Sybil Bruncheon’s April Fooleries!…

"Law & Order SVU?.... Detective Stabler??.... My next door neighbor is naked and wants to play Uncle Wiggly with me!..... APRIL FOOL'S!!!!"....

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...from Sybil Bruncheon's "EASTER EGGS-traordinaries"... Hepplemann Falls, Ohio.......

Easter Weekend Reports From Around The World: .....Hepplemann Falls, Ohio.

Abner Linkmayer and a passenger claiming to be the Easter Bunny were stopped by highway patrolmen today for erratic driving of a John Deere tractor and a 40' wheat harvester down Highway 3 this morning. They managed to mow down four mailboxes, seven fire hydrants, twenty two street signs, and the Bigelow newspaper and notions stand in the town square. (Scotty Bigelow jumped off his stool just in time!) Several airline bottles of Grey Goose, Jim Beam, Southern Comfort, Drambuie, and Manischewitz were found scattered in the hopper of the harvester. Little Abner and Mr. Bunny claimed that they had not been drinking, but that the bottles had come "from the Booze Tree that they had run over back on the MacGregor farm". Police determined later that there was no booze tree on the MacGregor farm, and the botany department of the Clemson College of Agricultural & Animal Husbandry went even farther by declaring that in fact there is no such thing as a booze tree. At that point, Linkmayer and Bunny were heard to laugh raucously, make farting sounds using their hands and armpits, and then throw up all over the police chief's desk. Both are being held without bail until their trial at either the Hepplemann Juvenile Facility ..or at the Gurney Petting Zoo. Details at 6. Bourbon-soaked marshmallow peeps at 11.

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Sybil Bruncheon’s TALES & TAILS: Easter and Passover Stories of Yesteryear!…

In addition to Passover which celebrates the emancipation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt, there is also the lesser known agricultural holiday of Ослобађање од кокошињца од поо Поос (which is pronounced "Glurph zzjyjal-jadlylxxcvw" and which means "The Chicken Coop is free and clean"). This Holiday always falls on the first weekend in April and commemorates the liberation of all domesticated bird life from the tyranny of rabbits which was the norm for 19th century farm life both here and in Europe!..... Chickens, geese, ducks, and even swans in some places were used as slave labor, food sources, and cheap carnival entertainment by wealthy rabbits and their human collaborators.

Chickens especially were confined to glass boxes in sideshows and fed electronically only when they played well known songs on junky child-pianos often with only a few working keys and usually out of tune. Entire days of repeating "The Farmer In The Dell", "Frère Jacques", and "I Write The Songs" would eventually drive most hens insane or to suicide, and it was not unusual to see many chickens having to drag carts of their own eggs to market to be sold in road-side stands, dyed for Easter, thrown at Vaudeville shows, or scrambled in Greek diners!

Yes, my friends! This is Ослобађање од кокошињца од поо Поос!! The holiday when any self-respecting chicken may throw off the yolk of servitude....oops! The YOKE of servitude, and cry out, "Цоцка кретен!!"....

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Spring time in the garden.....

LADIES!!!...with the weather getting warmer, the days getting longer, and Spring just around the corner, NOW is the time to get out in your garden and start checking for pests in your flower beds! Remember, the sooner you start, the better off your lovely vegetables and flowers will be....Your garden will thank you. And so will the rest of the planet Earth....

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Sybil Bruncheon’s 31 Days of Halloween: A Parenting Bulletin!!!......

Friends, do you have a difficult child in your home? Now it's best to be honest, BRUTALLY honest with yourself and face the harsh reality of a "bad child". Perhaps through no fault of your own, your son or daughter..(or whatever!) is perpetually naughty, and has been so nearly from birth!... maybe even in the Delivery Room? Did your newborn pull a sharp object on your obstetrician... and the attending nurses?

Does your toddler bite, scratch, or kick its playmates, a valuable piece of antique furniture... or even plumbing fixtures?

Does your pre-schooler speak in strange foreign languages or make tropical animal sounds with accompanying gestures, especially when religious persons are visiting, or perhaps your employer and his unsuspecting wife?

Has your child claimed to have a "secret friend"??..... with a name like "Monkey-Woman", "Curtis the Curved-Cucumber", "Qitzzl-Patyl", or "Mrs. Roosevelt"????

Does your 1st grader put his clothes on backwards, or upside down....or does he go out for the day with no clothes on whatsoever?

Does your youngster eat all his vegetables, but insist on biting them directly out of the ground with his own teeth?

Has your daughter ever carried on lengthy and expensive long-distance phone calls... on her shoes... with famous mimes??

Has your child started collecting odd things, like olive pits, burnt matches, or navel lint?

Has your youngster ever used his bedroom closet as a "private elevator to Uncle Satan's house"?

