Blog # 94

I’ve talked about a lot of things in 90-plus blogs – doctors, pills, computers – but never about Laundromats.  How often do you go to a Laundromat?  We haven’t gone in decades, but Carol had a bedspread that needed washing, and it’s too big for our machine, so she decided on a Laundromat.  Now you might think we doddering oldsters are technically incompetent, what with computers and iPods and such – and you’d be right, but we know nothing about Laundromats.  The first problem was finding one.  We were on our way to dinner one night and had the spread in the back seat, so we drove around looking for one, unsuccessfully.  But then I turned onto a side street in order to make a U and Carol yelled “There’s one!”  Nothing gets by my observant little woman.  Of course the LAUNDROMAT sign on the roof of the building was the size of Belgium.

We entered, where it must have been obvious that we didn’t know a washing machine from a hippopotamus, because we were quickly greeted by the proprietress.  I use the feminine loosely, because I’m not altogether sure she was a woman.  She looked more like a cross between a pirate and road kill.  She smiled, flashing her tooth, and took immediate control.   She picked out our machine, loaded our blanket, loaded the Tide, promised to move the blanket to a drier when ready and told us to go to dinner.  First, she said, load $3.75 into the washer.  Carol opened her purse and pulled out 15 quarters.  Who runs around with 15 quarters?  I’ll give you four possibilities: 

A:      A kid addicted to gumballs

          B:      The Tooth Fairy

          C:      A really cheap whore

          D:      A woman who consistently wins at mahjong.

Here are some hints:  my wife doesn’t chew gum, does not believe in any fairy princess other than herself, and is not cheap.  Well, it worked!  We returned after dinner and there it was – clean and dry.  We were so proud!

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling perky today.  Did you have a nice Christmas?  I was very happy waking up Christmas morning – until I drove to McDonald’s and discovered they were closed.  Bah, humbug!  Do you know all these Christmas songs?

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer--Let It Snow--Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire--Sleigh Ride--There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays--Little Drummer Boy--You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch--Jingle Bell Rock--It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year--Santa Baby--I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas--A Holly Jolly Christmas--Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree--Silver Bells--Walkin’ in a Winter Wonderland--I’ll Be home for Christmas--Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas--Santa Clause is Coming to Town.

Do you know what they all have in common?  They don’t mention Jesus.  That’s because they were all written by Jews.  All of them.  One Jewish composer said, “I’m not stupid.  Why would I write a song that 3% of the people would buy?  I want one that 97% of the people will buy.”

During Christmas week we went out to dinner with another couple.  He drove.  Not only did his wife tell him which route to take and which parking place to take and what food to order, she told him he wore the wrong coat.  I felt right at home.  Listen – Guys, every once in a while your wife needs to hear you say four words: Honey, you look great.  And Gals, your husband needs four words as well: Honey, you know best.  I believe if most of you gals told your husband he knew best, he’d think he was in the wrong house.  But c’mon, it’s a small thing, give your partner the common decency of a little compliment, even if it’s a lie.  It’ll make you both feel better.

Happy New Year, everyone.  My calendar’s days are numbered and I guess it’s time to make a New Year’s resolution.  Have you made yours yet?  I am having trouble coming up with one.  I don’t drink or smoke or take drugs, so I can’t resolve to stop.  I’m not fat.  I’m not mean.  I do everything my wife wants.  I do three different volunteer jobs.  I don’t have any bucket list items that I am physically or financially able to do.  I’m not saying that my life is perfect.  I’m just saying I’m not sure if there’s anything I can accomplish with a resolution.  I guess you’d say I have my life in order.  It’s taken me a long time to get there, and as Gabriel Garcia Marquez said, “Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.”  I suspect he’s right.  But if you think of something I need to change, you can send your suggestions of a New Year’s Resolution for me to www.mindyourowndamnbusiness.com.  Be gentle. 

I told my wife that I had no resolution and she was all over me like ants on a Snickers.  You need to exercise more, she said.  Now I know all of you walk-walk-walk and bike-bike-bike. You lift weights and do Pilates and eat yogurt.  Death has occurred to you, but you hope if your body looks good, God might give you a few extra weeks.

I really can’t do much exercise with my back.  I’d do it without my back, but then where would I put my shirt?  I tried doing a little walking. Two miles a day; that’s not much.  But I ran (or walked) into a problem:

Five days in a row did I roam

It’s easy as writing a poem

Two miles a day

I’m feeling ok

Except that I’m ten miles from home.

