Knees Together, Arms Flapping

KNEES TOGETHER, ARMS FLAPPING

  By James Hoby

  Copyright 2011 James Hoby.

  The characters and events in this book are fictional. Any similarities to real people or events are purely coincidental and unintentional.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Introduction

  Gag 1

  Gag 10

  Gag 20

  Gag 30

  Gag 40

  Gag 50

  Gag 60

  Gag 70

  Gag 80

  Gag 90

  Gag 100

  Gag 110

  Gag 120

  Who is James Hoby?

  Sample from A Year with the Hoopers

  INTRODUCTION

  When I wrote A Year with the Hoopers, my only goal was to be as funny as possible. Who needs plots, richly-developed characters, or the human condition? Not me! Before doing any other work on the book, I wrote more than 2,000 gags: one-liners, jokes, aphorisms, cartoons, and anything else I could think of. About 70 of those gags wound up in the book.

  What was I to do with the remaining 1,930 gags? For almost all of them, the answer was painfully simple: hold my nose, erase them off my hard drive, and pretend they'd never existed. I put a few of them in short stories and some others in screenplays. Yet a stubborn contingent of 129 gags lingered.

  Now, about five years later—as I was purging my files for an entirely unrelated reason—I stumbled upon the remaining gags again. I read them and liked them. And I thought, “Why don't I put them in a free ebook and share them with the world?” And I also thought, “Maybe publishing these gags will encourage a million people to buy A Year with the Hoopers! I'll be rich!”

  Benevolence and greed are a powerful combination. Thus this book was born. It's short but it's free, and you may find a laugh or two in it.

  James Hoby

  Alexandria, Virginia

  KNEES TOGETHER, ARMS FLAPPING

  ——1——

  Luckily, Vince was a linear thinker. Just before the dog told him to kill his mother, his mother told him to kill the dog.

  ——2——

  When Walter called the exterminator's office to find out why he hadn't received a bill, he was told that the exterminator had been dead for twenty years.

  ——3——

  Marcy was buried alive, if you could call it a life.

  ——4——

  PICTURE: Crime scene with forensic investigators examining a corpse. The thigh bones are curved drastically downward.

  CAPTION: Too many years as a department-store Santa.

  ——5——

  Augustus Sunday, at the age of 17, killed himself by drinking poison. Even at that young age, Sunday had published 30 short poems in London newspapers and was well-known for his readings, most of which were from the first four cantos of his uncompleted epic, Victorian Children. When Tennyson was informed of Sunday’s tragic suicide, he said, “If I wrote poems like that, I’d kill myself too.”

  ——6——

  When he heard the sounds of a fist-fight and lovemaking coming from the television room, Emmett chose to believe that young Todd was beating up Emmett’s daughter, Wendy, while they watched pornography and not that Todd and Wendy were making love as they watched a murder mystery.

  ——7——

  Well, at least we know all your sweat glands are fully functional.

  ——8——

  The buggy flew through the air, smashed through the stained glass window, and crashed into the altar. As Tennyson picked shards of glass out of his face, he reflected that it was the first time he'd been in a church in twenty years.

  ——9——

  His heart was in his mouth. It tasted like chicken.

  ——10——

  He could not touch his own toes, so he touched the toes of others.

  ——11——

  When Byron soiled his pants, his mother made him wear them inside-out, so everyone could see his shame.

  ——12——

  He didn't have jaundice after all; he was just turning into a bee.

  ——13——

  The first man to drown in a coffee mug.

  ——14——

  It was weeks before the schizophrenic found out his hearing aids were accidentally receiving local radio signals. He'd just thought that the voices in his head had become less bossy and more entertaining.

  ——15——

  A visitor to Helen's home sees a recliner in the middle of a circle of chairs. Helen tells him, “We've had so many interventions, I finally just left them that way.”

  ——16——

  He was shaken up by the shakedown.

  ——17——

  The light at the end of the funnel.

  ——18——

  So if our company has an “Intelligence Division,” and I'm working in a different division, does that mean . . . Hey!

  ——19——

  He thought he was such a tough guy, but a couple of hours in the crock pot took care of that.

  ——20——

  She often wished that she had two heads, so she could kiss her husband and spit in his face at the same time.

