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| _shrink, boxing, excuse, unpaid, plaque, splint, business picking up.Image(s) from the Internet.
The opening poem contains all the words (or variations of them) from today's Jumble.
Comments are welcomed! And couching them in Poetry is definitely NOT required.
Do not explicitly reveal any of the actual answer words until after closing time, but embedding them surreptitiously in comment sentences is encouraged.
11 comments:
Just as an aside: I've never used Uber or Lyft and actually only very, very seldom have used a taxi. Anyone have any particularly bad/good experiences with either?
P.S. Seems like a semi-clever pun to me, BTW.
Sandy ~ Funny you should ask. My wife & her mom are back east now visiting their family. When they left Monday they had reserved a taxi to get them to the airport (I no longer drive).
When the taxi was late my wife phoned, and the dispatcher assured her a cab would be here in 5 or 10 minutes at most.
Needless to say, no cab arrived, and when she phoned again, another dispatcher confessed they were out of cabs and none was on its way.
In all our combined years of taxi experience, this has never happened before.
Now Janice was running so late they were about to miss their plane.
She used her phone to send an urgent email to our neighborhood mail server (for IrvineUniversity Hills). It was a desperate ploy—and it paid off. THREE neighbors we did not know personally offered to drive them. She chose the first to respond, a “warm, friendly middle-aged gent with a Greek name.”
They made their flight just on time.
I will check with her for the name of that taxi company and will let you know.
~ OMK
Ah, me.
I swear I need to find the way to stick to my plan to take a day off each week. It is supposed to be Sunday, but by this point I owe myself two days of vacation—or maybe three.
I did the following before I came to my senses.
It is based on a real life memory. Not first rate, but no point in throwing it away…
”Not Picking Me Up (from the canvas)”
Entering the Boys Club in my youth
I was asked to sign for the boxing team.
I didn’t want to be hurt, but I had no excuse.
I could only shrink away; it felt like a dream,
or rather a nightmare. I was ten at the time
and didn’t want to offend the coach, a hack,
an unpaid volunteer, who didn’t earn a dime.
(At best he might be treated to a plaque.)
Still I kept my distance; I broke into a sprint,
rather than find myself in bandage, cast… or splint.
~ OMK
"Comeback"
Losing his job made Joe's income shrink
and, sadly, got him starting to drink.
Unfortunately, taking up this abuse
made his poverty worse with no excuse.
With his bills unpaid
his hopes did fade
and so, taking pills,
he drafted his wills.
Then, his friend Bob, a guy given to foxing,
talked sturdy Joe into taking up boxing.
Within months Joe's feats won him a plaque
and surprisingly quickly his income came back.
A year later Joe sadly broke his arm
but by then his splint caused little harm.
His business by now had picked up so well
Joe's life would continue to be happy and swell.
OMK, That sounds terrible! And so unprofessional of the taxi company. Thank goodness your wife managed.
And, Sandy, thank goodness for our neighbors--and our local email service!
I didn't mention that none of them asked to charge her. Janice tried to pay the gentleman who drove them (and who loaded their luggage), but he refused to accept anything.
Misty - Dee-lighted to see you experimenting with your rhythms! Woo-HOO!
You break up your basic tetrameter verse by throwing in four lines of two beats apiece. These could still be heard as four beat lines (just split in two) but you use rhymes to mark the end of each dimeter line. It almost sounds like you're going for a limerick (except you don't roll out a limerick conclusion).
Your 2nd stanza keeps the four-beat lines, but you add syllables, and the opening couplet uses feminine endings, two ways to create a "hurry-up effect."
My favorite line (for extra syllables) is "and surprisingly quickly...." Sure, it's a little awkward with back-to-back adverbs, but it shows your commitment to the speeded up gait.
Glad to see Joe was a greater fan of boxing than I was. My only contact sport was fencing which, you may note, features contests at arm's length.
~ OMK
OMK, your knowledge of poetry construction always floors me! Simply amazing! I tried to figure out how it worked and still haven't succeeded, but I'm very grateful and very flattered to have you point it out. And, yes, you've persuaded me to start being a little more adventurous with my poetic structures. Thank you for that too.
Loved your poem, Ol' Man Keith. My favorite lines were "it felt like a dream . . . . or rather a nightmare." Cracked me up--clever surprise. And glad you didn't need a bandage, cast, or splint!
Sandy ~ Janice says she thinks it was the Newport Beach Taxi Service. (She was so upset she did not think to keep their number--or take my advice & write a Yelp review!)
I thought I'd tell you in case you want to avoid them, but I doubt you'd have reason to call down here for a cab anyway.
I see from their ads that Newport Taxi has only been in the biz for 7 years.
I can't imagine a long running franchise like Yellow Cab ever pulling a stunt like that.
~ OMK
OMK, it seems that pretty much every type of business is suffering from lack of staff these days. That doesn't at all excuse misleading your wife.
Covid has upended our whole economic and social structure, it seems. I wonder if it'll eventually shake out into something better. Silver lining?
I wonder if it is true, Sandy, that the last coupla generations of graduates (older Gen Z & young Millennials) expect to step right into "careers"... rather than just "jobs."
It seems to be the opinion of a lotta older folk (Hey! That's me!!) that youngsters are spoiled and do not want to spend their 20s in McJobs to make money.
I look back and see that I had good opportunities--but I also earned $$ selling ladies shoes.
~ OMK
OMK, I have grandchildren mid-millennials, and they're all working pretty hard. Very different people, from the grandson who works to make a living for his family, but lives to hunt and fish -- to his brother, who after his stint in the Navy while working hard to finish a bachelor's online, is now in law school and working even harder.
I don't think they're atypical.
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