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The Legend of Little Audie Murphy: A Pig’s Heroic Journey


The farm. Santa Anna, Texas. July of 1955. My two uncles, Jay and Bill, need more to occupy their time. I need them away from me. I’m a six-year-old kid, and their influence is ruining my childhood. They told me Howdy Doody is not real, Santa Claus is dead, and Captain Kangaroo hates kids. I cried for days.


The chaw of Red Man chewing tobacco behind the smokehouse was the last straw. Seeing a kid puking for two hours seemed funny to them.


My grandfather told the two grown kids that a man in Coleman has a pig that won the ” Purple Paw” award. Every year, the governor of Texas bestows the prize on an animal that has performed a heroic act. Who knew there was a hero nearby?


Of course, my two uncles have to see this pig, so they head for Coleman with my cousin Jerry and me in tow. Arriving in Coleman, we stop at the feed store for directions and a Coke.
The owner tells my uncles to be very respectful of the pig since he saved the farmer and his family’s lives. In appreciation, the farmer named the pig “Little Audie Murphy,” after the famous World War 2 hero and movie star. I am more than impressed. This pig is the real deal.

Arriving at the farm, we are met at the gate by the proud farmer. My uncle Bill has a $10.00 bet with Jay that this is a load of bullcrap. They never stop.

Jay wants to hear the pig’s story, so the farmer is more than happy to recount.

The farmer takes a chaw of Red Man and begins, ” I was plowing one day, and my old tractor hits a stump and tips over, trapping me underneath. I’m yelling for help for an hour, and finally, my old pig shows up. The pig grabs a timber and scoots it underneath the tractor, then stands on it so’s the tractor tilts up, and I can scoot out. That porker saved my life.”
I can tell by the look on my uncle’s faces that they think this is B.S.
The farmer continues, ” about a week after that, I’m in town at the domino parlor, and my house catches on fire. My wife and kids are knocked out by the smoke, and the pig pulls them out of the burning house and revives them—a true porcine hero, that pig.”
Now my uncles are impressed. I see a tear trickle from Bill’s eye. I got a lump in my throat.

At this point, we want to see this pig for ourselves, so the farmer takes us to the barn. He stands outside the corral and yells, ” Little Audie, come on out.”


A huge Yorkshire pig wearing a ribbon and gold medal around its neck makes its way out of the barn. I’ve seen pigs before, and this wasn’t any normal pig. He was missing an ear and a front and back leg. Where the legs had been, the pig now sported a homemade wooden prosthesis. He seemed to walk fine and was friendly.

My uncle Jay was shocked and asked the farmer what the hell had happened to the poor pig.


The farmer took a minute to answer that question. Then he smiled and said, ” well, a pig this special, we can’t just eat him all at once.”

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The Dreaded Report Card


by Phil Strawn, based on personal experience

There is a school system on the East Coast that is changing its grading system so every student can “feel better” about themselves. This smells suspicious, and is likely extracted from the same rotten education bag as  “everyone gets a trophy.” Every letter grade is now lowered by five points, promoting a grade of “C” to a “B” and so on. Who benefits from this PC madness?

From personal experience, I can tell you that bringing home a low grade on your report card does have negative consequences. The younger you are, the fewer repercussions from your Mother since you are still her baby. As you age, the fear factor increases.

There is nothing that scares a kid more than bringing home the dreaded “F” or even the slightly better “D.”

You slow-walk your way home, looking for every excuse to prolong the firestorm that the small piece of cardboard will create. You’re begging God to intervene and miraculously change that red “F” to an acceptable, blue “C.” Nothing changes, and you accept your fate. God is likely a teacher on the side. With the end nearing, I take a moment to notice the blue sky, the chill of autumn in the air, and the singing of the birds. Even the neighborhood dog that always gives chase sits with sad eyes as I pass. Little things that may be my last moments of life.

With a cheesy fake smile on my face, I hand the report card to my mother, hoping for leniency.

Everything is fine until she sees that miserable sixth letter of the alphabet. Her happy smile fades, and her squinty-eyed mom’s stare paralyzes me.

My young life flashes before my eyes; I’m a goner. In desperation, I blame everything except my own stupidity. I fall to my knees, crawling across the kitchen floor, squeezing out fake tears, begging for forgiveness. She has none of it. The mom court is adjourned. I await my sentence.

