Blog 473                                          April 2, 2026

 

Hey, I have a question for you.  Do you lie?  Of course you don’t.  I would never suggest that you lie.  But do you exaggerate – maybe a little?  I have made a study of the most common topics of exaggeration.

 

First Exaggeration: Have you seen my grandson hit a golf ball?  Yesterday, on the 11^th hole, my Jacob hit a ball, I guarantee it was 300 yards if it was a nickel.

Truth:  Jacob is seven and the farthest he has ever hit a ball is 42 yards – into a hot-dog cart.

 

Second Exaggeration:  My daughter’s boyfriend just got a new job.  He’s the CFO of a new start-up that’s all over the world.  I can’t tell you exactly what they do, but they’re huge.  He’s doing very well. 

Truth:  He quit his job as a Bar-Mitzvah disc jockey and is selling a line of pizza ovens in Rapid City.

 

Third Exaggeration:  I’m going to a new neurologist.  He’s one of the top doctors.  Top!  He’s the foremost expert in the world on the kind of disease I have.  He graduated first in his class.

Truth:  Dr. Patel Rajmiri was the only one in his class at the Karachi School of Incantations and Pita Making.  His office is in the back of a Lebanese deli.

 

Fourth Exaggeration: I’ve got a great new sleeping thing for you.  You place a pecan under your pillow.  It works great.

Truth: I haven’t slept since the Bush administration.  No, the old one.  And I have tried every pill, powder, lotion, potion, salve, inhaler, concoction and Haitian Voodoo ritual known to man or beast.  The pecan doesn’t work either.

 

You absolutely know someone who is guilty of one or all of the above. Maybe even you.  Hi there and welcome back to Limerick Oyster where nobody’s going to lie to you.  A little capricious hyberbole perhaps, but it’s all in fun.  I hope you’re well and I’m glad you’re back.  I’m back too, recovering from my surgery.  I thought Shakespeare would have been more enthusiastic to see me, but he was a little leery of the walker.  At first, he thought it was his AI replacement, Cat-GPT, but now I think he likes it.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Un-thread the rude eye of rebellion, and welcome home again (King John).  I’m so happy Pops is home.  He even brought me a new friend.  It has two legs and two wheels.  I call him Rolleo.  Where’d he go?  Rolleo, Rolleo, whereart thou.  Purr.

 

I still have a few hospital observations for you.  I did not see a calendar in my room.  A clock, yes, but no calendar.  Even a prisoner gets a calendar.  Are they afraid you’ll be counting the days until your co-pay runs out?  I also noticed that when the Physical Therapist person would take me on a walk, we would never pass a mirror.  Oy, God forbid I should see myself unshaven, hair unwashed; I probably looked like Quasimodo.

 

But now I’m home:

 

·        Without one appendix.  I never read the appendix anyway.

·        With some additional scars.  No big deal; I’ve got plenty.

·        With an addition of approximately 75 new members to the once-exclusive club of people who have seen my butt.

Who designed those hospital gowns?  And why is just your butt exposed?  Expose everything.  There is no privacy in a hospital.  I loved it when the nurse team would come in and ask whether I wanted the door closed while 60 people examined my naked body.

 

Yes, I’m home, and very lucky to have a lovely, caring and efficient nurse to take care of me.  Carol is doing a wonderful job, doing almost everything for me, but sometimes, it’s a little aggravating.

 

Where’s your toothbrush, she asked.  I told her.

What kind of ratty, gangrenous, antediluvian piece of garbage is this?  She threw it away and got a new one.

Ok, where’s your toothpaste?  I pointed.

What kind of arboreal moron keeps his toothpaste in a drawer that far away from his toothbrush?

 

There’s no place like home!  Let’s do arboreal as our Weekly Word.  It means living in trees.

 

I have admitted many of my faults and failings to you over the past years.  Here’s another.  I’m just not into highbrow stuff -- art, symphony, opera.  I must not have been around when they handed out the gene for high-class sophistication and good taste.  Except, of course, my taste in women.  But you know that already.

 

I like realism in art, but not Modern art.  I was once in a museum in Bentonville, Arkansas looking at a painting that was completely black.  I found a nearby docent and asked, “Can you explain to me what there is in that painting that is supposed to stimulate my admiration?”  He replied, “Damned if I know.”  And the symphony?  I like some classical music, but I must admit I grew up on three-minute songs that started with Take out the papers and the trash or I heard about the fella you been dancin’ with.  Three minutes is a good length for a song.  Twenty minutes or sixty minutes – I’ve already forgotten where I am.  And opera is four hours!  In Italian!

 

I guess that I’m just not aesthetic

I think modern art is pathetic

And Mozart and Bach

Are pretty much schlock

And opera requires anesthetic.

 

What can I say?  Call me a boor, call me low-class, call me Ishmael.  And anyway, should I care what other people think?  You’ll worry less about what people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.

 

By the way, those two songs I mentioned above:

 

Take out the papers and the trash – Yakety Yak, The Coasters (1958) written by Leiber and Stoller. 

 

 I heard about the fella you been dancin’ with - Shake a Tail Feather, The Five Du-Tones (1963) written by Andre Williams.

 

I have to stop now.  I can’t write while I’m shakin’ my tail feather.  Plus, my doctor says I shouldn’t.  I love that song, though.  C’mon, do it with me – shake it, shake it, shake it, shake it Baby.  You can still do it.  Don’t hurt yourself.  See you next week.  Stay well, count your blessings and Rock n Roll.  And thank you all for your wonderful outpourings of love and concern.  They mean a lot.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com