Blog #413                                February 6, 2025

 

I asked you last week to find the only number that, in English, has its letters in alphabetical order.  The answer is FORTY.  To those of you who got it, good job.  To the rest, well, there are many things more important than mathematics.

 

Like being helpful.  I was heading out for Walmart the other day, and I wanted to see if there was anything my wife needed.  I found her on the phone talking to a girlfriend.  By the way, for those of you my age (somewhere between King Charles III and Methuselah), don’t use the term “girlfriend” with your granddaughters.  To a teenaged girl, “girlfriend” means a lesbian relationship.  Anyway, I quietly interrupted my wife and asked in a whisper if she needed anything.  Yes, she said, get me some triple-washed Greenleaf lettuce.  I agreed and began to leave, when I heard the lady on the phone ask Carol who she was talking to.  I stopped and waited to hear my loving wife respond, “Oh, that’s my wonderful, loyal, helpful, talented, handsome and devoted husband.”  Well, I didn’t have to wait that long, for she said nothing of the sort.  Her brief answer was, “Oh, that’s my shopper.”  Well, as John Milton almost said, “They also serve who only go and shop.”

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well.  And I hope my good friend is feeling well.  He just called me from a Florida hospital.  He’s having his appendix removed.  What!  He said he started getting a pain and knew it was his appendix. What!  How did you know it was your appendix?  He said everyone knows where his appendix is.  What?  I wouldn’t know my appendix from a hockey puck.

 

I know my appendix is there

With the spleen and the liver somewhere

But where they all go

Is not my job to know

That’s why we all have Medicare.

 

I guess I should find out where that sucker is.  The appendix, not my friend.

 

Message from Shakespeare: If she must teem, create her child of spleen, that it may live (King Lear).  Do I have a spleen?  Or an appendix?  They probably took those away when they cut my leg off.  Well, whatever I have left must be good enough, because Pops adopted me and takes care of me.  Purr.

 

Last week we had snow here in Missouri, and now it is raining.  Actually, it is pouring – really, really pouring.  I’m about to go out and look for two aardvarks.  I know, of course, that Carol is not going to join me.  She promised to love me in sickness and in health, but not in the rain.  It reminds me of the time we had planned a driving trip with another couple to Arkansas and Tennessee.  We had maps and reservations and everything, but the forecast said RAIN!  My wife had consulted the National Weather Service, NASA, the Pope and L. Ron Hubbard and decided that the weather in Arkansas 96 hours hence would not be propitious, so we cancelled.

 

Thank goodness my sweet wife was not on the ship with Columbus.  “Hey, Chris.  Did you know it was raining?  You better shut this ship up, Little Captain.  Nothing’s gonna get discovered today.  Uh-uh.  I’m not getting my hair wet for a bunch of Indians.  You can discover something tomorrow if the sun’s out.  And by the way, see if you can discover a Nordstrom’s.  These Jimmy Choo’s are killing me.”

 

My friend called back.  It wasn’t his appendix.  It was something else less serious.  I feel better – he doesn’t know his appendix from a hole in the ground either.

 

Carol and I belong to a club.  It’s a golf and social club, but we don’t play much golf anymore.  We do, however, still love to go there for dinner.  The staff knows us and they treat us like celebrities.  When Carol and I show up for dinner, they treat us like we were Taylor Swift – and Taylor Swift’s shopper.  Am I behaving like an oversensitive, long-haired, leaping gnome?  It just seems so subservient to be called a “shopper” – like I was just some unselfish, loyal slave whose only mission was to love, honor and obey.  Well, I guess, if the grocery bag fits, wear it.

 

It has been a very slow week so far, which has given me lots of time to think of erudite, illuminating and humorous things to write for you.  But I didn’t, so we’ll have to stick with the same old drivel.

 

My oldest grandson, Zachary lives and works in Madison, Wisconsin.  His job keeps him very, very busy.  Too busy, apparently, to call his aging grandparents.  We try to contact him, but he always responds that he can’t talk now; he’s busy.  So, imagine my glee when I received a text: POPPY, I WILL HAVE SOME TIME TO CALL YOU THIS WEEK.  That was two weeks ago.  Have you heard from him?  Me neither.  So today I sent him a text:  ZACH, I’M WORRIED ABOUT NONNIE.  SHE HAS LOST A LOT OF WEIGHT.  I ASKED HER WHY SHE’S NOT EATING.  SHE SAID SHE DIDN’T WANT HER MOUTH TO BE FULL IN CASE YOU CALLED.  I know that’s an old joke, but he probably has never heard it, because it worked.  He called and we had a great talk for 45 minutes.  He’s such a good boy!

 

Everybody has an Alexa.  That’s the little tubular machine that answers your questions and follows your orders.  “Alexa, what time is it?  Alexa, play James Taylor”.  Carol has programmed ours to give me my own personal messages:

 

·          When I open the bedroom door in the morning, it says:  Are you really going to wear that?  The mirror is to your left.

·          If I ask for the address of the nearest Dairy Queen, it says:  I’m not telling you.  Have a carrot.

·          If I say, Alexa, I’m running short on Diet Coke, it says:  You’re the shopper.  Shop!

·          If I’m finished with the blog, it says:  You forgot the Weekly Word.

 

Oops!  Our Weekly Word is propitious.  It means indicating a good chance of success; favorable.  And I’m hoping the chances of your coming back next week are propitious, so stay well and count your blessings.  I’m certainly counting mine.

 

Shopper                                   Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com