The much anticipated updated M.F.A. Rankings are here— not to be confused with other popular M.F.A. rankings (Masters in Fine Arts, Most Fanciest Aardvark, etc.).

I’m referring, of course, to my six year-olds newest Most Favorite Animal rankings, which have taken everyone by surprise. Let’s get to it.

6. The gorilla. Wow how the mighty have fallen. Seems like only yesterday that the gorilla was a clear cut favorite, the first stop at the Wild Animal park, and the most popular cup in the cabinet. Now not even in the top five, there’s no telling how far this beloved animal of early childhood will fall. Nothing lasts forever, not even the love of my young daughter for a muscle bound hairy chested ferocious beast.

5. The cheetah. Another surprise here. The fastest animal on land apparently isn’t that impressive anymore. Eighty miles an hour is just whatev’s. Daddy drives that fast on the highway. Even the cute baby cheetahs at the Wild Animal Park, or the fact that they are friends with a dog, failed to return the spotted cat to top animal status. The cheetah still clings close to the tail of a gorilla, if gorilla’s had one, but now they’re moving in the wrong direction.

4. The reindeer. A total shocker here. No one saw this coming. Not at a lunch conversation on a Thursday in September. I ’bout sprayed leftover Sloppy Joe. Did she watch a Christmas movie recently? Read a Christmas story or book? Was there a conversation about Christmas that I missed. No. No. And no. There’s no explanation. It’s inexplicable. But it’s true just the same. The reindeer cracks the top five a full three months before Christmas, with some analysts predicting a number one ranking in the near future.

3. The jellyfish. Just at a loss here folks. Why? What? Huh? Jellyfish? Did you read about them? No. Wild Kratts? No. What made you think of them? I don’t know. Do you know that they sting and it can be quite painful? I don’t care. They don’t even have brains and you’re picking them over cheetahs and gorillas? Yes. Again, another example of how unpredictable M.F.A. rankings, and life, can be.

2. The panda. Just about the only thing on the current list that isn’t a head-scratcher. The panda remains fixed at the two spot. A fixture, if you will, of cute, cuddly-wuddly, bearness. Fuzzy still counts for something, thank goodness.

1. The fox. Completely out of left field. Where did this come from? A movie? Show? The internet? A video game? And now the fox is rumored to be in the running for a Halloween costume. I just don’t know what the world is coming to.

All I can say is, kids grow up fast. Things like their favorite animals and their faces change so quickly. If you’re not careful, you can blink and before you know it you don’t even recognize your kid’s favorite animals, or face or voice. I don’t know. I’m still so blown away. I mean jellyfish are interesting and all, but really?

So I learned a word the other day. Let me pause here to congratulate myself….

Done. So that word is: miasma and it means “a highly unpleasant smell or odor.”

I will now use this new term of mine in a made-up conversation between a very intelligent couple with large, expansive vocabularies.

HUSBAND: Beloved, allow me the inestimable boon of another morsel and transfer me the salver of artichoke pizza.

WIFE: My sweet, my cogitation suggests you better defer. The miasma from last time is still lingering in our eiderdown.

There you have it. Be good people!

Greetings readers of the Faucet! Thank you as always for taking the time to read my blog. I want to report that Joe The Plumber, the original writer of the Faucet blog that I took over for, is still hearing that darned drip drip drip inside his head, but the good news is that the blood-curdling screams of agony are, on the whole, less.

I wasn’t able to write a blog entry this week. When I went to visit Joe, there was a large accumulation of buckets he had ordered off Amazon, presumably to catch the drips that aren’t happening, and well, one thing led to another and I got caught up in a bucket drive to get buckets to the bucket-needy. That’s a story for another time, but the experience gave new meaning to the lyrics of the Grateful Dead tune, “Hell In A Bucket.”

Fortunately, I belong to a humor blog writers association that for a very minimal donation of plucked nose hairs in sealed envelopes (not sure what they use them for, again another matter) provides substitute humor writers for cases just like these. This writer wished to be known as That Guy has produced the following blog, which I have not vetted for quality assurance and therefore disclaim any all liability pertaining to thusly.

WAYS I WALK UP THE STAIRS IN MY HOUSE

By That Guy

1. The old standard two-steps-at-a-timer followed by one for the last step.
2. The two-stepper followed by the big three step jump at the end (less frequent).
3. The beat down one begrudging step after the other, the toe barely surmounting the carpeted lip, weight heavily on the handrail, usually at the end of another beat down of a day.
4. The start-off-with-a-three-step jump, followed by two-at-a-time for running up to grab things.
5. The one step, mixed with two step, that also includes randomly playing air drums.

