Blog # 502                               October 22, 2026

 

I currently have four grandchildren in college.  I have a Freshman, a Sophomore, a Junior and a Senior.  The cost of attending college has become scandalous.  A four-year education at Stanford is upward of $300,000.  But wait – if your family makes less than $150,000 per year, Stanford considers you impoverished (well, it’s California) and your tuition is free.  That’s right.  Under $150,000 income – free.  Over $150,000 income – they’ll stick it to you big time.

 

If poverty is your condition

You won’t have to pay the tuition

But if you have dough

We’ll charge enough so

You won’t have a pot you can pish in.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school (Henry VI, Part 2).   I don’t know why Pops doesn’t send me to college.  I could go to Purr-due, take the M-CATs and learn about CAT scans.  Purr.

 

I don’t know whether you think that taking from the rich and giving to the poor is a good thing or not, but certainly that is what occurs in the calculus of college tuitions.  A rich family pays twice what the rate should be so that a poorer student can attend for free.  I’m not sure the one-to-one ratio is the correct permutation, but you get the point.

 

I apologize for all the mathematical terms – calculus, permutation, ratio – but you know I used to be a math teacher, and I sometimes lapse unknowingly into math-speak.  I’m planning to write a racy and erotic novel about a math teacher one day.  I think I’ll call it Fraction in the Rye.  Or maybe Five Squared Times Two Shades of Grey.  Or Tropic of Calculus.

 

Hi again and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling fine.  Have you ever looked inside a toilet tank?  Inside this sleek and shiny porcelain receptacle, perfect for the sanitary and odorless elimination of human waste and eyebrow-pencil shavings, rests the most arcane, jerry-rigged, Rube Goldberg collection of junk imaginable.  Chains and plastic rods and rubber balls jammed inside in such a delicate and tangential configuration that the smallest tremor will make the chain detach from the plastic rod or the rubber ball lodge against the side wall.

 

This is the 21^st Century, the age of the Internet and the iPhone and Artificial Intelligence.  Where are the geniuses of today?  Where is the Bill Gates of plumbing?  Where is Elon Flush?  We have mapped the human genome.  Why can’t we invent a toilet that isn’t filled with non-replaceable, non-interchangeable, non-transferable refuse that looks like it came out of a Fat Albert cartoon?  Well, what do you expect from a device invented by a man named Crapper?  (Thomas Crapper, 1836-1910)

 

Weekly Word:  Tangential means merely touching; only slightly connected.  It’s another pesky math term.  Sorry.

 

You know I love lists.  I keep lists of everything.   I’m working on a list of new names for sports teams because none of the current names will survive the scrutiny of the Politically Correct crowd.  No more can we tolerate the Indians, the Chiefs or the Braves – they’re demeaning to Native Americans.  And Lions and Tigers and Bears – oh my!  They’re too violent.  The Cardinals, Padres and Angels are too religious.  So what will the future politically correct sports teams be called?  I have a few guesses.  The Chattanooga Choice (a pro team of course, the San Fran Trans, and of course, the Mobile Warming.

 

I just finished a book by Agatha Christie.  Google tells me that, next to the Bible, the most books sold by one author is a tie between Shakespeare (William, not my cat) and Agatha Christie.  She has sold more than two billion books.  Thought you’d like to know.

 

Since I’m rambling here with no apparent purpose, let’s talk about Hanukah.  For some reason, my strange brain was remembering a Hanukah we spent in North Carolina.  I think my grandson Zach was six.  When we gave out gifts, he got a Playmobile Rescue Helicopter.  He assembled it all by himself in about an hour, an endeavor that would have taken his Phi Beta Kappa, Juris Doctor Poppy six months and the constant aid of a staff of rocket scientists to accomplish.  Zoey (age 4) got a sticker-making machine.  Alyssa (age 2) got some crayons.  My son-in-law got some socks.  My daughter got some shirts.  Carol got some stationery.  I got what the arrow-maker’s husband got – the shaft.  My gift, I was told, was watching my loved-ones’ pleasure at opening their presents.  I felt like the coach of the Washington Generals. 

