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Proving that I’m not the only nut hanging from the family tree, I received the following email from my mother a few days ago:

Ohhhhh boy! I can just imagine the stories that Grandma has been telling the other ladies during her weekly hairdresser’s appointment.

I don’t who is naughtier. Me for writing them, or my mother for sending them.

Late last night (which, coincidentally, was Friday the thirteenth), our good friend Lisa left a Comment in the VTB Chat Lounge that had all the earmarks of a true-life horror movie.

She claimed that she once had a COCONUT in her kitchen, and…and…and…it exploded!

Well…my initial reaction was that this fantastic tale had nothing to do with the COCONUT next to Lisa’s kitchen stove…and everything to do with the mushrooms next to her Pink Floyd CD Box Set.

But being the investigative journalist that I am, I launched a quick Google search on the term “exploding COCONUT.”

And I’ll be damned! It has happened to others as well.

This changed the equation for me. I mean…having an exploding COCONUT do grievous harm to my body is one thing. But having one do grievous harm to my Italian-made Arrital kitchen cabinets is quite another.

So I broke-out the heavy machinery tonight and performed triple lobotomies on all four of my tasty little ticking time bombs. Three of them are roasting in the oven as I type these words.

The King, however, has NOT left the building. I’ve simply grown too fond of his sneer and mutton chops to even consider turning him into a chutney.

And besides, Trac would have my ass if I did.

So…does all this mean that my passion for COCONUT has ended?

Hell no! It’s just means that we’ll have to take [ahem!] prophylactic measures during future encounters.

Besides, nothing stimulates the passion quite like a little danger.

Duck, and cover!

My hormones have reached the four COCONUT level!

This is uncharted territory.

So potentially volatile, in fact, that I thought it prudent to have a guest artist decorate the fourth COCONUT. As such, I let my daughter do the honors.

Her COCONUT de jour is sort of a cross between Picasso during his Cubist period and Sally Field’s “The Flying Nun.”

You may or may not be relieved to learn that the four pictured above represent my entire inventory of COCONUTS. So…where does the adventure go from here? I have no idea. But I do know one thing.

If I don’t start doing some *real* writing soon, you guys will drop me quicker than a $20 bill at a Las Vegas blackjack table.

In tonight’s installment of “Celebrity COCONUT Impersonators,” I give you…Groucho!

Although…I suppose it could also be that nerdy little guy from the movie, “Bachelor Party.”

And just for the helluvit, I tossed in the Pooh gang. They aren’t made from COCONUT, but they do hold an esteemed place in our hearts.

Construction paper and Winnie the Pooh action figures. That’s life with a four year old, for ya. A four year old who—I should mention—brought a COCONUT to school last week for “Show & Tell.”

Daddy’s little girl!

Bill Bryson is my favorite author.

He has a new book coming out called, “The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid”—a memoir about growing up in the US midwest during the 1950’s and 60’s.

He has just released an amusing (and typically quirky) little video clip in which he reads a chapter from his new book.

Check it out by clicking HERE.

Hey! I just wrote an entire post without once mentioning COCONUT.

Doh!!!

The world has been in a heightened state of anxiety since Kim Jong Il and his North Korean regime successfully tested a nuclear weapon last weekend.

And from far and wide, the good people of planet Earth are begging for just one thing.

No, no, no…not COCONUT! *I’m* the only one begging for that.

Rather, the good people of planet Earth are begging for…silly poems about North Korea!

Fortunately, I—in my official capacity as Minister of Silly Poems—published a few of them on this VTB on April 1, 2005.

So, do your frazzled nerves a favor and click HERE.

C’mon…go ahead! If you can’t laugh in the face of armageddon, then when can you laugh?

There are two gadgets that were invented, manufactured and marketed specifically for me.

One is the electronic calculator. I simply can’t do math in my head. Not even if my life depended on it. And a boatload of college and graduate-level algebra and statistics courses have done nothing to change that.

Want an example? Here’s one that I swear is true.

I once withdrew 130€ from an ATM and received a fifty and four twenties. I counted them, and they equaled 100€. I counted them again—knowing full well that ATM’s rarely make mistakes—and they still equalled 100€. I counted them a third time (still 100€!) and then complained to the bank manager who—with a look that exhibited both bewilderment and concern—showed me very slowly, very tenderly that 50+20+20+20+20=130.

The other invention is the global positioning system (or “GPS”). And that’s what I’m going to talk about today.

To say that I was born with a poor sense of direction is inaccurate. I was, in fact, born with no sense of direction whatsoever. Over the years, I’ve devised strategies for coping with this shortcoming. The most effective strategy has been to carefully determine the direction in which my destination lies…and then go the opposite direction. That usually does the trick.

But then, while I was in Chicago during Christmas 2005, I took my father’s truck out for a spin and noticed something unusual in the dashboard. It was a GPS.

A GPS! I’d heard about these things, but had never…you know…touched one.

Or caressed one.

Or deep tissue massaged one.

And now, there I was…all alone in that truck…with a GPS.

I punched in an address. Any address.

“1313 COCONUT Grove. Yeah! That’s a good one!”

And as that beautiful little hunka silcone took me by the hand and lovingly deposited me at my destination as if we had made the drive a million times before, I fell madly in love.

The Beatles famously stated that “Money Can’t Buy Me Love.” But in this case, it could. The problem, however, was that the cost of love was 500€-700€. So I sadly observed an indefinite vow of GPS celibacy.

The vow lasted for what seemd to be an eternity. Until…I opened the newspaper a few weeks ago and saw the following announcment in the insert for a Spanish electronics store chain called Media Markt:

“GARMIN STREETFINDER c310 GPS: 199€!”

199€?!!! I leaped into my car and drove in the exact opposite direction of where I knew the store was located. An hour later and 200€ poorer, I was giddily licking the suction cup of my new GPS.

And yesterday morning, I took it on its first, real mission: “GPS, my dear. Take me to IKEA!”

And guess what? The GPS got me to IKEA in record time. And it got me there with neither an iota of stress nor a single U-turn. For me, that’s unheard of!!!

And best of all, that little GPS freed my mind to focus on other, more important things while driving. Like…like…like…well, like COCONUT!

I walked into IKEA feeling like a man with supreme confidence. And I walked out of IKEA 200€ poorer. But that’s OK, because you know what they say.

“Steel colander for straining pasta: 8€.”

“Drafting table and chair for your daughter’s birthday: 110€.”

“A sense of direction after 39 years of fantasizing about one: Priceless!”