Ladders and Ironing Boards and Maps...Oh My!

I don't know what the deal is. Really, I don't. But, I constantly have trouble trying to open and/or close ladders, ironing boards, and maps. Call it my Triad of Tyranny, but trying to put these three items back away in storage positions completely flummoxes me every time. 

They're much worse than trying to solve a kazillion piece puzzle. (By the way, I once asked my wife why she likes to do puzzles. "It's relaxing," she says. Huh. Since when is extreme aggravation relaxing? Worse, after you've slaved over them for weeks, you immediately destroy the results! I say, it's a far, far, mega-far step away from relaxation. But there I go again, digressing like the wind...)

Putting away ladders is definitely not relaxing. It's anti-relaxing. The other day, my wife left a huge and tall, extended ladder in the backyard, propped up against a tree. "Hey, would you put the ladder away?" she asked me.

"Sure." I mean, how hard could it be, I thought. Right?

Turns out plenty. I needed four hands. You have to steady it, there goes two hands. Then you need to unclasp the latch (hello, third hand!) to bring it down one lousy rung at a time. If you're lucky. (Of course your fourth hand is busy darting back and forth, trying not to get the bejeezus pinched out of it). It's a clear-cut case of a true four- hander. And that's assuming you can figure out how to work the nonsensical clasp gadget and annoying ropes that dangle in your face like annoying gnats.

Defeated, I went inside.

"Did you get the ladder put away," my wife calls out.

"No," I say morosely, arms folded and sinking into the sofa,  sulking that a stupid ladder defeated me.

Then there's the curious case of ironing boards. First off, it's gotta be said, my ironing skills suck. For whatever reason, it takes me twice as long to iron an item than it does my wife. By the time I carefully iron one quarter of my shirt, then flip it over to iron the other side, the wrinkles sneak back in on the previously ironed portion. Arghh! Talk about an exercise in frustration. Then I've also been known to melt my shirts. I didn't even know such a thing was possible!

"You're melting your shirt!" In a hotel room, my wife shoved me out of the way and assumed emergency position at the board, trying to resuscitate my apparel. "Let me do it!" 

"Good!" Again, I'm left in a defeated, emasculated manner. "Wish you woulda done it in the first place."

"Here," she thrusts the shirt toward me. "Put the board away."

Okay, I thought, time for me to pull my weight, piece back together a little bit of my frail, shattered male ego. But then I find out, it's not so easy, another example of why humans should have three hands. The latch beneath it never works for me. I push, pull, wiggle, jab, smack, curse at it, and the stubborn legs still won't fold up like a good ladder. By the time my wife comes out of the bathroom, I've got the dumb ladder upside down on the bed, wrestling it like an alligator.

Show-off that she is, natch, my wife collapses it with a finger and nary a curse word.

Don't even get me going on roadmaps. It's impossible to fold them back the same way twice. In fact, they seem to grow in thickness like a wet sponge every time I attempt to put them right again, too big to slip into the allocated glove box spot. Usually, I end up cramming a big, fat ham sandwich of paper back into the box, hoping my wife doesn't see my map killing spree.

Where do people learn these ladder and ironing board and map-folding skills? Clearly, I was playing hooky at school on those days. Or something. And my parents never taught me about the tricky intricacies of putting said items away, I guess assuming it was common sense. Perhaps women intuitively know how to handle these things? Maybe born with more common sense than men? But that doesn't make sense as more men know how to whip ladders into shape than women (at least from what I've witnessed, so don't go casting sexist stones at me!).

Or...maybe it's just me?

Nahhhhhhh. Uh-uh. No way. Couldn't be. It is to laugh! Ha! "Me." Sheesh... What was I thinking?

While we're talking about men getting confused over things, consider poor Zach, a "male entertainment dancer (NEVER a stripper)," who seems to be puzzled over everything in life, except for taking his clothes off for pay. Imagine his befuddlement when he wakes up with no memory of the night before, no clothes, and a dead man next to him in a strange bed. It's time to involve his sister, the long-suffering, usually pregnant, highly competent, yet incredibly irritable sleuth, Zora, to save his hide (and prove to everyone he's not gay; he has a rep with the ladies to maintain, natch). It's just the start of the non-stop wackiness, mystery and murderrrrrr that unravels in Bad Day in a Banana Hammock (the first in a series of Zach and Zora comedy mysteries). Zach's very bad, no good day can be discovered here!