Short of having my butt whipped with a Tupperware cake holder, or being sent to the “Dope Farm,” my mother’s go-to threat, I get off well and alive. I cannot watch cartoons for two weeks, play outside for a week, have Hostess cupcakes and Ovaltine, or play Saturday baseball for a month, which is alright; it’s winter, and I am in hibernation mode.

My next report card showed a vast improvement—not one failing grade. The specter of personal failure and my mother’s watchful eyes loomed large, shaping my educational journey. It’s a curious thing, our human desire for high marks—some students hustle and toil beneath the weight of those lofty expectations. But if we lower those standards, those who might shine will find themselves unfairly penalized, while those who merely coast by will come to view diligence as a nuisance.

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The Rise Of The Teenage Techno-Zombies


It’s not a real word, but it should be.

I wrote this story some years ago, but I realize it’s as relevant today as it was then, perhaps more.

Recently, Momo and I were standing in a rather long and slow line at a sandwich shop during the lunch hour. We were treated to the bizarre and ridiculous behavior of three millennial teenage women. I hate the term “millennial,” but I guess it’s better than calling them dumb as a bag of rocks, little twits.

Each girl had a cell phone in their hand, tapping away. The man in front of them placed his order, then continued tapping away on his phone. The guy taking his order had his phone in hand, tapping and waiting on his customer. The people behind us were tapping on their phones. Looking down the line toward the checkout, everyone was looking and tapping on their cell phone. This could have been a good “Twilight Zone” episode if Rod Serling had still been around.

I focused on these three and realized they were texting and sending messages and attachments to each other. There was no talking, just communication over the airwaves, mind-melding like Spock. One girl giggled, asking her friend,” Did he really say that to you?” Her friend giggled back. It’s odd how young women communicate with each other. Giggles, tongue clicks, half-spoken words, broken sentences, rolling of the eyes, flicking of the hair. It’s a secret language.

I watched them eat their lunch. All three are eating and tapping away on that damn device. No one looked up or spoke except to take a bite of a sandwich. Then, head down, continuing to tap-tap. Complete social breakdown. I wonder if they can write in cursive? Or do they print like most young people? Cursive is “our language”. Old timers know the value of the free-flowing wrist and a beautiful writing instrument, transposing our thoughts onto paper. These young ones just tap-tap-tap.

I shouldn’t be so hard on this twenty-something generation. After all, I am writing this on a laptop.

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Speak A Little Louder, I Can’t Hear You


Old man finishing off what hearing he has left…

I visited my Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor today. He wasn’t in the office, so I saw his PA. She escorted me to an exam room, and two techs checked my old ears for wax buildup and performed several tests by blowing air and a vacuum in both ears. Then, the PA took a microscopic robot thingy and stuck the device in both ears. When someone says, ” Hmm, oh my,” that gets my attention. Medical people have their own language. I should know; Momo is one of them. They use big words and have a secret handshake. She knew the gal from her hospital days; they hugged and did the handshake, then said some big words about my condition. When they got around to the hearing test, I was a nervous wreck.

The hearing test was easy: sit in a sound booth with headphones and a little button to push when you hear a beep. I sat there for a while in silence. Finally, I asked the tech when the test started. She said it started ten minutes ago. I failed miserably; I can’t hear jack shit, deaf as a cave-dwelling Salamander.

The PA showed me the results. She and Momo used some bigger words to describe my condition. Almost deaf in the left ear and coming up fast in the right one, my good ear.

” Doc, isn’t there anything you can do, like a transplant or a microchip or something?” She did that hmm thing again and told me to start learning sign language, stat. Crap, I’m going to be like Helen Keller, deaf and mute; it all goes hand in hand. First, the ears go, then the speech, then I’ll go blind and stagger around the family Christmas dinner, grabbing fist fulls of food off my relative’s plates. And to top it off, the PA says folks with severe hearing loss always get Dementia. So I’ll be deaf, blind, and mute, sitting in a chair with a drool sponge under my chin, and Momo will have to pull me around in a Western Flyer wagon. There has to be a better way to checkout.

