Lifestyles with our Sponsors

I can never find anything. After studying the issue for years, I’ve finally diagnosed the problem. It’s all the fault of the “Put Awayers.” Now, absolved of guilt and relieved of the notion of diminished mental acuity, I’m finally able to move on with confidence, if not with my stuff.

My wife knows where everything is–simply because she’s put it away. She’s a Put Awayer. She was born a Put Awayer. My mother-in-law told me that, shortly after birth her daughter put away her own pacifier and cuddle blanket (after folding). So, it’s not surprising my wife puts the general family stuff away, as well as our daughter’s stuff, our dogs’ stuff, and yes, my stuff. All away. All hidden.

Now, the dogs can usually find their stuff because they can smell it. Whether seeking squeak or bone toys, our dogs know who moved their cheese, so-to-speak, and can run to the drawer where it has been stashed. With my nasal allergies, however, I can’t smell Limburger cheese let along “must-have” items such as car keys, Advil, Droid, eyeglasses, and Epoxy glue. I’m left to wander an empty desert in search of these and other vital belongings. (Incidentally, my daughter doesn’t need to find her stuff because she never uses anything more than once.)

My system for finding things is foolproof–but not immune to tampering by Put Awayers. Things I need to find I’ll leave out on the counter–usually the kitchen island counter, though any counter will do. On, or under tables is good too. My theory is, out of sight, out of mind.

If I see my meds on the counter, I remember to take them. When I see my shoes under the coffee table; I can jump into them and go. Seeing my dirty socks beside the bed, and I’m reminded they need washing. With this system, one doesn’t need to be clairvoyant: Life unfolds before you, visually, without the guesswork imposed by Put Awayers. Anything one can see, one doesn’t need to remember.

So why do Put Awayers do what they do? Why do they muck around with the natural order of things? Moreover, what is their compulsion to make visual organizers like myself feel like they’re steps away from the loony bin. What pleasure could Put Awayers possibly find in seeing others walking around in confusion, scratching their heads in a cynical shell game of loss and despair?

Just to be fair to my wife, I can’t find the stuff that I, myself, put away either—especially my most important stuff. I always think of clever places to put uber-important things that I don’t want left in plain sight: things like my passport, my thumb drive of drug interactions, or my parole papers. (Parenthetically, my wife tells me I was never actually imprisoned, so I’ve stopped looking for those documents). Anyway, I’m too clever for myself. The important things I put away–the things that I absolutely, positively must be able to locate–somehow become so safely stored they remain that way for decades (or until my wife finds them). I recently paid a parking ticket I found from 1985 (coincidentally, the year before I was married).

My wife not only finds the things of mine she puts away, but also the things I’ve hidden from her. You have to get up pretty early to find that incriminating Whoopy Pie wrapper before my wife does. Who else would look under the car floor mat? On the positive side, however, she also found the Broadway theater tickets there, saving our anniversary weekend. So I think I’ll keep her around. Luv you sweetheart.

Chappaqua alumnus and 35-year resident of Chappaqua, humorist Rick Reynolds resides in southern New Hampshire with his wife, daughter,
and two dogs.

By Rick Reynolds

If “you are what you eat,” and you’re able to read this, you’d have to be
 a cannibal.

Not all cannibals can read, of course, and literacy is not a defining characteristic of cannibalism. As for myself, I like being a human, and enjoy reading, but I prefer not to eat people when there are other items on 
the menu.

If, on the other hand, I’m on a life raft with you in the middle of the Pacific, and you’re telling me one crude joke after another, you could well end up on my dinner plate: a memory I’m not proud of. Hey, I was hungry. (Blame my boorish humor on that poor soul.)

When I eat oysters, my wife tells me I clam up at parties. And I do walk sluggishly after an appetizer of escargot–but still walk at a snail’s pace even after an entrée of lapin au moutarde, so I don’t know: I’ll never be fast as a jackrabbit, no matter what I eat.

My wife, a virtual-vegetarian, eats nothing but hummus and broccoli and thankfully she looks like neither. And who wants to be a cauliflower, anyway? They have extremely unfortunate complexions.

