Back To Work

Back to Work By Larry Day I finally got a job. I work for my wife now. Clint, our new financial adviser, set it all up for us after I told him that as a retired person, I felt more like an employee than a spouse. “What do you mean?” he had asked. I told Clint that after I became a FIG (Fixed Income Geezer) I tried to supplement our income. I applied for half a dozen jobs for which I had tons of experience, and didn’t even get an interview. But, I told him, I didn’t have time to sit around feeling depressed. My wife, Emmaline saw to that. Her daddy was a preacher when she was younger. His favorite saying was “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” Emmaline took that as gospel. So now that I’m home all the time, she sees that I my hands never get anywhere near Satan’s workshop. I told Clint my schedule: On Monday I vacuum and dust the whole house after I do the morning dishes. Then I polish the silver and re-arrange the knick-knack shelves. Tuesday I mow the lawn and trim the hedges, and pull weeds. One day a week is “fixit” day-the toaster, the humidifier, the aquarium tank, stuff like that. There’s one day for running errands, and taking stuff back to the stores, or filing out forms and sending stuff back to catalog companies. Then there are a couple of days Emmaline makes me available to do odd jobs for friends and neighbors. She says it’s good public relations. As I was telling this to Clint, he looked pained. I thought it was an expression of compassion and empathy. But Clint was thinking. For him, it’s a painful process. Suddenly the pain was replaced by a look of joy. “I’ve got it!” he shouted. “What have you got?” I asked “I’ve got you a job!” Great.” I said, “Where am I going to work?” “Right here,” he said. “Here at home?” I asked. “I don’t think I’d be good at phone sales.” “Not phone sales. You’ll be working full time for Emmaline,” he said excitedly. “I just told you I already work full time for Emmaline. That’s my problem,” I said. “But you don’t get paid,” he said. “That’s why I’m trying to find a job, dopey. We can’t afford to pay me. Emmaline and I are Fixed

Income Geezers. We can’t afford to hire me. “Look,” said Clint, “All we have to do is organize a corporation with Emmaline as CEO and you as the only employee. We take your pension check and your social security payments and convert them into company funds. Then we give the money back to you in the form of a pay check.” “What good will that do?” I asked. “We still have the same amount of money to live on, which isn’t enough to live on. THAT, I repeat, is why I’m looking for full time employment.” “I know,” said Clint, “but if you are a corporation, I can file forms GS477-332-1 and SWUS-336-557/2, and everything will be deductible. You won’t have to pay taxes. Then because the CEO, Emmaline, is a woman, the company will qualify as a WJ-4489/6 minority owned corporation. You’ll be eligible for a bunch small business loans.” “WHOA!” I said. “You’re supposed to be helping us get OUT of debt, not put us deeper in debt.” “But you won’t be deeper in debt because you won’t have to pay the loans back,” said Clint. “That’s the beauty of it. After you get loans to provide operating capital for your business, I’ll file a WH-666/6 form that gives you loan forgiveness because the corporation does seventy five percent of its business with senior citizens.” “Simpleton,” I shouted. “Emmaline and I would be the only customers.” “That’s even better,” said Clint. “That’s means your business qualifies for a $5,000 Service to the Senior Community Bonus because 100 percent of your endeavors are in behalf senior citizens.” “Geez,” I said, “That sounds as fishy as the term “compassionate conservatism.” “Now you’re thinking,” said Clint. “Now you’re getting the picture.” Then he said something that froze my gizzard. “Trust me,” said Clint. Whenever you hear a character in a soap opera say, “Trust me,” you know that the person to whom he says “trust me” to is going to wind up folded, stapled and spindled. “No way, Jose,” I told Clint. “No. Nyet. Nein.” But cooler heads prevailed, namely Clint’s and Emmaline’s. Clint put through the paper work. Emmaline sailed through several interviews with local, state and federal worker bees, all of whom had a vested interest in getting her application approved so they’d meet their quota. Good dedicated, hardworking folk, every one of them. So now I work for Emmaline, and our financial situation has improved greatly. I do all the housework and the yard work, the take-out-the-garbage-work, walk-the-dog-work. In short, I do all the things that fourth tier corporate managers do. As CEO Emmaline does the heavy lifting, corporationwise. She handles the budgets and oversees capital expenditures. She’s in charge of product acquisition (Dillard’s and the Jones Store, being major suppliers) and distribution (The Thrift Store and the Clothing Consignment Stores being primary distributees). She also guards against hostile takeovers. Emmaline works long hours–executive hours. She’s gone a lot. I’m usually asleep when she comes to bed. Things have been going well so far, but I keep my fingers crossed, since I found out that Clint used to work for a giant corporation that went bust after the government pointed out to its top management that they were supposed to be executives, not chefs.

