Blog #33
This morning I went to McDonalds as I do each morning. As I was filling my Diet Coke at the drink
bar, a little Korean boy walked to the bar.
He was about 3-foot-7 and could not reach the straws. He stood there with his hand stretched up as
far as it could, but there was no chance.
I guess most people would have said, “Hi there, little boy. Do you need a straw? Would you like me to get you a straw? What’s your name? There you go; can you say thank you?” I, being a highly trained handler of small
children, said not a word. I plucked a
straw from the container and handed it down to the little Kim Jong Short. He accepted the straw, looked me right in the
eye, gave me a 3-foot 7-inch smile and walked back to his Daddy. I smiled too and walked to my car. A Chinese proverb says, “A child’s life is like a piece
of paper on which every person leaves a mark.” Maybe I left a pleasant one.
Is math not your thing? Have you always thought that Isaac Newton was
famous for making cookies? Do you have
trouble counting up the number of Barbra Streisand’s Farewell Concerts? Then you may want to skip this next
exercise. Carol and I went shopping at a
store like Belk’s or Kohl’s. You know
the drill – everything is 30% off at the register, but the rack that had the top
she wanted, which was marked $62.00, had a sign that said Everything 40% Off. That makes it $37.20 until you get to the
register and they take off the 30% which makes it $26.04. Got it?
No you don’t, because she also had a coupon that says if you
buy $75.00 worth you can subtract $15.00.
So she found a sweater marked $210.00 under a sign that says 1/3
Off which, after both discounts, makes it $98.00, which, when added to
the top comes up to $124.04 minus the $15 coupon for a total of $109.04 for the
two garments. With me so far? No
you’re not, because she actually had two of those $15 coupons,
so she added a sweatshirt tagged $49.00 which was 20% off plus the 30% off
which got her up to $151.48 minus the two $15 coupons or a total of $121.48. Ok?
Want another cookie?
Well,
it wasn’t ok because each $15.00 coupon had to be used
with its own $75.00 purchase, so she had to buy . . . well, most people
would have given up by then, but not Carol, because she had the perfect
instrument for navigating this Alice in Wonderland exercise in higher math – me. I calculated everything in my head and was so
proud when we walked out with the top, a sweatshirt and two sweaters marked
$441.00 for $177.48. Wait, all she
wanted was the $26 top. Now I want
a cookie.
Being a husband is challenging. Besides the shopping thing, there’s the
language thing. I have been married
fifty years and I still don’t completely understand Wife-Speak. I think I have a few phrases figured out. For instance,
When she says: Are you hot? she means -
I’m hot, turn on the air conditioner.
When she says: Are you going out like that? she means - If you are, it’s not with me.
When she says: You look tired. she means - Take me home; I’m tired.
When she says: My hair looks horrible! she means - You
have three seconds to compliment my hair. Three, two, …
When she says: I like when you go shopping with me.
she means - Drop me off at the door, Hop Sing, then come inside and hold my packages.
Anyone who thinks that a man can control a woman – is
a bachelor.
We all watch Jeopardy, don’t we? It’s fun!
We get to see how much we know and how awfully much we don’t know. I think there should be a Senior
Jeopardy. I have some ideas along that
line. First, we have to get rid of that
little clicker thing they use.
Mechanical devices confuse us and we have arthritis in our fingers. And which button controls the volume? Second, we need more time to answer. Who can think that fast? And, of course, the questions have to be
senior-friendly, like “What is Miralax for?” This is stuff we know about. I have a whole new Double Jeopardy category
for you called Who’s the Dummy? Here
are the answers; you pick the ventriloquist’s dummy.
$200 Charlie
McCarthy or Edgar Burgen
$400 Meatloaf or Lambchop
$600 Jerry Lewis or Jerry Mahoney
$800 Topo Gigio or Charo
$1000 Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton
How’d you do? Did
you get them all right? The real dummies
are Charlie McCarthy (held by Edgar Burgen), Lambchop (Shari Lewis), Jerry
Mahoney (Paul Winchell), Topo Gigio (Ed Sullivan show) and – no, no, I’m not
going there. Now you can try the Final Senior Jeopardy Answer: “She
was the Indian princess on Howdy Doody.”
One year, for my wife’s birthday, I surprised her by
hiring a ventriloquist to give her a lesson, something she said she always
wanted to try. So we and a few friends
gathered at my daughter’s house where The Amazing Mario showed her how to use
his dummy, which looked like a little boy. Carol tried and everybody laughed. Then it was my turn and he placed the dummy
on my lap. My little granddaughter,
Charley, was about 15 months old then and was sitting in a corner enjoying the
show. But when she saw the little boy on
her Poppy’s lap, she roused into action.
She calmly walked up to me, picked up the dummy, gently placed him in
the corner, came back and crawled onto my lap, a lap she did not intend to
share with some creepy little boy.
In all my life I have lived in seven different homes,
yet I have never lived more than 12 miles from the place I was born. Twelve miles in 71 years! Doesn’t seem like much, does it? Raccoons move around more than that. Twelve miles!
I haven’t retired to sunny Naples or glorious Scottsdale or the fabulous
Frisco Bay. I didn’t go away to college.
Twelve miles. It never occurred to me
that St. Louis was a great place to live, but now with all the disasters around
us, I’m rethinking. Hurricanes in
Florida, shootings in Nevada, earthquakes in Mexico, flooding in Texas, fires
in California, Joy Behar in New York.
Maybe our little town, even with its civil unrest, is doing just fine.
To
live in St. Louis is heaven
On
a scale of ten, it’s eleven
The
Cards and the Blues
The
Zoo and Ted Drewes
And
the riots don’t start until seven.
Did you think I had forgotten this week’s
limerick? I’m not that forgetful, and
you’re not that lucky. I will not forget
to come back next week with another limerick, so please stay well and I’ll see
you then.
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