Blog #498                                September 24, 2026

 

Our cell-phone monthly service bill is charged to my credit card, but I wanted to change it to a different card.  The odds of my doing that by myself were about the same as my performing brain surgery or cooking a souffle or winning a gold medal for figure skating (I can’t skate).  So I did what I do best – I begged for help.  I drove to the Spectrum Mobile store.  They open at 10.  I arrived at 10:01.  That’s what I do.  A nice young man named Joe asked if he could help.  Now, I did not want to become engaged in an imbroglio with him, so I just said, “Joe, I am 117 years old and have only one brain cell left, and it doesn’t do apps.  Can you help?”  Joe fixed it all up for me in about nine minutes.  So it was 12 minutes to drive there, plus 9 minutes to do it and 12 minutes back.  That’s 33 minutes (my last brain cell can add) to do something it would have taken me hours to figure out.  Thanks, Joe.

 

I just am not good doing apps

I’d do better by just shooting craps

When I give it a spin,

Open up and begin

My computer just starts playing Taps

 

I cannot fathom how the human brain works, especially my own.  Why, for instance, while driving home today did I suddenly realize that Peter Piper could not possibly have picked a peck of pickled peppers?  Wikipedia estimates there are 50,000 different kinds of peppers.  Fifty thousand!  There are pimiento peppers, tabasco peppers, cayenne peppers, chili peppers, paprika, jalapeno, banana peppers and of course the common green pepper.  Did you know that green peppers, like green tomatoes, are just unripened bell peppers?  But here’s the thing: Peppers do not grow already pickled, so no one can pick a pickled pepper, any more than one could pick a stewed tomato or a pumpkin pie.  Even Peter Piper could not pick a pickled pepper, let alone a peck of them.  Case closed!  I sometimes frighten myself.

 

But I apparently don’t frighten you, because you’re back and I’m glad.  Hi there and welcome.  I hope you’re feeling dandy and are ready for more of my methodical madness.  Let me explain the comment I made earlier that I can’t skate.  I have three daughters.  When they were 12, 11 and 5, they begged me to take them ice-skating at a local rink.  It was Saturday and there were special activities going on.  They rented some skates and got out there on the ice.  I watched.  I had never ice-skated.  All of a sudden, I hear, “Dad, c’mon, the skates are free.  C’mon, c’mon!”  I could never say no to them, so I got some skates and stepped onto the ice.  I was terrible.  I fell three times.  My daughters were so embarrassed, they abandoned me about halfway around the rink, hanging onto the siderail.  Then the lights started to flash and the loud speaker spoke loudly; “Please exit the ice; the show will start in two minutes.”  Show?  Everybody left the ice.  Except me.  I began to pull myself feverishly along the siderail trying to reach the exit gate before anyone noticed me.  I failed.  There I was, the only person left on the ice, a silly fool who couldn’t skate, struggling to hide himself somewhere.  The show started.  Costumed skaters flowed onto the rink and began their intricate dances and leaps.  I was still out there, pulling myself around.  Everyone was hysterical.  I finally made it to the gate and exited to a raucous mix of laughter and applause.  I was horrified.  To this day, I have never again put on ice skates. 

 

Let’s talk about dogs.  My friend took her support dog to a movie.  Really!  I think she saw Crazy Rich Afghans.  Maybe it was Jurassic Bark or Raging Bulldog or Paws! or The Good, the Bad and the Shar Pei.  I could go on forever, but I know you have places to go and people to see, so let’s move on.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  “The cat will mew, and dog will have his day (Hamlet).”  Why does he always talk about dogs.  Silly, stupid dogs!  I am his best pet and his closest friend.  Cats like movies too.  I like Cat Ballou, The Color Purr-ple and Apocalypse Meow.  Purr.

 

In the absence of anything else interesting to talk about, there is always something medical going on in my life.  Last week I went to Dr. Skin.  Something was bothering me on my back and I wanted someone to look at it.  She did and told me it was Stoopi-goopi Poppi-noppi-cozitis, or some such mumbo-jumbo.  Have you noticed that doctors tend to speak in a language intelligible only to other doctors so as to impress us ignorant laymen with their profound intelligence?  I think they learn it at Jabberwocky class.  Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwock, as you know, is famous for words like slithy tove, mimsy, borogoves and mome raths.

 

Sounds just like a doctor!  “Yes, Ma’am, you have an enlarged Mome Rath.  But your borogoves are normal.”  Anyway, whatever was on my back is no more.  She froze it off and told me I didn’t have to worry about it.  It was only a mimsy.  Maybe the O-B should come out and say, “Congratulations, it’s a slithy tove!”

 

And speaking of doctors, I visited a friend in the hospital and stayed about three doctors.  That’s how you measure time in a hospital, by counting how many different doctors come to your room.  First was the Hospitalist from China, then the Pulmonologist from Iran and the Cardiologist from India.  They’ve changed the inscription on the Statue of Liberty, you know.  It now reads Give us your tired, your poor, your Anesthesiologists.  There’s one thing that’s comforting about having Asian doctors.  You know they graduated at the top of their class.

 

Weekly Word:  Imbroglio is a good word.  It means a complex dispute or argument.  And with that, it is time to go.  This week marks the beginning of Autumn.  So please have a good Fall.  No, wait, I don’t mean I want you to fall.  Don’t ever fall, stay well, count your blessings and come back to me next Thursday.

 

The Jabberwock             Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com