Blog #478                                May 7, 2026

 

Last weekend, we took a little trip to Las Vegas.  Southwest Airlines was wonderful.  The plane was on time and the flight was pleasant.  Just the thought of the amazing engineering and sophisticated technology that goes into crafting a vehicle that can carry 200 people through the air at 30,000 feet and 600 miles per hour while carefully monitoring electronically every meteorological and aeronautic aspect of the flight is mind-bending.  It makes you wonder, though, (and I know you know what’s coming) – it makes you wonder why these super-smart engineers cannot design a speaker system on which you can actually understand what they’re saying.  “The captain scribbitz gwaldemang tooseidram the cokseld.”  And the system in the terminal is even worse.  “Would the passenger Qgoblhet Jugfurnace, please fribitz his flabunglator to gate forsemonty.”  They can take people to the Moon.  You’d think they could make a speaker system.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  Did you celebrate May Day on May 1 and Star Wars Day on May 4?  May the fourth be with you.  And if you don’t know what that means, well, I’m not sure what to say.

 

I hope it’s not one of those days for you.  You know what I mean, a day when everything is wrong, hopeless or broken.  It seems like a lot of days are one of those days nowadays.  I’m feeling it too.  Maybe it’s just my weekly angst over finding something that will entertain you.  I mean it’s been 478 weeks and often I worry where the next thought is coming from.  478 weeks!  That’s longer than any of Elon Musk’s wives lasted.

 

But I decided not to worry.  Worry is like a rocking chair – it’s something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.  Besides, I’ve come to feel confident that some bizarre concoction of insanity and foolishness will pop out of my strange head if I squeeze hard enough.  How about a confession.

 

I don’t actually know why I feel the compunction to lay bare all the peccadilloes, foibles, idiosyncrasies and utter stupidities that speckle my life.  But here it is.  On the way back from Las Vegas, I left my computer at the airport.  You know, you have to put your laptop in a separate bin and run it through security, and I forgot to retrieve it.  I’m sure there were notifications on the loud speaker announcing that some blithering fool had left his computer behind, but of course, nobody could understand the loud speaker.  I didn’t realize what I had done until I got home and unpacked my carry-on.

 

I was devastated, embarrassed, almost suicidal.  Me without my computer is like a snail without a shell, like a car without a steering wheel, like a baby without his bankie, like a politician without his teleprompter.  I wigged out and had a mini-breakdown.  But my trusty, loyal, clever and lovely wife rescued me.  She called the lost and found at the airport.  They located the errant electronics and Fed-Exed it to me within a couple of days.  Thank you, Honey.

 

You didn’t know I had foibles, did you?  That’s our Weekly Word and means minor weaknesses or eccentricities.  I’m loaded with them.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear (All’s Well That Ends Well).  I hope Pops doesn’t lose me somewhere and have to ship me home in a box.  I’m not traveling anywhere with him.  He’s not trustworthy.  I’ll just stay here and wait for him to come home.  If he can find it.  Purr.

 

Now to something important.  Do you have a middle name?  Do you remember your middle name?  Is there any reason for having a middle name?  I am convinced that the sole purpose of a child's middle name is so he can tell when he's really in trouble.  If my mother called out “Michael”, she just wanted to see me.  If she yelled “Michael Bruce”, I knew some serious punishment was on my horizon.  Some people have more than one middle name, like Julia Scarlett Elizabeth Louis-Dreyfus.  I have a granddaughter with two middle names.  And then, of course, there’s Picasso, or should I say:

 

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso

 

That’s his real name.  By the time he wrote all that on the canvas, there was so little room left he had to squash up the faces.

 

I just got the mail.  Let’s see – a discount on hearing aids, an invitation to visit the new elderly facility, a free dinner if I listen to a money manager, 30% off at Kohl’s and a whole bunch of stuff addressed to Resident, Occupant or Loser.  Is this too exciting for you?  This is my life!

 

But wait, what’s that?  A small envelope with a hand-written address and no bar codes.  It was from my granddaughter – snail mail.  Not an e-mail or a fax.  Not a text or a tweet or a twit or a twoot.  Not a Facebook or a YouTube or a Snapchat.  Just a little old envelope with my name written on it in pencil.  I dove for it like a pelican after a sardine.  Isn’t it funny how something as simple as an actual letter can be so exciting?

 

I needed a battery in my watch and I went to a Chinese-run place that sells purses and belts and hats and gimcracks of all sorts.  I walked in and said Ni Hau to the owner.  That’s Mandarin for “hello”.  I learned that when I taught English to Chinese students.  The owner replied, “We’re Korean. We all look alike.”  I apologized, of course.  When I left, she said, “Goodbye, John.”  No, I said.  Don’t you remember me?  I’m Michael.  Oh, she replied:

 

Please put on my record a strike

I truly forgot you were Mike.

I’m just poor Korean

Have trouble with seein’

Besides all you Whites look alike.

 

I think I’m finished for this week.  You made it through another one.  I’m proud of you.  Stay happy and in good health, count your blessings, and Hung Hau.  That’s Mandarin for “Your camel has whooping cough.”  You’d be surprised how often that comes up.  See you next week, if I don’t lose my computer again.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com