Worst . . . Mother . . . Ever?

On this day created by the Greeting Card Industrial Complex to honor what are now fashionably referred to as “birthing persons,” you may find yourself beset by what the Existentialists call–“mauvais foi”–a troubled conscience.  You may harbor doubts as to whether you have been (or were, if she’s dead) good enough to your mother during your years on this world together.

Perhaps you got in an argument with her about whether you should wear a certain slovenly outfit to school, or came home high (or low) on a controlled substance or intoxicating beverage.  Thus, while everyone you meet is saying their mothers were the best ever, you find yourself on the one hand questioning your intellectual honesty if you say the same thing (which is, of course, a mathematical impossibility), or filial piety on the other–you ungrateful jerk.

Richard Savage, after liberal application of Dippity-Do.

Not to worry.  Whatever your mother’s faults, she finished out of the money in the Bad Mother Sweepstakes.  Consider, in support of this claim, Anne Brett, Countess of Macclesfield, mother of Richard Savage, 18th century poet honored by Samuel Johnson in his “Lives of the Poets.”  Johnson describes Savage as “a man whose writings entitle him to an eminent rank in the classes of learning,” but “whose misfortunes claim a degree of compassion . . . as they were often the consequences of the crimes of others”–chief among them, his mom.

Anne, Countess of Macclesfield

Savage was conceived–physically and intellectually–as an escape from Anne’s unhappy marriage.  “In the year 1697,” Johnson wrote, “having lived for some time upon very uneasy terms with her husband, [she] thought a public confession of adultery the most obvious and expeditious method of obtaining her liberty.”  She accordingly cheated on him with the 4th Earl Rivers, became pregnant, and gave birth to Richard.  Her desired divorce was granted, but she gave away her son to a poor nurse with instructions never to tell him the facts of his birth.  As a result of the divorce, Anne again became entitled to an estate of 12,000 pounds that had been hers before the marriage; adjusted for inflation, she was worth around 1,833,200 pounds sterling, or $2,300,000.

Dr. Johnson: “Un . . . freaking . . . believable!”

Savage was thus raised in poverty apart from his wealthy parents, but on his deathbed his father asked Anne whatever happened to their son–he wanted to leave him some money.  Anne told Rivers that their son was dead, so the father did not provide for Savage in his will.  Johnson calls this “perhaps the first instance of a [lie] invented by a mother to deprive her son of a provision which was designed him by another, and which she could not expect herself, though he should lose it.”  Hoping to avoid future claims by her son, Anne tried to ship him off to America but was unable to find any accomplices to assist her.

Savage was then apprenticed to a shoemaker, but when the poor nurse who cared for him died, he discovered among her personal effects letters from his grandmother, Lady Mason, describing his noble birth.  He “without scruple applied to” his mother for her support, but  “neither his letters, nor the interposition of those friends which his merit or his distress procured him, made any impression upon her mind,” according to Johnson.  She continued to neglect him, but “could no longer disown him.”

Savage was “so touched with the discovery of his real mother, that it was his frequent practice to walk in the dark evenings for several hours before her door, in hopes of seeing her as she might come by accident to the window, or cross her apartment with a candle in her hand.”  Pathetic scene!

Nothing could soften the woman’s heart, however, and Savage “was therefore obliged to seek some other means of support.”  In what will seem an improbable strategy to those who try to make a living as a writer, he “became by necessity an author.”

But against the odds Savage became a popular poet and, with the power of his writer’s voice filling his sails, he managed to extort a pension of 200 pounds a year from his heartless mother by threatening to lampoon her.

I have shopped Savage’s tale of perseverance and triumph over a heartless mother around without success, even when I gave editors ample lead time for special Mother’s Day editions.

It is the ultimate irony, in this age of Artificial Intelligence content generators:

You finally come up with copy that could not possibly have been written by a bot, and no one believes you.

 

 

TGIF With a Big-Balled Yogurt-Eating Mouse

          In an experiment at MIT mice fed yogurt as compared to junk food developed luxuriantly thicker fur and bigger testicles that they projected outwards, giving them an air of “mouse swagger.”

                                                               Scientific American

It’s Friday night and, like every other mouse in the lab, I’m cruisin’ the scene–TGIF and all that.  I reached sexual maturity when I was 35 days old, but my life expectancy is only two years even in the climate-controlled comfort of the lab, so I’ve got to grab all the gusto I can get while the gettin’s good.

I can’t believe what some of these guys eat.  High-fat, low-fiber crap, the Andy Capp Pub Fries of the rodent world.  They’ve all got premature pot bellies and–I hoff ta loff as they say here in Boston–chin scrotums.  Gross.

Not me, I’ve been hooked on yogurt since that fateful day at The Bandersnatch, the snack bar at the University of Chicago where I was born.  I was crawling around under the grill, scarfing down a french fry here, a hamburger roll there, when I spied a little puddle of something that looked like pudding.  I licked it up and–it was like I’d seen the face of the godhead or something.  My blood sugar shot up, and I felt like I’d passed through the doors of nutrition perception.  This, I said to myself, is the stuff I’ll be eating for the rest of my days, and my self said “If you know what’s good for you” right back at me.  I had entered a realm of higher consciousness, and suddenly all the hamburger crumblies and onion rings seemed like so much awful offal.

I started to read more about the magical properties of this nectar of the gods called yogurt.  I was given a mystery novel written by common-law husband and wife team Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo and discovered that Martin Beck, their fictional Swedish police detective, subsisted on yogurt, coffee and beer–just like me!  I adopted his cool, detached, self-deprecatory manner as my own.  Why not?  I–like he–had the biggest pair of balls around.  I was comfortable in my luxuriously fur-covered skin.  I had–there’s no other way to put it–mouse swagger.

Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo

When I arrived in Cambridge I have to say I was not impressed with the supposedly world-class mice I’d be working with.  They seemed a bit effete, distracted, almost as if they weren’t eating right.  Me?  I went through yogurt by the ton.