I didn’t know that back in the day, standing in front of a Fender Duel Showman amp playing rock music at incredible decibels would destroy my hearing? Hell, I was sixteen and heard everything just fine. Alice Cooper once said that rock music will get you, one way or the other. It took a while, and I didn’t learn my lesson; I spent another twenty years doing the same thing in the 2000s. By the end of my tenure in the American Classics rock band, all of us were almost deaf.

The good news is that these new hearing aids have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. I can talk on my iPhone hands-free, check my voice and email, listen to my stereo, tune into Police radio, listen to air traffic control, hack other folks’ hearing aids, and listen in on their conversations. It also checks my vital signs and brain function and sends reports back to my doctor, and I can still play music with my church praise band. Who knew going deaf could be so interesting.

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Bonnie and Clyde: The Glamorous Outlaws’ Secrets


A Girl Has To Look Good When She Goes


Thanks to the new Netflix movie “The Highwaymen,” the two most famous outlaws from Texas are captivating a generation that has never heard of them. I’m referring to those two crazy kids from West Dallas; Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.

Their hijinx and daily run-ins with the law kept many a small-town newspaper in print and propelled the two young delinquents into living legends of their own time.

The car chases, robberies of banks, merchants, grocery stores, five and dimes, gas stations, gumball machines, lemonade stands, produce stands, and just ordinary citizens made spectacular fodder for the papers. They were the new folk heroes of the southwest, and as bad as these two were, their antics were pure journalistic gold. And, they didn’t mind killing a few lawmen and citizens if deemed necessary.

In the 1920s and early 1930s, my father’s Aunt, Katy Eberling, owned and operated a beauty salon on the corner of Rosedale and Hemphill Street in Fort Worth, Texas. For seven years, it was prosperous and allowed her to employ four beauticians and a manicurist. She was thriving and often turned away new clients or referred them to other shops. She wasn’t wealthy but made a darn good living for the times. Then, along comes that pesky old depression and she loses three beauticians and the manicurist because her clients now do their hair at home, or go to Leonard Brothers Department Store for two dollars less per set. Katy is weeks away from closing the doors when a visit from a new client changes her luck.

A cold December Friday afternoon finds Katy sweeping up the shop and preparing to close when a man and women enter through the back alley door.

The women, a frail, bony little thing is dressed in the best clothes that money can buy. A pale yellow cashmere sweater with a beige camel hair skirt. A string of pearls drapes her little neck. The man that accompanies her wears a three-piece pin-striped suit and a black fedora. These two are right out of Macy’s of New York. 

The woman is small, almost child size, no more than eighty pounds. She strides up to Katy, extends her tiny hand and says, “ My name is Bonnie and could you please give me a wash, cut and set. I know its late, but I will pay you nicely if it is not too much trouble.”

Katy, having made little money that day, agrees and escorts her to the shampoo sink. As Katy is shampooing Bonnie’s hair for the third time, she notices the man sitting by the back door holding a shotgun in his lap. It is then, reality sets in, and Katy realizes who this new client might be. She removes her hands from the woman’s wet hair and retreats a few steps.

 Bonnie, sensing her fright, assures her in a kind voice, “ Mam, I am here for a beauty appointment, we mean you no harm and will pay for the service.” Katy assured that she will not be gunned down, completes the shampoo and leads Bonnie to the beautician’s chair.

Once Bonnie Parker is seated, it’s as if she’s a lost Catholic girl returning to confession.

She recounts her childhood, being married young, wanting to be a poet and attend a good university and make her Mama proud. She then makes mention of that mongrel over there by the door and how he has ruined her life beyond repair.

 Once she begins the tales of their lives on the run, she cackles like a mad witch and has Katy laughing along with her. First-hand knowledge makes it all the crazier. Katy knows that Bonnie is leaving out the killing parts to spare her.

Two hours later, the appointment is finished. Bonnie Parker hands Katy six twenty-dollar bills and says she will be back next month around the same time of day if that is alright. Katy says that will be fine, and Bonnie departs with Clyde in tow.

Knowing she has to keep this to herself, she tells her husband Harvey, and no one else. Katy is full of remorse, knowing that the money she accepted is probably blood money or someone’s life savings, yet she took it because it will allow her to keep her shop open for another few months. If she is truthful with herself, she enjoyed the excitement it produced.

