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 |   On a daily basis... things that bump around in my head and make me go... hummm! |
My new blog:
This is not just a collections of personal musing but it is a place where I can vent. Talking about daily events on the local, state, and national scene is my way of letting off steam so I don't come home and kick the dog! We are all the Captain of our own "Ship of Fools." We go where the current of the times take us and we do what we must to be able to sleep at night. Now this Captain will speak his mind about that current and about the ocean on which we each sail....... ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** {image: ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** PLEASE MAIL ME YOUR VOTE FOR BLOGGER OF THE MONTH OF AUGUST. This is a shot of Me and Mel at our wedding. We were married in a simple ceremony on a deck overlooking Lake Livingston. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** I am so proud of my new Siggy which was made by the very talented vivacious   . Thank you so very much for all the effort that went into this.** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** This was taken from the wall in the Blogville Post Office. If you see this fugitive, please do not approach, he is armed and stupid. Contact the Blogville sheriff's office at once, then take cover! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** } ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I remember it as though it were yesterday, that day some forty plus years ago when I asked my father a question. I was ten years old and my father was in his forties then. He and I did not know each other all that well because he worked seven days a week in the oil field, twelve hours each day, then he would come home and put in more hours working our farm. What time I had with dad, those days, were while helping him clean the stalls of our livestock or weed the garden. Dad was always a kind of distant and larger than life figure for me while I was growing up. He was a man of few words, relying instead on actions to speak for him. So it was with some trepidation that I approached him on that day with my question. We were shoveling out the stall of our milk cow and transferring the refuse to the manure pile which was used to fertilize the garden. It was almost dark and the task was nearly completed when I finally screwed up my courage to ask my question. "Dad," I said quietly. "What do you think I will be when I grow up? Will I have to work as hard as you, then?" Well, dad stopped his shoveling and straightened up. He stared at me a moment with those piercing blue eyes and I wondered, fleetingly, if I had angered him with my question. Then he gave me a rare smile and answered. "Son," he said seriously. "you will be whatever you want to be, that's the way this country works. I don't believe you will have to work as hard as me because you will be smarter than your old man. You will watch and you will learn from my mistakes, if you are smart and you will achieve whatever you set your mind to do." I thought about this a minute then I remember saying: "I won't mind working hard, dad, if it means I can be like you." "Well let's get this work done then," he laughed. " You have plenty of time to figure out what you are gonna be." I remember feeling closer to my dad, in that moment, than I ever had before as we finished our chores in silence and then went back into the house for one of mom's big, hot, dinners. It's funny how those errant memories visit me nowadays. Maybe its because I am getting older, but I find myself thinking about those long ago days when life was new and the road was all ahead of me. Dad was right. I never worked as hard as he did. I guess I could have, but after seeing what it had done to him, I settled for working a little less and enjoying life a little more, and I thank dad every day for showing me that life lesson without ever actually SAYING anything. Did I turn out smarter than dad? No, I don't think I did that. I did turn out to be more open and able to share feelings than he was but I don't believe that had anything to do with intelligence. I think back to that long gone day when my father first set my feet upon a road of life I would travel and I am thankful I had him as an example. Now I can see more of the road behind me than what is left in front of me and I am more or less at peace with the choices I have made at each cross-roads I came across. Thanks to dad I kept to the path and stayed true to my beliefs. I think, when this journey is done and I see him again, the first thing I am going to ask him is: "Dad, how did I do? Was I the man you hoped I would become?" Then we will go fishing in a river jumping with fish and we will finally get a chance to talk to our heart's content...without life getting in the way. |
I was not going to blog tonight. I was going to simply read my favorites then work on my own writing project but then I read Nada  's wonderful blog and VAOOOM....off I went.Am I the only person around here who is sick and tired of all this Political Correctness BS? Of course I'm not, I KNOW others feel the same way...most notably Nada who wrote a great blog on the subject tonight. In the world today nobody is responsible for anything bad that happens to them. Everything is the fault of someone else. A curious byproduct of this kind of thinking is that now no one is capable, any longer of helping themselves and everyone seems to have to wait for someone else to rescue them. No where has this been more apparent than during hurricane Katrina. As of today, Houston is still full of people who are sitting and waiting for the government to come to their rescue. Suddenly the government of the United States is RESPONSIBLE for these people. Suddenly the government is expected to replace everything they lost in the hurricane....why? Correct me if I am wrong but has there ever been another hurricane that has devastated a city or a section of the country where FEMA or the Red Cross has been expected to come in and replace everything that was lost? I have been through more hurricanes than I can count and once I lost everything to one.....I never at any time expected the government to come to my rescue, nor was that ever brought up as a possibility. So why now? Why is it that now the government is responsible? I read an article the other day about the latest thing to come out of that hurricane. It seems that some are now calling it a Holocaust against the blacks, comparing it to what happened to the Jews in war torn Europe. That, my friends is bullshit. I didn't see anyone loaded into boxcars or shoved into ovens...the very gall of those people to equate this natural disaster with the Holocaust! That level of self centered whining sickens me. Like it or not, we are all ultimately responsible for ourselves and our actions. No government, no agency or no other group should be expected to help us unless we are willing to help ourselves first. Okay....enough about Katrina. How about Syndromes.? It seems that today we have a "syndrome" for everything. This falls into the category of not taking responsibility for ourselves. If we are unable to function in the world without running afoul of rules or laws...well we much have a "syndrome" of some kind that causes us to act that way...SO IT'S NOT OUR FAULT! Physiologist, psychiatrists and "feel good" specialists are making money hand over fist pulling these syndromes out of the air to justify people's actions who are too weak, too self centered or just plain too stupid to take responsibility for their own actions. Like I said at the first....I am tired of being politically correct. I don't think I am even going to try anymore. Oh man, writing this blog felt soooo good. If I offended anyone.....dang.....I can't really say I'm sorry. The above is simply my beliefs and I can not apologize for those because they are what make me, "Me". |
| Off subject today...I feel like giving Nada a big, wet, sloppy kiss on the cheek for her kind and generous gift of a merit badge yesterday. Nada presented me with a merit badge for "Opinion". Upon considering this, I have decided that what she was saying is: Its okay for me to be an opinionated old fart! I like that, it fits me quite well! Thanks again, Nada, you made my day. Today I have done a little searching around and I thought I would give you all some stats you might not be aware of. Did you know that we have almost 1400 bloggers listed in WDC? That is a heck of a lot of opinions. If you want to see them for yourself all you need to do is go to "books", then Journals/blogs, then sort them by "most viewed first". This gives you the blogger list in the order of the ones who are read most. Some of you might be surprised at where you stand on this list so I looked at like the first 75 to see if I knew anyone on the list. Here is what I found.... #22...Scarlett and her blog: "My Life on a Plate"  #39...Nada and her blog: "Invalid Item" #40...andrew with his blog: "Invalid Item" #42..zwisis and her blog: "Invalid Item" #53...PlannerDan and his blog: "Invalid Item" #54...Mel aka Mrs Tor and her blog: "Invalid Item" # 67..sultryand her blog: "Invalid Item" Now I know there are many, many more but this is a list of bloggers who are not only my friends, but are all rated in the top precentile of Bloggers on WDC. I think it is a great accomplishment to be rated within the top 100 out of 1400 bloggers in a site so overloaded with talent such as WDC. I think each of these folks deserve a big round of applause and if you haven't visited one of those blogs up there...then go do it...I promise you that you will not be disappointed. |
