Dip in the Pool

 

Decades ago, a fellow named Ian Fleming created a book and movie character named James Bond.

 

James Bond was played by a number of different actors, some better than others, but most were campy, which aside from the excitement, was the main draw.

 

Bond’s character was suave and resourceful and always won over the various villains against whom he fought to summarily save the world.

 

Adolfo Celi, aka: Emilio Largo

Throughout the nearly 60-year series, creative writers helped augment the plots with inventive tools, weapons, accessories, and methods of death.  Those methods of death usually centered on Bond being captured and secured to a device certain to deliver a gory, painful demise.

 

Lasers, a circular saw, explosives, physical crushing, and poison gas, were among the countless methods used in futile attempts to kill hero Bond, all to no avail.

 

One particular bad guy, Emilio Largo, had a shark-filled pool beneath his plush office.  Regularly, inept and disloyal henchmen would be led into the boss’s office. 

 

After a brief monologue about their shortcomings, and poor performance appraisal, a well-hidden trap door would open upon a push of a secret red button.

 

SWOOSH!!!  SPLAAASH!!!  Suddenly the henchman would slide down a ramp directly into the pool only to be consumed by an awaiting hungry shark.  Case closed.

 

Although very efficient and effective, Bond was savvy enough to avoid the express trip to the pool, unlike those hapless bad guys.

 

It was just after my afternoon nap when I read a news article about another malcontent living in the greatest country in the world, the U.S.A., whining about something having to do with a slight from a total stranger.

 

It seems as though a transvestite was taken aback at a department of motor vehicle center (DMV) because there was no way for them to register their desired sex.  They became apoplectic because their only choices for sex were “male” and “female.”  What was it to do?

 

You see, I’m not sure if it was a man-to-woman transfer or a woman-to-man conversion. In any case, it was angry because its chosen sex was unavailable to select.  Simply peeking into their britches was not an option to make a decision so of course, the logical thing to do was call a local news agency to make people publicly aware.

 

Being giddy over the idea of a civil servant disrespecting a member of a minority community – transvestites in this case, that is – this hard hitting story made many of the news outlets help other uncertain societal members who cannot remember what sex they were at birth.  Alas. 

Now is when I thought about Bond’s villain, Emilio Largo.  This would have been an opportune time to employ a ruse to get the furious transvestite to enter a room adjacent to the DMV desk.  With a quick buzz to open the door, an electric lock would permit entry.  After a few silent  face-to-face seconds with another DMV employee their complaint could be argued.

SWOOSH!!!  SPLAAASH!!! And the slide trap door would spring back into place ready for the next big non-issue.   

What became a giant social volcanic eruption could be settled in a mere seconds with aplomb.  Such a problem solver could theoretically be used for protestors caught with Molotov cocktails, unsuspecting armed burglars accosted by homeowners, and greedy, lying politicians, but I repeat myself, would alleviate court trials and prison overcrowding.

Just imagine how the recidivism rate would drop dramatically, as well.

 

Of course I’m half-joking, but only half.  People who have no genuine problems in life want to make me aware.  FYI, I can’t and won’t try to manage your life by enacting stupid legislation to make you happy until your next half-baked meltdown.

 

But here’s some free advice: Get a life and do the best in life with what you have.  Being someone or something else is not going to make your life better.  Or mine.

 

SWOOSH!!!  SPLAAASH!!!

Bundle o’ Cash

 As a small child I performed various chores around the house in an effort to earn money.  My family was blue collar and we weren’t privileged enough to warrant an allowance; we had to work for anything we received.

 

And in those young years I hated reading school books and such, but I gravitated toward comic books.  Superman, Batman, Spiderman, and the like, were all part of my modest library.

 

It should be noted that back then, an hourly wage was about $1.00.  Comic books were selling for between 5 and 12 cents.  My payment for chores amounted to five cents.  Fair compensation as slave labor goes.

 

I would ride my bike to the corner store to eagerly spend my hard earned cash, all the while learning about capitalism and the wage system.

