Six wild elephants fell over a treacherous waterfall in Thailand and died after one of the herd, a 3-year-old, was swept away by the river and the others tried to save it, national park officials said on Sunday. (NYT)

It's difficult writing about elephants, because you need a permit to do so. And getting an elephant writing permit is no easy thing.
I went down to the Elephant Writing Permit Bureau last week, because I wanted to write something about elephants for my blog. You don't mess around with these people, not even online. If you don't get a permit they can come into your home and garnish your cheeses and meats. They can also have your car towed away and embarrass you at work by making you wear a bucket hat. They are serious people.
So first of all I had to wait in an outer office for three hours, just to get into an inner office to register for a Permit interview. After I registered (which costs twenty dollars, by the way) I was told to wait in Room 21 down the hallway. The clerk said this in such a peculiar way, his eyebrows raised and his pencil tapping nervously on the counter, that I asked if there was something about Room 21 that I should know.
"Well . . . " he began, looking around to make sure we were alone, "Room 21 is usually where they send the troublemakers. I had orders to send you there the minute you walked in -- have you been sticking your nose where it doesn't belong or anything?"
"Not I" I affirmed. "I just want to write about cute baby elephants on my blog, which doesn't even have much of a following. It's more of a hobby than anything else." 
He shook his head. 
"Well, it looks bad for you. Here's my advice -- tell the interviewer you really don't want to write about elephants at all. You just need permission to mention elephants while you rip members of Congress a new one. They may let you have a permit that way."
I followed his advice down in Room 21 and it worked like a charm. My interviewer, a withered old hag who could no longer even get her alarming red lipstick on straight, nodded her head in approval and stamped my Permit with a loud 'clang!' 
Then I went home and wrote my blog about cute baby elephants. I had barely pushed 'Publish' when there was a thunderous knocking on my front door. I answered it to find the old hag, her lipstick even more smeared than before, glaring at me. She stabbed me with a bony forefinger.
"You didn't attack Congress!" she snarled at me. "I'm revoking your permit and placing you on the Do Not Save From Zombies list!" As she walked down the front porch steps I noticed that one of her nylon stockings was falling down and that she wore a prosthetic. 
This was looking bad, so I applied for asylum to Norway. I talked to their ambassador a week ago and she is finding me a houseboat in Trondheim, where I can write my blogs in peace.
Of course in Norway you have to get a permit to write about walruses. But who ever writes about those big blubbery things? 