Old joke, but I bet you’ve never seen it rhyme.  Look, Dr. Back tells me exercise will do nothing for my back, and besides, a tortoise never moves more than half a

mile an hour and lives to be 150.  This argument has tired me out.  I think I’ll go rest my case.  I just have enough energy to wish you a happy 2019 during which I want you to stay well, count your blessings and come back here every week.  And by the way, you look great.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #93

I remember the good old days when online was where you hung your laundry.  When spam was a canned meat spread, cookies were sweet and tweet was the sound a little bird made.  When yahoo was a low and ignorant human creature from Gulliver’s travels, face-book was what the police made you look through to identify a criminal, a virus gave you a cold and spyware was Maxwell Smart’s shoe-phone.  Oh well, those days are gone, and now I’m sitting at my desk surrounded by enough wires to reach to Sweden and so many different passwords I have to keep a printed list of them on my desk, which sort of negates their usefulness. 

I don’t know a ROM from a RAM

Don’t know about Cookies or Spam

Those bytes and those bits

They give me the fits

It shows you how clueless I am.

So you can imagine with how much trepidation I resolved to buy Carol a Sirius Radio subscription for Hanukkah.  I was as nervous as a fly at a tarantula convention, knowing that I had to deal online with some techie.  But what choice did I have?  I found a phone number for Sirius and prepared to call them for help, a feat of communication only slightly easier than contacting L. Ron Hubbard.  I had resolved to do it myself rather than letting Carol do it.  She’s better at computer stuff than I am, but I have more patience.  A pack of piranhas has more patience than my wife.  An ice-cream cone on a hot day has more patience than my wife. 

Surprisingly, however, it took only thirty seconds to contact a helpful representative named Svetla who was born in Serbia, lived in Belize and sounded like Bela Lugosi on Librium.  We exchanged some information, pressed some buttons, chose some passwords and twenty minutes later had accomplished nothing except to find out that the weather in Belize was beautiful.  “I need my crisis team,” she said.  “I’ll put you in the queue.”  When the queue ended thirty minutes later, I was in Manila, where a very nice young man named Ron (or woman named Red, it was hard to tell) proceeded to hook me up in about one minute.  I was so thrilled that I forgot to ask how the weather was in the Philippines.

But when I went to the car to check it out, it didn’t work. Vana, what do we have as a Booby Prize for this pathetic loser?  Trying to guide me through the intricacies of technology is like playing Monopoly with a Communist.  It’s like teaching a pig to sing.  Robert A. Heinlein said “Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.”  But I called the Philippines back and we somehow worked it out. I was so proud!

Hi there and welcome back.   Christmas is around the corner.  I am always glad when Christmas has arrived because it marks the end of Christmas music on the radio.  I have now listened to Johnny Mathis sing We Need a Little Christmas 427 times, followed closely by Feliz Navidad (Jose Feliciano) and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer (Burl Ives). 

What is it about music that soothes us or excites us or makes us dance?  From an evolutionary perspective, it probably comes from birds and monkeys using sounds to attract mates.  So even the most ancient members of our species probably “sang”.  Of course, back then before the invention of the wheel, it wasn’t Rock n’ Roll, it was Rock n ’Rock.  I wonder who their big singing stars were.  Probably Sheryl Cro-Magnon, Rolling Stonehenge, The Monkeys, and Dinah Sore (see the USA in your Pterodactyl).

Have you finished your Christmas shopping?  I just bought my last three presents and mailed them off.  I bought Bernie Sanders a sweat shirt that says AMERICA LOVES PRESIDENTIAL FUNERALS.  ELECT AN OLD PERSON.  I got Donald Trump a throw pillow embroidered with MAKE AMERICA HATE AGAIN.  And I got Steph Curry two posters, one of the Moon and one of the White House, two places he has never been.

Is anybody still there?  Stick with me; you knew I was weird.  If lack of political correctness is a sin, send me right down to Hell.  And send a bunch of Prozac with me.  Satan and I can pop pills and talk about what might have been.  Satan once said, “Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven.”  He may have been right.  I’m not really sure I want to go to Heaven.  None of my friends are there.  Am I rambling?  Get over it.

