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Fun with Stuff is printed monthly in the "I.E.," a publication of Inland Empire Mensa and has been nominated for several National PRP (Publication Recognition Program) awards. |   |
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Fun with Stuff—the book, a collection of fifty of the best Fun with Stuff columns, is now available at Amazon
and at BarnesandNoble.com.
If you would like to be on the Fun with Stuff mailing list to be notified whenever a new column comes out, email me at basdude@aol.com. |
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| Month | Topic | It struck me the other day that of all the stories I’ve told in this column, I have yet to tell the story of how Sharron and I met. So here it is: Sharron and I first met on a bus trip to Stateline, Las Vegas. We had just gone through Barstow and were passing by the tiny little desert town of Yermo, when I felt the overwhelming desire to tell someone about my childhood experiences there. I lived in Yermo for a year when I was in seventh grade. When I tell people that I lived in Yermo, they usually ask “Why?” with a look on their face of either incomprehension or, if they know the place, pity. Living there had something to do with my mom getting a job at the nearby marine base, or maybe it was part of my mom’s lifelong quest to get as far away from civilization as physically possible. My most vivid memory of Yermo is going out to play on the playground but finding that the wind was so bad that all my classmates and I could do was huddle up against the walls of the buildings. Recess in Yermo could peel the paint off any car. When summer vacation rolled around, I decided that I was going to spend it inside, where I could spend all day watching games shows on TV. This went great up until the day that the Watergate trials started. My only option was to go outside and pretend that I was on the desert planet of Dune. I hoped that I could summon one of the great sandworms that produced the mysterious substance known as the Spice, which would enable me to warp the very fabric of time and space, thereby allowing me to escape to anywhere else in the universe. I wasn’t that lucky. I did do one thing creative when I lived there. I wrote a song about the town. It goes like this: It’s Yermo It’s our mo It’s everybody’s mo, oh yeah. I was very proud. So, returning to our story: I was on the bus to Stateline, and I had to tell someone about Yermo. I chose Sharron. I’ll admit; it’s not exactly a polished pickup line. I should have known right then that she was the woman for me because she didn’t say, “For the love of God, would somebody please get this crazy man away from me!” It wasn’t until later that day that I saw Sharron in the casino, and she tried to dodge me because she was afraid that I was going to start talking about obscure little desert towns for no reason. I cornered her nonetheless, and, for some inexplicable reason, she agreed to go on the rides with me. I knew we were getting along well when we went on Turbo Drop eleven times in a row. Turbo Drop is the ride that takes you hundreds of feet into the air and then drops you straight downward. Sharron and I spend most of the ride worrying about our hair. By the end of the day, we had hit it off, and I gave her my phone number—written on a moist towelette. At that time, she didn’t know that I was the official historian and royal archivist of the Royal Order of Towelette Collectors (or the ROTC). It may be that she would later go out with me because she didn’t know this. The way I remember it, several days later Sharron called me using the phone number from the towelette. But she says that I called her. Whatever. On our first “official” date, we went to the movies, and it went as smoothly and effortlessly as if we had known each other for years. I’d like to think that it was my wit, charm, and charisma that kept Sharron around for all these years and our successive adventures, but I’m sure that if she were telling the story, she’d say, “He had me at Yermo.” 
My 2005 "carpet" column was more recently reprinted (by permission) in Dignity Magazine, a publication based in Mumbai, India. However, they took some liberties with it. Among other things, they changed Sharron's name to Snehal. If you want a good laugh, compare the original column found in the Fun with Stuff book to the reprint, which can be found here.
If you like my column, you might also like Ernie's World, by Ernie Witham. Visit it at: www.erniesworld.com |
| Apr 2010 | Clams | |
| Mar 2010 | I am not Dave Barry | |
| Feb 2010 | The Geek Squad | |
| Jan 2010 | The Dishwasher | |
| Dec 2009 | Nothing But the Tooth | |
| Nov 2009 | Your Receipt | |
| Oct 2009 | Salami & Cheese | |
| Sep 2009 | Coming Home | |
| Aug 2009 | The Air Conditioner, Part 2 of 2 | |
| Jul 2009 | The Air Conditioner, Part 1 of 2 | |
| Jun 2009 | Delays | |
| May 2009 | The Trailer | |
| Apr 2009 | Your Guess is as Good as Mine | |
| Mar 2009 | Displaced | |
| Sep 2008 | The Twelve Steps of Being a Writer | |
| Aug 2008 | Trouble in Store in the Store | |
| Jun 2008 | When I was a Kid | |
| Apr 2008 | The Car and the Cats | |
| Mar 2008 | American Addled | |
| Feb 2008 | Dr. Ratari | |
| Jan 2008 | Fifteen More Rooms | |
| Looking for past favorites? If they're not here, they may be in the Fun with Stuff book.
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