Blog #232                                         August 19, 2021

 

I hereby admit and confess my immaturity and my crabbiness and my total lack of taste or common sense or mechanical ability and my anti-social behavior and my moodiness.  Jump right in here, friends and neighbors, if you want to contradict my adventure into self-flagellation.  No?  You don’t want to help me out here?  Well, I deserve it.

 

Last Sunday, after golf, we drove to a restaurant for lunch.  I dropped my wife off at the door (does a bear you-know-what you-know-where?) and then parked the car.  But when I opened the door, bells started dinging and a message appeared saying the key was not in the car.  I had the key in my hand, but when I tried to restart the car, it wouldn’t.  I tried more times and just got the dinging.  Then I got out and tried to lock the car with the smart key.  It wouldn’t work.  The smart key must need a new battery, I surmised.  I grabbed the manual and went to the table.  Reading the car manual is like talking to a pigeon.  You have a feeling there’s something there, but you know you’ll never get it.  So we called daughter-Abby to go to the house, pick up the other set of keys and bring them to us.  She did.  What a good girl!  That key didn’t work either.  As Carol and I were climbing into Abby’s car to get a lift home, Carol said, “Give me the keys and let me try.”  Fifteen seconds later the car started and everything was fine.  I asked Mrs. Goodwrench what had happened.  “You didn’t put the car in Park,” she said.  “It was still in Drive.”  I wasn’t even embarrassed.  I know what I am.

 

It really was quite a big shock

When the Smart Key would not work the lock

Though the key might be Smart

A car will not start

When the driver’s as dumb as a rock.

 

On the other hand, I write good limericks.  Besides, I’m sure there are other people as clueless as me.  I had lunch with a friend on Monday at a breakfast & lunch diner place.  When we arrived, there were two other customers.  We ordered from a young man who did not seem to know what he was doing.  Fifteen minutes later, we had received nothing.  This was an eggs-and-hashbrowns kind of lunch which takes no time to grill, especially when we were the only two people ordering.  I called the waiter over. 

 

How’s our food doing? I asked.  “I’m just the busboy.  I’m not the server.”  I looked around and saw no-one else.  Well, I asked, is there a server?  “Yes,” he replied, “that’s Renee.  She won’t be here till Thursday.”  I was flummoxed.  I took a deep breath and suggested that he go ask the cook if he had prepared any food lately.  The food arrived, most of it. 

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  I’m fine, but I’m becoming reluctant to go anywhere nowadays.  My goodness!  There’s Delta Variant in Florida, drive-by shootings in Chicago, illegal immigrants in Texas, earthquakes in Haiti, Taliban in Afghanistan, murder hornets in Washington and Andrew Cuomo in New York.  No one is safe anywhere.  If you don’t get infected, shot or stung, you’ll get groped.  I feel like a centipede at an elephant convention.  We accidentally left the door to the primate house open at the Zoo, but the monkeys and lemurs refused to leave.  They’re all too smart to go out in this crazy world.  I’m telling you, politicians should only be allowed two terms – one in office and one in prison.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  It makes a man a coward (Richard III).  Pops might be afraid, but I’m not a scaredy-cat.  I’d love to go outside and chase birds and play in the grass.  Wait, look at that big dog.  Maybe I’ll just stay here in my nice house and look out the window.  Purr.

 

I was shaving the other day when Carol walked in.  “What’s that bottle of scotch and the ice-bucket doing in the bathroom,” she inquired?  I told her I was just following doctor’s orders.  He told me at my age I should install a bar in the bathroom.  I guess she’ll really get mad when those young girls come to do the bathtub strips.

 

Our Weekly Word is flummoxed, which means bewildered or perplexed, and it would not surprise me if my crazy thoughts leave you flummoxed from time to time.  Let me end this week’s adventures with a calm and pleasant story.  John Steinbeck said a thing isn’t necessarily a lie even if it didn’t necessarily happen, but I assure you this actually happened exactly as I’m telling you.

Some days ago, I went to McDonalds as I do each morning.  As I was filling my Sweet Tea, a little Korean boy walked to the drink bar.  He was about 3-foot-7 and could not reach the straws.  He stood there with his hand stretched up as far as it could, but there was no chance.  I guess most people would have said, “Hi there, little boy.  Do you need a straw?  Would you like me to get you a straw?  What’s your name?  There you go; can you say thank you?”  I, being a highly trained handler of small children, said not a word.  I plucked a straw from the container and handed it down to the little Kim Jong Short.  He accepted the straw, looked me right in the eye, gave me a 3-foot 7-inch smile and walked back to his Daddy.  I smiled too and walked to my car.  A Chinese proverb says, “A child’s life is like a piece of paper on which every person leaves a mark.”  Maybe I left a happy-mark on this boy’s young mind.

 

And I hope I’ve left one on your mind today too.  Stay well, count your blessings and exercise that nice mind of yours.  Use it to remember to join me again next week for another ride.  See you then. 

 

Mr. Badwrench                                  Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com