Scrotums Rule! …Or not.

/ Diane Henders

Last week I mentioned that I hadn’t misread anything in a long while. Clearly that statement tempted fate, and fate was quick to retaliate.

To wit: There was a lot of buzz in the news this past week about the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality, and it seems most American journalists are fond of acronyms. It took me a while to figure out that SCOTUS stands for Supreme Court Of The United States; probably because I read the acronym as ‘SCROTUMS’.

You can imagine my reaction when I read ‘SCROTUMS rules in gay marriage!’

‘Scrotums rules’? Did the new marriage ruling specify what constituted acceptable male equipment? That led me to wonder exactly what the specifications were, and who enforced the ruling. Were there inspections? Measurements? Wait, let me get my calipers…

Or, (I speculated) maybe they actually meant ‘scrotums rule!’, implying that the marriage of two men was superior to any other combination. Like some X-rated version of poker: “Ha! A pair of scrotums beats a pair of vaginas! Pay up, loser!”

Fortunately I realized I’d misread SCOTUS before I could go too far down that path, but I must say it was an interesting trip as far as it went.

And apparently fate was determined to teach me a lesson, because that was only the first of many.

I read ‘…the fourth grade class decided to get pissed as a civics lesson’, but at second glance it was actually ‘get a bill passed’. Technicalities…

Next up was an email that offered me a seminar titled ‘Creating Flatulence’. I couldn’t figure out how it constituted a business opportunity, but I was completely sold on the entertainment potential. Unfortunately, it turned out they were only offering to teach me how to create ‘Affluence’, with an ornate drop-cap on the first letter. So I guess I’ll have to stick with beans, beer, and cabbage for all my flatulence needs.

And apparently business development was on the spammers’ minds this week, because they also offered me a ‘Self-Important Training Program’ and a chance to ‘Thrive by Insult’ (which seemed like quite a useful and practical course). Much to my disappointment, though, it was merely ‘Thrive by Intuit’ and a ‘Self-Employment Training Program’.

Next came this nugget of wisdom: ‘Along with great taste, beetles have health benefits and they’re low in calories, too’. I’ve already made my position clear on the consumption of beetles, but I couldn’t deny my morbid curiosity. Were they offering recipes? Dung Beetle Pilaf? Crispy Sriracha Weevils? When I clicked on the link, though, it turned out they were recommending beets, not beetles. I wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved.

And my week was complete when my favorite automotive website chimed in with the headline ‘Peeing Under The Hood’. Even though my garage is well-stocked, I was pretty sure I lacked the necessary tool to successfully complete that endeavor. But it was okay – it turned out we were only ‘Peeking’ under the hood.

I’ve been waiting with bated breath, but apparently fate has been satisfied by completing the circle from scrotums to inappropriate peeing. No other gems have revealed themselves, but I know better than to get smug about it.

Know any good beetle recipes?

46 thoughts on “Scrotums Rule! …Or not.”

  1. With our good chat yesterday, thought I’d return. 🙂 This is great … loved the initial “Scrotums rule on gay marriage” … yep, our eyes can fool us .. or is it that the brain fools us but the eyes got it right. Several days ago I drafted something similar about hearing.

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  2. You are so funny, Diane. Only you! But Americans have to admit that SCOTUS and POTUS do ask for misreading. And getting pissed is a great civics lesson for 4th Graders, especially if done on July 4th. Speaking of which, that guy in Maine who died of a mortar bomb on his head, should also serve as a lesson of some sort. At least he will not be seeking the GOP nomination for president.

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  8. Two things. How do you bait your breath? I tend to go with worms and minnows for a terrific effect! Another aid for flatulence are sun chokes. We refer to them as “fartichokes”. However, as this is a confessional of sorts, I have also mistaken SCOTUS for SCROTUMS, but why are the always yelling?

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    • ‘Fartichokes’!!! Bahahaha!!! Love it!

      As you’ve no doubt guessed, baiting one’s breath, like baiting a hook, is more art than science. It’s all about adjusting the bait to the desired catch. Eating Limburger cheese works well if you want to catch mice or shit-flies. Chocolate attracts women, bacon attracts men, and if you want to attract either of the genders in law enforcement, try drinking large quantities of alcohol. The law enforcement types can be skittish, though, so if alcohol doesn’t work on its own, you may have to go trolling in your vehicle. Believe me, going for a drive with alcohol on your breath will attract all the police you could want, and then some.

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  9. And great phlayming pelicanth! Eighty-thithks per thent! Thatth phlayming mahvelouth! If nobody elth hath told you today that you rock, pleathe allow me to be the firtht!

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  10. No biggie. I’ve had the same opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court for years. But then I quit listening to Rush Limbaugh decades ago. He’s ‘way too liberal for my taste.

    When my boys were little, I would accuse them of peering out the window. They would deny it vehemently. After we moved out to the country, our neighbors said they saw our boys peering off the porch. When confronted, they pled guilty. 🙂

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    • I don’t know enough about SCOTUS or U.S. politics to comment on whether my misread was apt or not, but it was well-suited to the coincidental pairing with the gay marriage headline anyway.

      And those boys! Always peering one place or another… 😉

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      • Don’t give U.S. politics another thought. You haven’t missed a thing.

        And with the boys, the first week or two of coaching T-ball was a riot. And then teaching them how to drive. And then to fix the old junk they could afford to drive. I guess the best thing I taught them was resourcefulness. I found out years later that their friends called me MacGyver. I took that as a high compliment.

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        • Right on! Best nickname ever! You’ve got to love a show that added an entirely new verb to our language: the verb ‘to MacGyver’, as in ‘to be able to fix anything, anytime, with nothing more than a chewing gum wrapper and a piece of string’.

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  11. Now that’s one catchy title!

    I’m imagining you as a copywriter. That would be quite interesting. If you quoted other sources in your written work, it would be great fun to see what came out. Though your employer might not feel similarly… 😉

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  12. Great!! As usual!! For some reason your sense of humor reminds me of that of a colleague that I once had in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. She was a Swedish farm girl from the dairy belt south along the Wisconsin border. She grew up, went college enough for few degrees and married a radical sort of sociology professor. But she always maintained her earthy. farm girl humor. For reasons completely unfathomable she referred to her humor as “boar ass humor”. I will probably never know where she pulled that term from. But she was great!! We also had a very nice colleague who was a very prim and correct (but very, very nice) devout Italian Catholic lady from Iron River who was married to an IRS Agent. My Swedish colleague used to regularly horrify our nice Italian colleague by abruptly announcing in our staff meetings “I have had a vision! I have seen God And she is black!! She always got the same satisfying reaction of fear and anticipation of a bolt of lightning from the sky

    Sent from my iPhone

    >

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    • Oh, that’s hilarious – I can just imagine it! And maybe there’s something to that ‘farm girl’ thing, since I grew up on a farm. I’ve never heard of boar ass humour, but it actually makes sense – a bristly boar ass is pretty coarse. Maybe I should adopt ‘Boar Ass Humour’ as my tagline. 😉

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