Fibbing Friday (Along [Nose] Came Pinocchio)

Pensitivity101 offers a monthly chance to flex your exaggeration (Okay! Downright damned lying) muscles.  She provides a list of questions/items that you are urged to provide ‘Creative’ answers for.  Here is my most recent submission.

1. What are florins, tanners and bobs?

They are the Don’t Ask – Don’t Tell names given to men’s haircuts, otherwise known as Man Buns, Mullets, and Shark Fin.

2. What is Dead Man’s Fingers?

It’s what happens to Greedy Gus at the neighborhood barbecue, who goes back for seconds before everyone has had a serving of ribs.

3. What killed the Triffids?

Binge-watching ‘Bridgerton.’  People are dropping dead left and right from overdoses of taffeta, lace, and proper speech.

4. What’s the difference between a buck and a quid?

You can have a quid pro quo, but you can only have a buck pro tem, until the Tax Department finds out you worked and received it, and then they want their pound of flesh.

5. How much is an old crown worth?

Turning 40??!  The son said it wasn’t worth much.  😳
Dinner out (before COVID) to celebrate, at King’s Buffet Chinese?  $18.95
Being embarrassed by the clapping, singing wait-staff, getting his picture taken with a cardboard circlet that makes the Burger King’s topper look ritzy, and bringing the old crown home to adorn his personal totem pole?  Priceless!!

6. What can be known as a ‘Little Gem’?

The eagerly-awaited, recently-born Great-Grandson.  He will also be known as Cairngorm cairngorm stone – Google Search.

7. What is pearl barley?

Pearl Barley was a mid-20^th century, female, Negro, Jazz and pop singer, well known for such classics as Takes Two To Tangle Tango.

8. Finish the sentence: ‘I came, I saw, I………………..’

I read the menu at the French fry wagon, and said, Screw the diet!  I’m not going home to make popcorn!  I’m gonna order poutine!

9. Who said ‘Smile, it enhances your face value’?

An animated Disney clockmaker.  And the digital generation said, “What’s he talking about, Great-grandpa??

10. Where on the human body is the zygomatic arch found?

It’s on the human body??!  Shit!  Now I have to do more research.  I thought that it was this one, just outside of Athens.

Gratitude

To show their gratitude for our providing them with decorated Christmas cookies and fruitcake for their family Christmas breakfast, our Chiropractor and his family send us home with an over-abundance of lovely gifts.  One we’ve appreciated for several years is a gift certificate for a local Chinese buffet restaurant, simply named “Kings.”  There is another chain restaurant named “Mandarin”, but the range of choices and quality of food is about the same, only the price is 50% higher.

Husband, son, daughter, grandson – the birthdays all crash down like that Russian meteor, Sept. 21, Oct. 1, Oct. 3, Oct. 6.  We barely catch our breath from blowing out one set of candles, when it starts all over again.  The wife’s birthday is on Feb. 19.  It gives us time to save up our pennies, the ones that are now officially out of circulation.  The four adults do the work on the cookies, so we use the gift certificate to pay ourselves back.  The grandson and his fiancée are old enough to develop their own plans, so the rest of us have an evening out.

Ontario has established a new statutory holiday.  The third Monday in February is now, Family Day.  This year it fell on the 18^th.  If we were to go out on a Saturday or Sunday, the prices for the same food are 25% higher, and the crowds are thick.  Had we gone out on the Monday, the prices are better, but the place would still be packed.  We waited till the wife’s birthday on Tuesday.

We don’t tell anyone at the restaurant that it is.  If you’re foolish enough to do that, you get – Clap, Clap – It’s your – Clap, Clap – Birthday – Clap, Clap – You’re real – Clap, Clap – Centered out – Clap, Clap.  You get a chocolate muffin with a candle, they stick a cardboard tiara on your head that makes the one from Burger King look real, and they take a Polaroid for future blackmail.  We did it last year when the son turned 40.  The wife says she’ll admit to it next year, when she turns 65.

Waiting to use the gift certificate till the middle of February serves several purposes.  The hustle-bustle and over-eating of the Christmas/New Year’s season is over.  The son is the only one with a job, but we all need a middle-of-the-winter holiday.  The weight-watch dieting has been back in force long enough to justify a “just-one-time” exemption.  It is the wife’s birthday, and she deserves one night where she doesn’t have to plan/cook a meal, and the daughter doesn’t get left, eating leftovers all alone, while the kids invade their favorite Starbucks for the evening.  It’s another evening like the ones we spent making cookies.  We enjoy a communal meal, laugh, talk, tell lies and jokes and catch up on each other’s lives.

While only able to afford to do this once or twice a year, we’ve developed a bit of a relationship with one white male server.  Even if we’re not seated in his section, he stops over to see us when we pop in.  The son was startled when he showed up at his shop one night, working through the temp agency.  Son was worried that he’d lost his job, but, while stressful, the reason was more prosaic.

Several of his friends had decided to go on a trip to Europe, or Nicaragua, or Newfoundland.  He wished to accompany them but didn’t have the funds for the fare, or the time off, so he signed up for a second job.  He got off work at ten at the restaurant, and went to the son’s shop for an 11 to 7 shift.  He did this for six weeks, to earn enough money….and the other guys couldn’t agree on where or when, and the trip fell apart.  Wisely, he invested it in a restaurant management course.

Our chiropractor has found out about my blogging, and has become a regular follower.  He goes down to his den in the basement, and gets on his computer before clients begin to arrive.  This post will be up early Tuesday morning, when wife, daughter and I have an 11 AM appointment.  I’m using it as another way of expressing the family’s gratitude for facilitating a most enjoyable evening out.  Good morning, Peter.  Let’s talk about comments.

How ‘bout the rest of you?  I’d show gratitude for some comments.