Hump Day Humor

I had an unexpected death in my extended family. My brother’s mother-in-law. Only, since he married the girl next door … literally … this woman is also a dear friend from my youth. It’s a sad time for our family and for that matter, the whole community where we grew up.

So as I’m traveling to celebrate this wonderful woman’s life, I didn’t have time to write a new blog post so here’s one of my favorite lists from the first summer I had the blog. This is a list of my favorite entries from that year’s Washington Post Mensa Invitational. Entrants were asked to take any word from the dictionary and alter it by adding, subtracting or changing one letter, and then supply a new definition.

Here’s a list of my favorites from those winners. (Read carefully only one letter is changed):

1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

2. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer,unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

3. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

4. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.

5. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

6. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

7. Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s, like, a serious bummer.

8. Decafalon (n.): The gruelling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

 9. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

10. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.

11. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

12. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating.

And the #1 pick:

13. Ignoranus: A person who’s both stupid and an asshole.