Which Came First

These are indeed tense times, and I hesitate to raise this subject right now, but it’s been weighing heavy on me and I must get it off my chest.  I’ve been watching a bunch of You Tube episodes of The Jetsons.  Whatever your political or philosophical affiliation, you simply have to admit that Scooby Doo was totally an Astro rip-off.  That said, since on the show (set in 2062) Astro exists 100 years AFTER Scooby Doo, it could be argued that Astro was in fact a rip-off of Scooby Doo.  I am frankly surprised that Hanna-Barbera didn’t get more heat over this glaring and obvious comparison back when Scooby Doo debuted.  Anyway, since there’s no winning this debate, and in the interest of harmony, let’s just agree to disagree. 

Toilets and Covid-19

I am not sure that this is exactly or necessarily related directly to the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic, but I think I may be on to something here.  I have heard that there are parts of the world where toilets drain in a different direction than they do here in America.  I mean, they still drain downward, but they swirl differently, like clockwise or whatever.  I’m actually not really sure which direction my toilet drains in, which is kind of strange because I ALWAYs watch, but I think that it would be just horrible to all of the sudden have it drain in the opposite direction.  My point is that this could have happened already, like in the middle of the night, without anyone checking.  How would we know?  Now, I’m not a conspiracy guy looking to make trouble, and I don’t plan to mention this to the CDC or WHO, but I’d like some answers.   Maybe some of you kids could set up one of your Zooms or whatever and discuss it.  I have no idea how that works, but I’m available for a swab if you need one.

Naming It

Naming a pet is a big decision and hard, because it’s such a commitment.  If you’re going to be calling to the pet a thousand times a day, you want the name to be something that rolls off the tongue and is cool, or maybe one that other people will think is cool when they hear it and therefore think you are cool.  Except for when the pet is a gerbil or a fish or a hermit clam or something.  Then you can name him something lame because you’ll probably only call to him to say things like, “Oh, shit, Boinky, we forgot to leave food for you last month when we went on vacation!”   

The Wish Book

 

When I was a kid, my mom told me stories about growing up on a small farm.  She told me that when she was young, her family had an outhouse behind their residence.  She told me that winters really sucked.  She told me that they had the Sears “Wish Book” catalog in the outhouse to use as toilet paper.  The anecdote was relevant to me then only because Sears still sent out the 300-plus page wish book (Montgomery Ward did, too) as a pre-interweb marketing tool.   I freakin loved looking through the wish book and dreaming about all the stuff I’d put on my Christmas list, but the thought of wiping my butt with its pages seemed primitive and disgusting, even in the 1960s.  Anyway, she said that back then when she was in the outhouse (it was a one-holer, she said, but some wealthier neighbors had two-holers, which to me now doesn’t seem like it’d better than a one-holer, I mean, do you sit next to each other and compare notes, or what?  Just saying..) she would tear a page out of the wish book when it was time, and she’d rub it in her hands until it  was warmer and softer and less crinkly and then she’d, well, you know. 

So, I only tell you this tale in order to say I bet my mom would laugh her ass off at people today fighting at Walmart over toilet paper, even during a pandemic, or whatever.

The Elbow

The elbow wasn’t designed to be sneezed into or “bumped” as a greeting.  It was meant to lean on and to nudge, and as a pointy thing to push through crowds and sometimes for “elbow grease”, which you hardly hear about anymore but was once a thing.  Any other uses are man-made stressors.  Proceed at your own peril.

What The Kids Are Saying

I’m trying to stay current with the language the kids are using.  So, I like to say, “I’m an OG at dealin’ with all of my original plans and dreams and hopes fallin’ to shit, yo.”  I think the ”G” stands for “gangsta”, which is totally me, and I think that “yo” in this case is referring to you, or whoever I’m speaking to in the moment, if I understand it correctly, which is funny because “yo” means “I” in Spanish, but whatever.  If I’m wrong, I accept that, which would be just another in a chain of failures which I’ll deal with, as the OG I am, yo.

Grandpa and the Toboggan

 

 

I feel like my grandfather only said about 53 words directly to me the whole time I knew him, but I always knew for certain that he loved me so much.  One perfect winter/Christmas memory of him is from when I was about 7 years old, and visiting my grandparents, who lived nearby.  Typically, when I visited my grandparents, I, being an only child, would happily occupy myself on their property in the country in Lake George, New York.  I was a suburban kid, so their “spread” seemed exciting and endless to me, and I could always find fun ways to pass the days. 

This memory had me crashing down their sloping yard on a toboggan.  I kind of remember that the hill in their yard was huge, but I also know that it wasn’t.  Anyway, I remember sliding recklessly fast down the tremendous hill (actually, slowly, and the hill wasn’t tremendous by any calculation) over and over and over, and the horrendous trudging climb back up the hill each time (really neither horrendous nor trudging, I was 7). 

After what seemed like thousands of trips up and down the hill (really, probably 5 trips) I landed at the bottom, and my grandfather pulled into the driveway in his big green truck.  I was always glad to see grandpa, but I had no idea why he was home; I was always lost in time in the country.  He smiled as he walked over to me and said, “ready?”.   When I was 7, I never EVER knew what people meant when they said, “ready?” or pretty much when anyone especially grownups asked me anything. 

So, I said, “yup”.   With that, grandpa grabbed the thick rope on the toboggan and started to run, pulling me down the driveway and onto Middle Road, the country lane that bordered his property.  For a surreal few seconds, gramps trotted ahead of me on the toboggan as I clung-on in utter disbelief.  In my mind, at the time, my grandfather was ancient, and I was amazed that he could run at all, and I was a little concerned that he would drop dead in front of me, although that concern was conflicted by an intense desire to see how far he could take me.   Any concern I had for grandpa confirms what a stupid kid I was; a conclusion to which my readers have probably long since arrived.  In reality, he was then probably only in his early 60s, not far beyond my age now, and he probably felt (and was) virile as ever (as I do and am).   

Anyway, at last, pooped or maybe just hungry for lunch, grandpa pulled me back up into the driveway and walked into the house, without saying another word.  I sat on the toboggan in the driveway, stupefied in the silence of the country, and smiling widely.  I wasn’t sure that the hell had just happened, but I sure knew where I stood with gramps.