On the last of January I made the acquaintance of a force of nature in the disguise of a little old lady. She allows me to post this blog only on the condition that I use no names nor photos, though she allowed me to take a camera-picture of her for my photo source for my drawing. She says it’s all right to use the first initial of her and her friend’s names, so she shall be A___, and her friend, G___.

A___ and her family had the good sense to leave their neighborhood two days before the Nazis hit town, which is why she is alive to tell her bathtub stories and jokes. She told me three of each. Yesterday I synopsized the bathtub stories in the following poem, using a title provided by a friend:

life in a bathtub

an electric-blue-clad 88-yr-young lady breezed into the shop
and almost immediately told three bathtub stories
which are here arranged by her age at the time

very, very young, in austria-hungary:
as the youngest, in her uncle’s house,
she was the first in the day for the family bathwater;
for some reason, though, she had to bathe
surrounded by the family.
her uncle dropped a sugar cube into the water.
“that’s for your sweetness.”

fifty-one years old, in california:
water was being rationed.
a fellow apartment dweller knocked on the door
and asked to share her bathtub
so that they would be good and proper rationers.
he was twenty-six. a neurologist, and most likely a virgin.
mayhem ensued
when his long, lanky leg knocked down the shower curtain.
years after the affair they were still in touch.

in her mid-seventies, northern arizona:
she’d had a WONDERFUL bath
and then dressed
and answered her friend’s knock at her door.
“why so smiley?” “i’ve just had the BEST bath.”
turns out her friend both didn’t have a tub
and desperately wanted a bath.
soon she was in the tub and in bliss;
soon after, though, her friend discovered
that as an old and hefty lady
she could not get out of the tub.
she, petite and elderly as she was, tried to help.
early efforts were in vain. finally
she took off her own clothes and got in,
squirmed under her friend, and chivvied and hoisted.
a hefty upper body flopped out of the tub
and one of the puppies,
triggered by the pendulous breast
dangling before her puppy eyes
began to nurse.
“OH, how we laughed!!!”

i have the lady’s number.
i will call her soon,
but not to share her bathwater.

*****

As for the jokes, I’ll just tell the shortest for now. It’s also the only non-R-rated one.

Goldstein gets pulled over by a cop. “Sir,” the cop says severely, “Are you aware that your wife fell out of your car a quarter of a mile back?” “Oh, thank God,” Goldstein replies. “I thought I’d gone deaf.”

–Well, if you heard HER tell it, you’d laugh. Here she is: