Recently, my son took up playing the cahóne, a box-shaped percussion instrument from Peru. He has enjoyed it so much that he purchased a second one.

That is where this tale goes sideways.

First, you must know that his wife is of Mexican descent. And though she does speak some Spanish, she doe not speak the language fluently.

While visiting their pastor, my son got out his newest drum and let his wife and the pastor play on it. Afterward, the three of them arrived at the church for worship, where she told church members, “The pastor and I were playing with my husband’s cajones before coming here.”

My Cousin Elmo says, “We should stop calling coffee “a cup of joe” out of respect for coffee.”

Here is a photograph of Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak wearing a Mickey Mouse watch and showing it off to a little girl from his Instagram account. It is in line with American Broadcasting Company and its subsidiary, The Walt Disney Company’s wokeness.

I’m just pointing it out because members of the UNIPARTY cannot see their gaffs and lack total self-awareness.

On Wed., Apr. 1, 1970, President Richard Nixon signed legislation officially banning cigarette ads on the radio. The last advertisement aired on TV on Thu., July 1, 1971, and on the radio long before that.

Why is this being brought up now? Marijuana dispenseries.

First off, if you smoke tobacco or weed, I don’t care. I subscribe to the Thomas Jefferson quote, “If it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my bone, what matter is it to me?”

That said, more and more, I am hearing advertising on the radio for “head shops,” “CBD dispensaries,” and “herbal lounges.” Further, some commercials even describe their “green,” “leafy,” products as “bud” with funky names.

It is only an observation on my part, but I must ask, where is the line drawn between the two?

My Cousin Elmo says, “Irony is when people with the Ukraine flag in their bio say ‘There’s no reason any civilian should own a gun.’”

Shortly after getting home, my wife called, “Can you go down to the drug store and pick up the prescription I just phoned in?”

“Sure,” I said as I grabbed my keys and beat feet out the door.

Once there, I had to wait around for them to get filled. Bored with walking around the store, I sat down to wait.

That’s when I saw the blood pressure machine.

“What the hell,” I thought as I sat down to get myself a reading.

One-fifty-five over 81 read the screen. Once again, I took it, but the numbers weren’t much better.

“Well,” I thought, “these store machines are notoriously miscalibrated. I’ll go home and take it the old-fashioned way.”

Once home, I pulled out my old stethoscope and pressure cuff and took my B/P a third time. The numbers were worse than ever, 171 over 90.

One-forty-four over 77 is normal for a man of my age. So, yes, dangerously high, and I immediately called the VA and scheduled an appointment.

The irony of ironies — I was at the drug store to pick up my wife’s blood pressure medication, which she’s been on for the last decade.

Because she needed her car as she didn’t have a ride home from work, and I didn’t have a way to deliver newspapers, my wife did the deed, renting a vehicle for me. Since I usually drive a 1998 Ford Ranger, she got a 2022 Ford Ranger.

While they call it a mid-sized truck, the newer beast is a giant compared to my old truck. I found this out the hard way as I exited the vehicle only to discover I was like 12-stories off the ground.

Thankfully, I grabbed the door frame, preventing myself from falling. I would do this twice more, plus catch my foot on the step under the door, something my truck does not have.

Aside from all of that, this new Ford is all electronic, meaning the damned thing is more intelligent than me. It has a backup camera built into the dashboard, flashing lights in the side-view mirrors to warn of cars caught the blind spot, and a noisy whine that lets the driver know when they are too close to something with the front bumper.

Unfortunately, I still have yet to figure out how to preset the radio or figure out what all the buttons with their neato graphics do. And I will never get the chance to learn either as it goes back to the rental lot on the sixth day.

While delivering papers and parked in a casino lot, a man drove by and yelled at me: “Go back to California!” That’s because it’s registered to that state and the license plate reflects this.

I laughed at him and his 1970s orange VW Bug with his Oregon license plate and expired registration tags.

Since the sun rises earlier during these days, it has become easy to see the many large-sized skidmarks left on the asphalt from semi-trucks, most loaded with rock, gravel, or dirt, as the drivers of these trucks must brake hard to prevent running a red light. I’m not talking about one or two, but several showing that the truck’s operator, who was traveling over 55 miles per hour, had to bring their vehicle to a stand-still or end up in a crash.

Of course, no one at NDOT would listen to the public, which warned the agency about the danger. After all, no one is a better engineer than a planner seated behind their desk in a comfortable chair.

Hopefully, the pencil-necked lughead who formalized the decision is happy with themselves and will remain so even after someone gets killed when one of these big rigs fails to stop in time. And I hope it isn’t me that gets killed.

Unelected decision-making bureaucrats are nothing but a menace to society, no matter at what level of government they work.

“Guilty as charged, your Honor,” I said as I pointed an accusing finger at myself.

For this, I am the Judge, jury, executioner, and defendant. Okay, so I’m blowing everything out of proportion, but what is a little exaggeration amongst friends?

Since mid-April, I have not recorded a podcast. But I do have my reason for not having done so, and here it is in a nutshell: audience indifference.

No, I am not blaming you. Audience indifference means I have not found a subject interesting enough to cause you to want to listen.

For some reason, I thought podcasting would come easy to me than it has. Sure, I could go the talk-radio route and piss you off with political rants, but that would leave me with one less listener, and that’s not a good business practice.

In the end, I stare at my microphone, and it stares back at me, and together we get nothing done.

It finally happened. And I was not only mad at myself for it, but I felt pretty stupid for having done it.

I drove thirty minutes from home to the radio station and forgot my key card to gain entry to the building.

What makes this so bad is I raced home to get the card, which I have attached to a red and yellow “1-800-Marines” lanyard, and then could not find it. Talk about being in a panic.

As I stood in the front room, wondering where I might have left it, the thought came to me: the car’s center console. And that’s where I found the damned thing, but still, I was fifteen minutes late to work.

Now I wear it even when I sleep.