 

After the presents, Zach and I made up a whole adventure using his helicopter and told stories till bedtime.  Sometimes I wish I was six and had a Poppy to take me to movies and buy me popcorn and tell me scary stories.  Zach is now 25, and my grandchildren don’t need bedtime stories any more.  But at least I can still tell stories to you.  Here’s one.

 

Some time ago, Carol had lunch with her pedicurist.  I thought that was a little bizarre to begin with, but who am I to interfere in a relationship between a woman and her pedicurist?  I’m not sure where they were going, either Dunkin ToeNuts or Ruby Toesday, but I was assigned to pick her up.  She told me if I got there early, I could wait at the bar next door.  Early?  I am always early.  Always! Punctuality is the politeness of kings!  I really didn’t want to wait at a bar, but she said just go there and try to pick up some girls.  How am I going to pick up some girls?  Read them my blog?  I can just see all those young women shoving each other out of the way to get closer to the raggedy old fart reading some kind of limerick gibberish.  It’s a good thing I’m not in the market to pick anyone up.  I’m happy I can pick up my cat.  Instead, I passed the time wondering what you eat at lunch with your pedicurist.  Probably corn chowder and, of course, toe-fu.  How about French bunion soup?  I know, I’m corny, but at least I’m on time.

 

And I’ll be on time next week.  So have a lovely, count your blessings and stay well.  And don’t be late.

 

Michael                          Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blog #501                                October 15, 2026

 

I care about a lot of things.  I care about my wife and my cat, my daughters and my grandchildren and their cats.  And their dogs.  I care about my friends and my loyal readers and about politics.  But the thing I care the least about in all the world is Amelia Earhart.  Why do we still give a rat’s propellor about Amelia Damn Earhart after all these years?  Do you think she’s out there on some island at the age of 129?  She’s been gone for 89 years.  And yet every few years, some apocryphal headline comes up about somebody finding Amelia Earhart’s tooth in their Big Mac.  Do you think she’s hiding on some Pacific atoll playing mahjong with Jimmy Hoffa and D. B. Cooper?  Give it up, people.  Worry about something else.  Like why bakers can’t count to twelve.

 

Ok, there are three possibilities here:

1.     You knew who D. B. Cooper was.

2.     You didn’t know who he was, so you looked him up on Google.

3.     You don’t give a rat’s propellor about D. B. Cooper.

And yes, you guessed it.  Apocryphal is our Weekly Word.  It means of questionable authorship or authenticity.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I’m here and you’re there, so let’s talk.  I hope you are feeling well and enjoying the Fall weather.  “Autumn repays the earth the leaves which summer lent it,” said Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, an 18^th Century German physicist and philosopher famous for his many quotable phrases.  Aren’t you glad I told you that?  It is now Autumn, of course, and the season of falling leaves.  Many of you will spend Autumn in Florida where the leaves don’t fall or Arizona where there are no leaves, but here in Missouri we have a glorious and colorful Autumn to look forward to.

 

Did you have a nice Columbus Day last Monday.  I’m not sure exactly why we celebrate a day for a man who never set foot on this continent.  Nothing around here was named after him except a city in Ohio.  And, of course, he was a nasty white European colonialist who ordered the extermination of indigenous populations.  But he made good pomodoro sauce, so I guess it’s alright.  The day has turned into something of a celebration of Italian Heritage, even though there was no such country as Italy in Chris’ day.  He was from Genoa, a country unto itself, and sailed under the flag of Spain – which is why everybody south of the border is Hispanic, not Histalian.  Isn’t this informative?  It’s like continuing education.

 

Columbus was actually lost when he discovered America.  He was looking for India.  He should have had my wife along with him.  She would have set him straight.

