She Said What

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I remember learning early in life that humans should use all five of their senses, but darn it, mine don’t work any more. I’ve got cataracts on my eyes making the whole world cloudy, I’m going deaf from listening to too many loud auctioneers for 45 years, the feeling in the tips of my fingers has been destroyed by too much hot metal, and in the process of carving some skin cancer from my nose the Doc seemed to have also removed my smeller. My wife is disappointed I can still talk but I can’t get a word in edgewise. I’m 65 going on 95.

The other afternoon I was trying to sneak in a nap because my belly ached and just when I was starting to enter la-la land I thought I heard my wife yell, “Where are (mumble, mumble) and what (mumble, mumble) you up to? You’re much (mumble, mumble) quiet.”

It always makes my wife nervous when she can’t hear me clanging about because she thinks I’m probably making a big mess she’ll have to clean up. Nine times out of ten she’s right, but not this time. I was a bit irritated at her for interfering with my beauty sleep so I yelled back, “I was trying to take a nap, thank you very much.”

Then I thought I heard her reply, “You can’t (mumble, mumble) a nap, it’s (mumble, mumble) in the afternoon!” It was then that I realized that the noise was not emanating from the mouth of my beautiful bride but from my gastrointestinal tract. My stomach was growling. Big time. If I’d have recorded the gastro-music I’m sure it would have become a platinum selling rap song.

I was embarrassed to admit to my wife that I’d been carrying on a conversation with my innards but fortunately for me she’s starting to lose her senses too and she couldn’t hear me either. Fearing ridicule, I still haven’t told her that my bowels frequently speak to me.

That same day my wife and I were reading the newspaper while we ate supper when, all of a sudden, I heard my wife gasp, “Why would she write such a thing?”

“Who?” I asked.

“J.K. Rowling,” she replied.

Now, in case you’ve been living in a cave the past 20 years, J.K. Rowling is a woman who became a billionaire by writing a series of books starring a dweeb named Harry Potter and something called Hogwarts. (Hogs have warts? Who knew?) It’s all witches, magic and make-believe lunacy that my wife and billions of other people loved. But not me. I tried to read one of her books and only lasted two pages and my wife made me sit through an entire Harry Potter movie with her and it was the longest 10 hours in my life. At least it felt like ten hours. Maybe it was only five.

“What did she say?” I asked, trying to pretend I cared.

“She wrote a new book and they made a movie out of it and she called it, “Great Breasts and Where to Find Them.”    I spewed a mouthful of broth and gruel all over myself. I thought maybe my stomach was talking to me again and I didn’t hear her correctly. “She called her book what?” I asked.

“There’s a review in the newspaper and it says, “Great Breasts and Where to Find Them.”

“Let me see that,” I said as I ripped the paper from her hands. I read the offending passage and then laughed the hardest I have since our ram Studly tried to breed our neighbors Saint Bernard. (You should have seen the look that dog gave Studly!)

“What are you laughing about?” my wife demanded.

“It seems your reading comprehension isn’t what it used to be. You added an ‘R” to the word Beast. The name of her book and movie is “Great Beasts And Where to Find Them.”  Not Breasts.

This time it was her turn to rip the paper from my hands. “Let me see that.”

I was kind of disappointed to tell you the truth.                “Finally,” I said to my wife, “she wrote a book I might’ve read.”

wwwLeePittsbooks.com

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