Tuesday, January 30

Barak Obama - RC!

There was a lot of buzz going around Fox News last week about how Barak Obama attended a radical Muslim school when he was a kid. Further investigation, unsurprisingly, showed that this was not true. In fact CNN reports that from age 6 to 10 Sen. Obama spent "two years in a Muslim school and another two years in a Catholic school."

As someone who spent 12 years attending Catholic School I must say that his Muslim school attendance didn't affect me nearly as much as his Catholic education did.

I still remember the time Sister Mary Catherine accused my family of being Communists because my father didn't support The House Un-American Activities Committee. Or the time Father Horvath made me pick up 100 pieces of paper from the playground because I referred to The Holy Spirit as "That crazy bird."

Then he made me count the pieces of paper in front of him. He excluded the 20 or so cigarette butts I'd tried to sneak in, and made me go and pick up 100 more.

He never thought to ask why there were cigarette butts on the playground.

By the way, if you've never heard of The House Un-American Activities Committee count yourself lucky.

As for the Holy Spirit? Hey, I still love that crazy bird!

Thursday, January 11

Hearing Test

One of the downsides of the aging process is this: things you take for granted gradually don't work as well as they once did.

Recently my wife complained that I had the television turned up rather loud. I understand that this is often the first sign of hearing loss so I thought I should get a hearing test.

The audiologist's office had a small waiting room and the only other person present was an older gentleman who made at least 3 trips to the men's room in the short time we waited.

After the last visit he looked a bit chagrined and said, "Plumbing's getting old, I guess."

"Well, you know, frequent urination is not always related to age...", I began to pontificate.

"I was talking about the toilet bowl", he said, looking offended. "It's a mess." I began an attempt to recover from my faux paux, but he was called into the back for his test before I could formulate a proper explanation for being an idiot.

A few minutes later he came out from the examination area, took a step toward the restroom but, after giving me a defiant look, continued on out the door.

The audiologist was younger than I expected him to be, and, as I tried to remember that faraway time when my doctors were actually older than I was, he sat me down in a sound proof room, a little bigger than a phone booth.

As I tried to remember that faraway time when there were still phone booths he placed a pair of earphones on my head and backed out, closing the door behind him.

The booth reminded me of those quiz shows where a contestant is isolated so he could not be given any clues to the questions.

It also bore a disturbing resemblance to the gas chamber in San Quentin.

As I tried to remember that faraway time when there were still Sixty-Four Thousand Dollar Questions and justice was meted out via cyanide pellet, the earphones began producing a series of beeps and boops that I had to identify as coming from the left or right side of my head. Then I had to repeat several words that were given to me in gradually decreasing volume levels. The last two I couldn't really hear that well, but I think they were "Old timer" and "Gramps" or, possibly, "Geezer".

Finally the ordeal was over and the audiologist showed me a graph with the results of my test. It didn't make much sense and I must have looked confused because finally he just said, "All in all, I'd say you were borderline normal."

"Borderline normal, eh?" I said. "Well, doc, I know a lot of people would agree with you about that."

As I was writing out the check he started to say, "By the way, if you need to use the men's room..."

Mustering all my dignity and standing as straight as I could I looked him in the eye.

"What?"

Thursday, January 4

BHO

A lot has been made about Barack Obama's middle name, which happens to be Hussein. The conventional wisdom is that having such a middle name might cause him to be associated with fanatical terrorists and lynched dictators.

I suggest that rather than use his middle name he should use just his middle initial.

Barack H. Obama sounds much better than Barack Hussein Obama.

I mean it works for Jesus H. Christ, doesn't it?