Well I suppose it had to happen, probably sooner rather than later. When I asked our grandsons, “hey, what should I right about tonight?” They both replied, pretty much in unison, “boogers!! CHRISTMAS BOOGERS!!” And I confess I have never heard of Christmas Boogers before. Never really even thought too much about boogers during Christmas. But we’re talking about young men here, and they are finding humor in various bodily functions. And boogers, apparently, are high on the list. So to our fine young men, I hereby dedicate this very short poem about
Christmas Boogers
by Ken Hansen
Christmas time is almost here.
A very happy time of year.
My dreams are filled with yummy treats.
Egg nog, cookies, and other sweets.
They’re made with yummy stuff and sugars.
Much tastier than Christmas Boogers.
OK… that’s enough about boogers, thank you!
If you can fathom how surprised I was to hear about Christmas Boogers, imagine how amazed I was to learn about spider milk! Yes, that’s right boys and girls, there really is such a thing as spider milk!! And yes, if you click on spider milk, you can read about this newly discovered aspect of spider parenting. A study recently published in Science magazine describes the discovery that a jumping spider in southeastern Asia actually produces a liquid to feed its young.
Although the “milk” doesn’t contain lactose, which is found in milk produced by mammals, scientists are calling the nutritious liquid “milk.” I find this kind of thing rather mind boggling; but it also verifies what I’ve believed for many years: there is so much in this world about which we have very little understanding. I also strongly believe that we humans need to become much more conscious of all the life forms on this planet we call home. Studies like this reinforce the my strong conviction that animals of all types love and care for their babies.
However, there’s no way I’m going to finish this Happy Friday!!! installment without having a little bit of fun with the idea of spider milk. My hope is that no silly humans start any jumping spider farms. You’d need a very small stool to milk a spider. And you might squish them in the process of milking. Also, I’m not too sure how many people are interested in spider cheese, spider yogurt, or spider half & half for coffee. But I envision a silly conversation between me and the grandsons…
Grandsons: “What’s for dessert tonight, Papa??”
Me:“Well, I’m not sure. I’ve been watching to see if you are enjoying any Christmas Boogers; but haven’t seen any nose mining today.”
Grandsons: “Ha ha!! You just didn’t catch us!! How about some pie??”
Me: “OK, but we’re all out of spider whipping cream, so it will have to be Redi-Whip.”
Grandsons (sounding disappointed): “Oh alright…”
Well it’s that time of year, so let’s see what happened with Pluto’s Christmas tree.
OK, so it’s like this, right?? My Beautiful Girlfriend went to Florida for a week to visit her sister and other family. Therefore, I formulated some grandiose plans of doing some work in the garden, and even though it’s late I was really hoping to get my garlic planted. I was also toying with the idea of stacking a bunch of firewood that was delivered on Tuesday. We store much of our wood in the basement to keep it dry and ready for burning you see.
Mother Nature, however, had other plans. I mean, yes I’m fully aware that climate change is here, and that we can’t expect the weather to behave in a very predictable way much of the time. But several inches of snow this early in November is simply not fair. I mean seriously, I have things to see and people to do!! Or something like that… I did get a little wood in the house before the sky opened up and dumped white stuff on us; so that was a good thing. No gardening though. I was worried that if I ran the rototiller to prepare the garlic bed; the ground would get too cold and it would be pretty much ridiculous to plant.
One thing I completely forgot to do earlier this week: I forgot to throw coat hangers at the sun to force it to do my bidding. This is a tried and never proven method of weather control; but you have to remember to only use metal coat hangers. Metal hangers are essential because they transmit bioelectric brain waves from the person who is tossing them. This of course has absolutely no effect, and may cause a stray hanger or two to become lodged in a tree, only to fall on your noggin the next time a bit wind comes up and then maybe the pointy end will stab you in the nostrils while you’re looking up and if that doesn’t happen you might instead forget to pick it up if it’s in the lawn and then the mower will go KERCLACK!! when it flings the hanger out of the grass chute and then of course it will add insult to injury when the hanger smacks into your car window and makes you want to write ridiculously long run-on sentences.
