You might have heard of an article published by Reuters late last week in which after extensive research and what I guess they’d call shoe-leather detective work they identified the famous British stencil-graffiti artist known as “Banksy.”
It was among the most welcome phone calls I’ve ever made. The call was to Frontier or Verizon or whatever it is they currently call themselves. I was calling to tell them that after 21 years, one month, and five days I was done with what in my estimation is the worst phone company ever.
If there is anything as embarrassing as confessing one’s sins it has to be confessing one’s stupidities.
Yet here we are. Instead of describing how well my cool new Starlink-based phone-internet setup is coming together, I’m obligated to detail how I fell for a swindle so obvious that there’s no escaping the fact that my mind must have got disengaged for a while.
It seems that the sycamore has been granted a reprieve. For now. The great and awful tree had been destined to attain horizontality as soon as I could find someone who would do it. That was necessary to give my cool new satellite dish a clear view of the sky. The tree is still under a death sentence, but the latest and most urgent reason for sending the thing to the wood-chip pile seems not to have existed at all.
If only I can get the dish on top of the stick!
As I wrote that I was suddenly reminded that a few decades ago it was popular for performers on variety shows to spin dishes on the tips of what looked like pool cues, the trick being to get many dishes spinning on many pool cues at once. At some point the studio audience would applaud. We were more easily pleased in those simpler times.
Okay, yes, it was my fault that the propane ran out before I ordered a refill. It was not my fault, though, that the internet went down, forcing me to watch a bit of the Olympics.
As it turns out, if it snows a lot, then rains a little on top of it, it won’t go away until things get warmer.
That’s my theory, anyway. I won’t be able to say for sure until things get warmer, if they ever do. Hope is found in it always having gotten warmer before. But we live in strange and troubling times.
So far, 2026 brings to mind Dorothy Parker’s legendary sigh, “What fresh hell is this?” It’s said to have been uttered when her doorbell rang, but it has other uses. Applied to our current year it makes Parker seem a prophet (though her politics and choices of friends tended to be terrible).
Alas, it has begun anew. It will get worse and there’s reason to believe that this time it will be more irritating than ever before.
Are you happy with 2026, now that the first month is almost half over? Me neither.