The Continuing Adventures of RedPlanet: Kiddie Comedian, Part IV

New reader Christina in Aurora, Illinois sent me the following joke:

"Me: Knock, knock;
Miscellaneous child: Who's there?
Me: Banana.
Misc. Child: Banana who?
Me: Knock, knock.
Misc. Child: Who's there?
Me: Banana.
Misc. Child: Banana who?
Me: Knock, knock.
Misc. Child: Who's there?
Me: Orange.
Misc. Child: Orange who?
Me: Orange you glad I didn't say Banana again?"

A classic to be sure. And, unlike my previous jokes, it actually resulted in gales of laughter from the boys when I told it. Unfortunately, unlike the others, it did not result in any sort of amusing or otherwise interesting comments on their part. They merely made me repeat the joke another sixteen times, laughing hard each time.

Since then, however, they have been working this joke into their own comedy routines (such as they are), each putting their own indelible stamp on it. Their variations, with some of the repetition removed as indicated in brackets, are as follows:

The Owen Variation:

Owen: Knock, knock.
Me: Who's there?
Owen: Banana.
Me: Banana who?
[Repeat again]
Owen: Knock, knock.
Me: Who's there?
Owen: Orange.
Me: Orange who?
Owen: Aren't you glad I didn't say Banana again.
Me: Dude, it's "orange" you glad!
Owen: Oh yeah, yeah. Knock knock ..."

The Cooper Variation: Cooper does the traditional set-up but will repeat the banana section over and over and over. Literally, like eight times, chuckling all the while at the hilarity to come. Then, he hits you with his signature ending:

"Cooper: Knock knock.
Me: Who's there?
Cooper: Banana.
Me: Banana who?
Cooper: Aren't you glad I didn't say orange again [bellylaughs]."

I wish I could say that Cooper is purposely switching up the traditional ending with his own non sequitur ending, but it seems clear that he believes he is telling the joke verbatim. No future in stand-up for this one, as he seems to have inherited both mine and Deanna's awkward comedic timing and poor joke memory retention.

The Hayden Variation: Hayden, who has never been shy about working blue, does the traditional set-up followed by this killer ending:

"Hayden: Knock knock.
Me: Who's there?
Hayden: Banana.
Me: Banana who?
Hayden: Banana Poopyhead! [bellylaughs]."

And so it goes.

Hens in Your Backyard and Fresh Eggs Every Morning!

My mom grew up on a farm in downstate Illinois. While my sister and I have pressed her for childhood memories on a number of occasions, it appears that she was distracted and/or had her nose in a book for the majority of her childhood, leaving us largely with just the images we can conjure up from a handful of black and white photos. One thing she has always made clear however, is that she did not like gathering eggs from the henhouse. I have always regarded that dislike as no more remarkable than someone asserting, say, I don't like sardines. Nor, despite an abiding love of the State Fair and the fact that I find watching cows to be an oddly zen-like experience, have I ever felt an urge to farm or keep livestock, being instead content with my urban/suburban existence. That has all changed, however, now that I have discovered the EGLU!

Here is the EGLU. Marvel at its modern and aesthetically pleasing design! Available in green, orange, red, blue or pink! See the happy suburbanites enjoying freshly laid eggs practically every morning! Oh, and the copy writing. "A stylish and practical addition to any backyard." "Designed to be the house the chickens themselves would choose." Check out the "grub and glug" food and water dispenser! Did you know that a single hen can lay up to 300 eggs a year! No rooster needed! What a concept!

Seriously, within half an hour of discovering the Eglu, I was checking out chicken-breed discussion boards, picking out breeds, and deciding whether chickens would be happier on the backyard grass or the wood chipped area by the swing set. I was thinking about who would feed them next time we were on vacation and contemplating strategies for keeping them alive during the winter (despite the Eglu claims that that the twin-wall insulation keeps them warm in winter, I still can't ascertain whether that means they would survive if it was negative 20 out). I was also busying myself drawing up an egg-collecting schedule for the boys since, after all, the "eggport, on the side of the lid, gives easy access to the nesting box and makes looking for and collecting the eggs a daily pleasure." Heck, maybe even my mom would want to give it another go!

I had all but settled on a pair of either Rhode Island Reds or Gingernut Rangers when I checked our Village Code and learned that CHICKENS ARE BANNED. Despair! Indignation! Outrage! My dream dashed, I may have even told Deanna that we needed to relocate the family to a more chicken-friendly and enlightened Village.

Having since worked my way through the various stages of mourning, I have regained some sense of reality and am now able to verbalize these thoughts and concede that keeping chickens may not be in my immediate future. For now. I guess. Maybe. Cluck.

