Blog #258                                February 17, 2022

 

We’re home from Florida now.  It was a great trip to visit with great friends.  I got very little exercise, not much sun and gained 42 pounds.  Part of the problem was that we went out to dinner every night, always eating outside.  One time, there were 15 of us – nine women on the left and six men on the right.  The waitress came to take the order.  I think I would rather deal with 900 Canadian truckers than 9 hungry Jewish women.  At one point, all the women got up and physically moved the huge table six feet to the left.  You didn’t expect them to just accept the table given to them, did you?  If God came down tomorrow and offered my wife everlasting peace and glory at a square table in Heaven, she’d say, “Let me see if Satan has a round one.”  Maybe that’s why Friedrich Nietzsche said, “In Heaven, all the interesting people are missing.”  They’re looking for a round table. 

 

If you had your little math hats on, Kiddies, you will have noticed that the women at the aforementioned table outnumbered the men 9 to 6.  That seems to be the trend, especially in Florida.  Must be the alligators.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  This tiger-footed rage (Coriolanus). I don’t have a tiger-foot.  I don’t even have enough pussycat-feet.  I was very happy when Pops came home, although I’m still a bit rabid about being left alone.  I greeted the old man with a lot of purring and a big bite on the arm.  Then I meowed all night so they couldn’t sleep.  That’ll teach him.  Purr.

 

Carol needed some lettuce, so I dropped by Schnuck’s, our local grocery.  I know, it’s a strange name.  It’s like Loser Bank or Jerk’s Hardware or Schlemiel’s Auto Repair.  I had finished picking out the lettuces, when I saw a lady, somewhere between 60 and 80, leaning against a produce case, bent over.  I asked her if she was ok.  She said she felt like fainting, so I made her hang onto my cart and grabbed a Schnuck’s employee.  Then I saw a pharmacist and grabbed her.  They brought her a chair and were dealing with her, so I moved on.  After I had finished and checked out, I went back to see how she was.  The pharmacist said they had called 9-1-1; I saw the ambulance arrive as I was leaving the parking lot.  And all I wanted was some lettuce!

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and staying warm.  Did you enjoy Super Bowl LVI?  Carol and I watched it at home alone.  Nobody wants to get together nowadays, and we were just as happy to bring in some pasta and relax.  Why does the NFL use Roman numerals for the Super Bowls?  You don’t hear the quarterbacks yelling “Hut-Hut XLII” or the announcers saying, “That was a XXXVIII-yard field goal.”  How did the Romans even deal with those strange numbers, especially in writing poetry?

 

The Romans resorted to tricks

When trying to write limericks

And so, when in Rome

If you’re writing a poem,

“A stitch in time always saves IX.”

 

See, the IX is pronounced “icks” and rhymes with … oh, the hell with it.  It was funnier in Roman.

 

The commercials for the Super Bowl were strange to my aged mind.  No image was on the screen for more than half a second and the product being advertised was often a mystery.  Oh well, what can you expect when you’re LXXVI.  And I could go on a whole jeremiad about the halftime show, but I’ll spare you.  Suffice it to say that listening to Snoop Dogg explains why no space aliens talk to us.

 

And speaking of being LXXVI, I really feel old today.  My daughter Jennifer called me and said she had just come back from Walgreen’s.  It was Senior Day.  My daughter at Senior Day!  Oy, I’m getting a headache. 

 

In my youth – you had a headache, you took aspirin.  You went to the corner drugstore -- Bert & Jeanette’s on Clayton Road next to Lake Forest Bakery.  Mmmmm, the smell of butter cookies wafting through the air!  Where was I?  Aspirin!  There were two kinds – the small bottle of Bayer Aspirin and the large bottle of Bayer Aspirin.  The large bottle had twice as many pills and cost twice as much.  And if it didn’t work, the only other course of action was – lie down; it’ll get better.  Now it’s different.  The pain reliever aisle at Walgreen’s is three miles long and the Tylenol section has 100 different kinds, mixtures, sizes and configurations of Tylenol.  There’s a pineapple-flavored Tylenol.  There’s a Free-Range Tylenol.  And for each one, there is a Walgreen’s store-brand version that’s exactly the same.  That makes 200 different choices.  And that’s just Tylenol!  Then there are 200 kinds of Advil, 200 kinds of Aleve, 200 kinds of Motrin and yes, there is actually aspirin.  What am I supposed to do?  It’s enough to give you a headache.

 

Don’t forget that Monday is President’s Day.  It amazes me how much time and effort half the country spends in vilifying the current President, erasing the names of old Presidents from schools and tearing down their statues – and then turns around to celebrate President’s Day by buying a sectional.

 

I didn’t get many comments from you last week, which means the blog was not very entertaining.  I understand.  I did get a comment from a lovely lady who said she read the blog while waiting for her dentist.  There’s a thought – a blog specifically directed toward people waiting at a dentist’s office.  We could call it Nothing But the Tooth or Floss With the Boss, or maybe just Bite Me.

 

The Weekly Word is jeremiad, which is a long and mournful complaint, and I’m afraid today’s blog has been a bit of a jeremiad.  But luckily it has come to an end and you can go play WORDLE now.  Good luck.  Besides, I’m exhausted.  Being clever and witty tires me out.  And thank goodness I can’t hear any of your smart-aleck comments to that!  Stay well and count your blessings.  See you next week at that little round table in Hell.  I guarantee the food will be hot.

 

Michael                          Send comments (even smart-aleck ones) to mfox1746@gmail.com