One-Eyed Jack,
er Bob
By Bob Stevens, The Muddled Male
Many
of you have asked how we are doing since we moved down off the hill and away
from the many perks that came with living on Sweetwater Hill. Perks such as snow in the winter, mud in the
spring, and dust in the summer. We
freely admit that we miss you all. But
we also admit that living in town has some undeniable benefits. Like being really close to multiple suppliers
that can meet the many needs that always seem to crop-up late at night in the
middle of a project that just can’t wait until morning. I admit that convenience is a bigger drain on
our budget since I have a hard time going to the hardware store without also
stopping at the A&W stand for a root beer freeze, and/or Taco Time for an
order of Mexi-Fries. But our bill for
gas to run the car is considerably less since we aren’t driving up and down the
canyon in an attempt to complete the same errands.
And
something new resulted from our move. For
the first time in our life Ann, my wife, and I have registered to participate
in a presidential caucus this coming Tuesday.
We were a little hesitant since the party for which we plan to caucus is
experiencing a little turmoil this election year, but we felt that we needed to
become involved and have at least a little say in who should have a chance at
being our leader for the next four years.
To protect ourselves from the possibility that the opposing party might
try to send in some hooligans to break up our caucus, I am wearing my concealed
carry permit on a chain around my neck.
For emphasis I am also wearing a card with a quote from Al Capone, “You can get more with a kind word and a gun
than you can with a kind word alone.”
As you know, I don’t own a gun, but since my card says, Concealed
Firearm Permit they won’t know whether I don’t have a gun or I have one but
it’s concealed. Besides, I have Al
Capone on my side so nobody will want to take a chance and mess with me.
Moving
here has caused me a problem, however. Those
of you who know Ann, know how carefully she shops. She reads all the labels to check for
partially hydrogenated anything, for dangerous dyes, chemicals with strange
sounding names, and for fat, calories, and carbohydrates. When she checks the bananas she carefully looks
at each bunch to make certain that there aren’t any signs of even a minor
bruise and that the level of ripening is such that they can be stored at home
without any banana becoming over-ripe right up to the time that the last one
has been eaten. Grapes get even closer
scrutiny. Each grape in a bunch must be
gently squeezed to make certain that no grape has started to go soft. Going shopping is a little like going to the
library together and waiting while Ann reads a novel.
I
have taken to walking way behind her so that anyone who notices us will assume
we aren’t together. Sometimes I go stand
in front of the donut display hoping that people will think that I am just
standing there ogling sweets. The thing
that really worries me are the fruit and vegetable displays. The workers in this department spend a lot of
time carefully arranging the displayed items in a tall stack so that their
shape or texture or color form an appealing pattern that will catch the eye of
a shopper walking by. The problem comes
when Ann has inspected the entire display and decides that the best vegetable
or the best fruit happens to be the one located exactly in the center of the
pattern. That means that she has to take
one of lesser quality off the top of the display to carefully insert in place
of the perfect one she is about to remove from the middle of the stack so that
the whole display doesn’t come crashing down and go rolling across the floor.
I
have decided that the only thing I can do to keep from being recognized as an
accomplice in that situation is to start wearing a Burqa with only one veiled
eye opening so that there is no recognizable part of me that shows. However, if you happen to see someone in a
Burqa with the only thing showing being a scruffy pair of men’s’ size 12,
double wide Sketchers footwear showing below the robe as he is being drug away
from the donut display by a pair of “The Donald’s” bodyguards with deportation
on their mind, please start a riot and stop them because the person being
dragged will likely be me. And I don’t
want to miss the caucus and my chance to be a good citizen.
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