My Very First Blog

"CUCKOO FOR CUCKOO CLOCKS"

   My wife Sue loves chime clocks. Me? Not so much...But I love Sue, so we have  chime clocks in our house. Two of 'em (chime clocks, not houses...). One chimes once on the :15 of the hour, then twice on the :30 of the hour, then thrice on the :45, and finally a little darn song before chiming whatever hour of the day or night it is. 

   By Sue's way of thinking, we'll always have the beautiful sound of chimes throughout our day and night; by my way of thinking. I'll never have more than 14 minutes and 59 seconds of complete silence in my house. OK, OK, I will admit that as time has passed (and chimed), I hardly notice the noise -- uh, I mean, music. It's just kind of "there," ya know what I mean?

   At the beginning, we compromised. One month with the chimes ON, and one month with 'em OFF. Somehow, one of the OFF months turned out to be February, and also September, April, June, and November. How did all the thirty-one-day months become ON months? How? I'll tell ya how. I was just too lazy to count the days.

   Soon we ("we" = Sue) agreed to add a second chime clock (and suddenly there were no more OFF months). This second chimer plays "Ave Maria" every hour, plus the number of chimes of the time of day, but that's it. Only every hour on the hour. It's in a cabinet that has glass doors, so it's somewhat muffled, but not enough that it doesn't mock me while I'm minding my own business. And the other chime clock seems to warn me every :45 on the hour, "Ave Maria" is comin' right up!" "Ave Maria"? How about, "Quiet, Maria!"

   I forget exactly how this next thing happened -- you know how being married causes men to lose brain cells, right? -- but now we have a CUCKOO CLOCK hanging on a wall in the living room. Yeah, that's right...A bird now comes out and says "CUCKOO." The bird stares at me every time it comes out, I just know it does. Oh, it'll deny it, but I know it's so. Over time, I swear it's not even saying "cuckoo" anymore. Now, for instance, at 3PM and 3AM I hear, "Ha Ha, you can't catch me! Ha Ha, you can't catch me! Ha Ha, you can't catch me!" At one o'clock it's simply, "Steve's STUPID," but the bird drags out the word "stupid," because it's got only one chance to say something. It's like, "stooooooopppppppiiiiddddddd."

   Please don't get me started about noon and midnight!

   But I've found a way to defeat the cloddish cuckoo. At 11:55 whenever I'm home, I make believe I'm deaf. This way I don't hear it say: "Here I come! Here I am! You're still stupid! It's me! It's me! It's me! Try to catch me! Betcha can't! You're too slow! Look how old you've gotten! See ya in an hour! Bye, dopey!"

   Nope, I don't hear any of it...

Next week's blog is "I Touched Ringo Starr." Yeah, I really did! And I don't mean any of that "emotionally" touching him, my hand actually touched a Beatle! I'll tell ya about it next week.

I host my own radio show called STEVE LUDWIG'S CLASSIC POP CULTURE at www.PlanetLudwig.com. When you get a few minutes, why not check out the archives? Thanks so much!

                                   

By the way, if you enjoyed reading my blog, you may want to check out my first book called, SEE YOU IN CCU - A LIGHTHEARTED TALE OF MY OPEN-HEART SURGERY. It's more of the same type of silliness. It's available at www.CCUBOOK.COM, as well as at the other usual sites (www.barnesandnoble.com, www.amazon.com, etc.), in eBook, paperback, and hardcover.

                   

Thanks a lot,

Steve