Minimalist poet, minimalist lifestyle

I've just returned from the pub.

The topics of conversation I can remember are:

Shakespearean sonnets.

When exactly did Middle English become Early Modern English?

Does Jose Mourinho's new haircut [he's the manager of Chelsea F.C.] make him look like a thug, and will it inspire his team to win a third consecutive Premiership title?

Has it been a good summer for growing hollyhocks?

Jerry's Nose

Come-by-chance

Blow-me-down

Bumble Bee Bight

Run-by-guess

Bleak Joke Cove

Joe Batt's Arm

Dildo

Famish Gut

Empty Basket

Too Good Arm

Goblin

ABASH: A high school graduation party.

ABDICATE: To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

ACCOUNT: A Countess's husband.

ADULT: A person who has stopped growing at both ends and is now growing in the middle.

AMNESIA: condition that enables a woman who has gone through labor to have sex again.

ANTIQUE: An item your grandparents bought, your parents got rid of, and you're buying again.

ATHEISM is a non-prophet organization.

AVOIDABLE : What a bullfighter tries to do.

BALDERDASH: A rapidly receding hairline.

BARIUM: What we do to most people when they die.

BATHROOM: A room used by the entire family, believed by all except Mom to be self-cleaning.

BEAUTY PARLOR: Places where women curl up and dye.

BOSS: Someone who is early when you are late and late when you are early.

CANNIBAL: Someone who is fed up with people.

CANTALOUPE: Gotta get married in a church.

CAR SICKNESS: The feeling you get when the car payment is due.

CATALOGS: Rails used to build cow fences.

CHICKENS: The only animals you eat before they are born and after they are dead.

CLASSIC: A book which people praise, but do not read.

CLOTHES DRYER: An appliance designed to eat socks.

COFFEE: A person who is coughed upon.

COLLEGE: The four year period when parents are permitted access to the telephone.

COMMITTEE: A body that keeps minutes and wastes hours.

COMPROMISE: The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody believes he got the biggest piece.

CONFERENCE: The confusion of one man multiplied by the number present.

COURTESY: The art of yawning with your mouth closed.

DERANGE: Where de buffalo roam.

DICTIONARY: A place where success comes before work.

DIPLOMAT: A person who tells you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.

DIVORCE: Future tense of marriage.

DOCTOR: A person who kills your ills by pills, and kills you with his bills.

DUMBWAITER: One who asks if the kids would care to order dessert.

DUST: Mud with the juice squeezed out.

EGOTIST: Someone who is usually me-deep in conversation.

EMERGENCY NUMBERS: Police station, Fire Department and Places that deliver.

ETERNITY: The last two minutes of a football game.

EYEDROPPER : A clumsy ophthalmologist.

EXPERIENCE : The name men give to their mistakes.

FABLE: A story told by a teenager arriving home after curfew.

FAMILY PLANNING: the art of spacing your children the proper distance apart to keep you on the edge of financial disaster.

FANCY RESTAURANT: One that serves cold soup on purpose.

FATHER: A banker provided by nature.

FEEDBACK: The inevitable result when the baby doesn't appreciate the strained carrots.

FLABBERGASTED: Appalled over how much weight you have gained.

FULL NAME: What you call your child when you're mad at him/her.

GOSSIP: A person who will never tell a lie if the truth will do more damage.

GRANDMOTHER: A baby-sitter who doesn't hang around the refrigerator.

GRANDPARENTS: The people who think your children are wonderful even though they're sure you're not raising them right.

GROCERY LIST: What you spend half an hour writing, then forget to take with you to the store.

GUM: Adhesive for the hair.

HAIR DRESSER: Someone who is able to create a style you will never be able to duplicate again. See "Magician."

HANDKERCHIEF: Cold Storage.

HEARSAY: What toddlers do when anyone mutters a dirty word.

HEROES : What a guy in a boat does.

HINDSIGHT: What one experiences from changing too many diapers.