| Well that just BLOWS! I had just finished this cute little blog explaining my good fortune today and I hit SEND.....Nothing happened.....blank....then the dreaded: "This Page Cannot be Displayed" came up on the screen. Of course you understand what this means....one blog, gone, disappeared into the ether.....imploded into nothingness. So I sat very still for a few moments, then Mel strolled over and asked what had happened. She had read the blog entry before I tried to send it and she had walked off grumbling before I hit the damn SEND button. I merely smiled and told her of my misfortune. Now before today, when this happened, I was prone to calling my computer, the internet and Bill Gates some really nasty names while stomping around the house and aiming kicks at the cats who would scurrry out of my path. But, not today...nope...Its all good! Even when Mel asked me, in that smug voice she uses when she already knows the answer...."Well, honey, did you save your entry before you tried to send it?" I merely smiled again and told her. "Why of course not, dear that would be using way too many brain cells and you know that I never do that." No angry retort, no telling her to mind her own business....just a minor glitch on my happy highway I find myself traveling today. I know, you want to know what has made me so happy don't you. Well my blog today was going to be about my good fortune. I was telling you about an old saying in Texas: "A blind hog finds an acorn" We use this saying when some bubba finally gets something right, even if he has failed in the past...over and over again. Well today I found my own personal acorn. Today, after a lifetime in Retail, I discovered that this year, for the very first time, I GOT FRIDAY, SATURDAY AND SUNDAY OFF!!! CHRISTMAS EVE AND CHRISTMAS!!! Usually if a holiday falls within my normal days off, they just change my days...NOT THIS TIME! This time they left my days off alone and I will actually get to be with my family for Christmas Eve and Christmas!!! I am so happy that CC couldn't even make me growl! So there you have it...my big news. I am sorry I lost the original blog; it was much funnier than this one, but I have never been able to recreate any writing, once its commited to the page. This will just have to do. You will excuse me now....I am going to put on the Christmas music and maybe deck a hall or something...I am a happy camper! |
| Off subject for a moment...I would like to thank sultry for the wonderful merit badge she sent me today for my WDC birthday wich is coming up soon. Thank you, dear. Your generosity amazes me. ******************************** Today I came across a passage in a little mystery novel I am reading that caused me to pause. I have been trying to find a hook for a character that would more closely explain the way he is and I think I have found what I am looking for. Here is the passage: "So what? None of this means anything, this life. We are just a bunch of meat. When we think something, its just a chemical action. When we love something it is more chemicals. When we die, all the chemicals go back into the ground and that's it. You don't go anywhere except into the ground. There is no heaven, no hell, no God, no nothing. Just.....nothing." The speaker goes on to call themselves a philosophical Nihilist. They believe in NOTHING. Since they believe in nothing then all that is left is to do whatever they feel they need to do in order to make themselves feel good at the moment. I was fascinated by this belief and horrified that many people seem to buy into the philosophy of Nihilism and have for centuries, so I decided to do some research on the subject. It would seem that this bizarre belief has been around almost as long as man himself has been here. Did you know that William Shakespeare demonstrated Nihilism in his play, Macbeth. Near the end of the play he has his main character, Macbeth speak these lines: “Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more; it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” It is not clear if Shakespeare, himself believed this or, like me, he was simply using the point of view to explain his character. Among philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche is most often associated with nihilism. For Nietzsche, there is no objective order or structure in the world except what we give it. Penetrating the façades buttressing convictions, the nihilist discovers that all values are baseless and that reason is impotent. Now I don’t know about you, but this view is so grim that I can’t imagine even wanting to live. The thing that disturbs me is that there is a large portion of the world that actually believes this. Can you imagine a world with no hopes for the future, no dreams of betterment. Not only did I find a hook for my character but I found something for all of us to think about during this Christmas season. We can think about the hope that lives within each of our hearts and our faith in the future. We can think about what awaits us upon our shuffling off this mortal coil.... Christmas serves to remind us that there is more to the world than the “Nothingness” that Nihilist would have you believe. |
| It is Saturday and I am off work today and that should be a cause for celebration. So, why am I rattling around like a lost puppy, in an empty house (empty if you don't count animals)? Simple..I AM alone. I will remain in that sorry state until late this evening when Mel returns home. She left home this morning before six a.m. to go pick up her mom who is going to spend Christmas with us. In order to do this, Mel has to drive about six hours to a small town in southern Arkansas. This is where she has agreed to meet her sister and brother-in-law who are driving down from Missiouri. The small town in Ark. happens to be about halfway between our two homes. The damn house is just too quiet without her in it. Besides, when left on my own like this I tend to get all philosophical and stuff....in other words, I think too much. I noticed, when I opened my blog this morning, that this will be the 254th time I have sit down to share my inner-most thoughts with you all....now that's scary isn't it. 253 times in the past I have sit here and spewed out words onto the blog page and probably a dozen of those times did I actually make some kind of sense...not bad for a country boy. So, in all this time, what have you, the reader learned by reading this blog? What have you learned about the writer? Let me try to name a few things you might have picked up on. 1. I am a very unremarkable, middle-aged man who leads a quiet life in the heart of Texas. 2. I am an indentured servant in the world of Retail. 3. I am a simple storyteller with delusions of granduer....I think I can publish! 4. I have lived long enough to not fear sharing my ideals and I don't care if anyone agrees or not. There is something quite liberating about that. 5. I am a right-leaning, conservative who has very little sympathy for ultra-liberal thinking. There, a list of five for Scarlett. I was just reminded, as I wrote that list, of something else you might have learned about me from my blog.... I was raised in a poor family. Poor, that is in material things....we were actually rich in spiritual things and rich in love, so I guess that made me lucky. Something else you might have learned about me after 253 entries....I will give advice at the drop of a hat. I figure I had to have learned something worth sharing just by managing to live this long. So let me end this pitiful thing with a word of advice for any of you younger readers who may have stumbled in here unaware.... Don't spend a lot of time stressing over wither or not you are meeting the expectations of your parents. Rather, learn to expect more of yourself and set your goals to what YOU consider high...then strive to be the best person YOU think you can be. All too often parents try to live through their children and they hold you to standards and goals you might not agree with. Learn to be your own person. As long as you can look at yourself in the mirror each morning and like what you see staring back at you....you will be fine. There. The old geezer is finished for the day. See what happens when Mel goes off and leaves me to my own devices??? Wonder if she left anything in the fridge...I'm getting hungry...maybe molly will share her doggie treats with me. |
