Crackups in Coastal City

I wandered to Coastal City recently for a day off. There seems to be something about a beachfront town that generates humor. It could be the sea salt in the air, the many tourists with Hawaiian shirts covering their beer bellies, or the constant feeling of a fiesta about to happen. At any rate, signs like this one are common: "Fernando's Fish Fryer. You Hook 'Em. We Cook 'Em!" It reminded me of silly things we used to do as children. We would answer the phone, "Grady's Graveyard. You stab 'em, we slab 'em!" Sometimes we would pick up the receiver and say, "Right Field. Mickey Mantle speaking." On one occasion, I answered a ringing phone by saying, "Thanks for calling your local bakery. Which crumb do you want to speak to?"

Occasionally I would get the overwhelming urge to impart a crucial fact. "Hello, did you know that death is this nation's Number One killer?" On the same ghoulish note, I once answered the phone with this announcement, "Hello, we've started a new method of population control. Death penalty for parking violations!" On a lighter note, as teenagers we sometimes greeted callers with, "Thank you for calling the Fat Farm. We don't skinny dip, we chunky-dunk!" Little did I know I would one day qualify to be chunky-dunked myself.

I'm amazed that people back then continued to phone us.