 

It didn’t take long before I realized my pay was commensurate with my duties and complexity thereof.  That valuable lesson gave me the incentive to perform more complex jobs to earn more money.  And that led to a bigger cash stash or more comic books.  Pretty simple, actually.

 

Eventually, I grew into professional sports, along with other neighborhood kids, and used my pennies to purchase sports cards rather than comic books.

 

At that time, baseball and football cards were available, but not hockey, soccer, or Pokemon cards.

 

We guys would travel as a caravan to the corner store to buy the cards du jure.  Baseball cards were bought in the summer, football cards in the fall and winter months.

 

Returning to one of the gang’s garage we would look over our goodies and compare our luck while attempting to chew on a pink cardboard-like insert supposedly identified as bubble gum.  These cards were sold in concealed packages with the gum and four or five cards.  It was the secrecy that kept selling the cards in hope of getting a “good one.”

 

It may be hard to believe, but none of us were aficionados when it came to sports cards or collecting or chewing gum.  It didn’t take long before we became bored with our sorting and card trading and decided to move on to other more productive activities like annoying the neighbors.

 

This is where we would take those “unwanted” and “untraded” cards and place them into our pockets.  We would then travel to my backyard to liberate a handful of spring-loaded clothespins.

 

As a mini-history lesson, clothespins were/are used by people with foresight to hang their freshly-washed laundry in the sun on pieces of rope called “clotheslines” and secured with “clothespins.”  This is an early version solar awareness.  You’re welcome.

 

In any case, those pilfered clothespins were used to secure the surplus sports cards to our bicycles.  They would be attached to the fender braces with the clothespins and protrude into the spokes.  Here’s the cool part.

 

Still too cool!

When you rode your bike the cards would make a slapping sound that remotely mimicked a motorcycle in critical condition.  As a bonus, that noise would irritate the neighbors trying to take naps or quietly read.

 

Just as an aside, my grandmother always had a deck of cards on hand for playing solitaire.  She was always angry because she never won.  One day she counted the cards in the deck and discovered she was four short.  As it happens, playing cards worked as well as baseball cards for producing noise.  Alas I never confessed.

 

So it was with interest when I read about a Mickey Mantle rookie baseball card, in pristine condition, had recently sold for the astonishing amount of $5,200.000!  That’s a lot of money for a card that originally sold for a nickel.

 

I quickly became reflective about my possible loss of $5,199,999.95 for using a special baseball card so that I could make a motorcycle-like noise on my bike.

 

After a fashion I realized it was okay then, and okay now.  I had fun.

Public Service Announcement

Just last week I needed to break my house arrest – uh, quarantine – to shop for some absolute necessities. Toilet paper, paper towels, and rye whiskey, topped the list. 

While entering the stores I noticed a prominently displayed sign glued to the glass doors indicating masks were required before entering. Of course, I had mine, as did my sainted wife. We snapped the elastic straps behind our ears and went in to help the economy. But then… 

It didn’t take but a nanosecond to detect the blatant lack of masks by so many shoppers. Most of those tattooed mask miscreants had ample time to don hair curlers, camouflage britches, and pink fuzzy slippers; the women were dressed to the nines, as well. 

I did my best to glare at them in an effort to shame them, but it wasn’t long before I realized they were likely too stupid to read the sign. Maybe they were illiterate; in any case, they should have been accosted by the equally clueless loss-prevention security guards. 

Clearly they weren’t stopped at the door so, perhaps the COVID-19 crisis was over. But no. 

In an effort to stem the seemingly out-of-control tide of breathlessly issued statistics about the number of cases, number of ventilators, and number of deaths, I’d like to take this opportunity to offer this space and time as a public service announcement. 

To curtail the spread of COVID-19, the following pictures should help stop this pandemic.

This wearer is sure where her mouth is located. Unfortunately she is unaware air enters and leaves through her nose. This is wrong.

