Humorous Interludes by Ron Yarosh

Thought For The Day…

Here it is… “Never give someone the finger while thumb wrestling.”

Hello, Bunky Bellwhistle Bledsoe here.

I was asked to be a guest poster on this blog. The regular guy is cleaning up after Tropical Storm, Isaac passed through the area where he lives. He told me to write about thumb wrestling. Here goes.

I never thumb wrestled in my life. I figure, since it’s not an Olympic event, why bother.

I do know someone who does thumb wrestle. He’s my cousin twice removed named Dunlap Tapeworm. His nickname is Wormy. He  never loses. But he has an advantage. He has unusually large thumbs. I think it’s called Macrodigitalis or something like that. He’s the undefeated Thumb Wrestling Champion of Muddobber County, Arkansas. He’s won contests with both hands. In fact, no one wants to thumb wrestle with him any more cause he always wins.

Dunlap got a trophy and a blue ribbon for winning the county competition. They didn’t have a thumb wrestling trophy at the local trophy shop so they gave him a bowling trophy instead. He liked that. He said it was all right since he uses his thumb in his bowling ball when he goes bowling. They had to drill the thumb hole in the ball extra long just for him.

He once bowled a perfect game. The manager of the bowling place, Shatner’s Shady Lanes, put Wormy’s photo on the wall next to pictures of Don Carter and Dick Weber who were World Champion bowlers. Neither Carter nor Weber ever bowled at Shatner’s Shady Lanes. Their pictures were there just for show along with pictures of bowling balls.

They also gave him a baseball cap from Shindig’s Catering, and a bowling pin from the lane he bowled on. It wasn’t during an official league game so he didn’t qualify for the regular awards which are a trophy and the hand carved statue of a naked Indian woman made out of a bowling pin.

Dunlap bowls on Wednesday nights with the gang from work. He works in a pickle packing company.  It’s called Poppy’s Posh Portuguese Pickles. He’s the guy who shoves the last gherkin in to the jar while it goes by on the canning line. Dunlap says it’s a special skill which took him four years of training. He got that position after the other pickle pusher got his thumb cut off when the jar accidentally broke. When the guy saw his hand bleeding, he passed out. He never returned to work. Rumor has it that the thumb was never recovered. But I saw the jar with the thumb among the gherkins in Poppy’s office.

I asked Dunlap if he was afraid to be a pickle pusher after Ginzey Clutchfinger got his thumb cut off at the cannery. He said he wasn’t afraid because he has two of them.

Dunlap also is the State Hitch-hiking Champion. Guess why? You’re right! He has an advantage with his big thumbs. Drivers can see them for miles. Dunlap says drivers always stop and offer him a ride because his thumbs are so large. It’s something everybody wants to talk to him about.

Wormy once hitch-hiked across the U.S. twice from Moosedropping Maine to Octogon Oregon. He was raising money for his favorite cause, Macrodigitalis. He raised a total of forty seven dollars and nineteen cents. It’s still in a jar over his fire place.

Dunlap  hoped Jerry Lewis would find out about his fund driving efforts and do a telethon for him. Lewis never called Dunlap back. One of Jerry’s staff sent Wormy a letter saying that Macrodigitalis wasn’t a big enough problem in the world to have a telethon for it.

While hitch-hiking, Dunlap once spent thirty seven days in a row in the cab of an eighteen wheel tractor trailer with a Polish driver who just couldn’t get over Dunlap’s condition.

It turned out that the truck driver, Hargrove Skiderski, who drove for Menche’s Mints Company had an unusual condition himself. His big toes were unusually large for his feet. He drove barefooted. According to Dunlap, Hargrove’s big toes were so large, he just used his big toes on the gas, brake and clutch pedals while his feet were flat on the floor. Dunlap said Hargrove’s toes were photographed by Ripley’s Believe it or Not.

Dunlap said Hargrove drove over a million miles with ever having an accident. When they departed, Mr. Skiderski gave Dunlap a carton of Menche’s Mints. There were one hundred and fifty tins of mints inside.

Unfortunately, they were peppermint flavored. Dunlap didn’t want to tell Hargrove that he was allergic to peppermint. Dunlap found out about his allergy when he was a teen ager. After he chewed a mint before kissing his girlfriend, he began to talk Yiddish like a real Jewish Rabbi from New York City. He said he was worried and scared out of his wits because he loved to eat pork, and his girlfriend was a strict Catholic.

Dunlap said he is going to write a book about his adventures. He hopes they’ll make a movie about him like they did about that Forest Gump fellow. In the meantime, Dunlap still tries to thumb wrestle now and then. He bowls, and hitch-hikes. He also writes to his pen pal, Hargrove who is on a world tour with his toes. Hargrove is going to be interviewed by Dennis Miller, a comedian.

Oh, and then there’s this. Dunlap tried to get on that TV show, American Pickers, but they turned him down. He said that the show’s producer told him he wasn’t looking for nose pickers.

Thank you,

Bunky Bellwhistle Bledsoe