by Richard Timothy | Oct 24, 2012 | Cause to Pause, Gratefully Grateful, Non-Fiction
This month started off a little macabre, what with having two funerals less than a week apart. One was for my best friend’s dad, and the other was for my other best friend’s mom. They were two secondary parents that helped raise me as I grew up in Wyoming. Needless to say it was an emotional way to start the month.
I’m of the disposition that things don’t happen for a reason, there is such a thing and coincidence, and the only ones that know what happens when we die are the dead and they’re keeping pretty hush-hush about the whole thing. It’s all a matter of perspective really and it was my perspective that left me walking away from each funeral with a smirk on my face.
The first funeral was for Don, a school teacher and a motivator for the poetically unaware. He had a way of encouraging the poet in all of us to surface, and start writing. Plus, he introduced me to Opus and Bloom County. He loved to teach about the hero’s journey from Greek literature, and then explained that all of us will, in our life, have our own hero’s journey. The key is not to be surprised or disappointed if things don’t always go as planned.
This brings me back to the end of Don’s funeral. I had given my friend (Don’s son) a lift to the funeral, and expected to go to the cemetery with the family to finish the burial proceedings. After my friend helped carry the coffin to the hearse he came back to me and said, “My mom is going to drive in the hearse so I needed to take her car to the cemetery. You’ll be driving there alone, but just follow everyone else.”
So I did . . . well, I tried. I was near the end of the line, but at least I had plenty of people to follow. The problem was that the route the hearse took to the cemetery seemed to include a goal of going though as many traffic light intersections as possible. I kept up with traffic through the first light. The second light turned yellow, but I was sure I would be fine since there were three cars in front of me and at least one of them had to know where they were going.
Not the case. The three cars quickly turned into two cars as the first one kept going through the light. The remaining two almost instantly became one as the second car ran through the red light. A second or two later there were no cars in front of me as the remaining car inched out into the intersection and ran the light just as the cross cars started moving. I was instantly cut off by the cross traffic. I tried to keep an eye on were the cars had gone, but they were long gone by the time the light turned green.
I tried to catch up to the next lit intersection in hopes I might recognize one of the cars, but by the time I got to the next intersection, which was also a red light. It was official, I was lost. So I pulled over and called my friend to see if he could give me directions. Guess whose phone was turned off because he was at his father’s funeral? I did drive around for about ten minutes and happened across a friendly older crosswalk guard, who was happy to give me directions to the nearest cemetery.
As I drove up to the entrance of the cemetery, I saw some cars pulling in ahead of me. This was a good sign; things were starting to look up. When I saw the coffin on display above its plot, I was relieved.
I got out of my car and started walking toward the coffin. An SUV pull up and a bunch of teenagers got out holding bunches of balloons. I stopped mid-step in the middle of the road and started looking much closer at the faces in the crowd. I didn’t recognize a single face . . . I was at the wrong funeral.
When I got back into my car, I started smiling and headed to a local brewpub to get a drink and some fish and chips, because when you are on a journey things don’t always go as planned. While at the pub, I got a call from my friend telling me he had gotten lost too, and that he had just arrived there. He then told me to just go home and that he’d get someone to drop him off there later so he could pick up his car. I think Don would have appreciated people getting lost on the way to his grave site. It’s the kind of thing that inspires people to write poetry.
The second funeral was for Helen, a tiny lady (4’ 11”) that had a way of filling any room she walked into. Every time I saw her, she was genuinely filled with joy at seeing me. That was how she treated everyone, and the second I set foot in her house, I was family.
The last time I saw Helen was in August, my wife and I stayed at her home for two nights for during my 20 year high school reunion weekend. Apart from all the reminiscent sightseeing, Helen invited us to the new CallAir Museum that she was working at part time. She was 70 and needed something to keep her busy, and loved giving people tours.
With the weekend being so busy, we never had the chance to make it to the Civic Center, which is where the museum was located, to have her give us a tour. Her invitation to me to go to the museum was one of the last things she ever talked to me about, so when I arrived at the Civic Center for her funeral a smile made its way to my lips.
After the services, the museum was opened up for a short while and I was able to take Helen up on that invitation to see the museum. As I wandered around looking at the exhibits I couldn’t help but think about the coincidence of how I was able to accept her final request to visit the museum with her. Subtle, sure, but it helped with saying goodbye.
To both Helen and Don, thank you for the love, the insights, the lessons taught, and the understanding. You are loved and always fondly remembered.
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: funeral, Opus, school crosswalk guard, fish and chips and beer, and CallAir Museum.
