Bringing Home the Drunken Fife

Saying for the day:Every man's life is a fairy tale written by God's fingers.Hans Christian Anderson

A fairy story ( or to be more exact an elf story) with a moral.
Once upon a time not very long ago there was a wonderful, happy, old couple. They had wonderful children and grandchildren who lived far away from them. So they sold the old family home and bought a new house in the big city ,near the children. It came with a huge mortgage but they were not afraid because he had done the math and with social security and his pension they could make the payments and have enough to live happily on. ( I told you it was a fairy tale)
So for a short time they were as happy as an old couple with arthritis and a huge variety of aliments could be. The grandkids visited often and the daughter even let them take care of her dog while she worked. Life was very good.
Then one day as they were coming out of Wal Mart they found a short little guy in a green suit with funny shoes ( they curled on the end ) leaning against their car. He was as drunk as he could be and he kept saying over and over, “ My name is Larkin Fife and I can’t find my wife”. Our old couple thought this was very strange but felt sorry for him so they took him home to sober him up.
It was when he was sober they discovered that he wasn’t a short little guy but an elf ( everybody knows elves shouldn’t drink). He was so thankful for their kindness that he gave them one wish for any one thing they would want. They thought and thought and finally decided on one of those big flat screen television sets mounted over their fireplace. Their old TV was big but had a small screen and was a bit of an eye sore. Our elf spun around three times and clicked his shoes together ( that is how elves do magic) and there on the wall over the fireplace was a beautiful 42 inch flat screen television. The old man and the old woman were so happy that she cried. At that point our elf vanished in a puff of smoke ( if your going to vanish a bit of theatrics doesn’t hurt the effect).
Soon, however, they discovered that their thirteen over the air channels they could get ( some of which were fuzzy) were no longer satisfactory. So they got cable with 240 regular channels ,three movie channels, and the NFL sports channel. It only cost $ 100 a month but surely it was worth it.
Soon after that our happy couple noticed that the TV didn’t look right because there was no mantle on the fireplace. So they bought a very expensive mantle and hired Pete the handyman to install it. Now the look was perfect except for the rest of the room. The couch and stuffed chairs were very comfortable but not much to look at. They were faded and the couch had the hole the dog had chewed in one of the cushions. So they gave the couch and chairs away on free cycle and bought the most beautiful new expensive living room set from American of Appleton. It was so beautiful the old woman cried tears of joy. It was so uncomfortable the old man cried tears of pain.
With the new couch and chairs the old end tables and lamps now had to go. They gave them to Good Will and replaced them with expensive, fragile new end tables and lamps. This meant, of course that the grandkids could no longer play in the living room so they stopped visiting.
That was when they noticed the rug. It was not only faded but had that piece missing in the corner that the dog had taken trying to bury a bone and that big spot the dog made by doing what dogs sometimes do when they shouldn’t. So they had the rug removed and a brand new expensive rug installed. That’s when they told their daughter the dog couldn’t visit anymore. This made the daughter very angry and she quit visiting as well. The old woman cried tears of sorrow because now they were all alone.
But it was not over yet. The rug reached the bedroom and made the bedroom carpet look as bad as it was so it too had to be replaced. Then all the bedroom furniture including the really comfortable bed on which their children had been conceived had to go and was replaced by new furniture so beautiful and so uncomfortable it would bring tears to your eyes.
They were just about to start on the study when the friendly bank “ that loves our customers” foreclosed on the mortgage because they couldn’t make the payments anymore. They ended up living in the back of the van on the wrong side of town ( every town has a wrong side) and they both cried , a lot.
Now the moral to this story is if you see a drunken elf run don’t walk in the opposite direction and whatever you do don’t bring him home !

Did I tell you our new large screen television to hang over our fireplace comes today. If I don’t blog tomorrow it’s because I am checking out locations on the wrong side of town.

#### News from Pigeon Falls-The little town in my basement where the trains still run, dragons fly, and life is back to normal. Petrovich told Mrs. Trumble that sometime next week he is going to make his first ever annual predictions for the year in Pigeon Falls based on the driblets of the Russian Monk Alexis Grengicoff . He says anyone can make couplets or driblets fit after the fact but he is going to try to see the future using them. At the end of the year they can see how well he did. He believes in his monk.
Mrs. Trumble just smiled. Petrovich is the least of her worries. She has a town to run and problems to solve. She would like to get a shot at the White Rabbit , at least she says she would. Besides what can possibly happen to Pigeon Falls that hasn’t already happened?
There is a rumor going around Pigeon Falls that Tommy TW is working on a movie deal for his book “Murder in the Sauna”. There would seem to be a good chance that it could be filmed in Pigeon Falls. After all “Anatomy of a Murder” was filmed partly in Marquette and Big Bay so movie companies do things like that.
*****

Today's Link-Julie's Journal- Some interesting pictures of New Years in Las Vegas
Dull day. My oxygen was good. I tied up a lot of loose ends with my eBay stuff. They brought the new TV and hung it over the fireplace. It was very cold outside. WE did the last of our after Christmas cards. Will mail them tomorrow. No9w I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA