Three quick raps from the back door, followed by two slow ones. I peeked through the shutters and saw an old lady leaning on her cane. It was Big Mouth Betty. I cracked opened the window on the door and hissed, “What do you want?”

“Governor Gavin’s a gasbag,” she hissed back. That was the correct passphrase, so I opened up and let her in.

Betty was our first arrival for Black Market Bingo. The bingo hall had been shut down two months ago, due to the coronavirus lockdown. Bingo regulars, such as Betty, had been going stir crazy, itching to get back to their favorite game. My wife and I were bored and needed something stimulating to do, so we organized a game for them.

We had to be careful, so we only invited those we knew and trusted. But anyone wanting admission had to remember a secret door knock and passphrase. That’s standard. It was a habit we insisted our clients got into.

Another door knock. Four quick raps, and that was it. I felt suspicious. I peeked out and there stood Madelyn. All 81 years of her. Yikes! I always had to be careful around Madelyn. “What do you want?” I hissed.

“The Governor’s in a . . . a . . . b-bag of gas,” she hissed back. Close enough. I let her in, then gave her a wide berth. Yet still she managed to brush her fingers across my thigh as she moseyed past me.

George, Lucy, and Lil the Pill arrived next, and all managed to get the passphrase right, more or less.

Lil the Pill was last to walk into the room, and greeted everyone with, “Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening!” with one good evening for each person present, other than herself. We each returned her greeting with a good evening, because we knew that if we didn’t, she’d get in our face and keep saying good evening to us until we said it back.

We also made sure we smiled when we said good evening to Lil, or she’d order us to smile. Everyone hated Lil the Pill, but nobody dared admit it.

The bingo players sat at least six feet apart from each other, in our spacious livingroom. Lucy had a cough that left everyone feeling nervous, so we put her a little further away, off in the corner.

“You better not have the virus!” Big Mouth Betty remonstrated to Lucy.

“No, no, [cough, cough] I just swallowed something wrong,” Lucy defended herself.

Madelyn made sure to sit close to the front, where I would be calling the numbers, and might perhaps stray within arm’s reach. George sat near my wife and leered at her. And Lil sat in the middle of the room, because she always liked to be in the middle of things, making demands of everyone.

Big Mouth Betty was rambling on and on, like she always did. My wife stood up and clapped her hands for about 30 seconds. That finally shut Big Mouth up and got everyone else’s attention as well. “Alright, listen up! There’s a $10 buy-in. Has everyone paid?”

“All but Lil,” I informed my wife.

“I forgot my money. I’ll pay next time.” Lil firmly declared.

“Okay, Lil. But you can only play for fun. You can’t win anything tonight,” my wife said sweetly, while smiling like a cherub. She knew how to handle old bitches.

Lil the Pill rummaged through her purse, and after a minute her bony fingers produced a ten-dollar bill. That settled that.

[cough, cough] went Lucy.

“Now we all have to be very careful,” my wife continued. “If anyone knocks on the front door, we all have to be quiet. No talking at all!” she cast a hard, meaningful glare at Big Mouth Betty. “My neighbor across the street is very nosy, and she might call the cops on us.”

Everyone nodded in agreement. They understood. Lucy coughed.

“Lucy, you shouldn’t have come here with that cough!” railed Betty. “You’re making us all scared!”

“It’s allergies,” Lucy pleaded. “I always get them this time of year.”

“None of us are wearing masks,” my wife pointed out, “And the county no longer requires it. So if you cough, be sure to cough into your arm,” she said to no one in particular. But we all knew she meant those words for Lucy.

My wife sat down, then stood up quickly. “Gaah!” she yelled. George had scooted his chair near hers and put his supinated hand on her chair’s seat, just as she sat down.

“Whoops, sorry,” George grinned, “I didn’t see you there.” George was a 75-year-old widower. His wife had been my wife’s friend, and while she lay on her deathbed, George started making passes at my wife. He’s been pursuing her ever since.

“Okay everyone, let’s get started!” I announced. I stood before a TV tray with two bowls on it. One bowl contained folded paper slips with letters, and the other contained folded paper slips with numbers.

My wife and the other five contestants sat poised with their bingo daubers and cards. I reached into each bowl, randomly selected paper slips, and unfolded them. “B-16,” I announced.