@RCPaddock  @bonimygi

The Magic Tackle Box

A guy went by playing a theremin in his motorboat while I was fishing on the riverbank, so I knew things were going to get strange. And they did. I caught a big perch, using canned corn for bait, and was about to smash it against a rock, since perch are too bony to fillet, when it began to plead for its life.
"Please don't kill me!" it said to me, clear as a bell.
"Why not?" I asked calmly.
"Oh, I can grant you three wishes if you spare my life!" it replied.
"No thanks. That three wishes gag never turns out good in stories, so it's a no sale" I replied as I lifted it up.
"Wait! Wait!" it screamed at me, its bulging eyes bulging even more. "I will get you anything you want. Anything! Just name it! I'm a powerful river perch, and I've got lots of connections." 
"Oh yeah?" I said, laying it down on the ground. "Well, there's not much I really want or need. I have achieved a modest but peaceful equilibrium in my life already. You, pal, are just a disturbance in the happy flow of my existence." I like to wax philosophical at times.
"Surely there is something you desire, something you have dreamed about?" it said anxiously to me, rolling its dead-looking eyes. Little did it know I had already decided to throw it back in the water to let someone else have the pleasure of catching it and arguing with it. Beating a screaming fish against a rock is not my idea of a good time.
"Well . . . " I considered. "My brother Billy used to have a big green tackle box with accordion shelves. I loved going through that thing, looking at all the lures and jigs and stuff. How about you get me a big ol' tackle box with lots of surprises in it -- and we'll call it square."
"Done!" cried the perch triumphantly, and up from the water by my feet rose a large Paris green tackle box. I fished it out, hefted it carefully, and tossed the talking perch back into the river.
Then I took my new tackle box back home and placed it on the work table in the basement. I gingerly opened it up and began pulling out the accordion trays; they were hinged together, so when you pulled one out you pulled out the entire side. Boy, was it loaded!  
There were latex worms in rainbow colors and a big dark green latex frog speckled all over in gray with a wicked hook sticking out of its belly. I could just imagine some old northern pike greedily sucking it in. I found an old hand-carved and hand-painted wooden minnow, segmented into three parts, with hooks dangling from its bottom like rows of deadly curved icicles on the eaves of a roof.  An orange plastic box held dozens of lead weights -- some as small as b-b shot and others shaped like pyramids and big enough almost to use as a paperweight. A jar of orange salmon eggs. Jigs gussied up with feathers and streamers and tin foil and bright colored beads. There was a slim silver whistle, engraved with the words "Sid's Canadian Fish Call." I blew on it; it made a sound like bubbles in an aquarium. 
And there was a Detroit phone book from 1942. The pages were brown and very brittle. It made for fascinating reading. I never saw so many strange names -- Wojcick, Kowalcyck, Svoboda, Nagy, Costaplente, Himmelfahrt. And there were ads for things like decoilers, crank discs, and wholesale rubber gaskets. I showed it to an old neighbor, who offered me ten dollars for it -- he grew up in Detroit. 
The next day, after work, I went down into my basement and opened up my wonderful tackle box again. This time I gloated over the spoon lures and casting lures. They were in such grand metallic hues that I felt like a king in his counting house, counting all his money. 
And there was a pimento loaf sandwich, on rye, wrapped in wax paper. I didn't hesitate a moment -- I ate it up to the last crumb with relish. Somehow, the wax paper gave it more flavor and panache than if it had been stuck in a mundane baggie.
My tackle box continued to amaze and please me for many more days. But one evening, with storm clouds rolling in and a sullen continuous thunder growling in the distance, I opened my tackle box to discover nothing but rust and cobwebs. As I was about to close it in dismay the perch I had saved at the river rose up out of the tackle box and hovered before me, with a fiendish look in its gelid eye.
"Hah!" it chortled at me. "You fool -- you have given me enough time to grow in my black magic arts -- and now I will summon my fish demons from their parallel realm to wreak havoc on your puny world! Soon I, and I alone, will rule this planet, and all will bow before me to lick my scales!"
I hate Indian givers -- especially when they smell like fish. So I grabbed the perch and beat its fishy brains out on my work table. I swept up the mess, buried it in the garden by the roses, and took the tackle box back to the river and threw it back in. 
The guy in the motorboat playing the theremin turned into shore near me to ask how the fishing was.
"Nothing but talking perch" I told him.
"This river has gone to the dogs ever since they put in that new coffer dam" he said in disgust, then motored away downstream. 

Rhymes from Stories in Today's Washington Post -- A man jumped from the bushes for a birthday surprise. His startled father-in-law fatally shot him. -- A teen pretended to be a cop. A real cop hauled him away. -- Trump takes vulgar swipe at Romney after senator criticizes president’s China, Ukraine appeals.

When jumping from bushes beware

your father-in-law you don't scare.

He might have a rod,

and send you to God,

without enough chance to prepare!

@britsham

**************************************************

There was a young man who did flop

when he tried to work as a cop.

An officer real

ignored his appeal

and tossed him into a sweatshop.

@lateshiabeachum

********************************************

When presidents want to be crude

they pick on an LDS prude.

So Romney gets cursed

by Trump at his worst --

knowing he'll never be sued.

@ColbyItkowitz

"There must be better ways to kill time . . . "

Photo Still Lives: A plate of succulents with dead bird. Rocks; Sunflowers; and Potted Chives. Chairs and a red pail in the sunlight. Birdseed and foul green water.

Trump Will Deny Immigrant Visas to Those Who Can’t Pay for Health Care (NYT)

He's defending us taxpayers (though we don't know what HE pays)

from sickly interlopers who our healthcare costs will raise.

Just like banks won't lend unless you already have cash,

you need to have insurance that pays millions for whiplash

in order to come stay with us -- and why should you do that

if you're well-connected back at home, a real fat cat?

I'm afraid the next step taken will be to deport

Americans who tell their clinic they're a little short!