Does your son shoplift various make-up items, and then open a beauty counter at your dining room table when your bridge club meets on Thursdays... where he introduces himself as "Mr. Nancy: Make-up Mentor To Mass-Murderers!"…

These and other peculiar eccentricities can be the advanced and sometimes incurable signs of "Willful Naughtiness". What can a caring parent do? The first step is to call our switchboard and purchase the books and tools needed to turn this terrible situation around! But you must act NOW! Time is of the essence! Our operators are waiting to help YOU! Just dial S-A-V-E-M-Y-B-R-A-T! That's right! Dial 728-369-2728. The nice man will tell you how to order! Procrastination may be fatal!... Don't wait until your sweet little bundle of joy wakes you up one morning ... with a blowtorch… and an axe!

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Myrna learns something new!!!.....

Myrna Bañaga determined that too much starch didn't make her work uniform look crisp and tailored! It made her look rigid and unwilling to accept change at the office. The nice lady in the Human Resources office told her so..... they called it her "first warning"....

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...from Sybil Bruncheon's "EASTER EGGS-traordinaries"... NEWS BULLETIN!!!

NEWS BULLETIN!!! ...this just in! The State Department has revealed new footage of the terrorist organization ISIS. It appears that to honor the Christian world's upcoming holiday of Easter, members of ISIS are now concealing their identities with festive Holiday wear when they perform their customary beheading ceremonies. A spokesman for the group apologizes to the West for not being able to also find "marshmallow-peep" masks or charming little Easter bonnets for their female suicide bombers! Details at 6. Bright pink plastic grass and scimitars at 11. 

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It's Spring time!!!

Ladies!!!...(and like-minded Gents!)...Spring is almost here, and we all want to give her a warm welcome into our homes, don't we?? Well, now is the time to start those special "Spring-Cleaning" projects that we knew were coming back in February. Procrastination is NOT the way to go! Let's pull out the silver polish, the can of Lemon Pledge, the Swiffer, and the extension poles for the Electro-Lux and get to those special neglected parts of our homes! You never know what may be waiting for you there!! A quarter in the sofa cushions, a missing earring under the side table.... or....?????

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SYBIL BRUNCHEON'S STORY BOOK CORNER: Cornelia Eustachia Pinkleberry......

SYBIL'S STORY BOOK CORNER: Good evening Boys and Girls!! I hope you're indoors where all the snow and ice can't chill your bones...or freeze your little toes off! Would you like to hear a story?? A story about a beautiful lady who lived a long time ago in New York City when it was still a friendly place with nice stores??? ...you would?? Well, get Sybil a nice cup of hot chocolate while she warms herself by the fire and I'll tell you... Oh, and Darling please make it a very, VERY big cup, and put some of your Father's scotch in it, but let's not tell him, ok?...

Once upon a time, there was a very lovely lady named Cornelia Eustachia Pinkleberry, of the famous Pinkleberry Department Store & Emporium fortune. She was as sweet as she was beautiful! And as beautiful as she was wealthy! Everyone loved her, and liked to be with her. And some men liked to be with her alone, but she said NO!!! Well, one day, Corny (that was her nickname, but only special ladies from her Women's Gymnastic and Interpretive Dance Seminars were allowed to call her that!) went out in the evening air for a walk and to get a beverage from a local café that served ... um... special kinds of drinks for special customers. Corny often went to this little café on Tuesdays... or any day of the week actually. And sometimes EVERYDAY....

When she walked in, the tiny brass bell on the door tinkled happily as if to say "Hello, Corny!" as she entered. She spoke politely to Big Hank, the nice man with one eye behind the counter, and gave him some money, and he gave her a bottle wrapped in brown paper. He did it in a funny way, because he slipped it UNDER the counter top instead of on top... That's how Corny liked to get it, and she told him so, but politely. And she even let Big Hank pinch her bottom sometimes, even though when he smiled he only had three teeth. Then she took her nice treat out into the snowy night, and began to walk home... along the way, she felt chilly because the wind had started to blow sideways, and the snow was beginning to block the view of the cozy houses with their glowing windows on 5th Avenue where she lived..... thirty-eight blocks away.

She stopped in an alleyway to have a little sip of the nice drink that Big Hank made in a bath tub in his basement while funny ladies did dances in coconut brassieres and grass skirts in front of ..uh...."theatre-goers". The nice drink made her feel warmer, and she started out again for home. But within about 7 feet she decided that she'd like another little taste ...and then another.... and then another. Pretty soon... well, can you guess what happened, children? Yes! That's right. She ran out of the nice drink, and the bottle was empty. Corny was sad...and very chilly. She thought maybe she should go back to Big Hank and buy another nice bottle. Or maybe make him GIVE her one for free because the first one wasn't full enough and she might have to tell him so... but then she thought maybe Big Hank was too far away now, and she was closer to home and she could get warm there. But she couldn't quite figure out how far she was from her home either... Has that ever happened to YOU?? You know where you live, but you get lost anyway?? And then you get a little scared? That happened to me once, and then a bad man asked if he could help me, but I screamed and ran away. But that's a story I'll tell you some other time. Back to Corny.