But, like any good loyal employee, I leave those things to management. I keep my mouth shut and do my work. And I do have some fun. The other day I was out working in the front yard near the curb when a snazzy sports car cruised up. The driver rolled down his window. He looked like one of those thirty-something success stories you read about. He called to me. “Hey Pops,” he yelled, “How much do they pay you?” I looked up respectfully and said, “Oh sir, they don’t pay me anything. But the lady who lives in that house lets me sleep with her,

-30-

Ribby Falls in Love ©

       Long time readers of this column will remember Ribby Von Simeon. More recent readers probably won’t be acquainted with Ribby, so here’s a brief introduction.

Ribby Von Simeon is the son of internationally renowned movie star Sippa Margarita and Balderdash Von Simeon, the news and entertainment magnate.

Ruthless Von Simeon, Ribby’s grandfather, was a Western mining tycoon. Between them they acquired a heap of money.

Miss Margarita’s media profile says she was born in Valencia. Her public  relations packets contain photos of her in and around Valencia, Spain.  Reality insists that Josipa Margarita Ruiz was born and raised in Valencia, Kansas.  The couple had one son, Ruthless Ignacio Balderdash San Bernardino Cortez Ruiz Von Simeon, known all his life as Ribby.

Ribby Von Simeon was raised by his Latino grandparents in Kansas.  It was all his mother could do to handle her fast-paced movie career.  Ribby’s one enduring childhood memory of his mother was of a voyage they took. He flew to Europe and together he and Sippa sailed back on an ocean liner.

The voyage was bittersweet for Ribby.  He had his mother all to himself. But he was seasick from the moment he stepped on board until the ship docked. He spent the whole voyage in bed being tenderly cared for—this to her credit—by his mother.  She brought him broth and hard rolls and read to him.

Ribby didin’t come into his inheritance until he was in his thirties. By that time he was living simply but comfortably as an adjunct professor at Letongaloosa Community Junior College.  The news that he had inherited a pile of money came at the same time news reports said that the luxury liner Santa Maria de la Valencia  on which he and his mother had sailed the Atlantic had been decommissioned and would be sold for scrap.

The thought of that dearly remembered vessel ending up as scrap iron infuriated Ribby. That fury transformed him from a diffident and taciturn academic into a man as rapacious as his grandpa Ruthless Von Simeon and as vociferous and belligerent as his father Balderdash Von Simeon.

Ribby used his resources to attack the astonished lawyers, financial conservators, bureaucrats, politicians and shipping company executives. When it was over, Ribby owned the ship and had permission to do anything he wanted with it.  He had the ship carefully dismantled and transported piece by piece to Kansas. Then Ribby had the ship reconstituted, refurbished and moored  at the top of a hill on a large tract of land he owned a few miles outside Letongaloosa.

After the re-commissioning of the Santa Maria, Ribby dropped back into academic anonymity until 10 years later when another crisis arose.

Newly elected county officials were young and eager to raise tax revenue. They changed zoning regulations. Ribby’s property became part of an urban renewal project. The officials knew little about Ribby except that despite being a lowly professor at LCJC, he owned the land and the ship. They ordered him to dismantle and remove the vessel at his own expense.

That order transformed mild-mannered Sippy Von Simeon into an amalgam of his forebears Ruthles and Balderdash.  Within hours highly placed officials were threatening to strip the county of federal funding, bankers had cancelled favorable interest rates.  Bureaucrats, politicians and diplomats denounced the county officials and demanded that they cancel the project or leave Ribby’s land out of it. The county capitulated.

About that time Angie Appleton, a pert thirty-year-old who had focused her life and energy on her academic career, joined the LJCC faculty. Ribby fell for her the moment he saw her across the room at the first faculty meeting of the semester.