The Best Time to Diet

When is the best time to diet during the year?

NEVER!

Look, I'm sorry if I bait and switched you with the lead-in, but quite simply, the best time of the year to diet is never. This answer has been formulated using the best, most up-to-date scientific data and analysis formulation.

Let's take the seasons one by one, shall we? We'll start with Summer, since that's what we're currently suffering.

Summer is a time for outdoor fun in the sun. Along with that fun in the sun comes...what? That's right...barbeque! Summer's when you go nuts at the store, fire up the grill and toss on all sorts of fattening, red-blooded, testosterone-driven, artery heartening meats! Yeah! Okay, okay, there's always some guy who brings a healthy chopped salad to these gatherings, but never mind him. Just set him away from the meat-eaters, pat his head, and chow down. And what would fun in the sun be without beer? Of course, I'm not talking about "a" beer, either. What are we, a buncha amateurs? So...Summer's disqualified from dieting.

Leading us into Fall. The leaves turn and drop. So does the temperature. And moods. We move inside, taking the edge off the chill in the air. Wait...chill...hmm, what does that remind me of? Chill, chill, chill...Hot damn, it's chili season! As soon as that first chilly weekend hits, I dash to the store for a huge heaping of chili fixings! And you gotta have cornbread with that chili or it just wouldn't be right. Fall is also a time for everything pumpkin, of course: pie and more pie. Looks like Fall's out from the dieting plan.

Now, before we proceed with the final two seasons, you might think this post is purely food based. Au contraire! What do you need to do in addition to dieting to lose weight? Ugh...exercise. Which brings me to what I call, The Exercise Quandary. Who needs to exercise the most? Fat people like me, natch. The problem is, with my weight gain, my back and knees hurt. I can't punish that treadmill like I used to. Whereas I used to be able to knock out four miles daily on the dreaded treadmill, now I'm lucky if I can eke out one to two. Then my knees and back give out. With bad knees, that deposits me back onto the sofa. And what does one do on the sofa? Chow time!

So, The Exercise Quandary gives you a Sophie's Choice: remain fat or live with damaged knees. No contest.

Back to the seasons, rudely pushing us into my least favorite, Winter. I mean...who wants to get out in two feet of snow and freezing ice? Nope, not me, not even to get chili fixings. And when it's inhumanly, miserably cold, you need to plug gas into your body to stay warm. You ain't gonna keep warm by gnawing on carrot sticks and yummy kale. Winter's immediately knocked outta the running for dieting.

Finally, Spring! Spring is a time for thawing and renewal and moving back outside again and eyeing that grill that's been dormant for so long and...and...man, burgers with all the trim sounds really, really good. 

As you can see, top scientists agree, then, that there is simply no good season to diet. There are alternatives to losing weight, of course. My wife and I try to have a "dry" month or two every year. No alcohol. This has advantages. It's not a three month period of suffering after all. That's why I usually choose February. It's the shortest month. (Of course, any fool who tells you they're going to have a dry November or December is lying to you, not with those holidays.)

Another solution is to "juice (No, you fiends! It's not when you wear gloves that don't fit and stab your ex-wife and lover! It's fasting with juice.)." This agony goes on for only two to three days. That's what I'm doing now. The first couple hours of day one, I was all, "Hey, this is a tenable diet! No problem!" By lunchtime, my stomach's playing the blues. On day two, I mowed the yard. After a couple of rows, I started seeing stars and Ed McMahon coming back from the dead to tell me I'm a Reader's Digest sweepstakes winner. Mercifully, I accidentally swallowed three bugs which gave me a little protein boost.

So, all methods have pluses and minuses (mostly minuses). I suggest you just go get your stomach stapled and call it pretty.

