Blog #217

 

Last Tuesday, May 4^th, was Star Wars Day.  May the 4^th be with you!  Then yesterday was Cinco de Mayo.  Did you celebrate?  Cinco de Mayo is a Mexican holiday which celebrates the victory of the Mexican army over the French in 1862.  That’s right, the French.  What the French were doing over there in Mexico is a mystery.  The holiday has no relevance for Americans and barely any for Mexicans, but it is an excuse to party and get drunk.  Hope you enjoyed it.

 

With so many Spanish-speaking citizens and residents here, I’m beginning to understand why we have to Press 1 for English, Press 2 for Spanish.  That’s ok with me.  I get it.  But recently, I have been getting a different response:  Press 1 for Spanish, Press 2 for a lady from the Philippines who knows six words of English.  Good luck. 

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and coming out of the malaise the pandemic has forced upon us.  This past week, I did something I had not done in more than a year.  Can you guess?

 

A:  Rode an elephant

B:  Had lunch with Joy Behar

C:  Ate kale

D:  Went to a movie

 

If you chose B, you were right.  Joy and I had a wonderful lunch.  She’s not as bad as I thought.  I’m kidding of course.  My having lunch with Joy is about as likely as seeing Maxine Waters and Donald Trump doing the foxtrot. In truth, Carol and I went to a movie for the first time in 14 months. There were about 15 people in the theater and we felt completely safe.  And now I am able to resurrect an old feature of Limerick Oyster.

 

Movie Review:  The movie was Minari, about a Korean family who moves to the United States.  It was mostly sub-titled, well-acted, not great, not terrible.  It was pleasant but unremarkable. 

 

I like movies, but I have no patience for watching television.  The commercials are annoying.  After watching television one night for a little while, I came to the conclusion that one out of every three people in this country is a personal injury attorney.  And the other two are suing somebody.  I tried to sue somebody once.  I bought a house, a 100-year-old impressive stone mansion in a very desirable part of town.  My plans were to fix it up and sell it.  The day after I bought it, I was meeting some contractors in the house when a neighbor walked over.  “You know this house is haunted, don’t you?”  She commenced to tell me the story of a child who had died on the second floor and could be heard moaning from time to time.  I did a little research and discovered that the house featured prominently in a book called Haunted Houses of St. Louis, a fact which I believed should have been disclosed to us by the seller.  I asked my lawyer to sue the seller for damages.  He laughed.  What damages, he asked?  Well, I told him, we spent $100,000 remodeling the house and put it on the market, but every time a potential buyer came to view the house, that same neighbor (don’t you love neighbors?) trotted her little busy-body over to inform them the house was haunted, whereupon the buyers would run faster than Bruce Jenner running toward a camera.  The lawyer laughed louder and refused to take the case.  We finally sold it to a man who loved the house and was thrilled that it was haunted.  It takes all kinds.  To this day, I still think we would have won the lawsuit.

 

And then there was the lawsuit, which really happened, to determine ownership of an escaped parrot. The parrot was actually allowed to testify, after the Judge gave him these instructions:

 

Well now we will hear from the parrot

Please perch on the bible and swear it

Just raise your right wing

Go on, Bird, and sing

And then we’ll decide on the merit.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  I’d rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad (As You Like It).  And I do have a big fool that takes care of me and keeps away the malaise.  I guess I’ll keep him.  Purr.

 

Our Weekly Word is malaise, a general feeling of discomfort or illness.  The best way to cure your malaise is to get a chuckle, and I hope I can give you one every week.

 

For instance, the LBAE (Let’s Bitch About Everything) Movement is after Disney and the Snow White ride at Disneyland.  Why?  Is it because she’s white, is named White or employs seven vertically challenged and underpaid miners?  Or is it minors?  Is it because she treats her dwarfs so horribly that six out of seven say they’re not Happy?  Apparently not.  It is because of the true love’s kiss that the Prince plants upon Snow’s lovely red lips in order to wake her from the sleeping spell placed upon her by the Evil Queen. They claim the kiss was without consent. Didn’t they watch the movie?  Didn’t they hear the song where Snow sings:

 

Someday my Prince will come . .

He'll whisper I love you
And steal a kiss or two . .
Someday when my dreams come true?

 

She’s not only consenting, she is begging the Prince to give her a big sloppy smack to make her dreams come true.  C’mon, People.  It’s a cartoon.  It’s a kiss.  It’s a dream come true.  Just because it’s not your dream, don’t ruin it for everyone else. 

 

Another thing we did this week was play golf.  Carol hit a lot of great shots.  I hit three.  But they were all on the same hole and I got a birdie.  I guess it’s better to clump all your great things together instead of stringing them out.  If a baseball player hit five home runs in a year, nobody would care.  If he hit them all on the same day, he would be in the record-book forever.  If a guy wrote one funny thing every month, no big deal.  If he wrote dozens of funny things all at once – it would be Limerick Oyster.  Don’t miss it next week.  Until then, stay well and count your blessings.

 

Happy                                     Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com