| OKAY......I WANT TO RANT! I want to rave, I want to scream and throw things against the wall, preferably a customer...any customer will do at this point. I should not be doing this blog, I should be working on my book, getting it ready for the publisher...but no, I have to do this first. You know, I have tried to get into the Christmas spirit, I really have. I went the extra mile, I play the music at home, I smile at work and say "Merry Christmas", I even decked the damn halls! But every time I think I have reached that Zen moment of being one with the season, some stupid excuse for a human jerks me back into my own pitiful reality. It was almost midnight by the time I got home from work last night and I gotta tell you, it wasn't a pretty sight....I was wasted. I was an emotional wreck. Why? Glad you asked. I personally think it is cruel and unusual punishment when managment does not allow us to shoot at least ONE holiday shopper a day. The insuing feelings of furstration from having to let them live builds up until I get to the point of thinking Charlie Manson may have had the right idea! Yesterday the Christmas rush really kicked into high gear...not just the real shoppers, but also the thieves. THEY ONLY HAVE 16 MORE DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS!! Yes, the thieves are driven by the same maddening urge to finish their "shopping" as the rest of you honest folks out there. Yesterday, in an eight hour shift, my partner and I stopped FIVE seperate idiots who were trying to get out the door without stopping at the register to actually pay for the stuff. The other door had about the same results. Now the fact that people steal from us is not what sends me into spasms of anger....hell people steal, its a fact of life and I understand that. What DOES trip my trigger is that these assholes, by their actions, show such a lack of respect for me and my co-workers. It is as if they believe we are so stupid we don't know what they are doing. When caught, their first reaction is disbelief that mere DOORGREETERS would dare to accuse them of shoplifting. Their second reaction is anger...at this point we get called some very colorful names and told to do things which are phyically impossible for us to do to ourselves and we are threatened. Finally comes compromise....they want to deal..."let us go and we will never, never do it again". We deal with these folks while also taking care of the needs of REAL shoppers, some of whom are no prize either. It is a relief when the LP guys (Loss Prevention) come to the door and take them off our hands. I mean, really people, if you are going to steal, at least show some originalality with it. Let me give you an example: A guy walks into the store, he is wearing his best gang colors, do-rag and dark shades (its 10 pm). He doesn't take a shopping cart like someone who is actually doing serious christmas shopping yet unlike someone in a hurry and after only one item, he saunders in very slowly and is constantly looking around...sizing up the place. As he passes me I sigh and walk over to my partner who is checking out the exit door. "Watch my door for a bit", I tell her. "I think we have a live one." She shakes her head and moves over to my spot as I step into the cart bay, out of sight and remove my vest. I come back out and begin to walk ten or fifteen feet behind my quarry as he makes his way through the store. I watch him long enough to see him hit the electronic dept. (a favorite of thieves), then I step over to a store phone and call up the LP guy on cameras and tell him to have his man on the floor back off and let the turkey go, I will take him at the door. I didn't want the thief to feel threatened and dump the merchandise. I go back to the door and don my vest and take up my happy greetings of incoming idiots. Sure enough, here comes my target, walking a bit funny and headed toward the exit... I step into his path as he nears the door. "Pardon me, sir," I say in a friendly tone. "but I need to see your reciept for the two CDs and the portible CD player." The guy...about twenty years old and about two inches taller than me...looks at me in disbelief. "Wut you talking bout man?" He demands loudly. "I ain't got nutting as you can see." He holds his empty hands out in front of him and indeed, he has nothing in them. "Of course you don't sir," I reply calmly, "but, by the looks of things, you either have them in the front of your pants or you are a VERY popular guy with the ladies." (there is a very noticable and totally out of the ordinary bulge in the front of his pants which wasn't there when he entered the store). Disbelief turns to anger: "Man, you ain't right," he yells loudly. "Only reason you stopped me is cause I'm black. you discriminating genst me!" "No sir," I tell him calmly, "I stopped you and I am discriminating against people who carry out merchandise in their CROTCH!" By this time the LP guys are at the door and surrounding him. The jig is up and he knows it. Anger turns into Comprimise.... "Aw, come on man". His voice has now turned from rightous anger, to wheedling pleads. "Let me just give this shit back to you and I promise never to do it again." "I'll make a deal with you," I tell him. "You hand the stuff over to the cop who is on his way here and we will let him decide where you spend the night." The next time I see our hero he is being led out of the store in handcuffs....all for a shade under a hundred bucks of crap he just had to steal. This is how my days go from now until the Christmas holiday is behind us. I have to deal with these thiefs AND the regular customers and I am not allowed to show anger...I can't tell them what I really think of them and their lack of any moral fiber whatsoever. And don't get me wrong, the example I have showed you happened to be a black guy...I have just as many whites doing the same thing. Age means nothing either. They can be young, old or somewhere inbetween. Like the little old lady who was shopping with a friend and when stopped at the door, begged to go to the bathroom where she dumped an electric toothbrush into the toilet that she had been trying to get out the door with.....AN ELECTRIC TOOTHBRUSH FOR GOD'S SAKE??? I have had it.....I hate this job with every fiber of my being. I want to take six months off and just write! But of course I won't. I will be there on Sunday with a smile on my face and the burning desire in my heart to be able to shoot just one of em...LOL! Ok, thank you for listening to my rant. I feel much better now. I will now go back to editing my short story collection and getting the thing ready to send off. I have one large project to finish. All the original stories are done but I have decided to make "Bygone Heart" into a novella and place it as the last story in the collection. I have to finish that on my days off this week. I will stop every now and then to check on all of your blogs and will try to reply when I can.....so keep writing em, they make my day. |
| Not really an entry today. I am making the big push to finish the edit job on the book of short stories...I still want it to the publisher by Christmas. I just wanted to edit my intro to include my wonderful christmas present from sultry. Take a look up there at her wonderful work. THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH SULTRY. I also want to share with you another of Sultry's creations. She made this for Nada who sent it to me for a christmas present....AM I A LUCKY GUY OR WHAT! Thank you so very much Nada...I love this one too! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Sound and Noise. They premeate the air around us no matter where we are. Much of what we hear we are not even aware of on a conscious level. Now there is a big difference between Sound and Noise, to me. Noise is the blaring of horns, the low growl of tires gripping the highway as traffic flows along the streets of the city or outside your bedroom window. Noise is the babel of voices in any place where people gather....like WalMart...This time of year. When the store is full of shoppers, scurrying to and fro there is a general, low roar of thousands of words from hundreds of voices overlayed with inter-com pages and canned music. Try as you might, you cannot pick out individual words....just the muted roar of the packed throng comes through. Noise is also the screeching squeal of an angry toddler. Now there is no noise on the face of the earth to compare with the noise a pissed off toddler can emit when denied what he/she feels is their right...which can be damn near ANYTHING. The sound itself is just a half decibel below that of dog whistles, which can't be heard by the human ear. Well, not only do we hear it, but it has sometimes been likened to fingernails scraping across a blackboard. Sound, on the other hand, means something altogether different to me. Sound is what is given off by the water of a small stream as it rushes pell-mell over rocks and pebbles. Sound is what greets your ears when the wind blows softly through a stand of oak trees. It sounds much like the rustle of giant petticoats in the air above your head. If that same wind blows through a pine forest you get a different sound; more a sigh or a moan as the limbs sway in a graceful dance powered by the gentle breeze. Sounds. On a cold night, when you are all alone on a deserted mesa and you hear the mournful, full throated howl of the wolf and the hair on the back of your neck stands erect from the power of that call....that is sound. I once had occasion to discover, for myself the difference between Sound and Noise. Back in the late Seventies I decided to take a little trip; I needed to get away from the world for awhile. So, I talked my brother into accompanying me on a boat trip through the Big Thicket. For those of you who have never heard of the Big Thicket it is, or was, a wildnerness area whose northern borders are not far from my hometown. The Thicket, as natives call it, once covered most of southeast Texas in an impenetrable forest of virgin pine, cypress and oak trees with underbrush so thick that traversing it was almost impossible. Today the Thicket covers 97,000 acres of protected forest and wildlife. Up until the late 50's there were parts of the Thicket that no white man and few Indians had ever walked upon. I proposed to catch Mill creek, which flows through the middle of the thicket and then empties into the Neches River, at high stage after a good rain; that is the only time it is navigatable by boat. I planned on taking a small flatbottomed boat through the thicket and into the river, then down to the gulf. Until my brother and I did it, there had only been a handfull of people to ever have made that trip....so it sounded just right for me. Well we set off in our small boat and almost at once we noticed something unusual....the absence of noise. The thick wall of the forest, at first blocked ambient noise such as cars and trucks on highways around it...then as we moved deeper into the thicket, distance from any civilization served to sever our connection with everyday noise. The only sound we would hear for days was the rush of the water and the slurp of our paddles as we pushed onward downstream. Giant Oaks and Cypress lined the banks of the stream we were on and their boughs arched over the water and interlaced with those on the other side to form a canopy over our heads that many times blotted out the sun. There is no way to describe how soul-soothing the absence of noise was for both of us....silence, except for the wind and the water and occasional animal cries were our only companions. I had never before, nor have I ever afterward felt so refreshed and renewed as I did after a week on the water in the Big Thicket...with only the Sounds of Nature to keep me company. As we experienced this, we discovered, to our wonder, that conversation was neither needed nor especially wanted....it would have disturbed natures sounds. It was almost like talking loudly in a church...you just didn't want to do that. So that is my ideas on the difference between Sound and Noise....Do you know of any other examples of Sound or Noise? I would like to hear your ideas. |
| I had planned on writing a blog today....some inane, silly blather about "Sound Vs Noise" but that all changed when I read PlannerDan 's blog entry and the new short story he wrote. Now I don't want to write anything...I want to consider the story I just read and spend some quiet time with my thoughts. Maybe I will try to write on the subject I had planned on later in the evening, or I just might wait until tomorrow. What I think I want more than anything is for all of you not to waste time reading whatever stuff I might have written and just go straight to Dan's blog and read his new short story. I believe everyone needs to read this story. It is much more important than anything I could have written today anyway.
Thank you. |
| My friend PlannerDan did a blog yesterday which really got me to thinking. Now this is not unusual, many, many times Dan's Blog inspires my own blog. Dan wrote elequently on the subject of money...the differences money makes in our lives and the different monitiary levels here on WDC. Well I agreed with Dan...there are many different levels of prosperity here on WDC. The thing is, I have discovered, that wherever you might happen to be on the social/financial ladder, it really does not matter one bit. What each of us is rich in is the Currency of Like-Minds. Our love of writing is the great leveler. I find that it doesn't matter wither we are dirt poor or live in a mansion on the hill, we all share an equal love of the written word and we are able to meet here and, without all the trappings of wealth, or the resentment of wealth, we can really get to know each other on a personal level. Our money, our Currency here on WDC is our love of writting and as such, we are all equally rich. It is wonderful here on WDC to be able to get to know a person through their words alone. It is so nice to discover that you have so much in common with a person who, in the real world, outside of writing, you might never have the opportunity to get to know. Here we are free of preconceived ideas of what a person is like because of the money they might have or might NOT have. Let me give you an example of what I am talking about with this "Currency" of ours paving the way to real friendships, no matter the differing social standings. As many of you know, who read this blog, PlannerDan and I have become fast friends through our membership here on WDC and our love of writing. We have met twice...once for dinner in Houston and once when Mel and I traveled to Dan and Linda's home, some four hours from our own.Now, the thing is, even if Dan and I lived in the same town, were it not for WDC and our mutual love of writing, we probably would never have dreamed of ever becoming friends. You see, in the real world, Dan and I live vastly different lives. Dan is a highly sucessful businessman who owns his own business. He is a respected member of a large service club and has served as a past president of that club. Dan lives in a very nice subdivision of homes, the shabbiest of which would put my own to shame. He is on the board of directors of the Homeowner's Assocation of that subdivision. In short, Dan is what I would call a very well-to-do, respected member of his community. Now in my case...well I am the very opposite of Dan. I live from check to check and we scrape along by watching our pennies. We drive two cars we bought second hand and both are 10yrs old at least. I belong to no clubs nor am I a civic leader in any stretch of the imagination. Where Dan is looking forward to retirement soon, I will work until the day I start my dirt nap. Mel and I were amazed when we went to visit Dan and Linda...their home is beautiful and about three times the size of our own little home, in fact our home would fit nicely in his back yard with room to spare. The thing is.....NONE OF THAT STUFF MATTERED! Why? Because Dan and I had gotten to know each other through WDC...without all the material trappings or lack of them getting in the way and causing us to make snap judgements about each other. We learned what was in each others HEARTS and we discovered that what was there was almost identical. We were free to discover that we were just two men who held the same things important.... We both love and cherish our wife, we both share a deep and abiding faith in God. We both love our country and believe in a personal responsibility to serve our land in whatever manner we can. In short, without MONEY getting in the way, we were free to discover that in spite of our surface differences, we could easily be brothers. I firmly believe that it was our "Currency of Like-Minds" here on WDC...our love of writing, that made it possible for us to get past all the trappings people usually hold important and learn about each other. I think it is the same with every member here on WDC. No matter what you have in the real world or what material differences exist between us we are all equal in our Currency of like-minds...we all have a love of the written word.....nothing else really matters. |
| This is going to be short today. I am working on my book of short stories and am almost ready to send it off... Now I have a plug and I want you all to go read this and meet, through his wife, one of the most interesting men I have ever had the privilage to know.
