Literary Criticism
A Geezer’s Notebook, By Jim Foster
Do you know who gets a bad rap at Christmas time?
That’s right, poor old Grinch.
Like me, you probably watch him every year, the original or the Jim Carrey one. Maybe you haul the book out and read it to your kids or grandchildren.
I kind of liked the Grinch. He was my kind of guy or used to be until Seuss made a wuss out of him. He was an average sort of bloke you know; just one of the boys when you think about it. He never bothered anybody; did his own thing up on Mount Crumpit, just Grinch and his dog, Max.
He watched all the football games on New Year’s Day. Drank a bit of beer, good Canadian 5% beer not that light stuff wimpy people sip through a plastic straw thereby looking like a sissy and destroying the environment at the same time. And he drank as much as he wanted too because he was single. He didn’t have a wife to tell him to take his feet off the coffee table or put the toilet seat down.
Damn that`s annoying. You’d think a wife would look down once in a while instead of just plopping down and then yelling for her husband to bring the plunger to get her out.
Once in a while Grinch would head into Whoville to the liquor store. He had to go to the beer store first to take his empties back and being single there would be lots of them, then maybe head over to Walmart to pick up some Gravy Train for Max, not the cheap stuff with God knows what in it; the Grinch was a responsible pet owner.
I don’t know what he did for feminine companionship. Do they have houses of ill repute down in Whoville? I don’t know. Seuss doesn’t mention any, but that isn’t the kind of information you’ll find on tourist brochures. I hope so. After all even a Grinch has his needs.
His life was pleasant and fairly uneventful although I don’t doubt he was the victim of teasing and some pushing and shoving when he went into town, because let’s face it, he certainly was different. I mean, being green and all. And he really wasn’t a good-looking guy by our standards, although not all women are that particular. That’s pretty obvious when you look around at some of the husbands I see waiting and waiting and waiting in the malls every day.
But on the whole life was good for the Grinch. So what if he was a loner and what if he did work that little dog to death, he was still a good guy. At least he didn’t dress poor Max up in booties and a sweater and sit him on his lap when he was driving into town.
I know a lot of you folks do that and far be it for me to be critical, but imagine how the dog feels. All the other pups are outside, running loose, peeing on hydrants and bare-naked. Dogs are supposed to be bare-naked. What do you think the rest of them are barking about when you parade by with little Roscoe Rachmaninov the Third on the end of a leash wearing a jewelled collar and a flipping tam?
“Hey, Rossie, love your hat. Woo, woo, Roscoe is a snootsy. Roscoe is a snootsy.” A snootsy is a guy who steps out of the shower to have a wee-wee.
And that’s not all, you watch him when he goes poo. How would you like it if every time you went to the john your dog sat on the bathtub and stared at you? You on the can and Rover sitting there waiting with a little plastic bag. Then you wonder why he pees in your shoes.
Seuss wasn’t even a doctor. Oh he might have played doctor, we’ve all done that, but he sure as hell didn’t go to medical school. He was a cartoonist when he started out. Andy Donato from the Sun is a cartoonist.
How would you like him to take out your adenoids? I met Andy years ago and he can’t even spell adenoids, let alone find them.
“I’m going to check your adenoids today, Mrs. Simms. Just slip behind this screen and take all your clothes off. I’m not exactly sure where they are, but don’t you worry I’ll find them if it takes all night.”
Do you know what Seuss’ first book was? Boners! It really was! And you let your kids read his stuff. “What are you reading, Mary Jane? ‘Boners!’ Like hell you are.”
Then he got into his culinary series. Green Eggs and Ham started out as a cookbook. I bet you didn’t know that. Martha Stewart wrote the foreword and served the main recipe one morning to Julia Childs. Julia died right there in Martha’s breakfast nook. Poor old dear just started choking. Then she turned green, her eyes bugged out and a moment later she was gone. Seuss never even got charged with manslaughter and it was his recipe Martha was using. So much for fairness in the American Penal System
But it’s too late to charge him now. Seuss is dead. The cat in the hat had a hand in it, or so the story goes. They were playing Hop on Pop and Horton hopped on him. I better explain all that to the folks out there who don’t read the classics. Horton was an elephant.