Speaking of untenable situations, poor young Dibby Caldwell, the fifteen-year-old daughter of Hangwell, Kansas's mortician, is caught up in some strange doings.Witches lurk in the shadows. A menacing creature haunts the skies. And the dead refuse to stay dead. Come visit quaint Peculiar County, available right here!

 

People Can't Be Cancelled!

Let me see if I have this right...

At first, Johnny Depp was cancelled. Then he surprisingly got uncancelled.

But now Amber Heard is the unfortunate recipient of cancellation.

Oh, but, wait! Star witness James Franco is cancelled, but not because of the Depp/Heard trial. No, he was cancelled for reasons before this that doesn't involve the Great Cancellation Trial of the Cancelled Century.

Gah! I can't keep up with all of the cancelled people! And it aggravates me. Listen up, you whippersnappers: People can NOT be cancelled. Cancellation should be reserved for some third-rate TV sitcom about three hot girls with a dog and adopted twins who meet-cute hunky triplet lifeguards. You can't just look at someone like you're the Nielsen ratings board and pompously declare them "cancelled," because you don't care for the way they didn't use their turn signal in traffic. "You, sir, are cancelled! So, THERE!"

Wow. The sudden new influx of crazy politics, conspiracies, and threats has birthed a slew of horrible new "theories" and/or usage of words that just don't make sense.

I also have an issue with "woke." Now before you all get in a huffy tizzy, understand I think the ideas behind "woke" are great, something everyone should strive for. I hope I'm woke. But it seems to me if you're truly woke, you don't need to go around saying you're woke. It's kinda like giving an anonymous charitable donation, but then telling the press you did it. (Now, the deep far right people would have you believe that being woke is a heinous thing. Trump shouts at the top of his orange-hatred-filled lungs about anyone who disagrees with him, lambasting them as suddenly woke. I'm not really sure how anyone who acknowledges racism and unjust behavior toward those of different races, color, creed, gender, etc. as bad could be considered evil, but the rabbit-hole right divers certainly do).

No, the only issue I have with "woke" is how it's used. Shouldn't it be "I'm awake" or "he's awakened" or "recently, I woke up?" Absolutely drives the writer in me nuts.

Which also brings up the entire "critical race theory." Another proclaimed EVIL theory. The deep, deep dark right would like to have you believe that slavery, lynchings, hateful race crimes, our slaughter and robbery of the first true American people, and the Holocaust simply didn't happen. "Lies!" they shout to other crazies who'll listen. "Lies perpetuated by the vile, evil, communist left-wing liberals!" God forbid children should be taught about these dark crimes, so as to, you know, not repeat the crimes of our "forefathers."

Then there's the entire ludicrous "Great Replacement Theory" continually perpetuated by a self-proclaimed lying jackass on Fox "News."

Frankly, it's all rather distressing and depressing and entirely racist and hateful (Thanks Donald!), not a very rosy picture for the future of our rapidly deteriorating democracy.

I think I'll cancel myself, temporarily become unwoke, and go back to bed. Woke me up when it's all over. G'night!

Hey, hey, now, hoka-hey, you ain't gonna find any depressing "politics" in my Zach and Zora series! Nope, this mystery comedy series is all about Zach, a clueless male stripper (oops...I mean"male entertainer dancer") with his usually pregnant and very irritable sleuth sister as they try and solve the most outrageous murder mysteries since Jessica Fletcher discovered she had 5,000 nephews and nieces. There're three of 'em out now, and a fourth on the way. Check 'em out here!

 

Like a Phoenix...Tex, the Witch Boy Rises Again!

Being in high school sucks.

Oh, sure, I know it didn't suck for everyone, not the popular kids. But to me, high school was torturous, every day filled with bullies (of the student and teacher variety); cliques that snubbed me for ludicrous reasons based on status, sports, money, and privilege; the simultaneous joy and terror of possible burgeoning romance and the ensuing fear of rejection; and worst of all...dodge-ball, the most insidious trauma and physical pain inflicted on young boys.