I’m not sure, actually, that I could even find my way to Heaven.  It seems that everywhere I go I take the wrong exit and get lost.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me.  All I know is if I had been with Columbus, we couldn’t have discovered the Pinta, let alone America.  If I had been with Neil Armstrong, we would have landed in Omaha. If I had been with Billy Graham, he never would have found Jesus.  I’m convinced one of my ancestors was with Moses and talked him into turning left so we wound up with all the sand and none of the oil.

How can I not get from Point A to Point B without screwing up?  I am pretty good at reading maps.  I can analyze the equations that define the trajectory.  I can give accurate directions.  But if I actually have to do it, I have less chance than of Stevie Wonder sinking a twelve-foot putt.  That just means I have a lot of knowledge and no wisdom.  Let me give you an example: Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

A 92-year-old lady wanted to commit suicide.  She called her doctor and asked, “Doc, where exactly is my heart?”  It’s two inches below your left breast, he replied.  So she shot herself in the kneecap.

Is anybody still there?  Well you don’t have to put up with this much longer.  I have insulted my wife, Bernie Sanders, President Trump, Steph Curry, blind people and old women.  It’s hard work and it has made me tired.  I think I’ll go to bed, if I can find my way there without getting lost.  I hope you don’t get lost on your way back to Limerick Oyster next week.  Just follow all the giggling old people.  Until then, stay well, count your blessings and Feliz Navidad!

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

 

Blog #92

As I walked to the County Jail for tutoring, I saw a glove nestled against a parking meter post.  It was white and blue and dirty.  On closer approach I saw that it was a left glove made of white mesh with a blue wristband.  This glove must have a story, I thought.  Why was it there?  Where was its partner?  A mesh glove – not very practical in cold weather.  Maybe it was a golf glove; that would explain the absence of its partner.  Maybe it was Michael Jackson’s.  Just a lonely, abandoned piece of flotsam in a lonely and disturbed world.  It was the stuff of a Chekov story or a Poe novella or a Robert Frost poem.  Or a Limerick Oyster paragraph. 

I have a wife named Carol and I have several friends named Carol.  It’s Christmas time and you can never have too many Carols.  One of my Carol friends recently suggested that my weekly greeting to you of “Hi there” should properly be placed at the beginning of each blog, not in the middle.  Thank you, Carol.  I respectfully considered your suggestion.

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re staying warm and well.  There’s only a week and a half until Christmas, and so, if you are celebrating, go out and get your shopping done.  Maybe “go out” is no longer the right phrase.  It should be “get out”.  Get out your iPhone or get out your iPad and click a few buttons and whatever you want will be delivered tomorrow.  It’s actually frightening.  The world has changed so much in the last 25 years, just imagine what it will be like 25 years from now.  I’m sorry I won’t be here to see it.  Maybe I’m glad I won’t be here to see it.

My wife and I went to a movie called The Green Book and liked it very much. It is well worth seeing.  When I go to a movie and settle back in one of those new plush seats, I always have a reflexive impulse to strap on a seat belt.  Does that ever happen to you?  No?  Well, strap yourself in right now and let’s see how much trouble I can get into.

I was reading a book today and the main character was talking about his dream where he found himself naked at the mall.  I have that dream too.  How can he have the same dream that I have?  Then he mentioned the one where he was taking a big test and he hadn’t studied.  I have that one too!  What’s going on here?  I wonder if he has the one about not being able to find your car.  Or the one about the cement mixer parked in front of your house and the driver getting out and beating you up.  Or the one about the Viennese barmaid and the sheep and – well, never mind.

I just looked at my Driver’s License, I mean really looked at it, and you know what I found?  My sex, height, weight, birthday, eye color and a picture that was fifteen years younger and twenty pounds heavier.  At my age, that’s not what I want on my primary identification card, the card the first responders will look at if I’m in an accident.  I want my ID Card to list three things -- the phone number of my cardiologist, the serial number of my pacemaker and directions to the nearest McDonald’s. 

In my English class this week I had a Buddhist from Thailand, a Muslim from Syria, a Christian from Ethiopia, one old but lovable Jew (moi) and an atheist from China.  Atheism, as you know, is a non-prophet organization.  And you know what we talked about?  Religion and religious persecution.  We were supposed to talk about cats, using a list of insipid questions from a book.  Have you ever had a cat? Do you like cats? Do you know what cats eat?  Gag me!  I am fearless and have never used the suggested topics.  I’ll get fired one of these days, but somehow they all want to be in my class.

Carol, the wife, sent me to the grocery store for some vanilla ice cream.  En route, she called me:

You’d better FaceTime me when you get there.

