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B: “Hello?!”
G: “Well good afternoon to you Bonny!”
B: “Gladdys! How nice to hear your cheerful voice!”
G: “Oh, you are too kind, my dear! Is now an okay time to chat?”
B: “You caught me at just the right moment! I got my gardening done in the morning, ran some errands during the day, and now I’m just finishing up making supper for Hal and I.”
G: “Oh yah? What are you two love-birds havin’ tonight?”
B: “Oh, ha ha, you make me laugh! These two old birds are having beer- battered cod fish with mashed potatoes and green beans tonight!”
G: “Sounds delicious! You’ve always been a wiz in the kitchen, that man doesn’t know how lucky he is!”
B: “You can say that again! But you know, he’s a keeper. I think I’ll let him hang around for a little bit longer. I’m not exactly a big fan of mowing the lawn or cleaning out the gutters, so you know, he still serves his purpose.”
G: “Oh you are just too much!”
B: “Now say, I’ve been meaning to ask you, Gladdys, how are the grandkiddos doing?”
G: “Oh well, you know, I guess it’s a little hard to say these days.”
B: “Oh yah? What’s going on?”
G: “You know, it’s just, they’ve grown up in such a different world than you or I did, you know? I think they’re facing a lot of new challenges.”
B: “Challenges? These kids are the most spoiled generation in history! You should see my oldest granddaughter’s bedroom closet. She’s 16-years-old and already owns as many pairs of shoes as you or I ever did our whole lives put together!”
G: “Can’t say you’re wrong about that! And these gal-darn cell phones too! It’s unbelievable how attached they are to them. It’s actually down-right scary if you ask me.”
B: “You can say that again. For heaven’s sake, it seems like every time we have some good quality family time together, the adults have to play a never-ending game of whack-a-mole with their kids just to get their young eyes unglued to their cell phones…Or as I like to call them, their “Pocket Pacifiers.”
G: “Pocket Pacifiers! That’s exactly what they are! Oh brother. What are we going to do about these kids?”
B: “You know, I’m really stumped about this one. Because, on one hand, for example, I know my youngest grandson, Evan, he uses his tablet at home to get help on this math homework. He’s only 10, but the way the school teaches math now is so confusing that he and his teachers say it’s best to just go onto the World Wide Web for help, rather than asking your good-old-fashion parents, who at this point might just confuse you even more if they try to lend a hand like we did for our kids.”
G: “That’s true. And you know in order to get a good job these days, the kids have to know all about the Web and how to surf it for the knowledge they need.”
B: “That’s right. I get that. But still, something just feels off about this whole new thing, the kids are getting the cell phones even younger and younger and, I just don’t know if it all seems, healthy.”
G: “Exactly right. These kids are too comfortable playing their games and surfing the Web that they barely even play outside anymore! They just drool over their Pocket Pacifiers for hours and hours and barely even make eye contact with another human being! It’s creepy.”
B: “I’m with you on that! Now say, get a load of this one, remember my son Gary’s oldest daughter Chelsea?
G: “Sure do!”
B: “Well, there’s this new, I dunno what you call it, a fashion trend I suppose, where a lot of the girls are getting a new type of face-piercing.”
G: “Oh my.”
B: “Yah, like, they’re getting their nose pierced, but not in the normal way, which was already tacky enough. Now, they’re piercing like the wall of the nose, in the middle, that connects both sides of your nostrils.”
G: “Huh?”
B: “No foolin’! Chelsea now proudly wears a metal ring that dangles down from the middle of her nasial wall almost down to her upper lip.”
G: “That sounds dreadful!”
B: “It is! I genuinely don’t understand it, it’s just so, pardon my French, but, ugly!”
G: “Well, remember, it suddenly now seems that most of the kids these days are claiming they are a Gay or a Bi-sexual. Remember not too long ago when the Gays used to wear one single earring on one ear, like as a code message to attract other Gays? Maybe this is the new younger version of that?”
B: “Huh. I hadn’t thought about it that way. So maybe Chelsea is a Gay, so she’s putting on this extremely unattractive snout-ring to repel any potential male suitors?
G: Could be, I just don’t know with these kids.
B: Gladdys, now that I have you on the line, I’ve been meaning to ask you about something.
G: Oh yah? Go ahead and shoot!
