He's Written a "Book"...

Alright, apparently I have a little catching up to do here. Borsch has been on a roll, and there's one particular topic I want to address in detail. Let's do it!

On May 10, Borsch published a "column" entitled OUTTA LEFTFIELD: Get a whiff of this incredibly stupid idea, which of course is hilarious because the subject matter has to do with a smell! Get it? Quite frankly, though, I didn't feel like torturing either myself or you with another "according to a wire service story" post (aren't they all like that these days?). So I'll give you the highlights:

He says that the idea for an intoxicating spray is from the "Department of There Seems to be No End to Stupid Ideas That Aren’t Mine," which is a title so elaborate that it HAS to be funny. The spray was invented by researchers in France, which of course results in references to: croissants, Maurice Chevalier, and Pepe Le Pew. All on the first page. Such creativity! He wraps things up by saying that there is "a lot of stupidity in this country [America]." He's living proof.

There was also a May 16 column entitled OUTTA LEFTFIELD: Gobs of talented students invade 'The Blob's' bailiwick. He leads things off with this gem: Finally, I now have a connection to “The Blob.” Other than his physical girth? I'm surprised he passed up an opportunity for such self-deprecation. This was a terrible one. Basically, he's squeezing a column out of attending his own daughter's student film festival. He raves about how great she is, and that's about it.

Now here's a bit of news that just about everyone will love: on his twitter, Borsch posted the following on May 13:

Mike Morsch ‏@mmorsch35 @welkappeal @RyanHafey My book, "Dancing in My Underwear: The Soundrack of My Life" comes out in June. It has a chapter on the Welk show.

My first thought was one of absolute heart-stopping mind-bending horror: "He found someone willing to publish the crap he writes OTHER than his own newspaper??? The way he phrased it, with the "comes out," sounds like his book was reciving some kind of official release. In a very Borschian move, I immediately went to Google. The top two (and only) results matching the search were by an online company called EduPublisher. Yes, it's true - for just $17.95 (!!!), YOU can be the proud owner of Borsch's book.

Everyone has a soundtrack to their life. But how many people get to talk to the artists who make up their soundtrack? “Dancing in My Underwear: The Soundtrack of My Life” is just such a story. Mike Morsch grew up in the rural Midwest,

Great God in Heaven - he's just recycling the suicide-inducing stories in his columns!

where his parents introduced him to the music of the 1960s and 70s, including such bands as the Beach Boys, The Association, America, Three Dog Night, The Doobie Brothers as well as iconic singers Elton John, Barry Manilow and Olivia Newton-John.

In other words, he had the most generic musical taste possible. "Wow, you listened to Elton John and Barry Maniolow in the 1970s? SO DID I!!!"

Then the career newspaperman moved to the East Coast at midlife and some 30 to 40 years later, had the opportunity to interview the artists that he had listened to as a young child up through his teenage years. The result is a joyous, reflective and sometimes flat-out funny memoir by this longtime journalist. At the heart of it all, Mike shares some of the insights he’s gleaned from interviews with these paragons of modern music. And you’ll hear it in their own voices.


"Joyous"? "Flat-out funny"? Either the person writing this has never read a word Borsch has written... or, more likely, Borsch is writing this about himself.

So sit back, fire up the turntable or click on your iPod and let Mike take you on an unforgettable journey through the soundtrack of his life.

Yep, he's writing this himself. By this point, I'm feeling a whole lot better, because Borsch obviously has not "sold" this piece of garbage to anyone. This is an online self-publishing company (as evidenced by the extremely generic cilp-art cover design). Reading the company's website, they'll "publish" anything, and will actually sell the book if anyone orders it (you have to pay for your own copy). If you really want to go all-out, as Borsch has done, and get your very own book website, they'll do that... for $295 dollars. Hey, Borsch - good luck getting a return on that investment!

I poked around on the book website just to revel in how hard he's trying. The Blonde Accountant's real name is apparently "Judy." Here's a classic:

Meanwhile, you'll come to know a most engaging character in his own right — a man who grows before your eyes from a certified member of "The Eighth-Grade Stupid Shit Hall of Fame" to a loving father and a highly respected member of his profession.

DEFINITELY writing this himself. "Highly respected"? Not according to those I've heard from as a result of this blog. Folks, this is amazing. My question is: do I really want to desecrate the memory of Andrew Jackson and waste almost $20 on this book, just to enjoy how wretched it is?

Shockingly Watching Baseball

Tuesday, May 1, 2012 A manly man bus trip

Borsch has stopped sharing his increasingly infrequent blog posts via his Twitter. I won't take credit for this trend, but... Actually no. I WILL take credit.

I have to hand it the Men of La Salle, the dads’ group at La Salle High School: Those guys certainly know how to organize a manly man bus trip.

Always breaking fresh ground, it appears as though Borsch is going to fill this post with references to beer, farts and meat - all the "man" staples.

Dave Lagner, the chief cook, bottle washer and grand poohbah,

How does he come UP with this stuff??? He's a comic genuis!

put together a great trip to Camden Yards in Baltimore on Sunday.

...because we can't post about anything that's not baseball, I guess.

The excursion included all the things needed for a manly man father-and-son day: luxury buses complete with DVD players and bathrooms (an important aspect for guys); great seats, 12 rows from the field down the third-base line, to watch the visiting Oakland A’s take on the Baltimore Orioles; 72 degrees, blue skies and a slight breeze (not sure who Dave knows to get that pulled off but I suspect he may have dated Mother Nature in his younger days); and a post-game excursion to a manly man joint in the Inner Harbor called “Dick’s Last Resort,” a place that can only be described as “highly entertaining for cavemen,” where the fathers and sons consumed massive quantities of nachos, hot wings and ribs while being mercilessly insulted by the waiters.

Now take a deep, deeeeeeeep breath... and realize that was ALL ONE SENTENCE. In that one sentence, we had two uses of both "manly man" and "father(s) and son(s)." Should I ask why they were "mercilessly insulted by the waiters"? I don't really understand that part.

As a bonus, Game 1 of the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs was on the big screen during the chow down, and the Philadelphia Flyers scored in overtime to take a 4-3 win over the New Jersey Devils sending the LaSalle contingent into a frenzy of high-fives and flying spittle, otherwise known as more manly man stuff.

Things We Know Guys Do (so far): Watch baseball. Go to the bathroom. Eat a lot. Spit. This is, obviously, extremely hilarious.

By the way, that’s a picture of me with Dick — taken by my cohort for the day, Son of Blonde Accountant — outside the establishment after the meal. It appears by the looks on our faces that we both had loaded up on too many nachos.

First of all, that's not even a passable impersonation of the statue. Second... damn. He looks bad. Like, real bad. Like "he's been in the sun too long and is melting" bad.

I’ve always enjoyed Camden Yards. It’s a beautiful ballpark and it features “Boog’s BBQ” out on the right field concourse in front of the distinctive warehouse.

ATTENTION READERS: Stop here if you are not sure whether you can handle the excitement of hearing all about Boog Powell, former baseball player! You've been warned.

This is, of course, Boog Powell’s place — a former Orioles first baseman in the 1960s and 1970s who played on some pretty good Orioles teams — and as usual, Boog was perched on a stool near the barbecue pit greeting fans and signing autographs. I’ve seen Boog several times over the years, and there have been times when I thought, “Hey Boog, mix in a salad.” Boog has always been a large fellow, and in past years, it looked like he was eating more of the barbecue beef than he was selling. But this year, Boog has slimmed down considerably and he looks great. And he’s always friendly and accommodating to the fans.

Wow, what a gracious celeb! Friendly to fans, who would have thought?

I had the “Big Boog Beef” sandwich, which is double the meat and indigestion. I was so full that three guys had to carry me from the right field concourse to my seat on the other side of the stadium near third base. The Phillies should offer that amenity to the overeaters in their stadium.

So after the enormous meal described in painful, run-on-sentence detail above, he ate more???

Although many in our group were Phillies fans, most were root, root, rooting for the home team, and the Orioles delivered a walk-off win in the bottom of the ninth by scoring five runs, three of which came on a game-ending home run. It was my first Men of LaSalle father-son bus trip and Son of Blonde Accountant and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Wow, "quite a bit." High praise indeed.

I can’t wait for next year’s trip and another day of manly man activities.

Me neither, sir. Me neither.

Field of Lames

So I was sitting around the other day thinking, "Boy, it's been at least a few days since Borsch has written an article about baseball!"

OUTTA LEFTFIELD: It took 19 innings to score a treasured father-daughter memory
Published: Wednesday, June 01, 2011
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor

"Score." Because you score runs in baseball.