As my cousin Jared will tell you, “Food is my favorite dish.” For him, if it isn’t a rock, it’s food–and he does enjoy some rocks, like salt. He won’t eat wood, but he takes tree sap on his pancakes and brunches on more bamboo shoots than a panda. Omnivores like my cousin Jared will eat anything.

Where am I going with this? you ask. Wait, I know I had a point. It’s coming to me. Oh yeah.

Today, the media tells us more about our food choices than we ever wanted to know. One theory is replaced by another: More carbs, less carbs, more protein, less protein, all veggies, no veggies, organic/ hormone-free, genetically-modified, sugar vs. fructose, roughage vs. smoothies, whole juices, cooked/uncooked, par-cooked, sun-dried, refried, farm-raised, free-range, and free-range with privileges–it’s all so confusing. The only thing more dangerous to your health than eating is not eating.

The bottom line is, no matter what you eat, if you eat like a pig, you’ll not look like a string bean. That much we know. However, my dear 300 lb. grandfather lived to be 101, and he loved (and resembled) his watermelon, so who knows?

And speaking of eating like a pig, “Coning” is trending now, which is not a good sign for the human race. Pulling up to a drive-in window and grabbing the soft serve by the ice cream instead of the cone, just to get the server’s reaction, will hopefully not become part of the archeological record. (All YouTubes of this behavior must be stricken from the web before we go extinct.)

Thankfully, we are not what we eat, and neither are those creatures that eat us. But like those other beasties, our survival depends less on what food we eat than on the delicate ecosystems that sustain it. That we’re near, if not past, the tipping point of cataclysmic climate change is no joke.

Myself, I don’t know what we “are,” but our food isn’t “it.” One thing is for certain: Those critters that will eventually inherit the Earth will not be us. They won’t be inventing iPhones or writing loutish humor columns. And unlike us, they simply aren’t smart enough to do themselves in. No, 
these modest little survivors will not have to pay $2400 a year for a Smartphone family plan–and they will get the last laugh.

Chappaqua alumnus and 35-year resident of Chappaqua, humorist Rick Reynolds resides in southern New Hampshire with his wife, daughter,
and two dogs.

By Rick Reynolds

Way back in the early days of RLL, 
I did a number of pet-related stories and finally decided enough was enough. There were too many stories in the media where people anthropomorphized their dogs, cats, and parrots–all too often giving them human characteristics which I frankly thought was unfair to the pets. Our pets are not us, no matter how much we spend on their health care.

For example, people speak to their pets on subjects the sorry animals couldn’t possibly relate to. Take my wife: Every time she leaves the house for the day, she tells our two dogs she’ll be right back–or that she’ll be back in an hour. One of our dogs doesn’t even have a watch and couldn’t tell time if he did. And neither have a sense of time. I would never want to confuse the poor mutts in that way. She’s being dishonest with them, knowing full well they’ll be asleep the whole time and not know any better.

Personally, I tell the dogs that I’ll be back in “three shakes of a lamb’s tail.” See; this plays to their sensibilities. My Cockapoo, Milo, who looks like a carnivorous sheep, has surprisingly large teeth and definitely picks up on the “lamb” references. Petey, a Yorkiepoo, while not as bright, gets the “lamb” vibe through Milo. But it doesn’t take an Australian Shepherd to know what “three shakes of a lamb’s tail” means.

Myself, I’m not entirely sure how long that time interval is, but I imagine a lamb wouldn’t take long twitching its tail a few times. However, this way, if I’m not back for 8 hours, I haven’t technically lied to the dogs. Credibility is everything in a pet relationship.

My daughter tells me that dogs don’t “speak” English, which is, of course, nonsense. Every time Milo, the cocker/poodle mix, chews my wife’s new boots, I admonish him NOT to tell her who left the gate to the mudroom shoe cubbies open, and he’s never betrayed me–even under my wife’s brutal interrogation. Except for a little drool and teeth chattering, his lips remain sealed.

And when I ask the dogs directly who chewed the fireplace wood and spread the splinters all over the rug, the guilty party always slinks away trembling. Of course they know English–as a second language, of course.