First Dannon fruit-on-the-bottom, then Yoplait in the plastic cones that drive skunks wild.  Then–incroyable–coffee-flavored yogurt!  And more recently, all-natural maple-flavored yogurt from hip, ironic cows in Vermont.  They’re spoiled up there, what with all the Manhattanites coming up for the weekend, leaving New Yorker cartoons lying around.

I belly up to the bar and try to block out the puerile jabbering of the hyperactive junk-food addicts who surround me.  I look at the crap they’re shoving down their pellet-holes–Jesus H. Christ.  Fatty crap you wouldn’t feed to a Goth gamester, or a couch potato sports fan who stays up all night because he can’t pry himself away from Australian rules football.

“What’ll ya have?” Smitty the graduate student assistant asks.

“The usual.”

“One strawberry-banana smoothie with wheat germ, coming right up!”

I pull myself up to my full ten centimeters in length, and the crowd of slumping schlumps parts like the Red Sea.

“Who’s the health nut?” one of them says snidely out of the side of his mouth.  I could pop him one but hey–I’m above that sort of stereotypical lab rat behavior.  I’m cool, calm, collected, and have a set of cojones that make his look like shriveled-up capers from the Museum of Forgotten Groceries.

I care not what such an inconsequential being thinks of me.  I’ll show him a thing or two once the action gets hot and heavy and . . .

And then she appeared–as if in a dream.  The most gorgeous specimen of Mus musculus I’d ever seen in my life.  And she’s making eyes at me!

The other males start to preen and strut their little courtship dance, but it’s no use.  Our eyes lock as our lips and then (I hope) our groins will a little later on.

“Hel-lo there,” I say, giving her the look–one eyebrow raised, the other slanting downwards–that the notorious faculty lothario Thorstein Veblen used to call the “physiognomy of astuteness.”  She’s cute, I’m astute–Q.E.D.

“Hi,” she says, batting her shy little eyelashes.  “I couldn’t help but notice your thick luxurious fur,” she says.  Hey–we’re mice, not Nobel Prize winners.

Veblen: “Oh what a cad am I of the academy.”

 

“Thanks.  You look like you keep yourself in great shape,” I say, the tried-and-true Esperanto version of “I want to jump your bones.”

“I eat right–nothing but yogurt for me,” she says.  “What’s that you’re drinking?”

“I stick to the traditional cocktails–a yogurt smoothie.  Can I . . . buy you one?”

“Sure,” she says.  Smitty belies his scientific demeanor with an extra-sensory perception of the situation and has a drink for the lady in front of her before you can say “National Science Foundation.”

“So . . . do you live around here?” I ask.  Always good to get the lay of the land right away.

“Over in Kendall Square–the Nerd Capital of New England,” she replies.

We exchange knowing glances–I put hers away in case she needs it later–and we make goo-goo eyes at each other as we sip our drinks, the way swingin’ teens used to do in malt shoppes of the 50′s.

When I reach the bottom of my drink I hesitate, knowing my next step involves a significant degree of risk.  I size her up; she’s everything a guy could want in a mouse, so fresh and un-experimented upon.  I decide to go for it–and make a gigantic slurping sound as I suck the dregs of my smoothie up my straw!

She’s taken aback for a second, so I pounce.

“You know what that sound means in Texas?” I ask.

“No–what?”

“There ain’t no more!”

She laughs, and I know I’ve got her eating out my hand.  “C’mon–let’s blow this pop stand!” I say as I grab her hand and lift her up in my arms where she belongs, like I’m Joe Cocker and she’s Jennifer Warnes or something.

We start to leave but suddenly I’m surrounded by the round-shouldered dweebs who’ve been eyeing me jealously while I put the moves on my Minnie.

“Where you think you’re going?” one of them says.

“Is that a slide rule, or are you just glad to see me?” my new-found girlfriend snaps at him.  She’s got spunk.

“Why don’t you dump Mr. Fitness here and give one of us a chance?” another says.

“I wouldn’t fuck you for practice,” she says sharply.  Must have been a stand-up comic before she settled down to a life of science.

“C’mon–what’s he got that we haven’t got?” a third interjects, and she looks lasciviously down at my crotch where the healthiest set of testicles this side of the mule barn at the Missouri State Fair are on display.

“This may be America,” she says, “but a girl still craves the crown jewels.”

Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Wild Animals of Nature!”

Is That Your Cat or Are We Having Guacamole?

          An image that Google correctly categorized as a tabby cat was, with only a few pixels changed, subsequently identified by the same algorithm as guacamole.

The Boston Globe

We’re heading into summer, which means that my cats are even lazier than usual.  They stay indoors most of the day, venturing outside only in the cool of the evening to chill their ever-widening bellies on our bluestone patio, before rushing off into the dark to wreak havoc on chipmunks and squirrels.

Rocco left, Okie right.

“I’m getting concerned about your lifestyles,” I say to them as they take the two Adirondack chairs for a change of pace.

“Says the guy who drank an entire bottle of Malbec by himself last night,” Rocco says out of the side of his mouth.

“I’m serious,” I say, trying to re-take the moral high ground.  “You lie around all day, then you’re out all night.  You’re not twenty-one in cat years anymore.”

“How do you do the math in your head so fast?” Okie asks.  He’s the handsome grey tabby who’s gotten by on his looks, not his wits, his entire life.

“Don’t you remember anything?” Rocco snaps.  “He’s the former Boy Scout/Altar Boy who does fractions in his head when he’s swimming laps.”

“Seven and 15/16 laps.”

“Fractions–ugh!” Okie groans.  He’s lived the life of the beta male ever since his younger brother Rocco arrived on the scene.  For some reason whenever the cat food is divided in half, he only gets 40%.

“I’m only saying this because we love you guys,” I say.  I found this rhetorical turn to be very helpful when dealing with our sons as they grew up.  In essence, it boils down to “Don’t break your mother’s heart, you sullen teenager, you.”

“We have to live our own lives,” Rocco says as he gets up to follow the path of a chipmunk, who disappears under the wooden fence we put up around the air conditioning units.

“Do you remember a few summers ago, when Okie disappeared for weeks?” I say in an imploring tone of voice.  “How are we not supposed to be worried when something like that happens?”  When I want to, I can really implore.

“One for you, two for me.  One for you, three for me.”

