sabbatical – noun [ C/U ] US /səˈbæt̬·ɪ·kəl/:
time away from work given to college or university teachers, esp. to study, write, or travel:
“Professor Logan will be on sabbatical this term.”
(Cambridge English Dictionary)
For the next three to four posts I will be taking a blog sabbatical.
Get a hold of y’all-selves; it’s all right. I will still be posting a blog on the upcoming Fridays….
…but there will not be “timely” material featured. Just a smattering of significant celebratory dates, old jokes, and likely a baby sloth picture or two, as space placeholders for your edification and entertainment.
For example, did you know that May 26 is celebrated round the world as International Eggplant Hygiene Day? [1]
It isn’t (as far as I know). But it is Sally Ride Day,-. Also, May 26 was also the first day (in 1897) that Bram Stoker’s Dracula went on sale in British bookstores.
Speaking of isnt‘s, there isn’t one eggplant joke I can think of. And that’s just wrong. Although I once purchased an eggplant at a supermarket that looked like a profile shot of Richard Nixon. [2] But that’s no joke.
Apparently, there is a pantheon of photographs of veggies thought to resemble human buttocks, although those images are too tasteless for this space.
Then again….
* * *
Department Of Wait Wait I Found One! [3]
The grocery store’s teenaged produce stockboy is stacking fruit on a display stand, when an elderly lady asks him, “Do you have any eggplant?”
“Sorry ma’am,” the stockboy replies, “we are out of eggplant. We’ll be getting a shipment tomorrow morning.”
The lady looks around the store some more, returns to the stockboy a few minutes later and asks where the eggplant is. “As I said, ma’am…” The boy smiles patiently. “I’m sorry we’re out of eggplant, but we will be getting a shipment tomorrow morning.”
The lady looks around some more, then returns to the same stockboy. “Where the hell do you keep the eggplant?,” she demands. “I need some eggplant for dinner tonight!”
“Right,” the stockboy sighs. “Answer a couple of questions and I will get you your eggplant.” She agrees, and he starts the questions. “Spell cat for me, as in catastrophe.” She says, “Ok; “C A T”.
“Very good,” the stockboy says. “Now, spell dog, as in dogmatic.” The lady, obviously getting irritated, spells it correctly. “Now,” the stockboy says, “spell, Fuck, as in eggplant.”
The old lady sputters indignantly, “There’s no Fuck in eggplant!” To which the stockboy says, “THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN TRYING TO TELL YOU THE WHOLE TIME!”
* * * [4]
May you listen to what the stockboys are trying to tell you;
May you never fail to think of eggplant jokes;
May you take a sabbatical, however you define it;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Please be thinking to yourself, “No, I didn’t know that, because no one knows that.”
[2] It sat around the kitchen counter for weeks until it’s protuberance which looked like Nixon’s ski jump of a nose deteriorated – I couldn’t bear to cook it.
[3] An eggplant joke, that is.
[4] Why are you looking here? Footnotes are never associated with those starry-thingies. At least, not in this blog.
