Blog #83

Years ago, when Carol and I were first married, young couples would have dinner parties for their friends.  It was cheaper than spending money on restaurants and babysitters.  We had wine and cocktails and put out some candy, nuts, appetizers, crudité.  Isn’t that a great word?  Crudité!  Back then we called it celery. 

We seldom have dinner parties anymore, but we do have friends over to play cards or watch some special television event.  And now, since everybody’s on a diet or suffering some ache or pain, we put out different stuff than we used to -- stuff that makes sense for our generation.

When all our old friends come to call

We don’t put out candy at all

Just fat-free Wheat Chex,

Some Tums, Celebrex

And a few Extra Strength Tylenol.

I’ve made a momentous decision.  I don’t drink any more, but I’ve decided I should be allowed to drink on holidays, like Thanksgiving or Christmas.  Or Easter. Or Passover.  Tomorrow is National No Bra Day (true) and Saturday is National Dessert Day (also).  Monday, I think, is Bring Your Wart-Hog to Work Day -- very big in Africa.  And Tuesday, of course, is Palestinian Blow Up A School Bus Day.  Ok, relax!  I’m only teasing about the drinking, although I do think the wart hogs deserve a toast.

Hi again and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling fine.  Have you ever looked inside a toilet tank?  Inside this sleek and shiny porcelain receptacle, perfect for the sanitary and odorless elimination of human waste, Kleenex, toenails and eyebrow-pencil shavings, rests the most arcane, jerry-rigged, Rube Goldberg collection of junk imaginable.  Chains and plastic rods and rubber balls jammed inside in such a delicate configuration that the smallest tremor will make the chain detach from the plastic rod or the rubber ball lodge against the side wall or any number of other fatal calamities.

This is the 21^st Century, the age of the Internet and the iPhone and the self-driving automobile.  Where are the geniuses of today?  Where is the Bill Gates of plumbing?  Where is Elon Flush?  We have mapped the human genome.  Why can’t we invent a toilet that isn’t filled with non-replaceable, non-interchangeable, non-transferable refuse that looks like it came out of a Fat Albert cartoon?  Well what do you expect from a device invented by a man named Crapper?  (Thomas Crapper, 1836-1910)

I finished a book last night, some short stories by Rudyard Kipling.  I loved it, but more importantly, it was my 700^th book since I began keeping a list in 1979.  Seven hundred!  Wow, that’s more than the number of Bill Cosby accusers.  If I stacked all those books up – well, who cares!  The total is less a testament to my reading prowess than it is to my anal-retentive list-making mania.  I love lists.

And speaking of lists, we need a list of new names for sports teams because none of the current names will survive the scrutiny of the Politically Correct crowd.  No more can we tolerate the Indians, the Chiefs or the Braves – they’re demeaning to Native Americans.  And Lions and Tigers and Bears – oh, my, they’re too violent.   And Cardinals, Padres, Angels?  No, no, too religious.  So what will the future politically correct sports teams be called?  Well, I have a few guesses: The Chattanooga Choice (of course that’s a pro team), The Pittsburgh Kneelers, The San Fran Trans, The San Diego Sanctuaries and, of course, The Mobile Warming.

This was a very special weekend for me because my grandson Tyler was bar mitzvah’d.  He was great, and I was very proud of him.  All of my family was here – three daughters, eight grandchildren, both sons-in-law -- and I felt like the happiest hitchhiker on the Highway of Life.  I snuck a few of the kids out to McDonald’s for an Egg McMuffin and a Coke.  By the time my daughters read this blog, it’ll be too late for them to yell at me.  So there!  I ate fast food and drank Coke all my life and look at me!  Well, maybe that was a bad example.  I’ll try to find a better example, someone who hasn’t had cataracts, heart attacks and spinal stenosis.

There was one funny incident over the weekend.  We were driving to the temple, all dressed up and beautiful.  I drove with Carol and five others in my daughter’s minivan.  I needed to change lanes and looked to my right mirror, but it was out of place.  So I rolled down the window and asked my son-in-law to pull it back.  Immediately I heard my wife screech from the back as loud and horrified as if Charles Manson had just been released and was her new Yoga instructor.  “What are you doing?” she screamed.  “It’s blowing my hair!”   I said that we needed to move the mirror so I could see, and my oldest granddaughter, with wisdom beyond her years, said, “Poppy, what’s more important, the safety of our family or Nonnie’s hair?”  I always knew she was smart.

Earlier in the week, Carol had lunch with her pedicurist.  I thought that was a little bizarre to begin with, but who am I to interfere in a relationship between a woman and her pedicurist?  I’m not sure where they were going, either Dunkin ToeNuts or Ruby Toesday, but I was assigned to pick her up.  She told me if I got there early I could wait at the bar next door.  Early?  I am always early.  Always!  Punctuality is the politeness of kings!  I really didn’t want to wait at a bar, but she said just go there and try to pick up some girls.  How am I going to pick up some girls?  Read them my blog?  I can just see all those young women shoving each other out of the way to get closer to the raggedy old fart reading some kind of limerick gibberish.  It’s a good thing I’m not in the market to pick anyone up.  With my back I can’t even pick up my grandchildren.  Instead, I passed the time wondering what you eat at lunch with your pedicurist.  Probably corn chowder and, of course, toe-fu.  How about French bunion soup?  I know, I’m corny, but at least I’m on time.

And I’ll be on time next week.  So have a lovely, count your blessings and stay well.  And don’t be late.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com