Blog #188

 

I lay in bed this morning very still.  I was comfortable, neither cold nor warm, and I had nowhere to go, nothing special to do.  Every day is pretty much the same when you’re retired.  It was so quiet I could hear my beard grow, so I lay there and I thought:  Why stir things up?  If I get up and start moving things like my eyeballs or my knuckles or my tongue – well, anything could happen.  Every morning at this time, I feel like the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz.  Oil can, oil can, he begged Dorothy, and that’s exactly what I need -- a few squirts of oil to loosen up my parts.  Now I’m up and the sun is shining and everything seems to be fine.  Now, if I only had a brain.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and alert.  Are you wearing your mask?  Please take it off so I can see who you are.  There, that’s better.  You look great.  We have to do something about these masks.  I have trouble recognizing people with half their faces covered.  Maybe we should get masks with our names printed on them (large print please).  That would help, I suppose, but if I see a mask with Susan printed on it – well, I personally know 32 Susans.  I have come up with another solution.  You knew I would.  I think we should staple a list of all our medications onto the front of the mask.  I would recognize you in a second.  Oh look, Honey.  There’s two Lipitors and a Warfarin.  I know who that is.

 

Did you have a nice Indigenous Peoples’ Day?  It was Monday.  You might have thought that was Columbus Day, but Columbus was a colonialist pig who opened up the New World to European exploitation and, as a result, has lost his eponymous day.  I have never understood why descendants of English, French, Italian, German, Russian, Polish and Swedish Europeans are called White Privileged Racists, but descendants of Spanish Europeans are called Hispanics.  Anyway, now we celebrate Native Americans, which is appropriate

 

My generation grew up thinking “Indians” were bad.  We watched Hopalong Cassidy and John Wayne and played Cowboys and Indians and bought plastic Colt 45s.  We learned that the only good Indian was a dead Indian, except Tonto of course.  They never told us that Kemosabe really meant Ridiculous-Looking White Boy or that the Lone Ranger wore a mask because he had Covid.  We only got one side of the story, and that was mostly misinformation.  

 

Do you believe what you hear on TV nowadays?  Voting by mail is bad.  Voting by mail is good.  Trump has recovered.  His doctors are lying.  Melania has bad boots.  Kamala has good boots.  It just depends on what channel you watch.  But this kind of misinformation has been going on forever.

 

Take The Gift of the Magi for instance, that heart-wrenching short story by O Henry. You know the plot.  A young married couple is very much in love but also very much in poverty.  For their first anniversary, she wants to buy him a silver chain for his cherished pocket watch, but she has no money, so she cuts her long, beautiful hair and sells it to a wig maker to get the money for the chain.  Meanwhile, he wants to buy her a set of large ornate combs for her long hair but all he has is the watch.  He sells it and buys the combs.  A classic and sad tale.  But wait – there’s the misinformation.  It’s not sad at all.  Not one bit.  Just fast-forward six months.  The girl’s hair has grown back and she still has the combs.  Plus, she returned the silver watch chain and got her money back.  So now she has her long hair and the combs and a fist full of money.  And the boy, the poor dumb schmuck, he doesn’t even know what time it is.  But he’s happy.  He has a loving wife with a fist-full of money and beautiful hair – and big combs.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Why, but there’s many a man hath more hair than wit (A Comedy of Errors).  My man does have a lot of grey hair, so he obviously has more hair than wit.  The only thing I know about hair is that when I swallow enough of mine, I have to spit up a hairball.  I know that’s gross, but, hey, I’m a cat.

 

On the health front, I had my annual physical with Dr. Doctor.  The good news is –I’m the picture of health.  The bad news is -- I’m showing my age.

 

I went to the doctor today

He said everything was ok                     

“You’re the picture of health”

He said so himself

“But the picture is Dorian Gray.”

 

Do you like cucumbers?  Now there’s a non sequitur for you.  A non sequitur is a statement that does not logically follow the previous argument or statement.  We’ll use that as our Weekly Word or, actually, our Weekly Two Words.  Where was I?  Those non sequiturs get me confused.  Oh yes, cucumbers.  I don’t like them.  Why is it that some people like cucumbers and some don’t?  Animals aren’t like that, are they?  Do you think there’s a lion somewhere that doesn’t like wildebeest?  Hey, fellas, I’ll pass on the gnu tonight.  I think I’ll have a salad.  They just don’t agree with me.  No gnus is good gnus.  Or a chimp that doesn’t like bananas?  Too much sugar there, Cheetah.  I’m cutting down on the carbs.

 

Carol and I (or, as I sometimes like to say to my friends from Arkansas, me and the missus) had dinner outdoors at a friend’s house and they had dug up some old pictures of us – 40 years old.  I can always predict what people will do when they see pictures of themselves from decades ago.  The women will always say, “Oh my God, look at my hair!”  And the men will say, “I still have that shirt.”

 

Well, I guess I’ve overstayed my welcome.  Besides, I have to go find that shirt, so Shakespeare and I will say goodbye for now, but we’ll be back next week.  Please stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                          Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com