Blog #38

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 – Al Franken and Matt Lauer

🎼John Conyers 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 think 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.

I am writing some of this in North Carolina where I am currently visiting my daughter Jennifer.  She is currently down at her chicken coop, which in Haiti would be a six-family.  One of her chickens has lately been exhibiting signs of depression.  The technical term, I think, is “Down in the Dumplings.”  So Jen is boning up with a textbook on chicken psychology.  The book is called Freud Chicken.  I have more chicken jokes than Harvey Weinstein has victims. 

I am at this moment sitting in Jen’s kitchen trying to avoid Lance.  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?  Boom, you got it.  Whatever wish you had would instantly become reality.  But as soon as that new “ap” came on line, everyone 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?

I have an iPod and an iPhone.  Carol has an iPhone and an iPad.  My grandkids all have iPhones or iTouches or iWatches.  iGiveUp!  I like my phone.  I like the photos and the calling and the texting. I learned how to send messages to my daughters, and once I had that mastered, somebody came up with emojis.  Did I need that?  Does it enhance my ability to communicate by adding a Happy Face or a heart to my texts?  ❤

But, I adapted and learned how to send emojis.  Then it was bitmoji, and the images or just a plain Happy Birthday had to include a cartoon likeness of my old face.  Clever, I guess, but childish.   👻

But, I learned that too and then how to add balloons or fireworks to the message.  What a juvenile waste of my time!  And just when I was comfortable – Bam! -  the next dreaded ios update came along and added a thousand tiny, sinister changes to all the things I had finally learned how to do.  I don’t want any more updates.  Stop it!  Leave me alone.

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. 

Jen just went to Whole Foods and came back with something marked 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 Really Alive and Thriving Sea.  I mean why should I want to rub myself with stuff that causes instantaneous death to any marine creature it touches?  But that’s just me. 

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 shook hands with a stranger every second, 24 hours a day, it would take me 236 years to shake hands with every person on Earth.  And I still wouldn’t find anybody else who has read Moby Dick five times.  I saw somewhere that of the 7.4 billion people on the Earth, about 380 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 379,999,999.  I’m depressed.  I need to rest.  And read the obituaries.

Hi there.  Welcome back, and don’t be depressed.  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?

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 this one, 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, he would have been forced to say Romeo, Romeo, where the hell are you?

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

😀                                       Sendeth comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com 

Blog #37

Happy Thanksgiving Day to every one of you.  Thanksgiving is a unique and introspective day where we give voice to all the blessings we have.  We are truly thankful for our family and friends; I don’t need to tell you that.  And as for those that we have lost and sorely miss, they are blessings as well. “Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”  That’s a quote, believe it or not, from Dr. Seuss, my favorite poet, and it should remind us to be grateful for the memories that mean so much to us.  We are also thankful for our own lives.  Yes, we may have health issues -- aches, pains or more serious challenges – but look at it this way, we’re doing the best we can, we’re still here and we are way better off than the turkey.  And, yes, there are people who are richer, younger, better-looking.  But we have love and warmth and a wonderful meal to share. 

Every year at the Thanksgiving meal, Carol makes us all recite the things we are thankful for, and I have tried to do that in the first paragraph.  I have read the paragraph a hundred times and I can only feel it inadequate to express my emotion each year on this holiday.  Forgive my inadequacy and accept my sincere best wishes for you all.  So let’s have fun and carve up that bird!

And speaking of carving, I just read that Germany has officially declared circumcision an act of “bodily harm” and has banned the procedure.  The article goes on to say that Germany’s 4,000,000 Muslims and 100,000 Jews are protesting the decision.  100,000 Jews?  That’s all Germany has?  I wonder why.  Maybe it’s because the Germans murdered all their Jews.  So now Germany joins San Francisco in banning circumcision.  I have no axe to grind here (wow, that’s an ugly metaphor under the circumstances) but it seems that 6,000 years of circumcision haven’t hurt the Jews much.

Ok, we did the thankful part and the carving part.  Was yours good?  Now it’s time for dessert.  My daughter Abby has come up with an interesting discovery – most of the sweet things in life start with C.  For instance: Cookies, Cake and Cupcakes; Candy, Chocolate and Caramel; Cocoa, Custard, Cream and Carob.  And, of course, my main sweet – Carol.  “It is an extra dividend,” Clark Gable said, “when you like the girl you’ve fallen in love with.”

