What a start to the day this morning. Got an email first thing that nearly blew me off my chair. I know that receiving emails from parents isn't all that odd...but mine was from my father, and he passed away when I was eight months old. In fact, I've no recollection of him at all.
I guess he understands how frightful and unnerving hearing from one's long-time departed parent can be, because in the email he said that he was afraid I'd have a coronary had he just picked up the phone and called. So, he thought a simple email was a better way to introduce himself, and after all these years, hoped I wasn't too overwhelmed.
Then he got right to his point. He was writing, he said, because there was a new phenomenon going on up where he is. It seems that word had come from the basement, sixty or seventy floors below my dad's (apparently there's some kind of heavenly rating system up there that places people according to their performance on Earth) that some guy down there had communicated with a son whom was still alive. The dad was trying to help the kid out, because the kid, although married, had been caught doing some pretty distasteful things, mostly involving women other than his wife.
Well, my dad went on, when word got out about what this deceased guy was doing, pardon the expression but,"all Hell broke loose up here." Calls and messages were being sent by the millions from departed parents, to see if these departees could be of any help to their offspring still breathing down on Earth. Apparently, this heavenly offer of parental assistance was deemed to be a very good thing.
What was the most amazing part of it though, my dad thought, was that this kid's parent went out and apparently really tried to help him. Because, he said, you can't imagine, or maybe you can, the zillions of requests we get from folk's seeking help for all kinds of problems on Earth. Floods, famines, fires, plagues, holocausts, wars, people with incurable diseases, volcanic eruptions, stock market crashes, recessions, depressions and who knows what kinds of other tragic happenings and situations, the list just goes on and on.
So naturally, I became curious myself, my dad wrote on, and went down to talk to the kid's parent. Just to see for myself what had really happened. I found the kid's dad standing around talking with a bunch of other deceased and introduced myself. Before I could say anything else, the dad said, "There's a line over there, all you have to do is join those folks and wait, I'll get to you as soon as I can. Because, as I guess you already know, today I'm signing autographs for free, and they're usually fifty bucks."
I told the guy that I wasn't there for an autograph, my dad said, but only wanted to ask a question. The guy shrugged, and said "Okay, I guess. But make it short. I've got lots of people waiting." "Alright" I said. "I'm simply curious about why you helped your son out yesterday, when after all we get beseeched by millions who've got myriads of problems. What was the magnitude of the issue that finally caused a heavenly being such as yourself to reach out to someone back on Earth."
"You've got to understand," he replied, "that all these other tragic issues aside, my son's got a sponsor and because of my son's problem the sponsors got a problem too. Because, it might work out that people just stop buying the sponsor's products. And if that happens, the sponsor might have to go out of business. And if the sponsor goes out of business, there won't be any more sneakers. And there you have the crux of it all. Because, if there aren't any more sneakers, how in the world will my son be able to sneak out of his house?"
That's it for today folks.
Adios
2 Guys walked into a bar, which is really stupid because you would think after the first guy walked into the second guy would have seen it.
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