It’s vanilla ice cream. I couldn’t possibly mess that up!

Just FaceTime me.  And wear The Sign.

Please, not The Sign.

Wear The Sign.

Yes, Dear.

When I arrived, I went to the trunk and removed The Sign, a white cardboard rectangle with a rope used to hang it around my neck.  On it, she had written the following in large black letters:

THIS PERSON HAS LESS BRAINS THAN AN ARTICHOKE AND CANNOT BE TRUSTED WITH ANY DECISION HARDER THAN ADAM CHOOSING A WIFE.  UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU SELL THIS PERSON ANY ARTICLE OF CLOTHING OR ANY OTHER ITEM MORE TECHNOLOGICALLY SOPHISTICATED THAN CHEWING GUM.  IF THIS PERSON BECOMES UNCOOPERATIVE, PUT A HAND ON HIS SHOULDER AND SAY, “HONEY, I’M MISERABLE.”  HE WILL SAY, “YES, DEAR” AND DO ANYTHING YOU TELL HIM.

Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?  I hate The Sign.

When my grandchildren were little, I used to sing them songs.  I even wrote two songs for them – There’s A Dinosaur in My Diaper and A Pirate Has Stolen My Cookie.  Where’s Casey Kasem when you need him?  And I told them stories I would make up on the fly.  Naturally, I was a big hero to them:  Look, it’s Poppy Man – faster than a rhyming dictionary; able to tell tall tales in a single night.  And who, disguised as a mild-mannered Jewish husband with no closet, fights a never-ending battle for fun, pirate stories and Scooby-Dooby-Doo.

He’s given us so many joys

He plays with our games and our toys

We know, truth be told,

That he’s wrinkled and old,

But to us he’s just one of the boys.

They’ve forgotten the songs and the stories by now, but have acquired the ability to wrap me around their fingers and get me to buy them anything they want, so they still like being with me.  And I guess you still like being with me, because here you are again.  Come on back next week and we’ll do it some more.  But I’m not singing you any songs.  Until then, stay well, finish your holiday shopping and count your blessings.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

  

Blog #91

I have told you before that men and women are different.  You may have already known that.  Here’s another example.  Do you know how a man eats candy, like from a Russell Stover assortment box?  He picks out a piece, eats half of it and then, if he likes it, will eat the other half.  Even if he doesn’t like it, he more often than not will eat the other half.  A woman, on the other hand, uses her finger nail to gouge out a tiny chunk of chocolate from the bottom and looks inside.  If she likes what she has discovered, she will eat the candy.  If not, she replaces the piece in its little fluted-paper nest and moves on to the next.  Men, being by nature chivalric creatures, always allow the women to have their go at the box first.  That leaves us the sloppy seconds which consist of cracked and fingered chocolates with creams and jellies leaking out of holes in their bottoms.  You know I’m right.

My router stopped working.  Now I have suffered through episodes where my heart stopped working and episodes when my eyes stopped working, and believe me, those were only slightly more traumatic than the router.  I mean what are you supposed to do without Wi-Fi?  The human race was born, survived and evolved for 100,000 years without the Internet, but we have somehow arrived at a point in the history of our species where we can no longer exist without instantaneous access to everything.  Seriously!  How are we supposed to survive if we can’t go on Amazon and buy something we didn’t need and have it delivered two weeks before we didn’t need it?

After a period of weeping, I decided to act like an adult and call the Linksys customer service line.  I was put in a queue.  I hate being in a queue.  I hate even spelling a queue, but after 43 minutes I was connected with my friendly, local tech assistant who lives in Pakistan and speaks as if he had spoons in his mouth.  We talked for hours!

I thought that the tech was a shoo-in

To help me with what I was doin’

But first I got queued

And then I got screwed

And wasted my whole afternoo-in.

I absorbed that failure and did what any rational, intelligent, seasoned citizen should do.  I called my daughter Abby and begged her to fix it, which she did.  I guess I should have thought of that first, but I didn’t want to aggravate her with my time-consuming, childish problems.  But then I thought, Hey, I’m the guy who changed her diapers and told her stories and sang her songs (even at her wedding) and helped her with all her childhood problems. What goes around comes around; do unto others; cast your bread upon the waters, and all those other Golden Rulish phrases.  The least she can do is repay the effort.  Except the diaper thing. 

