Cleanliness Is Next
I’M a loser. I can’t tell you how many things I have lost in the past several decades. This time, even surprising my own self, I yawned, scratched a difficult to reach itchy spot and silently queried, “I wonder where in the universe my cellular might have taken its leave?”
AS a familiar saying goes, ‘‘I’d lose my head if it wasn’t screwed on tight.’ of course there’s another unrelated axiom my old departed Pappy wielded often that went ‘ Boy, you ain’t never gonna amount to recycled pig corn.’’ That’s a loose translation and no pun was passed.
OF all the possessions I have possessed or probably ever will, Ye Olde Cellular Phone is the one I might miss more than some. When I’m hermitizing myself it keeps me in touch with the outside world and all its woes, sort of a lifeline to the other losers out there. I don’t really know where it is right this moment; umm… the new one that is.
SINCE this event rears its ugly head at irregular intervals I was not overly concerned...at first. I searched and searched then researched places I’d previously searched as those are where I end up finding most items lost if I ever recover them at all. In the beginning I started poking around by myself but after an hour or so of walking back and forth through the Stonebroke MainShack, Ikey D., my yellow dogcat became, as dogcats will become, curious at the activitation I was engaged in. He committed himself so enthusiastically to the hunt you’d have thought it was opening day of anole season.
SOON, as noon approached, there was a great clamor and stirring about of the living. Freddy, the pig-like dog emerged from the chambers of my beautiful wife Princess Penny Duchess Of Stonebroke, meaning The P. had risen. Georgie the little possum-headed dog was now aroused shedding hair as fast as her little body could produce it and then there was Tinka-Warrior Princess/Bad Kittie who sat glaring unhappily at all the activity and announcing that her food bowl was only a little over half full. She’s the reason newly acquired animals are now prohibited here at the ranch unless they are considered edible table fare.
NOT soon, but finally, I started losing my hopefulness of repossessing the phone and the code numbers therein contained. I was auditing the trash can in the Fline Skwirls MC Clubhouse when Princess P. smirkingly exposed herself in the doorway holding the transportable telly. “Good news, I found your phone’…bad news, I found it in your camo pants that just happened to be swimming through the rinse cycle quite contentedly with the rest of the wash.” She handed me a very damp phone, performed a peerless pirouette, and was gone in a trail of pealing laughter.
MY identical third cousin Arthur, ‘Don’t Call Me Art’ Dekko was at his easel working on a piece o fart (space the letters as you will, I just call ‘em as I see ‘em) that was either a nude woman or a longhorn steer. Sometimes it’s impossible to identify Arthur’s subject matter without some amount of imagination. Tilting back his cranberry hued beret, he shook his old bald head and said. “She should have let it finish rinsing, now there’s gonna be soap in it.”
OF course I took it all apart, blew it out with my air compressor, dried it in the oven, put it all back together, charged it up, (all this while bearing the weight of P. Penny’s spiteful spitefulness) turned it on and voila! All the lights came on…then it immediately turned itself off. I worked on it all that night and had it going the very next morning. It lasted two more days before I found myself standing at the Cingular dealer telling the sales-rep, “New phone please, preferably waterproof and warm pastel avocado in color.”
I settled for a black one that isn’t waterproof and doesn’t have so many features as to confuse, perturb or annoy me. I need to check my messages and I’ve misplaced it. I sure hope I can find it soon. Think I’ll check the laundry hamper.
Your loving cousin,
Rev. Dr. Buck Stonebroke