Gee, he’s got quotes from Dr. Seuss and Clark Gable!  What’s the wordy bastard going to come up with next?  Settle down now, have another cookie.  What I’m going to talk about next is the most important part of the holiday – shopping!  I hate crowds and am too timid to shop on Black Friday, and I’m too technologically backward to shop on Cyber Monday. 

They say Cyber Monday is nifty

Those specials make buying so thrifty.

Yes shopping on line

Is all very fine

Unless you are older than fifty.

Forget Black Friday and Cyber Monday!  We need Senior Saturday where no-one under 65 is allowed in the store, and where we can amble leisurely through the aisles picking up Senior Saturday Specials on reading glasses, space heaters, melatonin, Ensure, low-salt potato chips, laxatives and CoQ-10.

It’s almost December now and getting colder.  It’s getting so cold, in fact, that today I saw a politician with his hands in his own pocket.  So pack up your golf shorts and canasta cards and head for Naples or Scottsdale.  Carol and I are staying here, but don’t worry – wherever you are, every Thursday, I will find you.  That is, until I run out of things to say or until you run out of patience with me.  Welcome back, my friends.  Hope you are well.  I almost said, “Don’t eat too much this weekend.”  But go ahead – eat!  It’s Thanksgiving!

And then go to a movie.  I like movies.  I like to be entertained.  What I don’t like is to be depressed.  Make me laugh, make me smile, frighten me, make me think, make me guess, make me cry – but don’t depress me.  I can’t watch any more children being loaded into Nazi freight trains.  If I want to be depressed, I’ll just stay home and watch the news.  And don’t charge me a car-payment for a bag of popcorn.  People, can you not go two hours without a popcorn and soda that cost $14?  I know you can. 

And now they have movie seats that recline.  Very comfortable!  Too comfortable, if you ask me.  I go to a movie to be entertained (I may have said that already), not to sleep.  I go to the Opera to sleep.  Just give me a comfy seat, a pillow and a bunch of Italians hollering their meatballs off, and I’ll be happy as a witch in a broom factory.

And now that you’re all stuffed and sleepy, sit down and relax while I go on a rant.  Well, why should I be the only silent one in the country?  Everybody else, it seems, is on one television show or another expressing an opinion.  I have no TV show; I have you.  Roy Moore is the sleaze-ball Republican running for U.S. Senator from Alabama.  At least eight women have accused him of sexual perversion, but he is still polling strong.  Don’t the voters in Alabama care about his sins?  Here are some other examples where voters didn’t care:

·             In 1967, Adam Clayton Powell, a Democratic Congressman was kicked out of the House for stealing money from his Congressional committee.  In the Special Election to fill his seat, he was re-elected.

·            Robert Byrd, Democrat from West Virginia, served in the House and Senate for 53 years, and even though everyone knew he had been a Grand Cyclops and recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan, he was consistently re-elected.

·            Bill Clinton was accused of a dozen instances of sexual abuse including rape.   He was never asked by any Democrat to resign.

·            Donald Trump was heard on tape bragging of sexual abuse to women.  He was elected President.

·            Ted Kennedy was presumed to have killed a young woman in an episode of drunken debauchery.  He was re-elected to the Senate every six years until he died.

I’m not even scratching the surface, but here’s the punch-line -- it apparently doesn’t matter what perverted, sheet-wearing, abusive scum we send to Washington, as long as they vote the way we want.  Voters don’t seem to care what besotted, racist, murdering, lying rubbish represent them in the White House or on Capitol Hill as long as they protect abortion rights, or protect gun rights, or stop immigration, or increase immigration or vote for the Supreme Court Justice they want.  Do you think I’m being a little rough on politicians?  Sorry. Oh, and by the way, Congress just banned nativity scenes in Washington DC because they couldn’t find three wise men. 