There’s always been a rule in our family: Never leave a ballgame early. It’s not only because something fun or unusual might happen, but because we go to the ballpark to enjoy the game, its sounds, smells and ambiance, not because we want to leave early and beat the traffic home.

First paragraph and we already have a "ballgame" and a "ballpark." I wonder if he brought his ballglove to catch a foul baseballball!

Well, the Phillies certainly tested that rule last week with their 19-inning tilt against the Cincinnati Reds.

And yep, I was there. For … the … whole … thing. All six hours and 14 minutes’ worth.

He makes it sound like this is a big chore, after a whole paragraph spent extolling the virtues of staying the whole game.

Joining me for the bonus baseball was Older Daughter, who has grown up with the family’s rules and is well aware of them.

That's a little redundant, isn't it? She grew up with them. AND is well aware of them! Also, she knows them!

I had reminded her in passing as the game entered the 10th inning that we never leave a game early. At that point, neither of us suspected we’d be there for another nine innings.

“I know the family rule,” she said matter-of-factly.

Isn't THIS a little redundant? The story so far: he established that the Morsch family stays for extra innings, and Older Daughter knows that. Then Morsch reminds Older Daughter that they stay for extra innings, and she confirms that she knows that.

As if to further demonstrate her understanding of the family rules, she turned to me after the 18th inning and said: “It would be kind of a half-assed effort on our part if we were to leave after the 18th inning, wouldn’t it?”

Woah woah woah, not even a warning that this column contains PG-13 material? He warns viewers to look away when he discusses poop, but tosses a casual "ass" out there?

Atta girl. When one’s daughter describes a six-hour, 18-inning effort at 1 a.m. as “half-assed” if we don’t see it through to the end, then that demonstrates a pretty good grasp of the We Never Leave a Ballgame Early Rule.

Nice elaborate made-up title. Also, this is the third time we've established that Older Daughter knows this rule.

Given my affinity for hotdogs mentioned in this space over the years, you might think a 19-inning ballgame would provide more than an ample opportunity to see if I could eat every hotdog in the ballpark.

Ballgame! Ballpark! Hot dogs! Is Borsch trying to do an Adam West Batman-style self-parody?

Oddly enough, I didn’t have a single dog that evening, which in hindsight is admittedly an error in judgment. I’m going to have to make a new family rule to address that: Never Go to a Ballgame Without Eating at Least a Half Dozen Hotdogs.

He might also create a The More Words I Use the Funnier I Become rule. How many little asides does he need to make a sentence amusing? "Oddly enough," "in hindsight," "admittedly"... These are the things that probably look hilarious to him while he's piling them on, but try actually reading them.

Among the unique aspects of the game was that the Phils’ winning pitcher ended up being position player Wilson Valdez, who became the first player to start a game in the field and end up getting the win on the hill since Babe Ruth did it a bazillion years ago. Raise your hand if you thought the names Babe Ruth and Wilson Valdez would ever be mentioned in the same sentence for any reason.

Was this one of the great memories he shared with Older Daughter? She seems to have vanished... Borsch is punishing us with all these extra details. Given all the clauses he jams into that first sentence is "getting the win on the hill" really necessary? Where else would you get the win?

I enjoyed having both a Seventh Inning Stretch and a 14th Inning Stretch, where we got to sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” twice in the same game. I have no doubt that if we had made it to the 21st inning, we would have sung again. (At one point on the scoreboard, it was revealed that the Phillies longest game in team history was a 21-inning contest against the Chicago Cubs in 1918.)

Too... many... unnecessary... baseball facts! Shouldn't there be an apostrophe after "Phillies"?

However, the most unusual and challenging aspect for Older Daughter and me ended up being the keeping of the scorecard.

Pathetic.

I’ve kept a scorecard at every game I’ve been to since I was a kid. And now as an adult, she has expressed an interest in that part of going to the ballgame, and I have been teaching her the intricacies of scorecard keeping the past few games we have attended together this season.

Wait - WHO as an adult? Borsch or Older Daughter? Chalk up another "ballgame."

The problem with the Phillies pre-printed scorecards is that they provide space for only 10 innings. There are additional columns for game totals that, if necessary, can be used to get one through 14 innings of scorekeeping.

Oh, horrors! Since only a tiny fraction of games ever go past the 14th inning, this is obviously a HUGE oversight on the part of the Phils!

But neither the Phillies nor the Reds cooperated by scoring any runs from the 11th through the 18th innings. So we were forced to get creative with the scorecard and write in the margins and then eventually, turn the scorecard vertically and utilize any vacant spaces that could be found.

This is just too exciting for words. Scorekeeping! Margin writing!

And we each got the whole game scored on our separate scorecards. Had it gone past 19 innings, I’m not sure what we would have done because we truly were out of space at that point. Older Daughter suggested afterward that she would have written on a napkin and stapled it to the scorecard if the game had continued. “You don’t come that far to have an incomplete scorecard,” she said.

This - THIS - is a memory worth treasuring? "Hey, remember that time we almost ran out of room on that piece of paper?" Who could possibly think this is material interesting enough for publication?

The game ended around 1:15 a.m., and the Phillies rewarded us by winning the game. Both of us did the “Yea, We Won Dance” after the winning run scored. At that time of the morning, I was not embarrassed to have anyone see me dance.

Ah, and a reference to a fictional dance just to cap things off.

I dropped Older Daughter off at her house and made it home by 2:30 a.m. We both had to go to work the next morning, and the late night made for a long day the next day.

"...the next day" is completely unnecessary. He obviously dashes these off the night before they're due and never re-reads them.

About midday, I sent her a text message: “I know it was a long night, which is making for a tough day today, but I’m happy you were with me last night.”

His texts are as poorly-written as his columns.

She responded: “Ya, I had a really good time. Thanks for a good memory.”

And that’s what it indeed became, a great memory.

Why, you can still remember it days later! And in all fairness, she said "good memory," not "great memory."

It was a unique baseball game for sure, but it turned into a unique father-daughter experience that just the two of us share, a story that maybe someday she’ll tell her children.

This is absurd! What a claim! And for being such a unique and memorable experience, we heard precious little about what he and his daughter did together (we know they attended the game and kept scorecards).

It was a special evening, but not because the Phillies and Reds played 19 innings. It was special because I got to share it with a special person in my life. And that’s why we never leave a ballgame early. Because sometimes, if one is lucky, it ends up being about something other than just baseball.

Bull. This column was 922 words long. On a purely by-paragraph basis, if you remove the sections unrelated to his activites with Older Daughter, you're left with 490 words. So really, this once-in-a-lifetime memory merited 53% of his column; the remaining 47% involved hot dogs, baseball trivia, etc.

He Can't Grill, Either

Outta Leftfield
When it comes to cleaning the grill, options can be half-baked
Published: Wednesday, May 11, 2011
By Mike Morsch

Unfortunately, you don't bake on a grill.

Mother’s Day proved to be Opening Day of the grilling season at our house, and I must admit, it appears that my barbecuing skills have not improved any during the off season. I can still burn meat with the best of them.

*Sigh* Self-deprecating humor is one thing, but is it even possible that one man can be bad at so many things? Will we be seeing columns about how he can't brush his teeth or tie his shoes?

But this season opens up with a bit of vindication: Turns out it’s not a completely and utterly ridiculous idea to suggest that a self-cleaning oven be utilized when cleaning the grates of the grill.

Years ago, I was laughed right out of my neighborhood for suggesting that if a self-cleaning oven could clean the oven’s grates, then why couldn’t it clean the grill’s grates with the same effectiveness?

Don't these two paragraphs say exactly the same thing?

There appear to be two schools of thought on this: the husband’s creative thinking methods designed to save elbow grease and maximize leisure time … and the right way as determined by the wife.

Wahoooo, here's an original idea for humor: the smart wife knows more than the dumb husband! Move over, Tim Allen!

Traditional cleaning of a charcoal grill goes something like this:
(1) Remove the grates and soak them in warm, soapy water.
(2) Make sure the beer is cold.

Ah, and a beer joke. We're opening up new horizons in comedy here, folks.

(3) Use a stiff wire brush to gently scrub the surface of the grates.
(4) Drink a cold beer.

It got funnier the second time, didn't it?

(5) Sit in the lawn chair and try to think of easier ways to clean the grill. (Throwing the grill away after every use and buying a new one certainly isn’t practical, but that doesn’t mean the idea should not be considered.)
(6) Approach wife with the self-cleaning oven idea, which makes a whole lot of sense before and after several beers.

How much longer is this list going to be?

