Making the Bald Man Cry

However, it turns out that there really aren't that many interesting euphemisms that people use on a regular basis, so they'd been making up new ones.

So, I joined them, and for the next few hours, we sat around and came up with some pretty good ones. My favorites are making the bald man cry, dancing with the one eyed-sailor, and helping put Mr. Kleenex's kids through college, even though I didn't come up with those myself. The best ones are poetic or surreal, or puns that work on many levels (or at least two). My contributions were mostly existing phrases and cliches, which, by putting them on the list, end up sounding dirty. Building upper-body strength and Aiding and abetting a known felon are probably mine.

We eventually came up with over a hundred entries.

We used some of the expressions amongst ourselves, and with our other friends. They become just another inside joke. However, Brandon eventually typed up the list (on his Atari ST computer, no less) and gave us all copies printed with his dot-matrix printer. I should still have mine somewhere.

His girlfriend took a copy of the list with her when she went back to school in Prescott, Arizona. She showed it to a few friends there, and one of them wanted to publish the list in his 'zine. She may or may not have asked our permission, I don't remember. But, sure enough, the next time I see her, she gives me a copy of the 'zine, Attitude Problem (or something like that). I should dig it out, as I think I still have it. Our list is there, with our names on the byline.

I forget about this, and a few years later, I do a web search for my name. The first hit, on top of all the web pages I've done, is a copy of the list. Some guy has typed it up and posted it on his web page, still giving us credit.

A few years later, I check again, but the page is long gone. Curious, I do a search for one "making the bald man cry" and, guess what, there are some hits! Our names are no longer listed on any of the sites. Some of them include our fake euphemisms mixed in with real ones.

So recently, I check again, and there are even more hits. But, best of all, some of the hits aren't from some version of a masturbation euphemism list, they are from blogs, satire pieces, and other pages. People out there are using our euphemisms! They are not just listed as real euphemisms on some list, they are actual euphemisms!

Where are they showing up now?

  Making the bald man cry
  Dancing with the one-eyed sailor
  Helping put Mr. Kleenex's kids through college