Blog #32

On September 15th, the spacecraft Cassini, after a twenty-year mission, ended its exploration of Saturn by burning itself up in that planet’s atmosphere.  The project engineers scheduled the burning in order to avoid any part of the spacecraft contaminating possible life on Saturn.  It’s fascinating how much our species thrills in ecstasy over the possibility of life on Mars or Saturn, while at the same time destroying life on Earth with abandon.  We pollute the environments of our own plants and animals, cut down their forests, poison their rivers and lakes, eat them or just shoot them for fun.  We would spend a trillion dollars to preserve a Martian amoeba and comparatively nothing to save the magnificent life of this planet.  We have destroyed everything we touch, except the sun, moon and the starry skies which God in His wisdom has hung beyond our reach.  At least until now.

Welcome back, you magnificent life forms.  Glad you could make it.  I hope you all are well and not bored.  Sometimes I fear that my rambling thoughts can be boring, even though some of our nation’s other magnificent life forms seem to prefer it that way.

My Limerick Oyster creation

Is wanted all over the nation

But mostly by bears

‘Cause each of them swears

The blog will bring on hibernation.

Stay awake!  And speaking of staying awake, let’s talk about anesthesia.  (See, that’s called a transition, a segue – oh, never mind.)  I went to Dr. Tooth to have a cavity filled.  Yuck!  I hate shots in my mouth.  But, I went and I sat and Dr. Tooth came in and asked, “Do you want an anesthetic?”  What?  He was giving me a choice?  If he was giving me a choice, that meant I didn’t absolutely need the shots in my mouth.  His question somehow struck me as unnecessary, kind of like:

·        “Madame Antoinette, would you rather have a carriage ride to Switzerland?”

·        “Take your pick, Wicked Witch of the West, the bucket of water on the head or tickets to Hamilton.”

·        “Cinderella, who are you going to The Ball with – Prince Charming or Harvey Weinstein?”

Of course, I chose the no-anesthetic option and the procedure was over in ten minutes with zero discomfort.  Good choice.  “Oh, Abe, how about we go bowling tonight and skip the play?”

And now, from anesthetics that make you drowsy and loopy to marijuana – which makes you drowsy and loopy.  (There’s another one of those rascally transitions.)  Trends indicate that the legal sale of marijuana is sweeping the nation, and soon it will be legal to buy pot in every state.  I can clearly envision McDonald’s adjusting their menu to add a Really Happy Meal which will include fries and a Diet-Toke.  They’re already training their staff to say, “Would you like highs with that?”

Of course, we’re going to see national chains created just to sell pot, so we need to come up with appropriate names.  I am up to the challenge.  Unfortunately, the perfect name for a national pot chain is already taken – Quik Trip.  But I have some alternative suggestions:

Pot-Belly’s            Toke-O-Bell          Grass Pro Shops

H & R Pot            Bed, Bath and Way Beyond

And if the whole pot thing works out well, then I’m sure they will quickly move all of us up to the harder substances.  A new drive-through chain for heavy drugs is already in the works.  It’s called Crack-In-The-Box. 

A few years ago, I was driving my grandson to Pre-School.  We would always arrive early.  Punctuality is the Politeness of Kings.  That was actually the quip under my picture in the High School Yearbook.  Can you believe that?  After three years, they did not have one nice thing to say about me except, “Ya, well, the bastard was on time.”  But am I bitter after 55 years?  Does a bear hibernate?   Stay awake!

So, since we were early, my grandson and I would play in the car.  He was a Jedi and used a soda straw as his light saber to slice up the evil Darth Vader (that was me).  I put a small, round, orange sticker on my nose to show where he wounded me and I howled in mock pain.  Great fun.  From there, I went to the cable company to talk about my bill, Walmart to buy some things, the Post Office to mail a package and the bookstore to browse.  I bought a small book and, as I was checking out, the clerk said, “You know you have a sticker on your nose?”  I presume that the previous three people with whom I had had close dealings did not think it odd for an old man to be wearing an orange dot on his nose. Or perhaps they thought I was a Hindu woman with bad aim.  Was I mortified?  Not a bit.  Blessed are they that can laugh at themselves, for they will never cease to be amused.

The reason I brought this up was because at dinner the other night, I saw Carol examining her face in the reflection on a butter knife.  Yes, a butter knife!  Who does that?  A butter knife!  You see, a woman never goes more than two minutes without examining her reflection in a wall mirror, compact, rear-view mirror, puddle, store window or, failing any of those, the nearby cutlery.  It is unimaginable that a woman could visit four stores not knowing that there was an orange sticker on her nose.  Or that she was wearing one brown shoe and one black shoe.  I confess to that one too.  Well, it was dark that morning.

I may not notice when my shoes don’t match, but I notice everything else.  That’s why I never run out of things to say.  I notice bumper stickers, for instance.  There are an infinite number of clever bumper stickers, and I saw a good one today:

MY GERMAN SHEPHERD IS SMARTER THAN YOUR HONOR STUDENT.  That ranks up there with: STAY BACK, MY LAWYER’S IN THE TRUNK and MY SON IS THE INMATE OF THE MONTH.

I bought a suit the other day and Carol accompanied me.  We were waited on by Gilbert who was tall, slender, young and dapper.  After dealing with the suit, my wife picked out a “cool” shirt and I tried it on.   I looked in the mirror, but well, I am what I am.  “I will never be – Gilbert,” I said.  This would have been a perfect time for a compensating compliment by my loving partner of fifty years. Something like, “No, but you look pretty damn good just as you are” would have been lovely, but no, that’s not what I got.  What I got from my sweet Silver Sneaker was, “No, you will definitely never be Gilbert.”  I didn’t buy the shirt.

Well, we’ve come to the end of another adventure. I’m proud of you for staying awake for the whole thing.  I hope you enjoyed.  Stay well and come back next week.  And don’t be late.  Remember, Punctuality is the Politeness of Kings.

Michael                          Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com