@shearm  @mirjordan

No Soliciting

I bought a charming old house with steep gables and a brickwork fireplace that was a miracle of intricate design. It even had hand painted individual tiles in front of it; each tile representing a different scene from Holland, like windmills and tulips. I moved in during the afternoon on a hot summer day and treated myself to a glass of lemonade, made from lemons from my own tree in the backyard. 
Just above the doorbell next to the front door was fastened a brass plaque, still shiny, that read "No Soliciting."  I liked that -- it made me feel classy.
As I sipped my lemonade that first day in my new home the doorbell rang. I answered it -- to find a salesman peddling rosewater!
"Very handy item to have around" he said, grinning. "They use a lot of it in the Middle East for their cuisine."
"Can't you read the sign?" I asked him crossly, pointing at the brass plaque. "No soliciting. Now go away." 
He didn't put up a fuss; just pretended to tip a hat to me and walked down the steps and slid quietly away.
I had barely sat down when the bell rang again.
This time it was a lady selling oaken buckets. 
"I make them myself" she said cheerfully, ignoring my stern features. They looked pretty sturdy. She had beads of sweat across her upper lip.
"Those must be awful heavy to carry around" I said.
"That they are" she admitted. She eyed the glass of lemonade I was holding with longing. I nearly invited her in, but then remembered the sacred brass plaque that I was in duty bound to honor.
"I'm sorry" I told her. "But you can't be selling things around here. You could get in trouble. Good luck to you, somewhere else." And I closed the door in her weary face. 
I decided to make a tuna fish sandwich to go with my lemonade, and when I came out of the kitchen there was a tall thin man, dressed in a dark blue pinstripe suit, putting a glossy black leather briefcase on the coffee table.
"This beats everything!" I said to him angrily. "You didn't even bother to ring the doorbell? What are YOU selling -- rudeness?"
He looked at me, startled. His pince nez fell off his nose and dangled by his side on a wide black ribbon. Who wears those kind of glasses anymore? This was an outrage! 
"What the blazes are you doing in my house?" he asked me.
"Your house?" I replied. "This is MY house, buddy. And you'd better get out before I call the cops!"
He seemed to puff up like a toad on the stove.
"What? What?" he repeated, glowering like a lighthouse. "I shall call the police this very instant myself!" He strode over to an alcove under the stairs and dialed on an old black rotary phone. I hadn't really noticed it there before. This was getting weird.
"Hello, Joe?" he said into the receiver. "This is Ross. Yes, I'm fine, thanks. But I've got some kind of crank in my living room who claims he lives here. Can you come down and get him out? I'm at 125 Barker Street. Okay, thanks." He came over to me with a smug expression. "That was Joe, the chief of police. An old friend. He'll settle your hash -- you squatter!"
We glared at each other in silence until Joe arrived. He was out of uniform.
"I was on my way to the river for some fishing" he explained as he shook the intruder's hand and gave me a cold look. "Now what's this all about?"
I interrupted pince nez as he started to dither, to explain I had just bought the house, had all the papers in the desk in the dining room, and that this crazy person had barged right in to say it was his house. "So, chief, I'd appreciate it if you'd take him down to the laughing academy where he belongs." 
Joe rubbed his chin, looking back and forth between the two of us.
"Well" he finally said, "I've known Ross here for a long time. He sells insurance and we've both been members of the Rotary Club together for years and years. You, on the other hand, I have never seen before . . ."
I didn't bother to reply, just went into the dining room and brought back the papers showing the house was mine and that I was making mortgage payments to the local bank for it. 
"Who sold you this place?" asked Joe the chief.
"Truax Realty" I said. "Judy Truax herself showed me the place and helped me get the mortgage."
"Well, I've known Judy for years, just like Ross here. Sound as a dollar, she is. I can't understand how such a thing can happen . . . "
"Poppycock!" said pince nez loudly. "Joe, you just escort this bindlestiff out of here and lock him up. Give him the rubber hose treatment for all I care. He's a lunatic!"
Suddenly Joe the chief exploded at the both of us.
"Shaddup, you two mugs!" he yelled, his face turning crimson. "I'm sick and tired of trying to sort out these domestic disputes. You two are going to have to learn to live together  -- and do it right now, dammit. Or I'll put both of yez in jail and throw away the key!"
He shook his finger in both our faces, spittle leaking out of his compressed lips, and then left -- giving the door such a slam I thought it would break the hinges. 
"Adamant, isn't he?" said pince nez in a low voice.
"Indubitably" I replied softly. 