The next month, on a Friday, the two most wanted crooks in the land arrive at 4:30 PM. Bonnie receives a wash, trim and set and the confessions continue. Katy earns another six twenty-dollar bills. This time, she is less remorseful and less frightened.

Bonnie visits twice more. The last visit was un-nerving for Katy. Bonnie Parker is unwashed, and her clothes need to be cleaned. She is gaunt and hollow-eyed. There are no confessions or funny stories. Clyde remained in their car and Bonnie, upon being seated in Katy’s chair removes a 38 pistol from her purse and cradles it in her lap as if she was expecting trouble.

When the appointment is finished, Bonnie Parker checks her makeup in the mirror, straightens her skirt and says to Katy, “ My mama always says, a girl’s gotta look good when she goes. How do I look, Miss Katy?” Katy replies, “ You look lovely as ever.”

Bonnie hands Katy eight twenty-dollar bills and says she will see her next month.

A few weeks later, Katy reads in the newspaper that Bonnie and Clyde were killed in a shootout with the law in Louisiana. Katy hopes she looked good when it happened.

This story was told to myself and my cousins many times. When we were young, Aunt Katy left out much of the detail. As we grew older, into teenagers, the story became more graphic and colorful. I had no idea Aunt Katy was so famous.

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“19 Holes With Dirty Harry”


How’s that for a landing! I have never flown a plane in my whole life, but my newly-minted friend, Sir Richard Branson, let me land one of his private jets.

This adventure started last week when Momo, my sainted wife and I were feeling “down in the mouth” because all our friends were posting their vacations on Facebook, and here we are, stuck in hooterville Granbury.

My wife loves to enter stupid contests found in the back of her trashy movie star magazines, so she entered one that promised lunch with Sir Richard Branson. Who knew that she would win the darn thing.

A month later, out of the blue, Sir Richard sent us an email saying he would be stopping in Dallas on his way to Carmel, California, and asked if we weren’t busy and would like to fly out with him for a round of golf and a spot of lunch at Pebble Beach. Well, hell ya!

A few days later, we are on Sir Richards jet heading to the West Coast and dining on Picasso Pawns and ice-cold Chardonnay at 30,000 feet. We wondered what all the poor people were doing.

Sir Richard is a gambler and a jokester, so he bet me a fifty spot that I couldn’t land his private jet. Having consumed an entire bottle of cold wine and feeling a bit cocky, I took the bet. It was a rough-assed landing, giving the pilot a heart attack after we slid off the runway, but it was great fun.

Unfortunately, Sir Richard didn’t have any cash, so he gave me his Rolex instead. What a pal!

Arriving at Pebble Beach Golf Club, Sir Richard mentioned that his good buddy Clint Eastwood would be making up our fourth. My wife was so excited she fainted on the spot. Sir Richard brought her around with a few sips of expensive chardonnay and a pre-paid Platinum Visa Card waved under her nose.

Clint and Sir Richard have more money than Moses and have a running bet of twenty-thousand a hole. We passed on their game but agreed to keep their score, so no one cheated.

Clint had Sir Richard down by two until he missed a critical par putt on 16 and posted a bogy.

Being Dirty Harry and all, Clint didn’t take that well, so he pulled a 44 Magnum from his golf bag and blasted his ball into powder, leaving a large crater in the green. ” Take that you little white shit,” he mumbled. He then turned to us and said, “its okay, I own the course.” My wife and I were a bit unnerved but managed to finish the round. Sir Richard knew better than to piss off Dirty Harry, so he let Clint win. It was chump change to him.

After the game, we made our way to the grill and were seated in Clint’s special booth. He told the waiter to bring four “Dirty Harry Specials,” which consisted of a chili-cheese hot dog with extra onions, San Francisco Curley Fries, and a large glass of Colt 45 Malt Liquor. Yum-Yum, fine dining it was.

Finished with our meal and preparing to leave, we noticed a commotion at the bar, and Clint, being the owner, intervened.

It seems a group of hipster golfers were pissing about their outrageous bar bill and didn’t want to pay up.

Clint grabbed the nearest one and threw him to the polished pine floor. Then, being Dirty Harry and all, he produced his 44 Magnum from his jacket, pointed it at the hipster’s face, and uttered, ” this is the most powerful handgun in the world and it will blow your head clean off. Now in all this excitement, I forgot how many bullets I fired. Was it five or six? Well do you feel lucky, punk?”

