Blog #49
Welcome back and Happy
Valentine’s Day. I hope you are feeling
well. Did you get a lot of Valentine’s
candy yesterday? I have a Valentine
story to tell you, but I hesitate to do it.
It is 100% true, but a little . . . well, embarrassing. One Valentine’s Day, many years ago, I went
out and bought Carol all her favorite candy and a gushy, frilly, loving
card. She got me a pair of boxer shorts,
no card. The boxers were pink with dozens
of little red hearts. Ok, we hugged and
I threw the shorts in a drawer while she ate her delicious candy.
Six years later. I had been alone for five days. Carol was at a spa somewhere in Utah, but
from there she was flying to Phoenix and I was going to meet her for a little
vacation. The night before I left, I
finished packing and went to bed early.
In the morning when I began to dress, I noticed that I had either worn
or packed all of my underwear except one folded up pair of boxers scrunched at
the back of the drawer. I grabbed
it. It was pink with little red hearts. Well, shoot!
All the rest were packed and nobody was going to see them anyway.
Four hours later. I landed in
Phoenix and was picked up by my friend Frank. Before dropping me at my hotel, he first
wanted to pick up something at his house.
We got there, and when he opened the front door, Rosy, his seventy-pound
killer Rottweiler, lunged past him and immediately bit me in the ass. Frank was beside himself with regret and
concern. He begged me to pull down my
pants so he could see if I was bleeding.
Well, I didn’t care if I was bleeding!
I didn’t care if I had rabies! I
didn’t care if Lon Chaney Jr. jumped out of a potted palm and told me I was
going to become a werewolf! All I cared
about was that I was wearing pink underwear with red hearts and I was
not about to expose them to Frank or anyone else. He insisted; I refused. Did your mother ever tell you not to wear
torn underwear? You might get hit by a bus
and
the doctor will see, she would say. Mother was always right about those things.
Yesterday was also Ash Wednesday, and the Catholic Church has come up with a
fantastic idea. This is the news from a
St. Louis suburb:
SUNSET HILLS, MO — People are heading to
churches this Ash Wednesday to get their markings. If you are a little short on
time some churches are making it as convenient as possible to get your
ashes. They're offering a drive-thru service.
Now that’s clever! Drive through services! Get your divinity in your Infinity. We’ll get you to heaven in your Porsche
9-11. They should have hired me to do
their ads:
If
you’re on the fast-track to Hell
Come
drive up and ring the church bell
Just
roll down the glass
And
we’ll save your ass
And
rotate your tires as well.
Drive up your Hyundai on next Easter Sunday. Now that’s what I call a Service
station. I forget the name of the
church. I think it was Our Lady of the Catalytic Converter. The Catholic Church definitely needs my
services (pun intended) to help with their messaging. Today I
passed a cemetery with a sign in front that read: St. John’s Cemetery – Non- Sectarian. Non-sectarian? St. Johns?
Why don’t they just name it St.
Johns Holy Catholic and Papal Cemetery of Jesus Christ, Our Lord –
Non-Sectarian? Sometimes, I think people don’t realize how
silly some of the things they say sound.
Like the sleeping-pill ads that say at the end, Side effects may include drowsiness.
Duh!
Last night we ordered in
Chinese food. It was delicious. You know, the Chinese civilization is about
3400 years old. But the Jews have been
around for 5700 years. That means for
2300 years my People could not order in Chinese food. I wonder what Egyptian carryout was
like. Egg Foo Camel, Tut Stickers and
General Ramses’ Chicken, I guess. How
about Sweet and Sour Sphinx?
A couple of years ago I
did some research and discovered that all the Chinese food in America is made
in Toledo each day and distributed to Chinese restaurants all across the
nation. Have you ever noticed that all
the menus are pretty much the same? Now
you know why.
Ok, if the Ash Wednesday
thing hasn’t lost you as a loyal reader, another Valentine story should do the
trick. I have a wife and three daughters. When the girls were little, on Valentine’s
Day I would always buy lots of candy and crap for all my Sweethearts. Even when the girls left home for college and
beyond, every Valentine’s Day a package would arrive from Daddy filled with
sugary garbage. Finally, in 1998, my
wife told me that all the girls had privately pleaded with her to make me stop
sending them stuff that was bad for them and that they wouldn’t eat. I was sad.
I was crestfallen. I felt as
lonely as Kevin Spacey’s booking agent.
I felt as useless as a Munchkin at a Globetrotters practice. But, alas, that year I only sent a card.
The next day, February 15th,
1998, I received three phone calls. “Where’s
my candy? Don’t you love me
anymore? What kind of father are
you? I’ve been dieting for two weeks
waiting for your package.” You
see, my wife believed the candy wasn’t good for them and, I would never say
that Carol “lied”, but she made up every damn word of the whole thing and now I
was in big trouble. I immediately went
to the store and mailed them a box full of chocolate junk. Plus, I drafted a letter of apology assuring
them that yes, I still loved them. I sent
a copy of the letter to each daughter.
That was back in 1998, and every week since then – 20 years, 1040
letters – I have sent a three-page letter to my daughters. And at the end of each one, I tell them that
I love them.
And I guess my family
liked the letters so much that they encouraged me to start a blog. So here we are, you and me, talking about
Valentine’s Day. I hope yours was
special. I got boxer shorts. Stay well, eat lots of chocolate and come
back next week.
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