Ammo Grrrll proudly celebrates her Power Line anniversary and announces the publication of Over My Limit – Ammo Grrrll’s Tenth Year of Shooting Fish In A Barrel. She writes:
The NSFW but hilarious comic Ron White has the famous wonderful line (at least 30 years old, so I feel comfortable quoting it) about being unable to avoid further trouble when arrested: “I had the right to remain silent, but I did not have the ability…”
Oh my, how I could relate! How much unpleasantness I could have avoided in my long life had I but invested in a lot of duct tape and covered my mouth with it except at feeding time! In fact, with all my years of dieting and regaining, maybe not even then!
Once when I was about 12 I was reminded by my father, not for the first time, that the back and front yards were getting pretty shaggy and it was my job to mow them. Mind you, it was the ’50s and we didn’t even have an electric mower – strictly an old-fashioned push deal.
I did the back yard – made much more difficult, of course, by my procrastination — and decided to read just a little of the book I was currently engrossed in before doing the front. One thing led to another, and before I knew it, Daddy was home and hacking his way through the front yard with a machete.
No, seriously, he could tell it hadn’t been done, and was not happy. He said nothing till about 9:00 o’clock when it was pretty dark. He then turned on the front porch light and made me go finish the job.
He was an old Navy man and told me, “Either you do the job right – or not at all,” and, of course — say it with me now — I said: “I had no idea that ‘not at all’ was an option!”
Well, for the last ten years – watch this segue! – not turning in a column on Wednesday has not been an option, either. I have never missed a week. It is, of course, nothing next to what the Power Line boys do every single day and have done for about twice as long. But THEY don’t have to be funny! And I don’t always feel funny or think funny, either.
Frankly, my dear readers, I had been feeling a little discouraged lately and not only about our wretched political climate. A recent lab report laid bare a pathetic array of pesky but not life-threatening health issues, the discovery of which had been affecting my mood.
Oh my goodness, I have many wonderful friends and acquaintances facing down and fighting through much more serious health challenges, so I’m honestly not complaining.
But it turned out that almost everything that should be low was high and almost everything that should be high was too low. Kind of like if my bowling and golf scores were reversed, I could be a professional at both sports. So if my HDL and my fasting blood sugar were reversed, my doctor would be pleased. Or, possibly, I would be dead, never mind — the analogy, doesn’t really work.
And on top of that, my very nice young lady doctor, an escapee from Canada, assured me that she believed that I WAS doing everything “right,” but that THE major risk factor for high blood pressure was AGE, which is the one thing this Control Freak can do nothing about! Just so you know that all is not doom and gloom, my Vitamin D levels are great and my Triglycerides are within normal range, so I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.
To continue on the theme of despair, as I blurted unfunnily last week, our political situation would seem about as dire and depressing as anything since World War II and the Holocaust. I know I am far from alone in our tiny worldwide Jewish community to feel fairly traumatized by 10/7/23 and, yet more shocked by the subsequent unmasking of the virulent anti-Semitism “heree, there and everywhere” (to channel the Beatles).
Nevertheless, every once in a while, the Universe sends you a message if you pay attention.
I was out walking with my walking partner of some 12 years, The Paranoid Texan Next Door. He is a very funny guy and I spend a lot of my time kind of doubled over (really) with laughter, so I’m not always as observant as I could be. He, being a self-diagnosed paranoid, is always aware of his surroundings. Especially since he virtually memorized the Risk Management book by our dear friend Capt. Jim Wetherbee.
So The PT was the one who noticed the sweet little single blooming flower coming up out of a crack in the pavement in the middle of the major street here in our Gated Geezer Enclosure. It was not a weed like a dandelion, but an actual flower.
I remember when the late, great African-American Shirley Chisholm was first elected to Congress in 1968. She was hoping to make an impact on things that she felt affected her Bed-Stuy District community. But the powers that be put her on the Forestry Committee. And because back then people had class and style and not just Entitlement Hysteria, she said, “They must have heard about the Tree that Grows in Brooklyn.” Witty! And also just happens to be one of my Top 10 Favorite Books!
But what to make of the little posy springing from the asphalt? Was it God telling me to buy a lottery ticket? Probably not. I think God was telling me that beauty can come from adversity and emerge in the strangest places. And that we must constantly be on the lookout for miracles and wonder. Somehow, I also felt He was telling me that everything was going to be alright. Either that, or that I should remember that looking around was how I fell off a three-inch curb and almost broke my face. Sometimes God speaks in quite mysterious ways…with messages open to diverse interpretation, especially when it comes to The Lottery or what team He favors in the Super Bowl.
In any event, this very day marks the end of ten full years of Friday columns – totaling somewhere in the vicinity of 520 of them — and the release of the latest compilation in book form. I titled the collection Over My Limit because – like you – I am fairly fed up with what is going on in our great and good land. I also used the subhead Ten Years of Shooting Fish In A Barrel because the Left just tees the topics up week after week with its trademark hysteria and certifiable lunacy. Anyone who can use “her” to modify “penis” has gone round the bend and every sane human knows it. Some pretend to be fine with it, but they know the truth.
Five hundred twenty columns seem like a lot. I have allowed myself some repetition of favorite stories for newer readers and some cannibalizing wholesale of my own material when new ideas are hard to come by. But mostly I turn out a new one every week.
Based on my employment track record, I expected to be “let go” after a few months. (Here we deal with the philosophical question “Can you technically be fired from an unpaid gig?”) But I’m still here a decade later. I have also considered that this nice round number might be a good “point in time” – a funny meaningless phrase popularized during the Watergate hearings — for me to resign. But the truth is that the commenting experience makes my whole Friday joyful, all day, every Friday. And maybe no kinda sorta able-bodied fighters should abandon the field at this critical juncture.
So if the PL boys will still have me, and you dear readers are not sick of me, then I will continue to throw my ideas out there every Friday and then watch the commentariat take it from there – down many circuitous lanes, a few dark alleys, some heartfelt sharing of joys and grief, and a lot of really funny memes, poems, snarky bon mots, and cartoons. It’s more fun than Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Thanks from the bottom of my heart to my loyal readers for a decade of memories and belly laughs. Onward to save our country. Together. Never give up. Never give in. If a flower can bloom in a crack in pavement on a well-traveled road, who are we to throw in the towel?
The eBook and paperbacks are available — here — on Amazon. And paperback will be available at Commenter-Con April 14, 15, 16 at the Hilton Doubletree in sunny Mesa, AZ. If you live in the Phoenix area, stop on by even if you aren’t signed up for the event to buy the book and browse at the tables of the other authors.
Or you can order the paperback directly from the authors at VWAMbooks and receive the special 20 percent Power Line Discount. Just enter PLDISCOUNT (all CAPS, one word) at checkout.
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