B: So the thing is, not long ago I was out about town between appointments, and I stopped in to treat myself to lunch at George Webb’s in Brookfield.
G: There you go girl, you deserve it!
B: Thank you. So you know, the food was salty and lovely as usual, but I picked up a newspaper being distributed right there in the George Webb’s that had me scratching my head a bit once I started in on reading some of it.
G: Oh yah?
B: Absolutely. I picked the paper up because it said Wisconsin Christian News, and you know, since the pandemic started, Hal and I really haven’t felt comfortable going to Church in person, you know, on account of all the many breathing mouths in close enclosed proximity, and all the singing and hugging and all that.
G: I hear you. Same on our end!
B: So I was enthusiastic to see this Wisconsin Christian Newspaper and I snatched it up and started giving it a read as I was waiting for my breakfast for lunch.
G: Right.
B: But boy I tell ya, my eyes get just a minute or two into reading this paper, and I started to have some questions!
G: Oh yah? Like how so?
B: Well, get this. I actually kept the paper and have it right here. Listen to this, it says, “The COVID jabs aren’t about protecting public health. They’re about ushering in a socio-economic control system via vaccine passports.”
G: What’s that now?
B: I know. I honestly don’t quite know how to make heads or tails out of this. Because I thought that the Covid jabs were really about protecting public health.
G: That’s what I thought too!
B: Now don’t get me wrong, I’m no more a fan of getting my arm jabbed as any other Tom, Dick or Harriet out there.
G: Me neither!
B: But even still, you know, throughout our whole lives, Gladdys, there have been quite a few times we’ve had to, you know, swallow a bitter pill for the greater good and such.
G: You can say that again.
B: But this Wisconsin Christian Newspaper is now saying that the Covid vaccines are actually just about mind-control, or something like that.
G: Huh.
B: I know. And get a load of this. As I’m reading through the paper, I come across an article headlined as such, “There is No Public Health Utility to the Covid ‘Vaccines.’” They put the word “Vaccines” in quotation marks, like that isn’t what they really are jabbing into our arms, but instead it’s I guess something else that’s more sinister.
G: Oh my.
B: That same article features quite a provocative image too, if I do say so myself.
G: What’s that?
B: So there is fist, right? And it’s holding a medical syringe as if it were a hunting knife about to bare down on a dead buck or something.
G: Oh dear! No pun intended!
B: But then, also, this fist with the syringe-vaccine-knife is decorated with the symbol of the good-old-fashion Soviet cycle and hammer!
G: No!
B: I kid you not! But then, there’s another fist too, in this Christian newspaper graphic. It’s a clenched fist that’s grabbing the Soviet-syringe-jab fist, but the clenched fist is instead decorated with the American flag, plus the word “Resist!”
G: My goodness. I don’t like the sound of this one bit at all!
B: Me neither!
G: So, what is this all supposed to mean?
B: You know, I can’t say for sure that I understand it all. But I think that this paper is trying to let all Wisconsin Christians know that getting the Covid jab is really actually a bad thing to do?
G: Huh. So are you telling me the Covid jabs we got here in the good-old US-of-A were actually secretly administered by the Communists?
B: You know, it does seem like that’s what the Wisconsin Christian Newspaper is saying!
G: But, I don’t understand. Why would the Soviets secretly vaccinate their enemies against a potentially fatal respiratory virus? And by the way, at this point, we’ve been vaxxed for over a year and nothing bad has happened whatsoever.
B: I know. It’s so, confusing, honestly. Let me read you just one more passage from the Wisconsin Christian Newspaper that George Webb’s is spreading around town.
G: Go right ahead, dear.
B: Ok, so. On the final page, it says, “The world today is in chaos. Every country in the world has been purposely collapsed by those who are intent on doing harm at every level of society under the ruse of a ‘necessary global reset.’ They have collapsed businesses, turned public schools and universities into detention centers, and stripped us of the freedom to breath air. They have closed our churches, terrorized travelers into wearing worthless masks, and have turned our hospitals into death traps for those who are sick.”
G: I’m speechless.
B: I was too when I read it! I mean, this is the Wisconsin Christian Newspaper, so I gotta think they’re just giving us the straight truth of the matter, right?
G: That’s sure what I would think, too.
B: But I just don’t understand a lot of this. Now don’t get me wrong, I definitely get how it feels like the world is in chaos right now.
G: Surely.
