Hooray for weekends. I am tired.
Today I did some chores and went to the grocery. Among the purchases made was a can-opener: the type that opens along the side of the can rather than the rim. “As seen on TV!” the packaging boldly proclaims. Okay. Like that makes it more credible. (I don’t have a TV to begin with.) I got it anyway, because it was cheaper than a regular can-opener (75 pesos as compared to 125), and the concept of opening a can from under and around the rim, rather than from the side, appealed to me on some strange, subconscious level I could not explain.
After unwrapping the can opener and titillating myself to no end by opening a can of Del Monte Fruit Cocktail, I noticed a strange warning on the cardboard package: CAUTION: The rim of the can be sharp.
The first thought that flitted through my brain was, The rim of the WHAT can be sharp? Then common sense cut in, and I realized there could be two possibilities:
1. The makers of the can opener ran the package design through a spell-checker, and it removed the double word in the sentence “THE RIM OF THE CAN CAN BE SHARP.”
2. The makers of the can opener are pirates, in which case, the caution should have read “AARRR!!! THE RIM OF THE CAN BE SHARP, MATEY!” But the packaging company corrected it for them.
(Perhaps this pirate can shed some light on this cryptic mystery.)
Okay, okay. I know that was corny. Speaking of corny, I have a corny Filipino joke to share with you. On second thought, because I’m such a nice hominid, I’ll share two corny Filipino jokes…
Once, there was a mommy fish and a baby fish. They loved each other very much. Then, one day, they were separated in a storm, and they didn’t see each other again for years. What did the baby fish say to the mommy fish when they met again?
Answer: “Mommy? Isda you?
* * *
A pregnant Filipino woman gets in a car accident and falls into a deep coma. After nearly six months, she wakes up sees that she is no longer pregnant. Frantically she asks the doctor about her baby.
The doctor replies, “Ma’am, you had twins! A boy and a girl. The babies are fine. Your brother from the Philippines came in and named them.”
The woman thinks to herself, “Oh no, not my brother… he’s an idiot!” Expecting the worst, she asks the doctor, “Well, what’s the girl’s name?”
“Denise,” the doctor says.
The new mother thinks, “Wow, not a bad name! I guess I was wrong about my brother. I like ‘Denise’!”
Then she asks the doctor, “What’s the boy’s name?”
The doctor replies, “Denephew.”