I wasn't about to give up my house, and Ross, the guy with the antique eyeglasses, wouldn't leave either. So we made the best of it. I slept in the master bedroom and let Ross sleep in the guestroom. Turns out we both liked bran flakes for breakfast, so there was no contention there. And since he went to his office every morning at eight and didn't come back until five-thirty, I had the house all to myself most of the day. In the evenings he taught me to play backgammon and I told him stories of Burma in the old days, when I logged teak wood in the swamps around Thandwe and made a fortune in just a few years. I'd been retired ever since, living off the interest, and collecting horsehair buttons as a hobby.
 We actually scrapped along pretty well together for some time. Then one day Joe the police chief called me while Ross was at the office.
"Bad news, I'm afraid" he said right off the bat. "Seems that Judy Truax has been scamming customers right and left for years. She never had the right to sell any of those old houses, like the one you thought you bought, and she was in cahoots with the bank to write out phony mortgage documents and collect nice fat fees from victims like you. I'm sorry to say that the house still belongs to Ross, not you. You have no right to be there." 
"Okay" I gulped. "I'll pack my bags and tell Ross about it when he gets home at five-thirty."
"Sorry to be the bearer of such lousy news -- if you need a place to bunk for a few night you can come down to the jail. The food's not too bad and I'll turn the thermostat up a little" said the chief. He wasn't such a bad guy, after all.
"Thanks" I said, choking back tears. "I'll think about it." By then I'd lost most of my money due to the capital gains tariff. 
When Ross got home I told him everything, then shook his hand and told him it had been a real pleasure to get to know him. He wouldn't let go of my hand, but instead drew me into an embrace.
"You know the old Spanish proverb -- mi casa es su casa?" he asked me. "Well, that's the way it'll be around here. My house is your house for as long as you like." 
I couldn't speak for a while. We were both crying like babies. 
"Okay, Ross" I finally managed. "If you want me to keep beating you at backgammon I'll stick around." 
But it was Ross who left first. He died the next year from stomach cancer. Those bran flakes didn't do him any good after all. In his will he left me the house, free and clear. As well as his three pair of pince nez. What a guy . . . 
After the funeral I unscrewed the "No Soliciting" plaque and put it in a drawer. I figured things would be kinda lonely without Ross around anymore, and maybe that rose water guy might come back to show me how to cook with the stuff. 

The Permafrost Horror

The Russians asked us in at the beginning of the year. They'd heard about our success in Alaska, duct tapping the permafrost to keep it from melting and flooding the forests and cities. So naturally they wanted us to come over to Siberia to do the same thing. On a much larger scale, of course. Their own duct tape wasn't worth crap. Although they wouldn't admit it, they knew that our American duct tape was top quality and would last a hundred years under any conditions. That's because we didn't stint on the zinc powder or adhesive when manufacturing it. I know -- I've got a cousin who runs a duct tape plant in White Plains. He told me all about it.

So once the contracts were signed and the bond was paid I rounded up the boys and we took ship to the Kamchatka Peninsula. Once there, we offloaded out giant duct tape spools onto the winch trucks and headed out into the tall timber. We had to hire plenty of local help -- it was part of the contract. The problems started when my team boss, Big Rudy, couldn't tell the difference between Russian laborers and grizzly bears. They kinda looked the same, and they sure smelled the same. They even ate the same kind of disgusting grub -- berries and bark and half-rotted road kill. So Big Rudy started bringing grizzly bears into the camp as workers. I had to get on Big Rudy's case about it.
"Look" I told him, "all you gotta do is get them talking -- the humans will jabber away in Russian, and the bears will just growl at you. It's simple."
"That's what you think" retorted Big Rudy. "To me that Russian jabber sounds just like a grizzly growl. Besides, the bears work harder than the humans, and they don't ask for any pay. They just take the empty spools for their cubs to play with."
He had me there -- we were already dealing with some serious cost overruns; so I let Big Rudy have his way and pretty soon we had a pack of bears doing all the grunt work. Like he said, we didn't have to pay them, just let them take the empty spools back to their caves for their cubs. When the Russian authorities came poking their noses into our labor situation the bears simply ate them, fur hats, bones, and all. As far as I'm concerned, it was a win-win situation.