A first Angie ignored him. Then she was curious. Then intrigued.

For his part, Ribby was, at first his shy, taciturn self. But love is powerful. After an agonizing few days of despair, Love awakened Ribby’s Balderdash qualities—appropriately softened for the occasion—and LOVE won out.

Angie and Ribby snuck away and got married, went on a honeymoon, came back to Letongaloosa and settled down—more or less.

-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



Parking Sticker Blues©

In most confrontations, The Powers that Be win and the Little Guys lose. In this story, the Little Guy won, and the Powers that Be had to do re-write the rules.
Some background is essential for readers to understand this story. Decades ago when I came to teach at Letongaloosa Community Junior College, Emmaline and I moved next door to a retired military officer. His last assignment was in a country where cars drove on the right side of the road. The colonel bought a four-door Hillman Minx, and shipped it to the U.S. The car’s steering wheel was on the right hand side. When he moved a couple of years later, I bought the car. I loved driving that car. The gearshift was on the left side of the steering column.
At the beginning of fall semester the university administration gave faculty members and students a pamphlet that outlined driving and parking instructions. Everyone on campus had to buy a parking sticker and display it on the rear window of their car. The instructions were explicit. The parking sticker was to be displayed in the lower corner of the rear window on the driver’s side.
I affixed my parking sticker in the lower corner of the rear window on the right side of my right-hand-drive car. That model Hillman Minx had a curved rear window—so the parking sticker was less visible than on domestic cars.
A couple of days after school started I received a parking citation for not displaying the parking sticker correctly. I called the Parking Department and told
them that my parking sticker was displayed according to regulations and asked them to invalidate the parking citation. For the next several days, I found parking citations under my windshield. I put the citations in the glove box, assuming that the Parking Department would inform the people who issued the tickets that my sticker was properly displayed and would void the citations.
A week or so later the dean called me to his office The Parking Department had accused me of being an egregious parking offender. They asked the dean to make me pay the fines for all the parking tickets that the department had issued..
I told the dean that my parking sticker was displayed strictly according to the regulations, but that I would get the problem straightened out.
The university police handled parking on campus so I called the department and told the dispatcher that despite the fact that my parking sticker was affixed strictly according to regulations I had received numerous parking citations and that the department had contacted my dean.
The dispatcher said that the people who issue parking citations didn’t make mistakes and that my sticker was obviously misplaced. I demurred, he insisted. I demurred. Finally he told me to bring the car to the parking lot behind the Police Department so he could see for himself.
I drove to the Police Department parking lot and parked near the office with my car facing away from the building so that the dispatcher could see my rear window. The dispatcher took one look at my car and said:
“That sticker is on the wrong side.”
I said, “Sir, do I have the option of changing the way I follow this pamphlet? I handed him the parking regulation pamphlet.
“No you DON”T.” he said emphatically.
I said, “the regulation says that my sticker is to be displayed on the back window on the driver’s side. That’s where the sticker is.”
“No, it’s on the left side, That’s wrong.”
“Sir,” I said. “Please Look! The steering wheel is on the right side. I am displaying the parking sticker on the driver’s side just as the regulation requires.
The officer looked, sputtered for a few seconds, and then said, “WELL, That’s not what we meant!”
The Parking Department voided all my citations and I reported to the dean that the problem had been solved.
The next year the parking regulation said that parking stickers were to be displayed in the lower corner of the  LEFT side of the rear window. I smiled.
-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