My dogs’ first language could be characterized as “yappy” and it can be ear piercing, so I often have to ask them to use indoor voices, or if that fails, to use words. Small dogs tend to whine more than large dogs, having trouble articulating their true feelings in non-pathetic, albeit wolf-like ways.

But contrary to public opinion, not all small, cute dogs are females. I can’t tell you how many passers-by assume my dogs are girls. Even if the names, “Petey,” and “Milo” didn’t hint at their gender, their lifting their legs on these folks’ shoes should speak volumes–if not fluid ounces. And big dog people have no problem letting you know that they only like big dogs–even when the combined weight of your two bruisers is just under 20 lbs. These big dog people don’t know it, but small dog people think big dog people are insecure and need big dogs as proxies for their latent inadequacies. I don’t go that far, but I do get amused when they fail to pick up on my dogs’ leg lifting and walk away with wet socks.

So, while many dog owners give their pets human characteristics, it is likely our dogs think of us as the more irrational and juvenile of mammals. We talk gibberish around them, and buy squeak toys that are no match for the real squeals of live prey.

Chappaqua alumnus and 35-year resident of Chappaqua, humorist Rick Reynolds resides in southern New Hampshire with his wife, daughter,
and two dogs.

By Rick Reynolds

By and large, women don’t have pockets, so they don’t understand the problems associated with them. Pockets accumulate stuff that, in turn, can cause friction in relationships, damage in expensive machinery, and even legal problems. Allow me to explain.

First of all, there’s the complexity of the issue. Men have two shirt pockets, four to eight pants pockets (if you count inter-pocket change pouches and leg pockets), and two sweater vest pockets, not to mention fleece, jacket & coat pockets. That’s a hell of a lot of pockets to keep track of. To make matters worse, my wife is always asking me to carry something for her because she has no pockets. When I point to her pockets, she tells me they’re only decorative. So what’s the problem? you ask.

To begin with, there’s the issue of laundry. Try as I might, I can never seem to empty all the pockets, all the time. In any given pocket, at any given moment, there can be anything from gum, to money, to balled-up paper towels, to car keys, to Magic Markers, to incriminating food receipts–and a smart phone.

Gum alone has nearly cost me my marriage. Gum and dryers make a bad combo. Washing machines and smart phones are a bad combo. Back in my Chappaqua days, my wife and I dry cleaned most everything, and the nice drycleaners would hand me a large bag with all my pocket stuff when I picked up. Now my wife hands me ultimatums when our clothes become co-mingled in bubble gum.

Ball-ups are another quandary. I have a problem with paper towels in that I compulsively tear them off and they end up as ball-ups in my pockets. After a thorough washing, much of them ends up as lint in the dryer, but some act as carriers for the–well, the bubble gum. On the bright side, I am sometimes able to reuse the nicely laundered paper towels, if not the bubble gum.

Paper money is less of a problem, though my fifties end up so bleached out they get inspected at retail outlets. Change is another story. Coins make a racket in the dryer and can damage delicate fabrics. But interestingly, pocket change can even cause legal issues.

I was once prepping for a legal dispute with a rogue business associate when my attorney asked what the noise was emanating from my pocket. It took me a while to locate the source of the noise, but in fact, I was jingling my loose change, which I was told, in no uncertain terms, was a no-no. Apparently it would indicate nervousness and therefore guilt in the eyes of the arbitrator. And here I was the plaintiff! I told my lawyer that, as the complainant, I deserved to be a little edgy.
After relieving me of my coins, my lawyer then asked me what the new clicking sound was. To make a long story short, he took my Tic Tacs too–and subsequently sequestered my Altoids–saying this fidgeting with my mints projected a lack of confidence–indeed, an audible indictment of my credibility. As such, he would not be able to represent me unless I emptied ALL my pockets.

Despite winning the case decisively in arbitration, my pockets were still under siege. My legal fees “coincidentally” came out to precisely the same figure as the compensatory damage award, leaving my pockets, once and for all—truly empty. And while I wasn’t actually out of pocket, my wife thought of it as justice served.

Chappaqua alumnus and 35-year resident of Chappaqua, humorist Rick Reynolds resides in southern New Hampshire with his wife, daughter,
and two dogs.