I’ve been sickly for a couple of days. I would love to say I picked up a bug in some crowded bar or something exciting like that, But I really don’t socialize in bars these days…..or hardly anywhere else unless that’s you call my socializing down at the ‘manspace’ down on my dock. Even then it’s usually just me and a dog or two.
So when I came down with this bug, it was surprising to me. I just hardly ever get sick. Yes, I know, the phrase “I hardly ever get sick” is one of the most famous ‘I told you so’ phrases I have ever uttered. I remember sitting in school when the insurance folks all come to sign you up for your cafeteria plans and 
get you all insured. I was talking with two colleagues, Susie Kohutek and Nita Schubert when It was my turn. Susie asked if I was going to sign up for a supplemental policy that would pay for being laid up and not being able to work for a while. I assured her that “I never get sick” and would have absolutely no need for any such coverage.
It was a two months later that I had three heart attacks and quadruple bypass surgery. Yes, those were famous last words If I ever heard any.
So as I lay in bed suffering this week, the TV was on and my wife was typing away on her laptop right beside me. All the bones in my body were breaking-so it seemed- and I slept most of the time. She is a news junkie and as I drifted in an out of a fitful sleep, I heard all about the drug gangs in Juarez, how the tea partiers are vowing revenge, what a sellout Bart Stupak is, and the fact that we are generally going to hell in a hand basket.
It was during one of these not quite asleep, but not quite awake episodes, that I heard something about the Tamale Pirates. My brain didn’t register that quickly as I drifted back to sleep. But my brain kept slowly turning that phrase. Tamale Pirates? Now that would be a crisis situation.
Is there an armed group out there stealing tamales? Seems like I heard something about a gun battle and one of the tamale pirates was shot dead. Good! We need to defend our tamales. I have guns all this house and will defend my tamales too!
It was only later when I was able to hold my head up a little more that I heard the report again.
It wasn’t a report about tamale pirates. It was Somali pirates.
Whew! That was a relief. I was afraid all of Texas was going to become an armed camp to defend against tamale pirates. I can just see the ladies at the little church where I used to buy tamales all packing pistols to keep the tamale pirates out. Yes, their tamales are that good!
Those pirates would have been taking things just a little too far, even for pirates.
It is amazing the things we hear and misunderstand on the TV news.
I even thought I heard something about over 16,000 new IRS agents being hired to fine us if we don’t buy something the government says we have to buy. Hah! In Russia maybe, but not here.
I’m David out in Real Texas
Trying hard to understand what I hear
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Nice. Love your content.
Ash