Hi there and welcome back.  Google tells me there are approximately 15 million Jews in the world, a number which coincides with the number of ways to spell Hanukkah.  So if you celebrate it, have a Happy.  I hope you are feeling well and making plans for enduring a long winter.

You know I have a bad back.  Every old man has a bad back.  Serves us right for standing up for ourselves!  Every once in a while, it flares up and I go to Dr. Back, and I present to him all the unscientific remedies my friends have recommended since my last visit.  They come in three categories:

·        Exercise:  Lie down, sit up, hang from a door, you name it.  Dr. Back says you can exercise all you want. The disks in your spine are bogus; exercise will do absolutely nothing to change that.

·        Diet:  Orange juice, painkillers, caffeine, pot.  Dr. B just laughs.

·        Creative:  Lie down on the floor, put live snails in your ears, have a yak step on your balls.  Pasadena!

I remember my last flare.  I was aching like a whore the day the fleet came in.  It was before my pacemaker, so I could still have an MRI.  I checked in at the hospital and they told me Joe would take me to the MRI room.  I looked where they were pointing and there was Joe, a volunteer only slightly younger than Stonehenge.  In my worst pain, wracked with spasms and passed out, I could walk faster than Joe.  I could crawl faster than Joe.  Mold could grow down the center of the hallway faster than Joe.  The Arctic Ice Sheet is melting faster than Joe.  I could not stop laughing.

I wonder what Carol would have done, Miss Inahurry of 2018.  Yes, the Princess of Lickety Split would probably have tripped the old coot, stepped on his back and found the damned thing herself.  And demanded an MRI machine near the window – and warm bread.  I love that woman!

This has been a bit of a bitchy letter.  I’ve already complained about my candy boxes, my router and my back. Well, as Roseanne Rosanna Danna said, “If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”  But, as long as I have you here, I have one more complaint.  I am suffering from Makeup Creep.  Do you know what that is?  Makeup Creep is the slight but inexorable encroachment of the woman’s paraphernalia onto the man’s side of the sink.  Now, I must admit that I have my own stuff -- lotions and potions, pills and creams, brushes and blades.  But I pretty much keep what is mine in the drawer and cabinet allotted to me.

But every week, little by little, the stuff that belongs to my wife, whom I lovingly call Estee – the brushes and files and bottles, the instruments whose usage I cannot fathom -- moves just a bit closer to my sink so that eventually there will be no room for my stuff or, for that matter, me.  The woman has more makeup than RuPaul! 

Are you fed up with my complaining?  I’ll stop.  Come back next week and I’ll complain some more.  You don’t want to miss it.  Until then, stay well, count your blessings and don’t let a yak step on your balls.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #90

Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?  We had a lovely time at my niece’s house.  I’ve noticed another sinister sign of aging – when Thanksgiving passes on to a new generation.  It’s no longer at your house or your sister’s or your cousin’s.  It’s at your son’s or your niece’s.  When it gets to be at your granddaughter’s house – well, just sit quietly in the corner and enjoy whatever food they bring you.

On Thanksgiving morning, I was in my study calling some friends when I noticed that the noise from the bedroom was exceedingly loud.  My wife had turned up the bedroom TV loud enough so she could hear the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade while she did her nails in the bathroom.  Who listens to a parade?  It’s like listening to a dog show, which she actually did after the parade.  It’s like listening to fireworks.  It’s like listening to the Miss America Pageant.  Do they still have those?

Years ago, each Thanksgiving I would listen to my favorite Thanksgiving song, Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie.  The song takes 20 minutes, but I liked it.  I liked it so much that I began to listen to it every night.  Every single night, rain or shine, no matter what, twenty minutes.  You thought reciting The Raven with a paper bag over my head was weird?  Well the Alice Obsession was weird enough that it took my shrink six months to cure me of it.  But I still sneak it in on Thanksgiving.

After a busy and festive holiday, I’m back now to a normal week filled with the “rust of routine”, as G.G. Marquez says.  Monday’s rusty activity was bridge with my 80-year-old friends, as opposed to Tuesday which is bridge with my 85-year-old friends.  But, as God said to Methuselah, “IF YOU CAN MAKE IT TO 800, YOUR CHANCES OF REACHING 900 ARE PRETTY GOOD.”  You have to make God’s words capital, you know.  It says so on Page 4 of the Writer’s Manual – “In quoting God, you must use capitals to distinguish from lesser gods, like Oprah.”  That’s what it says.