All of these things are present in Tex, the Witch Boy. What is Tex, the Witch Boy, I hear you asking (or maybe that's the sound of your nodding off...I dunno, hard to tell through the intronets)? Anyhoo, I'm glad you asked! Tex, the Witch Boy is the very first novel I wrote and had published (I got spoiled; my very first submission turned into a pick-up). Unfortunately, the publisher went down and abandoned Tex amidst a sea of orphaned books.

Until now! The good folks at The Wild Rose Press have tossed Tex a life preserver, pulled him into dry, and have now republished his exploits!

I'm proud of this book. Not only is it my very first attempt at writing, but I did it on the sly. I didn't even tell my wife and daughter I was writing a book. You know...back to that fear of rejection thing. But apparently it worked. To this day, my wife still says the books one of her favorites.

Of course, it's highly autobiographical. It's me exorcising my high school demons. However...I'm not a witch, not like Tex is. Tex finds out in his sophomore year that he's inherited witch powers, which just complicates his already messed up high school life. Oh...and, yeah...there wasn't a mysterious serial killer roaming the halls of my high school (that I know of), knocking off bullies and others. Not like in the book.

But everything else is true (for the most part)! All of the bullying incidents either happened to myself or a friend of mine. To this day, one of my best friends still can't fully use three fingers on his hand (you'll have to read the book to see which incident I'm referring to). From the misfit teens who find one another, to the hard hawk-nosed authoritarian principal who picks on the underdog students, to the sadistic high school teacher, to the truly insane bullies, to the nerd who gloriously reigned on the skateboard, and the cool, rebel girl who everyone either feared or loved, they're all here, still fresh from my memories. (Or from my daughter's days in high school captivity).

And when I said that I was exorcising my high school demons? Tex, um, has his own exorcism to take care of. A much more frightening one. You'll see...

More importantly, I hope the book finds a wider audience as the powerful anti-bullying theme is just as pertinent today as to when I was in school in the late '70's. Parents need to be aware and teens need to know that things get better.

Hey! Watch the cool trailer video I had made years ago for Tex (just ignore the old cover and publisher)!

Even better news, The Wild Rose Press is picking up the other three books in the series, with the second one slated for September (but more on that when the day approaches).

As a first time writer, I crammed everything into this book: humor, mystery, love, suspense, horror, pathos, action...you know...kinda like uncertain, chaotic high school life. (If you read carefully, you'll even find a kitchen sink in there). By all indications, the meshing of all these genres shouldn't work. But ask the 51 critics and readers who've given it a 4.7 outta 5 rating on Amazon. Or even better, ask my wife (and the smart money is on never disagreeing with her!).

Ah, hell, make up your own mind. That's Tex, the Witch Boy, available here and other fine online retailers.

 

Sardinia!

Several weekends ago, my wife and I thought it'd be a great idea to go to "Boulevardia," a two day outdoor music and beer festival (two of my favorite things wrapped together in one big package meant especially for me!) in downtown, Kansas City. With 70 musical acts on tap, I thought what could possibly be the downside?

Well... A) I'm not as young or fit as I used to be; and B) the weather! Oh, my God, the weather!

Leading up to the event, I kept my eye on the weather, tracking the long-term forecast with intense scrutiny. What I'd been on the lookout for was rain, tornadoes, the usual fun stuff of the Midwest, only maxed out by global warming. Things looked good! 85 degrees as the high for both days, no rain in sight. And then...the forecast heat kept inching up, bit by bit, day by day. Until it hit 101 degrees on Saturday. With the humidity really, really high as well.

Crap.

Alright. I pulled up my big boy britches and prepared. I imagined a musical montage (cue the theme to "Rocky"), while I tried on all of my old shorts, stashed at the bottom of a drawer beneath our bed. (Of course, I think we'd want to cut the part out of the montage where none of my shorts fit and I had to make a mad dash to Target for new ones. Hey, don't blame my weight gain! It's the damned humidity  making all of my clothes shrink.) 

So, armed with shorts, a hat, water bottles, sun screen and other life essentials (we looked like Hawaiian be-shirted campers), we headed for day one of Boulevardia. Day one wasn't bad. It started at 5:00 p.m., so most of the blistering sun had fallen and there was a nice breeze. But by the end of the night, when headliner Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats (one of the main reasons for our attendance) took the main stage, we found ourselves in the middle of a huge, jam-packed mob situation. Hundreds and hundreds and thousands and hundreds of fans were squished together like sardines in a can.

