Cris Cohen is CaryCitizen’s Resident Humorist. Photo by Jamil Soni Neto.
Cary, NC – My mom recently got a new knee. I think the old one clashed with her drapes. It also wasn’t working very well anymore. It had become very unstable and gave her the kind of intense pain you would only expect after being shot with a nail gun. Read more
Cris Cohen is CaryCitizen’s Resident Humorist. Photo by Paul Galipeau.
When I was a kid, New Year’s Eve meant sleeping over at a friend’s house, staying up very late, and physically assaulting cookware. At midnight, whoever was babysitting would send us out onto the driveway and have us hit pots with wooden spoons. Several new years were rung in to the sounds of some sort of saucepan violence. As a result, it is possible that various cooking sets dreamed of one day having a celebration of their own where they beat small children. Read more
Cris Cohen is CaryCitizen’s resident Humorist.
Cary, NC – My new cell phone came with a warning saying that “Failure to follow these safety instructions could result in fire, electric shock, or other injury or damage to the phone or other property”.
It is the kind of warning that you would not expect to see with a phone as much as with a surface-to-air missile. “Thank you for purchasing The Kaboom. Following these basic safety guidelines will ensure that you have hours of military fun.” It just sounds like kind of an ominous, lethal description for something I use to call my mother.
On the plus side, though, the electric shock possibility means that I will not have to buy a Taser. If someone tries to rob me, I can just tell him, “I have a cell phone and I am not afraid to disregard the safety instructions.”
And how many campers might be saved by the fact that it can cause a fire? “Remember: If you get lost in the woods, you can start a fire by either rubbing two sticks together or by just using your cell phone improperly.”
The potential for the phone to damage “other property” is a little disconcerting though. It suggests that, just by calling for a pizza from your house, you could accidentally blow up some land you bought in Montana. “I told you not to press the # key.”
The booklet also says to keep the phone away from water and “wet locations”. Ostensibly this means that you should not make calls from a car wash or Seattle. If the phone does get wet, the booklet warns against drying it with an external heat source, such as “a microwave oven”.
“Honey, have you seen my phone?”
“Check inside the casserole.”
It is not clear whether the company knows of someone who tried this. “We also want to remind you not to put your phone in a microwave oven (Alex Stewart: 1952 – 2009).” Although maybe that is how they found out that the phone can destroy other property. “It turns out that the back of our microwave faces what used to be the neighbor’s garage.”
Editor’s Note: Autumn is the season for spiders, and we asked CaryCitizen Humorist Cris Cohen to spin us a tale of the humble arachnid. Photo by Greg Jordan.
Cary, NC – Spiders are part of the specialized category “Scary creatures that you can kill with a shoe”. Read more
Cris Cohen is CaryCitizen’s resident Humorist. This is an excerpt from his new book, Staying Crazy To Keep From Going Insane.
The other day I got an offer from a credit card company. Credit card companies regularly offer people cards to use in the hopes that, when it comes to financial issues, you’ll have the brains of a salad bar. After all, if you are good with your money and make all of your credit card payments on time, they only make a small profit. However, if you are bad with your money and miss some payments, they can legally sell your family. Read more
Story by Cris Cohen. Photo by Hobvias Sudoneighm.
When applying for a job, it is best to be upfront about any limitations you may have. “Although I am willing to relocate, I am required to alert the authorities whenever I move.” However, if honesty will not help your chances, there are various other creative tactics that you can employ, most of which do not involve firearms or the sale of candid photos. Read more
Cris Cohen is the resident humorist for CaryCitizen. Photo by Markku Åkerfelt.
Cary, NC – When eating out, a friend of mine will order a burger and ask that it be cooked rare. Based on the reaction he gets, this is the equivalent of saying he wants to kill kittens with his bare hands. “Would you like fries with your massacre?” Restaurants now consider the ordering of a rare burger to be not just rude, but a possible war crime. Read more
Cary, NC – We welcome humorist and Cary resident Cris Cohen as a contributor to CaryCitizen. For several years, Cris wrote a weekly column that ran in various California newspapers, but we won’t hold that against him. You can now find him here and on his blog “Nothing in Particular”. Photo by Stig Anderson. Read more