The Delta Rhythm Boys

            As I predicted, after my 49-kilometre bike ride out to and back from the Mississauga campus the previous day, on Sunday I had an ache in my left knee. But it really wasn’t as bad as I’d expected and it only hurt a bit when I got up. I thought it wise though not to do any pedalling that day though and instead I just did some knee exercises in the late afternoon while listening to a funny episode of Amos and Andy from 1946.

            Kingfish’s wife Sapphire, in her continuing efforts to get her husband working, made him an appointment for an interview for a job as an insurance salesman. He went there already determined to not get the job. He first of all told the man he didn’t like to walk. The man told him he could get an office. Kingfish said he preferred his bed. The interviewer informed him that some of their salesmen do 90% of their business by telephone from the bedside. Kingfish asked, “Yeah, but they gotta wake up to do it don’t they?”

            Kingfish was sold on the job and the first thing he tried to do was to sell Andy a burial insurance plan, telling him that their slogan was, “Be covered when you is covered!” Kingfish wanted to show Andy some photos of burial plots but forgot his briefcase at home. Just then Lightning came in and he asked him to travel the two blocks to fetch it for him. He said he’d be back in a couple of hours. Then there was a song by the Delta Rhythm Boys: “They call him Lightning but it’s not because he’s fast … He can’t keep working steady, he just sleeps for all he’s worth but when his wife says supper’s ready he’s the fastest man on Earth … He’s always drowsy looking, he retires at half past five but when he smells fried chicken cookin, there’s the fastest man alive …”

            Next Kingfish tried to sell Andy a life insurance policy that would protect him from all kinds of accidents, including explosion and collision. Andy asked, “What’s the difference?” Kingfish told him, “With a collision, there you is, but with an explosion, where is you?” He said that the life policy has the “double indemnity feature”, which promises double indemnity if you die in your sleep while dreaming about falling and hitting the ground.

            Later Andy was talking to Hattie McDaniel and she told him that after 40 you got to eat like a rabbit and work like a dog to keep from looking like a horse.

            After my knee exercises I got dressed and went out to the liquor store to buy one can of beer. When I got there an LCBO employee was just closing the gate. I’d forgotten that it was Sunday. The guy in front of me asked if they were closed. The employee barked, “18:00 o’clock! Five minutes my friend! Let’s roll, roll, roll! Hurry up!” I wasn’t there to shop because I knew exactly what I wanted. I already had my can of Creemore and was standing in line when I heard the same guy walking around and calling out, “Two minutes!”