Stay well and have a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Come back next week.  I’ll be nicer.  Maybe I should take a pill.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com  

Blog #36

The St. Louis Cardinals have offered a pitcher $17.4 million for one year.  The average salary for a police officer in St. Louis is about $50,000.  We can either have one pitcher or 348 police officers.  What is wrong with us?  Where have we lost our way?  Sure, the Cardinals bring in lots of tourists who spend money at hotels and restaurants.  And who protects these tourists from being shot, robbed, raped or car-jacked in the parking lot?  Police officers!  And why are all the police officers outside protecting us?  Because they can’t afford to be inside where it costs $150 for the officer, spouse and two kids to go to the game.  That $150 is 0.3% of the officer’s salary.  That same percentage of the pitcher’s salary would be $52,200 -- more than the police officer makes in a whole year.  But look at all the tax dollars that these tourists bring in.  Great, and what does the city do with all the tax dollars?  They sure don’t pay their police officers.  They just investigate their police officers and reprimand their police officers and prosecute their police officers.  But we have a pitcher. 

We have become a society where singers, actors and athletes make exorbitant millions, but where teachers, police officers and firefighters make a pitifully low wage.  P. Diddy made $130 million last year.  I don’t even know what a P. Diddy is!  Shame on us!

And while I’m here fighting for our police officers, President Trump is over in Asia talking up trade and threatening North Korea.  He is making sure Kim Jong Nutso knows that the USA has the capabilities and the will to wipe his nasty face off the planet.  But the President wasn’t sharing any details.  Why should he?  The enemy doesn’t need to know what we’re up to.  You never advertise what your war plans are.  What does he expect us to do, send him an invitation?   

The War will begin right on time
Your camouflage outfit is fine
There’s shooting at one
Please Bring Your Own Gun
And Molotov Cocktails at nine.

Do you know you can have your fortune told over the phone?  That’s right, I just heard a radio ad for “California Psychics” – a call-up fortune telling service.   Of course I tried it, expecting a knowing voice to answer with, “Hello, Michael.  How’s your back feeling today?”  Now that would be impressive, but all I got was a request for my credit-card number.  Besides, who would be so foolish as to get his fortune told over the phone?  If I want my fortune, I go to a Chinese restaurant.  My favorite is the House of Wong where the Egg Foo Young is spectacular but the fortunes are usually not so great.  What can you expect from a place where most of the employees are Wong?

I’ve had bad experiences with call-up services before.  Especially when I called up the Suicide Hotline where they connected me to a woman in Mumbai who tried to sell me a cremation urn.  Recently, my friend Gene died at the age of 89.  He was cremated and the memorial service was lovely.  Cremation is all the rage now and I’m leaning toward it myself.  It just seems simple and thrifty and – warm.

I actually chatted with the young woman in Mumbai (that’s Bombay to all of you who still remember what kind of animal Flicka was).  I asked her what was the strangest call she ever got on the Suicide Hotline.  She said once she got a call from a desperate bulimic woman who wanted to know where she could buy Sugar-free Arsenic.

You’ve been to Trivia Nights.  We were at one recently that was put together by my son-in-law Robert for a charity.  Our table consisted of Carol and me and seven of our friends.  Among us we had over 600 years of accumulated wisdom and experience.  We came in dead last.  You would think that the older you are, the more you would know.  But apparently, people our age have not been paying attention for the past forty years, so when the question involved anything more recent than the theme from M*A*S*H or the plop-plop-fizz-fizz commercial, we just sat there like a basket of onion rings. 

My goodness, it’s almost Thanksgiving!  Every Holiday Season my California friends Amy and Eleanor send us a holiday card.  Last year’s was lovely, a nice card with pictures of them and their daughter.  The card had some bullet-words blaring out at you between the cute photos.  LOVE and JOY and PROTEST with their daughter’s raised and clenched fist.  Yup, that’s what little girls learn in California these days:  Reading, Writing and Revolution.

And speaking of little girls, my granddaughter’s name is Charley.  At her last birthday party, I noticed the place-settings: Charley, Sam, Madison, Dylan, Jordan and Morgan.  All girls.  Girls’ names have expanded to include many traditionally male names, but it doesn’t seem to work the other way.  You don’t see many boys named Shirley or Betsy or Alice. 

I remember when Charley told me some new neighbors had moved in.  I asked if they had any kids.  Yes, she said, Alice and David.  They must be Chinese, I said.  She was stunned!  I was right!  I’m sure you have noticed that young American children are all Kaneesha and Fulton and Morgan and Meghan and Bryce and Beckett and Odin and Ahmad?  If you find an Alice or a David, I guarantee you they’re Chinese.

