Sitting on Cold Porcelain
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
Laugh your heart out as author Rose A. Valenta paints a satirical picture of the world today. Sitting on Cold Porcelain will entertain you with an amusing, perceptive, and laugh-out-loud take on the state of our country and our world, on celebrities and politicians, and all the news events that make us roll our eyes and groan.
Its satirical essays include "Giuliani's Gaffe Could Qualify for Political Darwin Award," "Rush Limbaugh: The Don Rickles of Radio," and "The Mona Lisa Had High Cholesterol?"
Witty and honest, Sitting on Cold Porcelain is an unapologetic yet unmistakably intellectual read that will challenge your ideas and stir your beliefs.
Cover design: Cartoon by Ruth McNally Barshaw, author-illustrator of Ellie McDoodle, www.ruthexpress.com
Rose A. Valenta
Rose A. Valenta wrote for a subsidiary of McGraw-Hill for 12 years, as a technical staff writer and freelanced for other industry publications. She took creative writing courses at Delaware Technical College. She authors Rosie's Renegade Humor Blog. Many of her articles are syndicated at Senior Wire and Associated Content for Yahoo, and have appeared in USA TODAY, Newsday.com, The Courier Post, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications.Rose is a member of the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists (NSNC), and a director of the Robert Benchley Society.
Related to Sitting on Cold Porcelain
Related ebooks
I Like Poop Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClose to Home: Attack of the 70-Foot Zombie Toddlers!: A Book of Parenting Cartoons Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In the Bleachers: Football Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nurse Nellie's Belly Laughs: Best Cartoons by Kaz Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Without Reservations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Still Breathing: A Collection of Cartoons Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Not a Lot of People Know That Vol.2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClose to Home: McPherson on Sports: A Medley of Outrageous Sports Cartoons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of John Seymour Lindsay: The Cartoons Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Disney Childhood (Comic Books to Sailing Ships) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrazz: Cogito, Ergo Caulfield Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5No Yelling!: A Baby Blues Collection Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frazz: A Tangled Web Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rejection Collection Vol. 2: The Cream of the Crap Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5BB3X Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCanadian Literary Landmarks Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSimply Weird: The (Fake) History of Weird Comics Incorporated, a (Fake) Comic Book Company Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRipley's RBI 03: Running Wild Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLuann: Boys, Bras, Braces, and Boys Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ups and Downs of Being a Parent Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn the Bleachers: Fishing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5So Festy! Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Binge Parenting Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Otherside of Aging Humor Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGross! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stone Soup: Evie Rules Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Creation of Garfield Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI Nearly Died Laughing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRipley's Believe It or Not! The Cartoons 05: Longest Running Cartoon Ever Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Let's Make a Movie! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Satire For You
The Bonfire of the Vanities: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sisters Brothers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Clown Brigade Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Going Postal Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Master & Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yellowface: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kill for Love Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mash: A Novel About Three Army Doctors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Friday Black Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Candy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shriver: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lawyering By Dummies Student Expanded Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It Was Just Another Day in America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Only Living Girl on Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51900: Or; The Last President Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Out of Oz: The Final Volume in the Wicked Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Robot Who Looked Like Me: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Third Policeman: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dice Man: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Five People You Meet in Hell: An Unauthorized Parody Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Monstrous Regiment Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No One Left to Come Looking for You: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Utopia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Faggots Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Between the Bridge and the River: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Dog's Heart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5House of Cards Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Sitting on Cold Porcelain
5 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This little book is basically short satiric essays mostly on political subjects. The book is so short (163 pages) that I read it in little snatches of time. It is written in the style of Erma Bombeck. It doesn't play any favorites, it hits both sides of the isles and it is current. It is OK to keep in the purse when you are stuck waiting somewhere. None of the topics are laugh out loud funny, but some of the essays make you pause and think a little.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Rose Valenta's take on life is very funny. If you need a laugh, go get this book. It's not very long, it took me only a few hours to read, but it's packed full of laughs. Kinda reminds me of Erma Bombeck. I think everyone, man or woman, would enjoy this book.
Book preview
Sitting on Cold Porcelain - Rose A. Valenta
Sitting on Cold Porcelain
by
Rose A. Valenta
SMASHWORDS EDITION
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Valenta Associates, Inc. on Smashwords
Sitting on Cold Porcelain
Copyright © 2010-2011 by Valenta Associates, Inc.