  ——21——

  The serial killer's trademark was to eviscerate his victim and then use the entrails to tie a perfect bow tie around the victim's neck. Profilers opined that the killer must be a self-involved, prissy white man, in his late fifties.

  ——22——

  Not only did they make their hostage dig his own grave, they made him build his casket, carve a tombstone, and print the program for the services.

  ——23——

  Everybody called her Jiggles but, sadly, the term had more to do with her teeth than any other part of her body.

  ——24——

  Most of destiny is just having the locks on the right side of the doors.

  ——25——

  After bursting through the door, the police discovered that they had the right address but they were in the wrong country.

  ——26——

  She would employ neighborhood children to go under her house to retrieve her cat, even though she did not own a cat. Adolescent frustration amused her.

  ——27——

  Jerry ran like a girl. Which was funny, because he was chasing a girl at the time.

  ——28——

  Edna had zero-tolerance for tolerance.

  ——29——

  It was only after sex that Clarence realized his wife was dead, because she neither cried nor fled to the bathroom.

  ——30——

  Lacking the dedication and drive of other serial killers, Vince often left his victims half-dead, just because his eight hours were over.

  ——31——

  He couldn't face her face again.

  ——32——

  PICTURE: A man and woman dancing. Their bodies are both broken and twisted, but they match one another exactly.

  CAPTION: They became acquainted in an automobile accident.

  ——33——

  Jerry knew that Alice had been unfaithful to him as soon as he saw the impression of an unfamiliar belt buckle on her forehead.

  ——34——

  She always wore her tank top when cleaning the aquarium.

  ——35——

  Under the rocks, Jenny found several snails that had quarters in their eyes. After the nausea passed, she was comforted by the fact that even though they were invertebrates, the snails could use vending machines.

  ——36——

  Why was the city’s library in such a bad neighborhood? Reading the minutes of the town council’s meeting, John learned the horrifying truth: the land in that neighbor
hood was extremely cheap, and people who go to libraries are used to being beaten up anyway.

  ——37——

  He thought she was saying prostitute when she was really saying prosthetic.

  ——38——

  Bill spit on her spats and lapped at her lips.

  ——39——

  Neddy finally admitted to himself that he was under too much stress. He was at a chicken restaurant and had a stroke while he was trying to decide between the cornbread and the biscuit.

  ——40——

  His eyes weren't bigger than his stomach, but his tongue was.

  ——41——

  His eyes widened as he finally understood. Was it possible that she didn't love him?

  ——42——

  Before the marathon, Marcy went to her doctor to have her nose lengthened. [So she could win by a nose.]

  ——43——

  With his fear of commitment and his fear of abandonment both going full throttle, Byron was less-than-successful at the singles' bar.

  ——44——

  Every American is a consumer. The customer is always right. Therefore, Americans are always right.

  ——45——

  And this is where we kill the virgins.

  ——46——

  It was a new world's record. The felon was sodomized in less than thirty seconds after his conviction. It turned out that the judge had had his eye on him throughout the trial.

  ——47——

  Question on application for employment at a blood bank: “Are you a vampire?”

  ——48——

  After applying the grease thickly, the ticks were just sliding off Mike's head.

  ——49——

  PICTURE: A large fat woman, spinning hula hoops and wearing a Santa Claus outfit.

  CAPTION: Aunt Trudy succumbs to hypnosis.

  ——50——

  What does an amoeba think when it's reproducing? Inner conflict?

  ——51——

  Benedict learned the hard way that, although people would pay to have rats killed, they wouldn't pay to have them buried.

  ——52——

  That was no ladle, that was my knife.

  ——53——

  AUGUSTUS SUNDAY: It's raining in my heart!

  TENNYSON: As long as it's not raining in your pants, you'll be fine.

  ——54——

  AUGUSTUS SUNDAY: What do you get when you subtract Spinoza from Schopenhauer?

  TENNYSON: Aristotle!

  ——55——

  Two realtors fall off a cliff. On the way down, one shouts to the other, “Location, location, location.”

  ——56——

  When we held the dog upside down, he appeared to be frowning.

  ——57——

  A day without money is like a day without shopping.

  ——58——

  Was there ever a cartoon called “Moby Duck”? There must have been.

  ——59——

  VERA (on her deathbed): Alas, the world was never meant for one as beautiful as me.

  LARRY: It should be “I.”

