Lent Relief

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Image: RomoloTavani - Getty Images

Art Kumbalek with Easter bunny

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, I’m eyeballing the monthly calendar I’ve got nailed to the wall in the kitchen of my dinky apartment and, lo and behold, I noticed there’s but a week and a half left to this year’s furshlugginer Lenten season, and as a longtime Catholic of the Seriously Lapsed Order, I realized that I have not yet decided what to forego or give up, as the observance requires, what the fock.

Of course, I have given up the hope for a long and prosperous future but I did that years ago and it had nothing to do with this bullshit Lent. It was simply an act of taking reality to my bosom, since it was the only bosom I could find.

I know that a lot of Sunday kneelers choose to sacrifice the alcoholic cocktail for Lent, but for me that would be a weak choice, as WC Fields said, “Now don’t say you can’t swear off drinking; it’s easy. I’ve done it a thousand times.” Ba-ding!

So with about 10 days to go, what to do? Well sir, I’ve decided to put on hold the pricing of Costa Rican beachfront property ’til after Easter, how ’bout that? And since the “Rich Coast” skews Catholic, in some way I think my Lenten ass is covered, done and done.

Yes sir, I’m praying that such a piously flaccid lack of effort on my part might at least be good enough to knock off a couple, three hundred years from the holy ghastly total purgatory time I’m sure I’m sentenced to serve ’til I get sprung to heaven where I just might consider filling out an angel application, what the fock.

I’ll tell you what sucks, though, and that would be our Catholic prisoners locked up in the hoosegow for this-and-that during their stay on our earthly Earth. Imagine you finally served your time and get released from the big house and you’re walking across the street to enjoy your first ice-cold bottled beer in twenty-focking-five years and you get hit by a bus. Next thing you know, you wake up in purgatory where you’re scheduled to spend the next 3,000 years with nothing to wear but a soiled pair of BVDs chock-full of hot coals whilst getting bare-backed whipped 24/7. Yeah, that would blow big time, ain’a?

And as a deep level of hell circles the world, lo, these days, it is difficult to entertain even a mealy modicum of joy, unless you reside around about Brewtown, “The City That Always Sweeps,” the city that includes the kingly mensch deservedly inspiring citizen, Giannis Antetokounmpo from your Milwaukee Bucks. Giannis for president? Why the fock not. Got my vote, you betcha.

You know, I’d like to imagine that Giannis is at least an occasional reader of the Shepherd, ’cause why not? After all “shepherd” could have been his gig over there in Greece if he had not possessed the supreme basketball skills that he does possess, ain’a?

But god bless him, in recent post game pressers with all the sports reporter questions, our Cream City saint has taken to opening with a light-hearted question of his own, such as:

When the cows go out, where do they go? · “To the MOOOOOOvies!” Ba-ding!

Or:

What do you call a cow on the floor?… anybody knows?… Ground beef! Ba-ding!

And, of course:

Why could the bicycle not stand on its own? It was too tired! Ba-ding!

His delivery of these bon mots is as unique as is his indefensible Euro-step on the court.

Now, I’ve read that Giannis has always been fiercely determined to work extremely hard so’s to improve every aspect of his game. And so, as an unsolicited coach, I would like to suggest that the young man step-up his post-game repertoire and go for something a little more long-form, say, something like the following:

So, teacher walks to the blackboard one day and sees someone had written the word “penis” in tiny letters. She turns to the class, looks at the faces for a guilty one, no such luck, so she quickly erases the offensive word and begins class.

Next day, teacher walks into class and notices, in larger letters this time, that word “penis” on the blackboard again. She looks around the classroom for the culprit with no luck, so she erases the word and begins another lesson. And every day for a week, teacher sees the same word on the blackboard, written larger than the day before, but she cannot find the perpetrator.

Finally comes the day the teacher enters but instead of seeing “penis” on the blackboard, reads the following, “Hey Teach’, lesson for the day: The more you rub it, the bigger it gets.” Ba-ding!

I guarantee, Giannis, you launch the above little story delivered with your signature boyish enthusiasm during a post-game presser and it will bring down the house nearly equal to if you had windmill-dunked over the Suns’ Deandre Ayton to secure a Bucks’ consecutive NBA championship, I kid you not.

All right, ladies and gents. I’m out of here and please drive safely. Say good night, Artie. “Good night, Artie,” ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.