Blog #239                                         October 7, 2021

 

On Tuesday morning, I took my walk outside – about a mile and a quarter through my subdivision and out onto the two-lane residential street.  It was a lovely day and a pleasant walk, but I was saddened by the amount of litter on the road and sidewalk.  Wednesday morning, I went out armed with a trash bag and a stick.  I used the stick to pick up seven or eight plastic drink bottles and various pieces of paper.  I grabbed a flattened, discarded cardboard box lying in the street and schlepped my collection of flotsam back to the dumpster at my condo.  People who throw trash out of their cars onto the street with no regard or respect for the environment or their fellow human beings are selfish and … well, I’m too angry to continue.  But the street looks much nicer.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  What rubbish and what offal (Julius Caesar). I’m not sure what Pops has against litter.  I have litter.  He cleans my litter box every day so nothing ever smells bad.  I like my litter.  Does that make me a litter-bug?  I’m so confused.  Purr.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and not littering.  I know none of you would do such a thing.  Are you calm today?  Are you relaxed?  You had better start practicing, because the world has ceased to work and you are going to have to wait for everything.  So stock up on Mellow Pills and leave early because everywhere is understaffed, undertrained and critically stressed.  At the grocery store I went to the self-checkout.  I asked the attendant if the computer could deal with the $5 coupon I had received for getting my flu shot.  He told me no, so I went to the regular checkers.  Excuse me – checker, in the singular.  There was only one.  I waited 20 minutes.

 

That evening, my wife and a friend went to an afternoon movie.  Something about Tammy Faye Somebody, so my friend and I, the husbands, went to meet them, the wives, at a restaurant after the flick.  We got there early and I asked for a table-for-four.  There were half a dozen empty tables.  Sorry, they were short of staff, but as soon as they had an available server, they would seat us.  I patiently and politely replied, “Look, we will be happy to sit at a table with no water and no menus and wait patiently for a server, but I don’t want to just stand around.”  The manager refused.  I continued, “Your other option is to wait for Scylla and Charybdis to get out of the movie and begin to craft an additional exit passage for your body.”  I must have been persuasive, because we were immediately seated.

 

I think some of the problem is that many potential workers are happy just getting unemployment.

 

Each worker that I try to keep

Says twenty per hour’s too cheap

“I don’t need to work,”

One said with a smirk.

“Uncle Sam pays me thirty to sleep.”

 

Weekly Word:  Scylla and Charybdis, in Greek mythology, are two immortal and irresistible monsters who beset the narrow waters traversed by Odysseus.  Caught between Scylla and Charybdis is like being trapped between a rock and a hard place.  I think I may have made a mistake characterizing Carol and her friend as two horrible sea-monsters.  C’mon, girls, it’s just a metaphor and all in fun.  Oy, am I in trouble!  Let’s change the subject.

 

Did you know that Columbus Day is next Monday?  Yes, despite all the anti-White, anti-European tumult of the past few years, old Chris still has a federal holiday.  You know, of course, that his name wasn’t really Christopher Columbus.  His real name was Chiam Cohen, but Chiam was a little nervous about Ferdinand and Isabella.  King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile, were the Spanish royalty who had just inaugurated the Spanish Inquisition in 1478 and were busy burning all the Jewish yarmulkes in Spain, not to mention the Jews who were standing under them.  Well, Chaim thought it would be prudent to change his name to something more Catholic, like Christopher.  We know Columbus was Jewish because he set out to find India and missed it by 9,000 miles.  I can relate.

 

The traditional date for Columbus Day is October 12^th, the date of his landing in the New World, the Final Frontier.  On October 12, 2021, next Tuesday, 529 years later, we will remember another Final Frontier.  Next Tuesday, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin will launch the New Shepard NS-18 rocket into space with a very special passenger:  Ninety-year-old William Shatner, Captain James Tiberius Kirk.  I think it’s fantastic that Captain Kirk is going to space.  Space, the final frontier, where no old coot has gone before.  In addition to Captain Kirk, they’re sending a proctologist to examine Uranus.

 

We went apple picking this week, seven adults in two cars.  I remember back in the early 1980s when we had three young daughters and there we were, going apple picking in a station wagon with six adults plus ten children stuffed in the back.  I bet you did the same thing.  Were we crazy back then?  Were we stupid?  It seemed like everybody had a great time.  Now we have seat belts, air bags, rear-view cameras, anti-lock brakes and on and on.  Progress!  I guess that’s what you call it.  Somehow, I’d rather see my kids riding ten in the back with no seatbelts than being on Twitter or Instagram.

 

Interesting sports trivia:  In what sport is it illegal to play left-handed?

 

This week, I had breakfast with a friend of mine, just the two of us guys.  I guess you would call that a man-date.  We both wore masks, so it was a Masked Man-Date.  Whenever I ask my grandsons if they were with their boyfriends, they giggle.  To their generation, if a boy has a boyfriend or a girl has a girlfriend, it means they’re gay.  I feel so abandoned.  What has happened to my world, my country, my language.  A boy can’t have a boyfriend anymore?

 

Well, I have to go.  Scylla just came home.  Stay well, don’t litter and count your blessings.  And the sport in which it is illegal to play left-handed is polo.  See you next week.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com