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Weak XLIV

30 October 2020

No. 728 (cartoon)

You gave me nothing when I needed help.

Don’t mention it; it was the least I could do.

31 October 2020

Losing Face

I’m not sure if this story from a couple of months ago makes sense in the context of a Halloween tale, but let’s pretend it does. I am talking about a black cat, after all ...

Dwight Turner wanted to play with a cat. Apparently he wasn’t ready to make an adoption commitment, so he responded to an advertisement offering the opportunity to “play with [a cat], rub its belly, and take pictures.” So far so good.

The cat in question wasn’t an ordinary cat, that’s why Turner paid a hundred and fifty dollars for a “full-contact” experience. He certainly got his money’s worth, but now our tale takes a macabre turn. (Please bear with me; I’m trying to make this sound as Halloweeny as I can.)

The kitten in question wasn’t a kitten at all; it was an adult black leopard. You know, the kind of big cat with such huge claws that it can rip your scalp off? If Turner didn’t know that before his close encounter of the near-death kind, he does now. The leopard tore off his scalp and part of his ear.

I have a great deal of sympathy. For the poor cat. It’s still imprisoned in solitary confinement in a Florida entrepreneur’s back yard described as an endangered species sanctuary.

Trick or treat!

And that’s my last gasp at making this a Halloween story. There’s no treat, just unmitigated misery and suffering. Poor kitty. And if you were waiting for a happy ending or at least a lighthearted conclusion, consider yourself tricked.

1 November 2020

Davidtime

Daylight Savings Time ended today. And, if I have my way, it will be gone forever once everyone’s on Davidtime in fifty-two days.

I’m glad you want to know more about Davidtime because I’m gonna tell you what it is, right after I tell you what it ain’t. A.M. and P.M. are history. Does anyone but the pope know what ante meridiem and post meridiem mean? I have no idea what a meridiem is, and I don’t care: from now on it’s a twenty-four-hour clock.

Now here’s the reason Davidtime will be the global standard until we’re extinct (which can’t come soon enough): the new day begins at what used to be noon. No more staying up until the middle of the night to meet a Friday deadline: you have until the middle of the day! And since 7 January goes from the middle of one day to the middle of the next, I can have a twenty-four hour-birthday party.

Here’s the best part of Davidtime, even though every part is the best part: 2021 begins with a thirty-six-hour day, so every living creature on earth lives a dozen hours longer than she/it/he would have otherwise.

You’re welcome.

My people will be contacting your people about the pesky technical details, but I figure Davidtime is a wrap so I’m going to take a break and figure out what to do with my extra twelve hours.

2 November 2020

A Damn Good Chameleon

Researchers led by scientists from the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology spotted several Voeltzkow’s chameleons whilst poking around a hotel garden in Madagascar. That’s noteworthy since no one’s seen one of the critters in the last hundred years. Having done so, they made a beeline back to their typewriters (there is no electricity in Madagascar) to fire off breathless press releases about their discovery.

I love Bavarians as much as the next person—and probably much more so—but c’mon damen und herren! Don’t get your lederhosen in twists of joy just because you happened to see a reptile that’s gone unnoticed for a century. You’re not channeling Darwin, it just means you were lucky enough to get a glimpse of a damn good chameleon that happened to be staying at the same hotel.

3 November 2020

Safe Voting

The public health department in New Orleans, Louisiana, has a couple of problems. First, there’s the obvious one: Coronarama is indiscriminately killing Cajuns as well as tourism. As a result, next year’s Mardi Gras celebration has been canceled, leaving the agency with two hundred thousand condoms and no party.

My friend Fernande, who lives in that enchanted swamp, reported that she and Fabian discovered that clever bureaucrats there came up with an elegant solution for using the latter problem to help mitigate the former. Specifically, each was given a condom to put over their finger when they voted earlier today to avoid transmitting the virus by touching the screen of the electronic voting machine.

She sent me a photo of Fabian’s sheathed voting finger and said she hoped it was good gris-gris. We’ll see tomorrow ...

4 November 2020

Knock Knock, Who’s Dead?

You know you’re famous when knock-knock jokes about you proliferate all over the globe like weeds in the digital humor garden after you’ve expired. Nah, just kidding: you’ll never know that because you’ll be thoroughly dead. It’s one of those Catch Sixty-Nine things.

And moving along quickly, here’s what Antonio sent me ...

Knock knock ...

Who’s there?

Dishes.

Dishes who?

Dishes Sean Connery!

No you ain’t, he’s deid!

Speaking of the dwindling number of Scottish freedom fighters based in the Bahamas, I called the Ask-a-Scot hotline to find out whether Connery’s accent was a legit Scots thang from growing up in Edinburgh or just a generic speech impediment. The answer: it’s a bona fide Scottish accent.

Antonio was most displeased when I passed along the result of my exhaustive inquiry; he complained that a factual analysis of a joke negated the humor. I sidestepped his argument by noting his premise was irrelevant since a knock-knock joke is, paradoxically, not a real joke and thus not funny to begin with.

Dishes the end, in so many ways.

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©2020 David Glenn Rinehart