Not So Fast...

"Ugh," my brother said to me, "I logged onto the Souderton Independent page and guess whose gigantic, grinning face I saw?"

Since my retirement in the Fall, the menace known as Michael Morsch has been relatively silent. He would regurgitate concert promos every once in a while, but in general he remained the unamusing, uninspired hack he had become by late 2011.

Until I followed my brother's lead and found this:

OUTTA LEFTFIELD: Perfect banquet - Short speeches, great dessert, lots of yuks
Published: Thursday, January 26, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor

Laughter described as "yuks" in the headline? How could I resist?

As a veteran of the rubber chicken circuit, I can tell you that the three things one needs most for a successful banquet experience are short speeches, good dessert and someone at the table with whom you can yuk it up for the entire evening.

Now, I didn't go to school for journalism like Borsch did. But isn't it poor form to repeat your headline practically word-for-word in the first paragraph? Borsch goes on to describe how he got to "yuk it up" with a guy at his table named Bob.

I had never met Bob and his wife, Ellen — a perfectly lovely couple — before the banquet. I promised that if I wrote about them, I wouldn’t use their last name. Besides, everyone in the Indian Valley probably knows Bob and Ellen, which lets me off the hook because I forgot to ask them what their last name was anyway. Some reporter I am.

See, that's a problem. He's not a reporter anymore - he's the executive editor and self-aggrandizing columnist. He has (one would assume) a decent number of real reporters in his employ. Why isn't he sending these people out to interview celebrities, review concerts, etc? Especially since he's just as bad at reporting as he is at editing and writing?

But I knew right away that Bob and I were going to hit it off when I saw him dipping his napkin in his water glass, then dabbing at his shirt.

That’s right, good old Bob is a spiller, just like me.

He's returning to true form here, people. Spilling things! Hilarious!

“I spill something on myself every time I eat,” said Bob.

“Me too,” I said. “My wife carries one of those Tide sticks in her purse and I have to use it at every meal we eat out.”

Remember that episode of The Simpsons where former President Gerald Ford moves in, and he and Homer get along really well because they're both clumsy and dumb? This is sort of like that, but a lot less amusing.

Oddly enough, and what I didn’t tell Bob because I didn’t want to spoil the illusion that I was a Major League spiller, was that I rarely, if ever, spill anything on myself when we eat dinner at home.

Major League = Unnecessary Baseball Reference. He's jumped right back in the saddle.

So at banquets and restaurants, I’ve taken to just tucking my napkin up into my collar like a bib to cover my front. I am way past the point of worrying whether anyone thinks that looks goofy in favor of a more reasonable dry cleaning bill.

True to form, Borsch will now drive this "I spill things on myself" bit (which - hard to believe, I know - he HAS mentioned before) as far into the ground as possible.

Bob decided, after spilling some of the fruit cup on his shirt, that tucking his napkin up under his chin was a good strategy for the rest of the meal, so he willingly followed my lead.

“I’ll bet we’re the only two in here tonight who have our napkins tucked into our collars,” he said.

Is it any wonder this man is reviled? Here he is, attending the Indian Valley Chamber of Commerce banquet at a country club, and he's wearing a bib and blundering about with some moron next to him.

As we chit-chatted, Bob would spill something and I would drop my napkin. Then we’d hardy-har-har about it. Then I would spill something and he’d drop his napkin. And then we’d hardy-har-har some more.

Dropping napkins: an endless source of amusement. How exactly did their napkins get dropped in the first place? Shouldn't their elephantine double chins have wedged those things firmly in place?

We discovered that we both like baseball and that Bob still plays in an over-60 softball league.

Apparently it took him longer to mention baseball in conversation than it did to mention it in this column. Wonders will never cease.

I only got into trouble with Bob a few times during the course of the evening. One was when I told him that I went to school at the University of Iowa. Bob, a college wrestling fan, apparently is not a big fan of Iowa and its string of NCAA national wrestling championships in the 1980s under legendary Iowa wrestling coach Dan Gable. So we went round and round about that.

Got that? The school was "Iowa," and the coach was "Iowa wrestling coach Dan Gable." Good writing.

Har-har-hardy-har-har, guffaw-guffaw and snicker-snicker.

What is funny about this? "Hey, I attended the University of Iowa." "I don't like them, nor do I like their coach, Iowa's Dan Gable." I assume the side-splitting comedy is contained somewhere in the phrase "we went round and round about that." Too bad we, the audience, will never know what it was. Bob then asks Borsch if he fishes:

“No, I’m not a fisherman,” I said. “I don’t mind sitting in a boat with a line in the water, but I really don’t like baiting the hook.”

“Wussie,” said Bob.

Giggle-giggle, hardy-har-har (accompanied by elbow nudges and a back slap or two).

First of all, in real life, nobody does the elbow nudge thing. Second, outside of Beavis and Butthead, nobody would laugh this much just because the word "wussie" was utilized.

I certainly don’t agree with him on his Iowa approach, but since my official stance on worms has always been that they’re “yucky,” he’s probably right about the fishing thing.

Tee-hee, ho-ho-ha-ha-ha.

Hey Borsch - remember when you talked about the wrestling thing and the fishing thing in the previous paragraphs? Yeah. You don't have to repeat that in THIS paragraph. It was even less funny the second time around.

The evening was delightful — due in large part to Bob and Ellen —

Wait - what did Ellen spill on herself?

and was made even more special because the Souderton Independent was named the 2011 Cornerstone Award winner as the small business of the year by the chamber. Congratulations to my hard-working colleagues at the Souderton Independent and thanks to my friend Sharon Minninger, executive director of the chamber, and the group’s board for the honor and for putting on a superb banquet. I will be happy to spill something on myself at any of the chamber’s future events.

As long as I get to sit next to Bob.

Sharon Minninger needs to cultivate better friends. In true Borsch fashion, he does an excellent job of TELLING us that things are funny, but a horrible job of SHOWING us that they are. Imagine the following exchange:

Morsch: Hey, I went to this great banquet. The speeches were short, the food was great, and I sat next to this hilarious guy.
You: Oh yeah? What were the speeches about?
Morsch: Never mind about that.
You: How was the food?
Morsch: Good cake. But this guy Bob, he was great. We both spill things on ourselves.
You: You don't say so.
Mosrch: Yeah! We dropped our napkins and stuff. It was hilarious.
You: Oh?
Morsch: Then we went round and round about college wrestling. I thought I was gonna bust a gut.
You: Sounds... great.
Morsch: And THEN we talked about fishing! Bob called me a 'wussie.'
You: Do people even use that word anymore?
Morsch: Yeah, so did I mention we talked about wrestling and fishing?
You: You did mention that, yes.
Morsch: Oh. So anyway, it was just amazing.

Welcome back, Borsch. You're just as terrible as you always have been.