Smashwords Edition License Notes:
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
* * * * *
Disclaimer
This is a satirical work. All events, characters, and institutions in this book that resemble the real deal are somewhat coincidental, but exaggerated... poorly."
* * * * *
Dedication
This book would never have been published without the help of the good Lord and my muse.
* * * * *
Acknowledgements
I have received much appreciated words of encouragement from family and friends, who know that writing this book has been on my personal goal list for many years: my husband, best friend and muse, Charles A. Valenta; daughters Ramona Carey, Cheri Hurly, and Karen Wade; Tarmie Foster and Patrick Wayne Burg, with whom I grew up and spent many years honing a warped sense of humor; published authors and Facebook friends: Wanda Argersinger, Tracy Baron Beckerman, Joanie Buettgen, Eric Deckers, Horace J. Digby, Sharon D. Dillon, Roberta Beach Jacobson, Madeleine Begun Kane, Gordon Kirkland, Steve Kramer, Raul Ramos y Sanchez, Brian Webb, Dawn Webber, and Jody Worsham who offered encouragement; and Cathy and Clint Beatte of Alfonso’s Philly Cheese Steak House in Ferris, TX, for all the great feedback.
Many thanks to faculty and members of the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop at the University of Dayton, the Robert Benchley Society; and The Humor Writer’s, NetWits, and Southern Humorists news groups for giving me the motivation to kick-start this book.
Special thanks to all my readers at Rosie’s Renegade Humor Blog, who love the laughs: http://www.rosevalenta.blogspot.com
Also by Rose A. Valenta, Rosie’s Renegade Humor Blog – http://www.rosevalenta.com
* * * * *
Foreword
I first met Rose Valenta when I was teaching at the Erma Bombeck Writer’s Workshop at the University of Dayton. I must say that Rose was a particularly good student, excelling in the classes like, The Art Of Making People Shoot Hot Coffee Through Their Noses, Incontinence: The Best Reason For Writing Humor For Seniors, and Political Unrest: How Humor Writers Can Keep Politicians Awake At Night.
Like all good humorists, Rose’s world is just slightly skewed, while still being believable, sort of like looking at a painting of the Last Supper, with all the guests in party hats. She winds daily life, politics, and pit bulls with irritable bowel syndrome through her stories, creating a tapestry of modern life.
Hidden just beneath the humor found in having a six-year-old ask pointed questions about oral sex and Nobel Prize winning brassieres is a biting social commentary that casts a questioning and slightly disapproving glance at politicians, media personalities, and ordinary
North Americans.
Rose is not afraid to ask the tough questions in her stories. She takes on the likes of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin in one breath, and then asks, Can you alter the fragrance of elephant dung with food?
with the next. Somehow it all seems related, in a strangely marvelous way.
Or maybe it’s a marvelously strange way. You decide.
Gordon Kirkland
Award-winning Canadian author, humorist, and writing instructor, http://www.gordonkirkland.com
* * * * *
Introduction
It’s been a difficult day at the office and you're exhausted. Your eyes hurt from working on a computer all day, not to mention the crimp in your neck and back and sore Maxine (escape key) finger.
You turn on the evening news to find out that all sorts of crazy things are happening in our world. Terrorists are trying to kill us, our Vice President made another gaffe at an important event, our political pundits are calling for impeachment, a famous designer has introduced a line of bullet-proof clothing, another politician has gotten himself involved in a sex scandal, PETA is making yet another smoker ad, a scientist wants to give Galileo a posthumous eye test on a stimulus grant, and the term Brangelina
now refers to a gay variety show at the Boston Roxy; you know that because your 10-year-old grandson told you.
You try to find out if your v-chip works for news programming, as the kids are doing homework in front of the TV. They are not asking about protractors and math manipulatives.
You could describe the way you feel as punch drunk,
only there are no Marquess of Queensberry rules here.
You get into bed feeling warm and cozy; your significant other is snoring loudly at your side. Icicles are forming outside. You fluff your pillows, turn on the heating blanket, set the alarm, and insert the ear-plugs - all is right with your world.
Then, at around 3:00 am, at the very beginning of your crucial Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep (the three-hour sound sleep window that keeps people from going crazy), you begin dreaming about soaking in a hot tub, you wake up suddenly before you pee yourself, make a mad dash into the bathroom, quickly squat, and find yourself - sitting on cold porcelain.