(Note: this blog post is in no way intended to disparage the fine products and marketing of Zak! insulated cups and mugs.)

Brad (Director of Marketing): So we have two new members on the team, Andrew and Seth. Let’s give them a warm welcome. (Thumbs up and applause emoji’s from all Zoom participants.) Would you two mind telling us a little about yourselves before we begin. Andrew, why don’t you go first?

Andrew: Hi everyone. Glad to be part of the marketing team. I just graduated with an MFA in Poetry from Northwestern. I have seven previous years experience in marketing with REI. I’m really excited to be here.

Seth: Yo what up? So I’ll just come out and say it: my Dad’s the boss. The head honcho. The big burrito. I’m in a band. He wanted me to “try it out,” because I got, like, in some trouble and owe him some dough. So here I am. Peace y’all.

Brad: Great, thanks guys. Today we’re finalizing the sleeve for our new 13 oz. insulated cup. I’ll share my screen to show the new members the work we have so far. Any final ideas?

(Extended silence.)

Andrew: I actually have a short poem that I wrote this morning. Maybe it would fit above the bar code and next to the base camp logo? Here, I’ll read it:

Rivers are long, Mountains are tall,

Recycle this band,

Keep the earth clean for all.

Brad: Wow, that’s um, that’s good. Yeah. I think we can use that. Just email it to me after the meeting. Great. Thanks. Anyone have anything else?

Seth: Yeah I got something broseph. What if, like, you know, we uh, added an exclamation point after the company name. Instead of Zak. It would be, Zak! You know, like, instead of when you cheers after pouring a brewski with your buds at a campsite, instead of cheers-ing with a Zak. You would be like, Zak!

Brad: Ooookay, well, um, I guess, you know, maybe? We’ll think about it.

Seth: Far out, bro, far out.

Hi kids,

Back from a family RV trip. Had the good fortune to take the family on a little tour of the great state of CA. It was my first time experiencing RV life and I want to say how much we all enjoyed it, and also to apologize to our neighbors at the Bulleton Flying Flags resort for the black box incident where I mistakenly thought I was fully attached to the sewer line. Beginner’s mistake!

Thank you to all you plumbers out there that continue to send emails into the Faucet blog. I appreciate your concern for Joe the plumber, the original writer of the Faucet blog, and am sorry to report that he is still hearing the ongoing drip-drip-drip inside his head. Also thanks to George in Escondido for explaining to me what a nipple is, in plumbing terms. Very informational. Thank you.

Despite the impressions of the numerous plumbers and HVAC workers that read my blog, the purpose of this blog is to remind everyone to take it easy and laugh a little. This was especially important on a family RV trip with close quarters and some long rides.

Here are the runners-up for top Faucet fodder:

1. A financial advisory firm we drove past that is called The Poos Group.
2. A street named Glasscock. Was there anybody on that street naming committee that covered up their snigger by pretending to cough and was too embarrassed to suggest an alternative?
3. A road named Fish Rock and the possibility that two Street Namers argued vehemently over the naming, one in favor of Fish Road and the other Rock Road, an argument that escalated and almost came to blows before a third party suggested that they compromise.

And the winner, the top Faucet fodder from the trip is….

A rather unsanitary State Park restroom, flooded— despite the toilet basically being just a hole in the ground— that the kids used while barefoot (to the great ire of my wife), very unpleasant smelling, the kids touching much more than they needed to (i.e. treating the handle bar like a jungle gym) and not really “going” with any sense of urgency…Fortunately a little comic relief arrived in the form of a message on the wall, scrawled on the plastic container for toilet seat covers, likely carved by a key.

Here it is: “FREE COWBOY HATS”

Just another reminder that if you look for it, laughter is out there even in the most unlikely, or unsanitary of places. And no, I did not wear a toilet seat cover as a hat.

The Faucet gets flowing this week with a Parenting IQ test. Questions are based on situations that all parents are likely to face sooner or later in the joyful Odyssey of Wonder that is just trying to get through another day without flipping your lid.

Answers are posted at the bottom— if you turn your device upside down, then they will appear upside down so you can’t cheat. Scores will give parents some needed feedback in their overall Parenting Intelligence Quotient, which then will be forwarded to local school districts, the FBI, CIA, DCFS, and the NHL.

1. All parents know the value of routine, especially when it comes to things that need to happen every day, like bedtime and bringing Dad his ostrich egg omelet with just a pinch of salt. Often times kids make strange requests, like wanting a cup of water. Also, sometimes kids have a peculiar and obsessive preference, say for the color of their cup. So if your 2 year old kid requests the color of your 8 year old kids’ cup, let’s say it’s pink, do you…

A) on the sly give the 8 year old that likes the pink cup a blue cup and not say anything.