Maybe you don't know how we use duct tape to shore up the melting permafrost. It's not hard, not really rocket science. You just unspool long swaths of duct tape over crevasses or around crumbling stream banks where the permafrost is melting fastest. This holds the water in, or back, and since it all freezes again at night, soon the whole melting process is reversed. Some egghead at M.I.T. figured it out a few years ago, and since then American duct tape companies like mine have been shaking the money tree -- there's an unbelievable amount of money available for global warming quick fixes like ours. I kept sixty men on the payroll, full-time, without batting an eye. 

But this Siberian permafrost job wasn't all skittles and beer. After the bears showed up, we kept encountering cryogenically preserved woolly mammoths and saber tooth tigers that would suddenly come back to life and begin trampling and clawing the men. The bears they left alone, but my crew seemed to bring out the worst in them. Even Big Rudy, who could knock down a megatherium with one blow, was hard put to keep the creatures from grinding him to a pulp or biting off a hand. We finally had to issue each man a rifle. This really slowed down the work, and I started hearing word from Moscow that they might pull our contract and give it to some Swedish outfit.

I decided I'd better nip this in the bud, so I left Big Rudy in charge and flew out to Moscow for a powwow with the head honchos. We got things straightened out after a few days and a dozen bottles of vodka. But when I got back to camp, everything was in shambles. The spool trucks were tipped over; the tents were ripped to shreds; and I could no longer tell the men from the bears. Everyone was bent over on all fours, growling and groveling, snuffling for grubs and decayed mammoth meat. No one noticed me. All the rifles lay on the ground, muddy and rusted. 
"Boys!" I cried, 'don't ya know me?"
A creature that looked something like Big Rudy shambled up to me, sniffed my shirt, and growled some slurred words that sounded like "We go back woods. You go away or be like us." 
I fled in terror, taking the only truck that still worked.
I made it to Yelizovo before I ran out of gas and collapsed in a fevered coma. I was nursed back to health by a Koryak woman. When I was in my right mind again I married her and we now run a tourist hostel for visitors wanting to visit the nearby volcanoes. I try not to think about the bear-men I left behind -- but some nights, when the dry arctic wind moans down from the dark piney woods, I think I hear them marching on all fours, coming to slaughter us  and let the permafrost flood the land . . . 

Apple ने iPhone 11 का उत्पादन बढ़ाया

एक आश्चर्यजनक कदम में जिसने आपूर्तिकर्ताओं को तंग इन्वेंट्री नियंत्रण और शिपिंग दक्षता के लिए परेशान किया है, Apple ने हाल ही में अपने आपूर्तिकर्ताओं से अपने सभी मॉडलों में iPhone 11 के उत्पादन को बढ़ावा देने का अनुरोध किया है - कंपनी ने इस वर्ष अतिरिक्त आठ मिलियन अधिक इकाइयों का लक्ष्य रखा है । इसमें लगभग दस प्रतिशत की वृद्धि होती है। टेक मीडिया ने सप्ताह के अंत में इस आक्रामक विपणन निर्णय की घोषणा की, यह अनुमान लगाते हुए कि Apple ने मध्यम स्तर और निम्न स्तर के iPhones पर ध्यान केंद्रित करने का निर्णय लिया है, अन्यथा एक अन्यथा एशियाई बाजार में मजबूत बिक्री के लिए यह सबसे अच्छा दांव है। Apple द्वारा इस तरह का ऑर्डर प्लेसमेंट पहले नहीं देखा गया है, और अटकलें तेज है कि कंपनी उच्च गुणवत्ता, अधिक महंगी, मॉडल जो इसकी रोटी और मक्खन रही है, पर ध्यान केंद्रित करने के बजाय बुनियादी ऐप आईफ़ोन के साथ बाजार में बाढ़ लाने का इरादा रखती है। अतीत। Apple द्वारा बिक्री पर iPhone 11 सबसे महंगा मॉडल है, और मर्चेंडाइजिंग विशेषज्ञों का कहना है कि iPhone 11 प्रो मैक्स की बिक्री में अनुमानित नुकसान की भरपाई करने के लिए ऑर्डर बढ़ने की उम्मीद है, जो सिर्फ एक हजार डॉलर (एक मिलियन भारतीय रुपये) में सूचीबद्ध है ), और पिछले छह महीनों के दौरान अभाव बिक्री दिखाई है। भारत में प्रमुख मर्चेंट एसोसिएशनों ने चिंता व्यक्त की है कि सस्ते आईफ़ोन की आमद उनके मुनाफे को नाटकीय रूप से काट देगी।

