Blog #491                                August 6, 2026

 

I have many faults.  One is, according to my wife, not driving fast enough.  I know I don’t drive as fast or aggressively as she’d like, but I look at it this way – in the car I can adjust the temperature precisely as I like, listen to whatever kind of music I want and rest comfortably in a cushioned seat.  I’m happy!  Do I need to go faster?  Do I need to get to the doctor’s office two minutes earlier so that I can wait forty minutes?  Do I need to race home so I won’t miss the opening minutes of The View?  What’s the hurry?  Relax and enjoy the Summer.  I could eliminate her criticism of my driving just by letting her drive, but she makes me nervous when she’s behind the wheel.  First of all, she sits too far forward.  She’s closer to the steering wheel than the guy who painted it.

 

And second, my wife is good at everything -- except waiting.  She is starting now to time the red lights and is majorly unhappy if they are too long.  And she has zero patience for anyone that is in her way.  “I’m going around that person. Who allows them to drive?  I’m not stopping for that light.  MOVE!”  She’s like a Maxine Waters who has skipped her Ritalin.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well, and I hope you feel like going to a movie, because I have a Movie Review for you.  Hades Town is a movie recording of the stage musical as performed in London.  It was terrific.  It follows the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, two lovers with great singing voices and names too difficult to pronounce.  And don’t bother to read up on the story before you see it.  That would only give away the ending.  What’s important is that the voices are spectacular, the staging is clever and professional and the rhyming of the lyrics is wondrous (I’m a rhyming guy).  Go see it!

 

Did you vote this week?  In Missouri, we had primary races and a few propositions to vote on.  The problem is, the ads are so confusing that you don’t know which side they’re promoting.  I wish the ad would just be the Republican leader of the state legislature standing up there and saying, “Listen, if you’re a Republican, here’s how I want you to vote.  Period!”  The same for the Democrats.  Voters are sheep.  They need somebody to direct them.  They know what party they support.  They just don’t know how that party wants them to vote.

 

I know this will sound weird, but someone very reliable told me that the Tupperware Company, besides making all the kitchen stuff you love, also makes coffins.  I told you it was weird.  Weird enough to deserve a rhyme:

 

The Tupperware party? Fantastic!

But it ended in something quite drastic

When we buried old Sid

With a burp from the lid

In a box made of Tupperware plastic.

 

This Fall, I will have four grandchildren in college.  They just grow up so fast.  I remember telling them stories.  I did most of the storytelling because I was good at it and because I couldn’t trust Carol to do it.  Once I heard her telling the story of Cinderella, but she left out any reference to glass slippers.  Cinderella with no slippers?  Where does the woman come up with this garbage?  I asked her why she left out the slipper part, and she replied, “Nobody wears glass slippers.”  Hard to argue with, I suppose.  She was so flippant about the Fairy Tales, that I told her never to tell stories to the grandkids any more.  She always seemed to forget the facts.  Like when she told them a Little Red Riding Hood doesn’t go with brown boots.  Or that The Tortoise and the Hare was about a couple named Michael and Carol.  Or that Beauty and the Beast was about a Princess named Melania. 

 

But her favorite story is Goldilocks and the Three Tables.  It’s about a girl who goes to a restaurant with a party of six and the mean old hostess wants to seat them at a rectangular table.  No, no, says Goldilocks, this table is tooooo square!  Then the mean old hostess tries to seat them at a table for eight.  No, no, says Goldilocks, this table is tooooo big. 

 

When we go to a restaurant now, I never sit down at the first table.  I know better.  I stand peacefully in a corner while Goldilocks and her cronies wander the entire establishment looking for a table that is juuuuust right. 

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul (Hamlet).  My favorite Fairy Tale is Puss in Boots, although I only need three boots.  I actually like when Pops tells me a story when I’m sitting on his lap.  His voice is very soft and kind.  He’s such a good boy.  Purr.

 

Our Weekly Word is flippant which means not showing a serious or respectable attitude.

 

A couple of weeks ago, near the end of the blog, I said I hoped that I brightened your Thursdays.  That’s a pretty slimy way of begging for a compliment, isn’t it?  It was gratifying to learn that none of you would fall for a cheap trick like that.

 

You men know what begging for a compliment is.  It’s when your wife says, “Honey, do you think this dress makes me look fat?”  A husband must either know how to respond to that properly or have a good orthopedic surgeon.

 

Actually, I did receive a few responses that said, “Yes, you do brighten my day.”  Most of them were from my female readers, and I thank them very much.  I wonder if my wife is upset that I talk to so many of my limerick girlfriends via email.  Just to be safe, let’s keep it among ourselves.  If she got mad and stopped picking out my clothes, that would be a bad thing. I’d leave the house half the time looking like Clarabell.  

 

And if you remember Clarabell, you’re my kind of people.  Thanks for visiting with me today.  Stay well and count your blessings.  I’ll see you next week.

 

Michael                                    Send Comments to mfox1746@gmail.com