The Green Red Green

by Red Green

  NEW LEASE ON LIFE

  I‘ve just leased a car, and I found the leasing options to be interesting. The payments are about the same as they are for a car loan, but at the end of the term, I have more choices with the lease. With a loan, you may end up owning a car that you don’t like. With a lease, that doesn’t happen. So naturally, I was wondering if you could expand the lease theory to personal relationships. What if instead of marrying a person, you just sign a three-year lease? At the end of the term, you could re-sign for another three years, unload the person privately, or just walk away—as long as you hadn’t had any accidents.

  PANDORA’S TOOL BOX

  Once in a while, you have to call a repairman to come and fix something in your home. In most cases, you don’t know the guy and probably just picked his number out of the phone book. The problem, of course, is that you may be dealing with an incompetent who will create more problems than he corrects. Now, you don’t want to be rude and ask him outright if he has any idea what he’s doing, so here’s a way to make a very quick judgment on the quality of the impending work: hang around and look at the contents of his tool box. If it contains any of the following, you may have a problem:

  • Lots of bandages and painkillers

  • A handgun

  • F. Lee Bailey’s business card

  • Only three tools, all hammers

  • A one-way plane ticket to Panama

  WHAT’S YOURS IS YOURS

  After you’ve been married for a while, your personal belongings tend to get intermingled. Sometimes, to save money or because you ran out of something, you end up using toiletries that your wife bought for herself. This can be inappropriate and sometimes harmful. For example, a razor blade that has shaved a pair of human legs is no longer safe to use on a human face. Toothpaste containing baking soda is not for the discerning palate. And you shouldn’t be using Shampoo for Fine Hair when what you really need is Shampoo for Scarce Hair.

  HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN IN-CAR ENTERTAINMENT

  Nothing spoils a vacation faster than kids constantly whining, “Are we there yet?” “I’m hungry. I’m bored. I think we’re lost. This road stinks.” Or how about all five of your youngsters chanting, “We want to stop for ice cream!” in the middle of your airline flight to Disneyland?

  To make the family trip less of a screaming-and-pouting festival, there are some games to amuse the kids while you drive. Or if your kids are old enough to drive, here are some games to calm your nerves.

  Word Scramble, Or Dowr Marblecs

  Get your kids to try to unscramble the following everyday words. For example, the first one, “Upshut,” is really “Shut up.” Get it? Enjoy.

  UPSHUT SINLEEC UVIRRR

  BOWKRPP TEOFMTN QQIFNNZE

  TRVU ZOZ LELALILOLU

  CORLWOKWZEE PRENT FNURB

  Wasn’t that fun? Now try unscrambling these common phrases used in everyday conversation:

  SPLEW RRS MUBS PLUNT GNURINGLY.

  YABBA DABBA DOO!

  US DEFT GRILL UBU SNO TIDDUS POOTY.

  SHE SMELL SEA SCHELL BY DEE SEECHORE.

  KLATUX BARADE NICTO.

  YUU STIPUD DOGDANT

  IMA TON A NGURIELDMMGINNEGS CQOUISTNT’ TURB-PELT GNU.

  QUNADO OMNI FLUNKUS MORITATI.

  AH! AH! AH! AH! AH! … WELBOT.

  DOMO ARIGATO, MR. ROBOTO.

  IXNAY, IT’ SAY EETHAY OPSCAY!

  CAR SONGS

  One way to pass the time on a long family trip is to have a singalong. But most songs last only three minutes and end up with everyone arguing over what the lyrics are. I’ve actually seen people come to blows over the words to “Blinded by the Light” by Manfred Mann. And you don’t want to be in a van full of guys singing “I Am Woman.”

  The ideal song for a long trip is “99 Bottles of Beer.” It lasts for miles and miles. Everyone can remember the words. And everyone knows exactly how long till the end of the song. On the other hand, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” gets monotonous pretty quickly and leads to arguments over when someone was supposed to join in with his verse. That old classic “Hello Operator, Give Me Number 9” might offend some passengers. And the popular “Hey, Bus Driver, Speed Up a Little Bit” is lots of fun until you hit a guardrail.

  Since we live in such a large country with long, lonely stretches of highway with nothing to see except scenery and nature, it’s obvious we need more songs for long trips. So here are a few I’ve written. Enjoy.

