Dr. Ima Farseer Gets a Hand©

By Larry Day 

La Mancha is a neighborhood in Letongaloosa where the streets are curved, and the house numbers are hand painted on Spanish tile.  A few of the folks who live in La Mancha are snooty, but most are kindly, civic-minded people who  do kindly deeds for their neighbors with no thought to income differences. 

Dr. Ima Farseer is dean of the Department of Et. Al., Et. Al. at Letongaloosa Community Junior College.  The department got hit hard recently by budget cuts right at the time the school’s enrollment rapidly increased.  Budgets were always tight, but this squeeze threatened to swamp the LCJC boat no matter how fervently Dr. Farseer and the faculty and students manned the bailing buckets. 

Charlotte Williams, lives in La Mancha and serves on a local board of directors with Dr. Farseer.  As they chatted before the meeting, Ms. Williams asked how things were going at LCJC and Dr. Ima said, “Not good, we have a budget crisis.”  

“Is there anything I can do?  I’d love to help,” said Ms. Williams. 

 “We’re not allowed to use outside donations for our specific needs,” said Dr. Ima. “All income goes directly to the state general fund.”  

“That’s a problem,” said Ms. Williams.  “I’ll think about it and get back to you.”  Just then the chair called the meeting to order. 

A few days after the board meeting Ms. Williams called Dr. Ima on the phone. 

“I think I have a solution to the problem,” she said. 

“That’s so helpful! Thank you.”  

“We’ll hold a raffle.  I’ll give tickets my friends in La Mancha.  We’ll all agree that whoever wins the raffle will donate the money to LCJC and stipulate that the funds go directly to the Department of Et. Al, Et. Al.”  

“I don’t think the powers that be will pass up such an opportunity, do you?” 

“If they do, they’ll be crazier than I think they are.” 

“Good.  Let’s do it.” 

For the next couple of weeks at La Mancha social gatherings Ms. Williams distributed raffle tickets.  Everyone who got one agreed that if he or she won, the money would be donated to LCJC’s Department of Et. Al., Et. Al.  It was a good plan, except that there was a snake in the grass.  His name was Draven Bendelgoff.  

After the winner was announced, Ms. Williams approached Mr. Bendelgoff and asked him to give her the ticket so she give the raffle funds to LCJC’s Department of Et. Al., Et. Al.” 

Mr. Bendelgoff replied, “Not only no, but hell no!  I won the raffle and I’m going to keep the money.   

“What about LCJC?” 

“LCJC to go fly a kite.  That money’s mine, and I’m keeping it.” 

What a downer! 

          Fortunately, Ms. Williams had a good friend who worked for the Internal Revenue Service.  She asked her friend to look up Mr. Bendelgoff’s returns and see if she could find any irregularities. 

It turned out that Mr. Bendelgoff was notorious for claiming deductions that were disputed, then tossed out by IRS auditors.  He made himself a pain in the neck by appealing every unaccepted deduction up the chain of command to the Director.  “Gleefully, the IRS personnel went over Bendelgoff’s income clear back to his high school paper route.   

They found that he was as tight-fisted with is money as he was creative with his deductions.  In addition to being a skinflint, he was a cheat and a liar. 

Armed with these facts Ms. Williams approached the crochety Bendelgoff again. 

“Please contribute your ticket to the LCJC fund.” 

“I told you that LCJC could stuff it.” 

“You might want to look at this.”  she handed Bendelgoff a sheet of paper. 

His face turned ashen.   

He handed the raffle ticket to Ms. Williams. 

“Give this raffle ticket to those good folks at LCJC and tell them that they have my full support.” 

“How very kind,” said Ms. Williams. 

