One Arm, Funerals & Flashers
At a recent family gathering, we were trading stories. Mom brought up my post about the grumpy man in a silent wheelchair. This reminded my youngest brother, Chip of the time he had to go see Zeke.
“I’d never met him,” he said. He used to be a minister or something. Anyway, I drove to his place and he was in the barn with his back to me. He was bent over like he was lifting somethin’. I said, ‘Looks like you got your hands full.’
“He stood up and turned around. “’Just one,” he says. I look and see he’s missing an arm! I just stood there like a fool. I didn’t know what to say. He thought it was funny.”
My brother Rick nodded. “He’d probably been waiting a long time to use that line.”
Rick’s wife, Connie, recounted the time a long time acquaintance came to the place where she works. “He was all decked out in a suit. He never wears a suit. And I said, ‘Wow, where’s the funeral?’ It turned out he was going to a funeral! I’ve used that line again. I was so embarrassed.
Somehow we got onto not-too-bright people. Chip joined in again. “When I was in Florida doin’ masonry work, I had a guy workin’ for me. Puerto Rican guy, dumb as they come. I was havin’ trouble with my truck lights so I said to the guy, ‘Go behind the truck and tell me if my flashers are workin’.
‘So he goes behind the truck and I turned the four way flashers on. “Are they working?” I asked.
“He goes, ‘yes. . .no . . .yes. . . no.’” Chip shook his head. “At least I knew they were workin’.”
I couldn’t top that so we ended our stories.