Blog #457                                December 11, 2025

 

I was just at Whole Foods and noticed something called Dead Sea Mineral Soap.  I don’t mean to burst any of your soap bubbles, but it is as a result of those minerals that nothing can live in the Dead Sea.  Hence the name DEAD.  I want soap with minerals from the Alive and Thriving Sea.  Why should I want to rub myself with stuff that causes instantaneous death to any marine creature it touches?  But that’s just me. 

 

Good morning.  It’s Thursday.  I wonder who got fired this morning for sexual harassment.  Have you heard the new Christmas song?

   

♫ So long ye merry gentlemen – P. Diddy and Matt Lauer

♫ Jeff Epstein too and Charley Rose, we caught you in the shower.

♫ Now men in every walk of life had better watch themselves.

♫ Cause we caught Santa playing with two elves – Comfort and Joy

♫ Yes we caught Old Santa playing with two elves.

 

I’ve come up with a scale on which to grade these creeps.  When the number of accusers exceeds the number of letters in “PERVERT”, then the guy should no longer be classified as Homo Sapiens.  Ah, I can just imagine one of you saying, “How about Homo Erectus?”  Now that’s really a filthy, low-class, disgusting thing to say.  I’m so glad I came up with it before you did.  Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and getting ready for all the December holidays – Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year’s Eve, Maxing My Credit Card Day.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  Come, woo me, woo me, for now I am in a holiday humor (The Tempest).  What about all the cat holidays?  There’s Hanu-kat, Pet-erans Day, St. Cat-tricks Day. Purr-im and even Black Cat History Month.  Meow.

 

Last week, as I sat in my daughter’s kitchen in North Carolina, I heard Lance entering the room.  Lance is the pillow-sized automatic vacuum creature that starts up whenever it wants to and roams around the house sucking up dirt and old men.  I told Siri to kill it, but she told me she was non-violent, which reminded me of one of my favorite movies (Forbidden Planet, 1956).  It describes a society whose technology became so advanced that it reached a level where every person could just wish for something and the Central Computer would make it happen.  Want a Mocha Frappuccino?  Boom, it’s there.  Swimming pool in your back yard?  Bam, you got it.  Whatever wish you had would instantly become reality.  But as soon as that new “ap” came on line, everyone unknowingly and subconsciously wished for the death of someone they hated or envied, and the entire populace was wiped out in a single night.  Is that where we are heading?  The technology is racing ahead too fast – certainly too fast for me.  Why can’t they just stop for a while and let us rest?

 

Apple, we all appreciate what you have done.  You have made our lives happier and easier with your iPhones.  But now that I’m happy, lose my number!  Just give me a smart phone.  It doesn’t have to be Einstein-smart; Betty White-smart is good enough.  I just want to text, take pictures and make calls.  That’s all, period!  And no more updates – ever.  Let me learn how to do the three things I want and then go away.  I’m not a teenager.  Just give me a simple phone for me and my generation.  And call it the iMold (I’m old).  And just once, when I try to remember my password, can’t you just say “Close Enough”.

 

I have many friends who use the old line that goes, “I read the paper every morning and if my name is not in the obituaries, it’s a good day.”  I don’t bother reading the obituaries.  I figure if I’m dead, somebody’s going to tell me.  And besides, reading the obits depresses me.  It makes me realize how many people I didn’t know.  If I should ever choose to take on the Sisyphean effort of shaking hands with a stranger every second, 24 hours a day, it would take me 254 years to shake hands with every person on Earth.  And I still wouldn’t find anybody else who has read Moby Dick seven times.  I saw somewhere that of the eight billion people on the Earth, only 150 million are older than me.  But this number can only go down, every hour, every day.

 

It’s scary how clearly I see

The truth about mortality:

Every night someone dies

So each day when I rise

There’s less people older than me.

 

That’s a sobering thought, isn’t it?  Oops, now it’s 149,999,999.  I’m depressed.  I need to rest.  And read the obituaries.  I know life sucks sometimes, but, as my Dad always said, “I count my blessings.  My cup runneth over.”  So let’s count our blessings and try to find a smile once in a while.  Let’s see, how can I make you smile today?

 

Weekly Word:  Yes, it’s Sisyphean, which describes a task that takes tremendous effort but gets no results. 

 

Do you have a Spellchecker?  Of course you do.  That’s the program that corrects the spelling and punctuation on your computer or iMold.  I have a Spellchecker on my Microsoft Word program.  That’s the program I use to write this thing.  I call it Speedy the Spellchecker, and Speedy tries to correct all my spelling and punctuation miscues.  I say “tries to” because I do not accept most of his corrections.  I want it the way I want it, and I normally do not bow to the commands of some impersonal collection of zeroes and ones known as a computer program.  For instance, in the paragraph above, I used the word runneth.  Speedy, having apparently never read the Bible, had a conniption and told me I couldn’t do it.  Well, Speedy, kisseth my asseth!  I’m going to use it anyway.  If Shakespeare had had a Spellchecker, Juliet would have been forced to say Romeo, Romeo, where the hell are you?  And when Shylock said, “If you prick us do we not bleed,” well, I can’t even tell you what Speedy did with that one.

 

There, I bet I made you smile. I’ll try to make you smile some more next week, so stayeth well, counteth your blessings and cometh back.

 

Michael                                    Sendeth comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com