Too afraid to move, we stood there shaking, we are sure that there would be a shooting all over a bar bill. Sir Richard offered to pay the tab, but Clint would hear non of it.

Clint got all “beady eyed” and, in his famous Dirty Harry voice, said to the hipster, “Well, do you feel lucky… punk?” The young man, fearing for his life, answered, ” I gots to know.”

Clint then fired a shot into the ceiling, sending everyone in the grill running for the door. He started laughing, as were the hipsters and the guy on the ground. It seems he pulls this act about once a month, just for fun.

It was a great trip, and Clint gave us some coupons for a free game at Pebble.

When Sir Richard dropped us off at Love Field, he asked if we might like to take a little trip with him and some of his mates into outer space. It pays to know the right people.

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The Green Legacy of Mr. Greenjeans


If you were a kid in the 1950s, then you knew who Captain Kangaroo and his sidekick Mr. Greenjeans were. Their television show was broadcast five days a week in glorious black and white and viewed by millions of kids on tiny television screens. ” Don’t sit too close to that TV, you’ll go blind.” That was the stern warning from every mother, and here we are today, all wearing glasses or blind. How did you expect us to see the Captain and Greenjeans on an 8-inch screen?

The burning question we all had was, did Mr. Greenjeans wear “green jeans?” We were kids, with no color sets, it made us crazy. Was this man green?

A few months ago, I took a shortcut through a Fort Worth neighborhood to avoid road construction and noticed a weirdly dressed man using a hand pump sprayer to paint his yard a deep shade of Kelly green. I stopped and watched him walk from the curb to the house. Long, even strokes coat the brown grass to imitate spring’s favorite color. It was then I noticed his house was green, the cars in the driveway were green, his clothes and skin were green, and a small dog sitting on the porch was also green. What the hell? The man saw me staring and motioned me over.

I parked my car and walked up to the fellow, feeling a bit foolish for interrupting the work of a stranger. I introduced myself and complimented him on his handy work. He thanked me, extended his hand to shake, and said, “names Levi, Levi Greenjeans, nice to meet you.”

” That’s an unusual name, sir. The only time I’ve heard that last name was on Captain Kangaroo, and that was seventy years ago,” I said.

The green fellow laughed and said, ” That’s the family name. Mr. Greenjeans was my pop. My sister and I grew up in a green world, so this is pretty natural for us. Dad’s been fertilizer for a good many years now, so it’s up to me to carry on the family brand.” I agreed; he looked pretty good for an old green guy.

I didn’t want to pry or be too forward, but I asked, ” Sir, what might the family brand be?”

“Call me Levi,” he said. ” You know that song ” The Jolly Green Giant? I wrote it and collect mucho royalties. That Tom Jones song about the green-green grass of home wrote that one, too. The Green Giant food brand, that’s mine; also, copyright infringement made them pay up. Home Depot has a Green Jeans color named after Dad. I get change from that, and I get a shiny penny from YouTube for the Captain Kangaroo videos.” This dude has turned green into green cash.

I am impressed and honored to be in the presence of one of the famous Greenjeans family, but now is the chance to get the answers to my childhood questions. I am afraid of coming off like a six-year-old Duffus, but I asked, ” did your dad wear green jeans and did he have a green face, and was the captain a nice man, and why did he have a big mustache, and did your dad really have a farm? There, I spat it out, and I am an idiot.

Levi chuckled and said, “Dad wore green jeans, and his face was green from stage makeup. The captain, bless his dead heart, was not too friendly. He wore a mustache because, on the first live show, a little kid threw a Coke bottle at him and split his lip; the stash hid the scar, and that’s why he disliked kids. He carried a small cattle prod under his sleeve, and if the kids got too close, he would shock them. Pretty funny stuff to see them jump. And the final answer is yes, Dad had a farm and grew veggies and raised prize-winning Llamas. Recently, my sister Denim planted forty acres of butt-kicking pot that we will sell in our “Mr. Greenjeans Apothecary Co-op in Denver.”

I thanked Levi for his kindness and started to leave when he stopped me. Extracting a green Sharpie from his pocket, he signed his name on the front of my white Eddie Bauer Polo shirt. “Hang on to that shirt, brother. It’ll be worth some cash one day.”