“That was then, this is now,” Rocco says as he sits back down.  “If you want to be able to find us, just give us Google chip implants.”

“Yeah, sort of like the Italian dad down the street who put a GPS device in his daughter’s car so he could break the legs of any boy who tried to slide into home with her,” Okie adds.  He apparently listens when we talk at the dinner table.

I give them a look of pitiless contempt.  “You guys think you’re so smart–you’ve been watching too many cute cat food commercials that glorify the feline brain.”

“It’s true,” Rocco says.  “I read it on the internet.”

“Well, maybe you should pick up a newspaper some time.”

“What’s a newspaper?” Okie asks.

“It’s that stuff he puts in our litter boxes,” Rocco advises him.

“What’s a four-letter word for ‘excrement’?”

“It has other uses.”

“Right,” Rocco says.  “You can also line parakeet cages with it.”

“While that is generally true of The Boston Globe, every now and then you come across something useful in it besides the comics.”

“I like Garfield!” Okie says–figures.

“No, I mean stories like this,” I say, and point them to an article about an Artificial Intelligence conference where the shortcomings of the technology were demonstrated.  “Change just a few pixels, and Google thinks you two are guacamole.”

“You’re not going to put me on a nacho chip, are you?”

They are both silent for a moment, as they walk over the Business section.  “Gosh–I had no idea,” Rocco says, for once sounding . . . almost humble.

“So let that be a lesson to you, okay?” I say as I give them both a scritch on the head.

“What’s the lesson?” Okie asks, as usual missing the self-evident.

“Simple,” Rocco says, stepping in like teacher’s pet to explain.  “The difference between your brain and guacamole is, like, one avocado.”

Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Cats Say the Darndest Things.”

Your Stuffed Animal Advisor

Animals are our friends, but pets can also upchuck on our white wall-to-wall carpeting, or tear up a new pair of pumps we just bought last week on sale.  That’s why stuffed animals are often better friends than real ones.  Got a question about our fake little furry friends? Ask Your Stuffed Animal Advisor!

Save the manatees–collect them.

Dear Stuffed Animal Advisor:

When I broke up with my boyfriend “Todd” a year ago because he could never bring himself to “pop the question,” I did not go out and get a cat like a lot of women I know.  I was not going to end up like them, making popcorn on a Saturday night and watching Lifetime movies with fourteen pounds of fur named “Kitzi” on my lap. So I began to collect stuffed animals which as you suggest are a lot easier to take care of.  They never escape outside and have to be lured back in by leaving a plate of food on the back porch like my girlfriends Mary Anne and Jeanie do whenever their cats run off into the woods.  Also they don’t pee on the rug.  The cats, not my girlfriends.

Now that I have joined the ranks of “virtual pet owners” I have a question.  I have a growing collection of stuffed dogs, cats and turtles.  I checked our local zoning code and it says nothing about legal occupancy for a one-bedroom apartment by unrelated inanimate figurines.  Is 162 (not including me) too many, or can I get the “My Little Puppy Friends” special Christmas edition when it arrives in stores next week?

Miriam Urshel, North Hollywood, Florida

Dear Miriam:

Your Stuffed Animal Advisor says “The more the merrier!” when it comes to the toy buddies that make our lives so rewarding when human beings like “Todd” prove incapable of making a commitment.  Make sure you don’t block fire exits with your little furry friends, and you may want to buy a free-standing storage shelter to hide your “stuffed stuff” when nosy mental health professionals from local government bodies come snooping around.

Get the Grab ‘n Go Sixpack.

Dear Your Stuff Animal Advisor:

I am a guy, as you can probably deduce from my name below.  As a boy I was excluded from many youth sports activities because of the crippling effects of Osgood Schlatter’s Disease, and as a result I remained attached to my stuffed animals longer than most young men.

I have now become engaged to a wonderful young lady–I will call her “Opal” because that is her name–who is a real “go-getter.”  She was recently re-elected to a second term as County Prothonotary, the second highest-ranking official around here with plenary powers to issue and revoke licenses for fishing and all-terrain vehicles. Opal has her eye on County Commissioner, and a run for higher office would put her in the local “media spotlight,” which is pretty intense around here what with a newspaper and two radio stations, one “Classic Country” the other “Top 40” format. My concern is that some jerk reporter will find out about my collection–which is now in the high three figures–and try to make an “expose” out of it.

I am willing to take the heat, but I do not want to impede Opal’s career and so am wondering if I should switch to a more conventional hobby such as bowling or fishing.

Norman “Bud” Ohlrich, Keokuk, Iowa

Dear Bud:

The stigma formerly attached to adult male stuffed animal collectors has declined over the years as our society has become more “accepting” of our nation’s hobby diversity.  I say turn what some people may consider a liability into a campaign asset by becoming an “out-and-proud” stuffed animal nut!  Pollster Ed Francis of Mid-States Political Consultants says a lot of weird hobbyists are “swing” voters who can tilt an election against an anti-stuffed animal candidate in a close race.

Dear Stuffed Animal Advisor Lady:

Please settle an “e-commerce” dispute for me.  I recently bought what was advertised as an original issue, limited edition “Furby” on stuffedanimalsauction.com from a seller named lloydinknobnoster.  When the package arrived the thing didn’t look right so I turned it upside down and the label said “Fruby,” made in Deng Xiaoping City, China.  I tried to stop payment but it was too late, so I filed a complaint with the webmaster who says there was nothing they can do, “lloydinknobnoster” is a “Platinum” member with an unimpeachable record.

I contacted “Lloyd” by mail–there are not that many people in Knob Noster so the postmaster knew who it was.  “Lloyd” says I should be thanking him, not complaining, it’s a collector’s item.  I said I wouldn’t take him to small claims court if he would abide by your decision and he agreed although he said he wasn’t waiving “sovereign immunity” whatever that means.

