, I found some great signs I had forgotten about. Hope you enjoy them.
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I heard on the news the other evening that the Boy Scouts of America will soon be celebrating its 100th anniversary. I looked online to find out the exact anniversary date and learned that the BSA was founded February 8, 1910, by Chicago publisher William D. Boyce after discovering scouting during a visit to England the previous year. If you are interested in learning about scouting, there is a lot of information on Wikipedia. There I found this neat old poster done for the 50th anniversary of the BSA:

Ideas for my blog posts are frequently the result of the collision of several ideas in my head. Today's is one of those. Last week I received a joke that made me laugh out loud and I knew I wanted to share it soon. Also last week I was "friended" on Facebook by a guy I was close to in junior high school. We both sang alto in the school choir and enjoyed camping. His family moved away at the end of junior high, we did not keep in touch, and this is the first I've heard from him in almost 40 years. Thoughts of a bunch of old scouts celebrating the anniversary of BSA, reconnecting with John on Facebook, and the joke I received made me think of the theme of old friends. Here's the joke I received:
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The week before final exams last semester, I did a blog post called "How to Fail a Test with Dignity," about some hilarious answers students have written on tests. One of my readers sent me an e-mail with more test questions and answers. I'm a little suspicious as to the authenticity of these for several reasons — none of the questions have a number in front of them, the font looks about the same on all the "tests," and the handwriting in several appears to be the same. Maybe the originator had a list of test questions and the answers given, and then tried to re-create them. Whatever, they are funny and I pass them on to you, my dear readers.

In one of the answers in the previous post, a students drew an elephant and said the object in the test question would not continue to move because an elephant was in the way. Another student tried to use that same dumb answer, but with even less success — the teacher noticed a missing (de)tail:

WARNING: As you continue to read this post, be sure you are somewhere where you can laugh out loud, in case some of these strike you really funny. These read almost like a series of one-liners.
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Have you ever felt like what they call a "marked man?" This past week I had three different men tell me that they felt as though they had a target painted on them for one reason or another. With each of these men I joked about the Far Side cartoon below:

Then the other day I stumbled upon a picture of a cat with an interesting set of markings on its back:

As I ruminated on Hal's birthmark and the cool cat with the black cat marking (which looks to be authentic), I decided to see if I could find any other pictures of animals with interesting markings. Here are two where I'm certain the markings are not something the animals were born with.
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