Blog #55
Tomorrow is Good Friday, the Super Bowl of
Catholicism. Today is Holy Thursday, the
day Rabbi Jesus and his followers celebrated Passover. That Passover meal is now called The Last
Supper. Good Friday is the day of Jesus’
crucifixion. It might have been “good”
for Catholics, but not so good for Jesus.
Easter Sunday is the day Christ rose from the grave. Anybody who had Jesus in his or her bracket
back then did great. I had Pontius
Pilate to go all the way.
I went to a funeral recently. As Yogi Berra said, “always go to other people’s
funerals;
otherwise they won’t go to yours.”
At the funeral I ran into a woman I have not seen for many
years. You know, after my heart problems
years ago, people kept expecting me to look shrunken and weak and as dead as
gun-control legislation. So when they saw
me looking fit as a Stradivarius, they would tell me how good I looked. It pays to have bypass surgery! Well, the woman at the funeral, not having
seen me in many years, told me I looked magnificent. Magnificent! Can you imagine? I was really flattered. Do you think she was hitting on me? I think she was hitting on me.
At funerals, when I hear everyone speak about how terrific
the deceased was, I often wonder what people will say about me. How will I be perceived and remembered? I’d like to be there. Come to think of it, I guess I will be. It would be nice if people would stand up and
say nice things about me. Let’s start
with the lady who thinks I’m magnificent.
Carol needed a battery in her
watch and I went to Hong Trading, a place that sells purses and belts and hats
and gimcracks of all sorts. I walked in
and said Ni Hau to the owner. That’s Mandarin for “hello”. I learned that from my Chinese students. She replied, “We’re Korean. We all look
alike.” I apologized, of course. When I left she said, “Goodbye, John.” No, I said.
Don’t you remember me? I’m
Michael. Oh, she replied:
Please
put on my record a strike
I
truly forgot you were Mike.
I’m
just poor Korean
Have
trouble with seein’
Besides
all you Whites look alike.
I deserved that!
Ni Hau and welcome back.
I hope you’re feeling peachy.
“Peachy” is not actually a good thing for me, for you see I have
haptodysphoria. No, no, don’t
get out the hand sanitizer. It’s not
contagious. It just means that I hate to
touch peach-fuzz. Really! The taste of peaches is great, but the fuzz
makes me shiver and go Yeccch! So what
did my lovely children used to do to me when they were growing up? They would toss me a peach. I would catch it instinctively, screech and
drop it like a – like a fuzzy peach!
Kids!
Last week, I told you
that I was not a highbrow, didn’t love the symphony or opera. “Call me a boor, call me Ishmael”, I
wrote. My friends Deb and Carol
commented that I couldn’t be a boor and still quote “Call me Ishmael”, the
opening line of Moby Dick. In
high school, I got a D in Miss
Bowers’ English class because of Moby Dick.
It was the only D that
I ever received. As a Freshman in
college I got an A+ in
English Literature. I took the grade report
back to Miss Bowers just to show her how wrong she had been. She had forgotten who I was. Did you know that Starbucks was named after a character in Moby Dick? I have read Moby Dick six times. Call me Ridiculous!
I was at a fancy
restaurant recently, relaxing in my comfortable seat, sipping chilled water
from immaculate and expensive glassware and listening to the daily special
described by our highly professional waitperson. Is that the right term – waitperson? It describes the job, but not much about the
person himself or herself or itself or themself. Isn’t this getting sillier and sillier? Our waitperson was a lady, so must I say a
lady waitperson? To me, that is the monumentally moronic
conclusion to this linguistic contortionism we practice in
order to de-genderize our language.
She was a waitress. Must I first strip her of her gender, turning
her into a waitperson and then add the gender back to make her a lady
waitperson? Even Lewis Carroll couldn’t
invent such absurd gyres and gimbles.
But that’s not what I
wanted to talk to you about. The
specialty of the day was – get ready, take a deep breath – Decomposed Lobster Lasagna.
“Decomposed lobster?” We all
gasped and silently waited for her to describe the Prix Fixe Menu of Spoiled
Salad, Fetid Fruit, Decayed Dessert and, as the main course, Foul Fowl. I inquired and learned that “decomposed”
meant that the lasagna was separated on the plate into its constituent parts,
but the name was so off-putting that I bet no-one ever ordered it. Who came up with such a disgusting name? Probably the same clown who came up with waitperson.
I hear there’s a fancy
new restaurant opening on the Moon – great food, no atmosphere.
There was a big push a
while back to put salad bars in all public schools. I think it’s a great idea. Our children should be encouraged to eat a
balanced and healthy diet, but I would make one adjustment. If you make a C or worse, you eat at the
salad bar. If you make As or Bs you get
a burger with fries and if you are in the top 10% of your class – cupcakes! C’mon!
What do you give your toddlers when they poop on the potty, kale? No, you give them a Hershey’s Kiss. Your students can’t possibly respond to some
faint dream of a better job fifteen years from now if they study hard. If you want kids to take school seriously and
work hard, give them something they
want right now. If you want to
put on some pounds at lunch, pound those books.
Stop grazing on curds; chow down with the nerds. Get an A in French if you want French
fries. I promise you, it will work.
I think I’m finished for
this week. You made it through another
one. I’m proud of you. Stay happy and in good health. And Hung Hau. That’s Mandarin for “Your camel has whooping cough.” You’d be surprised how often that comes up.
Have a Happy Easter and a
Happy Passover and, while you’re spending that time with God, thank Him (or
Her) for all your blessings. Bye for now.
See you next week.
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