(7) Pick the ridicule and chastisement out of your backside for even thinking you were bringing those nasty grill grates into a perfectly clean kitchen and sticking them into a brand new and perfectly clean oven.

The more clauses you add, the more amusing a sentence becomes.

(8) Drink another beer, scoff at the fact that Scrubbing Bubbles is not recommended for cleaning grills.
(9) Ponder the various uses of a wire brush that don’t involve grill grates. (I couldn’t think of any others.)

Third beer reference in a single list. #9 is actually a decent question.

(10) Take a nap in the lawn chair, allowing the grill sufficient time to air dry.

By suggesting years ago that the self-cleaning oven could do the work of the warm, soapy water, Scrubbing Bubbles and wire brush, I had apparently violated some kind of No Stinky Grill Grates in My New Oven Rule.

"Stinky"? Are grill grates really stinky? Dirty, yes, but are they really known for their odor?

However, there are any number of websites these days where information can be found supporting the theory of putting the grill grates in the self-cleaning oven. Maybe I was just ahead of my time in this area of thinking 10 years ago.

Try reading both those sentences out loud. They sound TERRIBLE. At this point, it may be interesting to refer back to his June 10, 2010 article on virtually the same subject. Some quotes of interest:

"...the first round of meat was successfully charred over the holiday weekend."
"Personally, if mankind can invent a self-cleaning oven, then I think it should be able to invent a self-cleaning grill. Failing that, we should at least be able to remove the grill’s grates and place them in a self-cleaning oven..."

So we have this year's article in 100 words or less, basically. Burn food? Check. Clean grill? Check. The end.

Things have evolved now for me in the area of grilling. I no longer have the Weber kettle charcoal grill. I have some kind of Cadillac gas grill. It’s a big, old thing that takes up a good chunk of a relatively small back deck, and provides me the opportunity to efficiently burn the meat at a higher level of grilling incompetence.

It's old? He just purchased it a year ago. Unless he's trying to use "big old" as in "large," in which case that comma doesn't belong there. Glad we FINALLY established that he burns meat, too.

And I do not utilize the self-cleaning oven at our house to clean the grill, mostly because I’m not even sure we have a self-cleaning oven. It was not among the important questions I asked in advance of a second marriage, which is a shortcoming on my part. That question should have been higher on the list.

What is he even talking about now?

Admittedly though, switching from a charcoal grill to a gas grill has not come without its perplexing issues. For example, this weekend while I was I was goosing the chicken with barbecuing implements,

"I was I was" - somebody didn't proofread!

my father-in-law and I were chit-chatting, and he ended up schooling me in how to check the level of propane that’s left in the tank, a method that I had not yet learned.

From "for" to "learned," that's all one sentence. How on earth does this man presume to edit the writing of others?

But he is a camping enthusiast from way back, so he has a certain amount of credibility in this area. He said the way to determine the level of propane left in the tank was to take some boiling water and pour it on the tank. The areas of the tank on which the water didn’t boil determined the level of propane in the tank.

And here I thought the areas of the tank on which the water didn't boil determined the level of propane in the garage. Good thing he specified.

He told me this assuming that I knew how to boil water. However, my science skills are very limited in the principles of propane gas, and for a moment, I thought he was pulling my leg.

So now he doesn't know how to boil water. My "can't brush teeth" column idea probably isn't too far off.

It has always been my policy to try and stay out of hot water, and I judge a successful outdoor grilling experience as one that doesn’t involve me blowing up the house.

How would you blow up the house if you're grilling outdoors?

Somehow, boiling water on a propane gas tank just wasn’t registering with me. (Disclaimer: Not that I don’t believe my father-in-law, but I did not in fact try pouring boiling water on the tank, so don’t do it unless you know it to be safe.)

Science teachers are welcome to come by the office and boot me in the backside and demand an explanation for me not paying attention back in junior high science class.

What? A science teacher is going to attack him because he won't pour boiling water on his propane tank? I don't remember outdoor grilling being a part of my high school education.

But that’s the type of grilling I really don’t need.

This column in 100 words or less: "I'm bad at grilling, but I think you should clean the grill grates in a self-cleaning oven. I'm not sure we even have a self-cleaning oven. My father-in-law told me how you can tell if you have propane in the tank, but I don't want to try. Hopefully my high school science teacher won't find out. Bad pun."

We need a moratorium on Geico jokes

OUTTA LEFTFIELD: When it comes to baby dragons, trying to save face proves challenging
Published: Tuesday, April 19, 2011
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor



ZANY! So the "joke" will be that a lizard was on his face. You know how late-show hosts will have animals on the show and pretend to be scared or disgusted by them? Imagine Borsch trying to do that.

Now here’s a dilemma: What do you say to your boss when she hits you with, “Do you want to get a dragon put on your face?”

Uh … no, I don’t believe I do. Dragons are bigger than me. One would be enough to likely smush my face. Plus, dragons have bad breath from all the fire-breathing and I do not want one anywhere near my nose. But I will say that I don’t ever recall being asked that question, by a boss or anyone else.

I was sure - like, dead sure - that we would get an "I have bad breath" reference there. The "comical misunderstanding" here is somewhat ruined by the fact that there's a GIGANTIC PICTURE of the titular lizard at the beginning of the column.

Making the query even more oddly out of context, Montgomery Media’s big cheese, Betsy Wilson, asked me the dragon question at the 16th annual Montgomery Media Baby and Toddler Expo last weekend at the Philadelphia Convention Center in Oaks. (How the Philadelphia Convention Center got in Oaks is a discussion for another time.)

Yeah, and what's up with Paris, Texas? WACKY! Betsy Wilson, if you were any good at your job, you'd have axed this column a long time ago.

I was scheduled to work the event, but unfortunately I did not have the foresight to do any advance scouting on how to avoid getting a dragon placed on my face. Silly me, I thought the whole soiree was about babies, not dragons.

When he says "work the event"... does he mean wander about and record random things? Because that's what he seems to do most of the time.

I would have anticipated a more appropriate question to be asked at a baby expo, something like, “Would you like some free Boogie Wipes?” When a bunch of babies get together at an event like a baby expo, there is a high boogie potential. So the question of Boogie Wipes — “For quick, effective clean-up and relief of stuck-on boogies” — seems more pertinent than the dragon-on-my-face question. I’m sure Boogie Wipes are indeed effective, but they don’t strike me as designed to wipe dragon off my face.

That's five uses of "boogie" in one paragraph, and two redundant uses of "baby expo." I would have expected a spit-up joke, but maybe that's too edgy for Borsch.

I soon discovered that the “dragons” are actually chameleons, those little lizards that change colors.

Oh, is THAT what a chameleon is???

And a wonderfully enthusiastic Howard Yankow of www.mybabydragon.com had a booth at the event showcasing several of the “baby dragons” designed to educate young and old alike on the “green anoles” (Latin name: Anolis carolinensis). By the way, I’m happy to see that Neil Diamond was on the Baby Dragon Latin Naming Committee.

You know what never gets old? Jokes about Latin! (Note to Borsch: ixnay on the liche-cay.) If he stays true to formula, he will give an "amusing" Latin name to a person he met at the expo. We also get a bonus song lyric reference and a long, fictional title.

But Howard knows everything there is to know about green anoles, which are not much bigger than one’s finger. And while he’s talking, he loves to attach one of the little critters to a person’s shirt, or nose, or ear or glasses — all of which I have — and I (Latin name: Youwannadowhatus withthatlizardsis) made for a pretty big target on Sunday.

I just want to emphasize that I do these "live," sentence by sentence. And I totally called that Latin name joke. If there's one thing my little online experiment has proven, it's that this man has no more than a dozen jokes that he uses over and over again.

According to subsequent research, among the things the green anoles will eat are grubs, crickets, cockroaches, spiders and moths. They reportedly will go for bigger prey, like editors, but the ones that are kept as pets shouldn’t be fed anything bigger than half the size of their head. Lucky for me, because I’m pretty sure a guy my size looks like the Grand Canyon of buffets to a green anole.

This paragraph is the perfect illustration of Borsch attempts at comedy. It's such an awkward, clumsy stumble toward a "punchline" that doesn't even make sense. "They eat bugs. But they might eat bigger things, like me! But don't feed them big things - lucky for me, because I'm fat!"

Fortunately, I have a big nose as well, much bigger than the head of a green anole. But I didn’t know at the time that the green anole that Howard was attempting to attach to my beezer wasn’t looking at it as an appetizer.

Toss in a folksy made-up word for a body part, and you've got a real Borsch Cliche Casserole in the making! This paragraph makes the previous joke even worse. "I also have a big nose - too big for a lizard to eat! But back then I thought it might try." No one can be this grotesque, wimpy and dumb and still function in society.