Against all Odds©

` Two events within 24 hours of each other changed Oswald Parker’s life. If the events had happened in reverse sequence, Oswald would have remained a dirt-poor loser. Instead he became a millionaire and the Great Hope of everyday Joes in the country.
Oswald, a 30-year-old nerdy-looking bachelor, went to a local department store to buy himself a pair of socks for his birthday. Walking through the Women’s Department Oswald saw a life-size poster of a beautiful auburn-haired model.
He gazed at the poster for five minutes during which two sales ladies asked if they could help him find something.. He just stared at the woman in the poster. The floor manager was approaching Oswald when Oswald snapped a photo on his cell phone and bolted for the front door.
He drove straight to a grocery store and stood at the counter where lottery tickets were sold. As everyone knows, a lottery ticket is the poor man’s Magic Lamp.
Oswald held out two one-dollar bills.
“What numbers are you going to play?” asked the clerk.
Oswald didn’t answer. He just stood there in a daze.
Page 2 “Against All Odds”
“Sir, what numbers do you want?” Nothing.
Miffed, the clerk pushed a button and the machine spit out a lottery ticket.
“That’ll be $2, sir,” she said.
Oswald gazed.
The clerk reached across the counter, took the $2 from Oswald and put the lottery ticket in his hand. “Next,” said the clerk.
Oswald drove home, put the lottery ticket on top of his dresser and crawled in bed. He didn’t wake up until morning. He lay with his eyes closed thinking of the woman in the department store poster. It took great effort to get up, get dressed, and leave for his shift at the tire store where he worked.
A few days later television newscasts announced that someone had purchased the only winning ticket for a five-million-dollar lottery pay out. The winner had not come forward to claim the money. That was normal–many lottery winners don’t claim their prize until they get their legal team and their “Instant Millionaire” strategy worked out.
Meantime Oswald went obliviously on with his life until a local newscast prompted him to reflect. He remembered the lottery ticket on his dresser. He checked the number and realized he had the winning ticket.
His first thought was: “Now I can meet her.” Now he could meet the love of his life—the woman in the department store poster. His second thought was: “I want her to like me for myself, and not because I just won a million dollars in the lottery.”
The next day Oswald quit his job, cashed in his savings account and flew to New York City. He had no luck at the model agencies.
Page 3 “Against All Odds”
Nerdy in appearance and speech, Oswald often didn’t even get past the front desk at most agencies. Then a receptionist–who was kind of nerdy-looking herself–took pity on him. She asked him some questions and looked at the photo on his cell phone.
“I’ll help you find her,” she said.
It was a difficult job. There are almost as many model agencies in New York as there are pizza joints. After a couple of days of fruitless searching Fran—the receptionist—asked Oswald if he had seen much of New York.
“Nothing,” he replied.
“Why don’t we take the afternoon off? I’d be happy to show you around. We can start fresh tomorrow morning.”
Oswald agreed reluctantly, but by midafternoon he was having such a good time he almost forgot he had come to New York to find the poster model. The next morning he showed up at Fran’s desk with a box of chocolates and a bouquet of flowers.
“Let’s see some more sights,” he said.
“I can’t,” said Fran. “I don’t have any vacation days.”
“Then quit your job. I won a million dollars in the lottery. I love you and I want to marry you.” He showed her the winning ticket.
“What about the model, the one in the poster?”
“She can be a bridesmaid,” said Oswald.
And she was.

-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

Pecked to Death by Ducks©

With the summer season just around the corner, most people are making vacation plans. I, on the other hand, have been busy stressing about all of the things around my house that need my attention.

I’ve been thinking about what to do with all my “stuff” in the attic. Emmaline runs a trim ship.   I sail a kind of garbage scow.

It’s time to get the wet leaves out of the roof gutters, put fertilizer on the lawn, fetch some sacks of pebbles for the rock garden.  On a more personal note, I wanted to rescue a couple of my favorite shirts from the church donation box sitting by the front door.
Whenever I think that I have too much to do, my stress rises. When that happens, it’s like I’m being pecked to death by ducks.  Its as if I were tied hand and foot and lying on wet grass with a raft, team or paddling (see Google) of ducks pecking me.  Their blunt beaks don’t break the skin on my head like the peck of a woodpecker would, but the sensation is still painful, and
emotionally draining.

The feeling comes when I think I have too many things to do and not enough time to do them. I often get relief by day dreaming about decades past when I traveled a lot—to Latin America, the Caribbean, North and Central Africa, Japan.  But if I day dream too deeply while I’m doing something like trimming the hedge, and I mess it up, and—out come the ducks.

I’ve been thinking Emmaline and I need to go back to the Caribbean, or Latin America. But then I realize that what we really need is to go back to our good old rental cabin in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. I always love our days on the river there, floating downstream on inner tubes, drinking steins of root beer with my friends, the little old colonial Dutchmen.
Back in March I got in touch with my humor column friends and colleagues at The Enchantment, that dingy roadhouse on the edge of town where so many of them congregate. I told them to meet us at the cabin. Then, what with the ducks in my head and all, I nearly forgot about the trip to the cabin.

