Shortarmguy's Emails That Made Me Think
On this page, I will post the most inspirational material I receive on any given day. So email shortarmguy@aol.com the best stuff you get. Life can be darn tough sometimes and every now and then you might need a little happiness booster. I’m hoping this page may accomplish that. After you read a few of these, you can push back from your keyboard, throw your arms in the air, wave them back and forth and scream “I’m glad to be alive!” If this happens to you, please send pictures and I’ll post them here!
May 28, 2005
“Why God made moms” answers given by 2nd grade school children to the following questions.
Why did God make mothers?
1. She’s the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.
2. Mostly to clean the house.
3. To help us out of there when we were getting born.
How did God make mothers?
1. He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
2. Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring.
3. God made my Mom just the same like he made me. He Just used bigger parts.
What ingredients are mothers made of?
1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.
2. They had to get their start from men’s bones. Then they mostly use string, I think.
Why did God give you your mother and not some other mom?
1. We’re related.
2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people’s moms like me.
What kind of little girl was your mom?
1. My mom has always been my mom and none of that other stuff.
2. I don’t know because I wasn’t there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.
3. They say she used to be nice.
What did mom need to know about dad before she married him?
1. His last name.
2. She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get drunk on beer?
3. Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?
Why did your Mom marry your dad?
1. My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my Mom eats alot.
2. She got too old to do anything else with him.
3. My grandma says that Mom didn’t have her thinking cap on.
Who’s the boss at your house?
1. Mom doesn’t want to be boss, but she has to because dad’s such a goof ball.
2. Mom. You can tell by room inspection. She sees the stuff under the bed.
3. I guess Mom is, but only because she has a lot more to do than dad.
What’s the difference between moms and dads?
1. Moms work at work and work at home, & dads just go to work at work.
2. Moms know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.
3. Dads are taller & stronger, but moms have all the real power ’cause that’s who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friend’s. Moms have magic, they make you feel better without medicine.
What does your Mom do in her spare time?
1. Mothers don’t do spare time.
2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long
What would it take to make your Mom perfect?
1. On the inside she’s already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.
2. Diet. You know, her hair. I’d diet, maybe blue.
If you could change one thing about your Mom, what would it be?
1. She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I’d get rid of that.
2. I’d make my Mom smarter. Then she would know it was my sister who did it and not me.
3. I would like for her to get rid of those invisible eyes on her back of her head.
May 22, 2005
A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, “What does love mean?” The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:
“When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.”
Rebecca- age 8
When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.”
Billy – age 4
“Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.”
Karl – age 5
“Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.”
Chrissy -age 6
“Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.”
Terri – age 4
“Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.”
Danny – age 7
“Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss”
Emily – age 8
“Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.”
Bobby – age 7 (Wow!)
“If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,”
Nikka – age 6 (we need a few million more Nikka’s on this planet)
“Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.”
Noelle – age 7
“Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.”
Tommy – age 6
“During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn’t scared anymore.”
Cindy – age 8
“My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don’t see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.”
Clare – age 6
“Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.”
Elaine-age 5
“Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.”
Chris – age 7
“Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.”
Mary Ann – age 4
“I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.”
Lauren – age 4
“When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.” (what an imagination)
Karen – age 7
“Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn’t think it’s gross.”
Mark – age 6
“You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.”
Jessica – age 8
And the final one — Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.
The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman’s yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, “Nothing, just helped him cry”
May 15, 2005
TO THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO, HE’S THE ARIZONA COUNTY SHERIFF AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED OVER AND OVER.
THIS IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY:
Sheriff Joe Arpaio (in Arizona ) who created the “tent city jail”:
He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them.
He stopped smoking and porno magazines in the jails. Took away their weights. Cut off all but “G” movies.
He started chain gangs so the inmates could do free work on county and city projects.
Then he started chain gangs for women so he wouldn’t get sued for discrimination.
He took away cable TV until he found out there was a federal court order that required cable TV for jails. So he hooked up the cable TV again only let in the Disney channel and the weather channel.
When asked why the weather channel he replied, so they will know how hot it’s gonna be while they are working on my chain gangs.
He cut off coffee since it has zero nutritional value.
When the inmates complained, he told them, “This isn’t the Ritz/Carlton. If you don’t like it, don’t come back.”
He bought Newt Gingrich’ lecture series on videotape that he pipes into the jails.
When asked by a reporter if he had any lecture series by a Democrat, he replied that a democratic lecture series might explain why a lot of the inmates were in his jails in the first place.
More on the Arizona Sheriff:
With temperatures being even hotter than usual in Phoenix (116 degrees just set a new record), the Associated Press reports: About 2,000 inmates living in a barbed-wire-surrounded tent encampment at the Maricopa County Jail have been given permission to strip down to their government-issued pink boxer shorts.
