Richard's Poor Almanac by Richard Thompson for September 16, 2019
Transcript:
father's day special by emma t. age 4 1/2 emma: my dad suffers from paternal explanatory syndrome, also know as drivelalia factosis. "i first identified it on a trip out west last year." oop: see, emma, that's a volcano! magma under-ground builds up this huge pressure until it blows right out of the mountain & makes a giant mess like when you stepped on that twinkie & white stuff went all over the dining room flo - emma! stop chasing chipmunks! come look at this volcano! emma: daaad "p.e.s. is hereditary on the male side." dad: the carburetor is the most elegant device known to man. allow me to demostrate... my dad & his dad, circa 1967. "it's been around for a long, long time." caveman: gravity is caused by static electricity in rocks. see? like when you rub 2 chipmunks together. daughter: nng. "i'm learning to cope with it." oop: hey emma, did you know that tic-tac-toe was invented by the ancient egyptians? only they called it ptic-ptac-ptoe. emma: uh-huh. "and i hope my sister will, too." oop: look charlotte, it's fossilized dinosaur poop! the scientists who study stuff like that are called paleopoopologists. charlotte: nng. palapoophog.
Tic-tac-toe used to be a kind of dance, the game matrix was originally a diagram drawn on the floor. Something like a sword-dance only for two people. The dance itself fell out of favor because of objections to its obscene nature (the fate of many a popular dance—you’d be amazed at what people used to think of the waltz) and even the name itself was thought to be a little close to the bone. In Britain, it’s called “Naughts and Crosses”.