                                                                              -30- 

Dr. Ima Farseer Solves a Dilemma ©

Dr. Ima Farseer had been chair of the Department of Et. Al., Et. Al.at Letongaloosa Community Junior College for a long time. Her long tenure became a problem. She had done such a good job as dean under three LCJC presidents that none of them would approve a promotion to which she aspired. Dr. Farseer wanted to be provost at LCJC, but the presidents refused to let her change positions.
The presidents were all ambitious men. They all wanted to rise higher. They all wanted to move away from Letongaloosa and acquire more prestigious academic positions. For that to happen they needed Dr. Farseer to use her administrative skills to keep the university sailing smoothly and successfully semester after semester.
“No, Ima,” they said. “You are too valuable to the university where you are. We can’t take the chance of promoting you. If something went wrong, administrationwise, where would we be?”
“If I quit, where will you be?” she asked.
“We can give you a raise.”
“My salary is already at the upper limits. The state won’t approve any higher salary for me.”
“Ima, Ima, please! You need to work with us !”
“No. YOU need to work with ME.”
“Look, it’s nearly the weekend. Give us until Monday to see if we can come up with something that will work for everyone.”
“You’d better come up with something good. Otherwise I’m out of here.”
Up against it, the men put in some heavy thinking (not, for them, an easy thing to do). Finally, one of them brightened. He didn’t actually shout, “eureka!” but he might as well. “We’ll promote Ima to provost but we’ll fold the dean’s duties into the description of the provost’s responsibilities. She’ll report to which ever of us is still here.”
The following Monday the designated speaker (the one who pulled the short straw) met with Dr. Farseer.
“We came up with an excellent solution to this Quandary,” he said.
“I bet it stinks,” said Ima with calculated insolence.
“On the contrary, it’s a ball of fire.”
“Don’t burn the place down.”
“You have your promotion.”
“What’s the catch?”
“No catch. It just required a small rewrite of your position statement.”
Dr. Farseer remained silent.
“You have your promotion.
“As I said, ‘What’s the catch’”?
“Your duties will include you’re doing the work of dean of Et. Al., Et. Al., as well as those of Provost which position will be redefined to accommodate all the things you require.”
“Excuse me, sir. Are you high on something?”
“Yes, indeed, I am. I’m high on the desire for the University to continue to benefit from your invaluable administrative skills, but at the same time reward you with the promotion you so richly deserve.”
“And you guys would continue to use the university as a springboard to better, more rewarding academic positions in the great outside world . A world a million light years from Letongaloosa.”
“A jaundiced view,” he said. You’re a hard woman, Ima, if you’ll pardon my saying so.”
“Accurate, not jaundiced.”
The president nodded in acquiescence.
“You’re saying I can write my own ticket.”
“Within the requirements of academic responsibility and in keeping with the viable demands of institutional stability.”
“Persiflage.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Balderdash! Baloney! Let me hear you say that in plain English.”
“My dear Ima, we are, members of the academic community. Our profession is awash with ambiguity. None of us is capable of saying things accurately.. If we were capable of straight-forward speech we’d be working in the real world, making real money. Does anyone around here make real money?”
“No! That’s the point. All you geeks get your ticket punched in academe. Then you look for a real job
You’re a hard woman, Ima, if you’ll pardon my saying so.”
“Hard but accurate when you strip away all the baloney.”
The president inclined his head. “So, where does that leave us?”
It leaves us with a quote from the gospel according to Saint Ima .”
“Which is?”
“Go soak your head.”
-30-

Dr. Larry day is a retired J-School professor turned humor writer. His book, Day Dreaming: Tales From the Fourth Dementia is available for purchase via his website: http://www.daydreaming.co

Eloise Calls the Robo Callers©

“Ring.”  When Eloise Simplekins picked up her phone, a robot voice said: “Hello. This is Jan.  Congratulations! You qualify for ….  Please press ‘one’ now to speak to a customer representative. Press ‘nine’ now if you wish to be removed from the qualification list.”

“Fiddlesticks!” said Eloise, and clicked her phone off.   It was the sixth robo call this week.  She had tried hanging up, she had tried pressing “nine,” but a salesperson always came on the line anyway.  She had pressed “one” and told the person who answered to take her off their list.  The person didn’t answer Eloise’s request.  All Eloise heard was a  click and a dial tone.

Eloise Simpelkins is plain—beginning with her name and continuing with her squat chunky figure, her thick unruly hair, her flat face, her squinty eyes, and her pug nose.  But she is very smart.

Years ago Eloise became a pre-cleaning lady for the women of La Mancha, that rich part of town where the streets are winding and the house numbers are hand painted on Spanish tile.  It embarrassed the women of La Mancha to have their cleaning ladies see poopy toilets in their husbands’ bathrooms, so Eloise became their pre-cleaning lady. But she became much more.  These women ached to reveal their foibles to someone.  Eloise was there every week and seemed discreet. She became their confidant, and the women rewarded her handsomely.  She invested wisely and became a wealthy woman.

Robot phone calls irked Eloise, and after she became rich they irked her even more.  When she couldn’t convince the “you qualify for…” robot voice organizations to quit calling her, Eloise turned to Hadley Wilkins for help.

Readers will remember Hadley “Cyberman” Wilkins. He’s the electronic engineer who helped develop cell phone technology.

“Hadley,” she said. “I need your help.”

“Say on, oh Wise One.”

“I get six to eight robot calls a week,” she said.  “If I hang up, they just call back.   I press the button and talk to a live operator but they still won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.  Hadley, I want you seek out the private phone numbers of the executives who run these robo-call outfits.   I’m going to give them a taste of their own medicine.”

“On it,” said Hadley.

Randall Egregious, the vice-president for operations at Techaly Communications, Inc., was relaxing in his den when the unlisted number on his cell phone rang.  The screen said “Mara Belle.”  Mara Belle Function was a Techaly  executive.  Egregious clicked on.