I was with some grandchildren today.  They were watching a show called Baby Daddy.  I was horrified.  Here were kids from 7-12 years old watching an innocent-looking sit-com with young men and women and canned laughter.  Sounds like Friends, doesn’t it?  Nope!  In this episode, all the young women thought they were pregnant because their boyfriends had discovered holes in their condoms.   Can you imagine such a thing?  I don’t know how old you are, but in my day no such thing would have been permissible on TV.  Can you just imagine Wally Cleaver telling Ward that he got a girl pregnant?  The TV would have exploded in our living room and my parents would have washed my brain out with Lava Soap.  That’s right, Kiddies, tune in tomorrow when:

Father Knows Best has an affair with his secretary; 

Hoss Cartwright gets caught with a sheep;

Carol Brady raises money for the PTA by selling nude photos of Marcia;

Howdy Doody has a woody and  

We find out that “Kemosabe” really means “Steaming Stud Muffin.”

And don't miss the Saturday Night Special when Dr. Cliff Huxtable drugs and assaults 29 women.

And don’t tell your parents.

I guess you can tell I’m a little angry this week.  Angry about how little we pay our police officers, angry about the decline of manners and culture.  Angry that Superman can no longer help us because there’s no place for him to change clothes any more.  But I’m not angry with you.  Next week it will be Thanksgiving, so be sure to tune in, Kiddies -- and don’t tell your parents.  Stay well.

Kemosabe                                Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com 

 

Blog #35

“Travel makes one modest,” said Flaubert, “you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.”  I like travel books and history books and foreign novels.  They take me to places I’ve never been and to times long ago.  I see exotic places and listen to exotic people and learn many, many things.  And yes, I learn humility as well.  How insignificant and puny we are!  We live in a place that is microscopic compared to the size of the Earth, in a time dwarfed by the thousands of years of human existence, in a society that is only the most recent of the uncountably different ways of life.  In all likelihood we will pass without leaving a mark.  Mae West said, “You only live once, but if you work it right, once is enough,” so I am satisfied with my place in this progression of life, for I have my humility and my family and my books – and you!

Yes, I have you, my loyal readers, so welcome back to Limerick Oyster where together each week we embark on a new adventure.  That’s what I need – an adventure!  I seem to be in one of those low and slow periods right now.  Feeling useless and unwanted – feeling like Motel 6 would not leave the light on for me.  Do you ever feel like that?  Nothing to do?  As bored as Venus de Milo’s manicurist?  Yes, we need an adventure, but alas, I don’t think it’s in the cards for me.  The South Seas?  Timbuktu?  Papua New Guinea?  Who am I kidding?  I’m never going to get there.  The biggest adventure I have all day is discovering where I put my keys.  What adventure book am I going to write?  Dulliver’s Travels?   So I live vicariously from my books.

Adventures for me? How hilarious!

They’re costly and bold and precarious

I’m too old and boring

To go off exploring

My travels must all be vicarious.

I lived vicariously this morning by talking to my daughter in North Carolina.  That’s Jennifer, the one with a flock of chickens in her yard.  Apparently, there have been coyote sightings in the neighborhood and Jen is worried about her brood, so she checked out CNN (the Chicken News Network) as well as The National Henquirer and The St. Louis Post This Hatch. All had at one time won the Pullet-zer Prize, but they had no helpful advice.  So, she called a local wildlife specialist and he suggested that, to scare off the coyotes, she should get a llama.  You see, those animal-specialist types live in their own dream world where crickets sing to puppets and white rabbits wear pocket watches and llamas grow on trees.  Where exactly do you go for a llama, Llamas R Us?  Nacho Llamas?  I remember years ago when a Great Horned Owl showed up on my porch, and I called one of these animal guys and asked what I should feed the creature.  He asked, “Do you have any dead mice?”  Sure, I said, I keep a box in the freezer in case Monty Hall drops by.

The last time I was down in chicken-land, I borrowed Jennifer’s van to go to McDonald’s.  It was cold that morning when Jen took the kids to school and she must have activated the seat warmer.  I didn’t even know the van had a seat warmer.  After two minutes, however, I knew.  After three minutes I was frantically searching for an on-off switch.  After four minutes I was standing up.  Have you ever tried to drive while standing up?  It ought to be a new Olympic event -- Brake Dancing.