Pee At Sea

Recently, when I mentioned that so-and-so enjoys reading my blog, my mother sarcastically responded "that's got to be pretty time consuming." Ouch. Yep, time to get back to posting.

Last month we took a 7-day Disney cruise and spent an additional three nights at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge. I returned relaxed, vaguely tan, and definitely poorer. A couple of weeks later and the tan and relaxed state are long gone, while the poorer part, unfortunately, appears to be sticking. There are the memories though too, and they were worth every one of the hundreds of thousands of pennies that were spent. Predictably, a great time was had by all. While I won't bore you with details of our many trips to the pool, beaches on Caribbean islands, the 90-something degree weather, trips to the spa, awesome workouts, the sumptuous feasts we were treated to each night, my brilliance on the shuffleboard court (skills honed during childhood summers in Door County, WI!), our $2,000 bingo jackpot (whoooo-hoooo!), or the warm milk and cookies delivered gratis to our cabin each night with just a call to room service, there are a few memories that I did want to share:

The RedPlanet Family Singers: Having never tried karaoke before, we attended a "family karaoke night" on the ship one night and gave it a whirl. Unfortunately, we selected "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", foolishly forgetting that not only does the song increase in speed to its final frenetic pace, but that the words are actually sung backwards at one point. Disaster ensued.

Least Disney Moment: One night my father-in-law was trying to secure chairs on the top deck of the cruiseship only to find them being hogged up by various people. Approaching a man who was hoarding a large number of unoccupied chairs, my father-in-law inquired what the man needed all of the chairs for. The man began to explain and then said "I don't know why I am telling you all of that, this is Disney, we do whatever the hell we want." To which my father-in-law replied "OK then, I want your chairs" and proceeded to start taking them before my mother-in-law intervened to stave off a fistfight. Go Bob!

Most Disney Moment: While Disney employees are almost all outstanding, I was particularly impressed when one day while at sea I stopped by the sports bar hoping to watch the Bears game via satellite. As luck would have it, the ship sailed into an area with no satellite signal for the duration of the afternoon. I expressed my disappointment to one of the bar employees. Later that night, I returned to my room to find that she had slid a printout under my door that had not only the score, but all the statistics of the game. Awesome!

Regrets: The Animal Kingdom Lodge offers stunning views of free-ranging African wildlife on a savanna, some wandering as close as 25-feet from your balcony. What you saw at any given time depended on what particular animals had wandered within viewing distance of your balcony. As cool as this was, I quickly become a bit jaded and when Deanna suggested on the third morning that we sit on the balcony and watch for a bit while the kids were still asleep, I replied "why bother, there's nothing out there right now but giraffe and zebra." As I sit in my cold basement a month later, rain spitting against the window for the 7th day in a row, I am wishing I had bothered!

My most enduring memories of the cruiseship, however, will be of the bathrooms. While I bragged back in May about having changed my last diaper, I did not realize that leaving diaper changing behind would result in my hearing innumerable shouts of "Daddy, will you wipe my butt???" The twins are hyper-conscious of their need to use the bathroom, and, like a pair of 22-year old girls out at a club, one cannot possibly go to the bathroom without the other. One dinner on the ship we took both of them three times! As we were rarely in our cabin during the cruise, we were most often patronizing public bathrooms around the ship. While almost every public bathroom in the universe features urinals of varying heights, astonishingly, considering how utterly predictable it is that there would actually be children aboard a Disney cruise, every damn urinal on the ship was designed for use by men 6 feet and over, leaving the stalls as our only option. Since space is tight on a ship, there was almost always only one stall in each public bathroom, and it would, of course, usually be occupied. Hayden's modus operandi upon entering the men's room in this situation was to get down low to get a good look under the stall door and announce to all in a loud voice that "there's a man in there!". He would then alternate between repeating that phrase every 30 seconds, in case it didn't sink in the first five times, and loud speculation as to when the man would be out so he could go. This proved quite effective actually, at causing people to practically flee the stalls to avoid further embarrassment. Then Cooper, Hayden and I would crowd ourselves into the stall for ten minutes of business, chit-chat and butt-wiping (often while a line formed outside), followed by handwashing and, the most exciting time of all, use of the hand dryer (the twins love to talk about whether hand dryers are automatic or push button).

So, as I dry my chapped and cold hands this winter here in Chicago, I can always warm myself up with the memories of that bathroom on Deck 4, aft, on the starboard side. You know, the one with the manly industrial style toilets and sinks, the roomy single stall and only low urinal on the ship, and the nice automatic hand dryer. Ah, sweet vacation memories.