101 Damnations The Humorists' Tour of Personal Hells

by Rosen, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780312284800
• ISBN10: 0312284802
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-08-03
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books

Summary

In 101 Damnations, todays leading humor writers gather their brilliant and witty thoughts about those maddening things that simply drive us batty. Hate SUVs? What about people who end every sentence with and all that good stuff? And whats with that Amish friendship bread? Combining justthe right mix of brevity and levity, the book includes anecdotes, rants, lists, rulings, or word-to-the-wise-ass remarks on the various pet peeves, annoyances, disheartening facts, real-life dramas, etc., that are both personal and universal.Contributors include:Henry AlfordPatricia Marx Kurt AndersenMerrill Markoe Roy Blount Jr.Amy Krouse Rosenthal Andy BorowitzBob Smith Christopher BuckleyCalvin Trillin Randy Cohen and many more. Sandra Tsing Loh

Author Biography

Michael J. Rosen is the author, illustrator, or editor of something like fifty books for both adults and children, including the biennial humor series, Mirth of a Nation.

Table of Contents

Damnation 101, an Introduction	p. xiii
The Road to Hell Is Paved with Good Inventions (New Items in the Devil's Workshop)	p. 1
A Damnation, Directed Toward Telemarketers	p. 3
Food for Naught	p. 6
In Response to Your Mass E-mail Solicitation	p. 7
Adding Memory	p. 11
The Thumb-and-Pinky Pretend-Telephone Gesture	p. 13
Operating Instructions	p. 15
She Knew You Had Your Own Finger, or, I Remember Ma Bell	p. 20
Those Damn Blow-ins	p. 24
Cell-Phone Etiquette	p. 26
SOBs in Their SUVs	p. 30
In the Tuscan Oven	p. 33
Blood, Sweat, and Tears	p. 37
On Porn E-mails, Reality TV, Tailgaters	p. 39
Speaking of the Devil (Speech That Deserves a Tongue-lashing)	p. 43
Abuse of Grammar, Exhibit 23A-C	p. 45
Angloism	p. 47
Nite	p. 49
A Taste of Hooey	p. 51
Niceness	p. 54
Feigned Praise	p. 56
A Movie Trailer We'd Like to See	p. 58
Mission Impossible	p. 62
And All That Good Stuff	p. 65
The Undead Language	p. 67
Say No to Funny E-mails	p. 71
Infernal Affairs (On Hell's Belles and Other Damnable Sorts)	p. 75
TV and Movie Aliens Who Are Attracted to Human Females	p. 77
Crime and Punishment: Damnation!	p. 80
The Damnation of People Knowing Me	p. 83
The Female Handshake: Firm, Flaccid, or Fit for a Queen	p. 87
Revenge of the Amish Friendship Bread	p. 90
Not in My Face, If You Please	p. 94
On Being the Sole Representative of One's Gender in a Hostile Room: A Random Example of a Perennial Dilemma	p. 96
Public Mastication	p. 100
In Which It Is Shown That Crime Is Bad, and That Stupid People Should Perhaps Not Be Allowed to Get As Drunk As Smart People	p. 102
The Saunterers	p. 106
Do NOT, Especially If You Value Your Ass, Tell Me to Smile	p. 110
It's Not the Heat, It's the Humi--No, Come to Think of it, it is the Heat (Seasonal Misery, Year-round)	p. 113
A Short History of My Dread	p. 115
Golf Spelled Backwards Is Flod	p. 117
Strike Three: You're Bored!	p. 121
February Is Twenty-eight (or Twenty-nine) Days Too Long	p. 125
The Dog Days of Spring	p. 128
That Which Does Not Kill Me Grows Back in a Week and Tries Again	p. 129
Those Flags	p. 132
Leaf Blowers	p. 134
See You in September	p. 136
New York City State of Mind: A Weekend near the Expressway	p. 139
There's Gonna Be an Earthquake Tonight: The Eagles as Harbingers of Doom	p. 141
Real Beach	p. 145
Our Bodies, Our Hells	p. 149
On Allergies	p. 151
My Left Hair	p. 154
Olives	p. 157
On What'shername--You Know, the Actress	p. 160
To Be Continued ...	p. 163
Antibody	p. 165
Fine Print	p. 170
Salty Talk	p. 174
Standing Bull	p. 177
Night of the Living Near-Dead	p. 181
Hell Hath no Fury Like a Bored Child (Playing with Matches and Other Youthful Pursuits)	p. 185
Treble Yell	p. 187
Rules for Reentry ... into the Foreign Galaxy of Our Home	p. 190
David Blaine and His Big Goddamn Ice Cube	p. 195
The Young and the Debtless	p. 199
On Returning Home and Being Greeted by Your Mother	p. 202
Circus	p. 206
All I Needed to Know About, Well, Gym, I Learned in Gym	p. 209
The Great Sea-Monkey Conspiracy	p. 212
Web Sites of the Damned	p. 215
Out of the Frying Pan (Hellish Situations)	p. 217
Fresh Pepper?	p. 219
Tables Turning	p. 223
Signalling for the Check	p. 226
Why I'm Not a Spy	p. 227
Pennies from Hell	p. 230
Karaoke Katharsis	p. 233
The Bitter Aftertaste of Office Goodies	p. 235
When I Die, I'm Going to Heaven Because I've Spent My Time in the Apartment Next-door to Hell	p. 238
I Hate Change	p. 242
Temporary Hells	p. 244
Better Off Renting	p. 249
The Lost World of the Waiting Room	p. 253
Devil in a Blue Dress (Also Available in Toast, Smoke, Ash, and Sulphur) (The Wretched Excesses)	p. 257
"Special Editions" of Monopoly	p. 259
A Purgatory of Postcards	p. 263
Bonnie! The Magazine	p. 267
What Were They Thinking?	p. 271
Name and Address, Please	p. 274
Much Too Much of Such and Such	p. 277
I Smell Coconuts	p. 277
Red, White, and Sky	p. 278
Purina and Puppies and Pussies, Oh My!	p. 279
Cigarette Whore	p. 280
Miles and Miles of Vertical Smiles	p. 281
Executive Decision	p. 283
The Devil Made Me Do It (for God and Country)	p. 287
Eternal Revenue	p. 289
Jack-o'-lanterns and Other Empty-headed Phenomena	p. 292
Halloween Versus Election Day	p. 296
The Bullet Bible	p. 299
The Law, the Ass	p. 302
Don't Blame Me	p. 304
Plastic	p. 308
Marketing Rebellion	p. 310
A Lesson in Bureaucracy	p. 312
A Coney Island of the Sole	p. 315
That Darned Satan	p. 318
Bad Jew	p. 322
Appendix	p. 329
Thirty Things I Hate About Hell	p. 331
A special offer for our readers from Matt Neuman
Acknowledgments	p. 339
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Circle 1

THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INVENTIONS

New Items in the Devil’s Workshop

1

A Damnation, Directed Toward Telemarketers

Tim Carvell

 

 

 

 

Let us imagine a domestic scene. A husband—whom we shall refer to, for purposes of speed and dramatic clarity, as Husband—is addressing his wife, Wife. “I’ve been thinking,” he says, “and I feel like we really ought to switch our long-distance service. I’m certain that there must be a cheaper alternative out there.”

“Yes,” Wife replies. “Ifonlywe knew where to find one! If only there were some way for us to learn about the range of long-distance providers, and their charges for various services!”

There is an awkward pause. Then the telephone rings. Husband scrambles for the receiver, but Wife beats him to it.

“Yes?” she says. “Why, what an odd coincidence, weareinterested in—you don’t say! You don’t say!You don’t say!Gracious, we’d be delighted to switch to your fine, fine long-distance service.”

We shall have to content ourselves with imagining such a scene—a moment when a telemarketer calls at exactly the right time, offering precisely what one needs—since, reaching back to the dawn of humankind, such a moment has never ever taken place. No,the history of telemarketing has been an ignominious one,consisting, I am positive, entirely of summoning individuals from their beds and showers and forcing them to aver their lack of interest in magazine subscriptions, timeshare condominiums, or term life insurance.

I am not certain at what moment in the telephone’s history it went from being a tool of communication to being an implement of annoyance, but the two seem so inextricably linked that I would not be surprised to learn that they were born, like a pair of Siamese twins, in the same damp instant. I harbor a dreadful suspicion that the telephone companies—all too aware of the bad reputation that the speed-dialing sell-weasels of the telemarketing conglomerates have given them—have heavily edited Alexander Graham Bell’s first telephone call, which originally went, “Watson, come here, I need you to consider what would happen to your loved ones if any mishap were ever to befall you. For just ten dollars a month, Watson, you can purchase peace of mind.”

I have employed various means of coping with telemarketers, which tend to track nicely with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s stages of grief: anger (“How dare you call me at home?”), denial (“Please take me off your list at once”), bargaining (“If I buy something from you, will you leave me alone?”), and depression (“You’re the only person who’s called me all week.”). I have now arrived at the logical end point: acceptance.

By “acceptance,” I do not wish to imply that I am no longer irritated by telemarketers and their nefarious schemes. Nor do I mean to imply that I don’t spend my idle time fantasizing about getting my hands on the home telephone numbers of various telemarketing companies’ CEOs and calling them at all hours to regale them with tales of my personal life. By “acceptance,” I simply mean to suggest that I have ceased to fight the incursions of telemarketers upon my life; I now choose to view them as one of the many irritating yet irreducible facts of being alive—like sore throats and sunburns, measles and Miss Marisa Tomei—which have no redeeming grace save for one: they soften and sweeten the knowledge, ever present if rarely acknowledged, that one’s days lead softly, inexorably to the endless silence of death.

 

 

TIM CARVELLis a writer and editor based in New York City.

101 DAMNATIONS. Introduction and compilation are copyright © 2002 by Michael J. Rosen. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.