  ——60——

  Hard of hearing, Vera had always believed that Christ was killed by the Easter bunny.

  ——61——

  As the stagecoach was being attacked by masked robbers, Tennyson watched the beautiful woman across from him lift her skirt and hide her jewelry in her underpants. He shouted at her, “No! Not there! That's the first place they'll look!”

  ——62——

  The doughnut was invented by a long-nosed, overworked baker: falling asleep, nodding forward, and poking his nose through a Danish.

  ——63——

  He refused to ask her why she was carrying a dead mule on her back. That would just be playing her game.

  ——64——

  Her eyes looked at Vince lovingly. If only they'd been in her head, and not in his soup.

  ——65——

  After the first nurse he hired was disabled with a back injury, the podiatrist had learned his lesson. In the future, he would only hire extremely short nurses.

  ——66——

  Uncle Dick's suicide by hanging wouldn't have come as such a blow had he not used the step stool they'd given him for his birthday.

  ——67——

  The Workers' Compensation Board's response stated that just being a DJ did not automatically make a slipped disc grounds for a claim. The injury needed to occur while the DJ was at work.

  ——68——

  As Robert arrived for the Buddy Holly concert, he heard that Buddy had died in a plane crash. He was faced with a dilemma: would it be considered bad manners to ask for his money back?

  ——69——

  An artist and easel are at the side of the road. They've been hit by a car: the artist is squished into the canvas. One policeman to another policeman: “Too much red.”

  ——70——

  Now in his sixties, Tennyson found himself attracted to women with large faces. It was probably for the same reason he now preferred to read large-print editions of books.

  ——71——

  She had a killer body, so he killed her.

  ——72——

  Look! Tom Petty's turning into a lizard!

  ——73——

  The celebrity's daughter was distraught that the advertising firm was digging up her father’s remains. But what could she do? She really wanted a new boat.

  ——74——

  He was the best runner but not the fastest.

  ——75——

  For a moment Byron saw himself as others saw him: through the bottom of an empty beer mug.

  ——76——

  MOVIE CRITIC: Did the movie lift your soul? Did it give you insight into the human condition?

  JESSICA: It made me drink lots of soda. I gotta pee.

  ——77——

  Why did his nephew steal the car? Did he have an auto-motive?

  ——78——

  There were no surprises when the coroner opened up the corpse of his dead girlfriend. He found bleeding ulcers, a necrotic liver, and their missing Blazing Saddles DVD.

  ——79——

  And yet, had he been a chimpanzee, no one would have thought his behavior was inappropriate at all.

  ——80——

  Too poor to buy a larger bed, Nelson could only date real skinny women.

  ——81——

  He played a combination of jazz and classical music, which later came to be called “jackassical.”

  ——82——

  PICTURE: A woman with her head tilted back and her long, long nose curled up over her head.

  CAPTION: She could touch the small of her back with her nose.

  ——83——

  When Vince said the word “tundra,” he made it sound like underwear for really tough people.

  ——84——

  Alice's sensitivity to infrared light was a burden to her family. They could not use their remote controls without warning her to cover her eyes.

  ——85——

  He was tired of the rat race. Rats are really fast.

  ——86——

  She was like an angel flying too close to the clown.

  ——87——

  Out of fuel, the astronauts discovered a new propulsion technique that saved their lives: Larry's projectile vomiting.

  ——88——

  It didn't take her long to figure out why there was a brown stain on the passenger seat of his car.

  ——89——

  Occasionally the hospital would have intramural basketball tournaments for the amputees. To determine the size of each team, they counted the limbs and divided by four.

  ——90——

  Reeling with head trauma after a fight with a music critic, the pianist was disappointed that he only saw three stars, instead of the five that he thought he deserved.

  ——91——

&
nbsp; He had risen from obscurity, and yet he still needed his glasses.

  ——92——

  I thought I was in love, but I was just standing too close to the microwave oven.

  ——93——

  Why is it that we can't live in a vacuum, but we must vacuum the place in which we live?

  ——94——

  Neddy travelled into the future and found it was the same as the present: there were a lot of women too young to date and everybody was making fun of his clothes.

  ——95——

  Cleopatra ran over three monkeys between Denver and Houston. It was a three-monkey night.

  ——96——

  What was his wife to make of his request to be buried naked and to have an open casket funeral?