A Huge Iceberg Split From Antarctica. (They Just Grew Apart.) [NYT] @KendraWrites

"What color are icebergs?" my son asked me one evening.
"Green, I think" I told him. He nodded and wrote it down; he was doing his homework at the kitchen table.
Two days later I was called to my son's school for an appointment with the principle -- Mr. Abernathy. I wasn't too concerned about it when I went into his office; my boy is pretty levelheaded and doesn't get into much trouble.
"Sit down, please" said Mr. Abernathy, a man with rusty brown hair and a mole on his chin.
"What can I do you for?" I asked him jocularly. But he didn't smile back.
"You told your son that icebergs are green, is that right?" he asked me.
"Yeah" I said. "I read that in some novel somewhere or other. Why, is that a problem?"
"Yes it is" he told me. "A serious one."
"How so?" I asked.
Mr. Abernathy got up from his desk and pulled down a map of Antarctica, on which a little white speck off the coast was circled heavily in black. 
"This is the Great Loose Tooth Iceberg, recently calved from the East Coast of Antarctica. It's bigger than the island of Maui. Does it look at all green to you?"
"Not particularly" I said, feeling a hot blush creeping up my neck. "I guess you'd call it off-white."
"Certainly not green" he replied grimly. He pulled on the map to snap it back up and then sat at his desk again. I noticed he kept a long chain of tangled paperclips on it. 
Not understanding what this was all about, I sat mumchance. Finally Mr. Abernathy cleared his throat and spoke.
"With the current global crisis, calling icebergs green is totally inappropriate. It teaches impressionable children that icebergs are harmless, possibly charming, fairy tale things to be made fun of or passed over lightly. This kind of anti-climatism is no longer tolerated at this school. Do I make myself clear?"
I could only gape at him.
"What in the Sam Hill are you talking about?" I finally said. "You make it sound like my boy committed a hate crime or something."
"A crime against the climate" said Mr. Abernathy, his chin mole quivering with outrage. 
I'd had enough of this idiocy. I stood up.
"Fine" I said. "I'll just take my son out of your school and put him someplace else."
"Sit down, sir" said Mr. Abernathy harshly while pushing a red button on his desk. "You will never see your son again. He will be reassigned to another family unit where he will hopefully unlearn all the anti-climactic poison you have been feeding him all these years." I sat down, aghast. What was happening here? My throat went dry with consternation. 
Two burly men, dressed in Sherwood green sports jackets and brown neckties, entered the room and lifted me bodily from my chair. I clawed desperately at them and finally managed to poke one in the eye with my thumb. He let go, and I swung around to the other goon to slash at him with my car keys. Then I was out the door, running down the hallway, looking for my son's classroom. 
When I found it I crashed through the door to confront his teacher, Ms. Larkins. 
She was so beautiful when startled that I asked her to marry me.
"Of course, Anthony" she said. "I've been waiting for you to ask me for years." 
"They're coming to take me away now" I told her. "We don't have much time. Do you mind a civil ceremony?"
"Not at all, darling" she replied softly. 
So we were married by the hall monitor. I only had time to give her a single tender kiss before the goons were on me, dragging me away.
"Take care of my little boy!" I cried to her.
"Which one is he?" she screamed after me. But I never got the chance to tell her. The goons knocked me unconscious.
When I awoke I was sitting in a hotel lobby. Wearing a big white apron and a chef's toque. 
"Oh, there you are" said a tall thin man, who was obviously the concierge. "The colonel wants his iceberg lettuce salad immediately."
"Roquefort or thousand island?" I replied stupidly, my head still reeling.
"Just oil and vinegar, as you very well know" replied the concierge tartly.
Then it hit me . . . iceberg lettuce is green. And I began to laugh.
This was all part of the initiation ceremony for the Freemasons. The Grand Lodge had accepted me! I gave the concierge the secret handshake, he helped me to my feet, and we walked arm-in-arm into the beautiful Swedish Rite hall, where Ms. Larkin and my son were waiting for me, dressed in their ceremonial sashes . . . 