HORS D'OEUVRES: A sandwich cut into 20 pieces.

IMPREGNABLE: A woman whose memory of labor is still vivid.

INDEPENDENT: How we want our children to be as long as they do everything we say.

INFLATION: Cutting money in half without damaging the paper.

KISSING: A means of getting two people so close together that they can't see anything wrong with each other.

MISER: A person who lives poor so that he can die rich.

MYTH: A female moth.

MOSQUITO: An insect that makes you like flies better.

NAIL POLISH: Part of an assortment of make-up items such as lipstick, eyeliner, blush etc. which ironically make Mom look better while making her young daughter look "like a tramp."

OPPORTUNIST: A person who starts taking bath if he accidentally falls into a river.

OVERSTUFFED RECLINER: Mum's nickname for Dad.

OW: The first word spoken by children with older siblings.

OYSTER: A person who sprinkles their conversation with Yiddish expressions.

PARK: Before children, a verb meaning, "to go somewhere and neck." After children, a noun meaning a place with a swing set and slide.

PHILOSOPHER: A fool who torments himself during life, to be spoken of when dead.

POLITICIAN: One who shakes your hand before elections and your confidence after.

POLYGON: A dead parrot.

PRENATAL: When your life was still somewhat your own.

PRIVATE TUTOR: Someone who doesn't fart in public.

PROFESSOR: Someone who talks in someone else's sleep.

PSYCHOLOGIST: A man who watches everyone else when a beautiful girl enters the room.

PUDDLE: A small body of water that draws other small bodies wearing dry shoes into it.

QUIET: A state of household serenity which occurs before the birth of the first child and occurs again after the last child has left for college.

REFRIGERATOR: Combination art gallery and air-conditioner for the kitchen.

RELIEF : What trees do in the spring.

RUBBERNECK: What you do to relax your wife.

SCHOOL TEACHER: A disillusioned person who used to think thhe liked children.

SEAMSTRESS: Describes 250 pounds in a size 6.

SECRET: Something you tell to one person at a time.

SELFISH: What the owner of a seafood store does.

SHOW OFF: A child who is more talented than yours.

SKELETON: A bunch of bones with the person scraped off.

SMILE: A curve that can set a lot of things straight.

SPOILED ROTTEN: What the kids become after as little as 15 minutes with Grandma.

STERILIZE: What you do to your first baby's pacifier by boiling it and to your last baby's pacifier by blowing on it.

SUBDUED (sub-dood'): Like, a guy who, like, works on one of those, like, submarines, man.

SUDAFED: Brought litigation against a government official.

TOOTHACHE: The pain that drives you to extraction.

TOP BUNK: Where you should never put a child wearing Superman pajamas.

TOMORROW: One of the greatest labor saving devices of today.

TWO-MINUTE WARNING: When the baby's face turns red and she begins to make those familiar grunting noises.

VEGETARIAN: Old Indian word for bad hunter.

YAWN: An honest opinion openly expressed.

YAWN: The only time some married men ever get to open their mouth.

VUJA DE: The Feeling You've Never Been Here.

WITHDRAWL: To remove money from a bank down south.

WRINKLES: Something other people have. You have character lines.

ZUCCHINI: Vegetable which can be baked, boiled, fried or steamed before kids refuse to eat it.

anything new - neophobia

being in a moving car - ochophobia

bald people - peladophobia

beards - pogonophobia

beautiful women - caligynephobia

going to bed - clinophobia

body odour - osmophobia/ osphresiophobia

crossing over bridges - gephyrophobia

chins - geniophobia

chopsticks - consecotaleophobia

clothing - vestiphobia

cooking - mageirocophobia

crosses/crucifixes - staurophobia

dancing - chorophobia

erect penises - medorthophobia

opening one's eyes -optophobia

being tickled by feathers - pteronophobia

flutes - aulophobia

freedom - eleutherophobia

handwriting - graphophobia