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11 December 2019

No. 3,482 (cartoon)

Tick tock tick tock tick tock

Tick tock tick tock tick tock ...

Tick toxins?!

12 December 2019

The Cure for Sobriety

Jana showed up with a couple of bottles of cheap wine from Hippocrates Vineyards. The vintners claimed their hooch was, “The Cure for Sobriety.” We later agreed, based on empirical evidence, that this was a rare case of truth in marketing.

13 December 2019

Blinder Than a One-eyed Doorknob

I cooked a nice dinner for Jasmin at her place tonight, but I had problems navigating an unfamiliar kitchen.

“Where’s the salt?”

“On the counter in front of you.”

“Do you have any olive oil?”

“It’s next to the salt.”

“I can’t find the ladle.”

“It’s in the saucepan where you left it.”

And so on and so forth.

Finally, she’d had enough of my visual incompetence, and declared that I was, “blinder than a one-eyed doorknob.”

I wasn’t hurt by her disparaging remark, just the opposite. I was delighted she added such a wonderful phrase to my modest vocabulary.

14 December 2019

Umbrella Skeleton

It never rains for months in Sans Frisco; that’s how the streets get their charismatic urine aromas in a wide variety of distinctive neighborhood bouquets.

Everything changes when the skies finally open up: a hundred umbrella vendors appear like summer mushrooms. Their cheap umbrellas usually disintegrate after the first gust of wind or after being exposed to moisture for half an hour, whichever comes first.

I’m used to seeing the misshapen, tattered remains of umbrellas after a deluge, but today I saw something I’ve never seen on the street before: an umbrella skeleton.

I photographed the wonderful readymade. It would be happy in a gallery, but I wouldn’t, so I left it on the sidewalk to delight someone else.

15 December 2019

Skiing on the Autobahn

I went out for another bottle of wine and got buffeted about by the wet, piercing San Francisco wind that blew right through my heavy storm clothes. It was like skiing on the Bundesautobahn during a February monsoon.

I haven’t been on skis in decades, and there’s never been a monsoon in Germany in February or any other month, but that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

16 December 2019

Physician Verbal Orders

Florian’s trip to the emergency room (don’t ask) generated lots of paperwork and substandard medical care. That raises an interesting question: since being treated poorly is normal, I wonder if substandard is actually standard, or perhaps vice-versa?

He showed me his favorite form from a ream of documents, Physician Verbal Orders. The doctor had to type everything she said to please hospital managers, insurance company bureaucrats, lawyers, et al.

“At least the ridiculous redundancy provides good career opportunities for deaf doctors,” I suggested.

“Of course!” he exclaimed. “That explains why no one listened to me!”

Of course. To paraphrase Martin Mull, none is so deaf as she who does not listen.

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©2019 David Glenn Rinehart