Hanger flinging at least gives you a way to let off steam, though. Wait!! Maybe I should try steam!! That might warm it up outside!! Yes!! I’ll get a bunch of camp stoves and boil water outside for a few days!! Oh wait… those run on propane. More carbon footprint stuff. More climate change. Sheesh. Never mind.
Well I did get a half bushel of apples chopped up and thrown in the freezer. We’ll keep them there till we’re ready to make applesauce or, even yummier, apple butter. Mmmm I love that stuff. And much of the other outside chores might have gotten done (maybe) ( I don’t know) (but there are too many parentheses now) if I was retired. I’ve often told my Lovely Bride, “work really interferes with my free time.”
That’s OK… only 1 year, 3 months, and 16 days to go till retirement. Then maybe I need to learn from Grampy and try my hand at inventing some solutions to all these chores…
Well, my Beautiful Girlfriend’s gonna go visit her sister for a week. All the last minute to-do’s are getting scratched off downstairs as she whirls around to make final preparations. She’s been feeling a bit crappy lately, so there wasn’t much “gettin’ ready zooming” until today. But I’ll be taking her to the airport tomorrow morning and on the way home I’ll try to avoid crashing into November snowflakes (November snowflakes!?!? It’s too early for these stinkin’ snowflakes!!) as I cry my eyeballs out while singing at the top of my lungs a new song I just made up that I’m using a run-on sentence to introduce to all of you who have dared to read this far:
Oh me, oh my, I ain’t gonna cry
My baby’s leavin’ me
Oh me, oh my, bought her tickets to fly
My baby’s leavin’ me
Everything’s gonna be OK
It’s gonna be alright
It’s gonna be OK I say,
I’ll catch her on the return flight
This of course is sung to the tune of “Oh me, oh my, I ain’t gonna cry.”
Or something.
Anyway, I’ll be OK I promise. After all, her sister hit a milestone birthday yesterday, and she wants some Sister Time. Rightly so, my Beautiful Sister-In-Law lives in Southern Florida, which is more than 3.75 miles from West Michigan; so they don’t get to visit in person very often. And believe it or don’t, I’m not even jealous that my Lovely Bride Lady will be enjoying temperatures in the 70s and 80s while I get to enjoy the early arrival of wintry weather here in Beautifully Frigid West Michigan. Yeah… ha ha on us, we Michiganders will be frolicking about in 20s and 30s, and most of us haven’t even gotten our leaves off the ground yet.
Well OK maybe I’m just a tiny bit jealous. After looking at the weather, could be I might actually have to shovel snow!! No fair I say!! It’s too early outside for this crap!!
But of course when the Cat’s away, the Mouse will play… it’s only fair, right? You bet!! And I’m guessing you all know what that means! Yes! Pizza! I think so anyway. Maybe not. I just made a boatload of soup we had for dinner to try to knock my Honey Pie’s coughing-sneezing-sore throat bug in the dirt (we actually seem to be winning). So I’ll have some soup till it’s gone I suppose. Ooooo… maybe a Bad Breath Sandwich or two: sardines in tomato sauce on some caraway rye (with the seeds of course) slathered in mayo and lots of diced onions. Oh my that’s yummy!! Then I come to your house and breathe near your face so you can enjoy my fish breath!
Tomorrow I might do something really crazy and rototill the garden. Depends on how much it’s snowing I suppose. Sheesh, haven’t even planted the garlic yet!! And yes, I think I can still plant if I do it soon. According to what I’ve read, it just needs to be in the ground before the hard freeze comes. Might be able to pull that off… Oh and another wacky time is in store for me: clean and bake the two monster pumpkins that “volunteered” themselves out of the compost pile this past summer. Yeah, we were gonna carve them up for Hallowe’en, but they look good enough to eat, so that’s what’s in store for them. Mmmm… pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup, maybe some pumpkin bread. Who knows? I’ll just clean them out, bake them, bag them, and chuck them in the freezer. Oh wow I also need to chop up that half bushel of apples we got from the farmers market before they get rotten.
Oh and not to forget: the firewood people are supposed to deliver sometime this week. They dump it in the driveway so that will keep me busy for a while. And then there’s work… which makes me to barf on the ground… but I’m all out of vacation for this year so I suppose I should show up and do stuff. Those darn employers… they actually expect people to do things for the money they get!!
