Not Right in the Head

After an extensive examination, the doctor concluded that my wife wasn’t right in the head.

Aside: my wife is glaring at me with a look that could blister the paint on a battleship. In the interest of avoiding incineration, let me provide a some context.

The doctor in question is my wife’s oh-toe-lair-in …. auto-lauren … octo-linen … ear, nose and throat guy. He decided that she was having trouble with her sinuses, but he said he had a fix for that.

I looked up sinuses on-line to see what he might be talking about. Guess what? Sinuses are just holes in your skull. Sort of like damp, gooey caves hidden behind the bones of your face. So, in essence, the doctor was saying that my wife had holes in her head and that was the problem.

Things that go “POOF!”

In this age of heightened security, I’ve heard that the authorities might be monitoring the telephone conversations of ordinary citizens like me. If they are listening in on my cell calls to my wife, I have two words for them.

Good. Luck.

Really.

Our conversations are non-linear in the same way that tires are non-square, fish are non-mammals, and beefsteak tomatoes are non-meat. For example, imagine that I wanted to tell my wife I’d set up an appointment to have the lawn-chemical warfare guys spray the foundation for bugs.

I pay them to do this every Fall even though I’m not convinced it actually works. For all I know the big hose on their truck is actually connected to a tank filled with leftover cologne that stores couldn’t unload on Father’s Day. If I got down close and sniffed, my house might smell of off-brand aftershave like Old Splice, Tommy Hilfinger, or Huge Old Boss. It might repel the bugs for the same reason these scents repel anyone over the age of eight. Or maybe there never were any bugs to begin with. Or there might be a huge army of bugs massed on the far side of the fence just waiting for the year that I forget to tell my wife the be ready to let the lawn-chemical warfare guys into the backyard. That’s why it’s vitally important for me to call her and tell her to expect them promptly between nine and three tomorrow.

Feeling My Age

My lawnmower is gone. He moved away to college. With his departure, my wife and I took off the business casual clothing of active parents and slid into the comfortable shorts and Hawaiian shirts of empty-nesters. And you know what? It’s weird.

Really.

In the evenings, we no longer have to make sure that everyone has finished their math or packed their lunch or remembered to tell us about the forty-page book report about War and Peace that’s due first thing in the morning even though they have yet to technically read any actual part of the book including the title. My wife and I can enjoy meals which include sophisticated adult foods like broccoli, fish, and cheese that didn’t come from the inside of an aerosol can. We don’t have to worry about our television-viewing choices corrupting our children so we are fee to watch the evening news once more. In a lot of ways, it’s like being newlyweds all over-again; except we’re newlyweds with decades of experience.

Editorially Speaking

American daily newspapers are dying in record numbers. Where once these magnificent beasts roamed the plains in great herds, now they have been hunted nearly to extinction by the railroads.

Oh. Wait.

That’s the buffalo. Nonetheless, newspapers really are dying. If your local daily was a guest character on a medical drama, the hunky doctor would be saying reassuring things to the newspaper’s family before telling the gorgeous nurse to have the morgue boys come up the back way so as not to alarm anybody. Which is a shame because the local paper performs the vital service of identifing the dangerous lunatics in your neighborhood.

Don’t believe me? Try this simple test. Pick up any local daily newspaper, turn to the letters to the editor page and read it. Now are you convinced? I thought so.

It’s Down to the Wire

The history of modern professional sports is a real Cinderella story; a genuine David-and-Goliath fight between the teams on the one hand and an apathetic public on the other foot. Every team out there gives one-hundred-and-ten-percent every time the sun shines just to prove that they’re the team to beat … and watch. And nothing has contributed to the public interest in sports more than the development of color commentary.

Really.

The original public sporting spectacle — the ancient Olympic games — didn’t have any color commentators to explain the on-field action. To attract public attention, the players had to resort to wearing their summer uniforms. This helped draw a modest crowd, but modern historians all agree that more people would have gone to see the games if Howard Cosell had provided his insights into the nuances of the competition. Unfortunately for the organizers, Cosell was about two-thousand years too young to participate.