OohhRahh

Ben Jeffrey
USMC Artillery


wrote in message
...
...and Learn a new Language!

The cancer has me pretty much tied down but the oncologist has urged
me to walk as much as possible. So I arm myself with my Wal-Mart cane
and shove off to circle the patio.

I can usually do three circuits, if the pain will let me. Bad days,
mebbe half a circuit.

Full circuit takes me past the tomato plants. And the worms that feed
on them (see my blog for a picture of one). But tomato worms are so
well camouflaged that while I can see the damage they are causing, the
worm itself often gets away, since searching him out allows the Pain
to build, forcing me back into my chair without finding the green
beasties.

But when I -DO- find one... "Ah! Gotcha! You salt water sucking
mutherf**er!!" An' some other stuff, too. (Die, infidel worm! I put
my shoe on you!)

And look up to see our neighbor, 82 years old and a staunch member of
her church, standing on the other side of the Tomato Jungle, having
taken up her cane to ask after my health and wish me well for my up-
coming surgery.

I fumbled out an apology. I can Talk Nice when the occasion demands,
but triumph over The Worm shifts my vocabulary into Basic Navy
Chief.

Inez, a real Lady, insists she did not hear what I had said to The
Worm; that she often talked to her plants.

We chat for a bit, The Pain nibbling at my spine, until Inez wishes me
well and turns away, to hike back to her house. In parting she
reminds me: "You know, Art was in the Marine Corps for thirty years.
There were times when he used... colorful language."

THAT'S what it is! Colorful!

So watch out, you tubular green beasties. If I am catching you,
Paradise is lost, to say nothing of the seventy-two tender young
tomato plants you've been promised.

No. Polite Worm Speech lacks the pithiness of South China Sea Navy
chief-speech. So I hook my cane over my arm and dive back into the
Tomato Jungle. "Come 'er you green MF-er! Yer ass is grass and I'm
the lawn mower!"

-R.S.Hoover