“What? What? What? What? What?” came a chorus, back.

“Speak up!” my wife reminded me.

“Beeeeeeeeeeee–16eeeeeeeeeeeeen!!!!!” I shouted.

“Oh, this is so exciting!” Big Mouth Betty proclaimed. “When I was young I knew someone who was in the mob during Prohibition. He was a big tough, guy, and he blah blah blah blah blah . . .”

I continued with my job, selecting paper slips and announcing numbers. And Big Mouth Betty continued with her job, yacking and yabbering away.

“Would you shut up!” Lil finally snapped at Betty. “I can’t concentrate!”

“Oh sorry,” Big Mouth apologized.

But a minute later her logorhea kicked in again. She just couldn’t help herself. Big Mouth Betty was always the most reviled contestant in the bingo hall, and she continued to live up to her blatherskite reputation at our Black Market Bingo.

“Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-55iiiiiiiiiiive!!!!!!” I shouted.

“[cough] Bingo!” Lucy shouted back with glee.

“Shit!” everyone else muttered.

Sure enough, her card checked out. I paid her $54, which was the $60 prize money, minus our 10% vigorish. Then we prepared for a new round. Lil managed to find another ten-dollar bill in her purse. Everyone was in. But then Lucy raised her hand.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” she announced.

“Number one or number two, Lucy?” my wife inquired.

“[cough, cough] Number one. But I can’t get off the toilet once I sit down. Do you have an old spaghetti pot I can use while standing up? That’s what I do at home.”

Note to self: Don’t ever eat Lucy’s spaghetti.

Madelyn stood up. “While Lucy’s using your spaghetti pot, I’ll use your bathroom.”

“No wait, Madelyn,” my wife stopped her. “Lucy, I’ll help you get up. You’re not using my spaghetti pot. Madelyn, you’re next after Lucy.”

About ten minutes later it was Madelyn’s turn. But as she walked past, heading toward the bathroom, she somehow tripped and fell against me. I instinctively grabbed her by the waist to keep my balance, while she steadied herself with her hands all over my ass, and her lips and face pressed against mine. “I’m so sorry,” she apologized, with a huge smile on her face. Then she triumphantly proceeded down the hallway, while I brushed my face and clothes off the best I could, feeling grossed out and dirty.

Finally everyone was seated and ready for the next round. I announced the first number. But before I could announce the second, there came a rapping on the front door. Front door? My hackles went up. My wife cast a worried look my way. I put my finger against my lips and shushed everyone, especially Big Mouth Betty.

I crept to the door. “Who is it?”

“It’s your neighbor, Mrs. Javvits!” we all heard. That fucking nosy bitch! “Is there a party going on in there? What are all these cars doing parked by your house?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Javvits!” I shouted through the door.

“Aren’t you going to open up so I can talk to you?”

I had to think of something quick, and I don’t think well on my feet. What should I say? What should I say? I frantically searched my brain. Finally, “No, I just got out of the shower. I’m naked!” I heard Madelyn sigh, somewhere behind me.

Silence. Then, “Okay, well, I hope you’re not having a party. We all have to do our part to fight the virus, you know. Have a good evening!” I heard retreating footsteps.

We resumed our play. But after this scare, everyone was subdued. Even Big Mouth Betty lowered her voice.

“Innnnnnnnnnnn-42oooooooooooo!!!!” I hush-shouted.

“Bingo! [cough, cough]” announced Lucy.

“Shit!” from everyone else.

Betty turned on her with daggers in her eyes. “Lucy, you shouldn’t have even come here! You sound like you have the virus!”

“No, no,” Lucy pushed back. “It’s my heart condition. It makes me cough sometimes.”

But Lucy’s win, after my neighbor’s visit, broke up the game. Everyone decided they’d had it and it was time to go home. But they all said they’d had a good time, and vowed to return in a week for more Black Market Bingo.

“Can you come to my house someday?” George whispered into my wife’s ear, as he walked out the back. “I have something that my wife wanted you to have.”

“Ohhh, okay, we’ll see,” my wife patted him on the back while pushing him out the door.

This unnerving exchange distracted me, and Madelyn managed to sneak in a goose, as she followed George outside. Dammit!

After everyone was gone, there came a pounding on our front door. It was a cop.

