Pine Nuts with McAvoy Layne: Be careful, Mercury's in retrograde
Submitted by Jeff Munson on Sun, 01/08/2023 - 5:35pm
Mercury is in retrograde and will remain in retrograde until the 18th of January. So what does that mean? Well, three times a year, the planet Mercury appears to be floating backwards across the heavens. This mirage carries with it certain superstitions and suppositions that the same thing could be happening to your life, you could be living your life backwards.
Allow me to chronicle a few examples of what can happen during Mercury’s retrograde, as they happened to me last year.
I wrote a love letter to an old girlfriend telling her how often I thought about her, and how much I would like her to come out and spend some time with me, then mailed it off to her sister, who showed up on my doorstep with her three kids, two dogs and a cat.
While Mercury was in retrograde last year, I bent-over to untie a shoe and somehow untied an abductor in my gluteus maximus, causing me to stay bent-over for several hours, and to spontaneously grab my buttock when out in public for several days thereafter.
On another occasion I was invited to a high-end auction in Reno, not to take anything home with me, but to juice the action for the sponsor. She knew my bids would never “hold ground” as they say in the auction business, so I jumped right into the action without capital to back my bids.
This was all in good sport, and I never had so much fun until my bid for two Bruce Springsteen tickets came home to roost, and suddenly I became the proud owner of those two tickets at a thousand dollars each.
Not to be undone by a round of applause, I strode proudly up to the winner’s podium to accept my Springsteen tickets and make a humble speech.
“I have been a Springsteen fan since he first recorded, ‘Born to Lose.’ And what a coincidence it is that I thought the concert was be to held in Oakland, when actually, it turns out, the concert will be held in Aukland, a place in Australia that I have long desired to visit.”
My little speech was followed by a moment of silence, and I overheard somebody say, “I thought Springsteen recorded ‘Born to Run,’ and I thought Aukland was in New Zealand.”
Anyways, I reached pensively for my wallet, which I knew was not there, assumed a look of wonder and puzzlement, and clawed the air with my short alligator arms to indicate I could not find my wallet.
The lady taking the money gave me a sideways look like she had just recognized me in a lineup as the very person who had escaped from Alcatraz and had stolen her purse.
I could go on about what can happen when Mercury is in retrograde, but I see I am fast running out of space. Just be careful.
— For more than 30 years, in over 4,000 performances, columnist and Chautauquan McAvoy Layne has been dedicated to preserving the wit and wisdom of “The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope,” Mark Twain. As Layne puts it: “It’s like being a Monday through Friday preacher, whose sermon, though not reverently pious, is fervently American."
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