Blog #394                                         September 26, 2024

 

I lay in bed this morning very still.  I was comfortable, neither cold nor warm, and I had nowhere to go, nothing special to do.  Every day is pretty much the same when you’re retired.  It was so quiet I could hear my beard growing, so I lay there and I thought:  Why stir things up?  If I get up and start moving things like my eyeballs or my knuckles or my tongue – well, anything could happen.  Every morning at this time, I feel like the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz.  Oil can, oil can, he begged Dorothy, and that’s exactly what I need -- a few squirts of oil to loosen up my parts.  Now I’m up and the sun is shining and everything seems to be fine.  Now, if I only had a brain.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling chipper.  Happy New Year to all my Jewish friends and readers.  In the Jewish calendar, we will soon enter the Year 5785.  The Jews have certainly been around a long, long time.  Maybe that’s why the matzo is so stale.  It seems like only yesterday when Moses and I were discussing those commandments.  I begged him to include Thou shalt not argue with your wife as one of the commandments, but he rejected it.  As Will Rogers said, “There are two theories to arguing with a woman.  Neither works.”  I also tried to get him to include Thou shalt not slice, but he rejected that one too.  I was talking about golf, but Moses thought I was talking about circumcisions.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  “I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? . . . If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?”  (Merchant of Venice).  I am a Jewish cat, I suppose.  I celebrate Puss-over and Yom Ki-Purr, and I’m studying for my Cat-Mitzvah.  But I still think the matzo is stale.  Purr.

 

The news today said police are looking for John Smith (or something) who is missing.  He is driving a white Camaro with Illinois plates and is suffering from “bi-polar disorder”.  So if we see him, contact the police, yadda yadda.  So, bi-polar disorder – what is that exactly?  Are we looking for a guy with two white bears in the back seat of his white Camaro with Illinois plates?  Or am I looking for a guy with two poles stuck into his posterior?  I need more information.

 

Do you believe what you hear on TV nowadays?  Voting by mail is bad.  Voting by mail is good.  Trump is a danger to democracy.  Kamala will destroy the country.  Melania has bad boots.  Kamala has good boots.  It’s Israel’s fault.  No, it’s Hamas’ fault. They’re eating dogs in Ohio.  What?  It just depends on what channel you watch, doesn’t it?  But this kind of misinformation has been going on forever.

 

Take The Gift of the Magi for instance, that heart-wrenching short story by O Henry. You know the plot.  A young married couple is very much in love but also very much in poverty.  For their first anniversary, she wants to buy him a silver chain for his only possession, a cherished pocket watch.  But she has no money, so she cuts her long, beautiful hair and sells it to a wig maker to get the money for the chain.  Meanwhile, he wants to buy her a set of large ornate combs for her long hair but all he has is the watch.  He sells it and buys the combs.  A classic and sad tale.  But wait – there’s the misinformation.  It’s not sad at all.  Not one bit.  Just fast-forward six months.  The girl’s hair has grown back and she still has the combs.  Plus, she returned the silver watch chain and got her money back.  So now she has her long hair and the combs and a fist full of money.  She is no longer penurious.  And the boy, the poor dumb schmuck, he doesn’t even know what time it is.  But he’s happy.  He has a loving wife with a bunch of money and beautiful hair – and big combs.

 

Our Weekly Word today is penurious, which means poor, poverty stricken.

 

I love animals; you know that.  But these Canada Geese are a pain.  It’s the season now for them to arrive, and they’re messy and loud.  There was a screeching gaggle of them in my subdivision just the other day, and I had to yell at them:

 

What’s going on?  What is the riot?

Why is it you birds can’t keep quiet?

I’ll fix you one day

Turn you into pâté

And go on a goose-liver diet.

 

Do you like cucumbers?  Now there’s a non sequitur for you.  A non sequitur is a statement that does not logically follow the previous argument or statement.  I don’t like them – cucumbers, not non sequiturs.  Why is it that some people like cucumbers and some don’t?  Animals aren’t like that, are they?  Do you think there’s a lion somewhere that doesn’t like wildebeest?  Hey, fellas, I’ll pass on the gnu tonight.  I think I’ll have a salad.  They just don’t agree with me.  No gnus is good gnus.  Or a chimp that doesn’t like bananas?  Too much sugar there, Cheetah.  I’m cutting down on the carbs.

 

A stockbroker called me this morning with a hot new stock.  It’s Polar.com.  He kept saying Buy Polar!  Buy Polar!  I asked if he had a white Camaro with Illinois plates.  He said Buy Polar.  I think it’s the guy.

 

Carol and I (or, as I sometimes like to say to my friends from Arkansas, me and the missus) had dinner outdoors at a friend’s house and they had dug up some old pictures of us – 40 years old.  I can always predict what people will do when they see pictures of themselves from decades ago.  The women will always say, “Oh my God, look at my hair!”  And the men will say, “I still have that shirt.”

 

Well, I guess I’ve overstayed my welcome.  Besides, I have to go find that shirt, so Shakespeare and I will say goodbye for now, but we’ll be back next week.  Stay well and count your blessings.  Nos vemos la próxima semana. That’s Spanish for “Buy Polar.”

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com