“Excuse me sir, but we got a complaint that there was a party going on here. Are you aware of anything like that around here?” the young officer inquired, while peering over my shoulder and observing my wife straightening out the furniture.

“No sir, not here,” I told him. “It could be my neighbor across the street, though. She has family reunions there all the time. You might want to keep an eye out on her house. I think she’s been breaking the lockdown rules a lot.”

He looked me over carefully. Finally, “Okay, well sorry to disturb you. Have a nice evening,” and he left.

That was a close call, but we got away with it. And with a total vig of $12, plus $29 in net profit from refreshments and snacks my wife had sold, we’d netted $41.00 under the table.

All-in-all I think we did okay for our efforts. We got together with some screwy, but fun old people, and filled a vacuum of loneliness that months of lockdown had created. It had been a successful night for everyone, at Black Market Bingo.

[cough, cough]

---

This story is fiction, but the characters are not. They’re real people who frequented my wife’s beauty shop for many years, before she retired. Her beauty shop was connected to our house, so for better or worse, I got to know them well.

Happy Star Wars Day!
May the Fourth be with you.

Easter was a month away. My wife always makes an Easter basket for me, and fills it with candy. Including chocolate eggs. Which is a problem.

If I don’t watch my weight, I’ll balloon like a Zeppelin. So I asked my wife to please go light this year. Don’t buy the chocolate eggs.

Her face dropped. I sensed something was wrong. “W-well, I may have already bought them,” she sheepishly admitted.

Well, hell.

“Oh, that’s okay,” I sighed with resignation. “Don’t worry, I’ll eat them.”

Sure enough, on Easter Sunday morning, there waiting for me on the kitchen counter were some Peeps Marshmallow Chicks, a bag of Brach’s Classic Jelly Bird Eggs, and a 10 ounce bag of Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Eggs.

I decided the chocolate eggs must be eaten first, as the weather was getting warm, and they were in danger of becoming a melted, gooey mess. But I must watch my calories. So I announced to my wife that I would only be eating five chocolate eggs per day.

According to the nutritional information on the package, a serving size of five eggs contains 140 calories, and there are 10 servings in the bag. So I calculated that I could safely finish this bag in 10 days, at five eggs per day, without gaining weight.

I ate my first five eggs on April 21st. So I anticipated my last five eggs would be consumed on April 30th. And I very much looked forward to chomping on those Peeps Marshmallow Chicks on May 1st, after the chocolate eggs were conquered.

But along about April 28th, I sensed something was amiss.

My bag of chocolate eggs was still about half full. This was not right. The math didn’t calculate. There should only be 10 eggs left in the bag, but there appeared to be about 25 or 30. Was this bag magical?

On April 30th I put my bag on a food scale. It weighed 4.4 ounces. That meant there were still about 22 eggs left in the bag, when there should be zero. Could the factory have made a mistake, and put too many eggs in the bag?

Or was this bag really magical?

The thought of a magical bag of chocolate eggs captured my imagination. I felt a frisson when I wondered what sort of deity might be favoring me, by spontaneously generating free chocolate eggs and implanting them in my bag. Could there really be an Easter Bunny after all? Or am I favored by some other Cosmic Power? Perhaps a unicorn?

I decided to start eating seven eggs per day, rather than five, to see if that would make the bag decrease in weight. But every day it hovered right around 4.4 ounces. Amazing.

My wife would think I was crazy if I told her about this, so I waited for the right time, and the right way to reveal my supernatural discovery.

One afternoon we were sitting together in quiet, relaxed reverie. It was a tender moment when guards came down and vulnerabilities could be exposed. I was searching my mind for the right words, when she decided to share something with me first.

“Have you noticed anything unusual over the past week or so?” she ventured.

My antennas came up. I felt suspicious. “Like what?” I asked.

“I have something to confess to you. I hate it that you’re so skinny and I’m so fat. So I bought you two bags of chocolate eggs for Easter, not one. The other is Hershey’s Big Bag. 18 ounces. Every day I’ve been sneaking eggs from that Big Bag into your regular size chocolate egg bag.”

“Ohhh? Well I HAVE noticed that my bag stays the same weight. I figured it was you.” Okay, so maybe I fibbed a little, but the possibility of it being her did fleetingly cross my mind. Once.