  ——97——

  As they dissected the old man's crotch, they discovered why he had always been so crotchety.

  ——98——

  ARCHITECT: We can put walls where the windows would be, and windows everywhere else.

  HELEN: But where would we buy drapes?

  ——99——

  Larry is shot in head. As he's dying, he looks up at a friend and says, “This must be what it feels like to be stupid.”

  ——100——

  Just before the hangman did his job, the criminal learned his true vocation: he had a nose for noose.

  ——101——

  PICTURE: Tinkerbelle and a friend inspect the contents of her closet. She has hundreds of green fairy outfits, and just one black one.

  TINKERBELL: That's the one I wear to funerals.

  ——102——

  Ahead of his times, Tennyson was the first child to go trick-or-treating dressed as a child who was going trick-or-treating.

  ——103——

  Her starvation diet proved lethal when the airplane ran into trouble. When her oxygen mask dropped, she couldn't stop herself from eating it.

  ——104——

  The imposter was unmasked! The time traveller was not Thomas Jefferson at all, he was Alexander Hamilton! We all felt like fools and vowed to become more educated about American History.

  ——105——

  He cursed himself for allowing his hard-of-hearing girlfriend to load his gun. When he'd pulled the trigger, the score for Swan Lake fell out of the barrel. [A ballet instead of a bullet. Get it?]

  ——106——

  He could never read Wodehouse without thinking of the day his mother had been killed by his father with a chain saw. His father had been carrying a copy of The Return of Jeeves in his back pocket.

  ——107——

  Tennyson’s first nervous breakdown occurred while he was writing In Memoriam. He couldn't decide which word was more appropriate: “grub,” “vittles,” or “chow.”

  ——108——

  The only reason Edna didn't turn to a life of crime was that she was much too easy to describe.

  ——109——

  The biggest difference between fans of Dickens and fans of Trollope is the number of chapters it would take them to express their hatred for the other.

  ——110——

  A man and a woman argue. The man has a long hose coming out of his mouth. The woman shouts at the man, “And take that radiator hose out of your mouth when I'm talking to you.”

  ——111——

  Sometimes I wished my father was a balloon. So he could be my Pop.

  ——112——

  PICTURE: A man flattened on the ground, with a tire track running the length of his body.

  CAPTION: Women are like busses.

  ——113——

  When Larry complemented Vera on her unusual Easter bonnet, he was embarrassed to discover that it wasn't a bonnet at all. Her chronic psoriasis had caused all of her hair to fall out and now her head was covered with a thick shell of crusty scabs and sores.

  ——114——

  When she was six years old, Jenny sat alone at the bedside of her comatose grandmother. She poked her repeatedly and forcefully with her index finger. Jenny believed that, if she made her angry enough, her grandmother would turn into a steamed vegetable.

  ——115——

  She'd been alone in the house with the kids so long that, despite her English degree, she began to think of “irony” as something that had recently been ironed but was not yet wrinkle-free.

  ——116——

  Tennyson liked to say that he’d always known he had a book in him. He'd swallowed it when he was nine.

  ——117——

  Vince was easy to pick out in the line-up. He was the one holding the severed head of the victim.

  ——118——

  She was an intoxicating woman. Unfortunately, he was a mean drunk.

  ——119——

  Vera succeeded in swallowing the penguin whole, but could not drink the beer chaser, so she lost her $20 bar bet.

  ——120——

  He had no patience, so he married a woman named Patience.

  ——121——

  I'm just surprised at how much quieter everything is when I'm sober.

  ——122——

  Henry's primary hypothesis was that children are different than adults because their ears are smaller. As a result, everything sounds kind of funny to them.

  ——123——

  The FBI agents would never have caught the cannibal serial killer if he hadn't special-ordered a bib that said, “I eat everything except the feces!”

  ——124——

  Deena had not gone deaf. Her cats had fallen asleep on either side of her head again.

  ——125——

  Driving home alone, he realized that he'd blown his chance with his date when he'd head-butted her parrot.

  ——126——

  I saw the future in your eyes. It was blue.

  ——127——

  Sitting in the library one day, reading newspapers, Tennyson saw Marion Barry making out with Angela Lansbury. It was the kind of day poets dream about.

  ——128——

  In one of Henry’s unpublished stories, triplets vented their psychological frustrations by stalking the streets of Baltimore, at night, and beating up twins.