Once the lizard was securely attached to my nose, a few questions came to mind: (1) Is this thing gonna bite me? (2) Is this thing gonna poop on me?

Poop reference. We're racking them up, folks!

It was big fun for almost everybody, with the possible exception of me. The boss kept snapping pictures as Howard hooked the lizard to my nose, then my ear, then the frame of my glasses, all while I was attempting to maintain my composure and not break into the Wussy Man Yucky Dance. As you can tell by the accompanying photo, I am quite enthused about the whole shebang.

This is so painful.

At one point, the lizard ended up back on my nose a second time, and I thought I heard it whisper, “Fifteen minutes could save you 15 percent or more on car insurance.” It then made like Superman leaping tall buildings in a single bound and landed feet first like a cat on the expo center’s concrete floor some six feet below.

You really only have to say "back on my nose" or "a second time," not both. I like how he compares the lizard's jump to Superman, and the landing to... a cat.

“Oh, I hope it didn’t get hurt,” I said to Howard.

“No, in the wild, they can jump up to 30 feet from tree to tree to avoid predators,” said Howard.

“I’m pretty sure I can jump 30 feet vertically if you stick that thing on me again,” I said silently to myself.

Good thing you didn't say it silently to anyone else, or they'd never have heard you.

But it was all in good fun. And really, having a dragon on one’s face wasn’t actually as bad as it sounds.

Really, actually? Here's another old Borsch strategy - complain about something, play up how terrible/awkward it was, but then back off and say it was a great time. "Sorry, reader - it was even less funny than I described."

Why, it was so easy … even a caveman could do it. At least that’s what the green anole told me.

My, my, how topical. What's next, a Budweiser Frogs reference? But... the Geico Gecko doesn't say the thing about the cavemen. His workflow is starting to slow, also... could he be preparing for another summer hibernation? The literary public can only hope.

Surprise! Borsch's Wife Has Superior Fashion Sense

OUTTA LEFTFIELD: Attempt to buy new pair of 'Chucks' gets off on the wrong foot
Published: Tuesday, February 22, 2011
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor

Because a shoe goes on your foot, see.

Much of what The Blonde Accountant says makes sense. Unfortunately for her, sometimes I prefer to make nonsense.

Uh-oh. Yet another column about how Borsch's wife knows more about fashion than he does. What a creative man!

Take shoes for example. There is an entire closet in our house devoted to shoes. Her shoes. She can be considered, without a doubt, a distinguished Imelda Marcos fellow at the University of Heel and Toe. She sports a master’s and a doctorate in footwear fashion.

Women own multiple shoes! And men never put the toilet seat down! HAW!

It is on our shoe store excursions that I fall woefully outside my element and I do not quibble over that. The shoe store — while a necessity of life — holds no special appeal to me.

So it was with no sense of pending conflict that I followed her into the shoe store last weekend, content with my usual moment of browsing followed by the ever-present desire to locate the nearest bench and nap peacefully and without incident.

How many of his "columns" have referenced sleeping on benches while others shop? Definitely a motif in the Borsch symphony.

And then I stumbled past the display that featured black, high-top Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars on sale for $36 a pair. Commonly known as “Chucks,” these canvas sneakers have been around forever. My dad had a pair of white Chucks back in the 1960s and I believe he wore them for 30 years. They were just that cool. Today, Chucks have become somewhat of a fashion statement for young people.

Oh no! Could it be that our zany protagonist will buy a pair?!?

Keep in mind that shoe sales have commonly been the spontaneous trigger for The Blonde Accountant’s Happy Feet Dance, an aspect of the shoe store experience that I actually enjoy and someday hope to get on video to share with you all.

This will never happen, because this "dance" does not exist.

Chucks for $36. How great is that? Happy dance, happy dance, happy dance.

See? Only in his diseased dome are do these dances have any reality.

My first inclination was to try on a pair and pirouette across the shoe store to where The Blonde Accountant was shopping to show her how good I looked. But me pirouetting across the shoe store might raise eyebrows because — and I know this may be hard to believe — I am not that graceful. So I decided to wait for her to make her way back toward the men’s section and surprise her with my find.

“You look ridiculous,” she said without hesitation as she came around to the aisle where I was standing, pant legs hiked up to show off the glorious pair of spanking brand-new black, high-top canvas Chucks.

The Blonde Accountant is too much the prototypical "straight man" to be real. She never laughs, never jokes, never plays along. She is eternally bland, practical, and reserved. I would rather read a column written by her.

It was not the first time I had heard that. In fact, I’ve spent most of my life looking ridiculous, so I am quite used to that type of reaction, especially from women.

I guess the only fashion statement that black canvas high-tops Chucks make for old guys is that, “Yes, I am an idiot.”

I can't disagree.

“Wait. These are cool shoes. They’re classic. And they’re on sale!” I said as I broke into my version of the Shoe Sale Two-Step. (I would add that the lightweight Chucks appear to be perfectly conducive for just about any aspect of the Happy Dance.)

But she turned without further comment and headed toward the check-out counter with her shoe selections, leaving me holding nothing but my pant legs.

That's a vaguely disgusting sentence, out of context.

It appears that my innocent desire to have a pair of Chucks — which I probably haven’t had since I was a kid — failed to take into account that The Blonde Accountant has spent quite a bit of time trying to teach me a sense of style when it comes to clothes. For her, the Chucks do not fall into the category of How I’d Like To Have My Husband Look When I’m Out in Public With Him. They have fallen into the same category as Hawaiian shirts and Panama hats, which is to say they are on the Mike Restricted List of Idiotic Fashion Statements by 51-Year-Old Husbands.

Wait, he's only 51? We've got at LEAST 11 years until he retires. Kill me.

Of course, I reached out to family and friends for help on this one. Older Daughter thought the Chucks were OK for me to purchase, as did Daughter of Blonde Accountant. Younger Daughter and Son of Blonde Accountant fell into the other camp. My Facebook friends were mostly all pro-Chucks, but my Facebook friends do not often have to be seen with me in public.

Much to their relief.

I even called Dad of Blonde Accountant for some help.

“Did you ever wear Chuck Taylors?” I asked him on the phone.

“Ya, when I was 10,” he said.

Thanks Pop-Pop, that was absolutely no help at all.

Truth: Dad of Blonde Accountant hates Borsch with a passion. And how was that statement no help? He answered the question! "Wear Chucks?" "Yes. Here's when." Doesn't Borsch, ya know, interview people for a living?

I have continued to lobby for the Chucks but I’m thinking about a change of strategy. Instead of buying a pair for stylin’ and profilin’ purposes, I have decided to take a more logical approach. I’m going to use them for my regular walking workouts once the weather allows me to get outside full-time.

So intead of buying the shoes and wearing them, he's going to... buy the shoes and wear them. Nice.

After reading this column (she always gets the first read and nothing appears in print without her OK), she turned to me and said:

Before we start this made-up exchange... If it's true that TBA has "first read" on all his columns and still allows them to be published, she's just as much to blame for this as he is.

“Ok, I’ll make a compromise deal with you. You can buy the Chucks, but you can’t wear them anywhere.”

“Not even in the house?’ I said.

“Nope. You can leave them in your closet.”

Would a real wife suggest such a thing? Maybe. But this begs the question: how did the column originally end, before TBA read it and offered that "compromise"? It's obvious that Borsch has never re-read or revised anything. Therefore I must conclude that the above exchange, like all the others, never took place.

Well, I guess compromise is indeed the key to a successful marriage. I may save the driving time to the shoe store and actually just leave the $36 in my closet.

Because when it comes right down to it, The Blonde Accountant is right. She is the shoe expert and she knows how she wants me to look when we’re out in public.

Oh! This comes as something of a let-down, doesn't it? I thought for sure we'd get a scene where he buys the shoes, and maybe the person at the register gives him an odd look, or a colleague mocks his choice of footwear. In fact, just about anything would be better than: "Can I buy these shoes?" "No, they wouldn't look good." "Hey yeah, you're right."

After all, shoes make the man. All the Chucks will do is make me look like a heel.

How exactly did he arrive at this realization? Just a couple paragraphs ago he really wanted these shoes. No big epiphany?

Hey... Is it Spring Training???

Outta Leftfield: Pitchers and catchers reporting on Valentine's Day sure is sweet
Published: Tuesday, February 15, 2011
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor

I know this is Borsch we're talking about... but could he focus a little less on baseball?

Boy, if you’re a Phillies fan — and we’ve got plenty of those around here given the expectations of the 2011 squad — then this past Valentine’s Day could have turned sour in a hurry for those members of the Stupid Men Club who failed to practice some basic awareness of the situation.