So I have really nothing much to do.
I’m also looking forward to some alone time. I don’t get that very often. But of course, I’ll miss my Beautiful Best Friend Who Let Me Marry Her Many Years Ago. When that happens, maybe I’ll start singing…
No. I’m NOT ready for no stinkin’ football. Call me any name in the book you like. OK, get any book you like and call me names out of it, see if I care. I’m not afraid to admit it: I’m a US citizen and I am not fond of football. Actually, I’m not really fond of any sport when it gets right down to it. Sure, I know how to go to a game and support loved ones as they run out to the field and chase the ball. I mean, sheesh, I can play nice. On such occasions I’ll even find myself jumping from the stands and rooting for the home team. I’ll consider myself innocent on those counts due to temporary insanity.
You see, sports are basically against my religion. But then, religion is also against my religion. Both activities generate way too much ego driven squabbling if you ask me.
I know… nobody asked me. Well as Grandma Loftus used to say, “that’s my two cents. Nobody asked me fer it, but I give it to ya’s anyhow.” Not sure if she liked sports or not, but every once in awhile she’d belt out her rendition of “Take Me Out To The Ball Game.”
I really loved that lady.
Well wait now… I actually did have a rather enjoyable football experience recently. Although many Michiganders remain what often appears as irrationally hopeful, the Detroit Lions have often been accused of impersonating a professional football team. However, a couple weeks ago, I was flipping channels and noticed they were winning… against the New England Patriots!! The Lions whomped the Patriots 26 to 10 !! Now that was cool!!
Now baseball is OK. Yes, I know it’s a sport; one which I’ve actually played!! Ah, Little League… those were the days. Even though I’m originally from New York, I think the Yankees need to come in last place for a few decades. It’s someone else’s turn for crying out loud!! Here in West Michigan if the Tigers fall on their hineys we turn to Chicago and root for the Cubs. The Cubs have actually done pretty darn good lately!! I don’t really know any of the player’s names, so of course I have no idea about their records. And I guess the only time I really watch much baseball is during the World Series; and only then when I’m rooting for one underdog or another. And much of the time I don’t even watch the Series.
So OK, I don’t really care that much about baseball either.
So much money!! And all that merchandising!! Oy yoy yoy. Not to mention the interference with many of my favorite programs because a game precludes one of my favorite shows. We don’t really watch all that much TV as it is, so when one of “our shows” gets knocked out of the schedule by a ball game we get a bit annoyed. Some would say we’re still in the stone age because we get all our TV from our antenna. Mostly we find ourselves watching BS television: CBS and PBS (ha, ha ha, I make silly joke of BS) (ha). We have a few favorites that we watch consistently, so one can imagine the frustration when NCIS is delayed because “it’s a big game tonight!! The Packers are playing the Red Wings (or something).”
“Awww Mannn!!”
But WAIT!! There really IS some baseball I’ve always enjoyed; for as long as I can remember really. It’s a special team that Bud Abbott and Lou Costello talked about. The team was known for their strange names. Maybe you’ve heard of them…
I hope none of you can forgive me, but as some of you may know I missed the “Happy Friday!!!” deadline this yesterday; which was the day before today because today is Saturday now and I haven’t posted a new “Happy Friday!!!” until just now, which actually makes it a “Happy Saturday!!!” but I have a very good excuse in spite of this questionably punctuated run-on sentence.
Yes.
You see, Wednesday evening I snorked something jingly in my nose, and my throat started to raspify and also sorify, neither of which are words but they describe in pretty accurate detail the ouchiness of my throat place. I was getting a stinkin’ cold for cryin’ out loud. This was not something I deemed fair; so I tried to gargle some Listerine and HOLY ACKKK PTOOO that stuff is NASTY!! Didn’t help much neither.
Then I sucked on a zinc lozenge or two or maybe three and that didn’t stop the onset neither. OK, now it was time for the Holy Moly Vitamin C With Extra Goodies Fizzy Thing and the nasty bug didn’t let go. So… then I went to work Thursday morning.