While Rateliff was awesome, several things impeded my enjoyment: 1) I was sweating like a stuck pig and feeling claustrophobic; 2) the ever present threat of Covid (this was our big "coming out" party; we had forgone masks completely for the first time in a while); and 3) I kept thinking "wouldn't this be an ideal place for a mass shooting?" 

Which is sad, really, that that's what was going through my mind. I kept imagining ways to smuggle a gun into the event, which wouldn't have been tough at all, instead of just letting go and enjoying the concert. A very depressing current state of affairs in which we live.

But it wasn't all bad. Where else could you see "Saxsquatch," some guy who puts on a Bigfoot costume and plays the saxophone, covering a lotta maudlin hits of the '70's and '80's? (How in the world he managed not to pass out in that heat, in that costume, was beyond me. Unless...could it be? Naw. But, wait...maybe, just maybe...he was a REAL BIGFOOT!)

We survived the first day, no great shakes. But day two was an entirely different affair. It started out hot at 11:00 A.M. and just got blazingly worse. In my youth, my friends and I went to these festivals non-stop and the heat and humidity never bothered us. Here, it was a case of survival where we constantly sought out shade. We grew clever and pulled chairs into little rock islands with tree coverage. I wet down a wash cloth and put it on top of my head beneath my hat, no matter how dumb I looked. We ended up at various musical stages, at this point dictated by the amount of shade coverage offered.

When my wife moved onto the Maker's alley, I was near collapse. Like an old fat man, I found a tree and plopped down beneath it,  chigger bites preferable over heat stroke.

All around me young people laughed, gathered, drank, stood out in the sunshine. You know, being annoying. Young people suck! Get offa my lawn!

Once my wife returned, I told her I'd had enough. In small increments, we made our way out of there, stopping beneath trees, finding abandoned seats, naturally pausing for beer, until we finally landed in God-made, natural air conditioning.

The moral of the story? Just wait until you get old, damn whippersnapper!

Hey, now, don't open the doors to the ol' folks home for me quite yet, but floundering stand-up comedian Charlie Broadmoor is beginning to feel the weight of his mortality weighing on him. Things don't get any better when he inadvertently heckles a demon during one of his nightclub gigs. Now, he really feels that ol' life time clock ticking. Read the Amazing True Story in my book, Demon with a Comb-Over, available right here, right now! 

House Under Siege!

Loud explosions are bursting outside. Bombs land on the roof that shake the interior, hurting my teeth fillings. My house is falling apart, debris landing in the yard. Men are shouting outside, overhead, some of them yelling at me in a language I don't understand. And I sit inside my house with no electricity, cowering in fear.

Nope, I'm not in the war-torn Ukraine. Instead, war has been declared on my house, my land, in a puny little suburb of Kansas City in Nowhere, U.S.A!

Now that I've vented in my finest drama queen fashion, I suppose a few explanations are in order (although, I gotta say, it's much more fun being a drama queen).

Everything happens at once. It started with the tree in our backyard splitting off a huge branch and then crunching up our fence. I already told you about my woes with the filthy rich arborist robbing us blind, so I won't go into that again. But with all the torrential downfalls of rain we've been suffering (shut up, Global Warning deniers!), recently we discovered a leak in the house. Which lead to an inspection of our roof. Which lead to a jaw-dropping estimate to replace the roof, especially since "the last guys that put on your roof didn't do it right. They just done slapped the new roof on top of the old wooden roof. Which is illegal now."

Crikey! "Illegal?" Are the roofing police coming for us? How're we supposed to keep up with what's legal and illegal in roofs? Between shootings and Covid, these days it's hard enough trying to stay alive without worrying about roofs!

So, we decided to take the deep, ever-so-deep plunge into our credit card, and get a new roof. Because we didn't want to end up in roofing jail.