So today, I got the word out—on Internet, by smoke signals, by homing pigeons, by mental telepathy–and by a few other means of communication that I won’t elaborate on here. I invited everyone

to meet us at the cabin.  The invitation to my  robot friend KB11.2 (Kaybe, for short) went zinging  through outer space to his home planet that’s just a few parsecs from our nearest star, Alpha Centuari.   And I asked Kaybe to stop by Cuba on his way andpick up Kate in the jungle down there.
Emmaline thought we couldn’t go to the cabin right now because there was too much to be done here: paint the shutters, plant a garden, clean out the garage, etc., etc.

“And What about Ginger?” she asked.  Ginger is our dog.

“I promise to paint the shutters when we get back. The weather will be better then, anyway.  It’s been a late spring, so we can put in the garden after we get back.  Ginger always comes with us, remember? Her carrier is just inside the front door, next to that donation box we’re taking to the church.”

I knew that Emmaline wanted to go to the cabin all along, but we needed to tie up loose ends.  After she went to pack, she called down to say she was including a variety of ceramic root beer steins.

She had chosen one for everybody. A few days later as we got ready to leave the ducks in my head took a nap—a nice long one, I hoped.

When I lifted Ginger into her carrier, she nestled down on top of my favorite dear old (not to be discarded) shirt. It was folded neatly underneath her.

I put the church donation box in the car to drop off on the way out of town.

-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

Minnifred & Winnifred (c)

 

 

This tale requires an explanation of how Ed and Jeanie Morningside
got the millions of dollars that their daughters inherited.

Although they had been respected Letongaloosa citizens for decades,
Ed and Jeanie never had two nickels, much less a dollar, to rub together.  They needed every penny that came in to pay the rent, put food on the table, and buy clothes for the family.
Then, against 14-million-to-one odds, they won $378-million
in the national lottery.  Suddenly, accompanied by a whole lot of fanfare, Jeanie and Ed and their two daughters, Minnifred and Winnifred were rich.

***********

At 7:15 a.m. every morning Minnifred Morningside-Suggs sat at her desk grading papers and sipping tea from her favorite artesian mug. Unless she had an early morning appointment out of the office, nothing in Minnifred’s life ever changed. This Tuesday morning was different.

Instead of going to her 8 a.m. Tuesday staff meeting, Minnifred said “hi” to Hanger Duggins and his crew at Letongaloosa International Airport and then flew to Kodiak Island to visit Winnifred and to enjoy some much needed time away. That’s when things got, well, freaky.

******

It was a few weeks later and Minnifred and her husband, Reggie, were having dinner at the diner in downtown Letongaloosa. Reggie had just picked Minniefred up from the airport.  Reaching for the
bread, he said : “You act diff’rent.”

Minnifred had been regaling him with stories about a shiny Republic RC-3 Seabee seaplane she in which she had flown to her sister’s cabin; the ice fishing excursion on which she caught the biggest fish the locals had ever seen, and the polar bear swim she had completed in record time. Reggie thought the stories were interesting, but he had never seen Minnifred so animated.  She was usually quiet, reserved, and didn’t add much detail in the infrequent stories she told.

Reggie continued to stare, and Minnifred pretended she didn’t notice the “diff’rent” comment and the puzzled look on his face. She kept talking a mile a minute about her Alaskan adventures.  Still more puzzling to Reggie was Minnifred’s insistence on sleeping in the guest bedroom.

Something happened a few days later. It was the first round of judging in the Feature-Palooza Competition for Young Writers. There were more than 550 entries, and a group of teachers and business professionals had assembled in the newsroom of the Letongaloosa Register-Journal-Challenger-Sun Chronicle to read the entries, critique them, and choose a contest winner.
Garrison Storm, Letongaloosa’s lead meteorologist noticed Minnifred’s peculiar behavior. Minnifred had always been a stickler for proper grammar, diction, usage, and syntax. Folks in town tolerated her correcting them in conversations because they were awed by her knowledge of English, and because Minnie was generous with her money.  Despite her wealth she had begun teaching public school the year she graduated from college.
Garrison noticed Minnie’s grammar goof immediately but he dismissed it, thinking he must have heard wrong. But when she goofed again and seemed actually happy about it, Garrison was perplexed.
As they heard her speak, others in town were too.

