Blog #335                                August 10, 2023

 

They made you take math courses -- in Grammar School (which became Elementary School and then Grade School), in Junior High (which became Middle School) and in High School.  You hated it.  Prime Numbers, the Pythagorean Theorem, Cartesian Coordinates, Imaginary Numbers, Tangents, Pi, Asymptotes.  And who the heck is Fibonacci?  And who cares?  What good was it all for?  Well, I’m going to tell you why you took all those horrible math courses.  Because last week was Senior Day at Walgreen’s, which means that, if you are a Senior (I am), you get 20% off most items, unless they are otherwise on sale.  The item I wanted was $50, but if you bought one, you got the second one 50% off.  That was the sale.  So here’s your quiz for today.  Should I:

 

1.     Buy two of them at the buy-one-get-one-half-off price without any Senior Discount, or

2.     Buy two at regular price and use the 20% off Senior Discount?

 

And don’t answer that it was Colonel Mustard in the kitchen with the protractor.  It’s a math problem.  Figure it out.  Answer later.  And since most of you don’t know your asymptote from a hole in the ground, we’ll make that our Weekly Word.  An asymptote is a line that continuously approaches a given curve but does not meet it.  Makes your life worth living, doesn’t it?

 

I’ve been very, very busy this week.  No time to say Goodbye-Hello.  Goodbye.  Hello, and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling chipper and staying dry.  Here in St. Louis, we’ve gone from excess heat to torrential rain, thunderstorms and flash flooding.  This pattern seems to be going on in so many parts of the country that the Biden administration has decided to build an Ark.  That’s right.  The obvious problem is: which people should they pick to go?  Inclusivity and diversity are fine concepts, but with all the different races and religions and ethnicities and political beliefs, and now with 48 different genders – well, representing them all will leave no room on the Ark for the animals.

 

Two Whites and two blacks, two Chinese

Two Mexicans, two Cherokees

Two Christians, two Jews

Two Reds and two Blues

And 96 LGBTs.

 

We’re going to need a bigger boat!  Send hate mail to the address at the bottom of the page.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Judgement and logic have been wise jury members since the time of Noah’s ark (Twelfth Night).  I don’t care what your religion is.  I don’t care who you love or how you love and I don’t care what color you are.  All I know is – you’d better have a damned cat on that boat.  And it better be me!  Purr.

 

Can you believe it’s still my wife’s birthday season.  This week she went to Happy Hours three nights in a row to celebrate her birthday again.  Three Happy Hours in a row.  How much Happy does one person need?

 

I think bars should start having Grumpy Hour where people get together to bitch about whatever politician or governmental policy makes them grumpy.  And appetizers are half-price.  White Supremacists could be on one side of the room eating Potato Skin-Heads, Black Lives Matter on the other side ordering Pigs in a Blanket.  And all drinking Michelob Lighten-Up.  Sounds like great fun.

 

Back to my wife getting wined and dined.  She apparently has more friends than a lottery winner, and they all want to celebrate her birthday. It’s been a month and they’re still taking her out.  She’s been taken out more than Chinese food and has celebrated more birthdays than Methuselah.  You’d think she’d have cake poisoning by now.  I asked her to stay home with me but she blew me off like the dust on an old Everly Brothers record.  Nice to see you, I’ll get back to you.  Bye, Bye Love.

 

Nobel Prize winner Knut Hamsun said love makes the wise a fool.  And what happens to your local fool when his wife is out celebrating with the “goils”?  Poor, loyal, devoted and obedient me?  I stay home alone.  That’s big of me, isn’t it?  Maybe I need two wives so one can be with me while the other is out gallivanting.  That’s bigamy, isn’t it?  Oscar Wilde said, “Bigamy is having one wife too many.  Monogamy is the same.”  Oscar said that, Honey, not me.

 

And what do you think those girls talk about in their little distaff staff meetings?  They talk about which single, senior lady is dating which single, senior gentleman.  Do you think they hold hands?  Do they sleep together.  Who can we fix up with that recent widow or widower?  It’s like they never left High School.  Then she comes home and tells me what my life is going to be like if she goes before me.  First, I’m going to get casseroles.  I don’t even know what that means, but it’s apparently some kind of ritualistic rite of passage I’ve never heard of – When you’re born you get circumcised; when you’re a teenager you get pimples; when your wife is gone you get casseroles.  Then she tells me I’m not allowed to date any of her friends.  Then she says she has someone picked out for me already.  Someone I don’t even know!

 

She likes to control everything I do.  She tells me how to drive, where to park, what to say.  So now, apparently, she thinks that when she’s off to that Holy Canasta Parlor in the sky where all the card tables are square, all the dinner tables are round and all the walls have mirrors – she thinks she’s still going to be able to pull my strings like some Heavenly Shari Lewis.

 

Ok, remember the math problem we started with?  If you picked option #1, you were right.  Option #1 costs you $75 -- $50 plus $25.  Option #2 costs you $80 -- $100 less the 20% discount.  See, aren’t you glad you took all those math courses?  Next week we’ll do fractions!

 

Phew, all this math has tired me out.  My X is exhausted and my Y in wiped out.  Stay well, People, and count your blessings.  Don’t forget next Thursday – we have a date.  I won’t have anything else to do anyway.  My wife will be out celebrating her birthday.  See you then. 

 

Lambchop                      Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com