 

The crew is all down with infections

You haven’t met any projections

You’re sailing too slow

You don’t know where to go

Pull over and ask for directions.

 

Is it just me, or are all men so poorly disregarded by women?  Sure, when they need to know how to spell something or how to screw in a lightbulb or they need a poem for their cat’s neutering party or whatever – they come right to me.  But when it comes to driving, dressing, directions or common sense, they avoid me like Will Smith.  Am I that useless?  (This is the part where you go to your computers and e-mail poor, helpless old Michael and tell him how respected and important and loved he is.  That’ll be nice.)

 

Let’s move on to something light and amusing.  Like baseball.  Even though the Cardinals’ chances are deader than Bill Cosby’s Mastercard, the Baseball Playoff Season is here.  Did you know that Cosby was a football player at Temple University?  Temple just announced yesterday that they were retiring his number – PA4974482.

 

I hear Cosby is going to manage a new Major League Baseball team next year, the San Quentin Felons.  Their uniforms are striped and some of these guys actually stole second base.  The pitcher and catcher are known as the Aggravated Battery.  When they announce the lineup, these guys really get in a lineup.  How many more dumb jokes do you want?  The numbers on the back of their uniforms read 5 to 10 or 20 to life. 

 

Here’s the roster: Enos Manslaughter, Alcatraz Pujols, Barry Bondsman, Ernie Banksrobber, Don Larceny, Roger Clemency, Yadier Molester, Babe Ruthless and Johnnie Benchwarrant. 

 

Carol is obsessed with beautiful women.  Heidi Klum – who can argue with that?  Jane Fonda – Carol just watched a Jane Fonda special on HBO.  Melania Trump – “she’ll dump him as soon as he’s out of office”.  Kate and Meghan – the English Royalty.  The Royals are her major obsession – first Diana, then Kate and now Meghan.  My wife is most assuredly a princess; all she lacks is a crown. 

 

It’s not fair to be jealous of people just because they’re beautiful.  As Charles Dickens said, Persons don’t make their own faces, and it’s no more my fault if mine is a good one than it is other people’s fault if theirs is a bad one.

 

I hope you are feeling well and staying away from all the natural shocks that flesh is heir to.  (A little Shakespeare there.)  I’m good.  I remember fifty or sixty years ago when we would get together with friends and talk about who was pregnant and who was buying a house and who got a promotion.  Now we get together and talk about who’s in the hospital and who’s in the nursing home and who’s in the obituaries.   Pretty sad.  Please don’t get sick and don’t fall and don’t forget my name.

 

Message from Shakespeare: The empty vessel makes the loudest sound (King Lear).  Wait a minute, did I hear him say “a little Shakespeare”?  That’s me.  I hate when he mentions that other Shakespeare, some old, dead, mothball poet that I can’t understand.  I never say perchance, I say Purr.   I never say methought, I say Meow.  And I still make more sense than that dumb poet.  Purr.

 

Ok, this blog had a lot of stuff – stories about Columbus, quotes from Dickens and Shakespeare and Lichtenberg, a clever limerick.  You don’t get that from The View!  And on that obvious note, I shall end Blog #501.  Stay well and count your blessings.  See you next week.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog #500                                October 8, 2026

 

That’s right.  Your eyes have not deceived you.  This is the 500^th Limerick Oyster you have been lucky or un-lucky enough to have received.  Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you all are feeling well.  The first Oyster was let out of the bag on March 16, 2017, and the last one – well, hang in there.  I’m not done yet.  Thanks for hanging around so long.  I really have enjoyed writing to you.

 

Today, let’s talk about the death penalty.  Christa Pike, a Tennessee woman was sentenced to death in 1996 for a murder she committed in 1995, more than thirty years ago.  But a court has stayed the execution to review her lawyers’ claims that she was a victim of child abuse.  Here are some thoughts.