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Hey Kids, It’s Fun Being Sick!


How Kids Beat The Pandemic In The 1950s

Kids are an intelligent species. They know far more about human interaction and theatrical interpretation than their parents suspect. I can’t put a date on when this anomaly was discovered, but people with fancy degrees and a goatee first noticed this behavior in the early 1950s. My neighborhood may have been ground zero for their study.

As a bunch, the kids in my neighborhood were healthy. We ate mouthfuls of dirt, sucked on pebbles, and ingested every foodstuff imaginable without washing our grimy hands. This was perfectly acceptable to our mothers. Our young immune system was that of a caveman: we scoffed at germs, ” away with you foul vermin.” Like Superman on the TV, we were indestructible.

The only malady that affected us, was the dreaded Monday morning tummy-throat-aching body-virus. This malady usually broke-out in after a thirty or forty day incubation period. It spread like wildfire through our four-block coterie and most of the second and third grades, mostly affecting boys, but the girls were losing their immunity at an alarming rate.

The second week in November, close to Thanksgiving, most of our second-grade class was infected and missing in action. The symptoms were: headache, stomach ache, sore throat, and body aches, sometimes we developed a limp and had to crawl from the bathroom to our bed. When our mothers asked how we felt, we would point at the affected areas and groan, eliciting additional sympathy.

The first morning was the worst, then by noon we recovered enough to watch cartoons and eat some ice-cream, then after supper, the symptoms worsened, and mom made the call for us to stay home another day. Sleeping in was mandatory, and if we were recovered by lunchtime, we could go outside for some fresh air. This bug was known to not last more than three days, tops.

A seven year old can’t grasp the enormity of a situation the way their parents can. As a group, we were unaware that our symptoms matched those of the dreaded Polio Virus. Our kindly school nurse, fearing the worse, calls the health department for back-up.

Two blocks away at George C. Clark Elementary, our diligent principal cancels all classes and has the entire building sanitized by a nuclear cleanup team from Carswell Air Force Base. The newspapers are on this like a duck on a June Bug.

Lounging in bed eating Jell-O, and watching Bugs Bunny cartoons, my cohorts and I are unaware of our neighborhood pandemic.

Tuesday, mid-morning, a contingent of doctors and nurses from the Fort Worth health department, arrive to access the outbreak. They plan to visit every affected home around our school and test every sick child for the dreaded Polio Virus. Large syringes and foot-long throat swabs are required. A dozen ambulances stood by to transport the poor ill children to the hospital. The local newspaper was there, as well as the television news folks.

Skipper, my stalwart best buddy, and the elected grand Poo-Bah of our gang, was the first to break. With two syringes sucking blood from his skinny little kid arms, he sobbed and said he was faking it, we all were faking it. He gave us up like Benedict Arnold. Roger Glen ran screaming from his house when he saw the size of the needles, and the smartest girl in our class, Annie, gave a signed confession. The epidemic was over.

Most of us couldn’t comfortably sit for a few days, but we were all healthy until the next school year. That’s when the Asian bird, chicken, rat, and cat flue got us all.

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When Petulance Replaces Decorum And Respect


Momo and I are getting on in age these days. I am 75 and she is 70ish, so we’ve done and seen a few things along the way. So, being as socially aware and self-educated as we are, it was a shock to our overly medicated systems to see the entire Democratic coterie of POD people stuck to their chairs during the Presidents address to Congress last night. Marjorie Taylor Green must have applied super glue to their leather chairs before their entrance, she did look a bit guilty.

The mother of the 12 year-old girl killed by illegals, the young brain cancer survivor being made an officer of the Secret Service, the young man being accepted to West Point and a few others. We were sobbing like a baby that lost it’s bippy. You have got to be a purely evil glob of flesh to not react to human kindness and respect. It’s not a political thing, it’s a human thing, a Christian thing. The camera kept showing closeups of Nancy Pelosi as if she might react to something. Momo is an RN and she thought the old hag had an IV going just to keep her breathing and alive. And then the idiot from Texas, Representative Green, shaking his walking stick and shouting the President down, like he was back in Austin attending an HOA meeting. Speaker Johnson had him hauled off the floor by the Sargent At Arms. That hasn’t happened in modern politics, a first for the news media to cover. I bet old Lester Holt will be jumping all over this one tonight. Get the popcorn and Dr Pepper’s ready folks, it’s going to be a fun four years.