Then, I came home from work Thursday morning. I had some Campbell’s Chicken Gumbo soup to which I added about 1 teaspoon of thyme, 1 teaspoon of sage (those open the sinuses) and heated it up to a bubbly wazoo. As soon as the boiling wazoo was blubbining, I took the soup off the heat and added the finely chopped VERY LARGE CLOVE of garlic that I harvested from the garden the other day. Covered it quickly, came back in a couple minutes and the garlic was cookified enough to be palatable but not harmed. Too much heating of fresh garlic reduces its cold whomping properties you see.
Too soon old, too late smart sometimes, but I’m getting better at listening to my body and my friends. On Thursday, a friend told me just before I left work, “you need to be warm and get some rest.” And my body said, “I’m sick, take me home now.” Then I called in sick for Friday too, and enjoyed more cold killing soup and much sleeping.
OK then! I feel much better now thank you. And although I’m a very huggy guy, we went to a large gathering tonight and I warned all my friends that I’ve been fighting a cold. Most ran away screaming and flailing their arms in terror (I exaggerate slightly perhaps). Others hugged me anyway. Well, only three hugged me anyway. But I don’t blame those who didn’t… I don’t want anyone to suffer. My Beautiful Girlfriend had me look it up today… you can be contagious for 5 to 7 days after the cold symptoms appear!! So, I’ll be warning my friends until Thursday because I love them.
There, that’s the story my friends. As I mentioned earlier, I’m getting better at taking care of myself when illness attacks. In the “good old days,” I would have taken cold medicine and tried to tough it out at work, and continue my daily routine. This would inevitably cause a cold to last for well over a week rather than a couple days. I’ll try to make this a habit when a cold knocks on my snotlocker.
My Beautiful Girlfriend and her Beautiful Friends will soon be having a Beautiful Time “camping” in a cabin up in Beautiful Lelanau, and leave me All Alone with the Beautiful Cat Mr. Freddy The Freeloader and No Adult Supervision; as described by this Beautiful Run-On Sentence with Beautifully Superfluous Capitalization And That’s Just The Way I Roll.
Isn’t that Beautiful? Yes, it is.
This is PARTY TIME, kids!! That’s right, when the wife’s away, the husband will, well… EAT!!Yes, I know, this is something most people do every day. But when I party down, I don’t mess around. I go for the high-calorie, high-cholesterol goodies that give my mouth and flavor flingers great joy. Yes my friends, I plan to eat pizza and other nutritious snacks.
Perhaps I’ll have a Fried Chicken Night, with a Side Order of Macaroni & Cheese. These delicacies are Capitalized because I rarely eat them anymore. And our local Meijer makes some pretty darn good Fried Macaroni & Chicken Cheese. Not sure what Fred’s having… his “goodies” come in a can and it doesn’t look very appetizing to me. Sure, there are enticing labels like “Sea Captain’s Choice,” and “Mariner’s Platter,” but even though I love to eat dead fish it just doesn’t really give my sniffer anything to drool about. Unlike many of our previous critters, Mr. Fred has little use for people food. Oh well, that’s more for me!!
Of course, I suppose I could do something really silly like go out in the garden and pick some more beans. The scarlet runner beans are producing like crazy, and I don’t want any to go to waste. Got some greens that need picking too… Might even get ambitious and blanch and freeze some. I mean, hey, do I know how to party or what??
Well regardless of all that weird, healthy garden stuff, I’m looking forward to some alone time when I can have me some good eats. I believe my mouth will be very happy, and my belly will feel like I ate a wheelbarrow load of lead sinkers. I’ll watch my limbs very carefully to see if any large cholesterol molecules glob together and travel about under my skin. I’m sure I’ll pay for my fun when it’s time to step on the bathroom scale.
I have a feeling that when my Beautiful Girlfriend returns I’ll be really ready to behave myself. I don’t wanna croak from Lardening of the Arteries.
I’ll be eating at home mostly… and if not, you can bet I won’t be going to this restaurant!!
So there I was, minding my own business when the Marvelous Company For Which I Work (MCFWIW) changed the vacation policy again and when I left my previous employer I had 4 weeks but could only negotiate 2 weeks and then I was starting to earn more vacation and they changed how quickly you can earn it so I had to wait for my 15th year anniversary to get my 4 weeks again but even though I was hired in February I have to wait till 2019 to take the 4 weeks and now they’re telling us that in the year I retire I no longer have 4 weeks at the beginning of the year; but because I’m retiring in March of 2020 I can take a whopping1/12th of 20 days which boils down to 3 1/3 days I can take before I retire and that makes me just a little bit annoyed; to the point where I even added yet more words to this run-on sentence which is beginning to fill the whole stinkin’ page.