“Are you being pestered by robot telephone calls?” a robot voice asked.  “If you get robot calls seven days a week, please press one.  If you get robot calls…”  Egregious clicked the phone off, but the robo- voice continued talking: “If you get five or fewer robot calls a week, please press two,  if you get fewer than three  robot calls a week, please press star.  To repeat this message, please spell out “help,” on your keypad. ” Egregious hurled the phone across the room.  It slammed into the brick fire place and fell to the floor.  The robot voice continued to speak:  “If you are angry and frustrated and want to destroy your cell phone, please press the “tone” button.”  Egregious picked up the cell phone, ran outside, and threw it as far as he could.

He came back inside and turned on the television.  Instead of his favorite channel, the screen showed a television test pattern.  From the television speaker the robot voice intoned the same message.

Egregious ran to his car and sped to his office.  He called the company’s technology director at his home.

“George, this is Randall Egregious. I’m at the office.  How do I shut down the robot-call apparatus?”

“You can’t.  Don’t you remember?  You ordered us to create closed-circuit hardware and software that would, in your own words, ‘make robot calls forever.’”

Egregious clicked off and ran down the hall to the fire safety cabinet.  He yanked it open, grabbed a fire ax, ran back and smashed all the robot-call machines.

Then he scribbled, “I quit, Randall,” on a scrap of paper and taped it to the CEO’s office door.

-30-

Dr. Larry Day is a retired KU J-School professor turned humor writer. His book of humor columns, Day Dreaming: Tales from the Fourth Dementia,  is available on Amazon. You can also visit his website at www.daydreaming.co

Stressed

 

The clothing industry predicts that the global market for denim

jeans will be $64.1 billion by 2020. That’s billion (with a “b”).

Everyone—from the president of the United States to two-year-old

toddlers—wears jeans.

It wasn’t always so. Back in the day most of the teenage boys

wore cotton trousers to school. A few kids wore corduroy. In those

days denim was used almost exclusively to make work clothes. So to

be appropriately dressed, even working class kids wore cotton. Take

Elmont Richens, for example. He was a working class kid back then

and he wouldn’t have been caught dead walking into the high

school wearing jeans.

Decades passed—wars and rumors of wars, moon shots and

space ships, fads and fashions came and went—but Elmont retained

the cultural context of his youth—denim was used to make cheap

working class clothing. Good clothes were made with cotton.

Staying culturally naïve had been easy until recently. Elmont had

lived all his life in Port Hall, a village about 20 miles from

Letongaloosa. He was a bachelor and was shy. Even after moving

here he didn’t get around much. He was a good man. Good and

naïve.

Elmont loved to read and he went to the public library a lot.

One day he asked for a book that wasn’t available. The librarian

said, “They might have that book at the Letongalosa Community

Junior College library.”

I don’t work up at LCJC, “he said.

“Oh, you don’t have to be affiliated with LCJC to check out

books. Any resident of Letongaloosa can have a library cared.”

Elmont was delighted. He got a card and started checking books

out at the LCJC library. That’s where Elmont was when he saw the

girl in the stressed jeans.

She was walking toward him. She was tall. Her blonde hair was

pulled back in a ponytail. Her jeans had ragged horizontal holes in

the front of both thighs. There was a ragged square hole in the right

knee. The back pockets were patched with material from a red

bandana. The right leg had an eight-inch tear. She wore rubber flipflops.

Elmont’s heart went out to the waif.

Despite his shyness, he said:

“Miss, may I speak to you for a moment? This is awkward,” he

said. “My name is Elmont Richens. I grew up poor in a small town. I

know what it’s like not to be able to afford nice things. If you’ll let

me, I’d like to buy you some new clothing.”

At this point some readers are going to say that I ran into a plot

snag and decided to use dues ex Machina. That’s a literary device

some writers use to save a drowning plot. All I am going only going

to say is: sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

The young woman was not poor at all. She was rich. Her

name was Melissa Stafford, and she was president of Zeta Omega

Zeta, the wealthiest and most exclusive sorority on campus. She had

just finished attending a sociology class. The lecture: “Our Social

Responsibility in an Aging Population.”

Melissa extended her hand.

“Hi, I’m Melissa.”

“Where do you live, Elmont?”

“At 556 Horton Street. “

“It’s awfully hot. Did you walk all the way up to campus,

Elmont?”

“Yes. Look, I know what it’s like to not to have the right clothes.

I’d like to buy you a new pair of jeans.”

“Thank you, Elmont. That’s sweet of you. But these jeans are

brand new. My Mom bought them at Bloomingdales in New York

City. She gave them to me yesterday.”

“They’re NEW? You’re not poor?”

“No, Elmont, I’m not poor. Look, it’s quite a walk back to your

house. I’ll give you a ride home.

“You have a car?

“Yes. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

A few minutes later Melissa pulled up at the curb in a grey 2015

Jaguar convertible.

Elmont stared for a long moment, then walked to the car.

“Hop in,” said Melissa.

-30-

Dr. Larry day is a retired J-School professor turned humor writer. His book, Day Dreaming: Tales From the Fourth Dementia is available for purchase via his website: http://www.daydreaming.co