Blog #23
I finally have a solution for this feeling old
thing. As soon as we reach Medicare, we
should change our ages to Centigrade. I’m serious now. Listen up.
I am 71 years old, but in Centigrade (let’s see, subtract 32 and
multiply by five ninths) -- that makes me 21.
Now doesn’t that sound better? 75
becomes 23; 80 becomes 26. I bet you
feel younger already. Once I had a nurse
tell me my temperature was 37, so why not my age? I’m 21!
Fritz and Pedro are out walking their dogs. Fritz has a big, beautiful German Shepherd;
Pedro a tiny Chihuahua. It’s a warm day
and Fritz says, “Let’s go into that bar and get a beer.” Pedro replies, “The sign says NO PETS ALLOWED.” Fritz says, “Watch this”, puts on dark
sunglasses and saunters into the bar with the German Shepherd. A few minutes later he comes out looking
refreshed. “Well?” asks Pedro. “No sweat,” says Fritz, “with the dark
glasses they thought I was blind and that Buster was my seeing-eye dog. The beer was great.”
So Pedro borrows the dark glasses and heads into the
bar where he is immediately accosted by a burly bouncer. “No dogs, Mister,” he barks. Pedro responds with confidence, “Can’t you
see I’m blind? This animal is my
seeing-eye dog.” “No chance, Bozo,”
growls the bouncer. “That’s a
Chihuahua.” “What?” shrieks Pedro. “They gave me a Chihuahua?”
Hi, there. I
hope that you are well and that you enjoyed that joke. I decided to tell it to you because, well, I
got up this morning with absolutely nothing to do.
Each
morning I wake with the sun
And
spend the whole day on the run
I’ve
found that it’s true
When
you’ve nothing to do,
You
don’t really know when you’re done.
I know one thing I’m not done with – this blog. So let’s talk apples. You don’t have anything else to do right now,
so fasten your seatbelt. There are
more than 7,500 varieties of apples. And
just among the varieties you can find in American grocery stores, they range
from Arkansas Black to York York. There
are Earligolds and Liberty and Jazz, Keepsakes and Sundance. There’s a Northern Spy and a Pink Lady and a
Cox’s Orange Pippin. So, there I am in
Walmart when the phone rings. “Pick up a
couple of Fuji apples,” says the Apple of my Eye. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Except that Walmart has chosen not to label
their apples. There was a bag marked
Golden Delicious and a bag marked Granny Smith, but the loose apples had no
label on the bin, and there were at least six or seven kinds. Am I supposed to know what a Fuji looks
like? Even more pertinent, am I supposed
to be able to find a Walmart employee? I
hear they have a million and a half of them, but finding one is harder than
finding Whoopi Goldberg and Rush Limbaugh doing the tango.
Anyway, I picked up two dark red apples with a big
crown and a narrow bottom. That was
wrong of course, but today the God of Useless Husbands must have been looking
down on me because help arrived. A
daughter called. I asked her if she knew
what a Fuji looked like. Well of course
she did and led me right there. Whew!
Grocery shopping is not for the ill-informed. Even if I am armed with written descriptions
of the product, color photographs and Martha Stewart, I always get it wrong.
“I wanted Italian, not Creamy Italian.
And BBQ sauce without
salt, but Soy Sauce with
salt. And you bought the cheap toilet paper! Is that what you think of me?” But
then she tries to make me feel better. “But
you did really well on the potatoes. I
asked for two and you got two. Good job.”
I was always good at Math.
And so are my grandchildren. They all have math smarts. And at least one has street smarts. Charley (age 9) was with me at Walmart
today. She did the self-checkout for me
and the total was $39.27. I gave her a
$100 bill to insert and, before she did, I asked her how much change I would
get. I figured it was a good math
exercise. She looked at me with that
street-smart face and said, “Why don’t we put the bill in and let the machine
tell us how much change we get?” How
could I argue with that?
Why is it that women are somehow born with the genes
for identifying Fuji apples, sewing and picking out curtains whereas men are
born with the genes for fishing, killing spiders and putting up curtains? Actually, I can’t answer that because I am
horrible at fishing, killing spiders and putting up curtains. The last time I tried, I broke the window.
I heard a new radio ad this morning for a product
called Stress-Block, a pill that purports to give instant calmness and
relaxation from stress. Plus, it comes
in great-tasting chewables. Actually,
who cares what it tastes like? If the
thing will make me calm and relaxed, I wouldn’t care if it tasted like a rotted
hippopotamus. “I’ll take two bottles of the
rotted hippo flavor, and three of the porpoise snot. Oh, and throw in one bottle of the Brussels’
sprout flavor.” Arugula!
By the way, I did something horribly stupid and
dangerous recently and I’m going to share it with you so that you will never,
ever commit the same stupidity.
I drove home from an appointment with Dr. Eye. My eyes, of course, were dilated and I
honestly could barely see. I could have
killed myself and half of St. Louis in the process. I knew I was getting dilated and I should
have had Carol take me and drive home. I
don’t care how young you are or how impervious to disaster you think you are, do
not drive after having your eyes dilated. You could kill yourself and, even worse, kill
another one of my loyal readers. I’m
serious.
We used to have a dog named Alex. Somehow his memory came up the other night,
and I commented that Alex was a wonderful dog and that I missed him sleeping on
my pillow. Carol said, “That’s alright,
you’ll see him in Doggy Heaven.” Doggy
Heaven? First of all, I’m not even
sick. And second, is that where she
thinks I’m going? Doggy Heaven? I guess I’m nothing more than an Alta-Cocker
Spaniel to her. Probably on our wedding
night she thought to herself, “What! They gave me a Chihuahua?” Well, alright Alex, wait up for me, Boy. We can share a pillow for eternity. Such a good boy!
Come back next week, I have something really funny to
tell you. And stay well.
No comments:
Post a Comment