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.
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