“Regrets?” asks Tony as I sit down at the bar.
“I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention. I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption. I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway. And more, much more than this, I did it my way,” I replied.
“I love a guy who can quote the Chairman.”
“It was pretty funny this morning. First day of school. My teacher friends had to sit through the opening ceremonies. I kept getting text messages while I was sitting over my morning coffee. Erin Breen, who is president of the union, got a standing ovation after she spoke. But apparently after that everyone broke out their smart phones while the board president and the superintendent were talking. I wonder if the superintendent noticed that everybody’s heads were down looking at something in their laps?”
“Those not texting you were probably playing Angry Birds,” said Tony.
“Uh huh.”
“Hey Klonsky. You’re a political guy. Let me ask you something about the election.”
“Okay, Tony. What?”
“You see the Bears Saturday night?”
“No.”
“So, I’m sitting here watching the Bears. Cutler? He looks good. And at half time Marty switches over to CNN. And I’m looking at that guy Ryan with his mom in Florida. She’s probably on Medicare, but she’s smiling at him like she doesn’t get that her son is the Bernie Madoff of Social Security.”
“Okay.”
“So I notice something about him.”
“What’s that?”
“He had his sporty little pullover shirt tucked into his pants. Which, by the way, are pulled up way too high for a guy his age.”
“So?”
“Well, it reminded me of what my cousin Buddy always said.”
“You have a cousin named ‘Buddy?'”
“Oh yeh. I got a cousin named Buddy. I got a dog named Buddy. I even got a buddy named Buddy. So, Buddy always says that you should never trust a man who tucks his t-shirt into his pants. He’s just trying to show off that he’s got no gut. Which means he spends way too much time working out. Which means he doesn’t spend a lot a time sittin’ at a bar, drinking a beer and pondering the troubles of the world.”
“That’s quite a ladder of assumptions,” I said.
“I have no idea what you just said,” said Tony. “But trust me. Buddy was the first guy to warn me about Blago. That was when Buddy saw Blago jogging on TV.”
Fred Klonsky 
My husband tucks in his t-shirt. He has a gut.
It’s not my theory. Talk to Tony.
If I didn’t tuck my shirt in, I’d look like an Art teacher.
I started my 38th (and last) year of teaching and came home exhausted. After District cutbacks, we are only being paid 3 days to get our classrooms and curriculum prepared. “The boss” took a half day of that “giving” information that really could have been read in a memo. Sound famiiar, Fred? Anyway… this post was hilarious and I laughed, and laughed. It was excatly what I needed after a very trying day. THANKS!