THE JOYS OF LITERALISM

Or, if you prefer, Scenes from a Marriage:

HER (pointing to a package of Vigo yellow rice): We should have this.

ME: We do have it. Otherwise, why would it be in our kitchen?

HER: Good point.

I think she’s lying.

A FRESH START?

It’s looking very much like former Iowa State men’s basketball coach Larry Eustachy is going to get a new job, as head coach at the University of Southern Mississippi, according to the Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger.

Good. While Eustachy’s troubles seemed huge last spring, so much has come to light since then (the troubles in Colorado football, Jim Harrick Jr’s “tests” at Georgia, and such) that it almost comes across as unfair for Eustachy to be unemployed for merely personal reasons.

Eustachy’s name was also linked to the Texas A&M job, but fortunately, he didn’t get sucked into that particular black hole.

THERE’S A NAME

There’s a name for the day
when you neck feels like six feet
of bad extension cord
and the brakes on your car
are like stepping in spring mud
and you have to sit around all day waiting for the telephone to ring
which it does–
ONCE–
and it’s not even for you.

There’s a name for the day
when the foodstuff you crave most
is a quesadilla stuffed with queso fresco
and Advil
and you sincerely wish you had an allergy attack
so you could take two Benadryl
and resign from consciousness until the morning.

There’s a name for the day when you feel your worst
but need to be at your best
and no matter what happens
your worst is all that comes out of you.

There’s a name for the day
when you can’t remember how to finger an E-minor chord on your guitar
which may be the easiest flippin’ chord of all of them
but there you are
right in the middle of singing a song
and you call up “E-minor” in your brain
but all you hear back is “DUHHH.”

There’s a name for the day
when you think all the diurnal misery has come to an end
and you’re only half a mile from home
when you suddenly spot
one of your parishioners
standing outside her vehicle
and standing over the world’s most recent ex-deer.

There’s a name for the day when all that stuff happens, my friends
and that name is
“Wednesday”
and I swear it happens every dang week.

ASK, AND YE SHALL RECEIVE

Since somebody asked, here’s a genuine Wisconsin jambalaya recipe:

• Rice
• Salt
• Beer

Cook the rice. Or don’t; it really doesn’t make any difference. But if you do cook the rice, be sure to add salt. Whether you cook the rice or not, you should probably have a beer.