On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing boxers were either curled up on their bunk beds or chatted in the tents, which reached 138 degrees inside the week before.
Many were also swathed in wet, pink towels as sweat collected on their chests and dripped down to their pink socks.
“It feels like we are in a furnace,” said James Zanzot, an inmate who has lived in the tents for 1 = years. “It’s inhumane.”
Joe Arpaio, the tough-guy sheriff who created the tent city and long ago started making his prisoners wear pink, and eat bologna sandwiches, is not one bit sympathetic He said Wednesday that he told all of the inmates: “It’s 120 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are living in tents too, and they have to wear full battle gear, but they didn’t commit any crimes, so shut your damned mouths!”
Way to go, Sheriff! Maybe if all prisons were like this one there would be a lot less crime and/or repeat offenders. Criminals should be punished for their crimes – not live in luxury until it’s time for their parole, only to go out and commit another crime so they can get back in to live on taxpayers money and enjoy things taxpayers can’t afford to have for themselves.
If you agree, pass this on. If not, just delete it.
Sheriff Joe was just reelected Sheriff in Maricopa County.
If you’d like to read more about Joe, you can check out his book here:
May 8, 2005
“When You Thought I Wasn’t Looking”
When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw you hang my first
painting on the refrigerator, and I wanted to paint another one.
When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw you feed a stray cat,
and I thought it was good to be kind to animals.
When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw you make my favorite
cake for me, and I knew that little things are special things.
When you thought I wasn’t looking, I heard you say a prayer, and
I believed there is a God I could always talk to.
When you thought I wasn’t looking, I felt you kiss me good night,
and I felt loved.
When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw tears come from your eyes,
and I learned that sometimes things hurt, but it’s all right to cry.
When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw that you cared and I wanted
to be everything that I could be.
When you thought I wasn’t looking, I looked … and wanted to say
thanks for all the things I saw when you thought I wasn’t looking.
–Author Unknown
April 30, 2005
Subject: 25 SIGNS YOU HAVE GROWN UP
- Your houseplants are alive, and you can’t smoke any of them.
- Having sex in a twin bed is out of the question.
- You keep more food than beer in the fridge.
- 6:00 AM is when you get up, not when you go to bed.
- You hear your favorite song in an elevator.
- You watch the Weather Channel.
- Your friends marry and divorce instead of “hook up” and “breakup.”
- You go from 130 days of vacation time to 14.
- Jeans and a sweater no longer qualify as “dressed up.”
- You’re the one calling the police because those %&@# kids next door won’t turn down the stereo.
- Older relatives feel comfortable telling sex jokes around you.
- You don’t know what time Taco Bell closes anymore.
- Your car insurance goes down and your car payments go up.
- You feed your dog Science Diet instead of McDonald’s leftovers.
- Sleeping on the couch makes your back hurt.
- You take naps from noon to 6 PM
- Dinner and a movie is the whole date instead of the beginning of one.
- Eating a basket of chicken wings at 3 AM would severely upset, rather than settle, your stomach.
- If you’re a gal, you go to the drug store for ibuprofen and antacid, not condoms and pregnancy tests.
- A $4.00 bottle of wine is no longer “pretty good stuff.”
- You actually eat breakfast food at breakfast time.
- “I just can’t drink the way I used to” replaces “I’m never going to drink that much again.”
- 90% of the time you spend in front of a computer is for real work.
- You drink at home to save money before going to a bar.
- You read this entire list looking desperately for one sign that doesn’t apply to you and can’t find one to save your sorry old butt.
April 25, 2005
Enjoy the flashbacks.
When I was a kid adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning uphill both ways through year ’round blizzards carrying their younger siblings on their backs to their one-room schoolhouse where they maintained a Straight-A average despite their full-time after-school job at the local textile mill where they worked for 35 cents an hour just to help keep their family from starving to death!! And I remember promising myself that when I grew up there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they’ve got it!
But…Now that I’m over the ripe old age of thirty, I can’t help but look around and notice the youth of today. You’ve got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don’t know how good you’ve got it!
I mean, when I was a kid we didn’t have The Internet – we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves! There was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter – with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!
There were no MP3s or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to go to the damn record store ! and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ’d usually talk over the beginning and f@#* it all up!
You want to hear about hardship? You couldn’t just download porn! You had to bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of “Hustler” at the 7-11! Those were your options!
We didn’t have fancy sh?t like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal! And we didn’t have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who was it could be your boss, your mom, a collections agent, your drug dealer, you didn’t know!!! You just had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!
We didn’t have any fancy Sony Play station videogames with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 600! With games like “Space Invaders” and “Asteroids” and the graphics sucked a–! Your guy was a little square! You had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win, the game just kept getting harder and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!
When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy sat in front of you and you couldn’t see you were just screwed!
Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 20 channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing you had to get off your a– and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning… d’ya hear what I’m saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK, you spoiled little bastards!
We didn’t have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove imagine that! If we wanted popcorn we had to use that stupid jiffy pop and shake it over the stove like an idiot forever.
That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You’re spoiled, you guys wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in 1980!
Boy we really did have it rough as kids!!!
April 17, 2005
Billboards From God
Slowdance
Have you ever watched kids
on a merry-go-round
Or listened to the rain
slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You better slow down
Don’t dance so fast
Time is short
The music won’t last
Do you run through each day on the fly
When you ask “How are you?”
do you hear the reply?
When the day is done,
do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
running through your head?
You’d better slow down
Don’t dance so fast
Time is short
The music won’t last
Ever told your child,
We’ll do it tomorrow
And in your haste, not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time
to call and say “Hi”?
You’d better slow down
Don’t dance so fast
Time is short
The music won’t last
When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift….
Thrown away
Life is not a race.
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.
~unknown~
April 9, 2005
My mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn’t seem to get food poisoning. My mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw sometimes too, our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag not in icepack coolers, but I can’t remember getting e-coli?
Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.
The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.
We all took gym, not PE… and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top Ked’s (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can’t recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer
we are now.
Flunking gym was not an option… even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym.
Every year, someone taught the whole school a lesson [and provided comic relief] by running in the halls with leather soles on linoleum tile and hitting the wet spot. How much better off would we be today if we only knew we could have sued the school system.
Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention. We must have had horribly damaged psyches.
I can’t understand it. Schools didn’t offer 14 year olds an abortion or condoms (we wouldn’t have known what either was anyway) but they did give us a couple of baby aspirin and cough syrup if we started getting the sniffles.
What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.
I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself.
I just can’t recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.
I must be repressing that memory as I try to rationalize through the denial of the dangers could have befallen us as we trekked off each day about a mile down the road to some guy’s vacant lot, built forts out of branches and pieces of plywood, made trails, and fought over who got to be the Lone
Ranger. What was that property owner thinking, letting us play on that lot? He should have been locked up for not putting up a fence around the property, complete with a self-closing gate and an infrared intruder alarm.
Oh yeah… and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!
We played king of the hill on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48 cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn’t sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked. Now it’s a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.
We didn’t act up at the neighbor’s house either because if we did, we got our butt spanked (physical abuse) here too and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.
Mom invited the door to door salesman inside for coffee, kids choked down the dust from the gravel driveway while playing with Tonka trucks (Remember why Tonka trucks were made tough .. it wasn’t so that they could take the rough Berber in the family room), and Dad drove a car with leaded gas.
Our music had to be left inside when we went out to play and I am sure that I nearly exhausted my imagination a couple of times when we went on two week vacations. I should probably sue the folks now for the danger they put us in when we all slept in campgrounds in the family tent
Summers were spent behind the push lawn mower and I didn’t even know that mowers came with motors until I was 13 and we got one without an automatic blade-stop or an auto-drive. How sick were my parents?
Of course my parents weren’t the only psychos. I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming
over and doing his tricks on the front stoop just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house. Instead she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck.
To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that? We needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes?
We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn’t even notice that the entire country wasn’t taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?
April 2, 2005
What a difference 40+ years can make! The following is from a 1950’s Home Economics textbook intended for high school girls, teaching them how to prepare for married life.
1. HAVE DINNER READY: Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal – on time. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him, and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospects of a good meal are part of the warm welcome needed.
2. PREPARE YOURSELF: Take 15 minutes to rest so you will be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people. Be a little gay and a little more interesting. His boring day may need a lift.
3. CLEAR AWAY CLUTTER:: Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives, gathering up school books, toys, paper, etc. Then run a dust cloth over the tables. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too.
4. PREPARE THE CHILDREN: Take a few minutes to wash the children’s hands and faces if they are small, comb their hair, and if necessary, change their clothes. They are little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part.
5. MINIMIZE THE NOISE: At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of washer, dryer, or vacuum. Try to encourage the children to be quiet. Greet him with a warm smile and kiss, letting him know you’re glad to see him.
6. Some Don’ts: Don’t greet him with problems or complaints. Don’t complain if he’s late for dinner. Count this as minor compared with what he might have gone through that day.
7. MAKE HIM COMFORTABLE: Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or suggest he lay down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him. Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soft, soothing and pleasant voice. Allow him to relax and unwind.
8. LISTEN TO HIM: You may have a dozen things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first.
9. MAKE THE EVENING HIS: Never complain if he does not take you out to dinner or to other places of entertainment; instead try to understand his world of strain and pressure and his need to be home and relax.
10. THE GOAL: Try to make your home a place of peace and order where your husband can relax.
Inspiration from the past
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