Popcorn from The Colonel's Substitute #36

While The Colonel is traveling, advice columnist D. Rabbi has graciously consented to fill in.


"Ask D. Rabbi"

D. Rabbi,
Why do people with strange feet come into my room at night and ionize
all the air particles while I'm sleeping?
--Just Curious

Dear J.C.,
The air particles in your room ionize themselves. The people with strange feet are there probably because it's a scurvy place to have a fine chin wag. It may look as if they're ionizing air particles, but that's just their way of silent communication lest they wake you. The real question here is why someone is taking advantage of your trusting nature to feed you a load of hummus about air particle ionization. Get back to me when you find out. I care. 
--D. Rabbi.

D. Rabbi,
Please settle a bet I have with my friend. How do you pronounce the
"i" at the end of your last name? My friend says it's a long i, as in
"bimetallic," but I think it's a short i, like the first i in "ambition." Which of us
is right? 
--Heavy bettor with a mob connection

Dear H.B.,
Neither. It's pronounced like the i in "ambidextrous" and "ambient," which is to say, like a long "e." The name was originally "Rabbey," but I changed it to get for free respect that clergy get with a lot of effort and work. Let me ask you: How do you pronounce "neither"? By the way, my sources say you may have a loose connection.
--D. Rabbi

D. Rabbi,Know any good jokes?
--Wan

Dear Juan,Yes. And just to show that I'm not one of those literal-minded twerps, I will go on and answer the implied question, "And if the answer to my question is in the affirmative, will you share the joke with me?" The answer to that one is yes, if you ask nicely. 
--D. Rabbi

D. Rabbi,Your answer disappointed me, but it did make me think, which is what you were probably aiming at, so here is what I hope is a way of phrasing my request so it can't be treated as a factual question: "Please tell me the joke." Also, I have decided you are not a nice person, and my nom de question is "Wan," not "Juan."
--Wan

Dear Juan,
Okay, I've had my fun. I'll share the joke as soon as I let you know that my self esteem is secure beyond caring what you think of me, and I am spelling your name phonetically for the benefit of those of my readers who benefit from that sort of thing. No disrespect intended.

A sailor meets a pirate in a bar and notices that the pirate has a peg-leg, a hook and an eye patch.

The sailor buys the pirate a drink and asks "How did you get the peg-leg?"

The pirate says: "We were in a storm at sea, and I were swept overboard, headed for Davy Jones's Locker. Just as me men were pullin' me out, a shark bit me leg off."

"Wow!" says the sailor. "What about the hook?"

“We were boarding an enemy ship and were battling the other sailors with swords. One of the enemy cut me hand off.”

"And the eye patch?" the sailor asks.

“Arrr. That were from a seagull dropping fell into me bloody eye,” says the pirate.

"Wait a minute. You lost your eye to a seagull dropping?" says the sailor.

"Well," says the pirate. "It was me first day with the hook..."

--D. Rabbi

​D. Rabbi,
Oh, you're doing jokes now? Okay, here's one:
Q: How do you make a tissue dance?
A: But a little boogie into it!
--Laughster

Dear Laughster,
Your joke falls below publishable standards, but I have run it anyway as an example of what's not wanted in this space. Also not wanted are questions (or answers) concerning the correct way to orient the toilet
paper on the roll. 
--D.Rabbi

D. Rabbi,
If you are just a one-time fill-in while The Colonel is off trying to get elected Pope, how can you be dealing with follow-up questions? I smell something here and it's spelled S-C-A-M. In addition, who the heck are you? With Esther and Pauline Friedman, two Jewish girls from Sioux City, Iowa. twins born on the fourth of July, you knew where they were coming from. Without knowing something about you, no one can trust your answers. Remember, "pseudonymity is just anonymity that dare not speak its name." 
--Ed ("What's my name?") McCohen

Dear Ed,
It's amazing how a person can begin with one small mistake and by the application of remorseless logic, end up with an edifice of insanity. If you think you can trap me with your literally (and I don't mean figuratively) sophomoric logic, you have no appreciation of my ability to work creatively with the space-time continuum. Wariness if not simple charity should have prompted you to think of that before sending your ill-considered and ill-tempered letter. Furthermore, the correct saying is, "pseudonymity is just anonymity that dare not speak its 'p'."
--D. Rabbi

D. Rabbi,
Sometimes I lie in my twin bed at night and ask myself, "Where's my sister?" Do you think it is possible that my parents are keeping a dark secret from me?
--Wonder-ful

Dear Wonder-ful,
I suggest that you not go to bed until you are already really sleepy. 
--D. Rabbi

D. Rabbi,
I know your column is not an ettiquette column, but I want your opinion anyway. Do you think that car manufacturers, by making fobs that can't lock the car without making a tranquility-destroying horn honk,
have committed a huge rudeness against the public at large? 
--Don't You Dare Say I Should Get a Life

Dear Don't You Dare,
Who says I don't answer etiquette questions? And you do me to wrong to think that I would belittle you for your close attention to the small components of civility. "God is in the details," as they say. On the merits of your question, I agree entirely. It would be a bit better if the lights flashed instead of the horn honking, a position criticized by advocates for the blind, who in my experience compose a large segment of the driving
public.
--D. Rabbi

D. Rabbi,
Rumor has it that The Colonel isn't at the Papal Conclave at all, but at a KonKlave at an undisKlosed location, picking a new Imperial Whizzer of the Ku Klux Klan. Another rumor puts him in Polynesia, which in his case seems less likely than Mononesia, or even Amnesia. Where lies the truth?
--Johnny Veritas

Dear J.V.,
When The Colonel asks me to sub, I sub. I don't ask questions, and neither should you. The truth may well be all three. The Colonel gets around.
--D. Rabbi