Comet 2I/Borisov

On Dec. 7, the extrasolar comet now known as 2I/Borisov will make its closest approach to the sun.  (from the NYT)

BEFORE

I tripped on the sidewalk in front of my son's house and broke my ankle, so they put me in the hospital first and then in a private rehabilitation center for a week before allowing me to go back to my son's house. That's why I missed all the initial hullabaloo about the comet crashing into the earth in December. They only let you read USA Today in the rehab center, and that rag wouldn't know a news story if it hit them in the face with a sack of nickels. When I found out about the comet I immediately talked to my son.

"This thing really gonna hit the earth?" I asked him at breakfast.

"Looks like it" he said glumly. "Please pass the yogurt."

I'd seen all the movies about this sort of thing, so I quietly packed my suitcase with plenty of warm clothing and my old Boy Scout hatchet. Then I bought two dozen cans of sardines and stewed tomatoes down at the Dollar Tree Store. There didn't seem to be a run on basic supplies yet, so I got a couple rolls of toilet paper as well. Then began my watchful waiting. People didn't seem too upset or hysterical about it. I had a few old friends come over to visit me, shake hands, and say how pleasant it had been to know me -- to which I replied 'Ditto.' My son kept going to work each day and to play with his dog in the evenings.

"Why aren't people going crazy about this terrible thing?" I asked him one day at dinner.

"We're all pretty much burned out with our jobs and the stress of social media" he told me. "It'll be a relief to become extinct in a blinding flash. Is there any more of that colcannon left?" 

When the big day arrived I stayed in bed, with my best Sunday suit on, and said a long prayer. My son decided to go in to work as if nothing was going to happen. I must have dozed off, because I was awakened by a loud rumbling that shook the house so bad I was rolled right out of my bed onto the floor. I squeezed my eyes tight shut for the end, but all that happened was I became aware of a strong scent of peppermint and the faint sound of "woo-woo" repeated over and over again -- for all the world like the silly exclamation Hugh Herbert used to make in the old Warner Brothers movies. 

AFTER

When I picked myself up off the floor I looked out the casement window, but couldn't see anything much beyond gray mist. So I went up the stairs into the kitchen and out the back door. The smell of peppermint was much stronger, but not unpleasant. My son's dog came up to smell my leg, then coughed up a small bag of sunflower seeds. The mist lifted to reveal things pretty much the way they had always been. But there were some differences. Sparrows were running around in endless circles on the driveway. The lawn was all dandelions -- the yellow so blindingly bright it hurt my eyes. I went to the front of the house and found the carcass of a dead narwhal in the street, covered with bumper stickers that read "My child is an honor student at Tuttle School." Then I saw the mail lady coming down the street like nothing had happened. I decided two could play at this game, so I greeted her nonchalantly when she gave me a handful of junk mail.

"Turned out to be a nice day for this time of year" I told her. "Hope they move that dead narwhal soon."

"Yeah, I don't think this good weather will hold too much longer" she replied. "There's a dead rhino on your neighbor's roof down the street. That'll be hard to get down." She gave me a smile as she continued on her way. Rhino? What rhino? I walked down half a block and sure enough there was a white rhino on Ted Schaeffer's roof -- it was almost split in half. 

My watch had stopped at exactly 2:15, and when I went back in the house I noticed that none of the clocks, on the microwave or on the wall in the hallway, were working. They all read 2:15. That must have been when the comet struck. Where exactly did it strike, I wondered to myself. I turned on the TV, but Oprah was on every single channel, talking about the benefits of cooking with grape seed oil, so I turned it off and sat quietly in a chair until my son came home.

"We survived!" I greeted him. He didn't look particularly happy.

"I know" he replied. "And I got laid off today. Shit!"