Now that the weather is turning cold, I sometimes get a little down.  You know the feeling – like the world is too much with us, too many things disturbing the tranquil and comfortable nest we have tried all these years to create for ourselves and that, by this time, we feel we deserve.  Some days you feel like the big dog and some – well, you know how the saying goes:

When the world’s coming down on your head

And you wish you had just stayed in bed

Just remember this phrase:

“You’re the big dog some days

“But on some you’re the hydrant instead.”

Hi there and welcome back.  Sorry for the little downer.  What we all need is a Happy Hour.  The problem is that at our age, we don’t drink much anymore.  I drink never, my wife almost never, my friends not much at all.  So we have to find other ways to get happy, like signing up for a new Medicare Drug Plan that saves us $2 a month.  Now that’s happy.  What we really need is a Miserable Hour.  We’ll all congregate at a restaurant that has an Early Bird Special and bitch about our health and robo-calls and the price of medications and our daughter-in-law’s parents and why it is that our neighbor is paying $5 less for cable than we are.  That, and half off on a chicken sandwich will make us about as happy as we’re going to get.  See you there.

Here’s something happy to talk about - crime.  There is so much crime going on, it’s frightening just to leave the house, but my wife reassures me that I am the least likely person to get mugged.  She says the way I dress, I look like I’ve been mugged already.  I tell it like it is, she says.  That’s the phrase she always uses when she insults me.

Then I heard on the radio today about a man who killed his wife and two children.  The Prosecuting Attorney said he had been charged with three counts of aggravated murder.  What exactly is “aggravated murder”?  I mean how much more can you aggravate someone than by murdering her?  Is aggravated murder worse than plain old murder?  “Not only did Mr. Smith murder his wife, Your Honor, he aggravated her.  And you know what the penalty is for aggravated murder?  Being forced to listen to reruns of The View.

I’m going to bet that if you are a guy, you refer to my wife and me as Michael and Carol, but if you’re a gal, you call us Carol and Michael.  Isn’t that pretty much accurate?  It’s because men and women have a different filter through which they view life.  Rudyard Kipling said, “God fashioned Man on one day and Woman on another, in sign that neither should know more than a very little of the other’s life.”  Now that’s twice I’ve mentioned God already.  Is that too much?  I promise to ignore God for the rest of this blog.  Sorry God.

It is not Politically Correct to talk about anyone as fat.  Instead, we invent little euphemistic sillinesses like, “He’s not fat, he’s just easier to see.”  I was just in a shopping center doing a little holiday browsing.  You know, if you’ve seen one shopping center, you’ve seen a mall.  And in every mall, there are plenty of people who are “easier to see”.  I mean how can some of those people be that overweight?  I saw one woman so fat, her belly-button didn’t have lint in it; it had furniture.  I saw one teenaged guy so fat, if he had gone missing, they would have had to use all four sides of the milk carton.  There was an old woman so fat that when Columbus discovered America, he discovered her first.  Go ahead, cancel my Politically Correct Membership Card.  I never liked it anyway.  I tell it like it is.

But don’t cancel your subscription to my Oyster.  I need you.  Who else would listen to this foolishness?  So stay well, count your blessings and show up next week.  Or else!

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #89

Thanksgiving Day is a jewel to set in the hearts of honest men; but be careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude. – E.P. Powell

Happy Thanksgiving.  It’s my favorite day.  It’s my favorite food.  I have so much to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day.  There’s my wife (yes, I’ll say something nice about her: she’s special and wonderful and I adore her.  Please don’t tell her I said that). And there are my children, my grandchildren, my children-in-law, my friends.  I’m thankful for my health and I’m thankful for the opportunity to talk to you every week.  Count your blessings, everyone. 

Thanksgiving is also the official start of the Christmas Season, and many of your local radio stations are beginning to play Christmas songs 24/7.  I know there’s only so much Brenda Lee and Burl Ives you can take, but Christmas songs are generally pleasant and enjoyable.  Except Frosty the Snowman of course.  Poor Frosty has become a victim of the PC Police.  Just look at the words:

Frosty the Snowman:  The anthropomorphizing of inanimate objects disturbs a child’s ability to adjust to real-world situations.  No name. 

Was a jolly happy soul:  Frosty is fat.  To display him as jolly minimizes the dangers and misery of obesity.  And how can he possibly be happy when Trump is President?  No jolly.

With a corncob pipe:  A pipe?  We have enough evidence of the dangers of smoking that displaying a pipe to children is criminal.  No pipe!