Now, of course, with a faulty roof (which insurance refused to pay for, par for the course), comes the inevitable wood rot caused by our friend, Nature. We also got an estimate for that. Once my wife managed to get me up off the floor, we decided to get that tended to as well. Ka-chinggggg!

In keeping with the unkind and nasty Fates' sense of mean-spirited humor, our refrigerator and dishwasher decided to die at the same time. Ha ha. It is to laugh! Joie de vivre!

Here's the kicker:  every stinking one of these guys decided to do it all at the same time. Either due to weather or again, the nefarious Fates giggling over their pawns in the game of Life, everything coalesced at once.

But wait! There's more! The day before Hell reigned down on our (used to be) quiet and (not quite so) humble abode, the doorbell rings.

I hold back our two dogs, "Rowdy" and "Rumpus," and finally get outside to talk to some Orange shirted city employee.

"Hey there, Mr. America," he says, "we're from the city works department and we're working on a beautification project. We're going to fix the curb at the end of your driveway starting tomorrow. Should take about a week."

"Yow!" I say. "Um, can you postpone your beautification a bit?" I listed everything happening. 

He tells me, "sure we'll start on another house down the street."

The next morning, I'm awakened by loud trucks, back-up whistles, horn honks, yelling men, screams, total chaos. Sure enough, the street crew's going to work. I toss on some jeans, run outside flailing my arms, one of the dogs hot on my heels.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold up, guys! You're not going to start on the driveway today, are you?"

Dumb question because one of the eight member team is holding a jackhammer up above the street. The rest of the guys are looking at me quizzically, either because they don't speak English or I appear insane in my "Who farted?" T-shirt. You'd kinda think that both of our cars being in the driveway may've been a tip-off clue that they shouldn't start yet, or at least ring the doorbell, but no, that's not how the street crew rolls.

One guy finally speaks up. "Right. You're having tree work done later today, so we're supposed to start on your driveway."

"No, no, no, nyet, nada, nunca, noooooooo! The guy yesterday said you'd start down the street."

"Right. We're just going to cut the street apart."

Clearly, what we had here was a failure to communicate. "But...but...we need to get our cars out of the driveway later."

Blink. Blinkety-blink-blink. "Right," says Foreman Clueless. "We're just gonna cut the street."

Giving up, I go inside, keeping an eye out on what they're doing. Later when it came time for me to leave, the eight all-stars grumbled and groused because they had to move while I parked both cars in the street.

And these guys stretched out a simple one day job into nine days of miserable dislocation. Every morning, they'd work about 45 minutes before adjourning for Happy Hour. Clearly they were getting paid by the day, not by the hour.

Which made us very, very popular with the neighbors. Since we couldn't park in our driveway, that took up two street spots. Factor in a thousand large and larger street crew vehicles , a ginormous tree devouring monster truck, various delivery vehicles, multiple roofers' autos along with massive supplies being dumped into our poor abused yard, you couldn't even drive through the street, let alone park on it. As I said, our neighbors just love us!

That's just the chaos outside. Inside was just as bad. The electricity went down a couple of times. I'm kinda a modern guy. Without electricity, there's not a lotta fun to be had. I suppose I could've cut my toenails by candlelight, but that's about four minutes shot.

Also, I walk around the house in my underwear in the mornings, part of my routine. Kinda hard to do when there are people climbing all over your roof, up the side of the house, peering into windows, and knocking at the door.

Once, I was getting dressed upstairs after my shower and I see some guy knocking at the small window trying to get my attention. Quickly, I pull on pants and open the window. 

In a surreal exchange, he says, "Hi. We're here to do wood rot repair."

Huh. Honestly, I would've thought the front door may've been a better introductory point, but what do I know?

And I never thought that wood rot repair would be so noisy. Imagine a thousand dental drills amplified and held up to your ear.

Finally, the various crews wrapped up and a cease-fire was called. With the white flag of surrender waved, peace once again dropped over our abode like quiet, ever so blissfully quiet, falling snow.

Until the next calamity, natch. And don't let the old saying, "everything happens in threes" fool you. It's more like "everything happens in nines."