“I’m sorry, it’s not right for me to do that. This was a bad April Fool’s joke, and I didn’t even fool you. You can get mad at me if you want. But I hope you’ll forgive me.”

We kissed and hugged, and I forgave her.

How could I not forgive her? She stepped up, admitted her crime, and was willing to accept the consequences. This is responsibility. This is maturity. She did the adult thing.

Most importantly, I’m sure glad she came clean when she did, right before I was about to brag about my magic bag of chocolate eggs.

I was fortunate and cursed enough to be around several of my great-grandparents while I was growing up. That’s because my family is blessed and cursed with longevity in our genes. We tend to live a long time, but when we finally expire we die of long, lingering chronic illnesses.

My great-grandma was born in 1889. She drove a crankstart Model T when she was young. It gave her a great scare when it chased her around the yard one day, after she crank-started it while it was in gear.

She made it through two great world wars, struggled through the Great Depression, and survived the Great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. So by the time I met her, she had quite a few great tales to tell.

She’d come visit us about once a year, when I was a kid, and stay several weeks, all the while reminiscing about the past. I found her stories fascinating. I learned a lot of history from her, and for that I’m great-ful. I sure wish now I could remember all of those stories.

One day I asked Great-Grandma if they told dirty jokes back in the old days. And with that she surprised me by relating a few she had committed to memory. I immediately recognized this as an historic discovery, and surmised that these jokes must be preserved for posterity.

I hardly remember a damn thing about most of the historical accounts I heard from Great-Grandma. But I made it my duty-bound pledge to memorize her antiquarian dirty jokes, so that one day I could pass them on to newer generations.

And so, for your edification and academic study, here are Great-Grandma’s dirty jokes:

ELECTRICITY

Back in the early days of electric utilities, when a storm knocked down power lines, electricity would be out for long periods of time before those lines could be repaired. That’s exactly what happened to a little old lady who lived way out in the boondocks.

Finally she managed to call the electric company and alert them to her problem. But her message left them kind of confused. She told the dispatcher, “I need you to send a man to my house right away! I’ve had to use a candle now for two weeks.”

PERIOD

A young schoolgirl and her classmates were being instructed by their teacher on proper use of punctuation. She seemed a little distracted, as if she wasn’t paying attention. So the teacher pointed at her and said, “Young lady, what can you tell me about the period?”

She answered, “Well teacher, I know that periods are dangerous.”

The teacher thought she was being a smart aleck, so he decided to put her on the spot.

“That’s nonsense!” he scolded. “Young lady, I want you to stand up in front of the whole class and explain why periods are dangerous.”

The schoolgirl did as she was told. She stood up, faced her classmates, and said, “This morning my big sister came down the stairs and announced, ‘I haven’t had my period in two months.’ My mother fainted, my father had a stroke, and the boy next door shot himself.”

SUPERNATURAL

One evening at a prayer meeting the topic turned to the supernatural. The preacher was lecturing about the dangers of the occult, and especially the evils of attending séances and intercoursing with the dead. At one point he asked, “Has anyone here ever had intercourse with a ghost?”

A little old lady in the back raised her hand. “I have!” her crackly voice declared.

“You have?!” the preacher replied with astonishment. “You . . . you’ve had intercourse with a GHOST?!”

The lady quickly lowered her hand. “Oh,” she corrected, “I thought you said GOAT.”

Most home repair jobs can be handled without hiring professional help. All it requires is a certain attitude. First you have to believe in your ability to accomplish a somewhat complex task. You must also be willing to risk making a problem worse rather than better, because that will occasionally happen. Though it’s rare. And you must maintain a level head, so that you can assess the repair situation, and any contingencies that may arise, in a logical, common sense manner.

For example, our bathroom had a minor plumbing issue. Water would leak out the faucet handles of the shower whenever the faucets were opened. No big deal, but after a while I got tired of it and decided to fix this problem.

I logically and correctly assessed that the compression washers and valve seats in the faucet valve stems required replacement. Pretty easy job. And I’d done this before, so I knew how to fix it.

I started with the hot water side, on the left. I got the old faucet seat out with a bit of a yank (it was in there pretty tight). Then I put the pipe dope on the new one, and confidently inserted it into the pipe head and turned the nifty little seat wrench I had just purchased from Home Depot.

