…1919 was a bad year…President Wilson had a stroke and there was a big flu epidemic and they had a hurricane in Florida and a tornado in Minnesota and a volcano blowed up in Java and Zapata got ambushed in Mexico and the Sox throwed the Series to Cincinnati and the 18th Amendment got passed and my mother-in-law showed up for Thanksgiving dinner…
Monroe D. Underwood
Brandy poured my third cup of scalding black coffee.
She said Purdue will you believe me when I tell you that Doctor Ho Ho Ho is reportedly two hundred years old?
I shrugged.
I said I didn’t know that they’ve been making yogurt that long.
Brandy said where Doctor Ho Ho Ho is there has always been big trouble.
She said he doesn’t care who wins just so long as there’s enough misery to go around.
She said among global leaders Ho Ho Ho is referred to as The Fifth Horseman.
I shrugged.
I said maybe he’s the guy who lost that horseshoe nail.
Brandy said Ho Ho Ho’s list of catastrophic credits is downright mind-bending.
She said he started the Boxer War in 1900 and the Russo-Japanese conflict in 1904.
She said he arranged for an iceberg to foul the route of the Titanic in 1912 and he was responsible for the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in 1914.
She said it was Ho Ho Ho who really sank the Lusitania in 1915.
She said it was Ho Ho Ho who persuaded Germany to invade Russia and Japan to attack Pearl Harbor in 1941.
She said four wars between Israel and the Arab nations have been attributed to Ho Ho Ho and the Cuban missile crisis was a direct result of his manipulations.
She said throw in a few thousand fires and floods and explosions and epidemics and you’ll have a small fraction of Doctor Ho Ho Ho’s deadly enterprises.
I shrugged.
I said I got a hunch that the sonofabitch has been messing around with the Chicago White Sox.
Brandy smiled.
She said no Purdue.
She said not since 1919.