New Discovery: A Columbus Day Ken and Barbie Q

Recently, my wife and I attended a couples Columbus Day barbecue at a neighbor’s house.

She got there early as it was her last day off before her work at school in Queens started up again. Me, I worked most of the day and arrived there just in time for dinner, beers and local conversation.

Here was a  super sampling of Barbie's Famous "Q"= pulled pork, BBQ beef, hot dogs, smoked turkey, lamb kabobs and fried chicken...plus burgers made from ostrich, buffalo and Veggies (for those that would rather kill a head of Broccoli instead a baby sheep).

With all the fixin’ that would probably feed the entire team and staff of the New York Giants football team, instead of the 11 couples that attended, which is actually something like 20 “early bird special” eating  adults because my wife and one other neighbor lady eat less than a canary bird.

Besides the Mount Everest of food and side dishes for those that were dishing current events was a Eiffel Tower of desserts that was waiting to make us all move our belts to the next loosest notch.

Now as we sat around on lounge chairs, lawn chairs, bag chairs and a cool couples hammock the conversation ( after a winy person-by-person comparison of the effects of Hurricane Irene) turned to our current down turn in the economy. And the fact that when many of us voted for ‘change,”  this is NOT what we had envisioned. Never the less the conversation was both humorous and insightful if you can believe it.

One gentleman wearing an under-armor t-shirt and his cap said, “Isn’t there a Groupon that gives us half off our National Debt?”

While another neighbor said, “My gym is so hard up for business that they offered me two free sessions with a personal trainer so they could give me a washboard stomach, but said that I would have to remove my extra pile of laundry in my belly first!”

His wife then commented that the bare necessities are getting pretty bad. She explained, “Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are planning to adopt another child. This one will probably come from Hoboken.” And we all chuckled out loud.

Then the son of our host, who is a 30-something yuppie (Young Urban Procrastinator) who loves his jokes more than Garfield the cartoon cat loves lasagna said, “A buddy of mine still hasn’t been able to find a job in over a year, has recently become depressed and despondent. It got so bad that my buddy even called the suicide hotline one night recently and was transferred to a call center in Egypt. He told them that he was suicidal and they became very excited and then asked him if he could drive a truck!”  

Which made some of us chuckle even louder and others search out the Viennese table like dessert area. Diet dark chocolate cannoli anyone?

Later the same young man says to us, ”Now a days things are so bad that when you call a chain restaurant at dinner time to make reservations you get a machine that says, ”Thank you for calling TGI Fridays, there is no one that can answer the phone right now, but we will get back to you if you leave a message at the sound of the Belch!” Although, being crass, that made me smile. Come to think of it anytime you can mention a rude bodily noise in a sentence , it will make me smile.

But the funniest revelation came when our host told us that his platinum bleached blonde sweetie of a spouse with a degree in receiving collagen injections was recently ironing his work shirts when her iPhone rang and that she was so distracted that she actually burned her ear. Proving that the truth is knee slapping, howling out loud funnier than many, many jokes.