 

·        I’ve said this before, but Pike’s case strengthens my argument.  The best thing you can do to guarantee living for 30 more years is to get sentenced to death.  Why does it take 30 years?

·        And why has it taken 30 years for her defense to raise these abuse issues?  Who was her lawyer, Rip Van Winkle? 

·        I’m not a fan of the death penalty.  It’s morally messy and confusing, but I am a fan of harsh punishment.  How about making her watch America’s Got Talent re-runs for six hours a day?

·        Have you noticed that 19 of every 20 acts appearing on America’s Got Talent are from Asia?  Why don’t they call it Asia’s Got Talent?

·        And have you noticed that America’s Pastime, the sobriquet for Major League Baseball, is played mostly by players from the Dominican Republic and Venezuela?  Why don’t they call it South America’s Pastime?

·        And now you know why you should receive a reward for reading 500 weeks of this rambling, pointless drivel.  Why don’t they call it Limerick Drivel?

And as long as I’m rambling, let’s talk more about South America’s Pastime.  The baseball playoffs have started, and Pope Leo is rooting for the White Sox.  Well, he is from Chicago, so that’s understandable, but don’t you think the Pope, the leader of world Catholicism, should choose more Catholic-oriented images – like the Cardinals or maybe the Angels or the Padres?  Or how about the Saints?  I know, the Saints are a football team, but they could still probably play baseball better than the Cardinals!

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Like a football you do spurn me thus? (The Comedy of Errors).  I can play ball too.  Pops rolls a little ball across the carpet and sometimes I chase it.  Mostly I just let him chase it and roll it back.  He gets more exercise than I do and he thinks we’re both having fun.  He’s so goofy.  I haven’t been in all his blogs, but I’ve been purring and meowing at you for about six years, and I know I’m funnier than he is.  Purr.

 

Oh, and now they decided to go ahead with the execution of Christa Pike, and they gave her two lethal injections.  They didn’t work.  Where did they get these drugs, Taco Bell?

 

If you’ve been reading all 500 of my blogs, you have noticed that I pick on my wife a lot.  She is such a good sport and never gets offended that I use her like a lovely, little piñata.  That’s because she knows that a good part of my humor comes from using her as a foil. A foil, Weekly Word, is someone or something that serves as a contrast to another.  George Burns had Gracie as a foil; Phyllis Diller had Fang, and I’ve got Carol.  I am very lucky.

 

And, if you’ve been reading all these blogs, you’ve noticed that I consider myself a poet – a minor, silly and overrated poet to be sure, but a poet nonetheless.  And who are the poets I look up to and whose talent I envy?

 

·        Poe, of course.  I have memorized every word of The Raven.

·        Alfred Noyes.  I can recite the first and last stanzas of The Highwayman.

·        Dr. Seuss

·        Shel Silverstein

·        Robert Frost.  I can recite Provide, Provide.

·        A. E. Housman.  I am now reading his complete works (again) and I may share one or two with you as the weeks go on.

Back to Carol as my foil.  “What are we doing tonight?”  I asked my Honey last Saturday night.  By Honey, I mean my wife, in case you thought I had another Honey lying around.  She said we had no plans, so I made a date with her for dinner, just the two of us.  I love going out with her alone.  We get to talk about everything with no television, on-line bridge games, on-line canasta games, crossword puzzles or telephone calls taking up all of her concentration.  She agreed, but she decided she wanted to ask some other people.  Out came the telephone, and she easily found three other couples whose husbands wanted to be alone with their wives.

 

A dinner, just me and my date

For her was just not on the plate

“If you want to dine

Well, that would be fine

But it’s got to be dinner for eight.”

 

There you go, a minor, silly and overrated poet.  I told you. 

