In Deering, I asked Dan how it felt to lose his seat on the board of selectmen by a toss of a coin. (The election was a tie, broken by the toss.) He said: “Felt about the same as if your mother-in-law drove your new Cadillac off a cliff.”
Deering was roaring with stories Friday night. They told about the old Yankee in town who’d been told he needed a knee replacement. "How much?" he wanted to know. Well, the doc said, rough estimate would be seven to eight thousand dollars, to which the Yankee replied, “Could you do it for five?”
During that same negotiation, the Yankee asked what caused his knee trouble. He hadn’t fallen or twisted it. Well, doc said, at your age, you have to expect these things, to which the Yankee replied, “My left knee’s the same age as my right one -- and it works just fine.”
One more medical story -- absolutely true. The Kibling family in Deering descended from the founders. True Yankees. A neighbor said in all the years he’d driven past the Kibling home at night, he’d never seen more than one light on.
That’s frugal. Besides, why would anybody need more than one light at a time? This has been an ongoing battle between my husband and me for our (almost) 35 years of marriage. He turns lights on. I turn them off. He doesn’t like dark rooms -- even when he’s not in them. I’m with the Kiblings -- one light is enough. And that’s only if I’m reading or working on the puzzle. Otherwise, I’d just as soon watch television in the dark.
One of the Kibling elders got stove up when his tractor rolled on him. The accident put him in the hospital. A visitor noticed the patient wincing from pain. Sure enough, the patient said, “It hurts terrible.”
“You’ve got that push button right there and the tube in your arm so you can self-medicate,” the visitor said.
“I know,” the patient said, “but it costs so much.”
A few more Kiblings in the world and cost of health care would be considerably lessened. Just saying.
Deering was roaring with stories Friday night. They told about the old Yankee in town who’d been told he needed a knee replacement. "How much?" he wanted to know. Well, the doc said, rough estimate would be seven to eight thousand dollars, to which the Yankee replied, “Could you do it for five?”
During that same negotiation, the Yankee asked what caused his knee trouble. He hadn’t fallen or twisted it. Well, doc said, at your age, you have to expect these things, to which the Yankee replied, “My left knee’s the same age as my right one -- and it works just fine.”
One more medical story -- absolutely true. The Kibling family in Deering descended from the founders. True Yankees. A neighbor said in all the years he’d driven past the Kibling home at night, he’d never seen more than one light on.
That’s frugal. Besides, why would anybody need more than one light at a time? This has been an ongoing battle between my husband and me for our (almost) 35 years of marriage. He turns lights on. I turn them off. He doesn’t like dark rooms -- even when he’s not in them. I’m with the Kiblings -- one light is enough. And that’s only if I’m reading or working on the puzzle. Otherwise, I’d just as soon watch television in the dark.
One of the Kibling elders got stove up when his tractor rolled on him. The accident put him in the hospital. A visitor noticed the patient wincing from pain. Sure enough, the patient said, “It hurts terrible.”
“You’ve got that push button right there and the tube in your arm so you can self-medicate,” the visitor said.
“I know,” the patient said, “but it costs so much.”
A few more Kiblings in the world and cost of health care would be considerably lessened. Just saying.
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