Jay to the World November 2020

So, everybody doing ok out there?? I’m writing this on August 19th…oh wait, forget that, it’s November 1st. I just think it’s August 19th because my Onion desktop calendar has been stuck on that day since, well, August 19th. Apparently I don’t have the time to tear off one page each day, and now that it’s built up to 75 pages, purging that many pages just looks like a full day’s work to me so it’s probably going to stay August 19th in my office for quite some time. And besides, the headline on that day was “Cracking Sound Alerts Man He’s Reaching Styrofoam Plate’s Weight Limit”. I literally laugh out loud every day I sit down at my desk.

I had most of this newsletter done on Friday night (October 30th) and after grinding for about 3 hours trying to come up with enough content so I wouldn’t have to make the font even bigger to make you think that you were getting your money’s worth, my power went out for about two seconds and I lost over half of the finished product (thank goodness no employees were around because my subsequent tantrum made Bo Pelini sound like a choir boy). And then to make matters even worse, just before I left the bank I went online to Omaha.com to read Tom Shatel’s take on the Nebraska/Wisconsin cancellation and the very first headline I saw was “Power Outage Caused by Squirrel Temporarily Disrupts Election Office”. Are you serious?? Worrying about election interference from Russia and Iran and China isn’t enough – now we have to add squirrels to the list?? And then I thought to myself: was it just a coincidence that an election office AND your monthly JTTW were both disrupted by a power outage at roughly the same time?? Hmmm…I do vaguely remember a black squirrel loitering outside my office earlier in the day on Friday when it knows darn well that the tree outside my office is made of metal. Now I don’t want to read too far into this, but to quote the warden in “The Shawshank Redemption”, this is a conspiracy is what this is. Forget about QAnon, this is SQuirrelAnon!!

Well, this is your next-to-last JTTW before we say so long to 2020 and usher in 2021. Remember when we couldn’t wait for 2020 to get here?? Not because it was a “Double Date” year (only happens every 101 years), but because it just sounded cool. Twenty-Twenty. And now we’re two months away from what I think we can all agree has pretty much been a downer of a year and we’re all just trying to get to the finish line. But before we can put this year to bed, you all have one more thing to do, and that is to vote. I know some of you won’t get this until after the election, so hopefully you fulfilled your civic duty and took the time to exercise the most important right you have as an American citizen. Democracy really is pretty dang awesome.

A Loyola of Chicago law student recently finished a portion of her bar exam while she was in labor. In a related story, I just had to take a 20-minute break from typing this because my pinky finger started cramping up on me. This thing doesn’t write itself you know….

Guys, we all dodged a bullet this year because November 1st was national “Men Make Dinner” day. And since none of you will be reading this until at least November 2nd, you now have 364 days to come up with an excuse as to why you won’t be able to make dinner a year from now. You can do what you want, but I always go with the standard “honey, my groin hurts” excuse. Trust me, women don’t know how to deal with that ailment. They can handle headaches, stomach aches, or anything else that we constantly whine about. But a groin injury?? You just bought yourself as much time off as necessary. As always, you’re welcome.

This month in stupid criminals: A Tennessee rap artist who goes by the name of Nuke Bizzle has been arrested after stealing over $1 million in unemployment benefits and then writing a song about it. Said David Byrne of Talking Heads: “You know that whole ‘burning down the house’ thing was just a metaphor, right??”

And now this month’s “Cool and Depressing Rock News”: Every year on my birthday I like to see which famous people share my birthday and this year I was excited to learn that Kevin Cronin, lead singer of REO Speedwagon, was also born on October 6th. And literally one hour later I found out that Eddie Van Halen died on the same day. Like we all needed one more reminder that we’re getting old….

Speaking of getting old, this will be my last presidential election before I turn 60. I’m just throwing that out there for all of the people who have known me since I was born. It’s ok…I’m as depressed about it as you are.

Hormel has come out with a line of bacon-scented face masks. “Yeah, we’re sure those masks smell good, but there’s no substitute for the greasy taste of the real thing” said a spokesperson for Lipitor.

And finally, after their successful “Flight to Nowhere” campaign, Qantas Airlines has announced a new promotion called the “Flight to Somewhere”. This is not to be confused with the First Lady’s recent call to Southwest Airlines asking for a ‘flight to anywhere’.

Until Next Time…
Jay