Make Mine Mike

Ol’ man Marvin, bless him. 60-something years old and still goes to the gym every morning.

At least every morning I go. Which isn’t often, ‘cause I’ve been going in the evening... but not really that often lately...

Anyway, I think he missed me.

He came over to chat while I was right in the middle of whimpering in pain beneath instruments of self-torture. Marvin doesn’t do weights. He just jangles himself around the gym, jabbering away to all the other masochists.

“Hey, did you see that news program this morning? That one with the guy and the two gals?” I had no idea what he meant. “You know, it’s on Fox?”

I exhaled a yeah. Not surprising Marvin liked that LA wake-up show. Jillian Barberie is just as grating and perky in the morning as him.

“They asked the weatherman how much rain we’ve gotten so far, and he checked his stats and said, ‘I got 34 inches,’ and the gals went ‘oooh!’” Then Marvin let loose with a cackle. I grunted.

Guess that wasn’t enough of a response for him. “Hey, you’re a fellow member of the tribe, here’s a Jewish joke for ya...” I know, I shoulda just told Henny Youngman here I still had two more sets to do, but the poor schlemiel was so anxious for a laugh...

“This guy Moishe’s out of work, so he gets a job at the zoo. But when the gorilla dies, they ask him to dress up in a monkey suit until they can get a new gorilla. He’s in the cage, pretending to be a gorilla, doing monkey acrobatics... some back flips and front flips... attracts quite an audience. He gets so exuberant, he backflips... over the wall, and into the lion’s cage. Moishe’s sure he’s gonna die, right in front of that whole crowd, so he starts saying the mourner’s prayer in Hebrew.

“‘Yit-gadal v'yit-kadash...’

“And then the lion says, ‘...sh'mey raba, b'alma di v'ra hirutey...’

“Moishe’s surprised to hear the lion talking... and then they both hear the panda say, ‘Hey you two schmucks, keep it down, you’re gonna get us all fired here!’”

“Bwahahaha!” I burst out, cracking up.

Which was more painful to do than that last set of curls. But it got Marvin satisfied to go out on a laugh and he moved on to his next victim -- some musclehead on the bench press.

Now, was that really funny? I was too tired to tell...

I do know one thing: I gotta go to the gym more often... in the evening.