Curt Dwinnel, Hill Jack, MO

Dear Curt–

I’m afraid I’m going to have to side with Lloyd on this one.  Furbies with the spelling “Fruby” down in the crotch where you insert the two “D” batteries are commanding top prices on world collectible markets.  Apparently Chinese stuffed animal workers are only given one bathroom break per week and as a result sometimes lose consciousness while impressing plastic parts with basic information such as product name, serial number, and toll-free number to call if you spill something on the fur. I hope your new acquisition brings peace to your life.  If not, please stay off stuffed animal websites for awhile as I’m bidding on a number of items and don’t want to get caught up in your legal hurricane, thank you very much.

Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Take My Advice–I Wasn’t Using it Anyway.”

My Quest to Bring Karaoke to Mt. Everest

Sometimes, it takes a tragedy to change the way we view the world. For me, it was the story of David Sharp.

Sharp was a climber in distress who died 300 feet from the summit of Mt. Everest. A number of parties, including that of double-amputee Mark Inglis, passed him by, oblivious to his plight as they sought the small beer glory that comes to those who scale the world’s highest mountain long after the feat has become commonplace.

When I learned of Sharp’s death, I could only sigh in disgust at my fellow man (and the overwhelming majority of the world’s premier climbers are men).

And then it struck me–this never would have happened if the many highly-competitive egotists who passed Sharp by had only stopped to partake in the camaraderie of karaoke as they made their way up and down the mountain.

Since it was first developed in the 1970′s, karaoke has become a staple of after-work get-togethers around the world. The term is derived from two Japanese words, kara and okestura, which roughly translated mean “bad singing.”

Karaoke first became popular among Japanese “salary men” who are expected to go out after long work days and socialize into the night. Their bosses hope that bonding through singing will improve team spirit, leading to greater corporate profits. Simply put, it is impossible not to feel a sense of common purpose with someone who has heard you sing Donna Summer’s “I Will Survive” after you’ve had three Margaritas.

My goal: To bring the bonhomie that karaoke engenders to the mountain known to sherpas, the Nepalese natives who guide foreigners to its peak, as “Chomolungma” or “Graveyard of Lousy Tippers.”

My sherpa’s name is Pemba Dorjie, and he recommends the VocoPro Karaoke King, a 7 Watt, 120 volt beauty with a Signal-to-Noise Ratio of 65 db and Wow and Flutter of 0.35% WRMS. “This bad boy has two microphone inputs with individual volume controls,” he notes in his native Tibetan tongue. “Duets can thus be performed with ease, cranking the fun up another notch.”

We choose the southwest ridge for our ascent, and make base camp at 17,600 feet above sea level. Pemba asks if he can be the first to try out the VocoPro, and I gladly agree. I know him to be a big Barry Manilow fan and–wouldn’t you know it–his first selection is “Copacabana,” the 1978 disco hit that combined Latin rhythm and Borscht Belt nightclub shtick to produce what Rolling Stone magazine called the worst song of the decade.

“Pemba–you rock!”

Pemba’s voice is strong and soulful as it echoes across the mountain face, triggering an avalanche that wipes out a party of five below us who were trying to become the first set of quintuplets of Lithuanian descent to reach the summit. “Tough luck,” says Pemba. “Avalanches are the leading cause of death here.”

After a few weeks to acclimatize ourselves to the altitude, we move up the Western Cwm to the base of the Lhotse face. Before we turn in for the night, we stare into our campfire and think the thoughts that come to men as they reach into the heavens.

“Pemba,” I say. “This Cwm–why does it have no vowel?”

Pemba is uneasy at first. “We are a poor nation,” he says after a while. “We cannot afford all the vowels that you rich Americans toss around so freely.” I nod my head in sympathy, then show him how a “y” is the Swiss Army knife of the alphabet and can be used as either a consonant or a vowel!

“Thanks,” Pemba says with a smile. “This will bring many hours of happiness to my children.”

Over the next two days we pass through the South Col, the Geneva Spur and the Yellow Band until we hit the Death Zone. At 26,000 feet, we can survive only two or three days in the rarefied atmosphere near the summit, where there are estimated to be corpses of over 100 climbers who died without realizing their goal.

I begin to have trouble breathing, and Pemba urges caution. “Here,” he says as he hands me an aerosol canister of Cheez Whiz, the processed cheese spread. “Stick this up a nostril and squirt.” I do as he instructs me, and after an initial blast of the orange, viscous liquid hits my soft palate, my nostrils clear from the gases that propel this delicious treat onto corn chips, hot dogs and cheesesteaks across America. “Wow,” I say as the fluorocarbons jolt me into a heightened state of consciousness. “What a rush! Hope it doesn’t poke a hole in the ozone layer.”

“You some kind of tree hugger?” Pemba asks scornfully. “Nature is your enemy, man.” And indeed, my concerns about global warming evaporate in the -100 degree Fahrenheit cold.

“That should last you a few hours,” Pemba says. “Just enough time to get set up.”

We hurry to hook a solar-powered generator up to the karaoke machine, then wait for teams of climbers to pass by. We notice one straggler, apparently disoriented from lack of oxygen to the brain, making his way up the slope. “Excuse me,” he shouts out as he draws nearer. “I’m looking for the Northeast Bancshares Spring Outing.”

Pemba and I exchange looks of concern. The man has been separated from his party, and is unlikely to survive a night alone. “You like Kool and the Gang?” Pemba asks tentatively.

“Who doesn’t?” the man replies, and before you can say “Jungle Boogie,” our new friend is laying down a loose groove of funky stuff to “Celebration.”

“Cel-e-brate good time–c’mon on!” he sings, not too well, but with more than enough gusto. The words ring out across the Kangshung Face and–out of nowhere–who should appear but Beth Lindsay, Director of Human Resources for the fourth-largest bank holding company in America.

“Ed Ferguson–we need you over on the northeast ridge for volleyball,” she says with concern as she checks her clipboard. “You two don’t mind if I steal Ed for awhile, do you?” she asks Pemba and me. “Karaoke doesn’t start until after dinner tonight.”

“Not a problem,” I reply with more than a little satisfaction at a mission accomplished. Pemba puts Ed’s microphone back into the VocoPro’s hard shell protective case, and we head back down the mountain.

“You know,” he says as we pass the body of a climber who was abandoned by his party after he fell forty feet from a ledge above us, “music can really bring people together.”

Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Yes I Can’t!”

Me and My Code Talker

It’s Saturday morning, which means the tension is starting to build for our weekly out-of-home social interaction. Regardless of whether we get together with people in a higher income bracket or a lower, my wife faults me for doing, saying, wearing, implying or inferring something I shouldn’t have.

“We tried a Choctaw for awhile, but we went back to Navajos.”

To give you a few examples: “You’re not going to wear that, are you?” are the words she usually says when she first sees the clothes I’ve put on. “Don’t mention anything about what I told you Lisa said about Jack, okay?”–whatever she said had been promptly forgotten by me as soon as I heard it.

But I live in a different world from her; tapping at my computer all day, yelling or being yelled at on the telephone, sending out bills, filling out timesheets. I rarely if ever come into actual contact with humans, and by that I mean to include some of my highly-educated knowledge industry colleagues. As a result, my social skills are admittedly . . . atrophied.

“Tell her she has on a lovely dress, but DON’T look at her knockers.”

“The problem is you never give me any guidance–any context–until we’re on the other couple’s doorstep,” I say.

“Your problem is you’re not good at understanding code,” she says, and not with a great deal of sympathy. “You take things literally that aren’t meant seriously, and vice versa.”

“What do you mean ‘code’?”

“There are certain things you don’t say, certain things you don’t do–and they change depending on whose house we’re at. Like tonight you have to get dressed up, but next Saturday is a ‘nice’ blue jean night–okay?”

I was, if anything, more confused than before. “Can you buy flash cards or a crib sheet on this stuff?”

“I don’t think so,” my wife said. “Part of the attraction of conventions is you can use them to weed out others, so all the better social sets keep them a secret.”

“Says he’s ‘Doing great’? Must have lost his job.”

I didn’t see anyway out of my predicament. “Well, I don’t want to just stick by your side all night wherever we go.”

“I don’t want you to either,” she said, staring out at the middle distance, plainly frustrated. “Maybe we should get you a code talker.”

“What’s a code talker?”

“They’re members of Indian . . .”

“You mean Native American . . .”

“Whatever–tribes that have really complex languages, so they can talk in code and they can deciper codes.”

My wife is not generally known for graduate-level inquiries into questions of the nature of language, so I was suspicious. “Where’d you learn that?”

“We’ll be right back with more tips on decorating your kids.”

“It was on Martha Stewart Living, right after a segment on stenciling your children.”

I considered her suggestion for a second; if some Native American could serve as my guide through the wilds of the metrowest suburbs of Boston and help me avoid a long uncomfortable silence on the road home from a stylish–but casual!–party, it would be money well spent.

“Okay–I’ll give it a try,” I said, “but where am I going to find a code talker in two days?”

“Try that rental place down by the falls–they have everything.”

So after I took the trash to the town dump I dropped by the You-Rentz-It franchise and asked the guy at the counter if they rented code talkers.

“What kind ya lookin’ for?” he asked, as if it was the most routine request in the world.

“Her kid got into Penn? Tell her how sorry you are to hear it.”

“I don’t know–what do you have?”

“We’ve got Navajos, Choctaws, Comanches. I’ve got a Basque that’s gonna be returned tonight.”

“What kind’s the best?”

“Navajos are the top of the line.”

“Which is cheapest?”

“Comanches. What kind of shindig is it?”

“Cocktail party.”

“How many people?”

“Probably . . . at least twenty.”

“I dunno,” he said scratching his head, Will Rogers-style. “I don’t think you want to pinch pennies on an affair like that. You’ll end up paying for it in the long run.”

I seemed to recall from my childhood watching westerns that Comanches were fierce warriors. Probably best not to stint.

“I’ll go with a Navajo for Saturday night.”

“I’ll need a credit card for the deposit. You can pick him up at 5.”

“Is there an instruction manual so I know what to do with him?”

“Don’t worry. He’ll know what to do.”

I paid and went home to tell my wife. She was watching an episode of Grey’s Anatomy she’d taped, and so she was in defcon alert posture, poised to block out all extraneous stimuli such as husbands.

“We’re all set with the code talker,” I said.

“Um-hmm,” she replied, not wanting to waste precious energy she might need for sobbing later.

When the time came, I picked up Chester Joe Leader and his kit of code-cracking equipment.

“What kind of grub are they serving tonight?” was his first question after we were in the car.

“Finger food,” I said. “Asparagus wrapped in prosciutto, mini-quiche, stuff like that.”

“No little ham sandwiches?”

“People usually don’t do that until the holidays,” I said. “So, how exactly do we do this?”

“I get you wired up, and I set up outside,” he said with all the emotion of Sergeant Joe Friday on Dragnet.

“Okay.”

“I can hear what people are saying, but they can’t hear me. Only you can, through your earpiece.”

He held up what looked to be an old-style hearing aid, the kind my mom used to wear that gave off more feedback than a Jimi Hendrix solo. “Okay.”

“I listen to what people say and decipher it for you.”

“You spent much time in the western suburbs?”

“It’s pretty plain vanilla. The North Shore’s tougher, summer colonies in Maine are impossible.” The guy apparently knew his stuff.

When I got home my wife was ready for once because she’d agreed to bring an hors d’oeuvre and we had to arrive early to warm it up.

“Sweetie, I’d like you to meet Chester Joe Leader, my code talker.”

How-do-you-dos were exchanged, and we got in the car after I grabbed the obligatory bottle of white wine we’d been trading back-and-forth with our hosts for the past two years. It’s a fruity Burgundy that we’re both afraid to try.

“Do these people have shrubbery?” Chester asked.

“HUGE rhododendrons,” I said. “The kind Virginia Woolf compared to suburban stockbrokers, which is what our host is.”

“Good. They give you lots of cover without being prickly.”

Woolf: “Do me a favor and leave me out of your stupid posts.”

We dropped Chester off the length of a football field from our destination, and he made his way by stealth up the lawn and into the bushes.

“Let’s hope this works,” I said.

“It better,” my wife said with an expression that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the face of the gas chamber attendant at a maximum security prison.

