Poosey Digest: Just returning your call

I won’t swear to the veracity of this conversation, but if Rupert Murdoch tapped into the phone lines of heaven I wonder if he might have heard the following:

“Lord? You up yet this morning?”

“I neither slumber nor sleep, Pete. Stop fooling around.”

(I have no idea how Saint Peter figures into so many of these conversations. It may all go back to jokes started in prisons.)

“I’m just returning your call.”

“Oh yeah. It’s been a hectic week. Did you see the news this week? About the weather?”

“I haven’t read a paper in days, Lord. Traffic at the gate has been unbelievable. What about the weather?”

“They’ve griped about the awful winters I’ve been sending their way so this year I gave them the mildest weather in years. Did you see their response?”

“Let me guess. They griped.”

“Just look at the headlines, Pete. ‘We’re Going to Pay For This!’ and ‘Mild Winter Could Spell Problems!’ The human race can’t recognize a gift from me when they see it!”

“You know, I warned you after the flood. I said, ‘Wouldn’t it just be easier to skip the ark? Just wipe ‘em all out and settle for a couple of beavers and Yellowstone Park?”

“I thought they had a chance, Pete. I really did. Seems like every gift I give them either gets taken for granted or wasted and at the very worst, they fight over it. Have you been following the health care debate?”

“Most folks who show up at the Pearly Gates aren’t worrying much about health insurance any longer.”

“I give them the cures, the procedures, the medicines…then they fight over who’s to pay for it. I’ve never seen such an ungrateful race!”

“Lord, we’ve discussed this. I told you that free will was a lousy idea.”

“Don’t remind me. The hippo….I give it a little mud and a bird to sit on top of his head and he’s happy. Have you ever heard a hippo say, ‘Yeah, but I’m gonna have to pay for this some day?’” 

“I can’t think of the last time I talked to a hippo, Lord.”

 “I give them resources to feed and clothe themselves and they fight over who gets the most! And the vanity! They think they did it all! Have you seen People magazine lately?”

 “I confiscated one from a lady last week but I haven’t looked at it.”

“Well then look at it, Peter! Look at it! 30,000 of my children starving every day and the other half of my world is worrying about baseball players and Botox injections!”

“Look Lord, I’ll make one more plea. Just take away their free will. Do a little rehab on the human race. Fix things up the way you want them, the way you know it should be, then reinstall their batteries and put them back down again. Think of the hassle it’d save you.”

“I just can’t, Pete. I gave them brains for God’s sake! When are they going to learn to use them?”

“How long is eternity?”

“So what should I do? Another flood? One that works this time?”

“Uh…the rainbow thing, Lord. You sort of promised.”

“Oh yeah. Fire?”

“That’s coming later.”

“You’re right. Does this mean I’m just going to have to endure this ingratitude? Do I have to keep listening to this constant litany of complaining?”

“Uh…yes. So…what do you have in mind for the summer?”

“I’d planned a disaster-free season…temperate climates, abundant resources, free wireless Internet.”

“You know they won’t like it. They’ll complain about gas prices and sun burn.”

“Another burning bush?”

“They’ll complain about the heat.” 

You ever ’round Poosey, stop by. We may not answer the door but you’ll enjoy the trip.