The Loyalty Meter

 

So this guy comes to my door.

He says he's the meter reader

and wants to come in to read

the meter.

"What meter?" I asked him.

"There's no meters in here."

"Sure there is" he says politely.

I can tell he's just passed some kind

of certification course in 

Customer Service.

"It's right next to the kitchen sink."

He goes into the kitchen and by golly

if there isn't a little meter next to the

sink.

I never noticed it before.

It's got a couple of dials on it

and numerals and even a little

red light that's blinking.

"Oh, oh" says the guy.

"This is bad."

"What's bad?" I ask him.

Then I ask: "Hey, just what does

this meter measure, anyway?"

"It's a loyalty meter" he says.

"And yours is not reading so good."

"Whaddya mean loyalty meter?" 

I ask him. "Never heard of such rubbish!"

"It measures your loyalty to the 

current administration." 

I just glared at him;

the way my mother used to

glare at me when I was misbehaving

as a boy.

"Your loyalty reading is way low"

he says, ignoring my glare.

 "I'm going to have to fine

you fifty-five dollars. Payable

by debit or credit card."

We tussled a bit, but I finally

threw him out the front door.

"I'll be back!" he yelled as he shook his fist.

But I never saw him again.

Instead I got a bill in the mail

for fifty-five dollars.

Which I tore up and threw away.

Another one came the next week.

This one included a key chain with

a red vinyl sticker that read 

"Your continued loyalty is appreciated."

I threw the whole shebang away.

Then I got a UPS package.

With the same bill, and a 

set of rare 1943 steel pennies.

Now how did they know I was

a numismatist?

I was sorely tempted to keep the

steelies --

but I dropped them,

one by one,

off of the Washington Avenue Bridge,

as the sun traveled a horizontal line

from left to right.

The very next day a man brought me

a pony. 

To keep.

If I would just be loyal.

I'd always wanted a pony.

And this one came with a red leather

saddle and silver stirrups.

Okay, okay, I told the man.

I give up -- I'll be loyal.

"It's not quite that easy" 

the man said with a leer.

"You have to prove your loyalty

by shooting the pony."

And he gave me a gun. 

I fired it once.

But not at the pony.

Timericks from stories in today's New York Times.

 

Confronting a climate crisis that threatens the fossil fuel industry, oil companies are racing to make more plastic. But they face two problems: Many markets are already awash with plastic, and few countries are willing to be dumping grounds for the world’s plastic waste.

The industry thinks it has found a solution to both problems in Africa.

In Africa the nations find a campaign that is drastic

to put away organic things and only buy what's plastic.

And that ain't all they've got to face; as plastic turns to litter,

the jungle's full of styrofoam, which makes the monkeys bitter.

People are not buying gas, so Big Oil pushes vinyl;

as plastic bags hang from palm trees -- and that is pretty final.

Ayahuasca, a vomit-inducing hallucinogenic brew, draws thousands of people each year — including former soldiers — to jungle retreats that have become an unlicensed and unregulated mental health marketplace.

When my mental health decays

I can still find better ways

dealing with my psychic fits

than a drug that gives me s***s.

Jungle humbug, so it seems,

peddles snake oil's ancient dreams.

All you need to cure cracked head

is a book, some bucks, and bed.

New Yorkers Are Fleeing to the Suburbs: ‘The Demand Is Insane’

The suburbs are a lonely place

where no one knows your name.

The lawns kept green and pristine,

or it's ridicule and shame.

I'd rather be a prisoner

in some low dungeon cell

than ev'ry stinking weekend

have to deal with dead cow smell.

Timericks from stories in today's Wall Street Journal.

 

As Trash Piles Up During Covid, Residents Raise a Stink

I think that I shall never sniff

odors that leave me so stiff.

If the Mayor can't find staff,

HE can sweep up all the chaff!

Coronavirus Has Left Banks With Lots of Cash and Little to Do With It

So  banks have got a lot of loot,

as to their vaults the savers scoot.

While defaults soar, the greenbacks mount --

please transfer some to my account!

The big vacation is out. America is going camping (and boating and hiking and fishing) instead.

It's cheap and not at all too hard

to travel 'round my own backyard.

The peony's a tourist trap;

but there's a hammock for a nap.

The neighbor throws me carrots raw;

the dog performs with just one paw.

Who needs vacations when my grass

hides silverfish and broken glass?

No man-made thing competes

 

What painting or portrait

gives beauty like the dawn?

No man-made thing competes

with what the Lord has drawn.

How to grow white mushrooms.

 (based on a news story by Christopher Mims, WSJ.)

I worked real hard over the years

 to afford a home on Lake Minnetonka. 

They don't go for nickels.

Still, once I was moved in

I felt that I had gotten a bargain.