 

I’ve been struggling with my car lately.  It’s been a little sluggish the last couple of weeks.  When I step on the gas, it just has too much resistance, almost like there’s something under the pedal.  I decided to fix it.  As you know from reading 500 blogs, my succeeding in fixing anything mechanical is about as likely as Maxine Waters doing a foxtrot with J. D. Vance.  As likely as Donald Trump becoming a trans-female basketball player.  As likely as Carol eating at a square table.  But as a first step, I bent down and felt under the pedal, and you know what?  There was something under there.  The floor-mat had bunched up under the pedal and was keeping it from depressing all the way.  I moved the mat and everything was fine.  How about that?  Just call me Mr. Goodwrench.  No?  How about Mr. Luckywrench?  No?  How about Mr. Idiotwrench?

 

Well, I have to go now.  I have to start working on the next 500 blogs.  I’m up for it.  Are you?  Stay well, count your blessings and hang around for another 500.  Thanks.

 

Mr. Idiotwrench                       Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog #499                                         October 1, 2026

 

In the course of a normal week, I take 103 pills.  Ok, I’ll pause here to give you time to calculate how many you take.  . . . . . . .  Finished?  Ok.  One of the pills I take every day is a large, white, oblong-shaped calcium pill.  It’s so big that every once in a while, it gets stuck in my throat.  I’ve tried cutting it in half, but then the halves are uneven and sharp at the edges and harder to swallow than the whole one.  Yesterday, it got stuck in my throat.  I tried coughing, then swallowed two glasses of water trying to dislodge it, but nothing worked.  So I went to the World’s Greatest Urgent Care – my wife, Urgent Carol.  “Honey, I need you,” I said.  She must have recognized my distress, because she immediately turned off the Today Show, put down her iPad on which she was playing bridge and turned down the volume of her cell phone that was playing Dolly Parton music.  “What?” she asked.  I described my problem.  “Go eat something,” she suggested.  What?  There’s a pill lodged in my throat.  Dumping some food on top of it will just clog up my throat even more.  “Eat a cookie,” she insisted.  No, I said.  “Eat a cookie or I’ll turn on The View and frighten the damn thing out of you!”  I grabbed a cookie and began to eat.  I hadn’t finished half of it before the pill dislodged and slid right down.  “Thank you,” I said.  “Now you can go back to the six or seven things you were doing.”  How does she do that?  I can’t even walk and swallow a pill at the same time.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling terrific and ready for Winter.  It’s October already and Winter is not far behind.  Let’s see what’s going on.  In the news, China will be sending Ping Ping and Fu Shuang to Atlanta.  No, that’s not a take-out order, it’s a shipment of two pandas to the Atlanta Zoo.  Here’s what I don’t get – if a pregnant Chinese woman and her husband visit America, and she delivers her baby here, the baby is automatically an American citizen.  But if Ping Ping and Fu Shuang have a baby panda at the Atlanta Zoo, it belongs to China.  Does that seem right to you?

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Exit, pursued by a bear (The Winter’s Tale).  What?  Now he’s talking about bears?  Panda bears are too big.  They wouldn’t fit on his lap like I do.  Silly old man!  You have the best pet there is.  You don’t need an ugly, smelly bear.  Purr.

 

In the English class I used to teach, I had several Chinese students, and one morning we were talking about the animals of the Chinese Zodiac.  This year is the Year of the Horse.  Why should you care?  Well, there are one billion, four hundred million Chinese on your doorstep trying to take over the world.  It might be worth your while to learn a bit about them.  The Chinese rotate their years through a menagerie of twelve animals: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig.  Hey, Chinese folk, I love your egg rolls, but your choice of animals is a bit bizarre.  I like Tiger – fierce, strong, unchallenged.  And Horse – fast, beautiful, useful.  Even Rabbit – cute, soft. But Snakes and Pigs and Rats?  Who do you have choosing your animals – General Tsao and his Chickens? 

