Your Shorts Are Too Tight!

A young lass from a road test wanted to get her driver's license before having surgery to remove her gall bladder. I asked what the gall bladder did and she said that it acted as the body's filter. I then made up and sang her the following ditty;

The gall bladder's gone

my filter's wiped away

I'm free to let loose

in what ever I say.

For example . . .

And then I provided her with a couple of examples, evidently none of which was very funny.

Later on I was contemplating what it would be like not having to filter out what is really going on in my mind. Not that it would be a good thing because I am the type of person who likes to come up with quick and witty sayings and sometimes things get through my filter and I end up embarrassed and perhaps offending someone. But that's the point. Wouldn't it be nice to get a freebee every now and then and just blame it on your gall bladder?

My uncle Jack used to remark after saying something off color, “Pardon my french.” I could say that as well but I think it just might be better to blame my gall bladder instead of the French. They've suffered enough misunderstandings without me adding to their depression.

Friday I was on a test and the young woman and I were stopped at a light. On the back window of the mini van ahead of us were stick people and these were kinda strange so the girl explained that they depicted a zombie family. “See, they have two zombie adults, two zombie kids and three zombie pets.” Just then a guy is walking across the street in front of us who has an exaggerated limp and he is kinda dragging one foot along stiffed legged after the other and normally I would have thought, “Oh you poor guy” but instead I blurt out to the sweet young girl, “Oh my gosh, what are the odds, a real life zombie!” She laughed and I still apologized but now I have a back up plan; “Sorry, been having a little problem with my gall bladder lately”.

When people get older a lot of them tend to lose their ability to filter things out and they readily express what ever is at the front of their brains. My father stayed at a wonderful place the last years of his life and one day after a visit I stopped in one of the lounge areas to watch a women with a piano lead a group of mostly female residents in singing old time religious hymns. Undeterred an old woman I was standing next to in the back kept suggesting names of other, shall I say, more bawdy tunes. I still don't know if these tunes would have been for her enjoyment or if she had one baggy eye on me.

There is in our family a classic line that now will be remembered in more ways than one:

“Your shorts are too tight!”

The only explanation for the last time I heard that punch line (right in the middle of a funeral Mass) must have something to do with a malfunctioning gall bladder. But life is like that. You laugh, you groan, you claim your exemption and go on from there.