Divorce settlement
On the first day, he sadly packed his belongings into boxes, crates and suitcases.
On the second day, he had the movers come and collect his things.
On the third day, he sat down for the last time at their beautiful dining-room table, by candle-light; he put on some soft background
music, and feasted on a pound of shrimp, a jar of caviar, and a bottle of spring-water.
When he'd finished, he went into each and every room and deposited a few half-eaten shrimps dipped in caviar into the hollow center of the
curtain rods.
He then cleaned up the kitchen and left.
On the fourth day, the wife came back with her new boyfriend, and at first all was bliss.
Then, slowly, the house began to smell.
They tried everything; cleaning, mopping, and airing-out the place.
Vents were checked for dead rodents, and carpets were steam cleaned.
Air fresheners were hung everywhere. Exterminators were brought in to set off gas canisters, during which time the two had to move out for a
few days, and in the end they even paid to replace the expensive wool carpeting. Nothing worked! People stopped coming over to visit.
Repairmen refused to work in the house. The maid quit.
Finally, they couldn't take the stench any longer, and decided they had to move, but a month later - even though they'd cut their price in
half - they couldn't find a buyer for such a stinky house.
Word got out, and eventually even the local realtors refused to return their calls.
Finally, unable to wait any longer for a purchaser, they had to borrow a huge sum of money from the bank to purchase a new place.
Then the ex-husband called the woman and asked how things were going. She told him the saga of the rotting house. He listened politely and said that
he missed his old home terribly and would be willing to reduce his divorce settlement in exchange for having the house.
Knowing he could have no idea how bad the smell really was, she agreed on a price that was only 1/10th of what the house had been worth ...
but only if he would sign the papers that very day.
He agreed, and within two hours her lawyers delivered the completed paperwork.
A week later the woman and her boyfriend stood smiling as they watched the moving company pack everything to take to their new home ... and
just to spite the ex-husband, they even took the curtain rods !!!
Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to me that I should bring my own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environment.
I apologized to the young girl and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days." The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."
I said that she was right -- our generation didn't have the "green thing" in its day. I went on to explain:
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.
Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable besides household garbage bags was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But, too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then.
We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.
But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.
Back then we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machines burning up 220 volts. Wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.
But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.
Back then we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.
Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.
But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then. We drank from a bubbler when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blade in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.
But we didn't have the "green thing" back then. Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the "green thing." We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.
But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then? Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person.
We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to anger us. Especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smart aleck who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much!!
The Italian said:
"Last night I massaged my wife all over her body with the finest extra virgin olive oil, then we made passionate love and I made her scream, non-stop, for five minutes."
The Frenchman said:
"Last night I massaged my wife all over her body with special aphrodisiac oil from Provence and then we made passionate love. I made her scream for fifteen minutes."
The Englishman said:
That's nothing! Last night I massaged my wife all over her body with a special butter. I caressed her entire body with the butter, and then made love and I made her scream for two long hours."
The Italian and Frenchman, astonished, asked, "Two full hours? Wow! That's phenomenal, what did you do it to make her scream for two hours?"
The Englishman replied: "I wiped my hands on the curtains."
Who be that then? Who be the grammer Nasty?I think HRH and our resident grammar Nazi may well be shocked to read an message
Bob