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The Mooch-O-Matic life Meter


Life Is A Percentage Game

A few weeks ago, my buddy Mooch and I were driving to Glenrose on a little road trip. We often take an adventure when we hear of something worth investigating. The stranger the better to occupy our precious time.

Mooch heard from someone at the feed store that a lady owns a pig that recently received the “Purple Paw,” the most prestigious civilian award an animal can receive for bravery. We have to see this pig for ourselves since Glenrose is right in our back yard.

Two hours of searching, we find the lady and her pig living in the RV Park by the river. This one is a wild goose chase. It seems her little boy didn’t win a prize in the stock show, so she took a purple TCU lanyard and tied a large gold-painted Mardi-Gras coin on the lanyard, making the pig a medal. This satisfied the whining child and turned the pig into a big shot. Now the kid and the pig think they are hot stuff and are raising hell in the RV Park. The expedition wasn’t a complete waste of time, we ate barbecue at the “Squealing Piglet” and topped it off with some pecan pie and Blue Bell ice cream.

Driving back to Granbury, the oil message light came on warning me I had ten percent oil life left on the old Honda. I bragged to Mooch about how smart my car is, and it seems to know everything. I mentioned, jokingly so, that it would be great if some pharmaceutical company could invent a device to tell us, humans, how much life we have left. Mooch, ever the tinkerer, has a small invention lab in his shed and is always coming up with strange things. He said he would look into that. I knew he would.

A week goes by, and Mooch shows up at my door with a white box under his arm. We sit at my kitchen table, and he pushes the box over my way, urging me to open it. Before I could get the lid off, he yells, ” I did it, its the invention we talked about, its a Mooch-O- Matic Life Meter, we are going to be wealthy.”

I open the box and pull out what appears to be a digital children’s thermometer. On the back are a crudely installed USB port and a sticker reading Mooch Matic. I’m impressed that he could invent something like this so quickly. In my book, his rating just increased by twenty points.

Knowing Mooch was about to explode with pride, I ask him,”What’s in this thing and how does it work?”

Mooch proudly exclaims, ” I took a “Tommy Bear In The Summer Sun” children’s digital rectal thermometer, added two chips from a Nokia flip phone, the activation strips from a “Ellen’s Own”digital pregnancy test, a chip from a Martha Stewart Meat Thermometer, a few innards from my old Amazon Firestick and a USB port so you can save the information. Now all that’s left is to test it on a human. I tried it out on my dog Rex, and damn if he doesn’t have 35% life left. The cat saw me testing Rex and is hiding, so now it’s down to you and me. How about you be the next participant?”

I reluctantly agreed to be the first human to test the Mooch-O-Matic. I entered the bathroom, inserted the device into the proper orifice, and waited until I heard the three beeps that signaled the reading was complete. After straightening myself up a bit I exited the bathroom and gave the device to Mooch. He scrolled through a menu and then blurted out, “holy crap, you have 25% life left, you lucky S.O.B.”

Well, there ya go buddy, I’m going to be watching many more Super Bowl’s. Mooch then took the device into the bathroom to test himself. After ten minutes, I’m getting worried so I knock on the door.

In my best-concerned tone, I said, ” Mooch, you okay, little buddy, you didn’t fall and break a hip, did you?” Mooch opened the door, and his face is the color of snow-whites butt. With a shaking hand, he handed me the device. I looked at the reading and was shocked. Mooch has 1.5% life left, which translates to, he could assume room temperature any minute or by morning at the latest. We are both speechless, and Mooch has tears in his old watery eyes.

Without saying a word, he leaves the house, and me holding the prototype of our disappearing wealth. Just for testing sake, I pulled a previously frozen whole chicken from the fridge and inserted the Mooch-O-Matic into the deceased bird’s butt. Three beeps later, the soon to be chicken dinner that has been dead for who knows how long, reads 35% life left.

I thought for a moment about calling poor Mooch to tell him his device is faulty, but he owes me $200.00, so I’ll let him sleep on this until he pays up.