B: But, “Every country in the world has been purposely collapsed?” My neighbor Debbie’s son is studying abroad in England right now.
G: Oh yah?
B: You betcha. And you know, she gives me updates on how he’s doing and what he’s been up to, you know, but I have to say, it really doesn’t seem like the entire nation of England has “collapsed” like the Wisconsin Christian Newspaper says.
G: That sounds right. And when you think about it, bad as things are in the USA right now, things are certainly a heck of a lot better than when you and I were kids!
B: That’s what I was thinking too! How can they say that America has “collapsed?”
G: We still have clean running water, 24/7 electricity and AC and heat in our homes. Plenty of food to eat too.
B: And we still have public schools for the kiddos, and police officers for the crooks, and Emergency Rooms for the sick!
G: So yeah, I think you’re right. I mean, it is the Wisconsin Christian Newspaper, so I bet they’re trying to do the best that they can, but…
B: But a lot of this, pardon my French, but a lot of this just seems like a bunch of hooey if you ask me.
G: Bonny, I’m not saying you’re wrong, I know that much.
B: Sheesh.
G: You know, Bonny, now that you’ve got me thinking about newspapers…
B: Uh-oh, here we go!
G: Honestly, I’ve fallen out of the habit of even trying to keep up with what’s going on anymore. It’s all just so darn depressing!
B: And overwhelming!
G: But, I was over visiting with my daughter Barb a week or so ago.
B: Is she still living down in Riverwest?
G: Sure is! She still claims to love it, but I don’t know. Anywho, we stopped in for breakfast at the Riverwest Co-op.
B: Ooo, how was it?
G: The food was fine and all. But anyway, the Riverwest Co-op was distributing some newspapers as well, and boy I tell you, these papers were a tad different from the one you found at George Webb’s!
B: Is that right?
G: Oh yah. Big time. One of them was titled, Liberation: Newspaper of the Party for Socialism & Liberation.
B: You’re kidding!
G: No foolin’. A Socialist, downright Communist newspaper, right there at the grocery store co-op near my daughter’s shabby apartment!
B: Seems hard to believe!
G: That’s what I thought, until I saw it with my own eyes! And you wouldn’t believe some of the nonsense this paper was spewing!
B: Like what?
G: So, get this. This is a direct quote: “To this day NATO remains an offensive alliance that poses the greatest threat to peace in the world.”
B: Ha! My, that’s rich!
G: I was like, seriously? NATO is an “offensive” alliance? Like it goes around the world invading and conquering and all that?
B: Honey, you know that’s not true.
G: And come on, NATO is supposed to be the “greatest threat to peace in the world?” A bigger threat than ISIS or the drug cartels?
B: How about China, for that matter?
G: It’s unbelievable! Then they have the audacity to say, and again, this is a direct quote: “NATO provoked the war between Russia and Ukraine.”
B: Oh come on now, are they really serious?
G: It sure looks like it! As if the US and Europe somehow forced Mr. Putin to invade and brutalize the people of Ukraine, against his will!
B: Like, he didn’t want to bombard the heck out of all those mothers and babies and grannies in Mariupol, but we just made him do it!
G: Bonny, I tell you, this Riverwest Socialist newspaper has got me all riled up.
B: And you know what, I bet you that some of those young, too-cool-for-school vape-penners in Riverwest actually believe some of this baloney.
G: I wouldn’t doubt it for a minute. Ok hon, I gotta hit the road here in a minute so I’m going to have to get off the horn with you.
B: Say it ain’t so!
G: Ha! I wish. But ok, I can’t resist. You gotta here just one more quote from the Hipster Socialists of Riverwest.
B: I’m all ears.
G: Listen to this: “We defend the legacy of the Soviet Union, for all its imperfections and problems, as a heroic attempt to build a system that would be people-centered rather than profit-centered.”
B: That’s adorable! Sure, yeah, the Gulags were just an “imperfection” of the Soviet system, isn’t that right Gladdys?
G: I guess so! They were just so “people-centered” that they had to center some of their own people in Siberian death camps!
B: Just outrageous.
G: Bonny, I tell you, I don’t know what this world is even coming to anymore.
B: I hear you there my dear, from one old Granny to another!
G: Ok hon, you take care now.
B: You betcha. Same to you.
G: Talk soon.
B: Ok now, ba-bye!
G: Ba-bye.