Ballard Street by Jerry Van Amerongen for November 29, 2016

More like a mental case.

If you were, it might work some fat off your brain, but would not do the rest of you any good.

Charles, like almost all Americans (of which I think he is one), can rationalize anything that gets them what they want.

A “mathlete”, if you will.

I’m just going to run that through my mind a few times.

He’s been known to make astonishing leaps of logic.

Nice try, Charles……

but to be a mental athlete, you need to exercise your brainpower on a regular basis.

 

Last time you tried that was probably back in the 80’s,

when you spent almost an hour trying to figure out 6 down

on a NYT crossword puzzle somebody left at the doughnut shop.

 

You ended up flat on your back for three days….

with a stretched neuron and a completely blown synapse.

 

No…. I think your athleticism is pretty much confined to running to the fridge for another beer,

while watching sports on TV….

 

Though the doctor says a little fantasy football would be OK.

I would think more about this but I think I sprained my brain already.

I admit that I have reached the age and stage, where cerebral calisthenics is preferable to the physical kind.

However, I’m forced to the conclusion that mental gymnastics wont prevent atrophy of the cuerpo físicoand that elbow bending at the Tiki is not considered exercise – But, walking to and from my favorite watering hole, counts !

He weaves wordplay and punning in his head.

Does that make him wit knit?

Charles will try anything once…

Ok, Charles. Now drop and give us 20, divided by the square root, multiplied by the coefficient of the denominator of the total amount of ounces in a keg of beer!

Twas the firth of November,

A time I well remember

I was stumbling around in my drunken pride

When my knees began to flutter

So I lay down in the gutter

And a pig came up and lay down by my side.

As I lay there in the gutter

Thinking thoughts I could not utter

I thought I heard a passing lady say

You can tell a man who boozes

By the company he chooses

And the pig got up and slowly walked away.