I have an idea of how to get out of these doldrums – I’ll get into the television business.  I have some wonderful ideas for new shows.  The first one I want to produce is Dancing With The Creeps.  The contestants for Season One will be – Bill Cosby, OJ Simpson, Bo Bergdahl, John Hinckley Jr. and Harvey Weinstein.  They are all free men with nothing much else to do and the ratings would go through the roof.  Plus, it will be a great showcase to introduce the new sitcoms I have developed for each one.

Bo Bergdahl starring in Hogan’s Traitors

Bill Cosby starring in Raping Bad

John Hinkley starring in Have Gun, Will Assassinate

Harvey Weinstein starring in Still-More Girls

O.J. Simpson starring in How I Murdered Your Mother

Carol and I went to a dinner, a bi-monthly gathering of our high-school class.  There were about twenty people there, half men and half women.  Now that was a waste of words, wasn’t it?  Once I said “half men”, the rest was obvious.  Well, maybe not.  Besides male and female, Facebook now recognizes 58 other gender categories, including Pangender, Neutrois and Non-binary.  Anyway, Carol and I graduated in the same class, but when we are with people we have just met or haven’t seen in a long time, we always get the same response.  They inevitably ask my wife two questions: how she manages to stay so young-looking and why she married such an old man.  I don’t mind.  It makes me look somehow special that I attracted such a dreamy-looking wife. 

Carol hates when I say in the blog that she’s nice-looking or anything like that.  She’ll be mad.  But I had to use the word “dreamy” to get into this next bit, so get over it, Sour Puss!

Dreamy looking.  He’s Dreamy!  What a dream-boat!  In your dreams!  I’m dreaming of a White Christmas.  A dream is a wish your heart makes.  You just dreamed that up!

There are so many common “dream” references in our language, but they all seem to refer to good dreams.  Do you have good dreams?  When you dream, do you find the girl of your dreams or the man of your dreams or the Neutrois of your dreams?   Do you dream of elysian settings with unicorns and rainbows?  Do you dream of happy and stress-free times?  I don’t.  While you’re dreaming about winning the lottery or writing the year’s bestselling book, I’m dreaming of running around a parking lot for two hours trying to find my car – naked.

A few weeks ago was Columbus Day.  I wonder if Chris knew it was Columbus Day when he discovered America.  Actually, he didn’t even know it was America.  He thought it was India.  (That’s why all the natives were called Indians.)  And besides, his name wasn’t Christopher Columbus; it was Cristobal Colόn.  But how would it sound if we celebrated Colon Day?  Instead of Italian parades and meat balls, there’d be sigmoidoscopes and Miralax.  I wonder if Columbus knew there would be statues of him all over the continent and that after 525 years everyone would want to tear them down.

And by the way, why are there Interstate Highways in Hawaii?  Please stay well, change your clocks and dream about coming back next week for another fun adventure.  I’ll leave the light on for you.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com 

Blog #34

I have come up with an interesting collection of observations.  I’m sure it won’t rival The Theory of Evolution, but interesting nonetheless.  I have discovered a crucial and fundamental dichotomy – inside/outside.  For instance, if a creature, perhaps a spider, is outside, it is one of Nature’s creations, to be respected and allowed to exist with dignity and honor.  If it’s inside, it’s a pest and needs to be squashed.  And snow – if it’s outside, it is sparkling and thrilling and beautiful.  If it’s inside, you need a new roof.  And what about the human body?  If it’s inside it’s mucus; if it’s outside it’s snot.  If it’s inside it’s urine; if it’s outside it’s piss.  If it’s inside it’s part of the natural human processes; if it’s outside it’s Yuck, get it off me!

And human society?  Well, if you’re inside my group, my clan, my religion, then you’re a friend, a compatriot, someone I will share with and defend and protect.  If you’re outside, you are alien, strange, different.  Distrust and misunderstanding of outsiders are built into our Human Nature, and we, as individuals and as a society, try hard to eliminate and overcome them.  I certainly try – unless it’s a spider in my house.  God, I know it’s one of Your creatures, but spiders, God?  Seriously?  If You wanted me to be kind to it, why did You make me so afraid of it?

Well Apple has done it again.  A new device for kids comes out next week. It can read any book ever written in an accent that matches the character.  It can create and recite stories based on any subject you provide.  It will play card games with you and let you win.  It has treats and gum hidden in a side pocket. You can smack it, bite it, climb on it or spit at it and it will just sit there and take it.  And it will, at an advanced age, even get on the trampoline and make a fool of itself.  It’s called the iGrandpa.  Every child needs one.