And a button nose:  Most buttons are plastic and therefore not biodegradable.  No nose!

And two eyes made out of coal: Coal is a hydrocarbon and a major source of the contamination that leads to global warming.  I’m surprised that it’s actually cold enough to keep him from melting.  No eyes!

So that leaves just a blind, nameless, nose-less, smoke-free, unhappy Snowblob.  I liked him better as Frosty.  Too bad; it was a good song.  But there will still be plenty of old classics, like Al Gore singing Oh the weather outside is frightful and Maxine Waters singing You’re a mean one, Mr. Trump or Bob Woodward’s version of Do you hear what I hear.  And of course, the classic of Don Lemon singing I’m Dreaming of a White Man’s Christmas.  What a happy season it is!  Oh Tidings of Whoopi and Joy, Whoopi and Joy!

Hi there.  Are you mad at me yet?  Once in a while, people are angered by some of the things I say.  That’s ok, actually.  You wouldn’t want to listen to some namby-pamby loser who has no opinion and does everything his wife says and let’s her pick out his clothes and goes to McDonald’s every morning and reads Moby Dick, would you?  Welcome back.  Hope you are feeling fine this Thanksgiving morning.

And even though it’s Thanksgiving, I’m a little aggravated.  I have learned that an ex-NFL football player was released from prison after serving 18 years for hiring two hit-men to kill his pregnant girlfriend, which they managed to do.  I live here; my wife and children and grandchildren live here.  I don’t care about this murderer.  I don’t care about his rights; I don’t care if he has family or friends or shingles or fleas.  He is dangerous to me and my family and to everyone else in the world.  Why is he free?  The governments of the United States and the several states have a specific and solemn duty to protect me.  Me!!!  Not this cold and evil murderer.

On a lighter note, we recently attended a show at the Jewish Community Center which began with the obligatory fundraising raffle.  I listened to them announcing the winners: The winner of the wine tasting party is #488107.  The winner of the free bris is #488229.

A free bris?  For those of you who do not know what a bris is, you’re extremely fortunate.  A bris is a circumcision ceremony performed on a new-born male.  But there were no new-borns in the audience, and #488229 turned out to be an old man.  When he was handed the certificate for the free bris, he claimed he had already had a bris 85 years ago.  Not to worry, said the host, we’ll just take off a little bit more.

At your age you surely won’t miss

The part we cut off at the bris

Because, truth be told,

You’ve gotten so old

Your thing only works when you piss.

Now there you go getting mad at me again, but the story about the free bris is mostly true.  I just took it my hands and massaged it a little.  Wait, that might have been a poor choice of words.

Last week I told you about phoning a friend who, surprisingly, was in Romania.  I thought that was exotic.  A few days later I got a message.  Each week I get comments from loyal or casual or new readers of Limerick Oyster.  I love getting your comments.  This message was from a loyal reader who informed me that he was reading my blog as he ate breakfast in Hong Kong.  Wow, my readers are all over the world – Romania, Hong Kong, Florida, California.  I’m in my study.

In this week’s news:  On Tuesday, a large Venezuelan Bronze-Winged Parrot, traveling with the Central American Caravan, flew over the border fence separating Tijuana from Greater San Diego.  Since it had no criminal record and could speak perfect English, the parrot was immediately granted asylum by the United States Border Patrol.  On Wednesday, President Trump named the bird Secretary of Homeland Security.   

Did you know that in Maryland you need a license to be a fortune teller?  It’s true.  First you have to take a test that checks your ability to predict what will happen in the upcoming week.  If you pass, you get a Fortune-Tellers’ license.  If you fail you become a meteorologist.  Here’s my forecast for next week: you’ll come back to read the next episode of Limerick Oyster.  I’ll be waiting for you.  Till then, stay well and count all your blessings – twice.  Remember, it’s Thanksgiving.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #88

Can we talk?  Sometimes men have to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom.  Normal!  When I do, it’s usually about 4:00.  The flushing wakes my wife, so she has asked that I use the guest bath.  My clothes are already in the study and now I guess my bathroom is in the hall.  I am many things; I have many faults.  But I am not stupid.  I see the writing on the wall – the guest bathroom wall.  I hog all the covers and watch strange old movies, and, although she’s never suggested it, I’m sure Carol would be more comfortable if I slept in the study.  Near my clothes.  But I won’t.  I like sleeping with my wife.  It’s safe and comfortable and pleasant-smelling.  I don’t mind my clothes in the study and I don’t mind the guest bath, but I intend to sleep in my bed with my wife.  So there! 