  Flugelhorn

  (To the tune of “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”)

  Over there in Switzerland,

  Switzerland, Switzerland,

  There’s a funny Swiss brass band,

  Swiss brass band, Swiss brass band.

  They’ve played this way since they were born,

  They were born, they were born,

  By blowing on their flugelhorn,

  And it sounds like this …

  (One passenger does a trumpet solo with his lips, making a lot of wet, funny sounds while everyone else sings the chorus.)

  Chorus:

  Flugelhorn, flugelhorn

  Bugel horn, bugel horn

  Flugelhorn, flugelhorn

  Bugel horn, bugel horn.

  (Repeat with passengers taking turns doing the trumpet solo. The goal is to make the funniest sounds with the least spit.)

  Never Heard of It

  Driving along in our family car,

  And we still have to go very far,

  Looked out the window—guess what I saw,

  Sitting there at the side of the road?

  Sitting there, looking oh so fine,

  On a post I saw a sign.

  And so the sign I read,

  And here’s exactly what it said:

  (At this point, someone reads what’s on a passing sign.)

  Never heard of that before.

  Sounds really dumb, oh what a bore.

  Never hope I end up there.

  Whatever that is, I don’t care.

  (Repeat with a new sign.)

  Everyone But Us

  (To the tune of “London Bridge Is Falling Down”)

  See this car we’re passing by, rolling by, rolling by?

  See this car we’re passing by? The people in it stink.

  See the driver of that car, of that car, of that car?

  What’s he looking at us for? That stupid little fink.

  Look at all those passengers, passengers, passengers.

  All those pinheads in one car—kinda makes you think.

  Let’s all wave and they’ll wave back, they’ll wave back, they’ll wave back.

  Look, they waved right back at us! What a bunch of dinks.

  (Repeat.)

  The Gift

  (Some songs involve clapping along or hand gestures and so on. This song is sort of like that.)

  I have a little gift I must pass on

  To the person on my right.

  Will they pass it on to the next one along?

  Yes, I think they might.

  My little gift is free of charge.

  I made it just for you.

  It’s very hard and very large.

  You’ll feel it through and through.

  It’s not like any other gifts,

  If I may be so bold, sir.

  I make it when I take my fist

  And punch you in the shoulder.

  (PUNCH!)

  Chorus:

  Pass it on. Pass it on. To the person next to you.

  Pass it on. Pass it on. Your arm is turning blue.

  (Repeat from the top.)

  The Door Song

  (Here’s another song that gets kids physically involved.)

  We’re heading down the highway and we’re way over the limit.

  If there’s a car crash up ahead, then we will soon be in it.

  But meanwhile, let’s all take our minds off what fate has in store

  By reaching down and pulling hard and opening our
door.

  Click, pull, push it open. [Everyone opens car’s doors.]

  See how the wind blows it shut?

  Click, pull, force the door open. [Open doors.]

  We look like a car full of nuts.

  Flap our doors doing ninety-five—[Open doors.]

  And our car looks like it’s flying.

  Other cars stare, but we don’t care. [Open doors.]

  We’re laughing so hard we’re crying!

  How Many Facial Tissues?

  How many facial tissues are there left

  In this Kleenex box?

  The label says there’s five hundred,

  But that sounds like a lot.

  So far I’ve only pulled one out,

  But wait, here is another.

  I’ll put it out and lay it down

  Here beside its brother.

  (Pull out a Kleenex and start at top of song again, changing “one” to “two” and so on. Stop when you run out of Kleenex.)

  HOW TO BUILD YOU OWN DRIVE-IN CAR

  I’m not talking about a car to take to the drive-in theatre, because where the theatre used to be there’s now a Walmart. I’m talking about your very own self-contained drive-away, drive-in theatre, made out of your car.

  Your guests will sit in the car, just like at a drive-in. But the screen will be mounted on the inside of the hood, and when the hood flips up, forward, the screen’s in position.

  (If you have a car where the hood opens the other way, just wail away at it with a ten pound sledge and then re-attach it properly using duct tape)

  Hang your screen on the inside of the hood. You can use a bed-sheet or, if you prefer something white, I suggest a fridge door.

  Mount your projector on the rear deck behind the back seat. (You may have to move the dog with the blinking eyes) Attach the power cord to the car’s battery.

