Blog # 243                                         November 4, 2021

 

It started off as a reasonably calm week.  The Autumn weather was turning the trees inro glorious towers of scarlet and gold, Dave Chapelle was in trouble again and they can’t count votes in New Jersey.  What could be more normal?  And just when I was feeling comfortable – Bam! -  the next dreaded iPhone update came along and added a thousand tiny, sinister changes to all the things I had finally learned how to do.  I don’t want any more updates.  Stop it!  Leave me alone.

 

Apple, we all appreciate what you’ve done.  You have made our lives happier and easier with your iPhones.  But now that I’m happy, lose my number!  Just give me a smart phone.  It doesn’t have to be Einstein-smart.  Betty White-smart is good enough.  I just want to text, take pictures and make calls.  That’s all, period!  And no more updates – ever.  Let me learn how to do the three things I want and then go away.  I’m not a teenager.  Just give me a simple phone for me and my generation.  And call it the iMold. 

 

And speaking of unmanageable electronic devices, one night this week, around 11:45, I turned off the bedroom television.  You know, the 400” extra-wide, mind blaster that my wife just had to have so she could enjoy high-class and educational programming like Squid Game.

 

We got a new HDTV

It’s sixty-eight-inch LED

The smart LG clicker

Will drive you to liquor

Unless you are from MIT.

 

I have as much cyber knowledge as a South American tree sloth, but I got lucky and was able to turn the behemoth off.  The room darkened and Carol leaned over to give me a kiss goodnight.  Awww!  I like my kiss goodnight. As she rested her hand on my chest and put her lips to mine, we heard a three-second tone coming from the area of her hand.  She was wearing her Apple Watch.  Of course!  The human race has managed to go to sleep for 200,000 years without wearing an Apple Watch, but now, somehow, it has become essential.  I asked her, “What does that sound mean?”  She told me it was not coming from her watch.  Well, it was obviously coming from her watch because no other electronic device was near there.  Except, well, there was a device right next to her watch.  We just couldn’t see it.  It was my pacemaker-defibrillator snugly embedded in my chest.

 

Immediately, my chest started feeling a little uncomfortable.  It was probably because I’m a big, whiney, malingering and psychosomatic baby.  Nonetheless, the first thing I did the next morning was to ask the internet if an Apple Watch could interfere with a pacemaker.  There was some literature saying that it could, but the internet also has literature confirming that the Earth is made of Betty Crocker Pancake Mix, so I called Dr. Rhythm and explained my crazy story.  “Let me check if we received any alerts.”  Apparently, my device contacts the doctor instantly if there is a problem.  That’s reassuring, isn’t it?  She said there had been no alert and there was nothing to worry about.  I wonder if they know when I eat a hotdog.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and recovering from all the KitKat bars you ate on Halloween.  My wife and I did nothing for Halloween.  No dinner at my daughter’s, no friends to go out with.  And no trick-or-treaters ever come to our building.  We dressed up as two abandoned old people and ate some frozen burgers.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets (Julius Caesar).  I dressed up as a three-legged cat.  Don’t I look good? 

 

 

 

Trick or Purr.

 

For twenty-four years, I have been keeping a sort of diary by sending my daughters a weekly letter telling them what’s been going on in my rock-star life.  Naturally, the strange, compulsive, bizarre and anal person that I am, I have kept copies of all those letters – more than 1,200 of them.  Sometimes, I will read an old letter looking for some good stories for you.  Here’s one from when I was in the real estate business, and it’s absolutely true.

 

A lady came to my office.  She was six months behind in her rent and had bounced numerous checks, so we had started an eviction.  She was in my office asking for two more months.  This was Standard Operating Procedure for people who never paid but always swore that they were about to receive a judgment or that the Publishers Clearing House was knocking on their door.  She came in with an envelope full of family pictures.  “Let me show you my pictures,” she said.

 

No, I don’t want to see your pictures.  Your pictures won’t help you.  I’ve got pictures too.  I have pictures of my grandchildren and my grandchildren’s dogs.  I’ve got pictures of my daughters and my cat and my wife and every other thing.  The pictures don’t change that you are six months behind.  You have to be ruthless with people who haven’t paid you in six months.  She picked up the picture on my desk that was nearest to her.  It was of my wife.  “Oh, is that your daughter?  She looks like the I Dream of Jeannie girl.”  I gave her the extra two months.  So much for ruthless.  She never paid.

 

When Zachary, my first grandchild, was one-year-old, I started writing him letters too.  I only did it for six months, but I thought it was cute.  In the first one, which his mother read to him, I told Zach that I wanted to take him to movies like Snow White.  Here’s how I described the movie:  It’s a story about a girl who just hangs around waiting for her pictures to be developed.  While she’s waiting, she sings Some Day My Prints Will Come.  I’m pretty sure he didn’t laugh.  I’m pretty sure you didn’t either.

 

Weekly Word:   A malingerer is one who exaggerates or pretends illness to escape work or other activity.  Gotta go now.  I’m feeling a little sick, but I’ll be back next week, hale and hearty and hopefully humorous.  You’d better be there.  Stay well and count your blessings.  It’s good practice for Thanksgiving.

 

Michael                                             Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com