Harrumph!!
Yes, I know I’m supposed to be grateful; and believe it or not, I really am. The job pays well and it’s close to home. Even though it’s a factory job, the place doesn’t stink. I’m not ingesting dangerous chemicals or licking any radioactive fence posts; I don’t have to run between furnaces that are running at 1400 degrees (I actually did have a job like that before) (the furnace things I mean). Nope, it’s just a lowly computer support job with lots of nice people who are doing their best to earn a living like me.
So I’m going to start playing the lottery and also take lots of quarters to the casino and maybe even try selling my nose hairs (I’ll tell folks they are clippings from really famous people) so I can get rich quick and not have to go to work anymore. Then I can afford the very best macaroni and cheese for dinner accompanied by a nice glass of vintage of Bear Swamp Tap Water (we really do have very good water); perhaps polished off with some Dingleberry Surprise for dessert with lots of fluffy cream and chocolate covered broccoli.
There’s only one problem with this plan: whenever I gamble, I lose. I’ve bought lottery tickets, and never even get close to the magic combination of numbers. I’ve also gone to the casino a few times. In those cases, I may as well just put some money in an envelope and leave it at the front desk or something. I haven’t tried selling my nose hairs; but I’ve never been very interested in bamboozling anyone so the “famous people clippings” idea would just be a lie that I’d probably suffer for somewhere down the road.
Nope, I’m just supposed to work a bit longer. There simply is no magical way out for me; and I’ve come to accept it. And that’s very OK… but I’ll still joke about it until I’m done. A nice young man once asked me, “hey Ken, how’s the job going?” I replied, “well, I’m too proud to be a bum; and I’m too chicken to be a criminal so I guess I’ll do this.” We both smiled a bit and went on our merry way.
It’s likely it would happen, but if I had a million dollars… well… I’d be rich!!
A couple weeks ago, my Beautiful Girlfriend (you know, the one who let me marry her 45 years ago) asked me, “what do you want for our anniversary?”
“Nothing,” I replied. Well OK, I pretty much jiggled my eyebrows at her right after that, and she knew exactly what that meant. “You want that all the time,” she snorted. Yeah, I probably do. Hey, what man wouldn’t want to “tango” when you’re married to the Most Beautiful Woman In The Universe? Anyway, I reiterated that I really didn’t want for anything; so we picked out a ring for her and left it at that.
For a while…
Then I thought, well yes I think I do want something… a little getaway perhaps. Labor Day weekend is coming up, and and I had already put in for Friday as a vacation day. I thought it would be rather nice to spend a night at some local motel on the Lake Michigan shore. As luck would have it, Google helped me find just such a place. It’s called the Lakeshore Motel in Manistee, and the only thing between your room and Lake Michigan is sand. Considering the location, I was amazed at the price of a mere $110 for a night.
All the online reviews were stellar… very clean, very nice people, very comfortable. And we found out for ourselves that all that was indeed the case. One review cautioned that if you’re looking for a 5 star motel, this is not it. And we found out for ourselves that this was indeed the case. And yes I know I just wrote the very same sentence twice.
I’m pretty sure the motel was built around the time we were… meaning it’s gotta date back to at least 1960. And although it was very clean and comfortable, I’m not sure anything has changed much since that time. I was pointing out some of the more interesting “features” of the room to my Lovely Bride; and she says, “yes, this is called ‘shabby chic,’ it’s really popular these days.” “Dunno,” I retorted, “I’m thinking this might be just plain shabby.” So of course I had to go to Google and search for this “shabby chic,” and yes, my Beautiful Girlfriend was right, it’s a thing!! But I mean hey, check out this lamp (click on the picture for a better view)…
Weird…
Anyway, we really did love the location. And we really did have a comfortable, clean bed; and a cozy “shabby chic (?),” very clean room. And some interesting little melmac cups for coffee in the morning.