B) preface giving the 8 year old that likes the pink cup a blue cup with a statement of appreciation, in advance, for being flexible and accepting the blue cup.

C) sit down and talk with both kids about the number of children in the world that lack fresh water, never mind it being cold and also in a cup designed by a rocket scientist to prevent spillage, even when it’s turned upside down or knocked over.

D) None of the above. It doesn’t matter. Just give the kids water and duck because someone is about throw a big ol’ hissy.

2. If your 2 year old refuses to brush their teeth night after night do you…

A) Pin your 2 year old down and have your significant other hold the wailing head with a full nelson and force the toothbrush into a screaming mouth and scrape a few times while your toddler gags.

B) Pretend the toothbrush is a dragon/airplane/fairy and make it a fun game!

C) Play hide and seek with the toothbrush ready, so that when your 2 year old finds you behind the curtains you can jump out with surprise oral health!

D) None of the above. It doesn’t matter. Might as well start using frosting as toothpaste and let the child chew yet another toothbrush to oblivion. Besides, those teeth will fall out anyway.

3. If after you’ve put all the kids to bed, come downstairs and cleaned up, including dishes, seven random messes, a car to unload, garbage, etc., then you sit down to do something you’ve been meaning to do all day, like respond to the old friend that emailed you five days ago, and just as you log in but before you can finish typing some phrase that Gmail suggests with autotype, after two letters, making you feel weird and sad and other strong emotions likely related to your extreme fatigue, you hear one of your children call out for you because they are afraid of the dark. Do you…

A) Hug them, kiss them, check the closet for monsters, glance under the bed, sing a lullaby, and lay with them until they fall asleep.

B) Validate their fear of their own room with seventeen nightlights, give them an invisible sword to use in case the Boogie Man shows up, assure them that there is no such thing as a Boogie Man and you meant to say Snoogie Man which is a friendly blanket super hero, a good friend of Mr. Incredible and Frozone, that swoops in for Snoogie time, then hug them, kiss them, check the closet for monsters, glance under the bed, sing a lullaby, and lay with them until they fall asleep. Once they are asleep, research childhood emotional distress, fear of the dark, and how to model courage for your children.

C) March up the stairs, tell them their fear is ridiculous, and that if you hear another peep, so much as a loud yawn, then you will smash their iPads in front of them in the morning with a hammer (even though you know this is a threat that is beyond empty, more like a Black Hole Of A Threat with mysterious gravitational forces of sadness and impotence).

D) None of the above. Either sound proof a room in the house or learn to play “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” on any of the kid toy instruments that randomly plays from a different heap of clutter each day.

Answers: It’s so cute that you think there are solutions to these problems. Snoogie Man is going to come and give you a nuzzle wuzzle!

Thanks for checking in on the Humor Faucet, where the mission is to “keep the humor flowin’ (since 2018).”

I’m tempted this week to write about the conversation my five-year-old and I had this morning when she barged in on me wiping my bottom.

Or, some good old self-deprecating humor (which is a plentiful source since I’m always doing dumb things). Like a few days ago, when driving by a protestor holding up a sign that said “Honk if Black Lives Matter,” I honked and waved and then slammed on the brakes to avoid the car stopped at the next light. It was a closey.

However, in light of the millions of people out of work, the death toll from COVID-19 eclipsing the 100,000 mark, and now the race riots following the death of George Floyd, I’m going to turn off the faucet this week and instead use that time to read and listen.

Think I’ll start with Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

Also, if any of you have kids out there, I found this cool YouTube page you can share with them called STEM uncovered with Dr. Esther.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO8fHSJrOnGZCZ19HvGvSLA/featured

And, don’t worry, next week there likely will be another conversation which the active use of toilet paper fails to dissuade in the slightest.

Last December, when everything was still “normal,” my wife Megan and I took the kids on a weekend trip to Napa to visit Dutch and Marea and meet their son, Decker. We arrived on a Friday night. I came out of a restaurant with two large styrofoam containers of steaming, fragrant Hawaiian BBQ to find Megan throwing up in a garbage can. She spent the night puking. Sometime around 3 AM, Mazey (age 8) puked. They both spent the next day puking together, while Mia (age 5) Delaney (age 2) and I went with Dutch to one of those little kid railroad parks near Sonoma. It was all very nice, considering.