Copyright © 2012 Richard Timothy
by Richard Timothy | Nov 30, 2011 | Gratefully Grateful, I Think There's a Point, Non-Fiction
So apparently November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short, which comes across as something that Mork of Ork would use as the punch line for one of his jokes on Mork & Mindy. The idea is that from November 1 – 30 you write like a banshee in heat and . . . okay sorry about that, bad analogy, in fact it brings up a whole slew of questions that I really don’t even want to attempt to try to answer. The goal is to write a novel during the month of November, well, 50,000 words of a story anyway, and apparently this thing has been around since 1999.
I happened to first hear about NaNoWriMo a week before November 1 of this year, and regardless of the who, what, why, when, or where, I took the plunge and devoted this month to writing a novel. I even managed to get a Smirk or two out in the process; of course it also attributed me to miss a Smirk or two in the process as well. But as of 1:15PM (with 15 minutes left in my lunch hour to spare) I hit the 50,000 word mark, thus winning the self-satisfying goal of writing a novel during the month of November . . . without actually finishing the book. On a plus note I’m right near the climax of the story, so that, and the fact that I have no outline, I’m looking forward to seeing what happens.
The whole experience did get me thinking about goals though, and how simply rearranging how we choose to identify with that goal can make it attainable when you would otherwise swear it isn’t. When I first thought of writing a book in a month, I’ll admit, I thought to myself, “Yeah, I can do that.” Being that it was my first year, there was a certain amount of novice optimism on my part, which pushed me to start off like a super star, almost doubling the recommended word goal for the first day. (To hit 50,000 words I needed to write 1,667 words every day.) With that much of a lead I did something I knew I could get away with on day two, I slacked. Getting a whopping 200 words from two paragraphs written up, leaving me well behind my goal overall and for the day.
As the month progressed I discovered that there was a little something I had overlooked that might not be a willing to comply with my goal as I had planned. That something was family, friends, work, in short, life in general. Still I had my goal and I was committed to reaching it, which meant that on more than one occasion I stayed up until 5 or 6 AM on a weekend writing to catch up so that I could reach my goal.
In the end, there were a few things that I learned from the process, things that I’d like to pass one to anyone willing to read them.
- First, when you set a goal give it a deadline. If it is a bigger goal, break it up in steps that you can assign week or month long deadlines to.
- Get local support. Let those around you know about it. If you have a significant other, let them know about it from the very beginning. That way when they come into your office wanting to watch three hours’ worth of White Collar on Netflix they are much more understanding when you tell them you can’t.
- Act, it’s that simple. A goal is something you work towards, you must act otherwise your goal is nothing more than an idea.
- Don’t forget the people around you. Make time to connect with the people in your home and life. They are much more supportive if you take a break and watch one episode, or skip and entire day of writing to cook and enjoy and amazing day with your family. It also can recharge you, if you have days that nothing seems to go right.
- Remember the goal and don’t get caught up in the idea of the goal. Fortunately, the goal was to write 50,000 words, which in my case equated to 158 pages. What I realized is that the words were the goal, not the novel. While a novel may seem like a large daunting task, words are small little things that we use every day, all day long. Words are the things that make up any and every novel. Focusing on the small pieces that make up the whole is how I met my personal goal and won the NaNoWriMo challenge for 2011.
- Celebrate when you are done. When you meet your deadline and complete your goal, celebrate your accomplishment. You did what you said you were going to do and you deserve to acknowledge you achievement. Embrace that you succeeded. (Which is exactly what I’m going to be doing tonight!)
The accomplished does feel great, but the getting there was truly the best part. That is where our stories come from . . . and ultimately where, who we are today, come from. And, even though I may have failed to mention to all of you that I was going to be in the trawls of creative literary abandonment, I just wanted to say thanks for sticking around while I wrote like a banshee in heat (sorry, I couldn’t resist). Also, yes, I’ll be sure to let you all know when this new novel is finished.
Image Sources: http://www.nanowrimo.org
And Google Images, keywords: writing, and a world of thanks.
© Richard Timothy 2011
by Richard Timothy | Sep 8, 2011 | Gratefully Grateful, My Cutie Baby Sweetie Pie, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking
This weekend brings about a delightful, memorable, and highly anticipated addition to my life as Reverend Rich (click here in the event you missed my Smirk about being a reverend). I get to perform the wedding ceremony for my oldest brother this Saturday. In preparing for this ceremony, it did get me a bit nostalgic for my own wedding almost four years ago … this in turn got me thinking about two of my favorite people, who gave Angela and I one of the most memorable wedding gifts of all time … a treasure hunt in Italy.