Wow, two never-touched-upon topics for him: baseball and how men are dumb. Let's see what revolutionary ideas he brings to the table!

See, pitchers and catchers reported for the first full spring training workouts this year on Monday, Valentine’s Day. And if, for example, you got up Monday morning and said to your sweetheart, “Hey, pitchers and catchers report today,” instead “Happy Valentine’s Day, honey,” then it’s likely you are still attempting to remove a stuffed teddy bear from your ear.

He forgot the "of" in "instead of." Have we established the fact that pitchers and catchers reported yet?

Certainly, since pitchers and catchers report about the same time every year in mid-February, they have done so on Valentine’s Day at some point in the past.

Thank goodness! NOW we've established it: pitchers and catchers. Valentine's Day. Same time. Proceed.

I just don’t remember it happening before now. If it had, I would likely have gotten picked off and I would have remembered sleeping in the garage for a month.

Picked off... how does that... apply?

And since some baseball fanatics consider the day pitchers and catchers report as some sort of the unofficial beginning of spring — if it were up to me that day, along with Opening Day and every day of the World Series, would be official paid holidays off of work — one could easily get distracted by Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt, Cole Hamels and Joe Blanton showing up for their first full day of work on Valentine’s Day.

Things I Now Understand: Pitchers and catchers have reported, and they reported on Valentine's Day. By the way, that entire section was one sentence. Marvel at how bad a writer Borsch is.

Fortunately, I did not succumb to the cluelessness of confusing Valentine’s Day with pitchers and catchers reporting, which I realize is somewhat out of character for me. No, this year I was not caught unawares and was on top of my game for Valentine’s Day, making it last the whole weekend. Among the festivities, The Blonde Accountant and I had a nice dinner at our favorite restaurant and exchanged cards and winks.

Hey wait a second. Back up there, chief - Valentine's Day... pitchers and... catchers... reporting... could these two events be taking place... on the same day? I'm thinking that Borsch winking makes his face look like a butthole with teeth.

In fact, it was such a special weekend that I opted for the Woo Hoo cologne, which I only put on for special occasions. For the record, Woo Hoo cologne does not smell like Old Catcher’s Mitt cologne, although in past years I have splashed on a bit of the Old Catcher’s Mitt around the time spring training starts. Fortunately, I did not get the two colognes confused this year.

Is it possible to have a paragraph not containing the word "catcher"?

However, the Official Rules of Gentlemanly Behavior and Decorum prevent me from commenting further on the effectiveness of Woo Hoo cologne in the romance department.

My prediction: it's about as effective as his composition skills.

My sense is that the exception to the pitchers and catchers report on Valentine’s Day rule probably applies to the Phillies players themselves.

Great goodness, man, can we move on? Please? So far 50% of the column has been four words!

Given the salaries that ballplayers earn these days, they probably get a pass from their wives and significant others if the excitement of spring training — especially one like this with the lofty expectations — overshadows a romantic holiday. I’m pretty sure The Blonde Accountant would understand the postponement of the romantic holiday dinner if I was bringing home $14 million a year. She might not even care if I got my colognes mixed up.

Quite honestly, it's a sin that this man is bringing home any dollars a year.

But my awareness this year can be traced back to when The Blonde Accountant and I got married. Back in 2007 — before the Phillies had become perennial fixtures in October baseball — she had suggested three wedding dates. Up to that point, the Phillies hadn’t been playing much baseball in October, so I had no qualms about selecting an October wedding date.

How did we get from - dare I say it - Valentine's Day to an October wedding? 2007 must have been an "off" year for The Blonde Accountant.

Then the Phillies made the playoffs. In fact, in 2007, had the Phils advanced through the postseason, they would have ended up playing in the seventh game of the National League Championship Series to decide who would go to the World Series the very day of the wedding.

HA! Wait wait wait... so the point of his story is that there was only the most tenuous imaginary connection between the date of his wedding and the Phillies being in the playoffs? I guess what counts is that HE sees the connection.

It didn’t happen because the Phils lost in the first round, but the lesson was not lost on me — never let the baseball season interfere with the important stuff.

I'm confused - so you should intentionally try to schedule important things on days that sports might be played? This "lesson" makes no sense.

That’s why I was able to set aside my enthusiasm over pitchers and catchers reporting and concentrate on Valentine’s Day. Sleeping in the garage this time of year can get a bit chilly in the Northeast.

So what I'm getting from this story is that two important events occurred on the same date... but what are they? What are they? Will someone please tell me?

The Phillies gave their fans a big Valentine’s Day present Monday by trotting out the five pitchers, dressed in their red jerseys, for a collective press conference, guaranteed to get the faithful all amped up for the season.

Red jerseys are an unconventional choice for Phillies players, huh?

But whether it’s Valentine’s Day or the first day of spring training,

SOMEBODY STOP THIS MAN! STOP HIM!

one word can describe having them both fall on the same day this year: Sweet.

Eight. That's the number of times Borsch told us on what day what people reported. What buffoon ever thought this man could write?

This Can't Be True

Outta Leftfield: Successful desk project employs the tools of ignorance, apathy
Published: Tuesday, January 11, 2011
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor

Originality ahoy! Looks as though we're in for another "things I/men can't do" column, folks.

It is not unusual for me to shy away from projects that require a hammer and a screwdriver.

In fact, the only thing I know — or care to know — about hammers and screwdrivers is that one can easily lose track of a Saturday night by getting hammered on screwdrivers.

There seems to be a pattern to these "I'm dumb" entries... "I can't do [insert common task or skill X]. In fact, the only thing I know about X is [comparison to food, poop, or baseball].

Occasionally though, things need to be assembled in the home (the week after the holidays should be designated Assembly Required Week; surely Hallmark can come up with a card for that), and oftentimes the project requires tools, a minimal amount of knowledge on how to use those tools, and some enthusiasm for taking on a project — none of which I have.

Hallmark bit - not exactly funny, but not bad, either. Rest of paragraph - we get it.

The closest I’ve ever come to putting something together that could have been utilized in the home — a magazine rack — happened several years ago and I had to take three stabs at it to get it almost right. Instead of holding magazines, it held mostly beer bottles, so in that regard, I considered the project almost a success.

This is impossible. Nobody can be this bad at so many things. At the end of his undeservedly long career, I hope Morsch publishes an "I can't write" column. Nice beer reference, too.

But when it comes to these projects, “almost” is good enough for me. Not having to do it at all would be better.

Wait, is he saying he's BAD at projects?

So it was with great ambivalence that I approached last weekend’s project — assembling a new multi-functional computer table (we used to call them desks) that Son of Blonde Accountant had gotten for Christmas. The instruction booklet is 14 pages long. Here are some of the highlights:

Ah, the hallmark of Outta Leftfield: Unoriginal material!

(1) There are 31 separate parts to the multi-functional computer table
(2) There are 13 different types of screws and bolts.
(3) Some of the instructions appeared to be in Spanish, even the parts in English.
(4) There is no mention of a lunch break in the directions.

I liked the Spanish/English part. It actually encorporates something we call "humor" - in this case, a somewhat amusing reversal of our expectations. How did that find its way in here? Is a staffer writing this piece?

For example, here is a sample of the instructions: “Use screws (G) to assemble the fix parts of the sliders (7B) to the right vertical panel (10) and the inside vertical panel (13) considering that the small wheel has to be facing the front of the desk.”

See, I told you it was in Spanish.

I don't see why people find these things so hard. I assembled a desk like this myself, using skills I call "looking" and "reading."

For those of you who are familiar with these types of things, it will be evident that the aforementioned instructions had something to do with a desk drawer.

But just to show you how weak I am in this area, I thought we were assembling a picnic basket — with wheels, of course — and it took me 20 minutes of looking at the instructions and trying to figure out what Spanish words translated into “picnic basket.”

I seriously doubt that this is true. "It's a joke!" you protest. But it's not funny. What next? Will he think a CD is a dinner plate with a hole in the middle?

Fortunately, this was a family project. The Blonde Accountant is the brains of the outfit — the straw that stirs the drink — and Son of Blonde Accountant and I were fortunate to have her serving as project manager. Since it was his desk, Son of Blonde Accountant served as the entire labor force while I attempted to assume the duties of Executive Project Foreman in Charge of Drinks that Need to be Stirred.

Woo-hoo-hooo! We've got a reference to the woman as the "smart" one (how original), and a guffaw-inducing long title.

