Blog #442                                August 28, 2025

 

I was working at the Zoo this week, handing out maps, giving directions and trying to be jolly with the tourists, when an employee of the Zoo walked up to me.  “Thank you for bringing joy every day,” she said.  Of course, she meant that for all the volunteers, but it made me feel awfully good.  I do try to bring a little joy to the Zoo-goers, just like I try to bring a little joy to you every week.  Let’s see if I can.

 

It’s my job to know all the answers at the Zoo.  Where’s the tiger?  I know that.  Where’s the bathroom?  I know that too.  Where can I rent a stroller?  Where can I breast-feed my baby?  I know all of those.  But sometimes I get a tricky one.  I was standing by the kangaroos when a little girl saw my sash and asked this question:  How do you tell the males from the females?  I have never been accused of being slow-witted, so I bent down and answered the little girl with confidence and alacrity.  “You want to know how you tell a female kangaroo from a male kangaroo?”  She nodded.  “You take it to Nordstrom’s,” I said.  “If it buys shoes, it’s a female.”  She liked it.  Her mother liked it.  And the kangaroos hopped for joy.  Well, you really don’t want me discussing an animal’s sexual paraphernalia with adolescent girls, do you?  Suddenly I would replace the polar bear as the Zoo’s #1 predator.  And what kind of shoes would the kangaroos buy?  Kanga-Choo of course

 

Let’s do the Weekly Word.  It’s alacrity, which means a brisk and cheerful readiness to do something.  And right now, I have a cheerful readiness to say hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and looking forward to the end of summer.  I don’t know about where you are, but here in St. Louis, it was a blistering few months.  It was so hot, I saw a funeral procession drive through a Dairy Queen.  It was so hot, I saw a homeless guy carrying a sign that read “Will work for Shade”.

 

It was so hot, chickens were laying hard-boiled eggs.  You know my daughter has chickens, about 14 of them.  She told me the other day that she was cleaning out the coop and had music playing while she did.  Immediately, my warped brain asked what kind of music do chickens like?  The same brain immediately answered Rock ‘n Eggroll.  Or maybe Eggae or Yolk Songs.  And I bet their favorite song is Rock Around the Cock.  Now, that wasn’t a bad word.  That’s a rooster, but Rock Around the Rooster just doesn’t sound funny.

 

Here's a story about funerals.  Carol and I were at a party recently.  She looked at me and asked, “Is that what you’re going to wear at my funeral?”  “Yes,” I replied. “Is that the outfit you’ll wear to mine?”  “No,” she said, “I just bought the one for your funeral.  It’ll be delivered Monday.”  And I’m not even sick!  I hope the outfit gets dropped off before I do.  I think the worst part of dying is that you don’t get to eat the dessert trays.

 

Which brings up the question -- do you have a plot?  I have one plot.  It’s in a cemetery that was not too far from the place I grew up.  My father and mother and brother are buried there and there’s one extra plot.  My sister was cremated and her ashes were used to fertilize a tree, but that’s a story for another day.  So that one little oblong of well-kept dirt is for me.  Of course, Carol and I don’t live near there anymore.  We’re at least fifteen miles away, and she has informed me that she has no intention of driving that far to visit some old dead husband.  This whole burial thing is disturbing.  I don’t know what to do.  I do know what I want on my headstone.  I want a limerick:

 

For everyone life is a trial

But we’re only here for a while

And when I am gone

These words will live on

And may even give you a smile

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  When he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night (Romeo and Juliet).  I want to be buried right next to Pops.  And I want my stone to say: “Three legs, nine lives, one awesome cat!”  Purr.

 

Maybe I should buy a plot in North Carolina.  Most of my daughter’s friends think I’m dead anyway.  That could be because I actually was kind of dead for a while in North Carolina.  You know the drill – heart stops, flat-line, Code Blue, shock treatments.  I have always heard people who claim to have had a near-death experience say they remember a bright light.  Of course there’s a bright light!  You’re lying on your back in the Emergency Room with that circular spotlight shining two feet from your nose.  That thing is bright enough to wake King Tut.  So now when Carol and I are in North Carolina and we meet one of my daughter’s friends, we often get this: “Jennifer, I can’t believe this young-looking woman is your mother.”  Then they turn to me: “And Mr. Fox, how nice.  I see you’re still alive.”

 

Years before that episode, after my first heart event, the doctors released me from the hospital with a list of restrictions.  I am not making this up!

 

·        Do not operate a vacuum cleaner.  I can live with that.

·        Do not play Craps in a casino.  Something to do with standing.

·        No sex with an “unfamiliar” partner.  I presume that included the vacuum cleaner.

·        Do not lift anything heavier than Moby Dick.  The book, not the whale.

 

It has now been twenty-eight years since that attack, and I have followed those rules assiduously, although I do smile at the vacuum cleaner now and again.

 

Alright, Fearless Readers, you’ve had enough of me for this week.  I hope I brought you some of that joy I promised.  I’ll be back next Thursday.  Stay well count your blessings and come back.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com