It’s August outside, and if you have read any previous “Happy Friday!!!” snippets, then you might well be able to guess what I’m going to write about tonight.
Hints:
A) It’s August outside… hot weather… dog days of summer.
9) Tuesday will be the 21st of the month…. getting warmer?
Blue) The writing will be about what I believe is something really cool; and
6!) It’s something that always makes me happy.
OK… give up? Let’s see… August, hot weather, really cool… makes me happy. Hmm. Must be…
ICE CREAM!!
Ummm… No. Although My Beautiful Girlfriend just came back from the movies and we did get ice cream on the way home. Yes that’s right boys and girls, we still go to the movies. And we even like movies about comic book characters. Tonight it was “Ant-Man And The Wasp;” a simply marvelous Marvel film. Lots of fun. Oh hey, and if you’re a Marvel movie fan, you know that there’s always some fun little clips that follow the movie; and there’s often something after all the credits have rolled though completely.
Yes. We went on a spontaneous date. I came home from work, and was reminiscing about the little tiff we had the night before. You see, we inherited this rental duplex thing where our son lives and the rental side had The Tenants From Hell in there for way too long and their animals forgot that carpets are not for potty and maybe the people forgot that too we don’t know but it stunk to high heaven so we got some cleaner folks in there to try to make better and they tried their best but the carpet turned out to be too far gone so now we’re having flooring folks put new carpet and also some vinyl floor in and gee it sure would be nice if we could spend some money on our own doggoned house but first we gotta do this and it sure is making us both crabby and we start harrmumphing for no good reason and get a bit pissy and then we kiss and make up and HOLY COW I’m sure glad that kind of crap doesn’t last very long anymore like it used to when we were only a couple days / months / years married but we basically grew up together and I REALLY HOPE nobody is reading this run-on sentence in one breath because if you are we need to call the Guinness Book Of World Records People RIGHT NOW!!
Whew!! That was a big one.
So yes, our marriage flows much more naturally now; and our harmonious times are about 99.9% and our “leave me alone or I’ll bite you” only lasts for about 0.1 % of the time. Probably less. I guess that’s what 45 years of marriage will do if you work at it.
WAIT!! That’s it!! The thing I was gonna have you guess about!! The 21st of August is our anniversary, and this will be 45 years for us!! Sheesh!! Where did all the time go??
“God Only Knows.”
I capitalized “God Only Knows” and put it in quotes because it relates not only to my bewilderment at the very fast passage of time, but it also happens to be the title of a song we’ve been singing to each other lately. The lyrics are very simple, yet profound; at least in my professional opinion. I was reading about the development of the song by Brian Wilson (of Beach Boys fame) and Tony Asher; and they were worried that because the word “God” was in the title it would never get any air play. Brian Wilson believed that “God” could mean any interpretation of our Great Spirit; but the concern was that there would never be any popularity of a song with such a title.
Boy am I glad they were wrong.
The song was recorded in 1966; and here’s a more recent but very nice BBC music version I found on the You Tubes recently. Sing along with me if you like… but I warn you… sometimes I get mushy.
WARNING!! THE FOLLOWING STORM IS LACED WITH LARGE DOSES OF
PURE NONSENSE. IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO ASSIMILATE SUCH COMPLETE
SILLINESS, DISCARD THIS DOCUMENT IMMEDIATELY, IF NOT SOONER.
*************************************************************
Many of you may know this already, but I’ll say it again anyhow. I am married. Not only that, I married The Most Beautiful Woman In The Universe (FYI: all other women are The Second Most Beautiful), and we are very happy. This horrible marriage event occurred 44 years ago; and if we make it till August 21 it will be 45 years!! Is that crompulary or what?? We are best friends, and even love each other enough to smooch and all that other married people stuff. There appears to be no cure for our amplification.
So, on or about August 21, the date of our welding happen thing, we will probably go on our annual honeymoon. This reminds me of one of my favorite honeymoon outings at a nice getaway called the Hotel Frankfurter Hotdog Ranch, where you shell out $19.75 (or more, depending on the type of honeymoon suite you want) for a room, dinner and breakfast for two, taxes and tips all included in the bill. Very nice.
