The Dingers
Ellie Clark
Sitting in the kitchen sipping my tea;
Something needs attention from me;
I listen intently and look around;
It’s at that time the nuisance is found;
I go to the timer I think is dinging;
Only to discover it isn’t ringing;
I check the washer and the dryer;
Only to discover it isn’t either;
Back to the fridge and microwave;
Perhaps it is one of them who gave;
A ding or a dong to let me know
My day was going along too slow;
So I keep checking hoping to find;
The dinger that’s driving me out of my mind;
What else could it be I ask myself;
Then notice my Bose radio on a bookshelf;
That was it, the sleep alarm was ringing;
I shut it off, stopped it from dinging.
Please don’t give me any more of those things,
I’m getting dingy myself from all of their rings.
Aging Gracefully
Ruby Regina Witcraft
A sense of humor helps. If you don’t believe that, just try on a bathing suit. Yes, you have to look in the mirror even if you hate to. If you don’t laugh at this point, while trying to push everything into place, you may upchuck. I laughed because I did not want to cry, for what happened to that cute little 17-year-old girl?
While in therapy this week, Magic Fingers, the therapist, and I had a great conversation. I told him he was like a bartender to whom you told all of your troubles and life experiences. We traded stories for an hour or so. He said they were trained with a lot of psychiatry involved in this job as a means for relaxing the client. I have been to Magic Fingers eight times, and we have gotten to know each other pretty well. I thought about hitting on him but decided better, as I’m sure he already has a grandmother. A mad moment of friskiness which passed very quickly.
I told Fingers, I know him that well, that it didn’t pay to complain about your aches and pains to your friends, as they would always “one up you” by having a malady 10 times worse than you.
I now have eight bathing suits, as I swim every morning, and have gotten over being shy, as the old girls I swim with look every bit as wrinkled and saggy as I do. However, when a teenage visitor walks in with a steering wheel cover for a bra and a thong for a bottom, I make sure the water is up to my neck. I think to myself, “Just wait, Honey, your time is coming sooner that you can imagine.”
In spite of all of the aches and pains that go along with aging, there are just as many pluses to balance the scales. For instance, sometimes when I get up in the morning, I am amazed that I have nothing that hurts. I wonder for the few minutes that the feeling lasts who that stranger is in my body. Other times when I eat cabbage and maybe beans in the same day, I don’t even bother taking Beano. Nature takes its course, and I couldn’t care less, but my friends take a dim view of this escapade.
All in all, life is good, but aging may not always be graceful.
The Foolproof Plan
Barbara Schwartz
Hashie and DotCom circa 2035
Hashtag was born in Minnesota in 2012; DotCom was born in Oregon in 2010. They each had very, very liberal parents who took the whole social media theme very seriously: Thus, their names!!
They lived very normal childhood lives but received much kidding, teasing and bullying about their unusual names.
They met each other in the year 2030, when they were in college in California. Hashie was about 18; DotCom was about 20.
Because of, or in spite of, their unusual names, they bonded rapidly and became fast and strong friends. Over the next year, they realized that their friendship went beyond simple friends and as they fell in love, they realized that wanted to spend the rest of their lives together and they wanted to get married.
DotCom wanted to propose with a diamond ring, but being a poor college student, he had no spare money. But he desperately wanted Hashie to have the biggest, most gorgeous diamond he could find.
Together, he and Hashie plotted up a fool-proof plan . . .
DotCom went to the local jewelry store, dressed in a suit and tie and looking quite respectful. He even lied to the clerk about his name and said his name was Charles; after all, how could the name DotCom be serious about anything? He told the clerk that he wanted a gorgeous and large ring for his girlfriend. The clerk sat DotCom down in front of a huge showcase and began taking diamond rings out of the case, one at a time. After about five or six rings, DotCom was positive that he found the perfect ring for Hashie. But it was very high five figures and there was no possible way for him to afford it. The phone rang in the jewelry shop and when the clerk went to answer it, DotCom pondered his plan. The clerk returned to find the ring missing. DotCom was searched and his pockets turned inside out, the cuffs of his suit pants were turned out. When there was no ring found, they did a body search and found nothing. They sent him to the hospital for a full body scan and still found no ring. Finally, DotCom was sent home and he called for Hashie.
The next day, Hashie went to the same store and told a different clerk that she thought her boyfriend was about to propose and she wanted to pick out a ring that SHE liked. She then asked the clerk to show him five different rings and have him choose one – all of which she would already be in love with.
She finally chose the five favorite rings and when the clerk locked the display cabinet and then left the room to lock the five rings in the vault, she reached under the lip of the display cabinet and removed the ring that DotCom had placed in a wad of chewed gum. She placed it in her purse and left the shop assuring the clerk that her boyfriend would be in the next day.
When she arrived home, DotCom took the ring from Hashie, got down on one knee and proposed. Hashie accepted. They never went back into the city to the jewelry shop! But they really, really wanted to let the clerk know that the cleaning service that the store hired did not do a good job of cleaning the display cabinets.