The New Normal 4/16/21

If you are like either of us, you start making more and more noises accompanying physical exertion. Bend down to pick something up - that’s a noise. Stretching while getting out of bed - another noise. Leaning over to retie an untied shoelace - yet another. Sitting down in a chair, getting up from said chair, exiting and entering a car, and let’s not even talk about going to the bathroom. The point is the older we get, the more noises we make. John and I thought it would be fun to do a comic on this. The only trouble was how to spell the specific sounds. Like how do you spell the sound when you stretch in the morning? I spell it Uhharghhhh! To John it’ s more of a AAaaarrhghh. Guess who pens and inks in the letters? Guess who wins. I’ve got something to say about that. Unnnnnnhhhhh! Now I promised myself I wouldn’t be like that when I got to certain age, but creeeeeakkkk, here I am. As the saying goes, Man plans, God laughs.

Our other comic is about America’s new favorite phrase to explain everything, “in an abundance of caution.” In an abundance of caution will you please wear a mask before entering, wash your hands before touching, don’t rake the sand trap or touch the flag stick, and subject yourself to the temperature gun. In an abundance of caution my favorite beachside roadstand stopped serving fried whole clam bellies and soft serve ice cream, which were the only two reasons I liked going there. Now don’t get us wrong, we realize much of this is necessary, but some folks take it a little too far. Example, friends who ask, “Have you gotten your vaccine yet?” before they’ll talk to you on the phone. Okay, I exaggerated a little bit there but you get the point. I used to use Lysol wipes to germ-proof the groceries and the grocery bags before putting them away. After receiving our second doses, no more of that. At last, now that we have the vaccine, we can all breathe a little sigh of relief. Just don’t do it if you’re less than 6 feet away from me, okay?

That’s it for this week and we’ll see you next week with two new ones. And if we see you, please make sure to wear a mask.

Andy and John

The New Reality 05/29/2020

Have you experienced this at the grocery store? You get ready to go, put on your latex gloves (we haven’t used this much latex since college, but that’s another story), slip on your mask, take along your disinfectant wipes and off you go. First anomaly is you get the cart and THEN they have wipes at the front entrance after you’ve already touched the cart. Now okay, we can deal with the one way signs down each aisle and the obvious impossibility of maintaining 6-feet when the person in front of you, mask around his or her chin, is pondering which of 36 varieties of paleo granola to pick. But, then you finally lose your patience and pass them. BUT, and we do mean BUT, the real challenge occurs at the checkout line. Do you think those taped x’s are really 6 feet apart? And is that guy in back of you edging just a little too close? Even that is fine. The real kicker is what we turned into a comic. Andy read that you can pick up the virus when the cashier swipes your credit card through the machine, so he uses his phone and pays in that way. Only problen is A) the phone’s facial recognition feature doesn’t recognize you wearing a mask, requiring him to be one of those aforementioned jerks who proceeds to pull his mask around his chin and B) if the facial recognition still won’t work he now can’t punch in his passcode without first pulling off the damned latex gloves. But you gotta eat, so….

Our second one came from a near mystical experience in Coney Island. Andy decided on his birthday a couple weeks ago to drive down to Brooklyn and walk along the boardwalk. It was a beautiful spring day and he couldn’t pass Stillwell Ave, without getting off the boardwalk and going to Nathan’s. He got the requisite dog and fries and came back to the boardwalk to find a bench facing the ocean, with no one else sitting on it. He carefully pulled out a lysol wipe and wiped the bench down. He unwrapped what is considered the world’s greatest hot dog, and took a bite. It was so good, he closed his eyes and listened to the gentle surf hitting the shore and the sounds of the seagulls. Heaven. Until suddenly some guy comes bounding down the boardwalk blaring rap music from, get this, a boombox! No kidding. Some ear-splitting hip hop dittie about peace, love and understanding. Not really. Anyway, Andy recounted this to John and he said, I got it. Boom boxes and zoom boxes. One thing remains constant. We hate them as much today as we did 30 years ago.

So that’s it for this week. Next week are two goodies about how it feels to get yet another year older and we return to Al’s pizzeria as he considers reopening.

Have a wonderful weekend and if we pass each other, let’s make sure we pull our masks up, okay?

Andy and John