10. Man o’ Peace
9. It’s A Grand Old Nag
8. No Way José
7. Artificial Hip
6. Save-Your-Money
5. Mucilage
4. Stumblebum
3. Tripod
2. Chris Christie
1. Wrong Way Corrigan
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
10. “Somebody just now told me that taxes are due every year.”
9. “I was working around the clock trying to revive the Herman Cain campaign.”
8. “I’m deathly afraid of 1040 paper cuts.”
7. “I miss prison.”
6. “Fill out a tax form?! I can’t even program my VCR!”
5. “After I claim all the voices in my head as deductions, it turns out they owe me money!”
4. “I was hoping I could barter for what I owe with sexual favors.”
3. “All my calculations were lost when somebody turned over my Etch A Sketch.”
2. “Being in the top one percent, I thought I was exempt.”
1. “I’m still waiting for this Nigerian prince to e-mail me some money.”
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
We were in an ice cream parlor the other day, and my son was looking at some old-time paintings on the wall. One was a decades-old picture of a sundae with a price tag: 10 cents. Despite my efforts, he couldn’t comprehend it — which may not be difficult to imagine since my grasp of macroeconomic issues is wanting . I had similar success explaining to him that gas, the stuff that makes our car go, was once a quarter.
10. His last client was Gary Busey
9. It takes him 45 minutes to figure out his tip at the Hair Cuttery
8. He claims bajillion is a real number
7. He promises to visit you in prison
6. When you get a closer look at his ‘calculator’ you realize he’s just playing Angry Birds
5. He says he spend a lot of time consulting with his own tax adviser: Johnnie Walker
4. When you point out a math error, he says, “Ahhh, five of one, half a dozen of the other.”
3. He claims your refund is actually supposed to go to him
2. He does his calculating in the nude, so he can count to 21
1. Before every number on your tax form, he puts one of those ‘more or less’ squiggles
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
March Madness concludes, an event handled something like an outbreak of typhus in workplaces across the country; treated with quarantine and let to run its course. Recent racial tensions notwithstanding, it culminated in a charmingly integrated riot. But if it weren’t the parade of paid amateurs in their skivvies, it would be some other diversion; perhaps the buttons on our shirts or better, the buttons on Kim K’s shirt. Are the flags still at half-staff? Must be for Whitney, national treasure that she was. It couldn’t be that there are caskets burdened with the bits of American soldiers pouring into New Jersey as they have never been lowered for that yet. There is a drought across the nation. It is a drought not of water, though that, too. What we thirst for, seek and find absent in every dusty bucket on every rusted hook is seriousness for the serious matters; sobriety in the face of sobering events. We desperadoes are a small and vilified minority. Instead of frank discourse we meet the mouthpieces of vested interests or free-lance mouthpieces without portfolio who, on speculation, ape the paid press agents. For any who question the state of affairs, whether it is the public debt or private vice there is one ready rejoinder with all the insight and subtlety of a vuvuzela; lol. [Read more →]
We might think that people never have to pay for anything, with all the things we hear are paying for themselves. Most times, when someone says, “It pays for itself,” the proper response is, “No, it doesn’t.”
I know someone who buys annual memberships at several aquariums and zoos because doing so only costs a little more than the one-day pass. He once told me that if you go to the Baltimore Aquarium just twice in a year, the yearly pass “pays for itself,” which is why he has bought the yearly pass. Baltimore is a four-hour drive from where he lives, but no matter. He is determined to have his pass pay for itself, so he loads the kids into the car and takes a second trip to Baltimore within the year. Not to do so is to have paid for a yearly membership when only a one-day pass was needed. Driving to Baltimore costs money for gas and tolls, but if you add it all up, as I’m sure he has, it still costs less than paying for two separate day passes to the aquarium. This math convinces him that the yearly pass pays for itself. If he goes to the aquarium a third time in the year, it will pay for itself even more. If he goes ten times, the yearly pass pays for itself so much it’s practically free. [Read more →]
