Kara was over earlier and we had a nice chat and some laughs. Before she came over, there was a pledge drive on channel 8. Andy and I called one of the phone operators and you could see him on TV answering the phone. When he asked if he could have my pledge, I said, “No, I need my pledge to dust my furniture.” I told him we didn’t have any money and we are the very few and rare poor Jews. The guy said how much the station needed money and I said, “I need money too, so who’s gonna pledge and raise money for me?”

This reminded me of the Jerry Lewis telethon in 1989 when Andy and I lived in Springfield. I’d call operator 23, if I could see her or him, then say I was operator 18 and ask if she could see me waving. I could then see the operator looking all around. Then the host of the telethon would come on eventually saying, “There has been phone trouble and New England Telephone is checking into it.”

Later...

I hope the food stamps go up soon, but either way, they never give you enough.

Earlier Andy made us burgers, which was nice. I’ll still need to go out and spend cash on food before the 15th.

I left a note on Dennis’s door the day after Bea died. I said I was sorry, but for him to call if he needed anything. I also wrote that I wouldn’t call or go over there till he got ahold of me. I have not yet heard from him and I hope he’s doing OK.

Now I’m gonna go back to the night of my birthday. Denny’s gives a free dinner and dessert on your b-day. That’s nice, but here’s the part that’s extremely bad business. You must eat there and you can’t take your food home. A person should be able to order anything they want on their b-day as well as take their food home. We were gonna go to 2-3 Denny’s, order me dinner, have two bites of it, then take it home. The first Denny’s made me eat my dessert there, but they let me take my food to go. The second Denny’s wouldn’t let me take my food home. It was a stupid policy and I was in a rowdy mood as it was. Our waitress was no less than 6‘4” and she and the manager wouldn’t budge on the issue. Andy went up front to grab a handful of napkins so I could wrap my food, but he let her take them away. Then I got mad. I ran up to her and screamed in her face that people do use napkins and I grabbed them out of her hand. The girl looked absolutely terrified. She was scared shitless and her eyes looked as if they were gonna pop right out of her head. Then I went and sat down and began eating my cake.

The manager came up to collect my dinner and salad. I yelled that I was still eating my cake and she said, “OK, OK,” then ran from the table. When I finished half of my cake, I took mustard and poured it all over the rest of it. Then, I jammed the bottle into it. As we were leaving, the manager went to check it out and said, “Oh, thank you very much. Have a happy birthday.”

I called out, “Thank you, I will.” Me and Andy were cracking up about this all night.