For clarities sake we were already heading to Italy for the honeymoon, it’s not like they surprised us with tickets there or anything. We had visited Italy a few years back and had fallen in love with the place. As a result we planned a two week visit for our honeymoon. One week some place new (Tuscany), and a week in a place we had fallen in love with the first time we went (Cinque Terre). It was our love for Cinque Terre that motivated our friends, Mike and Kathy, to visit there when they planned their trip to Italy. They returned from their trip about a week or so before our wedding.
So when they showed up on “the big day” carrying a little paper-made treasure chest that placed on the gift table, curiosity ensued. As friends and family started to gather for the reception and Angela and I found ourselves with a few free moments, Mike and Kathy brought their gift to us, insisting we open it right away and reminding us the rest of the evening that we make sure we take the contents of the chest with us to Italy.
Inside the treasure chest was a booty (treasure for you non-pirate speakers) of plastic imitation bullion, and several pages folded together. It was the paper that we needed to make sure we took with us. As I unfolded the paper there before me was a treasure map! Drawn out on papyrus looking copy paper with candle singed edged to add to its authenticity. Along with the map was a collection of printed out visual identifiers to ensure we did not get lost following the map. Then they shared the following story.
While they were in Cinque Terre they got something for us, and then with camera in hand went on a little walk. Cinque Terre is a national park that included five small fishing villages. Between the last two towns Manarola and Riomaggiore is a famous walking trail called Via dell’Amore, or “Love’s Trail”, and it was along this trail that they decided to burry our treasure. They found a side trail that had a lot less traffic and hiked away from the flow of tourists toward an isolated picnic area. Once there they found a stick and as one played lookout, the other began to dig. Once the hole was big and deep enough they placed the in treasure and covered it with dirt. Then they placed a stone square slab over the top of it so no one could tell the ground underneath had been disturbed, and scratched an X into the slabs surface, adding some dirt and dry foliage as a finishing touch to detour any interest toward the slab.
Now when you are using sticks to dig holes in the countryside along the coast of Italy during the early part of September there is a certain physical alteration that occurs. Things like an excess of perspiration, which can alter ones hair from styled to frizzy and unkempt. Also, ones face can become flushed and changes its hue to bright red. All of these things happened to Mike and Kathy and as they walked down the side trail towards the main trail some tourists who had witnessed them head up the path noticed this change as well.
Seeing Mike and Kathy head up the trail and return ten/fifteen minutes later, all flustered, flushed, sweaty, and a little out of breath led the couple to believe that my friends had been up to something not at all related to burying hidden treasure. The man nudged the woman he was with, nodded toward Mike and Kathy, held up one hand, making the “okay” hand gesture, and then with the index finger of his other had proceeded to move it in and out of the “o” making the international hand sign for “getting it on”. The couple started laughing.
“All we could do was smile and wave, and walk hastily away,” Mike told us, adding, “I wouldn’t have minded if we had been doing what we were accused of. Still, I can see how they made the mistake.”
I took the map and stuck it in my pocket, and kept it with me the rest of the night and for the flight to Italy the next day. There was a buried treasure waiting for us in Italy, and I had no intention of letting that map out of my sight.
It wasn’t until our last week in Italy that we made it back to the beloved town of Manarola in Cinque Terre. Once we arrived and got settled it was too late to venture out treasure hunting. So the very next morning … we slept in, but after a late breakfast we filled my backpack with the necessities, two large bottles of water, one back of granola, one camera, one fully charged spare battery, out Guide to Italy book, and one treasure map.
Conveniently, Manarola was the starting point for the map. The first clue was the flight of stairs that we needed to ascend to get us on “Love’s Trail”.
Once on the path we followed it until we came to the next clue, a “Bar” pole along the path. (There was a little bar along the trail that allows hikers to get a drink, sit at a shaded table, look out over the ocean and enjoy the serenity of the place. This was also the place where the couple “caught” Mike and Kathy coming down the hidden treasure path.)
Just past the bar was the next clue, “Turn left off the Love’s Trail and ascend up toward the Green Point Pic-Nic Area.”
We followed this new side path until we can to the next clue on the map, “Stop at the first blue flag with yellow stars.”
Once there we followed the next instruction, “Turn left and head toward the first pic-nic area.”
There hidden in the back corner of this area was a stone square slab that had and X scratched into the top of it. So I grabbed a stick, picked up the slab, and began to dig.
An inch or so down I hit something that wasn’t dirt. It was the rustling sound of rocks on plastic.
I shook off all the dirt and debris and opened the decaying bag.