Her entry today is well worth reading and I hope she finds the chance to write more about her husband in the future. His life would make a great book. Now I gotta get back to work...see you all tomorrow. |
| Why the hell do women need so much STUFF? I have asked myself this question many times over the past five years. Yesterday, while in the shower, this question came to me again....Why is there so much STUFF in this house? Let me explain...I'm in the shower, minding my own business and like I do every morning, I reach for the soap and realize...there is everything here BUT my bar of Lava soap. For those of you from across the pond, Lava soap is just PLAIN soap, very course and grainy and will actually SCRAPE the first dirty layer of skin from your body. I don't have that anymore....I'M MARRIED NOW. What I do have is mountains of STUFF. The bathrack where the soap should be is home for three different kinds of "liquid soap" and a number of those fluffy things you use to apply said soap. Two of those bottles of liquid soap are touted to be for MEN. One of the bottles is named "Touch" and I dang sure ain't putting that on my body, the name sounds like it might enjoy the application way too much! Besides my soap issues there is the whole "hair care" issue....does anyone actually NEED four different shampoos? I think not and Conditioners...well we have four of those too. 1. "Full and Thick" 2. "Color Care" 3. "Defrizzing & Nourshing" 4. "Fruit Extracts"??? Okay, here is the problem...I'm a guy, I want a conditioner, WHICH ONE CAN I USE SAFELY WITHOUT MY HAIR FALLING OUT????? Now it doesn't stop with soap and hair care. After I get out of the shower I look over at another shelf and I see that we own three different lotions.... 1. "Skin Firming" lotion 2. "Moisturizing" lotion 3. "Advanced Healing" lotion. If I use the first one does it firm up my skin like I was twenty again? If I use the second one do I feel wet? If I use the third one am I miraculously healed and what is it healing anyway???? As usual, I decide to simply forego any usage of these products...my skin is on its own. Did I mention that there is another set of shelves with a total of 18 backup tubes and bottles of STUFF in case we run out of the others? Why do women need so much STUFF? I remember when I was single. I led an uncluttered life as do most single men and it was all good. I owned one bottle of shampoo (generic)at a time. I owned one BAR of soap....no damn fluffy thing to apply it with either. I was the proud owner of two pots and two pans. I owned four plates, forks, spoons and knifes. I needed no more after all since it was just me and two of my sons who lived in the house...we did keep the fourth plate/fork/knife/spoon in case we had company....life was good. Today I have cabnets full of pots, pans and varied cooking untinsles. I have stacks of plates, piles of forks, knifes and spoons. When I was single if I decided to move all I needed was a couple of plastic garbage bags to load stuff into my car and go. Now, if we ever decide to move its going to take a simi tractor-trailer and TWO trips to move all the STUFF we have accumulated. So you tell me......WHY DO WOMEN NEED SO MUCH STUFF? Why do women NEED so much stuff to live day by day? Personally I think it is genectic....I firmly believe that there is a STUFF gene in women that is missing in men. Women are driven to collect useless stuff and men are driven to point out their "problem" which brings me to the gene in men that women don't have. I call it the "Big Mouth" gene. This gene forces men to point out women's problems. This results in men sleeping on the couch and nursing varying degrees of bruising and head trauma.......welcome to my life. |
| This will not be a long blog entry today....I will await for the applause to die down...I just want to share some stuff with all of you. Now everyone who reads my blog knows I am a Bah Hum Bugger of the first order, much the same as my friend Scarlett. The thing is, I don't hate the Christmas holiday itself, just what has been made of it. I love the thought of celebrating the birth of Christ and I love the idea that my non-christian friends celebrate the holiday in their own way....I'm cool witha all of that. The other day my good friend and fellow blogger, Nada made a remark to one of my entries to the effect that Wal-Mart had decided not to allow their employees use the greetings: Merry Christmas, opting instead for the generic: Happy Holidays. Well I had not heard this......until today.Today I was forced to draw my own personal "line in the sand". I was told that very thing...they want us, as greeters, to use "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". Of course I asked my supervisor why and was told that Walmart did not want to EXCLUDE anyone from the holiday nor make them feel uncomfortable. In other words....POLITICAL CORRECTNESS!! I didn't make a fuss. I just listened and kept my own councle but I don't plan on following those orders. I never use the term "Merry Christmas" until much closer to the actual holiday but when that time comes I will continue to use what I always have. Walmart will have the choice to either fire me or allow me to continue to greet people in a manner which does not EXCLUDE my own beliefs or make me forsake my beliefs for the benifit of someone else's piece of mind. I don't want to make a big deal out of this...I just choose to adhere to my beliefs and not change for the sake of political correctness. If they fire me then I will go public with the story and see what the rest of the town, state and country thinks about Walmarts decision...personally a job isn't worth forsaking my beliefs for. In closing I would just like to say it is not just Walmart who is doing this but all major retailer. Well Political Correctness has to stop somewhere and I have decided that it will stop with me. Thanks for listening. |
| Please bear with me today, I have been looking backward in time for a bit. Today when I came home I decided to pull up my Blog and try to figure out the word count. Well I haven't done that yet but I did find out that, to date, my blog is 793k in size. I also realized that I have doing the blog thing since March 31, the date of my very first blog. It was fun to go back and look at the old entries and as I did I discovered another little piece of trivia...You know who was the very first person to reply to my very first blog back eight months ago? Well it was zwisis! Now she is asleep right now, or should be since it is like two a.m. in Greece but when she wakes up she is going to find a merit badge in her email. She has been there from the very first entry and has missed very few of them since...she has been a steadfast reader and I do so very much appreciate her. Now, in accordance with this nostalgic look back at the beginnings of my blog, I would like to "reprint" an entry here...this was my fourth blog entry and I was surprised to see that it was on the subject of Christmas and I wrote it in March...go figure. Anyway I thought it was approprate for today with Christmas looming over us once more. ******************************************** Entry #4--March 30, 2005.... Retail is a funny business but sometimes it’s hard to find the humor. I have held many types of jobs in my working years but most of them have revolved around retail in one form or another and the one truth that I have learned over the years is: Shopping can bring out the worse in human beings. If any of you out there doubt this statement just spend a few months working in a large retail outlet, you will see the truth. As I said the other day, I work at a Walmart Superstore and I am afforded a glimpse of human nature that folks outside of retail rarely get to see. I wonder sometimes if this phenomenon is prevalent only to America or does it exist in the rest of the world. I say this because America is such a consumer driven society, maybe the rest of the world doesn’t go crazy when they enter the portals of a store. Of course the holidays are the worse. There is nothing more frightening, from a salesperson’s point of view, than a crush of people on Christmas eve, in the throes of a shopping frenzy. I think a school of hungry sharks