Realizing that the culprit is still sleeping soundly in the next room, totally unaware of your predicament, and probably dreaming about lunch with the guys at Hooters, you scream loudly, as if to wake up the dead or at least that slug stuck in a salt ring.
He comes running into the bathroom, completely naked and wild-eyed with a Colt 45, ready to protect his damsel in distress. He looks around quickly like a buck protecting his turf. He almost pees on the wall to mark it; then, he looks down and spots a puddle of water and his damsel, who is stuck in the commode.
You, his damsel, begin to spew a Dennis Miller monologue, worse than anything he has ever heard on the O'Reilly Factor, he aims, and you karate chop him. The weapon falls into the commode. It can't rust, so he stays up for an hour cleaning it out and oiling it. You are still beating his ear an hour into REM sleep. Both of you are red-eyed, resembling vampires. You go back to bed. There is still an hour left.
No, this is not a sneak preview of the next Super Bowl prize-winning GEICO caveman commercial. Some people call it Murphy's Law every time things go wrong. I feel justified calling it Sitting on Cold Porcelain.
* * * * *
But Most of All I Remember Portnoy
When my children were young, Erma Bombeck was still appearing on television and Aunt Erma's Cope Book
was more valuable to me than Doctor Spock.
I read If Life is a Bowl of Cherries What am I Doing in the Pits?
at least 6 times. My kids were driving me nuts and it suited my predicament, even though I knew by that time, Erma Bombeck was about $31 million richer and having lunch regularly with Joe Dionne, McGraw-Hill's Chairman. She was being driven all over NYC in a limo, while I was sneak-writing humor pieces with a flashlight in the back seat of my old Chevrolet Biscayne, away from the prying eyes of my mother-in-law, Surly Kate, who had the sense of humor of a wasp.
I grew up during the depression
she said. No one had time to write, we all had to get real jobs.
I have to do this soon, or my children will grow up and I will run out of great humor material, I thought.
I went out and got a real job.
The urge to write never subsided and I still wrote humor pieces in the bathroom like Portnoy, mostly to my friends.
E-mail came along and I had a field day entertaining my co-workers.
You should write a book
they all said.
I just married off my last daughter and ran out of material, I thought.
Surly Kate and a few years passed, grandchildren came along, and I was again energized.
My grandson came home from school with an F
one day, then got into the Doritos and spilled them all over the floor, tipped over his soda, yelled Avast!
and kicked the dog.
My daughter said You know, Mom, I have never forgiven you for not allowing me to take oboe lessons when I was 12. What were you thinking with the trumpet lessons?
What does that have to do with little Johnny's behavior?
I asked.
It’s all your fault,
she said. You wanted Harry James, and I could really give a rat's ass about any flight of the bumble bee.
OK, so you want oboe lessons, or the real book on Pirate Parenting?
I asked. I was becoming my mother-in-law.
It's too late, I'm 30 years old.
Then it occurred to me, kids are like squirrels. The whole time you are raising them, they gather evidence against you like nuts, so they can pelt you with them after they grow up and fail Parenting Skills 101.
Yes, you are finally reading that book.
* * * * *
'Frosty the Inappropriate Snowman' or Mushroom Syndrome?
"No, Virginia, I hate to break this to you, but CBS lies, the concepts are false. Snowmen can’t dance. They have no rhythm. They just stand there and succumb to the elements. Viagra won’t help."
Frosty the Snowman has been making headlines. Not corncob pipe and button nose
headlines, but rather the thumpety thump thump
variety. We once had a pet rabbit that we named Thumper
for a similar reason - he had a wood chip fetish.
I don’t know which is worse, the mushroom syndrome
of my generation or the pop culture of today. Both teach false concepts.
With mushroom syndrome, you were kept in the dark about everything and not told about sex until you reached the age of 18, unless you asked. Life was simple and you were simple minded. Network television was censored and anything aired during prime time had to be family-oriented. You never knew for sure if there was a toilet in Beaver Cleaver’s house.
By the time you were 12, you began asking questions like Do you think Santa will get my letter?
and Do you think my snowman will run away during the night?
People had a sense of pride in those days. My grandmother, who was a professional baker at The Olean House in NY, found a recipe for "Mock