March 25 2006

Well gang, we’ve got one of those seasonal problems this week.
One of our members, Harry Prim, found himself confronted with the seasonal problem of Spring Cleaning.
Now, Harry, being a normal bachelor type, knew that spring was the time for Spring Cleaning, but like many a bachelor couldn’t remember the last time that he had actually done it.
Where most people (ladies in particular) had dust bunnies, Harry was quick to admit that he had dust buffaloes.
There were times when the windows were open and air currents ran through his place, that when he had had enough to drink or was just having a flash back of some kind, that he thought that his place was being over run by a pack of rats . . . Big ones.
Dust buffaloes will do that to you.
At any rate, after watching a Public TV show on archeology digs, it occurred to Harry that the way to attack the problem of cleaning his place was to deal with it like one would deal with an archeological dig.
In other words; divide his apartment with a grid system, using in his case, monofilament fishing line and breaking down an insurmountable problem into manageable little squares.
The concept was brilliant, actually.
Think about it . . . It took two days to string a grid of monofilament across his apartment.
And starting in the south west corner, he cleaned the first square of the grid, finding in the process things that he had thought lost forever. Including two hand guns, a recipe for barbeque beans, and a court summons relative to an incident that is, quite frankly, none of our business.
He went to bed that night, after a six pack or so, feeling productive and in control of the situation. The one clean square gave him a sense of accomplishment. And along with maybe one beer too many, he slept like a baby.
That is, until an eye-hook that was holding a taught strand of monofilament to the base board in the front room came loose from the wall.
As if propelled from a sling-shot, the eye-hook zipped across the front room and shattered the window on the alley side.
With the stealth of a ninja, Harry came straight out of a drunken stupor, grabbed his shotgun by the bedroom door, and dashed toward the front room. Somehow avoiding the now forgotten grid system.
As he entered the front room, however, his right big toe came smartly in contact with a strand of fifty pound-test monofilament, and the eyehook holding it didn’t give, and Harry’s big toe did.
Down went Harry with a broken toe, the shotgun went off, of course, and blew out the screen of his big brand new high definition TV set.
Harry has put off Spring Cleaning until, oh, maybe summer or so.
At which time he figures that maybe three pound test line might be a good idea.
Yes, it just might be.

Till next week
Helga Biermeister
Secretary