The Blonde Accountant will tell you, however, that she thinks I know more about these manual projects than I let on, which by golly is the absolute truth if she says so. But I have a long and storied reputation as a card-carrying member of the Federated Office Of Lollygaggers, Evaders and Dawdlers (FOOLED) union and I try to do everything possible to avoid having my pension revoked by breaking a sweat at doing anything.

Wow, ANOTHER long made-up title! Where does he come up with this stuff? This story is making less and less sense - so he's just faking being clueless? Or is he just saying his wife is right even if she's not? What's the point of this?

Surprisingly enough — at least to me — the project went relatively smoothly, despite the fact that the three of us collectively have a limited knowledge of Spanish.

I take back the nice thing I said about the "Spanish/English" joke earlier.

But working together, we managed to assemble the desk in just less than four hours, which is a huge victory when I am involved in a project of this nature. I have no problem whatsoever turning a four-hour project into a four-month project.

So... he IS bad at projects?

The only glitch we encountered was with one of the pre-drilled holes in one of the 31 parts. I leaned on one bolt just a little too much and nearly shot it through the hole and across the room. The resulting collateral damage to that piece of the desk required a bit of Crazy Glue and some tape, and I was more than willing to give the Crazy Glue four months to dry and then resume the project. To no one’s surprise but mine, the project boss said that was an unacceptable amount of time for me to be on a lunch break. Had lunch breaks been covered in the instruction manual, I believe I would have been in the clear on that one, and I will speak to the desk company about a revision of the instructions.

Morsch subscribes to the "more words = more funny" writing philosophy here. I could almost see these events played out in an old-timey silent film. Rag-time music, Morsch looking confused (title card: "I say, is this in Spanish?"), "wha-wha-wha" trombone riff at the end.

Fortunately, I had a much more appealing project to tackle after the desk, which was shoveling the weekend snow off the driveway, which certainly could have waited four months and taken care of itself as far as I was concerned.

I don't know about you, but I would really like another "four months off" joke before we wrap things up. This is probably the tenth shoveling reference in the past few columns, too.

But there is some satisfaction that we completed a family project on the same day it was started. I just hope that doesn’t mean I have to start taking Spanish classes.

And another Spanish reference. Given that the topic of this column was supposed to be "I can't put a desk together," you'd think that more of it would involve the story of trying to assemble the desk. You know, instead of those huge chunks of pointless blather.

We seem to be entering another dry period for Morsch. His blog has been neglected, and the only hints of future stories involve less-than-promising Sellersville concerts. I can only shudder at what the future might have in store...

One Joke per Column Redux

Outta Leftfield: Cyber Monday may put professional schleppers out of business
Published: Tuesday, November 30, 2010
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor

Have I mentioned that I hate Yiddish words like "schlep" and "schmuck," etc? They might have been funny back when Mel Brooks was still making good movies, but they've fallen on hard times since then.

Schleppers beware: The primary role of the hapless husband — that of toting the bags on shopping excursions — is being threatened by this Cyber Monday business.

Come on. We covered the "husbands carry bags and push shopping carts" angle in his last column!

As one who has spent a lifetime perfecting the art of schlepping — especially during the holiday season — I have built what many consider to be an impressive resume in the craft: Vice President in Charge of Moping Around Looking for a Place to Sit Down at the Mall; Executive Director of Yawning and Napping; chief author of the pamphlet “How to Avoid Becoming Your Shopper’s Personal Coat Rack Outside the Fitting Room”; and Honorary Grand Pooh-bah of the Whining Husbands Hall of Fame.

I think Morsch has been reduced to two jokes: 1.) Men can't do anything; and 2.) Long made-up titles.

Why, because of my years of complaining to mall management about the hard benches, I am relatively certain that I am responsible for there being padded chairs and couches at Montgomery Mall for all the schlepping husbands. If I can only convince mall officials that there is a critical need for big-screen televisions and refrigerators stocked with cold adult beverages to complement the padded furniture, then the schlepper’s shopping experience would be complete.

Is this going to be like his "Rule No.1" post - will he just use the word "schlep" constantly and expect it to be amusing?

But now, for the past five years or so, Cyber Monday has all but eliminated the need for professional schleppers,

Yep, looks like he will.

just as we were getting used to the comfy chairs. Instead of running after wide-eyed wives lugging massive purses filled with coupons from store to store, we have been reduced to Wine Serving Interns as the wives sit at home on the couch, laptops at the ready, ordering our socks and undershorts online. (Online undershorts. Tell me those won’t ride up.)

Why is "Wine Serving Interns" capitalized? And why is there no hyphen between "wine" and "serving"? And why does he have to say "undershorts" not once but twice?

And besides, sitting down and trying to get comfortable has always been the schlepper’s bailiwick. There is no time for the shoppers to sit comfortably and relax; they must sprint from sale to sale throwing filled shopping bags over their shoulders for us to catch.

Haw haw haw. "Bailiwick." Funny word.

Cyber Monday — the term used by online retailers — is the Monday after “Black Friday” and generally recognized at the beginning of the online holiday shopping season. (Maybe there ought to be a ceremonial throwing out of the first shopping bag or something.)

This counts as an unnecessary baseball reference. For the record, I checked Wikipedia, but for once in his life Morsch did NOT steal this paragraph from them.

Media estimates predicted a record 106.9 million Americans would shop online Monday. That’s a lot of potential schleppers that could be out of work this holiday season. I do hope that mall management doesn’t see that figure and decide to reduce the number of comfy chairs at the mall. We fought long and hard for that advancement.

Thank goodness he specified "comfy chairs at the mall". I would have thought that "mall management" might have reduced the number of chairs in, say, the hospital.

One theory on why online sales increase on Cyber Monday is that people see items in malls over the weekend — not the schleppers, of course; we are busy napping and see very little of anything at the mall —

What do you want to bet that 100% of schleppers are MEN? Because there has never been a lazy woman. Not ever.

then wait until Monday when they can compare prices, avoid long lines at the checkout counter and take advantage of things like free shipping.

Free shipping? Phooey. Free schlepping is much more cost-effective than any free shipping deal could be.

What? This doesn't even make any sense.

Besides, where’s the sport in online shopping? See, one of the advantages that schleppers enjoy is that the more schlepping

Is he doing this on purpose? Is he testing just how poorly he can write something and still have it published?

and sitting we do at the mall, the less time we have for home improvement projects. If the professional shoppers in our life can shop from the convenience of their own couches, there will be nothing for us to schlep. I will end up painting the bathroom every other weekend, depending of course on which color paint is on sale online.

I hate this. I really do.

Another disadvantage I see to Cyber Monday shopping has to do with the number of goofs who camp outside retail stores for three days prior to Black Friday just to save a few bucks on a blender.

I'm looking forward to seeing how he connects the two ideas.

One of the reasons there are very few professional schleppers in this crowd is because there is section in the Professional Schleppers Handbook that clearly states: “Professional schleppers will not, under any circumstances, camp outside in late November and freeze our patooties off in the hopes that TV reporters who have no real news to report are doing Black Friday Idiocy stories and will stick our sorry mugs on the television.” (I’m paraphrasing, of course.)

The word "schlep" is not funny when it's used once. What makes anyone think that it will be funny when you use it so many times in the same column? "Patooties" isn't funny either.

I would hate to see the schleppers — their usefulness curtailed at the malls because of the increased online shopping — being forced to look for schlepping opportunities amongst the overnight camping crowd.

Jeez Louise would you stop already?!? This one is seriously starting to annoy me.

We schleppers make a clear distinction between dozing off in the comfy chairs inside the heated mall and trying to grab a quick nap in freezing temperatures on a retail store’s parking lot three days before the big blender sale.

Alright, we have variations on the word "schlep" and references to comfy chairs at the mall. I find more interesting column topics lodged in my stool.

So all you professional shoppers just cut it out with this online shopping stuff. Get off the couch and get a little exercise. Go out to the mall and run around like your hair is on fire.

And be sure to wake the professional schleppers when it’s time to go home and not paint the bathroom.

He used "schlep," or a variation on it, TWENTY times in this column. By the way, did you know that "schlep" can be defined as "someone or something that is tedious, slow, or awkward"? I think that's the perfect fit for this column and its author.

Poor Choice of Topic

Outta Leftfield: Rule book for home paper product usage may be necessary
Published: Tuesday, November 02, 2010
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor

A few days ago, Morsch posted this on Twitter: Anybody misuse household paper products? Like wiping up spills with tissues or blowing one's nose with a paper towel? I knew we were in for it.

A Facebook friend wrote the other day that she had a question she had been meaning to ask me for some time. My first thought was, "Oh, this sounds serious."

