Blog #110

Tomorrow is the beginning Of Passover, the holiday celebrating the Jews’ escape from slavery in Egypt.  The Jews have asked for reparations from the Egyptians for their time of bondage, but all the Egyptians had to offer was the Sphinx.  The Jews were reluctant to pay the shipping costs and refused.  Besides, who would want to display a head with that bad a nose job?

The Jews were helped in their escape from Egyptian slavery when God sent the Ten Plagues to convince Pharaoh.  The Ten Plagues were to Pharaoh what Michael Avenatti is to Nike.  Sorry, God.  Three of those plagues involved insects – locusts, lice and flies.   It seems that those infestations have given the Jews a dreadful obsession with insects to this day.  In fact, I got an email from the Temple this morning.

There’s butterflies on my Menorah

And locusts all over the Torah

And poor Rabbi Katz

Is covered with gnats

I hope he survives, kenohora.

And then Sunday is Easter, the day all Christians celebrate the resurrection of a Jewish carpenter whose message was eternal peace and love and in whose name they have slaughtered every Jew they could find for twenty centuries.  Go figure.

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and that all of you Christians and Jews have a wonderful holiday weekend.  And for those of you whose religions I have not yet insulted, there’s always next week.

Let me take a break from humor here to talk about one of the most meaningful places I have ever visited – the Cathedral of Notre Dame.  I had been there with Carol and my daughter Jennifer the day before, but I wanted to go back again, so the next day I was there, alone except for a few dozen penitents, worshippers and tourists.  There was some kind of old music softly playing somewhere, the kind of music you would expect in such a place of unbounded reverence.  I looked up into the vacant vastness of the cathedral expecting somehow to see the face of Quasimodo peeking from behind the ornate stonework.  I stayed for 45 minutes.  I am not a Catholic, but it was a moment full of history and Godliness for me.  I never saw the Hunchback, but I believe to this day that he saw me.  I hope they can restore Notre Dame to the center of awe and worship it has been for centuries.

Thanks for listening.  Now back to humor, I hope.  As I was driving home from Walmart yesterday, thinking about how many religions I could insult at one time, my cell phone rang.  I glanced and saw it was a call from my wife.  So I said, “Hey, Siri, answer my phone.”  She did and I said “Hello”.  The phone began to speak:  What do you want for dinner, fish and a baked potato or tuna-noodle casserole?  Now of course I knew it was Carol, but still, wouldn’t you expect a person to say hello first?  Not my wife.  She jumps right in, excess wordage being a waste of her time.  So I answered:

I don’t care.

Well, pick one.

Ok, the fish and potato.

I think I’ll do the casserole.

Glad I could be of help.

When Carol and I talk, I always get the last word.  In fact, she allows me to get the last two words, as long as they’re “Yes, Dear.”  But I’m used to it.  Having a wife and three daughters has conditioned me to the female voice.  Lately, however, I have had a new female voice in my life – Alexa.  I’m sure this cylindrical sister would have been very helpful to me had not my wife gotten ahold of her first and trained her how to deal with me.  Alexa now either pretends not to hear me or just ignores me completely as not capable of having a worthwhile thought.  She makes me feel right at home. 

Warning:  Do not read the previous paragraph aloud in the presence of your Alexa.  You know she’s listening, don’t you?  At home, in fact, Carol and I do not talk about her by using the A word.  We speak of her as Blanche.  Even so, I coughed three times in Blanche’s presence the other day and when I got back to my computer there was a pop-up ad for a funeral home.

Anyway, the conversation about what to have for dinner was not the strangest conversation I had this week.  The following, like the last, is absolutely true.  While relaxing at McDonald’s, quietly drinking my Diet Coke and reading my book, a couple walked over and sat down.  Yes, I know you think it’s abnormal that I go to McDonald’s every morning, but I like it and the people who work there would miss me if I didn’t show up.  In fact, when I came back from my three-week trip to Florida, I noticed they had put my picture on a milk carton.

Aren’t you so-and-so who used to be in the real estate business? this couple asked me.  I did not know them; nevertheless, they sat down to ask me a real-estate question.  They were wearing the same shirt.

You’re wearing the same shirt, I said.

Yes, we are.  (I mean, this couple was as sad as a country song.)

Are you a bowling team? I asked.  (I actually said that.)

No, we’ve been married 31 years and always wear the same shirt.

I’m going to suggest that to my wife, I said.  She’ll slit her wrists.  (I actually said that too.  Shame on me.)

They asked a quick question and left after I answered.  I’m sorry if I insulted them, but seriously?  Matching shirts?

I had the pleasure this week of attending a religious ceremony for a 13-year-old girl.  She was bright and shining and happy and made us all laugh with her smiling and entertaining performance.  The girl was born in Central America and adopted as an infant by a family in St. Louis.  What a lucky child!  Instead of growing up, unwanted, in a violent and impoverished, drug-infested war-torn hell, she instead was raised in a warm and loving family, in a free and prosperous society.  What could have been, for her, a life without hope has become a life without limits.  Count your blessings, my friends.  Count them twice.  Stay well and come back to me next week.  Who else do I have to talk to?  Blanche?

Michael                          Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com