In honor and observance of the 10th Anniversary of my sports humor column “Silliman on Sports” I’m running some “Oldies but Goodies.” Enjoy:
Silliman on Sports
By Stan Silliman
THE COACH AND THE CARPENTER
“If I had a hammer!
I’d hammer in the morning…”
“Not in that damn shirt, you won’t!”
It is OSU football coach Mike Gundy, folks. He’s here to tell carpenters who may wish to do trim carpentry at his house they best choose their working attire carefully. He also wants them to know if they happen to see one of his quarterbacks eating chicken near the construction site, don’t write anything about it. If you want to tell someone about the chicken eating, leave the young man out of it. You can take up your chicken-eating grievances with Mike himself, who happens to be a man, age 44.
Here’s another thing not to do if you’re doing carpentry at the Mike and Kristen Gundy house: don’t play “Boomer Sooner” on your boom box. And, especially, don’t mouth the words, even if you know all of them, to that song.
This advice I’m giving to you carpenters, you need to heed. It’ll save you, may even make you, money. Another carpenter (named Brent Loveland of Choctaw, OK if you really must know) had an $ 80,000, three month job yet made the mistake of wearing an OU Sooner baseball shirt in the 44 year-old man’s house.
And, allegedly, sailors would be blushing after the expletives Mike Gundy strung together in response to Mr. Loveland picking out the wrong shirt. Such classics as “You wore %@&#** crimson into my house? With f-bombing BROWN @*%& shoes? You insult my wife by effing walking in here with your effing shirt and those SHOES?
See, I’m not even a sailor… and I’m blushing.
Mr. Loveland, according to a suit he filed, was told to pack his sh*t and hit the road. Now, we know there’s a song in there somewhere. Maybe Garth Brooks will sing it. If not Garth, Toby Keith might. It sounds like a country song:
“Pack your sh*t and hit the ro-o-ad
Get on out… do as you’re told
What you’re wearing sure ain’t gold…
Oh, pack your sh*t and hit the ro-oad”
Will it make the Top 40 like Mike’s viral hit “I’m a Man?” No, probably not. But it is catchy, anyway.
If Brent Loveland had read the book “Dress for Success” he might still have the job. Even when you pull a shirt out of your drawer in the 4:30 am darkness of a hot, summer Oklahoma morn, you still want to make a good first impression. That’s why God created always-open Wal-Marts; so dumb guys wouldn’t need to wear OU Sooner shirts into OSU Cowboy coach’s homes. Wait a moment! Sounds like another song:
“That’s why God created Wal-Marts
For all the dummies… with no smarts
Who grabs a shirt up… in the dark…
If brains be matches… his don’t spark
For anyone with a way too early start…
That’s why God created Wal-Mart”
On second thought, forget the songs. If you’re a subcontractor, don’t offend your client. If you’re a cabinetmaker putting in library shelves at a professor’s home, don’t walk in wearing a tee reading “BOOKS” with a big circle around it and a slash through it. Or, for instance, if you’re a bald plumber and you’ve contracted to re-do the piping in all seven of a rich senator’s houses, don’t walk in wearing an Obama shirt. In other words, don’t sh*t where you eat. Wait a moment! That has the makings of another song.
“Hey Buddy, here’s advice I tell everyone I me-et
If’n you wanna keep standin’; stayin’ up on your fe-et
‘N you don’t wanna be kicked out; out in the stre-et
Just listen to me, so I don’t, don’t need re-pe-eat
Just don’t do it, don’t sh-*t-it-it where you e-eat”
Unforgivable error!