Uh-oh, it's a woman writing! Surely whatever she has to say will baffle Morsch, as well as any red-blooded male reader.

"Ask The Blonde Accountant about the correct usage of home paper products. I have a pet peeve about using them for what they were made for. My husband laughs at me. Yesterday he wiped up a spill with a Kleenex. Kleenexes are for noses, paper towels are for spills. And toilet paper should never be used for blowing one's nose," wrote Cheryl.

Shades of the "I can't organize my closet" column. This is not even a funny premise.

Just as I thought, a serious question. And naturally, it's not a question being asked directly to me, but to the wise one in our household.

The wise one! Because women are always the wisest, right?

Rest assured that I do not consider it a slight at all. I am used to being Vice President in Charge of Very Little Other Than Lightbulbs and Trash at my house.

Wahoooo! What man can't relate to that?

Scientific research (I asked a few other Facebook friends) reveals that it may be another one of those "Guy Things."

Can we get a new topic please?

For example, I am quite content attending to my nose with a paper towel. When that happens, The Blonde Accountant always flags me for Improper Use of Paper Towels. Not only am I scolded, but I must move an additional 15 yards away from her the next time I do it. But it is my nose, and I'm pretty sure she would agree that it's my paper towel once I have used it in that manner.

Woah woah, is that an unnecessary FOOTBALL reference? Now we really know the baseball season is over. I don't know if I've ever blown my nose with a paper towel... it strikes me as wasteful.

Household paper products - tissues, paper towels, napkins, toilet paper and baby wipes - seem to me to be mostly interchangeable. I'm a paper towel guy for just about everything because it seems to be the sturdiest of the household paper products.

This is laughable, and not in the way he intends.

Kleenexes are OK for minor work about the face - dabbing and wiping and such. But I cannot use one for any serious nose maintenance. As my Facebook friend Frank points out, one good big ole guy honk into a tissue and the dadgummed thing virtually disintegrates.

Frank is a frequent Facebook offender. And I've never disintegrated a tissue by blowing my nose, but I love the suggestion that every guy has a nose like a Howitzer.

Why, it's like blowing one's nose directly into one's hands. We men may be heathens and Neanderthals but we usually know enough not to blow our noses right into our hands.

"Heathens"? Are heathens notorious for their poor hygiene?

A Twitter friend - whom I won't identify based on The Blonde Accountant's reaction when I told her this story - offered that he once found himself out of baby wipes and immediately reached for the Armor All wipes, which resulted at him getting yelled at by his wife.

I'm really running out of things to say here. And there's a lot of fascinating paper discussion to go.

My initial reaction was, "Why would she yell at him for that?" Trying to find evidence to support the "Armor All is OK to use on a baby" approach, I looked on the Armor All website to see if baby bottoms popped up on its list of acceptable use surfaces.

We're sure to be treated to some fascinating material recycled from a website in the coming paragraph.

According to information on its site, "Armor All Cleaning Wipes have been specifically developed and tested for use on automobile surfaces." It says nothing about baby butts, so I guess it's safe to assume that the Armor All wipes are designed to be used on tires and auto interiors and not baby behinds.

Wow, I'm glad that we covered this. The Armor All website is fertile ground for comedy, and Morsch has gathered quite a crop, hasn't he?

Still, we shouldn't try to raise wimpy kids these days and a baby who has been tidied up with Armor All wipes is likely to be one tough baby. That baby could grow up to have one of those "I walked to school four miles uphill both ways in the snow" kind of stories to tell his kids and grandkids.

Or he could become one of those people who repeats cliches that were old when Harding was president!

"You think you kids got it bad, things were so tough in my neighborhood that when I was a baby my dad cleaned me off with an Armor All wipe ... and then went out and used my butt to wipe off the entire car!"

All this talk of babies and wipes and butts is starting to strike me as very foul.

In general though, the consensus among the guys is that short of using Armor All wipes on everything, paper towels can be used in any situation. Once again, in an attempt to support that theory, I typed in "good uses for paper towels other than cleaning up spills" into Google and found several other uses for paper towels.

I really hate this. How can someone think this is funny? Does he review his own work and think it's amusing? Does he think that the limitless Internet public will think so?

Among them are: as insulation; for stuffing one's bra (apparently not all women are anti-paper towel when it comes to its multiple uses; they appear, however, to draw the line at stuffing their bras with Armor All wipes);

Semi-colons are funny, I guess.

blowing your nose (I knew it); the entire roll makes a decent lumbar pillow (wouldn't have thought of that); as packing material for mailing fragile items; as table napkins (that one is a no brainer for me); and as potholders (one towel folded in half three times.)

Lists are funny.

As Facebook friend Tim pointed out, there really is no rule book for home paper products. But as we can see, maybe someone should develop one.

It looks like it would certainly be worth the paper it's printed on.

I can't think of anything to say. This was a horrible topic, first of all. I doubt even a funny person could write a column about using paper towels to blow his nose. But this one is all over the place. There's no cohesion. It reads like the diary of a goldfish.

Morsch Goes for the Record

Outta Leftfield: Left holding the bag … for a good cause

Published: Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Uh-oh... will this column be continuing the recent trend of "I went to a show, it was really fun"-type entries? [Editor's note: No... it's something far, far worse...]

Just once, I wish I was as lucky at the lottery as I am with purses.

Brandywine Assisted Living at Dresher Estates had its annual purse party last week, and my friend Marge Jacoby — the director of community relations for the facility —invited me to attend.

Now given the fact that I am more of a ballpark guy than I am a purse party guy, one would think that this would have been my first purse party invitation. That would be wrong.

I call a foul on this! Unless the event he is attending is a baseball game or a concert, he will inevitably compare said event (i.e. a flower show, a spelling bee, etc) to a baseball game. At this point, I don't think regular readers (i.e. me) need to be reminded that MM likes baseball.

I was invited to the soiree two years ago — a great sense of humor, that Marge — and ended up going by myself and actually winning a Coach purse, which was confiscated immediately by The Blonde Accountant upon my arrival home. That was OK by me because that particular purse didn’t go with any of my shoes, so I really had no use for it anyway.

Credit where credit is due - I actually thought the "didn't match my shoes" part was kinda funny.

In addition, that first purse party featured a three-legged dog named Lucky — a pet of one of the facility’s residents — who hung around the party being, well … three-legged. A three-legged dog doesn’t have to do much more than just hang around to get attention.

Thank goodness! We're back to familiar territory - mocking disabled animals.

So the mere fact that I attended a purse party with a three-legged dog and actually ended up winning a purse is nothing short of comedy gold. I couldn’t make that up, even with substantial help from beer. In hindsight, maybe I should have let the dog pick my lottery numbers.

Actually it's more like comedy pyrite. And hey, we've got another beer reference! Beer: the drink of classy gentlemen everywhere.

It is under that backdrop that I attended the most recent purse party, designed as a fundraiser this year for the Community Ambulance Association, Ambler.

Unlike the first time, though, I was bringing along some heavy hitters in the area of handbags — The Blonde Accountant and Daughter of Blonde Accountant. Neither of them would have the foggiest notion of how to properly spill mustard on themselves at the ballpark. But purses they know. (And shoes, but that goes without saying, I think.)

Hey-oh! Morsch is really kicking it up a notch here. The mustard comment (complete with yet another "ballpark" reference) is a call-back to last week's column about the Phillies hot dogs, and the shoes thing is, I suspect, a reference to the column that was sort of about shoes from a few weeks ago.

Attending a purse party with those who have expertise in that area relegated me back to a familiar role, that of somewhat disconnected and slightly befuddled onlooker. After all, I have been on many shopping excursions and I am a charter member of the Society of Clueless Husbands Looking at Expensive Purses (SCHLEP), so at the very least, I know my role in these types of situations — and that is to be quiet, find a place to sit down and take a nap. Wake me when a ballgame breaks out, will ya?

First off, the word "schlep" should be relegated to the pages of Mad Magazine, along with all the other vaguely Yiddish words like "schmuck" that haven't been used outside of Queens since the summer of '69. And my goodness - a THIRD baseball reference, and a possible call-back to his spelling bee column!

Actually, the purse party was indeed right in the wheelhouse of The Blonde Accountant and Daughter of Blonde Accountant, as I suspected it would be. They both enjoyed perusing the various handbags being raffled and dropping their tickets into the drawings for their favorites. Add a bit of tea and crumpets-type snacks to the festivities and it really was more of purse party than it was a ballgame — to the surprise of nobody but me, apparently.

Can't... go on... fourth baseball reference... too... much...

In the absence of the three-legged dog — his owner had moved to another facility — the Dresher Estates staff did not disappoint when it came to providing me with an adequate distraction.

