The other day, I was folding laundry with a typical pained expression. Another great, $25 Henley T-shirt. Ruined. This one was splattered with the oily fingerprints of Bernstein’s Restaurant Recipe Italian Dressing.
Please. Don’t paint me as a racist. We’ve now a new Non-Name-Calling Policy at The Mighty Signal where I am required to not Name Call back.
I’m praying, probably in the wrong direction, this policy is short-lived. You see, while I can Google, cut and paste the entire New Testament and Talmud without any attribution, I truly hate practicing the principles, especially the non-smote ones.
I would’ve made a horrible Jesus. At the first sign of integrity testing, I’d be speed-dialing Samson, asking to borrow a jawbone of an asp.
Or ass.
Or Democrat.
I get the three confused.
Instead of turning the other cheek, I would have chased an offending centurion and beat him senseless with a 28 A.D. ball-peen hammer, just for looking funny at me. Through clenched teeth I’d growl: “Take that and that and that and that and that and that and that and that and that, so help me, well — Me…”
No need to look that up.
It’s not in the Bible.
Anyway. I’m putting away laundry and wondering. What’s a guy named Bernstein doing in the first place bottling Italian salad dressing?
It’s yummy stuff. But drip it on clothing?
Kiss your blouse goodbye.
(The above quote courtesy of the Clinton Presidential Library.)
There’s nothing that gets out Italian dressing stains. Not even Italians. The stuff could burn through a suit of armor. I can see England’s King Richard the Lionheart. It’s 1189. June. He lifts his visor. It creaks. He leans forward as he’s guiding a fork full of Dark Ages arugula toward his mouth then yells, “O soiled wenches! What a boggish oaf am I for this shall leave stains like a cold martini shaker left without a coaster on a thinly varnished maple coffee table!”
I’ve tried stain removers. They don’t work. Five damning oily rings announce to the world that I am a retard sandwich eater unable to dock a simple landing of an artichoke heart and tomato to my mouth.
Is Italian dressing flammable?
This is something I should know because I have children in the house. Granted. They’re not my children. I think they’re illegal immigrants and disoriented. Still. Can you imagine the embarrassment for our local paper after they run the headline:
Columnist With 119 Awards
Blows Up Costa Rican Orphans
But No Name-Calling Involved
How could so many years slip by without me testing if Italian salad dressing is flammable?
I mean. What the heck. I’m rural. Finally, the government’s shut down. Who’s to stop me from screwing a rope fuse into the bottle cap of a bottle of Bernstein’s Restaurant Recipe Italian Dressing, lighting it, throwing it toward Palmdale then yelling: “INCOMING!!!”
Or, in Italian: “ARRIVO!!!”
My poor darn baby blue Carhartt Henley with the pocket and three buttons.
Ruined.
By salad dressing.
It’s not like I can visit Home Depot and buy T-Shirt Paint. Oil-based.
Although…
I could just cut five circular holes above the sternum and remove the offending stains. It might start a new fashion trend. I see women doing that all the time with their jeans. Women. They lacerate their pants.
Hmmm. That’s melodic. Here. Sing it with me:
AND… they lacerate their pants…
Sounds like a missing lyric from The Wizard of Oz hit song: “If I Only Had a Brain.”
Which is Elizabeth Warren’s campaign slogan for her 2020 presidential run.
Should the Cleveland Indians’ socialist third basewoman reach her 243rd birthday in a scant 22 months…
That’s not name-calling.
It’s a political observation.
It’s not like spilling on my wardrobe is anything new. I’ve been doing it since I was a baby. And, there was that dark period in my 20s when I did it on purpose. In my defense, I did it just to drive away the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Newhall was such a small town back in the 1970s, we had just the one.
“So. Before I let you in so we can watch your 13-hour instructional film — without ANY popcorn — tell me,” I said, leaning against the front door jamb, eating SpaghettiO’s with a knife while sloshing quarts of Red Dye No. 487 on my yellow rain poncho. “In one sentence. What’s the fundamental difference between Rastafarians and you J-dubyuh guys?”
It was an interesting conversation, one that went well into the night. I brought out severe rain gear for my missionary friend along with a large bowl of SpaghettiO’s, the tasteless canned food that resembled the round naughty parts of bleached ground squirrels. I thanked him for wasting three days on the porch with me, but confessed. Despite the undeniable backbeat of Rasta, I couldn’t worship Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie as my personal deity. Ditto with fetching actress Halle Berry. Ditto with Halle Berry’s dad, Chuck. Then, I begged his indulgence because I simply had to do laundry.
Bloody Italian salad dressing stains and what.
It’s not that I’m blaming Bernstein.
Wasn’t he the guy who also did the musical score for “West Side Story”?
Multi-talented chap if he was…
John Boston is. Well. Something.
