You Cant Make this stuff up

Tag: Humor

  • Is My Honda Cheating on Me?

    Is My Honda Cheating on Me?

    For more than 60 years, I’ve been driving all kinds of vehicles. Old, new, damaged, dirty. Some barely worth the gas in the tank.

    But one thing was almost always in excellent condition.

    The owner’s manual.

    Untouched. Unread. Practically suitable for resale.

    In all those years, I’ve opened one to check tire pressure, locate the spare tire, and find a place to stuff my registration and insurance card.

    Otherwise, it’s been a time capsule in the glove compartment.

    I don’t know how much time I have left on this earth, but I figured I ought to read an owner’s manual before I’m whisked off to my final destination.

    Preferably somewhere with valet parking.

    For years, I thought I understood the basic operating system:

    If something lights up red, pull over.

    If something lights up yellow, hope it goes away before the next oil change.

    Apparently, Honda had a more detailed plan.

    My Honda Clarity has features I’ve never used, settings I didn’t know existed, and buttons whose purpose I’ve never questioned.

    We’ve spent more than 100,000 miles together, and apparently we barely know each other.

    What’s it keeping from me?

    Is it cheating on me?

    I could care less if it’s winking and tooting at some cute Toyota.

    I know who’s coming home to my garage.

    Still, I decided to investigate.

    I felt like Geraldo Rivera in 1986, opening Al Capone’s vault. He found practically nothing.

    At least my glove compartment had an insurance card.

    I opened the manual.

    There are thousands of parts in this car. I’m familiar with about eight:

    Accelerator.

    Brake.

    Shifter.

    Power windows.

    Wipers.

    Air conditioning.

    Seat belts.

    And the steering wheel. Almost forgot that one.

    I’d include the emergency flashers if I could find the damn button.

    The investigation immediately became complicated.

    Apparently, Honda wrote the manual for people who already knew what everything meant.

    SRS: Supplemental Restraint System.

    Airbags.

    Why didn’t you just say airbags?

    “Supplemental restraint” sounds like something the nuns used after the regular restraint stopped working.

    TIN: Tire Identification Number.

    My tires have identification numbers?

    They already have more writing on them than my college diploma. Now I’m supposed to learn their identities?

    I’ve been calling them front left, front right, and the other two.

    TPMS: Tire Pressure Monitoring System.

    Finally. An old friend.

    That warning light has been on for so long I consider it part of the dashboard décor.

    I swear graduate engineers from MIT couldn’t figure it out.

    My method has been to get out and look.

    Apparently, Honda expects an actual pressure gauge.

    Another accessory to read about.

    Energy Flow Monitor.

    There’s a diagram showing where the power is coming from and where it’s going.

    Engine. Battery. Wheels. Little arrows.

    I thought pushing the accelerator settled that discussion.

    Now I’m supervising a utility company.

    Deceleration Paddle Selector.

    This lets you change how strongly the car slows down when you take your foot off the accelerator.

    The paddle I remember from third grade at St. Matthew’s accomplished much the same thing.

    Stopped me immediately.

    Then I discovered what appeared to be the Anti-DUI Package.

    Vehicle Stability Assist.

    Road Departure Mitigation.

    Collision Mitigation Braking System.

    Lane Keeping Assist System.

    Adaptive Cruise Control with Low-Speed Follow.

    The car can help keep me stable, help keep me in my lane, warn me about leaving the road, and help me avoid running into somebody.

    Of course, none of that makes it a designated driver.

    But it does raise a question.

    If my Honda knows how to do all this, why have I been doing all the work?

    Then there’s an acoustic alerting system so people can hear the car coming when it’s running quietly on electricity.

    Even my Honda has learned that sometimes you have to make a little noise to get noticed.

    We have that in common.

    By this point, I was running out of time.

    Not battery time.

    Earth time.

    I closed the manual. Whatever else my Honda was up to, it could keep to itself.

    I only wanted to settle one thing.

    Where was the spare tire?

    I looked it up.

    There isn’t one.

    Honda gave me a tire repair kit.

    More than 60 years of ignoring owner’s manuals, and the first time I finally read one, I discover the car has been withholding a tire.

    Forget the Toyota.

    We have trust issues.

    Read more stories at:  crazyfamily.blog 

  • Amtrak – 24 Hours for a 10 Hour Trip

    Amtrak – 24 Hours for a 10 Hour Trip

    I love Amtrak.

    I’m not exactly sure why.

    It seldom leaves on time and apparently considers its arrival time more of a suggestion than a commitment.

    I once had the option of traveling from Virginia to Williston, North Dakota. I could fly there in about three hours with one stop.

    Or I could take Amtrak.

    Forty-two hours.

    Seventy-eight stops.

    Virginia to Washington. Washington to Chicago. Chicago to Williston.

    Naturally, I took the train.

    Maybe Amtrak works for me because I’ve always needed to be moving. Even as a baby, I’d get on all fours in my crib and bang my head against the headboard.

    On Amtrak, I don’t even have to do that.

    I just sit there and the train provides the motion for the next 42 hours.

    Twice as Much Amtrak for the Same Price

    One February, I was traveling from Chicago to Williston. The trip was supposed to take about 12 hours.

    Somewhere along the way, the train hit a large rock on the tracks. The train bounced, smashed the front light, and suddenly our 12-hour trip was going to take closer to 24.

    The passengers in the lounge car were pissed.

    I tried to cheer everybody up.

    “Guys, look at it this way. You’re getting twice as much Amtrak for the same price.”

    Didn’t go over particularly well.

    Looking to Rekindle Your Romance?

    If you’re thinking about taking a romantic Amtrak trip to reignite your relationship, I have some advice.

    Don’t book a roomette.

    During the day, it’s actually quite nice. You sit facing each other, watching America roll by.

    It’s perfect for improving communication.

    Then night comes.

    The seats become beds.

    The lower bunk has roughly the headroom of two MRIs.

    The upper bunk has the headroom of one MRI.

    Whoever loses the coin toss gets the upper bunk.

    Now imagine waking up at 2:00 in the morning needing to use the toilet. You climb down something resembling monkey bars while the train rocks from side to side at 70 miles an hour.

    You may want to purchase travel medical insurance.

    Dinner With an Invisible Woman

    One of my favorite things about Amtrak is the community seating in the dining car. You meet fascinating people, and many of the employees have been riding the rails for 20 or 30 years.

    Whenever I meet someone who’s had an interesting job that long, I ask the same question:

    “What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen?”

    One longtime Amtrak employee didn’t hesitate.

    There was a passenger who always reserved two seats.

    But only one person ever showed up.

    He was traveling with his invisible wife.

    At every meal, he ordered for both of them.

    Two breakfasts.

    Two lunches.

    Two dinners.

    When his wife’s meal inevitably went uneaten, he’d say something like:

    “Honey, looks like you’re not going to finish that.”

    Then he’d ask for a to-go box and take her meal back to their room.

    Three meals a day.

    For a seven-day cross-country trip.

    I had only one question.

    Did she pay full fare?

    The Bleeding Samsonite

    I also have another piece of Amtrak advice:

    If at all possible, don’t check your luggage.

    Carol and I took the train from Florida to Savannah.

    We had made what we considered an excellent financial decision.

    Why pay Amtrak prices for glasses of Merlot and Chardonnay when we could bring our own?

    So we carefully wrapped bottles in paper towels and packed them inside our suitcases, surrounded by sweaters, slacks and underwear.

    What could possibly go wrong?

    At our departure station, I went to the restroom.

    While I was gone, Carol checked the bags.

    When we arrived in Savannah, a conductor built roughly like a sumo wrestler loaded the luggage onto a cart, rolled it onto the platform and began unloading it onto the concrete.

    Then our Samsonites hit.

    Click. Click.

    Oh, shit.

    We grabbed the bags and started rolling them toward the terminal.

    That’s when I noticed the blood.

    Red wine was leaking from a 26-inch Samsonite, leaving a trail and eventually a nice puddle in the middle of the station.

    I quickly rolled the patient into the men’s room and attempted to stop the bleeding.

    The Samsonite was in critical condition.

    Fortunately, security didn’t happen to walk through at that moment.

    Otherwise, explaining why my luggage was bleeding all over the Amtrak station might have resulted in a completely different kind of trip.

    All Aboard

    And yet, after all of that, I still love Amtrak.

    Because if you really want to see America, there’s nothing quite like it.

    By plane, you see America from gate to gate.

    By car, you see America from rest area to rest area.

    By train, you sit back and watch cities, farms, mountains, rivers and small towns roll past your window while somebody else worries about the driving.

    And occasionally you meet a man traveling across the country with his invisible wife.

    Just don’t worry too much about the schedule.

    If your 10-hour trip takes 24 hours, remember:

    You’re getting more Amtrak for the same price.

    All Aboard! 

    More stories?  Crazyfamily.blog 

  • Who the Hell Plays a Banjo?

    Who the Hell Plays a Banjo?

    Me…for 70 years.

    Apparently, it started when I was an infant. I’d get on all fours in my crib, rock back and forth, and bang my head against the front panel.

    The doctor told Mom this could be a sign of future musical ability and suggested trying an instrument when I got older.

    At six, Mom asked, “How would you like to take banjo lessons?”

    “Yeah, I guess. I don’t have much else going on. But can I finish Mighty Mouse first?”

    Mom and Dad loved Dixieland music from the ’20s and ’30s. She didn’t like guitars, so my musical future had already been decided.

    We finally found a banjo in a pawn shop. Even in the mid-’50s, people were hocking them. Today, you can hardly walk into a pawn shop without seeing two or three hanging in the back.

    Apparently, plenty of mothers had the same idea.

    By ten, Mom had signed me up for weekly half-hour lessons at $2.50 a session. I took the city bus—ten cents—from St. Matthew’s Grade School to Copp Music Center in South Bend.

    After three months, it was getting boring. Other kids were listening to the latest ’50s hits. I was trying to perfect “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”

    My friends had rock ’n’ roll. I had their grandparents’ wedding music.

    I wanted to quit.

    Mom responded with my first entrepreneurial opportunity: she paid me a penny a minute to practice.

    An hour earned me sixty cents. In those days, that bought a lot of Tootsie Rolls.

    My musical passion suddenly returned.

    I kept playing through grade school talent shows and high school bus trips. Once I learned the school fight song, “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” and “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” I had enough material to entertain a captive audience.

    And on a bus, they really were captive.

    Over the years, I learned a bunch of old Dixieland favorites, played parties, wrote and performed commercials, and composed company songs. One company even hired me to travel around the country entertaining and writing songs for their customers. 

    Mom’s penny-a-minute investment was paying off.

    One of my claims to fame was writing and singing a political fight song for a congressional candidate. He was so impressed that he had me travel throughout the district performing it at rallies.

    Then came Election Day.

    He lost by the biggest margin in Indiana history.

    I don’t put that one on my résumé.

    At Notre Dame, I was cited for playing the Notre Dame Victory March across campus after a few too many adult beverages.

    School spirit apparently had a volume limit.

    In Germany, I got kicked out of the Hofbräuhaus for playing my banjo while the oompah band was on break.

    The waitresses—the muscular ones who could carry eight mugs of beer at once—picked me up and carried me outside.

    I continued my performance beneath an apartment window.

    A woman on the second floor poured a bucket of water on me for waking up her kids.

    My first outdoor concert came with a complimentary shower.

    I’ve also played at dozens of assisted living facilities and nursing homes. My strongest market has always been the over-sixty crowd.

    Unfortunately, my audience keeps dwindling.

    And at seventy-five, I’m now part of my own target market.

    But my most memorable performance had nothing to do with politics, beer, or buckets of water.

    I was playing at a nursing home when I noticed the nurses were crying.

    What had I done?

    They told me one resident hadn’t communicated in any form for six months.

    When I played “Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” she started singing.

    The song I’d been so bored trying to learn as a kid had reached someone nobody else could reach.

    That one stayed with me.

    Of course, I don’t always keep things quiet. Sometimes I go into my version of Rod Stewart—jumping around, singing, and leading the crowd through the Hokey Pokey.

    After one particularly energetic performance, my sister’s high school friend asked her:

    “Has your brother always been like this?”

    I took that as a compliment.

    After seventy years, I’ve heard every banjo joke there is.

    “If you put a banjo and an accordion in a canvas bag and throw it off the Empire State Building, which one breaks first?”

    “Who cares?”

    Well, my banjo is still intact. It’s taken me across the country, gotten me thrown out of a German beer hall, helped a politician lose spectacularly, and brought a song back to a woman who hadn’t spoken in six months.

    It’s been a real fun run.

    And I still have a few Tootsie Rolls left.

    More stories at : crazyfamily.blog

  • Online Dating – She Bit My Arm

    Online Dating – She Bit My Arm

    Carol and I folded our respective ex-spouses back into the community years ago. Then, at 68 and 75, we decided to find each other.

    But what do you do at our age?

    How many potential candidates are sitting at a bar waiting to connect with official Medicare-card-carrying strays?

    The library?

    There are probably a few possibilities left, but I haven’t read a book in ten years. What would I talk about?

    Church?

    Sure, there might be candidates, but they didn’t exactly fit my desired profile.

    So, like millions of other singles, I went online.

    Where Do You Start?

    Plenty of Fish. Match. OurTime. SilverSingles. Senior Singles. FarmersOnly. Christian Mingle.

    And about 400 others.

    I decided to start with one of the cheaper ones.

    It proved to be cheap.

    They all start about the same: Male. Height: Tall. Build: Slim, athletic, average or a few extra pounds. Picture. Likes. Dislikes. Hobbies. What are you looking for?

    I filled it all out.

    For the record, my build is average — without my beer belly.

    Let the Dating Begin

    Plenty of Fish: $29.95 on the Visa.

    Online dating quickly becomes a full-time job.

    You reach out to dozens of people. The ones you like don’t respond. The ones you don’t like flood your inbox.

    My age put me into the “few extra years” category.

