Blog #284                                         August 18, 2022

School librarians across Missouri are pulling books from shelves as they face the potential for criminal charges under a new state law banning “explicit sexual material.”  That was, word for word, the headline in the local St. Louis paper.  I have a good deal of hesitancy in writing to you about this subject.  I have always tried to stay away from prurient material and racy language, but this is the news of the day and I feel I must respond, at least by mentioning the books most likely to be banned.  Forgive me, but here they are – Great Sexpectations, Madame Ovary and, of course, Moby Dick.  I had a few others, but my censor deleted them.  She usually knows best.  Do you have any you want to add?  Prurient, our Weekly Word by the way, means having or encouraging an excessive interest in sexual matters.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs (Othello).  Cats do not read dirty books or say dirty words.  In fact, the only dirty word I know is “litter”.  Purr.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  Sorry to get you all riled up.  I hope you’re feeling well.  We’re home from our family vacation on Bald Head Island already.  Boy, that went fast.  Or, as they say in Latin, tempes was fugiting its ass off.  Oh, oh – that was some more prurient stuff, wasn’t it?  Sorry.  It was a wonderful week, marred only by the annoying insect population.  The flies, sand fleas and mosquitos were ravenous and ubiquitous.

 

Even being inside was not always a refuge.  One evening, we discovered a huge and apparently annoyed wasp inside the house.  The family screamed and called for the righter of wrongs, redresser of grievances, defender of damsels, scourge of giants, and victor in battle.  But Don Quixote was not available, so they settled for me.

 

As you know, I am a nature lover.  But I only love it when Mama Nature is outside, not when she intrudes her wasp-like presence into our house.  I immediately retrieved from the closet a complete and unused roll of paper towels, and so-armed, I approached the vicious arthropod.  Now I don’t want to exaggerate how big this creature was by saying it was as big as Delaware or something silly, but . . . well,

 

While the insect was to-ing and fro-ing

I crouched watching where it was going

I was too scared to charge

‘Cause the thing was so large

On its side I could clearly read Boeing.

 

Somehow, I screwed up my courage and, while the buzzing behemoth was phoning in a lunch order to Pizza Hut, I attacked and destroyed the poor thing.  I’m sorry, God.

 

In checking my emails today, I saw one from the organization for which I used to volunteer as a teacher of English as a Second Language.  I had enjoyed that gig very much, but we were eliminated when Covid arrived.  Now they want us back, so I went online as instructed, entered my user name and was informed that I had to take an online training course about bullying and one about sexual contact between teachers and students.  What has become of our society?  How lost and perverse and wicked have we become?  Are there so many indecent and evil people in the world that the decent people of the planet, the few of us who remain, have to constantly prove it?  We have to get patted down at the airport and otherwise microscopically examined, licensed and trained.

 

Ok, I got over my bad self and took the training.  Now I’m ready to go, right?  I clicked NEXT on the website and was promptly swallowed into the Cyber Cellar for Stupid Old People, never to be seen again.  As much as I tried, it would no longer recognize me, so I went back to the original email and replied that I would like a phone number to call for help.  Good luck with that.  I want my world back.

 

To calm my nerves, I decided to take my two local grandsons to a movie, Jurassic Park XXXVII.  I’m convinced that when there are as many Jurassic Park movies as there are Super Bowls, the world will end.  Ok, go to the movie early, wait in line, buy the tickets, enjoy – right?  Not anymore.  No, I had to go online, sign up for some kind of Dango something, pick my seats, the size of the screen and how many dimensions I wanted.  I had less options on the last car I bought. Then I had to come up with a password, give them a credit card, pay a service fee and tell them who my fifth-grade teacher was (Mr. Diamond).  I could have applied for citizenship to North Korea in less time.  By the time I was done, I no longer wanted to see the movie, or a computer, or my grandsons!  Why is everything so ridiculously complicated?  I want my world back.

I’m so old that in my world, the dinosaurs were not on the screen.  They were sitting next to you.  Back then, we went to see two movies at once.  We sat in a seat with gum stuck to the bottom and ate popcorn with butter.  Today, the seats recline, heat our behinds, massage our feet, blow cold air on our hair, rub our necks.  In my world, there were places that did all that, but they didn’t show movies and not even my father was allowed to go there.  And now I can’t even get butter on my popcorn or the Cholesterol Police will tell my wife.  I want my world back.

 

And I want you back too, so make a note to come see me next week.  Or, if you’re such a hi-tech, modern smart-ass, put it on your Google Calendar.  However you do it, be back a week from today and see who I’m mad at then.  I hope it’s not you.  In the meantime, stay well, count your blessings and redo your Bucket List.  I used to have a Bucket List, but I’m getting too old, so I got rid of it.  I just changed the B to an F.  Oh, oh, there I go again.  I’m a baaaad boy!  See you next week.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com.