October 2016 – HUMOR IS NO FUN UNLESS YOU LAUGH

Ris de Veau

bl_calfpix I was not born to luxury. But I love it. I also was not born in France, yet I love it. Put the two things together and it is no wonder that I eventually found myself in a small Parisian restaurant eating exotic things. But I am racing ahead in my story. First I had to study la carte and in Paris this can be, shall we say, somewhat of a challenge unless you are very fluent in French. But then, before I even tell you this part of the story you must know that many years later I again found myself in a French restaurant, in California this time. My lucky star had just guided me to a lady with whom, it turned out, I was to spend the rest of my days. This was our first lunch out.

But let us get back to Paris and la carte, the menu as we tend to call it here. Being young, unsure, and a little vain I pretended to take my time. The truth was that I could identify very little in that document which seemed edible. I saw the word “ris”, pronounced “ree”, which is how the word for “rice” is pronounced and which is why I assumed that it meant rice. The word “veau” I knew meant veal. And I also recognized the word “terrine”. In my native German it means a bowl of soup. On that basis I placed my order: “La terrine, et puis, le ris de Veau, s’il vous plait”. Voila, polished off, my first “commande” done in perfect style. I also ordered a bottle of water. “Gazeux ou non-gazeux?” the waiter asked. “Gazeux”, I said, although I was not quite sure if we were talking about consistency or effects.

Then I waited for my soup. To my surprise what I did get was a cold paste, half finely ground meat, half salty bread pudding. I ate it, of course, not wanting to be impolite. Another mild surprise was the veal schnitzel on rice. First of all, there was no rice. I had ordered ris, not riz. How was I to know that spelling was so important in France when you eat out. The meat also looked strange, not at all like what I expected. But when I took a bite I found that it was delicious. I did not ask any questions but enjoyed my lunch. I wrote down the name of the dish so I could learn what it was and order it again one day.

That day came when I had lunch with said lady in California. I do not remember what she ordered but when my plate was set before me she, of course, wanted to know what I got. Now it is not easy to explain to an American girl what weird French food a German might eat for lunch, preferably in one word. So I told her the truth, that it was ris, something very good, the thymus gland of a calf. I should have left it at that but she insisted: “The what?” “It is something found in the entrails, the intestines, the guts so to say. It is very special”. You should have seen her face. She had to swallow before she could say something. Jonathan Swift’s roasted babies could not have shocked her more, and I did not even have my tongue in my cheeks.

We are still together, though. In case you wonder.

Full Pharma Ahead

This is one of my stories that appeared in the latest issue of the online magazine DEFENESTRATION: A LITERARY MAGAZINE DEDICATED TO HUMOR. Look it up. Maybe you will laugh a little.

As a bonus I offer this limerick: A man there was who had many ills / For each of them he took several pills / He talked to a simple fellow he knew / His opinion was short and probably true: / “Don’t take any more of them pills. They kills!”

Thanks for tuning in. Herb

From Fitness to Folly

bl_weightpix I exercise. In a gym. When you do that regularly you eventually get to know other people because they do the same, at the same time, on the same machines. I observed one fellow in particular. An over-achiever if there ever was one. Ten sets of ten was nothing to him. He did twenty sets. If twenty pounds was heavy to me he set it at forty. And he was not all that young. Just strong and determined.

By coincidence I met him one day at the supermarket. I mean, I saw him. I did not speak to him. I noticed that he was looking at a large carton of beer, 24 bottles, I think. It must have weighed at least twenty-five pounds or so. He did not even attempt to pull it off the bottom shelf, let alone lift it. He asked for help and had the young man lift it and carry it to his car. We are talking about the same “weak old man” who just earlier had been lifting forty pound weights over his head twenty times in a row. Absurd, no?

Twice a week he devoted himself to what must have amounted to a marathon: he worked that treadmill to death. Not just quietly and deliberate but with a vengeance, making the whole floor thump and shake under his heavy running steps, so loud and obvious that other exercisers would look up to see where that noise was coming from. His T-shirt soaked in perspiration he would keep this up for a good hour sometimes, never mind that twenty minutes was the “official” time limit. Schwarzenegger squared.

He must live in my neighborhood for I saw him again recently on my way to the supermarket. I recognized his car. He was cruising the parking lot, apparently hunting for an available slot. There really was no need to hunt. There were a lot of free places but not in the first row, of course. He slowed down in front of a spot about five rows to the back but then saw some backup lights coming on farther down. He trundled on expectantly but it was a false alarm. The driver of that car was merely straightening out her position between the lines, then turned off the ignition and got out. So my friend was still not parked. He turned into the next aisle and slowly rolled past eight empty spaces at the back of the lot, obviously still looking for something closer to the store entrance. On his next pass he spotted a space at the very front, in the number one position. He turned on his blinker but another car coming from the left beat him to it. Honking his horn angrily – after all, he had considered that space to be his – he had to turn into the next aisle again where he, reluctantly I suppose, settled for a space in the number two location, the second from the front.

Behold, then, Mister Marathon of the morning knocking himself out to avoid walking an extra three yards or so. It must be an inborn competitive spirit that compels people, a sort of subconscious Trumpian fear of being a loser. Ironic, actually. Nay, Byronic rather. “Fools are my theme, let satire be my song”, Lord Byron wrote.