Look Ma, Hands!

When the elevator doors in our local hospital close they display a lecture on the inside: wash your hands!  When you use the restroom in our local hardware store you are confronted by a sign on the wall: employees must wash their hands! Why are such admonishments still needed in a developed, civilized nation? Have we not all heard or read that even Pontius Pilate, some 2000 years ago, already washed his hands with water? Should we not emulate him?

Of course, he failed to use soap. But then all this happened before Proctor and Gamble.

 

Dress Code

The inventor of the dress code, I would say, was the French king Louis XIV. To be received by him, and he insisted on that, you had to wear a hat. He died in 1715, presumably wearing his hat. Since then people have slowly learned, mostly from their mothers, what to wear or not to wear, according to the occasion.  That is why, until recently, people never showed up at five o’clock tea clad in shorts and wearing flip flop sandals without socks. But  they do now. They also go to a symphony concert or to the opera in the same clothes they had worn in the morning to take out the trash.  Restaurants and cruise ships still hang on to the code but they cannot enforce it. After all, those people are the customers. They bring in the money. In other words, the dress code concept is defunct. R.I.P.

Strange as it may sound, I have noticed that there is also an unwritten un-dress code. That code is universally recognized and, unlike the dress code, is strictly adhered to by all. One never sees people at a concert wearing just their underpants.  But, come to think of it, I have noticed that bathing suits get smaller and smaller with each annual Sports Illustrated edition. Could it be that the un-dress code is also on the way out? Maybe I should make an effort to get rid of my excess tummy. This could become embarrassing.

Bless The DMV

I passed the “written” on the third try, just barely. But now I have a valid drivers license again. I also have nightmares. “You are driving,” I dream, “north on a one-way street. You want to turn west onto a divided two-way street but lane #1 is blocked by a crew of workmen digging a hole. The light turns from green to yellow and people are honking. A swarm of bycicles is on your right. What will you do?” Best answer? “Get out of your car, sink to your knees and cry for help.”

Good luck to all of you whose license will expire soon!

Biting Humor

I suffer from a weird affliction:  I just cannot sit still in a chair for very long before my legs cramp up. The only quick solution to this problem is to stand up. But when I do this during a party or similar gathering everybody thinks I want to go and then they all stand up and begin saying their goodbyes. I am surprised people still invite me. But that is a minor annoyance. Some time ago we had gone out for lunch. “Look,” my wife said, “they have your favorite Rigatonelle with roasted Macadamia nuts on the menu today!” True, true. I used to eat such things with gusto, in my time. But I ordered the Spaghetti with homemade meatballs that day. How to explain this abrupt switch? Well, let us just say that even George Washington had false teeth. You get the drift. My paradise days are over. I cannot even bite into a pear, let alone an apple.

More embarrassing are moments in restaurants when something gets stuck among my makeshift choppers. I cannot continue chewing because that hurts. My impulse is to take my finger and poke the offending material loose. But one does not do this, not even hidden behind a napkin. One excuses oneself and inquires where the restrooms are.  This happens all too frequently, yet one does not explain anything to anybody although one is tempted to speak up when one is informed that an appointment was made to see the urologist.

It is all part of the lesson, namely that getting old is not exactly a lark but it does make you laugh. Which is the essence of a good life. And now let my try biting into this marshmellow.

 

The Quip

There was standing room only on this streetcar in Munich, Germany. In the back near the exit stood two gravediggers, clad in black, mud encrusted overcoats. They were on their way home after the day’s work in the cemetery. An older gentleman had rung for a stop and was working his way toward the exit. In his opinion the two men were taking up too much room. As he finally got off he muttered something like ‘‘apparitions like these should not even allowed on the tram.’’ To which one of the men quipped:  ”Don’t get excited, little man. We will get you too in the end.’’

Save Time On Line

Isn’t it marvelous: we do not have to drag ourselves to the mall anymore. We simply shop online. I am new to this modern world but I watched the process as my wife bought a pair of shoes. I thought she was going to order one pair, size 7, her shoe size. To my astonishment she ordered two pairs, one size 6 1/2, the other size 7 1/2. “Why did you do this?” I asked her. “You will see,” was her answer.

I did see, a few days later. The smaller pair was too small, and the larger pair was too big. “You can never rely on size as stated. Manufacturers often vary a bit. Now I know that size 7 is right for me. Clever,  isn’t it?”

“But you still do not have a fitting shoe.” I could not help to have noticed.

“That is the next step,” she explained. “Now I place another order for the shoe in size 7, see?” Sure enough, two days later the size 7 pair arrived. We still had the other two pairs. When I asked her what she will do with those she said that those are to be returned. The shipping label comes via email.

It seemed to be a lot of work, I thought. Would it not have been easier to go the store and try them on? All I got for an answer was a look.

But Heaven be my witness! That was not the end of it. The following day I saw her wrapping the size 7 shoes in a carton. “What are you doing now,?”  I worked up enough courage to ask. “They are going back, too. I thought I liked them, but now that I see them in daylight I don’t.”

Yep. Save time online. What would the world be without humor!

Very Stuffy

It may not be polite to say it but around thanksgiving you hear it a lot, the expression “I am stuffed.”  Maybe I am being a stickler for logic but really, the battle is to preserve the English language. So when I had enough to eat I should probably say something like “Thank you, but I had enough.” That would make sense. I should not say “I am  dressed.” That does not make sense, unless you are in a nudist camp. Yet for the turkey it would be quite in order to admit that he is stuffed. Because that is true. I stuck the apple and the giblets in myself. I stuffed him, and then I tell the guests to eat some of the dressing. That does not make sense, either. I did not dress the turkey. He comes the way he was born, figuratively speaking, only more tanned. If that is confusing let us, in addition to the thanksgiving dinner rolls make two thanksgiving dinner rules: 1. Come on time and dressed. 2. Serve the turkey, also on time but stuffed.  Or better even: serve ham.