Funny you should ask...
Copyrighted by Patrick McDonnell
I guess I should talk about wet and dry farts. It all started that way, thinking about how funny it was and wasn’t. You think that by now I had grown out of it, but no, still as ornery as ever. When I arrived at the café I spied my lawyer friend and a French girl I wanted to talk to. Along the way I had picked a bunch of Lilac flowers and gave them to the girl, who seemed to appreciate them. I went in to order and coming back out the girl was now speaking to a guy who had taken my place. Hmmmph. I didn’t like that. He got on my nerves.
As I sat down and began a conversation with my lawyer friend, the girl was on my other side of me as we were all sitting along side each other on rail ties used as benches, I noticed that the guy who had edged into my space was just going on and on. Talking bout himself. He even started edging up to the girl to show her his cell phone. A no no in these self distancing times, but I kept my cool. After another 10 minutes of this fool’s endless prater of “I this and I that” monolgue, I noticed some people had come up on bikes and had tipped the French girl’s bike over. I immediately called them out, and warned the girl what was going on. And he guy just kept going on and on.
Finally I had enough, and I turned around and let him have it. He was French (not that jerks are exclusively French) and I cut him down to size, I went after him in my perfect French and gave him both barrels. He was miffed, then put out and finally he got it. I had enough of him and his BS. He left in a huff. His tail between his legs like a defeated hound dog. So did the girl, though she said she hadn’t had time to drink her coffee. My Lawyer friend was astounded, he had never seen me act that way. My “french” was showing that morning. Then it got better.
2. My wife enters the 21st century
We had decided to change our landline for a cell phone. My wife was finally going to have her own cell phone, and enter into the 21st century. Yes! Alleluia. Fine and dandy. In practice.
An online rep helped me set this up then I waited for the SIM card to arrive. And I waited. And waited some more. Until I got a bill for my first month cell service! That was not appreciated. But they said it was on its way, and the currier was going to deliver it soon. One day. In this century. Another phone call from them saying they would arrive such and such a day. They left it outside. So much for personal service. I let the package detoxify itself, Covid 19 obliged. And then I tried to find out what to do. A lot of gobbly goop. SO I waited until I was calm and collected and contacted them on-line and after @2 hours of passing me back and forth between customer service reps - no doubt from all over the world - I got a promise that it would be activated in 2 days. Just turn it on and off in the morning they said. The morning when I was at coffee.
So I call my wife, to find out how it is going and it wasn’t going. I get a message on her voice mail saying, “go way, s….t, why doesn’t this d….m thing work” or something to that effect, and considering that she never cusses I thought this is bad. It beeps so I can leave a message. And I do, saying “turn it on and off.”
I tried calling back and it goes to voice mail. Funny. Then I think, maybe I should wait awhile. And lay low. Discretion is the better part of valour. Said Falstaff.
3. On the way home
On the way home, I pass a bbq at a restaurant manned by a familiar face. A tall blond with blue eyes who I had last seen managing a nude modelling session at a near by Studio cum art gallery. I say ‘don’t I know you?’ And she says, ‘yeah’ and I ask why are cooking? And she says she lost her job and has this gig for a couple a days a week. Cool. She asks me if I have been drawing from the model, and I say, ‘no, but I have done a zoom session with 75 other people but it is really hard to draw from the small screen.’
Meanwhile this bum saunters up (I can only describe it as a saunter because he looks like he is trying to keep his pants up, he looks dirty and unkept and generally groddy) with style. He asks, ‘are you selling bbq pork from Gaspé, it is the best.’ She nods, and he says, ‘fancy that, I am from the Gaspé. How old are you, 29?’ She nods, and she says ‘I’m 28’ and he boasts, ‘I’m really good at guessing ages.’
In an aside, he tells me, “je suis un homme a femmes’ or I am a man who likes women. He tells her, ’t’est ben belle!’ You are really pretty. He asks the girl to wait while he takes care of business, and saunters off. I guess to piss or something.
Meanwhile, I ask her, ‘have you ever been hit on by a bum?’ She says no but I can see she is intrigued. I tell her, ‘there is a web site on line that ranks bums for hotness…’
The bum comes back and continues his pitch; I have had enough and tell her I will see her again sometime soon. I tell him he is a ‘homme affamé’ and leaved.
4 I discover the limits of man’s folly
Another night - years earlier - I was going out to a club to see a performance of ‘Mary’ with a ‘Friend’. To explain this friendship without getting into wet versus dry fart area, I have to tell you she is a BDSM mistress who makes her living giving men and women enemas, pegging etc… Anything to get their jollies. Don’t laugh ladies, your husbands might be her client…
So we are there in the crowd and these two young studs walk up and interpellate us. Actually one of the guys, who is really drunk, has a crush on my ‘friend’ who is a handsome woman, black and muscular. He is not seeing the muscular part of her. And he says, ‘Look I got tattoos.’ My friend ignores him, and he repeats his boast and now starts to strip to show her. She brushes him off, while his friend who is not so much drunk drags him away after seeing how buff my ‘friend’ is. To put this in perspective, my friend has broken the jaw of a police officer who put a hand on her.
The drunk got away lucky.
5. All wet Wily.
Now my wife phoned our guy who cleans the snow, to tell him we don’t need him anymore. This is prior to having the ‘cell phone’. He asks her how her love life is. And goes on to berate his ex-girl friend, the Hot Dog moll, who cooks at the local takeout. It lasted 8 months. I thought he was punching above his weight. Mind you he isn’t bad for a short troll like gnome person. I am being - what is the word - Kind. Giving him the benefit of the doubt. He could have hidden qualities. Anyway he asked my wife about her love life and she answered it was, ‘OK’. I wondered what he was fishing for? His Hot Dog lady found another ‘Weiner’ man, consequently it seemed that Wily was singing the blues…
6. Medical stories
I had an all female team to operate on my double hernias; I opted for a saddle block. When I told the surgeon I felt a tug, they put me under. I woke up to find a whole flock of medical students looking at my private parts. Non plussed, and stoned out of my mind, I began to detail the contents of my spermatic cord. Much to the amusement of my surgeon; I could see her eyes were laughing. In the recovery room I looked up at the blood spatters on the ceiling. I thought they were funny, still recovering from surgery.
Now about wet versus dry farts…. Well to make it simple, one is wet and the other is dry. It just goes to show you - it’s funny you asked. And here is to all the men who keep trying, who don’t give up whatever the refusal and situation. You got to hand it to them, they keep it up. They don’t let our side down.
When I get old
I will worry about my bowel movements like my dad. I now know the feeling of constipation and the release when it works.
I will fall asleep at night in front of the television, like my dad, who would watch the weather channel 24 hours a day. I will understand why, because the news is so boring or horrific that the snow fall in Denver is comforting.
I will look ate myself in the mirror and not recognize the old face, full of wrinkles and gray hair, where did my youth go to?
I will eat Brussel sprouts and salad greens thinking ithey will prolong my life when all they do is clog up my Bowels.
I will talk to old men like myself and reminisce about the good old days, knowing full well they weren’t good.
I will look at young people with jealousy and yes, maybe hate, knowing they have so. Much energy to spend and no time limit.
I will read a book and discovered mid way that I have read it before, years before, but since I don’t remember the ending I will continue reading it with pleasure.
I will go the to dentist and the doctor with trepidation, because they might find something wrong. And then breath a sigh of relief when they don’t.
