Blog #324                                May 25, 2023

 

At McDonald’s this morning I noticed for the first time a Fire Evacuation Route Chart hanging on the wall.  The chart is apparently required by OSHA and shows a diagram of the seating area with an arrow pointing to the front door.  Simple!  A customer would have to be a functional moron to consider doing anything but walking the six steps to the front door and exiting the building.  In fact, anyone who stops to read the diagram would be the only one to die while everyone else was out in the parking lot wondering what happened to old Hal.

 

Do you have more than one remote for your television?  I have two separate remotes and I want all the functions consolidated into one device.  Televisions are supposed to be smart and simple. Changing channels should not be as hard as finding Will Smith a job.  Remember Will?  He used to be an actor.  All I want is to be able to turn my television on and off with slightly more ease than it takes to launch an aircraft carrier.  So I called the Dreaded Cable Company and they sent someone out.  How nice of them.  The guy was young and pleasant and a master of clicker-ology.  I was confident he could solve my problem.  I was wrong.  He couldn’t do it.  Gave up.  That means I still have to use one remote to turn off The View and a different one just to change the channel.

 

I don’t really have anything against The View except that the show mainly consists of two comediennes telling us their version of news and politics.  Comediennes!  Can you imagine, back in the day, if, instead of Huntley and Brinkley, we had Rowan and Martin telling us who to vote for?  Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Jon Stewart, Jon Daley, Bill Maher -- that’s who many people listen to.  Comedians, all of them!  Clowns!  It seems to me that if you have clowns telling you how to think, you begin thinking like a clown.

 

I’m so bad with arcane devices like televisions and iPhones and computers.  Teaching me to work anything electronic is like teaching a snake to knit.  It doesn’t work and only annoys the snake.  I had a laptop that died about a year ago, so I bought a new one.  It was great except the keys had some kind of glue which was so delicious that Shakespeare, my three-legged cat, ate half of them.  So now I hide my computer when I leave the room.  That works fine, except Shakey can’t watch bird videos any more.  But yesterday, I noticed the old, dead laptop in a corner of the closet.  I took it out and plugged it in.  Lights came on.  I tried Google.  That worked.  I pulled up his favorite bird video and there it was.  So now, Shakespeare is the only cat in America with his own computer.  He doesn’t eat the keys on that one, so I can let him watch videos for hours when we go out.  Such a good boy.

 

Message from Shakespeare.  The play’s the thing (Hamlet).  Now that Pops gave me a computer, I’m as happy as an elephant in a peanut factory.  Maybe now I can write stuff.  Maybe plays like that other Shakespeare guy.  A leg, a leg, my kingdom for a leg.  That’s sounds catchy.  To purr or not to purr.  I think I’ve got the hang of this.  My first play is going to be called Ro-meow and Juliet.  Purr.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  My Weekly Word is arcane, meaning understood by few; mysterious or secret.  Like iPhones and computers.  I hope you’re doing well.  Do you have anything in your pocket?  Do you remember the show Let’s Make a Deal?  Monty Hall would start by prowling through the audience saying things like, I’ll give $20 to the first one to hand me a pepper shaker.  Or $100 to anyone with a life-sized statue of Lawrence Welk.  Sure enough, some woman with a purse the size of Nebraska would come up with one and scream for joy.  Let’s move on to my oldest daughter – you know her, North Carolina, chickens.  She went on a trip to New York with some friends and, having checked the forecast, grabbed a raincoat and shoved it in her back pack. When it rained in New York, as predicted, she donned the coat, put her hands in the pocket and discovered – you guessed it, an egg. Monty Hall would have been ecstatic.  And the little egg’s mama hen was very proud:

 

My poor egg is gone, what a pity

This whole world is lonely and shitty

But here’s the great scoop:

When my boy flew the coop

He landed up in New York City.

 

I asked my daughter what she did with the egg?  She said she hard-boiled it, brought it back to North Carolina and had it for breakfast.  During the days when I drank, I think I went to New York once and got hard-boiled myself.

 

Have you got your Memorial Day plans all set?  Hotdogs and burgers and hockey playoffs!  Memorial Day is the traditional start of the Summer Season.  The swimming pools are open and everybody’s out playing golf and tennis.  My tennis career is over, although I have played Pickle Ball recently.  Pickle Ball is tennis for dwarfs, but it’s a terrific game.

 

And there’s always golf.  Golf for my generation is an exercise in frustration.  The equipment gets better and better and you get worse and worse.  It is a sign of old age when you’re leaving the house to play golf and your wife doesn’t say, have a nice game.  She says, don’t hurt yourself.  Plus, my generation no longer can play in the really hot weather we get in St. Louis.  But I find a way to tolerate it – I play in the shade.  My ball’s always under a tree.

 

All right, folks, it’s time to say goodbye.  Have a safe Memorial Day.  Don’t get sunburned, stay well, count your blessings and remember – it’s never too late to become what you want to be, unless you want to be younger.  Be sure to come back next week.  Just click your heels and say “There’s no place like Limerick Oyster.”

 

Your Favorite Clown                         Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com