  While you’re there, dump a bag of unpopped popcorn kernels into the hole in the exhaust manifold. Once you start the engine and the manifold heats up, the popcorn will pop and be blown out the exhaust. You can catch it by clipping a pair of panty hose over the end of your tailpipe.

  Keep cold drinks and chocolate bars in the trunk and you have your very own portable drive-in slide theatre.

  (If you are ever pulled over by the police, be sure to tell them that this was all your idea).

  MARRIAGE: THE TAXPAYER’S REVENGE

  I was at my accountant’s recently, and he was telling me that when a husband (or wife) passes on, there’s no tax to be paid as long as he leaves his entire estate to his spouse. Then when that surviving spouse passes on, all taxes become due and payable. Suddenly a light bulb went off in my head. If the surviving spouse remarries immediately and then leaves everything to the new spouse, the tax benefits continue. And if that new person is a lot younger than the surviving spouse, the benefits go on for a long, long time. Now I know why you often see an old guy with a really young second wife. That ain’t no lady—that’s a tax shelter.

  THE SLIDING SCALE

  I sometimes find it amazing that we all have such differing opinions about each other. I think it’s because we pay so much attention to ourselves. We look in the mirror a lot, think about things, and try to figure out problems. We often listen much more intently to what we have to say on a subject, because we consider our comments to be the highlight of any conversation. We are very familiar with ourselves physically, mentally, and spiritually, so we become the yardstick by which we judge the world around us. When we say someone is smart or attractive, we really mean “by comparison.” For example, I think Regis Philbin is a pretty smart guy, but would Albert Einstein have felt the same way about him? Of course, the corollary to this theory is that you’re going to be judged the same way. You will seem smart only to people who are dumber than you, and you will seem attractive only to people who are uglier than you. You might want to keep that in mind when you’re looking for friends or soulmates. Of course, occasionally you see an exception—in my case, you find an ugly guy married to a beautiful woman—but that’s not science, that’s love. Or martyrdom.

  LAST WORD

  I thought I’d end this book with one last word to all you middle-aged guys out there who, for one reason or another, have abandoned your dreams. Maybe you dreamed of being an astronaut and ended up a space cadet. Maybe you dreamed of being an award-winning statesman and ended up a ward of the state. Maybe you dreamed of being an Amway salesman and you are.

  Whatever the disappointment, at this time in our lives we shouldn’t be bitter. Maybe we set our goals too high. Personally, I wanted to set the world land speed record in a rocket car that I designed, engineered, and built. But in retrospect, my dream was a bit of a long shot. Especially after I dropped out of junior high.

  As we head into the last half of our lives, we should still be ambitious, but we need more realistic dreams. Like vowing to go to your grave with at least one of your own teeth. Or doing something nice for someone every day, even if it’s just refraining from telling them what you’re thinking. I’ll follow my dreams no matter how old or worn out I get. Even if I end up in a wheelchair. In fact, I’m designing one with a rocket engine.

  COMING SOON!

  HERE ARE SOME OF THE MANY INTERESTING AND ENTERTAINING THINGS YOU WILL FIND IN THE NEXT RED GREEN BOOK***

  • The Intricacies of Hang-Gliding and How to Make a Leg Splint

  • The Importance of Intimidation When Running a Service Business

  • Friendly Ways of Keeping the Neighbours the Hell Off Your Property

  • Avoiding Activity as a Lifestyle

  • The Importance of Excess Gas in the Need to Find Your Own Space

  • The Exciting New Technologies That Are Coming Soon, and How to Sound Like You Understand Them

  • The Importance of Pretending You Are Interested in Other People

  • How to Get Your Wife and Kids to Do What You Want So You Can Have More Family Time Together

  • How to Cook a Three-Course Meal and How to Scrape It Off the Ceiling

  • Red Reviews the Toshiba 486DX Laptop with Active Matrix Monitor and Built-in Fax/Modem

  • How to Turn Your Van into a Bed and Breakfast

  * Not recommended for Dutch elm trees or hillsides.

  ** Publisher’s note: Do not under any circumstances ever play this game.

  *** Unless the publisher continues to reject great ideas.

  ALSO BY RED GREEN

  Anchor Canada | 978-0-385-66775-3 | $19.95