In humor writing you have to be careful who you make fun of.
I wrote a hilarious story about selling a house to a Mexican. I made fun of myself and my family. The story, as an added bonus and an example of my talent, was also poignant.
I titled the story: “How to Sell a House to a Mexican.”
Rhonda Ramos suggested I was a racist. She posts some of her columns on Themestream.
Themestream.com is a website that pays her and other idiot writers a dime each time someone clicks on their column or essay.
When I say “other idiot writers” I am not speaking of Ms. Ramos, my no, I speak of myself and members of the Netwits, a group of humor columnists — of which I am proud to be a member. (How’d you like the way I got out of that, Ms. Ramos?)
After her complaint, the brain dead Themestream Administrators (oh, golly, now I’m in trouble) e-mailed me that the word “Mexican” became a racist term when used in the title of my column. The brain-deaders said they would allow: “How to Sell a House to a Canadian.”
To be on the safe side, I renamed my essay: “How to Sell a House to an Eskimo.”
To make certain that I would not offend anyone else, I rechecked all my columns. To my horror I found that I had written, about a year ago, a column dealing with buying a Mexican parrot.
Had I slighted a particular parrot or all Spanish speaking parrots in general? Perhaps re-slighted Ms. Ramos? Upset her colleagues and further agitated brain dead “humor administrators” drawing a salary at Themestream?
Gee, I hope not. To be PC I have renamed my story: “Eskimo Parrot.” In case the word “Mexico” also offends, I changed the locale to The Yukon while still retaining the rainforest elements of that country south of the United States border.
I will post my revised PC column on my page on Themestream providing the brain dead humor administrators at Club Themestupid allow me to maintain my membership.
Eskimo Parrot
written by
Jaron Summers
California winters can be bleak so I thought a brightly colored parrot would brighten up the house. Finally we saved $1700.00 — almost enough money to buy one.
By then, Kate, my wife, got it in her head that what we needed was a vacation in the Yukon, in Northern Canada.
“Everyone in the Yukon is a thief,” I said. “Besides it’s too expensive. We’re not going.”
As our jetliner descended over the tangled jungle of Southern Yukon, I told Kate for the 99th time our trip would break us.
When we landed Kate again explained that by buying a Yukon parrot we could save a fortune and thus “subsidize” our trip. “We’ll use special Yukon taxis to save even more money.”
“What’s a special Yukon taxi?”
“Cheap taxis. The gals at the gym clued me in. I’ll get one,” she said, sprinting off the plane.
I waited at the curb with our belongings in blistering heat. My wife arrived in a battered cab. The Eskimo driver leapt out and started piling our luggage into his trunk.
My wife got out and said, “Special cabs can’t legally pick up passengers within the airport grounds. Our driver will rendezvous with us down the road in the rainforest, past the police inspection center.”
The taxi roared off in a cloud of smoke. “That’s the last we’ll see of our luggage. Good-bye old faithful Nikon.”
“Learn to trust,” said Kate. We walked through the airport gates, and miracle of miracles — a hundred meters past the police kiosk, was our battered Yukon taxi. We raced to it and I yanked Kate into the back seat.
Soon towering stands of Eskimo bamboo were whipping by us and although our special Yukon taxi had no air conditioning, a merciful hot breeze hissed at us through a crack in the windshield.
I heard honking, turned and saw a vehicle —lights blinking — screaming toward us. I had seen it lurking next to the police kiosk — the Eskimos had realized we were in their country to deal in stolen parrots! Probably a capital offense. I explained this to my wife.
“Relax,” she said.
The pursuing car rammed our vehicle. Our Eskimo driver said it was a bandito. I screamed to drive like the wind.
Seconds later we were slaloming around carnivorous pot holes.
A half-completed bridge loomed ahead, a twenty-yard chasm between it and the other bank. Faster and faster we went.
I stared at the mad Eskimo gaining on us. I asked my wife if she recognized him.
“Why, it’s the Eskimo cab driver we gave our luggage to originally inside the airport,” she said. Our driver hit the brakes.
We skidded to a stop, a millimeter from death. Below jagged rocks waited.
We all had a good laugh when we realized that I had pulled my wife into the wrong car. Our original Eskimo driver — his trunk filled with our goods — had risked his life to catch us when he thought we had been kidnapped.
Kidnapped? Yes. Otherwise why would we have abandoned our luggage in the Yukon? We laughed and laughed right there in the middle of the Yukon jungle as multicolored parrots, attracted by our giggles, flitted about, screeching.
Of course, we had to pay off the second Eskimo driver who had bent his drive shaft. Our first Eskimo driver stifled his laughter long enough to tell us his drive shaft was bent, too.
Our combined tab was seven hundred dollars.
As I counted out twenty-dollar bills I started to appreciate the touching honesty of the Eskimo people.
And honest they were.
We asked dozens of them to catch us an Eskimo jungle parrot and sell it to us. The Eskimos all said that such a transaction was illegal and laughed at us.
I’ve decided to get a cat. A nice colorful one.