Each year, I devote two columns to a review of what I wrote about during the previous 11 months.
For example, last winter I wrote about a cruise we took to Puerto Rico. Getting on the ship’s elevator required us to scan our room card. I kept swiping but the elevator door didn’t open. A fellow passenger walked by. “You’re scanning the hand sanitizer,” he told me.
One night, I carried the TV remote onto the veranda outside our room that overlooked the ocean. The device slipped out of my hand when the ship rocked, and it landed in the Atlantic.
“That’s never happened before,” the steward said. “What were you doing when you dropped it?”
“I was channel surfing,” I said.
A capital offense
I made reservations for our trip to the nation’s capital to attend a college reunion. My wife Mary Ellen asked me to call and confirm that our hotel was close enough to walk to some of the area highlights.
“How far are you from the White House?” I asked the clerk.
“About 3,000 miles,” he told me.
I had booked a hotel in Washington, all right. In Seattle, Wash.
Not very intelligent
I asked an AI program to write an essay on why Dick Wolfsie was not funny, just to see what it would come up with. My wife was not impressed when she read it.
“Dick, this is outrageous. It’s full of inaccuracies,” she said. “You didn’t bore people for 30 years on TV.”
“Thank you, Mary Ellen.”
“Wasn’t it closer to 40?”
Mistaken identity?
Mary Ellen started to worry that someone might steal one of our identities. Now when I call her, she gives me a little quiz to be sure it’s me…. like what’s your brother’s name? What was the name of your first dog? She still wasn’t convinced.
“OK, Mary Ellen, you may ask one more question. Make it a good one.”
“OK, Dick, or whoever you are, when we got married, we stayed in a magnificent vacation spot in Big Sur, Calif. You said it was the most romantic, glorious hotel you had ever been in, and it was a weekend you would never forget. What was the name of the hotel?
“I don’t have a clue.”
“OK, it’s definitely you.”
A little too cozy
This past spring, we went downtown to a cute little bed and breakfast to celebrate our wedding anniversary. The owner took us upstairs to show us the room. There was one bed. One tiny double bed.
“Do you like your accommodations?” the proprietor asked?
“I love it,” my wife said, “but where is my husband going to sleep?”
The woman winked at me and said, “This is your romantic anniversary. I’m sure you will make it work.”
“Even on our honeymoon, this wouldn’t have worked,” Mary Ellen said.
A few more next week.