Meantime, folks in Kodiak couldn’t believe their ears.  Winnifred, the winsome spinster, who had always regaled them with bright and cheery chatter, had suddenly become terse and taciturn. Worse,she had begun to correct their grammar and  made unfavorably comments on what she labeled their “syntax.”  People in Kodiak had no idea what “sin” she thought them were guilty of.

A few days later, Winnifred and Minnifred sat together in an airport coffee shop in Vancouver, British Columbia.
“What an excellent time!” said Minnifred, who was waiting for a flight home to Letongaloosa.
“A blast!” said Winnifred, who was booked on a later flight to Katchikan, Alaska.  From there she’d catch a seaplane to Kodiak.
“We must do this again soon,” said Winnifred.

“Indubitably,” said Minnifred.

-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

Emmaline Speaks Up ©

Hello & Happy New Year, Everyone!!

Here is my first column of 2017. It gives a nod to my significant other and her love of college sports. She gets rather excitable to it politely and  it is that energy that makes me love her so…enjoy!!

My wife Emmaline loves watching sports on television. People who watch sports
with us call Emmaline an “energetic” fan. She involves herself in all aspects of the
games. She expresses her opinion forcefully about the fans, the players, the coaches,
and especially about the referees.
Emmaline was never a typical “sports widow.” On the contrary, I have always
watched TV sports so I could be with her.
When she was a girl living in a small town in Utah, all of Emmaline’s friends were
New York Yankee fans. Emmaline always supported the Brooklyn Dodgers. Emmaline
and her friends used to listen to the World Series every year on the radio—often skipping
school to do so.
As they listened, Emmaline’s friends ridiculed the “Bums” from Brooklyn and tried
hard to get Emmaline to forsake them. But even during the years in which the Yankees
built its World Series dynasty, Emmaline remained loyal to the Dodgers.
Her loyalty was rewarded in 1955 when the Brooklyn Dodgers were matched
against the Yankees in the World Series. The Dodgers won that epic Series in the
seventh game. The win gave Brooklyn its first and only championship in the franchise’s
history. After the 1957 season the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles.
Emmaline continues to be vocal sports fan. Every time the Letongaloosa
Community Junior College team plays Emmaline can be found in front of the television
set watching the game. She cheers enthusiastically for the players. She bemoans their
errors. But more than anything else, Emmaline vehemently denounces bad calls made
by the striped-shirted referees.
The phrases Emmaline uses to denounce the refs are the kind of made-up phrases
spoken by 1950s cartoon characters like Pogo Possum. She yells things like “Blagstag the
blag-stagging blaag staggers.” Emmaline avoids the kind of expletives and curses that
one often hears at a bar when a game is showing on TV. Emmaline is often vehement,
but she is never calumnious.
She is also a full service television sports fan. She gets physically as well as vocally,
into the competition. When games are close and badly officiated, our dog abandons
her place on the couch between us and lies down on the carpet across the room. I
remain on the couch, beside Emmaline, but I often place a thick winter cap on my
thigh.
One day recently, when a game was in the early minutes of the first quarter, the
doorbell rang. Our new pastor had come to call. He was making a “meet and greet”
visit. I answered the door, and Pastor Mark, who is a large, ebullient individual, grabbed
my hand, strode through the door and was in the living room before I could get the
words, “Perhaps another time, Pastor,” out of my mouth.
Emmaline’s jaw dropped, but she was true to her mother’s teachings about
hospitality.
“Please sit down, Pastor Mark,” she said. “Would you like some warm apple
cider?”
“Don’t trouble yourself on my account.”
“It’s no trouble at all.”
Emmaline had neglected to turn off the television, and by the time she got back
with the hot cider, Pastor Mark was sitting in our overstuffed chair gazing fixedly at the
game.
“This is wonderful, Sister. Thank you,” he said. Then, “I love basketball. I played
college ball myself before I went to the Seminary. Wow, what a game!” Then he took
off his coat and leaned back, his eyes fastened on the TV screen.
It was a very close game, and for the next hour and a half Emmaline raised her
voice only slightly, saying things like “Go team.” and “Oh, no, don’t do that!” Pastor
Mark used the same tone and the same phrases.
Then in the last seconds of the game, with LCJC ahead by two points, the other
team shot and missed a three-pointer. A ref called a foul on one of our players.
“Dammit! That wasn’t a foul, you blooming idiot,” yelled Emmaline.
Horrified, we both looked at Pastor Mark.
` “Thank you, Sister Emmaline,” he said. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
-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