Back in 1876, or perhaps it was another year, I don’t know, I had booked a Ranch Room 22 years in advance, as a surprise. Finally the big day arrived. There we were, in the 1971 Maverick we never owned, galumping along the Lake Michigan shoreline, and suddenly several policemen sang polkas to us while blue smoke from our tailpipe gases filled their eyebrows. Then we started the engine and headed Up North to Frankfort ya shoor youbetcha by golly dere (dey are NOT yoopers dere… I just trew dat in for da halibut).
With an average speed of 12.7 mph, we made it to Frankfort in a record twelve days. Several parts of the car were missing when we arrived, but we just figured the noises were from that funny rope we substituted for the fan belt back in ’83. The hotel was everything we never expected it to be. Deep green clouds of putrid dust belched from the chimneys of the honeymoon suites. We turned to each other and winked, knowing that it would soon be OUR turn to ignite those famous bricks of dehydrated pond scum. At the main entrance, we backed up several yards and then ran through the masking tape barrier they put up to greet arriving guests. On the other side, the staff greeted us in their traditional lizard suits, urging us to bring them insects from the nearby chocolate shop.
After checking in, we decided to take a stroll down to the pier before dinner. There we found very sad fishermen chained to huge iron pilings. To our amazement, that very moment they were sold into slavery and commissioned to teach giant squid how to read and write. The squid plopped themselves on the pier and wouldn’t move to let us by, so we did our best to comfort the fish holders, who ate oversized jelly beans while they cried out for extra ballpoint pens. Suddenly, I had a terrible sinking feeling…
“My Mom knew this would happen,” I uttered.
“What? She knew WHAT would happen,” Kathy asked.
“My left leg just turned into scrambled eggs,” I pouted.
Kathy scolded me, saying, “Kenny, get theheck out of that broken sewage line!! This is no time for stink-o-rama!!” I apologized diversely, and she promised to make some sock puppets when we got home. She knows I’m a sucker for a bucket of removable training shingles (ching-ching!!).
We went back to the Ranch and waited in the basement to be called to dinner. I must point out that this was my least favorite part of our celebration. I couldn’t find the light, so of course I tripped over the giant rusty telephone and nearly fell into the washed popcorn they pulled from the dryer lint trap. Our reservation was finally stained, and we were shown to our topsoil.
Dining at “The Ranch” is nothing short of elegant. The long, dark hallway’s cracked cinder blocks are accented by the flickering light of Bunsen burners at each desk. I had to sit on the side opposite the chair slide-in place, but that didn’t dampen my moisture. I ordered fill-it magnum, and Kathy got shrimp on the half shell. We shared and split the entrees down the middle with a chain saw and splitting maul. Our waiter forced us to watch “Little Lulu” cartoons while we awaited the arrival of the meal. But that was OK; because halfway through the 37th cartoon, Kathy’s mood had been visibly altered. She gazed at me longingly, as if I was the next course, then began nibbling her napkin and pressing her butter knife flat against her eyebrows. What a woman!!
Dessert, of course, was the house specialty, “Frankfurter Hotel Rocky Ranch Hot Dog Heaven,” made with fresh hot dogs that were caught the previous Wednesday. They do magical things with mystery meat. We were awestruck by the lovely appearance of the dish and the surprisingly delectable cherry sauce and imitation peppermint rice filled avocado pebble crunch with boat scrapings and black mold filter cream toppings.
After completely filling our tummies, the Rollers came and boofed us up the stairs to our room. Special humor was exploding as they let us roll downstairs 23 times before the last upheaval; after which they finally shoved us into the room and slammed the room shut on us. We laughed most jolly and tried to reach the pondscum fireplace with our bellies dragging on the floor, splinters in our garments and happy broken belt loops. Needless to say, Kathy did the napkin-nibbling butter knife eyebrow thing the rest of the night, and I responded in turn by recycling the flypaper in the master cylinder accusation chamber.
You can bet we’ll be back again some other anniversary. Until then, please deform all your friends and neighbors. Their armpit hair, after all, will soon be converted into satellite receivers. Now please pass those hot dogs!!
Oh… one last thing: it has occurred to me that because I am older than most compost, many of you have never heard of nor seen a “Little LuLu” cartoon. Well here’s one from 1945…