And, hey! While on the topic of having a very disruptive life, meet Richard "Tex" McKenna. Between bullies (peers and teachers both) and burgeoning love, he's having a hard time in high school, but when you consider he's just found out he's a witch, things really get screwy. Not to mention a mysterious serial killer who's offing various bullies. This and so much more can be found in Tex, the Witch Boy, my very first novel, recently resurrected from the dead by The Wild Rose Press. (My wife still thinks it's her favorite book of mine.)

Stop Pluralizing "Freedom!"

Whenever I hear somebody ranting about "I gotta have muh freedoms," my eyes just glaze over. Better that than confronting them over their idiotic misunderstanding of the term "freedom," and risk getting shot.

Drives me up a wall. But I may have to start correcting these numbskulls.

Where did this bastardization pluralization originate? I, your couch- roving reporter, have the answer! So, jump into the Way-back Machine with me, and let's travel to the immediate aftermath of...

September 11, 2001. (I know, I know, I hear you grousing and saying, "This is NOT going to be funny and I don't want to read about it." To which I respond, "Tough. We'll be back to stupid stuff next week.")

In a speech responding to the terrorists responsible for September 11th, then President George W. Bush said, "They hate us for our freedoms!"

Having suffered through the dark reign of George W. (although, honestly, compared to what's passing for politicians these days, I'd gladly go back to G. Dubs. Come back, George, all is forgiven!), I'm pretty sure that he just screwed the speech up. Wouldn't have been the first (or thousandth) time. But since then, people started embracing the nonsense word "freedoms." Especially nowadays. (Boooo! On second thought, G-Dubs, stay retired.)

Here's the deal, yo: "rights" are plural, always have been. Individual rights form the basis--the foundation--of what our freedom is supposed to be. Freedom is an all-encompassing term that includes all rights. Thus, class...there is only one "freedom." And let's keep it that way.

That's the end of the scholarly part of today's lecture. Now comes for some spit-balling, for I believe I know why people these days want to have more than one "free-dumbs."

People want to cherry-pick their "free-dumbs." These days it's groovy to say, "I gots to have my free-dumbs to shoot somebody! Where's muh gun?" 

Of course, at the advent of Covid vaccination, a new rallying cry for free-dumbs was born: "I gots to have my free-dumbs to reject the vaccine and go out and infect people!"

But since we're now dealing with multiple "freedoms" instead of just the singular "freedom," people, politicians, and courts are picking which ones suit their needs as if they're going down the cafeteria line. Even the once highly regarded Supreme Court is getting into the "free-dumbs" act: they despise abortion, gay rights, and don't care that the earth burns from global warning, yet they're just crazy for guns. 

Naturally, the freedom of women choosing what to do with their own bodies is overlooked, instead being determined by a buncha old, white, rich men, who are kowtowing to the lowest common denominator and freaky fanatics and zealots.

So much for "freedoms." But you see what I mean, right? Cherry-picking, hence the new cool kids made-up term, "freedoms." Parsing out individual "freedoms" is a sure sign of the end of the all-encompassing freedom.

But if you take it one logical step further... The all-too-often used "free-dumbs" I mentioned above clearly intrude upon the freedom of others. How free are you when you're shot by a gun-loving psycho? Or how does freedom factor into when a Covid carrier/anti-vaxxer goes out and infects everyone in their path? And the day women's rights were set back to the dark ages is the biggest blow to true freedom yet.

So, I implore you people to help me stop the highly illegal use of the nonsense word "freedoms." The next time you hear Joe America yelling about his "free-dumbs" to some poor harangued clerk at a convenience store, step up, and say, "You, sir, are out of order for abusing the English language and misunderstanding the concept of our freedom and rights. Therefore, I'm placing you under citizen's arrest for being a simpleton nincompoop."

Go on and do it! I'll be waiting here to find out the results...

So, if you think you've lost your "free-dumbs," check out poor Shawn Biltmore. He's a cog in a merciless, inhuman, Big Biz corporation who has no say in what he does or even thinks. But he loses even more freedom once he gets bitten by a werewolf at a corporate retreat. It's the ultimate loss of freedom in Corporate Wolf, a darkly satirical horror tale for today.