The crystal blue water.

The soughing pines all around

my property.

On stormy nights the waves

slapping crazily on the rip rap.

Imagine my consternation, then,

when one morning I awoke

to find an ocean going vessel

run aground on my beach.

I called 911.

They sent the police.

The police sent for the 

Coast Guard 

from Duluth.

When they arrived

they told me it was

an automatically piloted

ship.

Autonomous,

they called it.

No skipper, no crew.

All done by FM signals

or some such thing.

But how,

I asked them,

did the blame thing get

onto a freshwater lake

and crash on my beach?

They shrugged their shoulders.

Coulda been a high tide

said one guy.

 "Thank you, Captain Peachfuzz"

I told him sourly.

It took 'em a month to get

the hulk towed off my beach.

By then it was Christmas.

I was all alone in my house

on Lake Minnetonka.

My family and friends

mostly didn't believe in

wearing masks.

So I didn't join them

for Christmas

or invite them over.

But Christmas Eve

there was another wreck on my beach.

This time it was a tanker,

filled with eggnog.

Autonomous again, so no crew.

The eggnog dribbled out of the tanker

and froze on the rip rip,

making everything smell of nutmeg.

But there was a stowaway.

I caught him creeping out of the tanker,

covered in eggnog and shivering.

"Come on in, friend" I told him.

"Nobody should freeze to death covered

in eggnog."

I had to help him inside. He was almost gone.

I washed him up and put him to bed.

Then sat in the living room by the

lighted Christmas tree, reading

Martin Chuzzlewit.

The next morning when I 

went into his room

he was gone.

He didn't leave a note

or anything.

Just three lumpy woolen socks

and an open can of Vienna Sausage.

When they finally got the tanker

hauled off my beach it was spring.

The eggnog killed all the fish.

Must've contained alcohol.

I sold the house, my fine house,

to some Welch salvors. 

Then moved into a cave

to grow white mushrooms.

Photo Essay: Apartment Doors.

 

The Dry Places

 

He opened the rock, and the waters gushed out; they ran in the dry places like a river.

Psalm 105:41

No stone can withstand His touch

Rock into water will flow

And my arid heart shall rejoice

with green jubilation aglow

Not of this World.

 

(Special thanks to Matt Privratsky for the original idea on Twitter.)

So I went on vacation for a week in August. 

No big deal, right?

When I got back 

someone had weeded my front lawn

and trimmed the edges along the sidewalk.

And planted mushrooms --

because I never had mushrooms before

on my front lawn.

Dandelions and creeping charlie,

sure,

but never mushrooms.

But there they were --

big as life.

I asked around the neighborhood,

to see if anyone knew anything about 

it.

Everyone was silent as the tomb --

but they all looked pretty worried

at the same time.

One of my neighbors,

old Mrs. Henderson,

actually began to sob

when I asked her if she knew

who had been monkeying with my lawn.

"I dasn't tell you" she moaned.

"They'll kill me."

Double-yew, Tee, Eff --

something screwy was going on.

Of that I was sure.

But I had to wait six weeks

to find out what it was.

A shake-down is what it was.

The mushrooms in my front lawn,

which I had sprayed with poison

and lashed with weed whackers,

and which would not go away,

suddenly got up on their hind legs

one fall morning and marched into 

my living room.

"We demand surrender or you will suffer"

said the lead mushroom, in a mushy kind of voice.

"Give us gold and silver if you want to survive" 

the damn thing continued.

"Get outta here!" I yelled at them. 

"We are mushrooms from far away in the galaxy"

intoned the head mushroom. "We will destroy you."

I snatched 'em all up, put 'em in a pot, and made

cream of space alien mushroom soup. 

I gave a bowl of it to Mrs. Henderson.

She said it was real good, but needed more

cream.

Huh. More cream. Does she think I'm made 

out of money?

That's the last time I save the Earth for some

picky old lady.

Torku from stories in today's Washington Post.

 

Police brutality, voting rights, racial justice: Echoes from 1963′s March on Washington.

a perennial weed

cannot say I'm sorry;

it only spreads

with neglect.

The idea of serving chopsticks is a radical change from China’s usual practice of family-style eating, where people don’t order individual meals but instead get numerous dishes to share, thinking nothing of putting their personal chopsticks in the communal plate and then in their mouth and then back into the plate.

communal thought

blossoms in China;

but not communal

chopsticks.

A professional organizer shares ways to downsize an aging parent, without the drama.

a whited sepulcher

gets no respect

from its children --

only brown cardboard.

Rest in the Lord

 

Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him . . . 

Psalm 37:7

Wait upon the Lord each day/to find your golden mean and stay.

His rest is unlike man's repose/It's peaceful joy in soft meadows.