Codger Tone It Down A Bit?
By Rob Morris
As Waldo and Quincy left the hospital, the patience of the dim younger man finally gave out. He said something he knew he might regret, and he did. Quincy Magoo glared in his nephew's general direction.
"What did you just say to me, young man?"
His broken leg and crutches urging him on, Waldo spoke plainly.
"Unc, I love ya. But there's things about this world you just don't seem to get!"
Rather than let the younger man elaborate, Magoo launched into a fury.
"See here, boy! I 'GET' each and everything I need to! It is this younger generation that fails to grasp certain hard truths, including the fact that your elders are to be respected, not just brushed off as feeble-minded fools!"
Leaving Waldo to find his way home by himself, Magoo hopped in his runabout and took his usual overland (actually over telephone wires) to reach the gentlemen's club of which he was a member, and which saw retired military officers from all over the world.
"The very idea! Me—not getting the world. The world is what can get, for all I care! I'd rather stare at this lovely globe than what's out there, any day of the week."
Now, by the oddest coincidence imaginable, the globe-map of the Earth that Magoo was drawn in by actually was a globe-map of the Earth, a fact we would not need to note, but for the presence of Quincy Magoo.
"Sir? I would not sit there, were I you."
Magoo was past budging and fought off growling at the helpful club member.
"Why? Is this seat dirty? Reserved for another member?"
"No, sir, but I should make you aware…"
"NO, sir! I should make you aware that here is where Quincy Magoo has chosen to sit, and here is where he will do so. Hmmph! Even here, people try and order me about, tell me what they think I don't already know. Good day, sir."
The club member sighed while he walked away, but soon another one walked up. Magoo bristled.
"Do you want me to move as well, sir?"
The new man shook his head.
"Not at all, my friend. Hmm. Do you see this spot on the globe?"
Magoo strained, but managed to make it out.
"It—it looks like the middle of the Atlantic."
The club member now began to sound awakened.
"Quite. Have I ever told you about how I found the lost kingdom of Atlantis?"
Magoo had been around enough to hear all the Atlantis stories he cared to.
"Thank you, sir. But I'd really just rather sit here and…"
The man spoke right over him.
"It was the middle of the Second Great War, and an enemy undersea boat took my caravan unawares…"
Magoo kept trying to be polite.
"I feel a bit taken unawares myself, today. If I could just ask you to hold…"
"With only the top deck of the undersea boat left over, I floated along, using my kerchief as a sail, fixed to the blighters' periscope…"
When all this was done, Magoo would run home, apologize to his nephew, and finally gain insight into all those things an older person might not get, through no fault of their own.
But for the next seventy-two minutes, Quincy Magoo found that he was lost in the world of Commander McBragg.