I could get even with her by getting a cat.  She never liked cats sleeping on her bed.  Are you a cat person or a dog person?  Dogs are loyal, loving members of the family who want to hug you, please you and treat you like God.  Cats are royalty who dislike you and tolerate your existence only because they have successfully trained you to wait on them.  Kind of like wives.

I only drink warm half ‘n half

I’m a princess, not local riff raff

Scratch my tail, scratch my chin

Let me out, let me in

I’m the cat – and you’re only the staff

Are you Polish?  If you are, close your eyes for the next 90 words.  A man walks into a store.  I’ll have some Polish sausage, he tells the clerk at the counter.  You must be Polish, says the clerk.  That’s a presumptuous insult, says the man.  If I had asked for Italian sausage, would you presume that I’m Italian?  If I had asked for Bratwurst, would you think I’m German?  If I had asked for a kosher hotdog, would you assume I am a Jew?  What gives you the right to presume that I am Polish?  Because, says the clerk, this is a dry-cleaners. 

Does telling that joke mean I’m going to get fired?  Well, that’s ok, I’ll just hang out with Megyn Kelly.

Have you ever gone to a shrink?  Do you know who the first psychiatrist was?  It was Snow White.  Seriously!  When she asked each of her roommates, “Are you happy?” and six of them said no, she figured they needed some help and she hung up a PSYCHIATRIST shingle on the cottage.  But when customers arrived and noticed that all the people coming out of her office were tiny, they all said, “She’s not helping their mental problems, she’s just shrinking them.”  And that’s how the term shrink was born.  Aren’t you happy that I give you all of this information?  No?  You’re not happy?  Go see Snow.

I used to go to a shrink.  I like talking to people, as you can tell, and I liked talking to my shrink.  After all, you’re there to talk and, more important, he’s there to listen.  Your psychiatrist will listen more than your spouse or your kids or your friends.  Almost as much as your hair stylist.  The first time I visited him, I brought a newspaper to read in the waiting room, and, when I was finished reading, I tossed it into the waste basket.  Then I realized it still had my address label attached.  Now, I’m not embarrassed about having visited a shrink, but it’s really not something I discuss with everybody – other than you, of course.  So I retrieved the paper and tore off my name label.  Hey, if you can’t be paranoid in a shrink’s office, where can you?

During the first session, the shrink asked what my family was like when I was growing up and I began to tell him about my lovable lunatic brother and my sad schizophrenic sister.  Wow, he thought he had hit the Mother Lode.  He’d never heard of a family so messed up since The Osbournes.  He was as excited as a Vietnamese chef at a dog park and concluded that with my family history, I was certain to be as misguided as a Liberal on Fox News.  Of course, he was right.   

In more health news, I just finished a book about the electromagnetic spectrum, which includes visible light, ultraviolet rays, microwaves, infrared rays, radio waves, X-rays and gamma rays.  You are all part of the family, so I’ve done the heavy lifting for you and listed the book’s most important tips so you can stay healthy and continue to read my stuff.  Listen up.

• The more atmosphere between you and the sun, the better, because the atmosphere filters out much of the harmful rays.  It is therefore better to live near sea level and near the equator.  Don’t live in Denver or at the North Pole.
• UV-rays are good for you, absolutely necessary to guard against cancer.  Get as much sunshine as you can without getting burned.  It is sunburn that can cause melanoma, not sunshine. 
•  Cellphones are probably not harmful.  Probably!  If there is potential damage, it is from close proximity to your brain.  Use the speaker phone instead of holding the phone to your ear.
•  CT scans provide a lot of harmful radiation.  Much more than X-rays.  Full body CTs are way worse. 

Carol has now raised the stakes -- and the temperature.  Last night she adjusted the heat in our bedroom so that it was too hot for me.  Maybe, she’s thinking in her frizzy little head, that will make me move to a different bedroom.  Are you getting the picture now?  Clothes in the study, tinkles in the hall, sweat in the bedroom.  I’m beginning to feel as welcome as Donald Trump at a Barbra Streisand concert.  Be careful, Honey, I think Megyn Kelly is hot for me.  And I know you’re hot for me too, because you keep coming back every week.  Don’t stop.  I’ll be back in seven days and expect to find you feeling well and counting your blessings.

Happy                                     Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com