So she was very, very cold, and she decided to go home, but she didn't know where home was because the snow was blowing too hard, and the drink had made her a little dizzy, and she had started singing songs at the top of her lungs....and doing pretty dances like she learned with the other nice ladies. After a while she got a little tired because she had danced all the way down to the Hudson River! Do you know where that is? Well, it's a very nice place to visit in the Summer, but not on a Winter night in 1888. Corny looked out at the water and thought to herself, "I don't remember a canal running down the middle of 5th Avenue! Why, it looks just like Venice where Papa took me last April! I'm going to sit on this bench and wait for a gondola to come by so I can buy a pizza." And do you know what happened, Boys & Girls?? No, now don't all shout at once! YES! That's right!! Corny went to sleep!! And the snow fell for a long time... for three whole days!

One day, some men who were sailors walked by a snowman that was near their boat, and they thought it was funny that it was wearing a lady's hat! And then, they looked closer and saw that it was beautiful Cornelia Eustachia Pinkleberry of the Pinkleberry Department Store and Emporium fortune!… because everyone at that time knew Corny from her pictures in the fancy ladies gazettes, calendars, and naughty playing cards. They asked her if she was feeling alright, and they even shook her a little, but POLITELY, because that's what gentlemen did back in those days, even sailors. Corny didn't answer them, which a lady would ALWAYS do to men who shook her...even sailors. And then she sort of fell over, and the big sailors screamed... sort of like girls who see a spider! ... a really BIG spider. They would have run away, but they remembered that Corny was very rich, so they carefully picked her up out of the snow. She was folded into a funny shape that people usually aren't in except when they sleep in the snow... for a long time. And they carried her back to her beautiful house on 5th Avenue, after they got the address from Big Hank who was a friend of theirs too... He was a friend of a lot of folks back then.

When they took Corny back to her home, all the servants in the house were very, very sad! Some of them were so sad, they went through her pockets and even up to her room to take souvenirs because they loved her so. And they also noticed that Corny was just as beautiful asleep as she had been when when she was awake. Mr. Prumble, the head butler, said that it was because she was the sweetest and most beautiful creature he had ever seen. And Mrs. Curnt, the head cook, said it was because Big Hank's nice drink was special, and had stuff in it that would keep Corny looking beautiful for 25 years. And then all the servants stood around and remembered nice stories, and they decided to call a very friendly man who lived in Greenwich Village who painted pictures of ladies.... sometimes with no clothes on. They wanted him to come to the house right away and paint Corny exactly the way she looked right then with her eyes wide open and her hands in her favorite muff, and her head tilted just so... and that's just what he did. He asked them for some money, and they gave it to him. And they gave him some hot chocolate with marshmallows and some of Big Hank's special drink in it. And then they all hung the beautiful new picture of Cornelia in the big entry hall right over the fireplace that greeted visitors when they came. And the glow of the fire lit the room with warmth and cheer, and Corny smiled down at all of them. And she would smile just that way... forever, and ever.... and always be beautiful!... Well? What do you think, children? Was that a nice story to hear on a snowy night??

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POST-HOLIDAYS "BLUES"????...... what to do? ....what to do???

 Darlings, do you get those dreadful Post-Holiday “Blues”? Well, Mummie is old enough to remember post-holiday blues back with Bob Cratchit and the gang!…. And there were years that were absolutely terrible! Look around you! The presents are all opened, wrapping paper, ribbons, and confetti lie around, as if F.A.O. Schwartz and Bergdorf Goodman either vomited and/or farted in your home… Looking back now, I’m not sure if it was better or worse when Winter actually FELT like Winter, and there were snowdrifts with dead people in them (NYC-1888) or last year when global warming gave us that Hula-Festival in Greenwich Village for Valentine’s Day! But whichever you prefer: 3 months of blizzards or stripping tinsel off your palm tree, those 8 weeks till March can be brutal for the unprepared! Many years, I’ve taken to my bathtub on New Year’s eve with a box of Calgon Bouquet, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, and a razor blade….oh! And Guy Lombardo on the radio…. Well, I’m finding all sorts of new “purpose” in my life, especially now that I’m in my…. um….. mid-30s. And one of those wonderful contributions I can make to my loved ones is to help them through life’s annoying and discouraging travails, using my own experiences….