    Slim pickings based on my desired profile, but my inner child kept reminding me:

    You’re in your mid-seventies!

    I was looking for a woman of average build who loved romantic cruises on a lake at sunset, cozy nights by the fire, traveling and trying new restaurants.

    I got my first hit.

    She loved nighttime cruises, too.

    Through marshland looking for good places to catch walleye.

    Then she’d get up at 5 a.m., bait the hooks and spend four hours enjoying the hot sun and feeding mosquitoes.

    Cozy evenings?

    Absolutely.

    Watching Jeopardy! reruns.

    Travel?

    Four times a year to Poughkeepsie to visit the grandchildren.

    “Billy is a junior and third-string running back. Maybe you could join us for our October trip. We’re hoping to see him get across the line of scrimmage at least once before Grampy dies — or Billy graduates.”

    This wasn’t going to be the one.

    Then She Bit Him

    Next, I connected with a woman who seemed to have everything I wanted and more.

    We arranged our first date at a bar.

    Everything was going great. Talking. Laughing. Shots. Karaoke. Cuddling in a booth.

    This could be the one.

    Then suddenly:

    “Oh, shit. My ex-boyfriend is here. We shouldn’t have come here. This is the biker bar he hangs out at.”

    Wonderful.

    Am I about to become a bumper sticker on the mirror behind the bar?

    He walked over.

    “Are you dating her?”

    “Nope. First time.”

    He nodded.

    “You better be careful.”

    Then he pulled up his sleeve and pointed to several marks on his arm.

    “These are all the places she bit me.”

    Nope. Not the one.

    Maybe I Needed a Better Dating Site

    I moved up to the next level and decided to test the lower age ranges.

    50+.

    A long shot.

    Hopefully she wouldn’t do the math.

    When this 50-year-old reached retirement age at 67, I’d be 92, sitting at Happy Acres Rest Home eating creamed corn, Jell-O, applesauce and prunes.

    Then I got a hit.

    Beautiful Asian woman from Singapore. Late 40s. Slim. Great smile. Smart. Very friendly.

    She told me in her culture the man was the head of the household and her role was to pamper and fill every need of  her soulmate until death do us part.

    “You are what I dreamed of. We have so much in common.”

    We communicated day and night for weeks.

    Soon, we were in love.

    Finally!

    I had found my life partner.

    She couldn’t stand being away from me any longer and decided to buy a one-way ticket to Orlando.

    Cost: $965.

    Then came a little problem.

    “My brother owes me money, but he can’t pay me until he sells his motorcycle.”

    Could I cover the airfare?

    Of course, she did love me and would certainly pay me back.

    “How do I send it?”

    Easy.

    Buy gift cards and text her the numbers.

    Nope.  She certainly wasn’t the one.

    My beautiful future bride from Singapore disappeared about as quickly as she had appeared.

    Watch out for this scam.

    Surely my luck had to improve.

    One More Try

    Next came a beautiful woman, 65, athletic, 5’8”, no baggage, no kids, no cats, no dogs, no grandkids and no debt.

    She raved about her experience in fine dining, French wine, white tablecloths, candles and Baked Alaska for dessert.

    She lived 50 miles away.

    Perfect.

    We planned dinner, drinks, a piano bar and maybe dancing.

    Then she walked in.

    If that was really her profile picture, it had been taken about 35 years earlier.

    Apparently, I’d fallen in love with a historical photograph now dressed in an aqua colored house coat. 

    She spent most of dinner guzzling imported wine and working her way through four baskets of warm rolls and several helpings of tenderloin.

    At one point, I excused myself, walked into the men’s room and slammed my head against the hand dryer.

    When is this going to be over?

    The $6.50 Rule

    After all my online dating experience, I can offer one valuable piece of advice:

    ALWAYS MEET AT STARBUCKS THE FIRST TIME.

    Invest 30 minutes and $6.50 on a large Caramel Frappuccino.

    If there’s nothing there, you’ve lost half an hour and the price of a coffee.

    If there is?

    Move on from there.

    Or maybe move in.

    Then There Was Carol

    Carol and I actually did meet online.

    We had both reached the same conclusion at about the same time:

    One more try.

    We happened to both sign up for the most expensive dating site. 

    And this time, it worked.

    No walleye.

    No bite marks.

    No Singapore gift cards.

    No 35-year-old glamour shots.

    Just Carol.

    We got married July 18, 2026.

    So maybe online dating really does work.

    It just took several bad dates, one scammer and a woman whose ex-boyfriend had teeth marks on his arm to prove it.

    What happened after online dating?

    Carol and I got married—and I danced down the aisle at 75. [Read our wedding story.]

    At 75, I Got Married. We Threw Out the Wedding  Rulebook.

    https://crazyfamily.blog/2026/08/17/date-an-undesirable-see-the-world/

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