swimming in the midst of a group of hapless seals show more restraint than people do at this time. Last Christmas I actually saw a man walk up to a lady who was shopping in a wheelchair, the kind the store offers to the disabled with a basket on the front for their purchases. He just reached down and snatched a DVD player from her little basket and walked toward the check out line. It was the only one left and he wanted it….so he took it. Unfortunately for him too many sales clerks saw him do it and he was forced to return it to the lady. Right after Thanksgiving Walmart has what is called “The Blitz Sale”. This is the big kick off to the Christmas shopping season. Selected gift items, usually high end merchandise, is marked down to ridiculously low prices, placed on wooden pallets in the middle of the store, then the doors are thrown open and the stampede begins! It is like watching a herd of wildebeests stampeded by a pride of hunting lions while trying to negotiate a river crossing. And that is just them trying to get through the front doors. We once had an employee almost trampled when she lost her footing and fell in the mad crush of shoppers. Had it not been for a fellow sales clerk standing close by and grabbing her hand to help her up she would have been seriously injured. As it was she escaped with only minor bruising and nightmares for a few months afterward. For this they get paid minimum wage? Go figure. What is it about people and Christmas? Let us celebrate the birth of our lord Jesus: Go bankrupt buying gifts. Am I the only one who finds a problem with that philosophy? But there it is. People in America will go into serious debt for years just so their kids can have toys that they will use for a week tops before deciding they want something better. This is why, during the Christmas shopping season, I detect an underlying sense of quiet desperation among the people who wander our isles. They are driven to these excesses but they also want desperately not to have to do what they are doing. I can not see where the joy of Christmas comes to play in these people’s lives. This sad state of affairs is no longer confined to Christmas. Now even Easter has become an excuse to BUY, BUY, BUY! Can someone tell me when it became custom to buy gifts for Easter. We use to get together as a family, go to church, have a large dinner, and hide the Easter eggs for the children to find. That was it. You might buy extra eggs, some dye, and a Easter basket for the kids to put the eggs in. Now children expect to get GIFTS for Easter. MORE TOYS. MORE JUNK. More to be discarded weeks later. Why? I know, I know. The answer is simple. Big business tells us all the time on Television with their many commercials: CHRIST DIED ON THE CROSS AND ROSE FROM THE DEAD…SO BUY, BUY, BUY GIFTS! Simple isn’t it. Ok, I am rambling. I do that sometimes when I try to share my impressions of what must be the modern version of Dante’s inner circle of hell…uh…I mean retail. I will stop now and maybe next time I will discuss something lighter, like the Great Depression….Good lord! |
First off, for the Plug Corner today I would like to hightlight and plug a blogger who has been around awhile and most of you long-time bloggers are well aware of this lady's blog but there may be some newbie bloggers out there who have not had the pleasure of reading aprilbaby's blog. You need to read this blog! She always writes an informative, funny, and thoughtful blog. It is well written and a joy to read...do yourself a favor and check out...
I would also like to take this opportunity to give a great big THANK YOU to windac. If you will look up there at the left corner of my blog you will see this great big gold ribbon...thats one of those high dollar awardicons!!! AND SHE GAVE IT TO ME!!! Words can not express how thankful I am for the award or the kind words she sent along with the ribbon. I am definately gonna have to send her another bottle of wine! Thank you Winda, so very much. *************************************** Today I would like to introduce you to a character from my past...Uncle Jim Pace. Now Uncle Jim was not really my uncle, that is just what everyone called him. He and his wife, Dolly ran a little Mom and Pop General Store in Livingston when I was a kid. You know the kind of place I am talking about...hardwood floors, no air-conditioning and a pot-bellied stove for the winter chill. You could buy everything from women's stockings to finishing nails in their store. Along one wall of the store were baskets of fresh produce and fruit from the local farms and in the back was an old time meat market where Uncle Jim would sell you 25 cents worth of rat-trap cheese and a few slices of baloney for a quick lunch or you could pick out a fresh steak and he would cut it to whatever thickness you wanted. In the middle of the store stood a big old pot-belly stove and a ring of chairs stood around the stove. This is where Uncle Jim and all his old cronies sat in the winter and told tall tales and discussed the human condition and politics. In the summer they always moved their discussions outside, on the large front porch of the store. Now to be honest, the store was more a "Mom" store, than a "Mom and Pop" store because Uncle Jim pretty much left the running of the place up to his wife, Dolly. The way Uncle Jim told it, he only got into that business so that he could have something to keep Dolly busy and out of his hair, freeing him up to pursue his first love....fishing. Uncle Jim was a champion Crappie fisherman and known around five counties for his uncanny ability to coax the small white perch into his boat. Uncle Jim used the "Talk em into the boat" strategy of fishing. I can remember sitting in the boat with him and dad and watching him work his "magic". He would bait his hook and drop the line into the water. A small red and white "bobber" or cork would hold the bait at a certain depth and when the fish would take the bait, the cork would plunge under water, letting you know you had a fish on the line. But, the thing is, Jim didn't just drop his line in the water and wait, no siree. He would constantly lift up and down on his pole making the bobber dance on the surface of the water and makeing the worm jerk and twitch down there in the depths. While he was doing this, he would constantly be talking to the fish....little nonesense dittys like: "Fishy, fishy, in the brook, won't you please come bite my hook." Or: "Come on perch, you know you want it...go ahead, bite the worm...there he is, don't let him get away." All of this would be delivered in a low monotone voice as he stared intently at his quivering bobber. I once told my dad that I had a theory about Uncle Jim's sucess with this method. I told him that it was altogether likely that the fish, after a few minutes of listening to this foolish gibberish, would draw lots and the loser was ordered to bite the worm....JUST TO SHUT THE MAN UP! The thing is, he never failed to catch the most fish and as strange as it might seem, this method never worked for the rest of us. I was a kid, not over 14 or 15 at the time and I was not above trying to copy his method.....never worked for me. I remember sitting with my dad and Jim's other friends, around that stove and listening to him talk, I loved to listen to his stories. He was fond of telling everyone that his greatest goal in life was to outlive his wife and after she finally died he was gonna sell that damn store and use the money to travel around the world fishing...then he would name off all the places he wanted to visit and all the different fish he wanted to "talk into the boat". Uncle Jim was in his late 60's at the time. He lived to be 92....unfortunately Dolly lived to be 100! He never got to travel the world fishing, poor guy. What got me to thinking about Uncle Jim today was passing the spot where his old store once stood. Now there is a big, shiny, concrete and glass "Quicky Mart" standing there with its anticeptic aisles filled with junk food and big gas pumps outside. Yup, you guessed it...as soon as Uncle Jim died, Dolly sold that store to a big chain and she spent her remaining years traveling.....guys just can't win can they. |