What, no crippled old people to ridicule?

Tracey Murphy, director of arts and entertainment at Dresher Estates, worked the room greeting people while carrying a couple of guinea pigs in her pocket, to the surprise and enjoyment of many attending. Although I was unable to get a close enough look at the guinea pigs to see if any of them was three-legged, I do believe that cute little critters generally have a high ceiling when it comes to entertainment value. That is, of course, unless they happened to have an accident in their handler’s pocket. Naturally, that would have been highly entertaining to me but I’m not so sure Tracey would have found it that funny.

I guess it would be pretty hard to relate guinea pigs to a baseball game, so I'll give him a pass on this paragraph.

The event raised approximately $600 for Ambler Ambulance, which Dresher Estates will present to the group at a later date. Drew Lavenberg, chief of operations for Ambler Ambulance, was on hand — looking quite a bit more strapping and dashing in his uniform than I did in my rumpled editor’s getup — for the festivities and expressed his appreciation for the fundraising efforts.

$600, huh? That ought to buy that half a tire they've been hoping for. MM frequently describes himself as "rumpled," perhaps attempting to gain a Columbo-esque charm. He fails.

And wouldn’t you know it, Daughter of Blonde Accountant had one of her tickets pulled and won a Marc Ecko handbag. For the record, I do not know this Marc Ecko as he does not appear to be on the Phillies Opening Day roster.

Alright, that's enough. Seriously. This has gone from "running gag" to "annoying crutch." And this is not the first time that Morsch has made the connection between an unusual name and the Philles roster.

To say that Daughter of Blonde Accountant is quite pleased with the handbag would be like saying that I would be quite pleased to catch a Ryan Howard home run ball. Happy dance, happy dance, happy dance!

Is this even possible???

Alas, I never win anything that I want, like tickets to the ballgame. But we got purses coming out our ears at our house and apparently we can win more of those. As far as winning the lottery … pfffftttt!

Yes... yes, it is possible. Is that seven? Seven baseball references?

Looks like I’m destined to be left holding the handbag on that one.

And the usual incomprehensible last sentence that "ties it all together." But really, he was so close to eight - couldn't he have did a little Shane Victorino "stolen bag" reference or something?

Morsch's Greatest Hit

This is undoubtedly the most commented-on entry in the entire history of Outta Leftfield. Two of the comments are mine.

Outta Leftfield: You need to bulk up on patience if you’re going to shop at Costco
Published: Tuesday, January 26, 2010


Get it?

There are three things that I can count on virtually every single time I go to the grocery store: (1) I will not be able to find a parking spot within two miles of the front door; (2) I will choose a cart that has a bad wheel; (3) When it is time to check out, I will get into the slowest checkout line in the history of grocery stores.

Bad parking! Carts with bad wheels! Slow checkout lines! Where does he come UP with this stuff??? Sometimes I wonder whether, instead of being a humor column, this is some kind of post-modern commentary on bad humor columns.

Knowing this, I still go to the grocery store because, well, that’s where a lot of the food and bathroom tissue can be found. I usually need a lot of both.

Paging Archie Bunker! You've got competition in the "fat guy who goes to the bathroom" department!

There is a place, though, that compounds my usual difficulties in this area: Costco. The place is like Texas. Everything is bigger. So given the aforementioned problems, those of you who frequent this Genuardi’s on steroids probably can surmise three things about my infrequent visits to Costco: (1) that I will not be able to find a parking spot within eight miles of the front door and will in fact need to take a bus just to get to the dadgummed place; (2) that I will choose a dump truck in which to carry my items that has at least one bad wheel; (3) that when it comes time to check out, I will need to take vacation time away from work because I will be standing in line from now until next Wednesday.

It appears as though MM's usual difficulties with the English language are also increased by Costco. His standard run-on sentences have ballooned into a mighty Mississippi of compositional butchery.

It’s always an adventure at Costco. The place is usually packed, which makes negotiating the aisles with a three-wheeled cart, uh … challenging. It reminds me of going to the county fair when I was a kid and watching the demolition derby — all kinds of drivers going all kinds of directions bashing into each other like their undershorts were on fire and the other car was carrying a bucket of water. (This is not in any way a reference to the Underwear Bomber because I don’t need the Idiot Terrorists Anti-Defamation League starting a petition drive to get you to cancel your subscription because I have offended one of its members.)

To go from "undershorts" to the Underwear Bomber... what kind of a brain makes that leap? I'm pretty sure that nobody, ever, would make that connection.

The other thing about Costco is that, as you know, it’s a bulk item store. One can’t just buy one bottle of ketchup. Everything is measured in kegs: a keg of potato chips, a keg of peanuts, a keg of paper towels, a keg of mouthwash — although in my particular situation, a case could be made for buying mouthwash by the keg.

Something tells me a keg of potato chips wouldn't be much of a problem for MM. And for the record, this is just the first of many references to his purportedly horrendous breath.

The only thing I can’t find there is a keg of beer, but it’s a big place and the possibility exists that I haven’t found it yet because I’m out of vacation days at work and just haven’t had the time for a thorough search of the premises.

And the twisting, tortured sentences continue. Please also note that this will not be the last time MM sings the praises of beer.

Of course, a store that big has everything. Why, if I had wanted to, I could have bought The Blonde Accountant a diamond engagement ring from Costco. Now it may be that Costco carries fine jewelry, but I wouldn’t know it. What I do know, however, is how that conversation would go had any guy come home from a trip to Costco toting a diamond ring and a marriage proposal.

The Blonde Accountant seems to be his code-named wife. Also, what? Here is the evolution of this "joke" thus far:

1.) MM jokes that Costco carries jewelry.
2.) He admits that maybe Costco does carry jewelry... but maybe not.
3.) He continues to craft an entire "comical" scenario based on this rather murky jewelry concept.

Well Intentioned Guy: “Hey honey, look what I found. Would you marry me?”

Female Jewelry Expert: “Oh, it’s a beautiful ring. Where did you get it?”

WIG: “Aisle 7 at Costco.”

FJE: “You’re an idiot.”

WIG: “Uh, I will need to inform my friends at the Idiot Terrorists Anti-Defamation League of your insult. Does this mean you’re not going to marry me?”

FJE: “Oh, just be quiet and go back to Costco and get a 30-pack of bathroom tissue, will you.”

Direct from an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond to your local newspaper. And BONUS! We get a callback to the "undershorts/Underwear Bomber" joke, which in retrospect was much funnier than this is.

There’s a fun story to tell the kids, huh? I remember the day I got your mother’s engagement ring at Costco. It was the same day I had a coupon for bathroom tissue.

Joke... wearing... painfully... thin... And we've got our second toilet paper reference.

I will say this, though, about Costco: It will at least feed you while you’re hiking around its warehouse. I love those little stands set up at the end of some aisles that serve up bites of whatever food products the store is pushing that day. Why, those customers who are in pretty decent shape that can make two or three trips around the entire store can get the equivalent of a fairly decent lunch.

In general, I try to avoid the place. However, the advantage of Costco — bulk buying — also becomes the disadvantage quite quickly. The cart fills up with heavy bulk items and then becomes difficult to negotiate. Since I am generally considered the muscle in my family, it falls to me to navigate the overloaded three-wheeler for the right to stand in line for three days to check out.

Um, usually a "however" is followed by an idea that differs from the previous one. Here he says, "I don't like Costco. However, there are also things I don't like about Costco."

And just once, I’d like to find a decent parking spot close to the door. After shopping at that place with all the challenges that it brings, I really have little patience left for the eight-mile bus ride, especially toting groceries that haven’t been bagged.

I always forget the bags.

And finis! Way to leave them with a big laugh, MM. Someone named George Luken actually commented on this story, defending Costco from MM's rapier wit and Swiftian satire. I couldn't resist responding:

A very passionate defense of Costco! Could it be because Mr. George Luken is in fact Jim Sinegal, the PRESIDENT AND CEO OF COSTCO??? Seems like you have the attention of some real 90-caliber pezzonovante here, Mr. Morsch... keep speaking truth to power!

Some dope named Steve then said:

Yeah, I'm sure the CEO of Costco has nothing better to do than scour tiny weekly newspapers across the country looking for any mentions of his company.

To which I replied:

Well spoken Steve, a.k.a. Jeffrey Brotman, CO-FOUNDER OF COSTCO! I'm not sure what your current involvement with the company is, Mr. Brotman, but don't you think the earthquake victims in Haiti are more deserving of your attention than indulging in petty conspiracies with your corporate confederate? Don't back down, Mr. Morsch - they're coming out of the woodwork now!