370. Respect

Ah, the sun had come out after several days of rain, and I was enjoying a pleasant morning with C.W. You might ask whether all mornings are pleasant with C.W.? Actually, no. Some are, some aren’t. This morning, though, he was honoring the late Don Rickles, his favorite comedian, the one who died a couple of weeks ago. His likeness was excellent and we were both in a jolly mood.

“So, he really, didn’t know which way his warships were headed?”

“Apparently not,” I said. “They were some 180 degrees or thereabouts off his announced course.”

“Who do they get to open child-proof pill boxes for him? His Secretary of State?”

“Are you kidding? I think they have to hire a child to come in and do it for them.”

“Hey,” he said. “Good idea for a new business: Rent-a-Child, Inc. Motto: Never have to chew the top off a bottle again. Hire one of our experts to open it for you.”

“Sounds promising,” I said.

“I’m busy right now, tough,” he said.

“At what?”

“Another sure-fire winner.”

“And that is?”

“Tear-Away Garments, Inc. Motto: ‘Double the income from your next humiliation, girls.’ It’s a winner if I ever thought of one. The first ad is ready. Theme: ‘You’ll have them all wanting to grab your money-maker.’ What do you think?”

“I’m not sure what to think,” I said. “What exactly are you selling?”                                                                                                   

 “Tear-way clothing for the ambitious woman.

“Say again?”

“It’s designed to be the clothing of choice for airline travel.”

I said nothing.

“In case you’re dragged off the plane,” he said.

“And?”

“The clothes tear right off. Then you make money two ways.”

“Two ways? How?”

“First from the lawsuit. Second from the model-royalties.”

We had a good laugh over this.

“Do you think,” he said, “Mrs. Big Dope would be interested?”

“Well,” I said, “why don’t you just ask her?”

He thought for a moment, then said. “Maybe not. She wasn’t wild, as I remember, about my ‘President’s Dream’ line. And I thought that would even be a better investment.”

“Oh,” I said. “I remember. The line of see-through women’s apparel you wanted to market?”

“That’s it,” he said.

“The one you wanted her to model?”

“Yes,” he said, rubbing his jaw. "She didn't approve."

“I think it was the slogan you suggested for the line,” I said.

“I don’t remember,” he said, still rubbing his jaw.

“Of course you do,” I said. “It was, ‘Designed to aid his aim,’”

He appeared ready to change the subject. “Speaking of him,” he said, “Did he really invite Ted Nugent to the White House.”

“Yep. You got a problem with that?” (Sometimes I play his straight man).

“Not as long as they still sell heavy-duty fumigators in Washington.”

“Well,” I said. “He can invite whom he pleases. His predecessor invited the cellist Yo-Yo Ma.”

“Isn’t that,” he said, raising an eyebrow, “a bit like equating ‘When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries … ,’ with, say, ‘There once was a man from Nantucket …?'”

 

Wouldn't you know it?
He has to die just as the most
 humor-creating administration
in the history of he country
comes into office? - C.W.

“Shh,” I said. “Wherever did you learn that?”

“From the book of Shakespearian sonnets by your desk.”

“No,” I said, “the other one. My wife might hear you.”

“Your wife knows that poem,” he said, rubbing his jaw again. Then quickly, “But back to him again, did he really fire the Surgeon General and replace him with a nurse?”

“Apparently,” I said, glad to be changing courses, like a ship at sea headed in the wrong direction.

“And it is now Nurse General?”

“I suppose so.”

“That’s comforting,” he said.

“How so?”

“Simple,” he said. “It means that he might fire the Attorney General and replace him with a Paralegal General.”

I began to think about this.

“You know,” he said, “someone well-versed in the law.”

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