Make ‘em smile

Yrs Trly has been thinkin’.
“Gotta watch that there thinkin’ jazz,” I was told at the Mighty Mezz. “Thinkin’ is dangerous.”
“Don’t think, just do,” the webmaster told me.
I was doing the newspaper’s website.
“But ****,” I’d complain; “if I don’t understand it, I can’t do it.”
It occurs making people inadvertently laugh works in my favor.
I’m at Canandaigua Orthopeadic the other day.
The doctor who did my knee-replacement strides in.
“How ya doin’?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I said. “My balance is terrible and seems to be getting worse.”
Yada-yada-yada-yada. Hitting joints with a tiny hammer. He starts to remove a sneaker. It’s double-tied.
“Wait a minute,” I say. “Yer the doctor. You shouldn’t hafta do that. I bet you weren’t doing that in yer residency.”
He laughed. No baloney and posturing from me.
Just recently I got my 700-pound zero-turn lawnmower stuck in a wet spot.
Gloriously stuck, I called a friend I feel bad about because the only time I contact her is when my mower’s stuck.
She has a brother over six feet, 200+ pounds, a really nice guy, but big.
He’s unstuck my mower before. Usually just lifts and pushes me out. I can’t do that; even with levers.
He came over and pushed me out.
“Whaddya need?” I asked. “You saved my butt!”
“Oh nuthin’,” he chirped. “‘Tweren’t nuthin’.”
YOWZUH! All I do is ask, and I get help free.
When I had my knee replaced I was in the hospital perhaps four days, then maybe three weeks in nursing-home rehab.
I boarded my dog the whole time = maybe a month.
When I returned to pick up my dog, I asked the kennel-owner what she needed.
“You don’t owe me anything,” she said.
“Oh come-on *****. Yer running a business.”
“Yeah, it’s MY business, and I do what I want. You remind me of my father.”
No wonder I’m loaded. Nobody charges me anything. All I did was make ‘em laugh.
I have many similar stories.
Make ‘em smile, and they jump through hoops for you.

• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over 11 years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern [I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well]). (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles away.)
• My “zero-turn” is my 48-inch riding-mower; “zero-turn” because it’s a special design with separate drives to each drive-wheel, so can be spun on a dime. “Zero-turns” are becoming the norm, because they cut mowing time compared to a lawn-tractor, which has to be set up for each mowing-pass.