Posted by
William D. Dannenmaier on Sunday, February 15, 2009 9:03:37 AM
I was comparing the difference in prices of jars of honey from “name” brands, with the bargain brand. I couldn’t figure out why the bargain brand was so much cheaper. It finally occurred to me this morning while I was making myself a cup of tea. The bargain brand honey is made by middle and lower class bees. The name brands are made by important bees – the Peloses, Reids and Kennedys of the bee world. And there is a difference other than price between the two. The lower class bees give you better quality and the important bees give themselves greater profits.
As my bride prepared lunch the other day, I settled in the family room to set up a movie for us to watch while eating. I looked forward to lunch that day. She had purchased a frozen diet meal of shrimp and rice which is a favorite of mine. To my surprise she came in with cheese and crackers. She had dropped my shrimp and rice. It turns out I’m not the only one in the house who enjoys shrimp and rice. Baxter and Yukon, our pure-bred mongrel shepherds, had cleaned the floor beautifully.
I fear I might have black fly disease. For the unsophisticated: black flies attack deer. Deer, who catch the disease black flies carry, die a slow death; tired and starving. Black fly disease is not supposed to affect humans. I have been assured that even infected venison is safe to eat. When walking last year, I received numerous black fly bites. These only annoyed me at the time, but now I find myself tired a lot of the time. The medical profession is making a fortune off of me, with operations and treatments. But they are overlooking the real culprit, my problems have nothing to do with a broken chest, bad arteries or age. I have black fly disease. After all, I am a dear human. Ask Sheila.
For some reason my son Eric brought four sets of colorful cotton pants for me on his last visit. They were for night wear. Either he saw me walking about on an earlier visit in the long underwear pants, slightly worn, that I purchased in 1982, or my bride had made disparaging comments about them to him. Anyway, Sheila has appropriated two of these. This morning, a cold one, she was walking about in them when we were preparing to go to the Cardiac Club. I got dressed, or undressed, to go (I don’t believe in excessive or heavy clothing when I have to weigh in every time) when I noticed my bride had changed into her jeans. Driving to the hospital, I asked why she changed. “Because they are pajamas, not outer wear.” “Why did you tell me to wear them yesterday when you refuse to wear them today” I asked? “Well if I went in there in pajamas, Mary Ann and Tammy (the nurses in charge) would check me for a fever and then send me to a psychiatrist, but if you wore them they would only say, “That’s Bill,” and forget it.
Mary Ann likes to write advice, especially diet advice on the blackboards. This morning one board was empty so I decided to help her out when she was distracted by business. I wrote, “Every one knows that cream is very light. It floats to the top in milk bottles, so, if you wish to lose weight, pour whipping cream over everything you eat. You’ll float on the scale.”
I saw Mary Ann read it, look at me, and shrug. Why she looked at me, I don’t know.
At my brother, Joe’s, insistence, the family woke me up the other night to talk to him. He started off by saying that he had talked with every other member of my family recently, he thought it was time to talk to me. When I complained that he should call earlier, that I got up early in the morning he said so did he, he said he was up every morning by six. I replied that I got up at five. In response he said that I was just trying to upstage him. I explained that wasn’t the truth, that if I didn’t get up at five the dogs “woofed” me up. It’s true. If I don’t get up and feed them at five, Sheba comes to my side of the bed and softly, “woofs, woofs” in my ear until I get up. If I struggle away from her, closer to Sheila, she puts her head on the bed and continues her woofing, all very softly. I suppose she doesn’t want to bother Sheila – it’s a feminist thing. Recently, Baxter has taken up this practice for her. Dogs, like wives, learn bad habits from one another.