| In lieu of an actual plug in my Plug Corner, I would like to use the space to say a couple of special "thank yous" to a couple of very special ladies who, over the past two weeks, have lifted my spirits considerabley with the gifts of Merit Badges here at WDC. First is jessiegirl who awarded me a merit badge for Journaling last week. I was blown away when I recieved this award. I read some really great blogs here every day and to think that someone considered me as being deserving of a merit badge for this is truely humbling....thank you Jessie. The next member I would like to thank is susanL who presented me with a merit badge for "Grace Under Pressure" after reading my blog about "Black Friday" at Walmart yesterday. You have no idea how much it meant to me to recieve that badge after the day I had. Both these ladies are so very kind and compassionate people, I am lucky to be able to call them friend and I would like to recommend that any of you who read here in my blog please go over and check out both of these ladies' blogs...you won't be disappointed..they are really good writers.********************************* Freedom of Speech. This is a right which we Americans are passionate about. It was one of the demands of our founding fathers insisted upon when this country won its independance. We, as Americans, are free to express our opinion on any subject without fear of reprisal from the government. The only cavate to this right is that we can not, by our word or action harm others or place others in harm's way. For example, we are restrained from yelling "Fire" in a crowded room when there is no fire, thus causing injury or undue stress to others who try to flee the non-existant fire. Like everything else, Freedom of Speech has seemed to gone through some changes over the years and today this right has taken on a disturbing twist. Today, every crackpot with extremist ideas are allowed to voice their opinion, no matter how objectionable or even dangerous those ideas might be. In fact, not only are they allowed to do this, but if anyone expresses their dislike of those ideas, they are attacked as being "intolerant" of others. Two examples of these extremist groups are the KKK and The Nation of Islam. At first glance, these two groups would seem to be at two opposite ends of the spectrum but if you look closer they are almost identical in one very special way...they both preach ethnic exclusion. The KKK of course espouses White Power and the need to seperate the white population from any people of color. The Nation of Islam preaches much the same line only they advocate the seperation of and the superiorty of, the Black race. Now to me, both these groups are repugnat. Any group that preaches a seperation of the races is a danger, especally in a country known as a "melting pot" of different peoples. Unfortunately, in our country today, both of these groups are protected by the Freedom of Speech. We have taken our Political Correctness to such an extreme that we are now afraid to speak up against any group for fear of hurting their feelings. Ok, call me old fashioned and reactionary but I firmly believe in another rule of Democracy: The Majority Rules. If any small group, or splinter of socity preaches hate then we, as Americans, not only have a right to stand up against them, but we have a responsibility to speak out. To anyone out there who feels the need to protect the right of speech for any hate group....YOU ARE WRONG. Now don't ever say no one told you. It is time, in this country, to forget political correctness and call it the way you see it. If you stand against hate, in any form, then its time to stand up and let your opinion be known. I have used merely two examples of hate groups here, there are many, many more. Fanatics, no matter the type, can not be tolerated in this day and age. If I have offened anyone by this blog entry...well if the shoe fits, wear it. I treasure all my readers, but not enough to comprimse my beliefs in any way....I hope I see some of you TOMORROW. |
As has been my habit, of late, I would like to begin with my "Plug Corner" where I happily plug new and interesting bloggers I have found here at WDC. Today I would like to plug sentimente and his wonderful blog which he has just begun:
******************************* Ok, I wasn't going to write about work today but damn, this has been the cesspool of all days for lowly workers in Retail and I just had to vent. As most of you Americans know, the day after Thanksgiving is the first day of the Christmas spend till you bleed season. Also, as most of you poor people know by now, I work for Wal-Mart, the retail equilivant of the Bermuda Triangle of Money....it enters and immediately disappears forever! Many of you, if you watch your local news tonight, will see scenes of Consumer stampedes, fist fights and general unruliness by Wal-Mart customers at different locations. Trust me, those scenes you might watch are not isolated events nor or they abbrations from the norm. THIS IS THE WAY PEOPLE ACT THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING! It was the same story at our own store. People began to line up inside the store last night around midnight, waiting the 5 a.m. start to the annual sale. I awoke this morning at 4 a.m. and by a quarter to five I was pulling into the store's parking lot. As I walked from my car, I could see the hord of shoppers pouring through the front doors like some malignat river of arvice, intent on sucking unto themeselves all the "bargins" in the store. As I entered the front door I felt much like I imagine a zebra would feel if asked to control the worlds largest pride of lions....this was gonna get ugly! Of course, management has learned some hard lessons over the years and because of this, I had one of our local policemen standing next to my post at the door for the duration of the sale. The cop's name was Leon and I have known him for years. Poor guy was definately nervous as he surveyed the milling crowd. "Man," He whispered to me. "They don't pay me enough for this shit, Hell all I got is 15 rounds in my 9mm." I cut him no slack at all. "Well big deal," I answered him in a quite voice. "They don't give us guns at all." He shook his head. "Well all I got to say is you gotta have some big cajones to stand here unarmed." "Welcome to my world," I told him. At five o'clock sharp it was as if they had flung open the gates at the Kentucky Derby...THEY WERE OFF! What followed was a nightmare of scrabling shoppers, scurrying sales clerks emotionally crippled cashiers. I was called a SOB at least 10 times, saw three fist fights, witnessed two little old ladies playing dueling electric carts while trying to reach the last Xbox, and listened as the cop radioed his chief and beg for premission to shoot someone! By two o'clock, I was done...finished...used up...it was time to drag my weary ass homeward. I am proud that once again this year I managed to get through the sale without doing bodily harm to anyone no matter how richly they deserved it. I coped with it...I sucked it up and I didn't loose it but one time. Just before I left for the day I did break down and tell one guy that he was so lucky that STUPID wasn't against the law or he would be spending the rest of his life behind bars! Now I am home and all the bad stuff is behind me. I am sitting where I belong....in front of the computer and reading my favorite bloggers...life is good again! |
In today's plug corner I would like to draw your attention to Smith blog:
********************************** I think we have safely established, by now, that today is Thanksgiving. I have always loved Thanksgiving; the food, the gathering of family, just the day given over to remembering the past and being THANKFUL for all the things we have and all the blessings that have been ours over the past year...these are the things that make this day special to me. Like everyone else who are celebrating this day, I have my own list of things I am thankful for so I thought that I might share a few of them with you. 1. I am thankful for my phyical and mental health...or what's left of it! This includes my mental health. I see men and women every day who are a few years younger than me, yet they act like old codgers! They are slow to laugh or even smile, they are soured on life. I am thankful I am still able to enjoy kid's games like Xbox and I still love practical jokes and that I would rather smile than frown. I still wake up HOPEFUL each day....I am so damned thankful for that. I think that, in my mind, I am probably about 30....not bad for an old codger. 2. I am thankful for each and every one of my children.Anyone who has had kids knows that they can be a mixed blessing. On the one hand, kids can bring you the deepest of joys...watching them grow and mature and reach their potiental is just about the most fulfilling thing in the world. These lives we started and nurtured finally move out on their own and claim their place in the world...heady stuff for a parent. Kids can also, at times, bring the deepest heartache. We just have to remember that kids are humans and as such, they are intitled to make their own mistakes and hopefully, not only live through them, but learn from them...but it is sometimes hard to watch them make those mistakes and not step in and try to correct them. After a certain age, kids need the parents to just let them do it themselves, I think. All my kids have had their share of mistakes, but so far they have managed to overcome them and move on. Two of my children have married and have families of their own and are doing a wonderful job as parents in their own turn. The other three, though not married with families, have gone out into the world and are being successful and happy....that's what counts...thier happiness. 3.I am so very thankful for having found WDC. This site has allowed me to follow my own personal dream of writing. I know, in my heart, that I will never be one of those few, famous, authors we all read about, whose words spellbind us but, thanks to the encouragement I have recieved here at WDC, I write. I will publish. I will have accomplished a dream....what more could any man or woman aspire to than to DO. 4. I am thankful for the friends I have made here on WDC. I know that some people differentiate between what they call REAL friends and VIRTUAL friends but I am not one of these. The friends I have made here are MY friends, period. I feel about each of you the same way I would if we were neighbors. You each enrich my life each day with your words and I have grown to love you all. I start each day reading your words and I finish each day doing the same thing. I interact on a personal level with you folks more than I do with people I know and actually see each and every day. I am thankful for everything you each have brought into my life. Especially, I am thankful for all the encouragement you have given me on the road to realizing my dream of writing and publishing. 5.Last, and by no means, least I am so very thankful for my wife, Mel aka Mrs Tor . She came into my life late...just five years ago...and she saved it. I am truely blessed by her presence in my life and I can assure you that I did absolutely nothing to merit such good fortune. I could go on for another 10,000 words just on the subject of her but I won't.....she knows and that is what is important. Thanks honey.*********************** There, I've done it, I have finally managed a real list of five in tribute to my sweet friend Scarlett. Now, if you will excuse me, the turkey is almost done and the dressing is calling to me..I must do a random taste test before dinner is served. After dinner, I will assume my rightful place in my recliner and enjoy some football....life is good and I am truely thankful. HAPPY THANKSGIVING MY FRIENDS! |
I think I am going to start my "Plug Corner", a place where I can shamelessly plug new bloggers or new members I have discovered who I think you all should read. My first blog plug is for
who is a personal friend of mine and lives in the same town as I do. She is a wonderful writer and I read her first blog entry....I think you will all love her.************************************ You know, if I have learned anything in the long years which I have polluted this earth, it is that you must keep the humans of the female persuasion off balance. That's right, guys, listen to your Unca Tor on this one....NEVER LET EM GET THE UPPER HAND. You see women are a funny breed, they spend an inordinate amount of time, when they first set their sights on a guy, trying to figure him out...to pidgeon-hole him into a workable catagory. Once they have accomplished this, they are well into their comfort zone...they have their man and they KNOW him well. They know how he will react in any given situation and with this knowledge, comes power! Now, let's take, for example, my own sweet, little woman, Mel. We have been together for five years now and, if you were to ask her...BEFORE TODAY....she would have told you, in a rather smug manner, I might add, that she knows her husband inside and out. She knows how I will react to any given situation and just how far she can push the envlope. Well no more... I took care of that little problem today and boy did it feel good! Today I decided to rock her world...to shake up her status quo, so to speak. You see, for five years the one thing she could always count on, this time of year, was me being the worlds biggest Scrooge. For five years I have Bah-Humbugged my way through the season and she knows this....so she has known, all this time, what she can do during the season and what will make me growl...she was in control of the situation and all was right with the world. For example, I would tell her, in no uncertain terms, the Christmas Tree could go up on the 23rd of Dec. and then we could take it down no later than the 26th. Any Christmas CDs which found their way into my house would be used as skeet for my shotgun target practice. She knew that each Christmas she had to post signs in the front yard warning would-be Carolers to give our house a wide berth on fear of phyical damage. She knew that, a week before christmas, I would hand her the check book and tell her: "Go buy presents...I don't want to know." So you see, she was armed with all the knowledge she would need to get through Christmas...she was on top of things, she was prepared! Well that brings us to today....I came home and after she greeted me at the door with a kiss and a "Hi honey." (which, by the way is equilivant to a pat on the head) I dropped the bomb on her: "HEY," I yelled. "Where is my Christmas music, and what's up with no decorations up yet?" Mel: BLINK, BLINK! Me: "While we are at it, why don't you buy some of those cute raindeer antlers for Molly this year, make her look all Christmassy." Mel AND Molly: BLINK, BLINK, BLINK! Of course, upon hearing this last one, Molly growled low in her throat, showed her teeth and the hackles on her neck rose threateningly.....ever notice how females of all species react to men's suggestions in much the same manner? Well then I went into my spel about how much I wanted some Christmas music to set the holiday mood and how maybe we could join the Carollers this year as they serenade the neighborhood. I then demanded we have wassel, misletoe, wrieths and holly all over the house..."DAMN," I yelled, DECK THE HALLS WOMAN!" As you can imagine, it worked. Her world is tilted off its axis. She suddenly realizes that she DOESN'T know all there is to know about her husband....I have set her back on her heels! Now she is wondering what's next? What will I reverse myself on next? Both she and Molly are now over on the couch, still staring at each other unbelievingly...how could this have happened on their watch, they are thinking...Now we are gonna have to tread carefully and see what else he is going to spring on us! I got them right where I want them.....a little unsure of themselves. But gawd what a price...now I gotta pretend to get all in the Christmas spirit and stuff. I wonder if its too late to back out of the caroller thing...I hate singing, especally with people I don't even enjoy TALKING to that much! Oh well, all of that is a small price to pay to oncemore get the upperhand on the dang females of this house! |
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Congrats on 500 entries, and we are all looking forward to the sequel.
