Bunnies and Mules

An audio version of this post can be found at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crQPGilMeh0&feature=youtu.be

   The door was open and strains of Spike Jones's Der Fuehrer's Face poured out into the hallway. I walked in and saw Uncle Billy sitting at the kitchen table, hunched over his ipad.
   I went to the counter and turned down the ipod player. "What are you doing?" I asked.
   Billy looked up, a little startled. "You snuck up on me."
   "No, I didn't, Uncle ... your door is wide open."
   He looked past me at the doorway. "Oh, yeah ... I told the maid to leave it open ... I wanted to get a little cross ventilation."
   I walked over to the screen door that opened onto the patio. "It is a lovely day ... Michigan at it's best."
   Billy's gaze had followed me. "Yeah, I guess ... it's just nice to open things up and blow the stink out of here."
   "Well, if you put it that way ... " I walked back to the kitchen table and looked over Billy's shoulder. "So, what are you doing?"
   "Sewing coconuts together ... what the hell does it look like I'm doing?"
   "Uncle, all I can see is that you're staring at your ipad."
   Billy looked down at the tablet. "Yeah ... well, I'm checking tweets."
   "Oh ... anything interesting?"
   Billy looked back up at me. "Are you kidding?"
   "Well, why do you check them?"
   "Every now and then there is something worth while ... you just never know."
   "Like when you read about Eb's wedding plans?"
   "Yeah ... even that moron has a newsworthy tweet ... the rest of them are ridiculous things about his books."
   "Things about his books? Like what?"
   He scrolled through the list of tweets. "Like this ... " He held up the pad for me to read.
   "Do bunnies float ... Bunky does ... and what's the rest? ... a link of some kind?"
   Billy looked at the tablet. "Yeah ... a link to the Facebook page for Bunky Learns to Swim."
   I pulled out a chair to sit down.
   Billy held up his hand. "Don't sit down ... I want to get to Manny's before it closes."
   I pushed the chair back in and sighed. "Uncle, we've been though this ... Manny's never closes."
   Billy shut down the ipad. "Remember what the farmer said when his mule died ..."
   "Yeah, yeah ... it never did that before."
   He stood up. "Right, Boyo ... let's get a move on."