The next day, Mazey had an excruciating earache. Oh, and Delaney got trapped in a bathroom stall. One of those with the door that goes all the way to the bottom. Later, I went to Target to buy medicine and got the wrong flavor or brand. Twice. We did something or other that night.

Sunday some stuff happened. On Monday it was time to leave. We went to see a doctor for the earache, which wasn’t improving. On the way I saw this sign outside a grocery store: “Wonderful Pistachios. $7.99”

Turns out “Wonderful” is a brand of pistachios. I didn’t know that at the time. I thought it was an adjective that the store decided to use to entice customers. Watching Mia and Delaney play outside the doctor’s office, my sleep-deprived, battered and travel-weary mind envisioned the following scenarios, which in no way is intended to disparage the fine product known as Wonderful Pistachios.

Scenario One

“Hey Bill, you know that pistachio sign out front?”

“Sure Frank, I ought to. I was the one that made it.”

“Well, I noticed we haven’t been selling too many pistachios lately. Don’t take this the wrong way. It’s just…I had an idea. What if we added the word “wonderful” to the sign? I feel it just gives it the right amount of oomph.”

“By golly, that just might work! Frank, you’re a genius!”

Scenario Two

(In a perfect world, CUSTOMER A is played by Norm MacDonald and CLERK is played by Chris Farley, early 90’s)

CUSTOMER A: “Hey there… buddy, can you, uh, you know, show me where the (looks around, chewing gum) wonderful pistachios are?”

CLERK: “Sure, right over there by the walnuts.”

CUSTOMER A: “Those, uh, those look to be just regular pistachios. (Chews gum and looks at CLERK.) What are you trying to pull here? I’m looking for the wonderful ones. You think I’m some kind of jerk that eats regular pistachios?”

CLERK: I’m so stupid! God, I’m idiot! (Starts beating himself with an eggplant.) No wonder everybody hates me!

Scenario Three

“Honey, you’ll never believe it! Our favorite pistachios are in! Do you remember? Right when we started dating…it was just before Christmas….we were shopping. And we found those wonderful pistachios. Don’t you remember?”

“Do you mean the marvelous pistachios?”

“I don’t even know you any more.”

Scenario Four

“Tonight, for our party, I’ve decided to conduct a little experiment. I’m going to set out this bowl of regular pistachios and put a sign down in front that says: ‘Wonderful Pistachios’ in bright bold letters. Then, right next to it, I’m going to put down this bowl of wonderful pistachios, with no sign. No wait…maybe I should put a sign that says ‘regular pistachios’…like in pencil? Is that too many variables? Oh, I just don’t know! What do you think?”

“I think that’s the most insane science experiment ever conducted in the history of the world. I love it. Sign or no sign, I want to rip your clothes off and discuss data collection.”

Keep on golfin’ in the free world

I’m writing this a little bit later than normal, so you’ll have to excuse me if I’m not as sharp. I was washing the dishes and got sidetracked looking for a towel….strangest thing. Just vanished into thin air.

People ask me all the time—especially lately— is it hard writing a humor blog? And I always tell them, it’s just like juggling chainsaws: it gets easier and the cuts usually heal in a couple days.

Actually I’ve found life can be pretty funny if you just keep your eyes and ears open. But it’s true, every once in a while the well runs dry. It happens to the best of us.

Fortunately I have Bud. Bud worked with Joe, the original Faucet Blogger, and helped him generate ideas for his blog on plumbing. The guys over at Joe’s Plumbing still have a good laugh over Joe’s famous “ball valve” post— pure Bud on that one.

So I called up Bud.

“Hey Bud, our toilet is overflowing again. And do you have any ideas for the faucet blog?”

I didn’t say anything about being “dry” since Bud and Joe are really close and Joe is still hearing that darned drip inside his head.

Turns out Bud wasn’t aware that I’ve been keeping the faucet blog going. I won’t go into our whole conversation (I feel like I’m struggling enough here) but Bud eventually was kind enough to suggest that since I have an unpublished novel about a town that bans rock and roll, that maybe I should start blogging about rock and roll, and didn’t Little Richard recently pass?

Fortunately, I am a trained journalist. Also, I just found that dish towel, so I’ll make this quick.

So for Bud, and anyone else out there that might be curious, they called Little Richard “Little” because he was, well, little. Growing up. I guess he had one leg longer than the other.

So a big thank you to Bud, not just for the idea, but also for declogging the downstairs toilet.

In closing, I read today that five year olds laugh naturally 250 times a day and most adults don’t laugh that much in a month. So get laughing people, especially at yourself. Unless you just spent twenty minutes looking for a towel that’s on your shoulder. Because that’s actually sort of sad.