69 Comments
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Gerard DeGroot's avatar

Gosh you make me laugh! Every damn time. That's just about the most important talent a writer can have in these fucked up times.

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Jennifer Barnett's avatar

I’m so glad to hear it. ☺️

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Ellen's avatar

My God, you are just the type of lunatic I would love to have for a friend. I’m way too old for that anymore, but thank God you write about it Makes me laugh every time.

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Andrea Fisher's avatar

ah ha...me too. BUT, it is permission to act out when called for. And sometimes it IS called for.

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Jennifer Barnett's avatar

I’m so glad to hear it. Always happy to connect with a kindred. (No such thing as too old for mischief) 😈

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Ivy Blanche's avatar

this is glorious! also: I see myself! never thought that i do similar things because i'm bored. but you totally nailed it! boring is just undoable. the worst thing! I think what they did in the middle ages to people when they punished them with torture and horrible ways of slow death was just to prevent boredom! boredom is the cruellest torture. thats what they do in prisons now, but also with television. they make people addicted and then force them to sit hours of hours in prolonged boredom. or the horrible meta picture app ... drawn out hope of preventing boredom but then spending whole days on exactly that! there must be an entire branch of science who perfected this hell that constitutes now most of our society. there's probably more money going there than even into weapons. keeping people on a finely calibrated level of boredom and then to constantly stress them out. a recipe for civil docility and oblivious obedience. thank you for sparking thoughts!

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Jennifer Barnett's avatar

Wow, I hadn’t considered how deep this was and now I’m even more impressed with myself. 😉😂

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Ivy Blanche's avatar

as you should be! well, i am …

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Winnie Appell's avatar

I laughed so hard I thought my watch was going to alert me about being in a loud environment AGAIN !! LOL! Because of your piece, I now have a wish I didn’t know I wanted which is to be at a party so boring with you that you entertain yourself. YAAS!!!! Your pics are so good and I was howling, especially of your pup. I have a similar picture of my cat, Oliver, looking at me with the most disgusted look on his face as I was singing my heart out to him.

I have to go back and re-read your piece so I can see if I can scare my watch. 😁

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Jennifer Barnett's avatar

I added the part about the microphone in this piece purely based on making you laugh at the beach. 😀

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Winnie Appell's avatar

LOVE!!! 💕 🙏

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Linda Miller's avatar

This was great and very entertaining Jennifer ! It made me feel I was right there in person listening to your stories. Thank you for making me feel I'm not the only one bored at parties. Sat. night the group gave me a round of applause. Why? I cleaned up the host entire kitchen while they talked because I get totally bored. How stupid they clapped. Hubby explained that I can't sit still. I was bored.

I loved the part of tucking your lip under to your teeth! haha you make me laugh. Thank you !

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Jennifer Barnett's avatar

I can’t sit still either. Sitting still is boring! We’re so clever for finding our own entertainment. Xoxo

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Richard Hulett's avatar

If you wind up at a gathering, and you really don’t like the host, find a piece of fish or meat in the freezer and discreetly slide it under the refrigerator. In about a week, they will be searching all over the place for what the hell was making that smell…

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Jennifer Barnett's avatar

this made me laugh and I am still laughing.

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Jess K's avatar

Also broccoli! If you ever want to get revenge on someone, just put a small piece of broccoli under the seat of their car.

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Amy Allsopp's avatar

!!!

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A Long Story's avatar

I need a microphone.

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MUTHR, FCKD's avatar

You are fucking hilarious. I was a master egger in my youth and did the "tuck" to entertain myself quite a bit. Please write the book. I'm so grateful you're in my world.

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Jennifer Barnett's avatar

Gen X kids were all about the egging and the toilet papering. We knew how to have fun. 🤩

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MUTHR, FCKD's avatar

We sure as shit did!

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Rene Blazel's avatar

You definitely need to do a story at Mezrab! You have such an amazing (writer’s) voice! Completely engaging! Sorry for the overuse of exclamation points! I just want this emphasized!!

Your soup on a plate description gave me anxiety imagining it. It would ruin my entire evening as I feared the horror of dumping my soup on someone or something. I’d never be able to focus on what I was there to see! 😆 No soup for me!

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Jennifer Barnett's avatar

Thank you!! 😀 (the soup is so stressful, I don’t know how anyone copes with it.)

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Cecile Somers-Lee's avatar

"Tucked my upper lip onto my teeth while I talked to someone so it looked like I didn’t have an upper lip." Ha ha ha. Super grappig.

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Jess K's avatar

I used to do this all the time at one of my jobs in college to make my coworkers laugh. I can also be mischievous when bored at parties. Or work. In my 20s I used to hide under coworkers’ desks to scare them when they returned. I’m truly surprised I’ve never been written up by HR somewhere.

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Jennifer Barnett's avatar

We’ve got the scaring people gene in our family too. Some people don’t get it.

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Weston Parker's avatar

It was "snert", split pea soup we ate every day after volleyball practice while waiting for tram #8.

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Jennifer Barnett's avatar

Snert is delicious!

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Weston Parker's avatar

Such a funny lady. I am a 66 year old carpenter and yet understand your flavor of wacko well. I remember a particular soup, maybe split pea that was common and delish. Also serving OJ to signal the end of a party. I wonder if that is still done?

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Carole Roseland's avatar

I’m going to avoid parties from now on, unless you’re coming!

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Francesca Bossert's avatar

OH, can you you come over and tell me lies and mad stories while I'm sick, please?! Please! It's not far from Amsterdam or wherever to Switzerland. And I'm funny, too! I promise! We could swap crazy stories and snort-fart-giggle! Please!!!!

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Jennifer Barnett's avatar

Yes, I will book my passage, and I made nice soup so I’ll bring some. See you shortly.

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Francesca Bossert's avatar

Excellent news! Wednesday?

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Sarah Knight's avatar

I wouldn’t exactly call it “troublemaking,” but one of my favorite make-the-party-more-fun-and-hilarious-for-me tricks of my 20’s and 30’s was to find the woman whose outfit I coveted and suggest we switch clothing, tumble drunkenly into a bathroom together, and then emerge and wait for someone to notice our little caper. (You’d be surprised how long this sometimes takes!) The last time I did it was on a New Year’s Eve in the Dominican Republic and we managed a 5-way switch that included one male bartender who ended up wearing my friend Zoe’s dress. AH THE MEMORIES 😂🪩

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Jennifer Barnett's avatar

That’s excellent party behavior

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Ally Hamilton's avatar

I really need to go to all the parties with you. I have your mother’s thing about laughing at funerals, but it’s not just funerals, it’s literally anywhere I shouldn’t be laughing. It’s terrible and all my friends know so now it’s a game and there isn’t a lot I can do about it, but I have perfected the “I’m crying not laughing” maneuver so well that I usually end up crying. I would be crying at all the parties. And also, I would co-conspire on anything, but I’d never instigate without encouragement. Still working on it.

Mimes are as scary as clowns and I don’t understand soup on a bowl on a plate. Thank you for all of these laughs which I needed so, so much.

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Jennifer Barnett's avatar

I knew based on your bus stop clown you’d appreciate the gravity of the mime situation.

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Ally Hamilton's avatar

That’s as serious as it gets. And no way I could maintain decorum.

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