Blog #446                      September 25, 2025

 

A lot of people have told me that I should have my head examined!  Well, I did.  Twice!  The first time I had a CT scan on my brain was several years ago; the official result was “Unremarkable”.  Unremarkable?  Are you kidding me?  After twenty-one years of schooling, 400,000 pages of obscure and arcane books, fifteen hundred limericks – that’s all they can say about my brain?  Unremarkable?  I was insulted! 

 

Years later I had another brain scan, looking for a more complimentary opinion.  It came back “Normal”.  Normal?  Is reading Moby Dick seven times normal?  Is listening to Alice’s Restaurant every night for nine months straight normal?  Is reciting The Raven in your shorts every Tuesday morning with a brown-paper bag over your head while getting a tan normal?  There shouldn’t be much disagreement on that one.  If you missed the explanation of that, I’ll fill you in.  I go to Dr. Skin’s office every other Monday to stand in an ultraviolet light box for five minutes, and while I’m there, in my boxers with a brown paper bag over my head, I recite The Raven from beginning to end.  And this clown thinks I’m normal?

 

Some doctor who thinks he’s a whiz

Said my brain is as normal as his.

I read Moby Dick, Dude

And spout Poe in the nude,

And if that’s not abnormal, what is?

 

Hi there.  Are you normal?  I don’t think anybody who has suffered through this many of my looney-tune ramblings is normal, but welcome back anyway.  I hope you’re doing well. 

 

And speaking of Dr. Skin, I went to see her last week, and as I sat in the examination room, I realized I had forgotten to drink a lot of water.  Dr. Skin often takes blood to make sure the medicine isn’t affecting my liver or something and I have learned that it makes it easier to find a vein if I have drunk a few glasses of water.  I looked around for a cup and found one in a cabinet.  It read the following: “For Urine Samples”.  Well there wasn’t any alternative and, what the hell, in one end and out the other.  I drank three cups.  She didn’t take blood.

 

I just received my fourth butt-call of the week, all from friends.  I know my friends really well, and I’m pretty sure that some of them find it challenging to make a call with both eyes, a brain and all ten fingers.  How is it that they find it so easy to make a call with their ass?  And why me?  Is their phone programmed to call me when someone sits on it?  Is Apple trying to tell me something?

 

My wife just got a new Apple phone, the newest version with a thousand bells and whistles not one per cent of which she is likely to use.  But hey, she’s the love of my life and deserves all the comforts I can provide.  Me?  I don’t need a new phone.  I’ll just sit in the dark in my broken chair with my obsolete phone, a weathered old book, bad eyes and a three-legged cat.  It’s ok.  That’s good enough.

 

Do you know why the Apple logo has a bite out of the apple?  The story goes that Alan Turing, the man who pretty much invented computer science and the subject of the movie The Imitation Game, committed suicide by dousing an apple with poison and taking a bite.  So Apple, wanting to show their reverence for Mr. Turing, made their logo with the bite.  That was before they decided to direct every butt-call west of the Mississippi directly to me.

 

Disney is having some trouble now after suspending Jimmy Kimmel.  It’s not the first time that their decisions have engendered widespread opprobrium.  Some years ago, Disney decided it would be a nice and humane gesture to allow handicapped visitors at its amusement parks to go to the front of the line along with their families.  Very nice; very thoughtful.  Soon, families were faking handicaps or hiring handicapped strangers to pose as family members in order to beat the system and gain an advantage.  This is absolutely true.  It got so common and elicited so many complaints that Disney cancelled the program.  Thanks to the selfish and greedy, the handicapped suffered.  Yes, it’s a cruel world after all.  Everybody sing along with Mickey:

 

It’s a world of greed -- It’s a world of sin

Where the good guys lose -- And the bad guys win

Only babies and fools -- Seem to play by the rules

It’s a cruel world after all

 

No, that doesn’t count as a limerick.  You got a problem with that?  Go sit on your phone.  But it does count as our Weekly Word, opprobrium which means harsh criticism or censure.

 

Let’s talk murder.  First, there’s this Robinson guy who killed Charlie Kirk.  They have charged him with, among other things, Aggravated Murder.  The charge of Murder comes with the death penalty which, in Utah, is by firing squad.  What could possibly be more aggravating than that?  Well, I’ve found out.  The punishment for Aggravated Murder is that while waiting for the firing squad, you will be forced to watch a re-run of the 2025 Emmy Awards.

 

And then there is this Luigi Mangione guy.  We all have seen the video of him emerging from the shadows to shoot his victim in the back.  But he’s only charged with Second-Degree Murder.  I am a wordy fellow, as you well know, but I must say I have no words to explain how that’s not First-Degree Murder.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  Tremble, thou wretch. Thou hast within thee undivulged crimes (King Lear).  Pops says I should be charged with a crime.  I bit him yesterday and he said I was guilty of Assault and Cattery.  He thinks he’s funny.  Purr.

 

Ok, we’ll end with some acronyms.  We all know SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) and AWOL (Absent Without Official Leave), but my daughter Jennifer just told me what LOL stands for -- Limerick Oyster Laughs.  I hope you’ve had some.  Stay well, count your blessings and come back to my asylum next week.  And to my Jewish friends, Happy New Year 5786.  May it be happy and peaceful.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com