Hunting For St. Joseph ©

My wife Emmaline is one no nonsense, “just give me the facts,
please,” kind of woman. You won’t find Emmaline running on the
gerbil wheel of fad or fashion, much less giving heed to folklore
traditions. So it was with some consternation that I found myself in the
car (with Emmaline at the wheel as usual) driving to the city to buy a
statue of St. Joseph
We had decided to put our house on the market with an eye to
moving to something smaller, with fewer stairs. Before we signed a
sales contract and way before the for sale signs went up, Emmaline
got word from her good friend Rosalie that if we were serious about
selling our house we had better seek the divine assistance of St.
Joseph.
“You have to bury a small statue of St. Joseph upside down in the
front yard,” said Rosalie. “If you do that, your house will sell fast.”
Rosalie had told Emmaline to try We Believe Books, a Christian
store on the outskirts of the city. We drove around awhile and then
spotted “We Believe,” in a strip mall.
“Hi folks,” said the man behind the counter. “It’s a blessed
day.”
“Indeed it is,” said Emmaline. “Especially if you have a statue of
St. Joseph.”
“A statue?” the man asked.
“Well, actually small figurine of St. Joseph.”
“We don’t carry figurines,” he said.” Would a book mark do?”
We have some nice St. Joseph bookmarks.”
“No. It has to be a figurine.”
“Then I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”
“Is there another religious store close by?”
“You could try Light and Knowledge over on Linden Tree Road.”
Emmaline asked how to get there and the man gave her detailed
directions. After driving around for half an hour we found ourselves in
a in a rough neighborhood. Emmaline pulled up to a rundown
convenience store.
“See if the clerk knows where to find Light and Knowledge,” she
said.
The clerk was in his early twenties. He had a silver nose ring and
a nickel-sized ivory plug in each ear lobe.
“I’m looking for Light and Knowledge,” I said.
The clerk straightened up. His right hand moved slowly out of
sight under the counter.
“I’m all out,” he said.
“What?”
“I’m all out, man. Come back later.”
My confusion turned to insight. I felt a chill.
“Oh yeah, right. Okay, man,” I said. I backed toward the door.
“Did the clerk know anything?” asked Emmaline.
“No,” I said
Twenty minutes later we were in a less stressed part of town. We
passed a church. Six or seven women and a pastor were chatting on
the front steps. Emmaline pulled to the curb.
“Ask if they know where it is,” she said. “Hi, folks,” I said. “We’re
looking for the Light and Knowledge bookstore on Linden Tree
Road.” The pastor came to the car.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I have no idea. But Salvation Now
Bookshop is up the street three blocks.
The woman behind the counter at Salvation Now was tall and
angular.
“We’d like to buy a small figurine of St. Joseph, “said Emmaline.
“You don’t want Salvation Now, you want Light and
Knowledge,” said the woman.
“Right,” I said, “on Linden Tree Road.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Is it far?”
“About twenty blocks. My sister Ginger owns it. My name is
Sheila.” Sheila handed me a sheet of paper with a map showing
how to get from Salvation Now to Light and Knowledge.
“You must have lots of requests for St. Joseph figurines, why
don’t you stock them?” I asked.
“Ginger and I both wanted to stock St. Joseph figurines, but we
decided to do “rocks, scissors, papers” and let the winner have an
exclusive on them,” she said. “Ginger won. I got exclusive rights to St.
Redondo figurines.”
“What does St. Redondo do for people?” I asked.
“He brings customers to yard and garage sales,” she said. “You
hide him carefully in the worst, most useless, item you have. I’ve
heard of St. Redondo yard and garage sales that have nothing left
less than half an hour after they began.”
We thanked Sheila, and followed her map to the Light and
Knowledge Book Store. The St. Joseph figurine came in a little box
that had instructions on how and where to bury him to insure a quick
sale.
We haven’t sold our house yet, but Emmaline says St. Joseph is
working on it every day. Meantime she’s planning another trip to the
city. Emmaline wants to buy a St. Redondo figurine to use in the
garage sale we’re going to have before we move.

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

Miss Minnie Gets Hitched ©

The invention of cell phones has permitted people everywhere to prove the adage “talk is cheap.” People talk on cell phones as they drive cars, shop, get their hair done, pump gasoline, and while they are standing in long lines at customer service in the supermarket waiting to buy lottery tickets when the Powerball gets above a half a billion dollars. All that blah-blah was nerve wracking to Miss Minniferd Morningstar who had taught English at Letongaloosa High School for the past 32 years. Miss Minnie used to interrupt people at social gatherings and town council meetings to correct their grammar. For her, correct grammar, diction, usage, and syntax were sacred. Folks in town tolerated Miss Minnie’s interrupting their conversations because they were awed by her knowledge of English and because Miss Minnie had inherited piles of money, and was generous with it. Miss Minnie began teaching public school the year she graduated from college. To teach back then you didn’t need a certificate beyond a bachelor’s degree. She went on to get her masters by taking summer classes at State University. It was at State U. that Miss Minnie first saw Reginald Danforth Suggs. Young Suggs had just been hired as a custodian at the School of Education building. Reggie owed his first two names to his mother who hoped he would rise above his working class roots. Reggie rejected those aspirations. He made his own choices about speech and career options. He and Miss Minnie clashed immediately because she walked on the floor of a hallway that Reggie had just mopped. “Lady, getcher clodhoppers offn’ mah floah,” Reggie growled. Minnie gave the barbarian a withering stare. “Are you addressing me, young man?” “Ain’t addressin’ nobody,” said Reggie, “Ahm tellin yew ta quit trompin’ on mah floah.” At that point Professor Blaine, a member of the graduate faculty, opened his office door. He had heard the exchange. “Hello, Miss Minniferd,” he said. “You can pick up your paperwork at the graduate school office down the hall.” And, “That will do, Reggie.” “Hummmph,” said Reggie, and shoved his mop bucket on down the hall. After Minnie had finished her business at the university and returned home, she realized she had mixed feelings about the encounter. The handsome janitor had acted boorishly, but Minnie somehow found herself intrigued. She made subtle inquiries and learned that Reggie had a high IQ, a gift for language, and an aversion to orthodox social behavior. The latter obviously limited his work options. But those options, she soon realized, coincided what with he wanted to do for a living–be a janitor. Reggie always told people he was a janitor–not a custodian, or a “custodial engineer.” After that, Reggie popped into Minnie’s mind at odd moments—as when she took a break from correcting papers, or was fixing a late-night snack. She dismissed the thoughts, but they kept popping up. And Reggie thought off and on about “that teecher woman” too. When they both sought his aid as an intermediary on the same day, Prof. Blaine became the expediter of their budding romance. After a short engagement the extraordinary couple married. It was a two-part wedding. The first ceremony and reception were held in the chapel and recreation room of the Custodial Workers Union Hall. A janitor, who was a lay pastor, presided. The second ceremony took place in the sanctuary of Letongaloosa’s fine old Episcopal Church under the direction of the Rev. Thomas Leon Harper, D.D. The betrothed wrote their own vows. The union hall ceremony, written by Reggie, was short. To wit: “Ah weel if you weel.” To which Minnieferd responded: “Shore.” The reception featured mounds of serve-yourself chicken nuggets, barbeque beef and pork, mashed potatoes, creamed corn, hard rolls and a huge chocolate layer cake with chocolate frosting. The service at the Episcopal Church, prepared by Minnieferd, lasted an hour, and included two numbers by the choir and short passages from Shakespeare, Tennyson, Wordsworth, and Ezra Pound. The reception featured peach tea and little round mints. Minnie’s vows included five “I do’s,” and four “I wills,” and one “absolutely” spoken on cue by the bride and groom. Minnie and Reggie…Reggie and Minnie…are happilying it ever after. -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

Food For Thought

Food show hosts are not at all  like Jack Spratt and his wife. The TV food hosts NEVER lick the platter clean.

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