I believe Grandpas are better with kids than Grandmas.  I know that’s a bold and controversial statement.  Please don’t have Ashley Judd call me names I cannot print.  It’s true, and you know why?  It’s because little girls grow up to be sensible and mature women.  (You like that, Ashley?)  But boys never grow up at all.  We old men still like trains and action figures and playing ball as much as we did when we were six.  Growing old is mandatory, but growing up is optional. 

And you know why the little rug-rats like to be with us Grandpas?  Because we let them eat things and do things and say things that their Mommy and Grandma won’t.  It’s so much fun! 

One of the things that we Grandpas do well is reading books to the kids.  I decided to read them Alice in Wonderland, so I picked it up at the library.  When I got home I noticed it was not the Alice I grew up with, it was a new, improved, politically-correct version called Alice in California.  The plot was similar, but the characters had all been given new names.  There were:

§  Tweedle Dee and Tweedle 40^th Percentile

§  The White Privilege Rabbit

§  The Aggressive Capitalist Hatter

§  The Walrus and The Union Middle-Class Craftsman

§  The Queen of Color

Next week I’m going to read Snow White and the Seven Vertically Challenged Asexual White Dudes.

And if the boys like trains and G. I. Joes, the girls still like dolls.  All right, all you feminists out there -- shoot me, drop me into a vat of organic beet juice, make me listen to old Joan Baez 8-tracks.  I can’t help it if my granddaughters like dolls; and Alyssa wanted some American Girl accessories for her birthday.  But when we tried to do the shopping, we found out that her doll was not purchased at American Girl.  It is, as they say, a knock-off.  I choose to refer to it as an Undocumented Doll.  I wonder if you can take your Undocumented Doll to American Girl for lunch.  Well, they can’t refuse to serve the doll, can they?  That’s discrimination!  They can’t refuse service on the basis of age, race, gender, or factory of origin, can they?  The Doll has rights too.  I want a lawyer, a member of the ABA, the American Barbie Association.  I want the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Cabbage Patch.  How about the NRA -- Natives for Raggedy Ann.  We need a sit-in, a demonstration, a boycott.  Or in this case, a girlcott – an American Girlcott.  

And now American Girl has a new line of dolls.  If you press the little button under the arm, a recording of the Star-Spangled Banner plays and the doll automatically takes a knee.  It’s called the Un-American Girl Doll.

The dolls don’t engage in much patter

Don’t giggle, blow kisses or chatter,

But for Francis Scott Key

All the dolls take a knee

With a sign that says Plastic Lives Matter.

Don’t forget Veterans Day in a couple of weeks

Let’s talk about more signs other than Plastic Lives Matter.  My favorite sign is on a door at the back of a retail store down the street.  It says THIS IS NOT A DOOR.  Well, it is a door.  It may not be an entrance or an exit, but it is most assuredly a door.  My next favorite is a sign on the highway that goes by our Airport.  It reads “Low Flying Aircraft Ahead”.  Ok, I thought, thanks for the heads-up, but what exactly should I do with that warning?  Should I duck?  I guess that would be a heads-down, not a heads-up.  Should I roll down the window and wave?  Put the top down and try to grab a strut?  None of these sounded appropriate, so I just drove on.  I really am not worried because I feel certain that on the dashboard of the airplane is a corresponding sign that says “Do not hit cars on the highway.”  That’s comforting.

Hi, there.  Have I welcomed you back yet and expressed my hopes that you are well?  No?  Well, consider it done.  Did you have a scary Halloween?  I visited Dr. Skin for my light treatment and dressed up in my boxer-shorts with a brown-paper bag over my head.  If that isn’t scary, what is?  One more thing and I’ll let you go. 

Amazon has announced a new service.  They will now have a lockbox to your house and drop your packages off inside so they don’t lie on the porch outside attracting thieves, nosy neighbors and urinating dogs.  This is a fantastic boon for Seniors, of course.  I have signed up already.  Now when I lose my keys, all I have to do is buy something on Amazon and wait for the nice young man to come and let me in.

Come back next week please.  You’ll miss me if you don’t, and I will miss you too.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com