Our hostess greeted us and we were ushered into the party, which was in full swing. There was a bartender so the usual struggle to get a drink wasn’t a problem, and we began to circulate.

“Danger dead ahead,” my wife said.

“What?”

“That’s Missy and Mark Wainwright.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Her parents gave him $200,000 to buy some stupid franchise, and it’s draining money like the Hoover Dam.”

“Okay, I’ll watch myself,” I said. “Chester–you copy that?”

“I’m right here for you,” he said. “Proceed.”

We ambled up casually and, after the usual over-the-top faux surprise greeting, settled in to chew the fat, figuratively speaking.

“How’s everything at your shop?” Mark asked.

“Say fine and change the subject,” Chester said.

“Gotcha,” I said.

“What?” Mark asked.

“Sorry–I uh, felt a sneeze coming on. We’re doing fine thanks–considering the economy!”

“Tell me about it!” he exclaimed with a little-boy-lost look on his face. “We’re . . .”

“Now!” Chester snapped.

“Hey–what do you think of the Patriots’ draft?  What’s the guy’s name . . . Maye?”

“Uh . . . well, I guess he’s no Brady, but who is?”

I felt like a fencer who’d just parried a deadly thrust. We two men exchanged idiotic speculation on somebody we knew next to nothing about for five minutes, then the Wainwrights departed for a youth baseball game.

“Everything okay?” my wife asked dubiously.

“Just dodged a bullet there. Anybody else you want to warn me about?”

“Here come the Andersons,” my wife said, turning towards me like a pitcher in a jam on the mound so the other side couldn’t read her lips. “She doesn’t know it, but Susan saw Sam coming out of a restaurant with his secretary while Cindy was off for a girls’ weekend at an Arizona spa.”

“That could be awkward,” I said, and just in time as the Andersons bore down on us like a sailboat running downwind into a marina. “You there Chester?”

“I’m on it,” the code talker replied with a calm, even tone. I felt–reassured. “Do not ask about vacations–got it?” he said.

“Will do,” I said just as the cuckoldette reached our personal space.

“Hey you two!” Cindy said to us–big hug and party kiss from her, a handshake from the cheatin’ side of the family.

“Hello there, strangers!” my wife said. “Haven’t seen you since you got back. Was it fun?”

“I came back so relaxed!” Cindy said. “All that was gone in about a day!”

Back to the grind.

“Welcome back to the rat race!” my wife said. What’s she talking about, I wondered: the yoga, the pilates, or the spinning class?

Sam seemed to be suffering from a bout of mauvais foi, which is not a form of pate. It’s the gnawing guilty conscience over the lie you’re living. He was at a loss for words, and I didn’t want to fill up his tank.

“Don’t ask him what he did while the wife was away,” I heard Chester say in my earpiece. “Don’t ask him what he did last weekend.”

“I’m waiting for some positive suggestions,” I muttered into my hand as I pretended to cough.

“Ask him . . . what he thinks of the election.”

“Are you crazy?” I said, pulling myself away as I pretended to be fascinated by a bowl of mixed nuts. “I never bring up politics at parties!”

“You’ll have to trust me on this one,” Chester said.

I gulped, almost involuntarily; Chet was the expert, however, so I turned to meet my counterpart with a quiche-eating grin on my face.

“So, every day’s a wild ride with Biden in the White House, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Sam said thoughtfully, and a few heads turned at my obvious social faux pas. Our little suburb was reliably Republican fifteen years ago, but now it’s become fashionable to pretend you care about the poor beyond the value of the charitable deductions they so generously provide us. “But you know what I really, really like about the Democratic Party?” he began.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Hillary Clinton,” Sam said. “She always forgave Bill whenever he . . . uh . . . strayed.”

Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Blurbs From the Burbs.”

As School Year Ends, Some Ask if 6th Grade is Worth It

COLUMBIA, Missouri. Timmy Salmon has enjoyed his big brother Tom’s four years at the University of Missouri, visiting the Sigma Nu fraternity house on football game days and being fawned over by visiting sorority girls. “The Tri-Delts are pretty,” he says with the discerning eye of a budding ladies’ man, “but the Kappa Alpha Theta girls are yucky.”

C’mon, Timmy–cut ’em some slack.

Still, he’s not sure he wants to follow in the footsteps of an English major who so far has received only one job offer, a temporary minimum wage position reviewing mortgage documents for typos and punctuation errors that could undermine a bank’s rights. “They’re paying him $7.35 an hour,” Timmy says with apparent disgust. “I can make that much mowing lawns.”

So Timmy and his friend Scott Rouchka are taking a long, hard look at whether it makes more sense for them to cut their losses now before they invest precious time and effort in sixth grade, which has historically been viewed as the gateway to seventh grade and eventually a college degree.

“Sixth grade math is a BIG jump,” says Rouchka, who was fifth-grade arm-wrestling champion. “There’s fractions and decimals, which computers already know how to do.”

The two boys’ skepticism represents a worrisome sign for college admissions officers, who already struggle to keep male-female ratios in balance in order to avoid the “loathsome cad” effect; women now make up 57% of college students, and male students are emboldened to treat their distaff counterparts badly as the imbalance between their range of possible dating and mating prospects widens over those of coeds.

“I blame college dropout billionaires like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell,” says Dean Claus Ornstein of Glendon College in Normal, Illinois before this reporter interrupts him. “I could go on,” he says, but agrees to cut his list of examples short due to editorial restrictions.

Pigs in a blanket: The choice is clear.

A bachelor’s degree is still viewed as an essential credential for most white-collar jobs by many adults, but Timmy Salmon says times have changed. “When I told the President of the Tri Delts I made enough money to buy a bike last summer her eyes got REAL wide and she said ‘Wow!’” he recalls. “I’m pretty sure I could have kissed her but they had those pigs-in-a-blanket mini-hot dogs that I love and I didn’t want to leave the buffet.”

Big brother Tom says he thinks Timmy is wrong and that there is value to be gained by exposure to the humanities early in life. “When I smoked pot in high school I was totally clueless,” he recalls. “Now our drug-addled bullshit sessions are really deep.”

Squalid Conditions at Chinese Blog Factories Draw Human Rights Scrutiny

XIANGGANG, China.  Emily Costbinder doesn’t look like a crusader with her Patagonia fleece pullover, khakis and sensible shoes, but the slight Bryn Mawr student is taking a grave personal risk as she pulls out her cellphone once inside the Xianggang Xingxing Special Products factory here.  “I have to speak truth to power,” says the young woman of the independent study project she designed herself.  “The world has no idea where the flood of blogs and posts on the internet is coming from, but they will if I have anything to say about it.”

“So many Kardashians–get to work!”

She waits until a tour guide’s attention is diverted by a question from a harried-looking foreman, then surreptitiously snaps a picture of workers–mainly recent arrivals from the Chinese countryside–who slave away up to twelve hours a day in an unventilated building with only a half-hour mid-day meal break allowed.  “If they need to go to the bathroom,” she says, her face a picture of anguished concern, “they must stay after hours to meet quota of Kim Kardashian posts.”

“Bigfoot . . . UFO . . . getting sleepy.”

Xingxing in Xianggang has emerged as the “Blogtown” of China, playing the role that Pittsburgh filled as “Steeltown” during the Industrial Revolution in America.  “X is the least-used letter in English,” says Dao Fang, the Minister of Social Media Industries of the People’s Republic.  “Our people can subsist on them much as American trophy wives get by on celery stalks and Triscuits, the 100% whole grain wheat cracker now available in ten different flavors including fire-roasted tomato and olive oil,” Fang says, trying to earn bonus compensation for “product placement.”

“Write how chance encounter with Robin Williams changed your life.”

A large volume of blogging production shifts overseas when American presidential elections approach, as domestic bloggers fall behind in the manufacture and delivery of umbrage and outrage.  “Every time your President Biden fall down stairs, I must add second shift,” says Liu Ne De Ye, production supervisor at Xingxing.

“What is a LeBron James anyway?”

American bloggers who outsource work to the Far East say a Chinese “dan ci gong yio” or “word janitor” will write blog posts U.S. typists turn up their noses at, and for far less.  “Kids these days want to go into dicey professions like medicine and accounting,” says Mike Aramak, who writes the “Smash Mouth NFL Draft” blog but sometimes falls behind in production.  “Nobody wants their kid to grow up to be a blogger.”

Euthanasia and Your Man: What You Need to Know

When it comes to euthanasia and your man, knowing when to put him down is the hardest decision of all.  I’ve buried three in the last fifteen years and believe me–it doesn’t get any easier.

            I’m sharing what I’ve learned—including my mistakes—to help women who face the awful decision whether to spend $12,000 on life-saving surgery, or buy something nice for themselves; a pricey handbag that you like but don’t really need.

            When it comes to the man in your life, the last thing you want to hear is his doctor say “I can save him—but it’s going to cost a lot of money.”  The first time I heard those words, I thought of all the fun “Chip” would miss out on if he died young, like the place in Florida I’d buy when he was gone, and the “early-bird” specials he loved.  He could have kept eating steaks into his golden years, but that way lies a heart attack—which can be very painful.

            Chip was a happy, healthy 52-year-old with all of his hair who unfortunately developed early-onset incontinence.  I could see myself tending to his yucky needs and buying adult diapers for two, maybe three decades more while his retirement savings dwindled down to nothing.

            Should I have pulled the plug sooner?  It’s hard to say.  I made a video of Chip one day as he ran to the bathroom after eating fish tacos, and I can barely stand to watch it now—even with the sound muted!  He was in obvious pain, and rather than have him ruin the Oriental rug in the dining room with an “accident,” I decided it was time to end his suffering.

            I put anti-freeze in his green sports drink—they’re practically the same color, so he didn’t notice.  Then I held him in my arms as he died with dignity.  I am so glad I was there with him as he “entered eternal rest.”  I don’t know what that means, but they say it at my church.  Do I have any regrets?  Well, I’ll never hear him snore again, so that’s a blessing.

            “Fred” was every woman’s dream.  He took care of our tax returns, local, state, and federal–and we never had to file for an extension.  He would surprise me with the most creative deductions—turns out bridge club snacks are business expenses if you’re a realtor and talk about comparable sales with the other “gals” between tricks and trumps.

            Fred came down with a case of West Nile virus—and we never even went to Africa!  I suspect it was the water hazard on the 17th hole at our country club, Glen Loch Pines Acres, which gets kind of “mosquito-y” in the summer.  Eddie—the golf pro—told me to be careful out there, and to come back to lie down in his office if I got overheated.

            We—or perhaps I should say “I”—was looking at a long treatment for Fred just to keep his seizures under control.  The neurologist gave him ten years—what some people call a “decade”–to live.  Rather than see Fred dwindle down to a shadow of his former self, I made the tough call to end his life sooner rather than later.  People don’t realize that this horrible disease is milder in children than adults, so why take a chance when things are only going to get worse?  I would do the same for our dog and cat, so in a sense I owed it to Fred to treat him the same as any other mammal in the house.

            I made a scrapbook of our years together so that my children by Eddie can understand the pain that a single mosquito bite can cause.  They’ll never know their “other father” as Eddie Jr. calls him.  I know it’s not genetic, but I have a feeling they’ll always apply lots of insect repellent when they go outside.

            And then there was “Mike.”  God, he was in the prime of his life when he was cut down like a dandelion by a hedge trimmer.  Trim, fit, tan—that was Mike to a “T.”

            He had a smile that would light up a walk-in closet, like the one I have in the new condo I bought with the life insurance proceeds.  He had such beautiful blue twinkling eyes that I’d look in to see my reflection.  We were young, we were madly in love–but he had a whole-life insurance policy whose premiums grew more expensive with each passing year!  I didn’t want to end up penniless with just a million dollars when he died.

            I had heard of the dread scourge of fentanyl, which takes so many young lives these days.  I discovered it could also take an old life like Mike’s!  But it turned out to be much more powerful than the over-the-counter analgesic Mike used after an afternoon of tennis.  There were some questions when the paramedics arrived, but how was I to know the proper dosage without the teeny-tiny warning label on regular medicine bottles that I can’t read anyway?

