Blog #104

Ok, now I’m pissed.  I’ve stood by while the Health Police have killed every good thing in America.  I used to like cigarettes – no, no, no.  I used to like wine but then they said one glass was good but that’s all.  That was like saying you could inhale once a day, but no more.  The only person I know with that kind of will power is my wife.  I’ve probably told you this before but am reasonably certain you’ve forgotten, so here goes.  After dinner at a mall restaurant one night, we walked past a candy store.  Carol called the clerk over to the chocolate-covered raisin display, pointed and said, “I want that one.”  One chocolate-covered raisin.  Who does that?

Bacon is bad and coffee and eggs and now sugar.  I would rather live less years with more sugar than more years with no sugar.  Did that make sense?  Everything is free range and organic and cage-free and gluten-free and GMO-free and sugar-free.  Diet Coke is bad for you and Big-Macs and the Boy Scouts and the Governor of Virginia!  But now they’ve gone too far.  They’ve made Rice Krispies Organic!

The Health Food Police are Satanic

They’ve made my Rice Krispies organic

And they’ll never stop

Till Snap, Crackle, Pop

Are Asian and Black and Hispanic.

The name of the cereal has gone from Snap, Crackle, Pop to Juan, Amal, Mao.  If you’ve seen Juan, you’ve seen Amal.  And what about Cap’n Crunch?  There’s a white supremacist for you!

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and ready to party, because next Tuesday is Fat Tuesday.   In French that translates to Mardi Gras, so get your beads and your beignets and your booze and act utterly stupid for a week.  It’s easy.  I do it all the time.  In fact, when I speak to my wife, it’s no longer a matter of smart or stupid.  It’s a matter of whether I’m stupid, utterly stupid or Jussie Smollett stupid.  And she wonders why I’m quiet.  Taciturn – that’s a good word.

Well, Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show is on the road again, and here we are in Naples visiting dear friends.  They’re “dear”, of course, because they invite us down every year.  When we arrived, with more luggage than the Beverly Hillbillies, we noticed they had a dog.  Further discussion revealed that they were dog-sitting for one night while the dog’s owners were elsewhere.  Upon unloading our 87 bags, suitcases, boxes and portmanteaux, we noticed that the high-pedigree and high-cost canine was nowhere to be found.

Everyone panicked and started running around the neighborhood like balloons with holes punched in them looking for the runaway Rin-Tin-Tin, the lost Lassie.  Except Carol, who realized that looking for a dog outside would mean exposing her hair to the slightest of breezes and the heartbreak of perspiration.  So she stayed home.  Naturally, while we stupid humans were chasing our tails in the Florida sun, waving our arms and screaming Fluffy, the dog crawled out from under her hiding place in the bedroom and calmly curled up on Carol’s lap.  It’s probably the best strategy, when something alive is lost, to just sit down and wait for it to show up.  I hate it when she’s always right.

My health insurance carrier has changed its dental plan and my dentist is no longer a part of the group, so a couple of weeks ago, I went looking for a new Dr. Tooth.  I talked to friends and asked around and found a promising replacement.  I then called her office.  It happened to have been a horrible wintry day, and when I said I would bring in my insurance card and set up an appointment in a few days, the woman on the other end of the line jokingly suggested I bring some hot chocolate as well.  A week later I showed up at the office with my teeth, my insurance card and the hot chocolate (from McDonald’s of course).  “You Never Get A Second Chance to Make a First Impression,” said Will Rogers, and my hot chocolate offering was a big hit.  I am already their favorite patient.

On the way back, I drove by a Catholic Church called St. Leo the Great.  What accolade could we possibly accord someone that’s higher than Saint?  Not the Nobel Prize or the Pulitzer or Dancing with the Stars!  So why add “The Great” at the end.  We know he’s great; he’s a saint!  After thinking about it, I determined that there must be another St. Leo – St. Leo the Not So Great.  But why did we ever think of canonizing such a loser? 

Talking about Dancing with the Stars, there actually is a show called Dancing with the Saints.  It’s on the Catholic Game Network right after Vatican Squares and before The Pope is Right and Who Wants to be a Pedophile.

How’s your math?  Not too good?  Let me give you an easy one.  This is Blog #104 and they come out once a week, so how long have we been doing this together?  Well, there’s seven days in a week and the average lunar month is 29½ days and then there’s the square root of pi and Planck’s Constant and that gives us two years.  I know you love it when I talk mathy.  Two years, 104 episodes!  Doesn’t that seem like a lot?  It does to me, but as long as you’re out there and I still have one finger that can punch a keyboard, I’ll keep at it.

So stay well, count your blessings and come back for Number – let’s see, square the hypotenuse, raise that to the fourth power and round to the nearest quadrant in Base 2.  Got it – Number 105.  Wasn’t that easy?  Oh, and don’t forget to change your clocks next Saturday at 2:00 a.m.  It’s Spring (or within three weeks of it), so move your clocks forward and go back to sleep.  Next week, I’ll try to be an hour early to make up for the time change.  See you then.

Michael                          Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com