Here’s another birthday card from Tina, and this is a particular favorite of mine. It’s an inside joke which probably takes too long to explain, but let me give it a shot. Tina and I never had cable and used to make due with rabbit ears. We only got a couple of stations in – usually oddball stations and UHF stations that were low on the entertainment food chain. We watched a lot of As Seen on TV ads, public service announcement and religious commercials. There was one religious commercial that seemed to be a fairly complex production in which a dejected son returns to his father who runs a large dry cleaning plant. Head hung low, sonny boy has to face up to Dad explaining that he’s been canned from his job. Apparently the help has heard of their boss’ sons’ plight, and one fat slob shift worker decides to rub it in. “Hey, big-time!” he bellows. “Heard you got the axe!” That line and the unknown but obviously gifted thespian portraying the fat slob delivering it would give me fits of the giggles. I used to look forward to it and cackle like a loon every time I saw it.
Okay, you had to be there, and even if you were, you probably wouldn’t have thought it was as funny as I did, but it was all Tina needed to make the card.