This wearer is unclear as to where his mouth and nose are located. This is wrong.

Smokey the Cat is demonstrating the proper way to wear a mask. This is correct. 

Herein ends the instructive segment for another week. Take care, be safe, and you’re welcome.

Same Old Same Old

Our calendars have barely turned to 2021 and already we have topics to discuss, some of which are personal in nature, others are political, of course.

 

On the personal side, my New Year’s resolution has fallen to the wayside.  I don’t know why I continually make them year after year after year.  Wait.

 

That’s my new New Year’s resolution: Don’t make any New Year’s resolutions.  Nuff said.

 

Inasmuch as we quickly waded back into the political arena, I’ll try to keep this brief because we’re all pretty exhausted from the media’s lies over the past five years.

 

President Donald J. Trump desperately tried to tie up loose ends before his expected departure in a few short weeks.  One item on his agenda was to keep the guvment open.

 

You see, the guvment needs a budget in order to exist to pay its bills, and Congress holds the purse, not President Trump.  The annual budget runs from October 1st to the following September 30^th, every year.  

 

Unfortunately, Congress was much too busy with their shenanigans with impeachment, working to elect Joe Biden, and something called COVID-19, to do their jobs for which they were hired by their constituents.  Alas.

 

Hoping President Trump would leave office before noticing the famous bottomless treasure chest of the U.S. Guvment was as empty as Joy Behar’s head, Congress thought their foot dragging would prevent the sitting president from doing his job, unlike them.

 

They niggled until the 11^th hour before proposing a budget that gave $174,000,000,000 to America, and $726,000,000,000 to the rest of the world.  Please re-read that before you reach for the bottle of Scotch.

 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat, has been jerking Americans around by a short leash for decades and hasn’t stopped yet.  Her proposal for helping unemployed and destitute Americans was to give them a check for $600.

 

That $600 is supposed to help impoverished families buy groceries, pay rents and mortgages, and utilities for months.  Of course, if you live in Zimbabwe, you be a millionaire with $600.  In America, that’s enough to keep a car in the driveway, but without insurance.

 

Not be left out, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican, blocked a last-ditch effort by President Trump to increase those checks to $2000.  Good Ol’ Boy Mitch pretended he didn’t know what was happening and let the Trump increase expire without action.

 

So there are two examples of people who are over-employed and working in the guvment.

 

Meanwhile, California Gubenor Gavin Newsom, Democrat, began practicing crying on-cue, much like an old fashioned starlet in one of those black and white movies.  He is now contending he will be issuing “stay-at-home-orders” until Simon Says…

 

Closely following California’s Brain Trust, New York State and City officials are ardently trying to one-up already bankrupt California by demanding business owners, shopkeeper, restaurateurs, and anyone else providing their guvment types with a tax base, to close up.

 

Clearly these elected nincompoops, and hence their voting constituents, are getting what they asked for.  It won’t be long before the unemployed are unable to keep their residences, vehicles, or anything else without guvment approval.

 

These same idiot politicians who refuse to let you work demand you continue living life as usual.  Of course you can’t.  Any industry that allows its workers to be constructively employed will also fold because no one will be able to buy their products.  Oh, oh.

 

In that case, the guvment will give you sustenance through food banks, gas through rationing, “free universal healthcare” via Veteran’s Administration medical services, and that “free college education” will mean nothing more than everyone bragging they own a coffee cup.

 

But there is good news.  Antifa are still rioting in Portland, Oregon, because they want mayhem and they desperately want to instill fear.  Congratulations!  Mission accomplished.

 

We already know Facebook and Twitter are pro-censorship and enjoy controlling their focused narratives.  They, too, lied to not only Congress, and the Senate, but the entire United States population about blocking postings by and for President Trump.

 

So here we are heading down the same path in a different year with similar scenery and familiar faces.  And I’m still writing the wrong year on my checks – 2013.

 

People cheered the end of 2020.  I’m not sure why, though.

 

Happy New Year.