            So these are “lessons learned,” ladies: When you buy drugs on “the street” from a dealer, you don’t get those cent-off coupons like at the big drugstore chains.

            Enjoy!

At the Federal Reserve Bouncy Castle

Central banks are adopting new methods to engage and educate the public about their mission, including cartoons, balloon artists and bouncy castles.

The Wall Street Journal

It’s the day before the Federal Reserve Bank, or “The Fed” as it is known to its friends, releases the “Beige Book” and staff members are running around like Alan Greenspan with his head cut off, trying to get things ready.  The cotton candy machine is on the fritz, the microphone to the karaoke machine is missing, and the “Keep Inflation in Check!” t-shirts have a typo that some Japanese may find offensive, unless “Infration” is a recently-formulated economic concept.

What–you don’t find this exciting?

I yearn for the old days, when Paul Volcker was chairman.  Now THERE was a guy who didn’t give a flying you-know-what whether anyone understood his “mission.”  He just went out and . . . did it.  And he didn’t need a mime to explain it to innumerate business reporters.

Volcker:  “Senator–seriously–you’re boring the crap out of me.”

But all that has changed, changed utterly, as either Yogi Berra or William Butler Yeats once said.  Now we have to make nice to kids who come to visit us in Washington, D.C., or any of our twelve other outlets conveniently located around the U.S. of A.  You walk into the Kansas City Fed, you get a plastic cow.  Boston?  For reasons lost in the mists of time, a little pot of baked beans.  San Francisco–a brown tab of LSD.  That’s the NEW Federal Reserve for you; the customer comes first, as long as he/she/it doesn’t cause a spike in inflation by misallocating liquidity to over-valued assets.

I unlock the chain that bars the gates to the Federal Reserve Midway–the Inflation Roller Coaster, the Liquidity Water Slide, the Tunnel of Deferred Gratification, where kids get prizes for delaying children until they get married, and don’t get married until they have a job, and stay in school until they graduate.  Talk about fun!

“Hey mister?”

It’s our first customers of the day, a boy with a runny nose and his little sister.

“What can the Federal Reserve do for you today, kiddo?”

“Is the Bouncy Castle open yet?”

“He’s really tough on price stability.”

“Not just yet, it’s too slippery.”

“Why is it slippery?” his sister asks hesitantly.

“The morning dew.”

“What did the morning do?” she asks.

“Not d-o ‘do,’ d-e-w.”

“Like Mountain Dew, the carbonated soft drink favored by snowboarders and other slacker dudes?” the boy asks.  Apparently he’s been watching the X-Games.

“No,” I say.  “Tiny drops of water that form on cool surfaces at night, when atmospheric vapor condenses.  The sun needs to get a little higher in the sky to burn it off–so you won’t slip.”

Just as I issue this prohibition, who should walk up behind me but Lael Brainard–the hottest governor in the history of the Fed.

Brainard:  “If I can’t jump the line to the Bouncy Castle, what’s the point?”

“Excuse me,” Brainard says as she brushes past the kids and enters the castle.

“Hey–take your shoes off!” a grizzled Fed carney yells at her, and she stops to pull off her Betsey Johnson sandals.  At $69 a pair at Macy’s, they’re a beacon of price stability in a market sector–women’s fashion–that is frequently subject to intense inflationary pressures.

“How come she gets to go in and we don’t?” the boy asks.

“Well, it’s like this,” I begin as I get down on my haunches so I can look the boy squarely in the eye.  “That nice lady used to be a very important official, and she’s a grown-up, so we trust her to make wise bouncing choices and not go too high or ‘double-bounce’ and set off repercussions that could have long-term adverse effects.  You kids–you’re the hope of the future, but if left to your own devices . . .”

“We don’t have devices,” the boy says, “our mom says we aren’t old enough.”

“Not that kind of device,” I say, struggling–like Flaubert–to find le mot juste.  “I mean, if you don’t have adult supervision, you might land on top of each other and hurt yourselves.”

The kids seem mollified when Jerome “Jay” Powell–Fed chairman–butts in and spoils the calm I’ve achieved by spreading mature oil on youth’s stormy waters.

Powell:  “You call that bouncing?  Give me a break!”

“Hey Brainard,” he shouts, “I’m going to bounce you to the moon!”

Powell climbs in the castle and the sense of unfairness that the stymied kids feel has become palpable even to the guy taking the tickets.

“Jay–those kids were here first,” he says to Powell as the former lawyer/investment banker lands on the seat of his pants, taking things slowly at first so as not to trigger an asset deflation in his corner of the real estate sector.

“Get ’em a balloon animal, or maybe a comic book,” Powell snaps.  The Fed gets its revenues from fees that it charges banks, not Congressional appropriations, and that independence sometimes causes its governors to be insensitive to political considerations.

The little girl starts to sob quietly, but her spring shower of tears turns to a monsoon when Randal Quarles, a former Fed governor who’s gone off to make real money in private equity, jumps into the Bouncy Castle, touching off a chain reaction among the three adults that has them giggling uncontrollably as they lose their balance and their footing.

Quarles:  “There’s Skee-Ball, there’s the toy claw machine–PLENTY of other activities for the kids.”

“I wanna go IN!” the little girl says, and she breaks free of her brother and climbs over the Captains of Finance to find a spot where she can bounce undisturbed by the flying bodies of the three larger beings.

“I guess you can go in too,” I say to her brother, and with a sharp drop in the average age of the Bouncy House inhabitants, the jumps aren’t as high but the overall fun quotient–measured by smiles per bounce–increases dramatically.

“Adult swim is over,” I shout to the governors, who grumble a bit but reluctantly emerge, put their shoes back on and turn their attention back to less serious matters, such as regulating the money supply of the world’s largest economy.

“You know,” I say after they’ve caught their breath and searched around for change shaken from their pockets in order to come up with purchase price of snow cones, “we got the Bouncy Castle for kids, not for adults.”

“You’re only young once,” Powell says as checks the prices at a face-painting booth, “and by the time we finish our fourteen-year terms, we’ll be all grown up.”

Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Our Friends, the Fed.”