Folks, I have bad news about my new Farm Bill Ouija Board. I’ve discovered that I can’t gear up to produce and ship the boards until after the last sign-up date. Hence, there’s no need to keep trying to make them since they won’t be any good to use for another five years. Sorry, because I know they’d have been a big help in making your farm bill decisions.
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The yo-yo weather continues in these parts. Last week I got out for another semi-successful afternoon of fishing. However, the pan fish I caught were small enuf that filleting them would have been counter-productive to eating, so I simply scaled the fish, as I did for the first 50 years of my life, fried them whole, and picked bones as I ate them. I’d forgotten how delicious eating them that way wuz, plus there wuz more fish flesh to eat. Plus, I had to be patient and enjoy the meal rather than gulping it down.
Sadly, the weather turned back to winter the very next day with temperatures 50 degrees colder and a skift of snow. Probably no more fishin’ weather until March or April. But, I can always hope.
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Phones have become a never-ending source of humorous stories. This week I’ve got two more that will make you chuckle. I’m withholding the fellow’s name to protect the guilty.
Seems that the fellow’s daughter and family, which includes three grand children, were visiting from the front range of the Rockies for a long weekend. The youngest grandchild is under a year old and in the active crawling and pulling up stage. In fact, to make life easier, they tried to put all the knick-knacks and other small stuff in the house up high and out-of-reach of their ambitious “crawler.”
Well, after the grandkids departed, the fellow went about picking up the aftermath of their visit. That’s when he discovered that his house phone wuz missing from it’s stand. A lengthy search under sofa cushions, under furniture, and anywhere else he could think of to look turned up no phone.
So, in hopes that his daughter had put the phone up out of the crawler’s reach, he called her on his cell phone and asked her about the phone. The daughter’s reply was, “Did you look in the garbage can? We find toys in our garbage all the time.”
The ugly reality hit. The fellow had already taken the garbage out to the roadside for its Monday morning pickup. So-o-o, out to the garbage bag the fellow went and brought it into his garage to sift through.
Ugh! Inside the garbage were stinky “brown” diapers, stinky “wet” diapers, banana peels, wet coffee grounds, you name it. The fellow carefully lifted out about two-thirds of the bag and still found no phone. Finally, in desperation, he grabbed his cell phone and called his home phone number.
Aha! He heard a faint ring — coming right from the bottom of the garbage bag. Upending the bag on the garage floor, he found his reeking home phone coated in wet coffee grounds.
But, now to the good news. After blowing away most of the coffee grounds, drying out the phone, and sanitizing it, the phone worked as good as new. The fellow says he never will know how his crawling grandson managed to get the phone from its cradle and drop it into a garbage can as tall as his head. He’s guessing the little guy saw adults dropping “things” into the can all day and figgered he’d just follow their example.
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Now, the same fellow had a funny experience with his cell phone just a few days later.
He is on-call to help unload the monthly truckload of groceries delivered to the local Food Bank. Unfortunately, this month’s call to unload came at 6 a.m. on a morning near zero degrees with snow and ice on everything.
However, he joined the unloading crew and spent about an hour pulling 50 pound sacks of potatoes, crates of frozen chicken, and boxes of canned veggies into the distribution center.
Alas, when he wuz done, the feller tapped his front shirt pocket and discovered no cell phone. The group looked through the snow and into boxes. No phone. The fellow even drove home to see if he’d left the phone there. No luck.
Returning to the scene of the loss, he had someone else call his cell phone number. Ta-da! They heard his cell ring and it seemed to be coming from off his clothing. He felt in all his pockets to no avail. One of the lady helpers even “frisked” the fellow for his phone while her hubby said, “Watch where you put your hands.”
Then, the funny discovery came. The fellow’s cell phone wuz still in his shirt pocket, where he’s discovered it missing, but it had fallen to the bottom of the pocket and his checkbook, pen, and notebook had floated on top of it.
I wuzn’t there to hear all the laughter that ensued. But, I wish I had been.
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Last week I received an email containing pictures of bumper stickers for the elderly. I have no idea where they originated, but they contained many slogans of wisdom. Here are a few of them: “Don’t worry about your health. It will go away soon enough.” “Life is easy. It’s the people who make it difficult.” “I always cook with wine. Sometimes I even add it to my food.” And, finally, the last word: “Live each day like it’s your last. One day you’ll get it right!” Have a good ‘un.
