Squeaker in the House

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Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, what with the recent holidays, there were a couple, three days there where regular U.S. mail service was interrupted, so I thought to make up that deficit by mailing in the following wordage for your perusal. Happy focking New Year.

It has come to my attention that the advanced year of 2023 is now upon us, I hear; and yet I know and wonder why there are still no flying automobiles nor peace on Earth nor a Milwaukee Brewers World Series championship nor a discovery of once-existing intelligent life on Mars or within the Republican Party nor where the fock is Jimmy Hoffa nor why my bank account sucks ass year after year after year, what the fock.

Yes sir, 2023. One hundred years ago, Silent Cal Coolidge was elevated to the presidency (after President Warren G. Harding had some kind of heart attack, most likely after schtupping a youthful chambermaid in one of those Lincoln utility closets they got there in the White House)—seems like almost yesterday, or at least it did in my 7th-grade U.S. History text from back then; a text that seemed to cast a kind eye at that Manifest Destiny bullshit. How far have come?

And speaking of “bank account,” a New Year’s wish I have is that if any of you’s “millionaires” who peruse these essays of mine learn that you’re bound to croak during the coming year, please give a jingle to your lawyer so’s to add Art Kumbalek as some kind of beneficiary to your Last Will and Testament. A couple, three thousand dollaros would be nice, but if you could step on the gas and up the ante to an upper five-figure neighborhood, I would be appreciative and certainly buy a round of cocktails for my gang over by the Uptowner Tavern charm/school so as to toast your generous gift so’s to keep me financially afloat at least ’till we get to the 2024, the year I might need to make out my own kind of will & testament.

Anyways, I hope you’s all had a copacetic Christmas etcetera experience and received exactly what you deserved. As for me, “copacetic” would not apply. Neither did I receive the busload of Vegas showgirls nor the airborne automobile I had on my wish list that I had sent to that red-suited fat fock hiding out 24/7 364 days of the year at the North Pole. I did, although, receive a fresh six-pack of socks that I dug up and purchased myself down by the T.J. Maxx. Merry focking Christmas.

So, this being the first weekly essay of the year, some of you’s may be expecting that this would be my much ballyhooed yearly Look Back/Watch Out Ahead gala essay. Guess again. That essay will appear soon, they say, on this Shepherd website under the guise of my monthly essay, “From The City That Always Sweeps,” January edition, what the fock.

However, I can give you a bonus prediction for 2023 that didn’t make it into Swami Art Kumbalek’s January monthly schmutz. And that prediction is this: The vote for the next Speaker of the House will not be decided by just one ballot, I kid you not.

OK, how ’bout one more: The Green Bay Packers will make the NFL Playoffs provided they win a game at Lambeau Field versus the Detroit Lions, Sunday night, Jan. 8, 2023. How ’bout that?

Anyways, one more item with which to wrap up the holiday season, a season that may offer many bittersweet memories. I recalled one from years and years and years past, from a time I would call my must-see-TV black-and-white Howdy Doody days. My German great-grandfather died on a Christmas Day. And the remembrance reminded me of a little story:

A very old man. There he is upstairs, lying in his bed at death’s door—he’s ready to kick—and he smells the aroma of his favorite chocolate chip cookies wafting up from the kitchen. With all the strength he has left, he pulls himself out of the bed, leans against the wall and slowly makes his way out of the bedroom to the stairs, grips the railing with both hands and somehow makes his way downstairs. He’s weakened and exhausted, but he’s got to make it to the kitchen where that delicious smell is coming from. So he gets on his hands and knees and crawls all the way down the hall to the kitchen where he sees a sight that if he wasn’t still breathing—he would’ve sworn he was in Heaven. There on the table, all spread out on waxed paper are literally hundreds of those chocolate chip cookies, obviously one final act of love from his devoted wife; so that he would die surely a happy man. He painfully pulls himself across the kitchen floor to the table, his lips parched and parted; the wondrous taste of a chocolate chip cookie already in his mouth seemingly bringing him back to life. His aged and withered hand trembles as he reaches for a cookie at the edge of the table. WHACK! He takes a wooden spatula right across the knuckles and the wife says, “Stay out of those, mister! They’re for the funeral.” Ba-ding!

And so onward. 2023. I’ve got my fingers crossed that it may be more judicious than the last couple three, 50, 100, 1,000, 5,000, 100,000 but I’m not going to hold my breath, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.