 

And speaking of animals, last week at the Zoo, a boy asked me, “Where’s the werewolf?”  Then a little girl asked me, “Are unicorns real?”  Sure, I said.  Well, aren’t they?  Then she said, “Do you have any here?”  No, I replied, but we have green alligators and long-necked geese, some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees.  She looked at me like I was Mork from Ork, but her Grandma smiled.

 

When little kids come to the Zoo

They want to see Winnie the Pooh

And a dragon with horns

And some pink unicorns.

That’s cool – I believe in them too.

 

I was at Walgreens recently and picked up a box of assorted sized flesh-colored Band Aids.  When I got home, Carol noticed the bag.  She notices everything.  She knows what I eat, what I wear and what the second half of each of my sentences is going to be.

 

What’s in the bag? She asked.

Oh, I replied, I just needed some . . .

flesh-colored Band-Aids, she said.

How did you . . .

Know?  I just did.  But they’re really not flesh-colored Band-Aids.

Well, I said, yes they . . .

No they’re not.  Read the box.

 

I did and discovered two things.  First, it did not say “Flesh Colored”.  In today’s world the term flesh-colored is invidious.  What color is flesh-colored anyway?  Perhaps it should be labeled “Flesh of White Americans of European Descent Colored”.  Or just “Jew-Colored”.  It occurs to me now that white people are not People of Color.   But do not be alarmed.  There is a brand called Tru-Colour Adhesive Bandages – Diversity in Healing which are the color of – well, people of color.

 

And second, (there was a first somewhere in the last paragraph, so now here’s the second) they weren’t Band-Aids.  They were Walgreen’s Adhesive Bandages.  So Carol was right.  She always is.  Just ask her.  But you can understand my mistake.  Band-Aids have been such a familiar commodity in our lives for so many decades that we presume it’s just the name of the commodity itself, not a brand name.

 

There are lots more like that.  The most familiar brand names that have become synonymous for the generic product are Kleenex, Scotch Tape and Coke.  But there are lots of others.  Aspirin, for instance, is a brand name as are Jell-O, Chapstick, Bubble Wrap, Q-Tips, Crock-Pot and Frisbee.  And now Google just means to look something up on any old search engine, just like Xeroxing used to mean making a copy.  Oh, did I tell you Carol was right about the Band-Aids?  She wanted to make sure you knew.

 

Weekly Word:  Invidious means of an unpleasant or objectionable nature.  I hope you didn’t find this blog invidious.  It’s time to go.  Stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

Blog #498                                September 24, 2026

 

Our cell-phone monthly service bill is charged to my credit card, but I wanted to change it to a different card.  The odds of my doing that by myself were about the same as my performing brain surgery or cooking a souffle or winning a gold medal for figure skating (I can’t skate).  So I did what I do best – I begged for help.  I drove to the Spectrum Mobile store.  They open at 10.  I arrived at 10:01.  That’s what I do.  A nice young man named Joe asked if he could help.  Now, I did not want to become engaged in an imbroglio with him, so I just said, “Joe, I am 117 years old and have only one brain cell left, and it doesn’t do apps.  Can you help?”  Joe fixed it all up for me in about nine minutes.  So it was 12 minutes to drive there, plus 9 minutes to do it and 12 minutes back.  That’s 33 minutes (my last brain cell can add) to do something it would have taken me hours to figure out.  Thanks, Joe.

 

I just am not good doing apps

I’d do better by just shooting craps

When I give it a spin,

Open up and begin

My computer just starts playing Taps

 

I cannot fathom how the human brain works, especially my own.  Why, for instance, while driving home today did I suddenly realize that Peter Piper could not possibly have picked a peck of pickled peppers?  Wikipedia estimates there are 50,000 different kinds of peppers.  Fifty thousand!  There are pimiento peppers, tabasco peppers, cayenne peppers, chili peppers, paprika, jalapeno, banana peppers and of course the common green pepper.  Did you know that green peppers, like green tomatoes, are just unripened bell peppers?  But here’s the thing: Peppers do not grow already pickled, so no one can pick a pickled pepper, any more than one could pick a stewed tomato or a pumpkin pie.  Even Peter Piper could not pick a pickled pepper, let alone a peck of them.  Case closed!  I sometimes frighten myself.