But it wouldn’t thread into place. I tried and tried for about 15 minutes, but I just couldn’t seem to get it onto the pipe threads in the exact proper position, so that it would start to screw in.

It’s a must to remain level-headed and logical in these situations. So I attempted to keep my cool while assessing the situation.

The shower wall on the left, and the cold water faucet handle on the right were complicating things, because they were getting in the way of my seat wrench, forcing me to go about a third of a turn, then pull the seat wrench out, reposition it, and put it back in.

This short turning radius was frustrating. But after I calmed down and my hands stopped trembling, I decided I’d have to pull the cold water faucet out, so that I could get close to a full 360 degree revolving bite on the seat wrench, and get that dilly of a faucet seat threaded into place.

But the screw on the faucet handle was frozen. I struggled with it, while a few feelings of apoplexy kind of popped through my skull. Finally, after several cerebral hemorrages, I stripped the head of the fucking screw. So then I had to spend the next goddamned hour drilling the asshole screw out, and ruining the friggin’ valve stem in the process.

But after much drilling and swearing I finally got the muther-fucking stubborn, shithead, ass-wad valve stem out, and at last had a nearly full circular muther-fucking swing available for installing the goddamned, muther-ass, stupid, pissy-assed-bastard hot water side faucet seat.

With this near full-freedom swing, blazing eyes, and a breath of desperate hope in my flaring nostrils, I attempted to thread this shitty-ass faucet seat one more fucking time. But wouldn’t you know? I still couldn’t get the cocksucking, ballbusting, jackass, stupid, damned son-of-a-bitch to go in!!!

I stormed away. Stomped into my bedroom. Closed (slammed) the door. Slapped my head a bunch of times. Called every plumber who ever invented plumbing a dumb-assed mother-fucking son-of-a-bitch.

But after a bit I finally calmed down. And then an idea occurred to me. What would happen if I tried turning the seat wrench clockwise, rather than counter-clockwise?

So I gave that little ingenious trick a try.

Instant success.

And so you see, I can handle home repair jobs. I don’t need professional help.

Have you noticed lately that every time you do business with someone, they ask you to complete a customer satisfaction survey, or write some sort of review? At one time, not too long ago, I encountered this only occasionally. Once in a while I’d get a survey in the mail to rate my family physician. Or I’d be asked to write a review of a product I bought online. But only once in a while.

Now it seems to happen every friggin’ time.

It seems survey mania has crept over us, and now the solicitation of a survey after every transaction or interaction has become standard business practice.

Back in the day, when this only happened once in a while, I had no problem completing surveys. In fact I felt delighted at the chance to rate someone like my doctor. Until he sent me a letter begging me to always rate him with 10’s on every category.

That’s when I became cynical about surveys. It seems that if you give someone anything less than a 10, even if it’s a nice generous 9, it jeopardizes their job security, and puts them under heavy scrutiny from their superiors.

So I just stopped doing them. I chuck them in the trash. I close their pop-up boxes online. Fuck all those bastards who expect their employees to be perfect.

Besides, I just don’t have time to fill out all the goddamned surveys everyone wants me to complete.

Now that I’m finished with this rant, I need your feedback. How good was this rant? Did I express my complaint clearly? Did you feel my passion? Were my writing skills up to par? Please rate me on a scale of 1 to 10 in the following categories. But remember, any rating less than a 10 could result in my suspension from WordPress and banishment from social media altogether. And you wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?

Overall ranting effectiveness (1-10):
Clarity of this rant (1-10):
How moved were you into joining this rant? (1-10):
Display of technical skills in this rant (1-10 ):
Willingness to recommend this rant to a friend (1-10):

Rating Equivalents:

1=Completely insincere or incompetent.
2=I’ve got better things to do than read this crap.
3=Such feeble effort. You sound like Don Knotts.
4=You whine like my 3-year-old grandchild.
5=Okay, so you’ve made your point. Yawn.
6=I’m gonna write my Congressman! Just as soon as I . . . zzzzzz.
7=Wow, you rant like a grumpy old man!
8=Where’s a straitjacket? You insane, man!
9=You’re Hitler incarnate!
10=You’re a Trump-Tweeting Tyrant!

Thank you for taking the time to complete this godawful long survey.