balls

Great Balls Of Portent

/ Diane Henders / 40 Comments

Every now and then I think to myself, “Diane, maybe it’s time you grew up. Seriously, you’re a fifty-year-old woman. Don’t you think it’s time you stopped snickering at farts and tasteless double entendres? Even teenagers aren’t as dirty-minded as you.”

And just about the time I take a deep breath and decide to squelch my baser nature and write nothing but G-rated blog posts forever more, I find an anatomically correct building.  (And it’s Canajen, eh?)  Newmarket Health Centre in Ontario, Canada, was kindly brought to my attention by the CTV news team: http://toronto.ctvnews.ca/aerial-view-of-anatomically-correct-newmarket-health-centre-sparks-jokes-worldwide-1.2254688.

I don’t care how innocent and/or politically correct you are, there’s only one thing that building resembles.

It was built in 1951 and nobody seems to recall who the architect was. He (I use the male pronoun because it seems the most probable) just couldn’t have drawn up those plans without recognizing the likeness. And the terracotta-coloured scrotum is the biggest joke of all – there’s no way that was accidental. It sticks out like a sore… um… never mind.

The architect probably thought he was safe in perpetrating his practical joke. After all, there was no Google Earth or satellite view available to the general public in the 50s. But now his puerile sense of humour is, erm, exposed, for all to see.

I think it’s hilarious, but remember I was innocent in this. I didn’t go looking for the likeness on my own – even I am not so twisted that I scour aerial maps in the hope of finding suggestively-shaped buildings. Nope; fate just dumped this article in my lap. So to speak.

Coincidence, right?

I think not.

Exactly a day after the Newmarket Man showed up in my news feed, my friend Chris sent me a link to “the tastiest balls you’ll ever put in your mouth”.  If you want to try ‘em, the recipe is here:  http://www.mtlblog.com/2015/02/poutine-poppers-are-the-mini-mouthgasm-you-need-to-eat-now/#

Needless to say, the tagline incited a few comments, largely focusing on the quantity of comparative research required in order to authoritatively apply the superlative. (Or, as we boorish types put it: “How many balls has he actually tasted?”)

Again, there’s really no polite and wholesome way to take this. Unless you were raised in a social vacuum by a Victorian nanny, a tagline like that is going to make you laugh. Or choke, I guess.

But my point is this: These two items popped up completely unsolicited, only a day apart, immediately after I’d considered cleaning up my act. They’re clearly a message from some higher (or probably lower) power: A clean mind just isn’t in the cards for me.

Since omens frequently arrive in threes, I waited with bated breath to see if fate would offer me any more family jewels. But, nope; that was it for this week.

When I think about it, though, I guess it makes sense. Balls generally come in pairs.

Did you get any portents this week?

P.S. I just realized it’s been nearly three whole years since I last wrote a post about balls: https://blog.dianehenders.com/2012/05/02/oh-balls/. Maybe my mind is cleaner than I think. But probably not.

Oh, Balls!

/ Diane Henders / 46 Comments

The other day a conversation with a female friend turned into a roundabout discussion that began with fruit, took a rapid detour to testicles, and ended with dirty limericks.  I can’t name the friend without potentially embarrassing the innocent man whose mangoes we were discussing, but the guilty party knows who she is.  I’m pretty sure I can still hear her giggling.

Anyway, I started to wonder why limericks lend themselves so admirably to off-colour content.  Maybe it’s something about the rhyme structure.  You just never see an obscene sonnet or haiku.  (Though if you know any, feel free to enlighten me.)

Most of the limericks I know are so vile I only recite them in the wee hours of the morning at a keg party, after I’ve set my glass aside and begun to drink directly from the pitcher for the sake of efficiency.  The last time that happened was many years ago, and it’s unlikely to happen again anytime soon.

But I still consider it one of my finer achievements to make a dozen inebriated guys gag simultaneously and flee the area.  Abandoning the keg, no less.  That was some limerick.  Needless to say, I won’t be including it in this post.  I can’t afford to lose readers.

I have no idea why I retain dirty limericks on the tip of my brain for instant retrieval when I can’t remember useful information like my sister’s not-so-new-anymore phone number.  And maybe I should be concerned that I can recite three limericks about testicles without a moment’s thought.

Here are the ones that sprang immediately to mind:

There was a young man from Boston
Who drove around in an Austin.
There was room for his ass
And a gallon of gas,
But his balls hung out and he lost ‘em.

Or how about this one:

There was a young man from Devizes
Whose balls were of two different sizes.
One was so small
It was no ball at all,
But the other one won several prizes.

Or:

There was a young man from Madras
Whose balls were made out of brass.
He’d bang them together
To play stormy weather,
And lightning shot out of his ass.

Frankly, that last one never made much sense to me since I happen to know brass won’t create a spark no matter how much you bang it together, but whatever.  It makes a good rhyme.

Maybe dirty limericks are so popular because they’re easy to create (and let’s face it, a lot of people have dirty minds).  Since I happen to believe there’s always room for more bad poetry in the world, here’s my attempt:

There once was a woman from Cowtown
Whose crudity made strong men bow down.
Though they tried to harass her,
They couldn’t surpass her.
The Queen of Vulgarity’s now crown’d.

Anybody else have dirty limericks lurking top-of-mind?  Or, more shockingly, clean limericks?  Do share.

Or feel free to get creative and make up one of your own.  I dare you.