You know, a nice old gypsy woman read my palm once and told me, (and I quote!), “Da vay you valkt vahs torny, tru no folt ob yorr own, but az dee rrain entors da soil, da ribberr entors da ses, so teerrrs ron to a prredestin end. Yore soffering sxb an Usnn7z %nK* ees over, Sheebul $&haR2*91m…..”. Actually, at that point, she sort of lost me, but I’m sure she was saying nice things to me because she kept smiling even as tears ran down her face, and eventually I found my wallet a day or two later. My point is that, we can find all sorts of new ways to look at life even in the dullest days of Winter. And here are a few suggestions that have worked for me!!!

1)     Instead of rushing to break down all those Christmas/Hannukah/Holiday decorations and strip your home bare, leave them up for a while. After all, in many parts of the world, “EPIPHANY” (January 6th) is actually a bigger holiday than Christmas itself. Epiphany is the day that the three wise men traditionally come to the stable, and officially “recognize” Jesus as the miracle baby. Many countries give their children their presents on THAT night, not the 25th. And where do you think the 12 Days Of Christmas comes from??? Right!!! The 12 days between the 25th and the 6th!!! Nice, huh??? And did you notice that in the song, the gifts actually increase in value as the nights go by??? A ‘partridge in a pear tree’ - nice! But ‘twelve drummers drumming’? - Fabulous!… (unless of course, you have a hangover.) Good Heavens! Between eight days of Hannukah and twelve days of Christmas, you can really ‘clean up’….. and then add in whatever the Kwanzaa folks do, and December starts to be so festive, you may WANT to shut down for the month of January in a detox unit! But if you ARE still looking for some fun, figure out a way to reconfigure your Holiday décor for January. Put away the menorahs, the Nativity scenes, and the motorized  laughing Santa by the front door, and leave up garlands of silver, gold, blue and white and turn your home into a celebration of the Winter Nights. Leave the Holiday lights up to keep it festive….(and to keep you from breaking your neck on the front porch) If friends ask, just tell them you love the way it all chases the darkness away. It’s not like you’ve turned into Miss Havisham, and your 20 year old Christmas tree has become a fire hazard! And who doesn’t want some cheerfulness with the sun setting at 4:30 in the afternoon???

2)     January and February are great months to shake up the shut-in routine! Instead of hunkering down into a kind of hibernation/homeless man/huddle, use this time to do all the stuff you save for “Spring-cleaning”. Be honest, wouldn’t it make more sense to put on all your favorite music and clean out that closet, the attic, the basement?? Donate all the things you truly don’t use to a local charity, and give your home a new fresh feel at the time you need it most! And invite friends over for a Saturday-paint-the-bedroom picnic!!! Changing the color of your home is a total ‘attitude-adjuster’. Why wait to do these projects till the warm weather is tempting you to go outside and NOT do them?? And trust me; when you’ve cleaned your closets, or painted a room or two, there is nothing like the feeling you get the next day and you wake up to a whole new home! It can be sleeting outside, but you’ll feel like a garden is blooming in your LIFE!!!

3)     At no other time of the year, do folks surrender to the same old boring routine! The sun rises late, sets early, and we humans are still basically living by the same bio-clock that our prehistoric ancestors were dialed to. Even with night-clubs, and street lights, and big-city-excitement, we still rush into our caves and huddle around our TV-set-campfires after a day of hunter-gathering-number-crunching. Why wait till the Spring to get out of the house??? Take up a new hobby, or enroll in a class. But do it with others!!! Needlepoint, knitting, cooking, book-clubbing, canasta, bridge, macramé, funny-ceramics class with Mummy (hint, hint!!!). Find a group of folks who are learning something new, and join them. Ask friends who may already be doing it…or gather a bunch of friends together who are just as post-December-Disgruntled as you!!! Even if you can’t agree on a common hobby to approach as a group, you could plan a weekly activity that makes you look forward to that special day together. What if you always made Wednesdays your “Hump-Day Holiday” and went to a different restaurant to try a different world cuisine? And made a point of writing a funny ‘restaurant review’ in 25 words or less that each of you read to the others the following week during the first round of cocktails??? Eight weeks/eight new restaurant adventures!! I always find that surrounding myself with folks that I like reminds me to be grateful for the loveliness in my life…and open to even more loveliness that’s just waiting to waltz right in the front door!!!

      Well, Mummie’s lectured enough for today!!! But I’ll close with this. As we all get older, it can get very easy to surrender to the ‘aches and pains’ of life, not just physically, but emotionally, spiritually, and even philosophically. I’ve noticed that two of my favorite quotes are coming back to haunt me more and more as the years go by. I learned them both when I was very(!) little, as if, on some level I knew they’d serve me well later, and here they are crowding a lot of extraneous stuff out of the way; Jack London’s credo- “I would rather be ashes than dust!...”. And Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night!...’. … now let’s see. For the guest bathroom. ‘Cucumber Caprice’, or ‘Misty Malted Milk-ball’????? Mrs. Granville? Mrs. Granville! (she’s my maid in charge of “Home-Crafts”!)…. where’s the paint roller… and my rubber gloves???

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