 

But I apparently don’t frighten you, because you’re back and I’m glad.  Hi there and welcome.  I hope you’re feeling dandy and are ready for more of my methodical madness.  Let me explain the comment I made earlier that I can’t skate.  I have three daughters.  When they were 12, 11 and 5, they begged me to take them ice-skating at a local rink.  It was Saturday and there were special activities going on.  They rented some skates and got out there on the ice.  I watched.  I had never ice-skated.  All of a sudden, I hear, “Dad, c’mon, the skates are free.  C’mon, c’mon!”  I could never say no to them, so I got some skates and stepped onto the ice.  I was terrible.  I fell three times.  My daughters were so embarrassed, they abandoned me about halfway around the rink, hanging onto the siderail.  Then the lights started to flash and the loud speaker spoke loudly; “Please exit the ice; the show will start in two minutes.”  Show?  Everybody left the ice.  Except me.  I began to pull myself feverishly along the siderail trying to reach the exit gate before anyone noticed me.  I failed.  There I was, the only person left on the ice, a silly fool who couldn’t skate, struggling to hide himself somewhere.  The show started.  Costumed skaters flowed onto the rink and began their intricate dances and leaps.  I was still out there, pulling myself around.  Everyone was hysterical.  I finally made it to the gate and exited to a raucous mix of laughter and applause.  I was horrified.  To this day, I have never again put on ice skates. 

 

Let’s talk about dogs.  My friend took her support dog to a movie.  Really!  I think she saw Crazy Rich Afghans.  Maybe it was Jurassic Bark or Raging Bulldog or Paws! or The Good, the Bad and the Shar Pei.  I could go on forever, but I know you have places to go and people to see, so let’s move on.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  “The cat will mew, and dog will have his day (Hamlet).”  Why does he always talk about dogs.  Silly, stupid dogs!  I am his best pet and his closest friend.  Cats like movies too.  I like Cat Ballou, The Color Purr-ple and Apocalypse Meow.  Purr.

 

In the absence of anything else interesting to talk about, there is always something medical going on in my life.  Last week I went to Dr. Skin.  Something was bothering me on my back and I wanted someone to look at it.  She did and told me it was Stoopi-goopi Poppi-noppi-cozitis, or some such mumbo-jumbo.  Have you noticed that doctors tend to speak in a language intelligible only to other doctors so as to impress us ignorant laymen with their profound intelligence?  I think they learn it at Jabberwocky class.  Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwock, as you know, is famous for words like slithy tove, mimsy, borogoves and mome raths.

 

Sounds just like a doctor!  “Yes, Ma’am, you have an enlarged Mome Rath.  But your borogoves are normal.”  Anyway, whatever was on my back is no more.  She froze it off and told me I didn’t have to worry about it.  It was only a mimsy.  Maybe the O-B should come out and say, “Congratulations, it’s a slithy tove!”

 

And speaking of doctors, I visited a friend in the hospital and stayed about three doctors.  That’s how you measure time in a hospital, by counting how many different doctors come to your room.  First was the Hospitalist from China, then the Pulmonologist from Iran and the Cardiologist from India.  They’ve changed the inscription on the Statue of Liberty, you know.  It now reads Give us your tired, your poor, your Anesthesiologists.  There’s one thing that’s comforting about having Asian doctors.  You know they graduated at the top of their class.

 

Weekly Word:  Imbroglio is a good word.  It means a complex dispute or argument.  And with that, it is time to go.  This week marks the beginning of Autumn.  So please have a good Fall.  No, wait, I don’t mean I want you to fall.  Don’t ever fall, stay well, count your blessings and come back to me next Thursday.

 

The Jabberwock             Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com