Eureka! We found the hidden treasure chest! Granted it was a Barbie doll sized treasure chest, but a treasure chest all the same.
Inside the chest was our booty of European bullion!, which translates into a bunch of one Euro coins and a note instructing us to continue to the end of “Love’s Trail” to a quaint little café with good wine and a beautiful view of the ocean.
We continued our walk to Riomaggiore under mountain side walkways,
next to rocky cliffs and serene blue waters,
and finally arriving at the establishment that our booty was intended for the Viz Della Amore.
Even though it had been about two weeks of amazing Italian wine, I had no intention on detouring from that splendor. Angela, however, does have a soft spot for margaritas and when she saw it available on the drink menu, she could not resist the allure of enjoying a margarita in Italy.
And thus our treasure hunting in Italy came to an end, filling us with love, joy, good food, great wine, one extra strong margarita and a toast to our dear, dear friends who took the time to bury a treasure in Italy and then they gave us the map to for our wedding.
Even though the box full of coins and the lunch they purchased are long gone, the true treasure was the experience that these friends gave us. Treasure hunting in Italy is always there with us whenever we think of Cinque Terre, any time we talk about visiting Italy again, and every time we thing of our amazing honeymoon starting our life together a husband and wife. So it is with this Smirk that I wanted to thank you, Mike and Kathy, for your gift and the lifelong treasure that it, and you, shall always be to us.
Image Sources: Photos from my honeymoon and …
Google Images, keywords: treasure map and doing it hand sign.
© Richard Timothy 2011
by Richard Timothy | Apr 18, 2011 | Fiction, Gratefully Grateful, Life Characters, Nearly News, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking
With today being the 56th anniversary of Albert Einstein’s passing I thought it might be nice to dedicate today’s Smirk to the man with the crazy hair.
I get that Al was one of the most, if not the most, brilliant mind in the 20th century, but for some reason whenever I think of him, the first place I go is the image of him sticking out his tongue at the camera.
I mean sure eventually I get to the E=MC2 persona, but it always takes a little time. I’ve even watched a documentary about the man and was surprised at how obsessed he became with his work. So much so that his health started to suffer as a result, which, in my opinion, lead to this little know mathematical gem of his:
W/E = (S) : ( + CH
Work over everything equals sickness, times a sad face, plus crazy hair.
Even though his scientist friends laughed at this new formula, he knew it was true. He had lived it after all. It was during this recovery that Al discovered the importance of balance in one’s life. Work is important, but for longevity and peace of mind you have to make sure to take time for yourself and take time to laugh with life. This new philosophy resulted in the invention of an entirely new system of math for the purpose of creating the following formula:
[~~OK~~] ([~~/\~~]) = xK\~~~~ + 1 : ) [~~/\~~]*
A man in water, times a shark in water equals a dead man under water, plus one happy face shark in water.
*A special thank you to my Facebook friend Paula Caddick for educating me on the basics behind this formula.
And even though those last two equations are not to be taken a factual statements, it does not change the importance on their message or the sure brilliance of the made up math involved. Still, apart from being a genius Al is still a source of many truly grand and Smirk inspiring quotes. Here are ten of my favorites:
- “There are two ways to live your life – one is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle.”
- “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”
- “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”
- “The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.”
- “If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.”
- “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
- “The life of the individual has meaning only insofar as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful. Life is sacred, that is to say, it is the supreme value, to which all other values are subordinate.”
- “People do not grow old no matter how long we live. We never cease to stand like curious children before the great Mystery into which we were born.”
- “I am content in my later years. I have kept my good humor and take neither myself nor the next person seriously.”
- “Time is what prevents everything from happening at once.”
There are a number of Einstein photos available on the net, so to finish off this ode to Al I thought I’d give my own personal interpretation for some of my favorite Einstein photos:
Little know fact, this photo of Einstein riding a bike was the inspiration for Queen’s hit single “Bicycle Race.”
This photo of Einstein pointing at what I assume is a reporter who has a question for him seems to perfectly capture the following made up quote, “One more intentionally misleading statement out of you Mr. Rupert Murdoch and someone is gonna get the hurt real bad.”
(I was going to go with a “full my finger quote”, but that’s just too easy.)
In this photo of Al giggling profusely, what the photographer failed to miss was the puppy licking Al’s bare toes.
So on this day of remembrance, let me just say thanks Al, not just for all that science stuff, but for keeping us laughing for the 56 years since you experienced life’s greatest mystery. Here’s to you, cheers!
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: Albert Einstein and puppy licking toes.
© Richard Timothy 2011
by Richard Timothy | Jan 7, 2011 | Confessed Confidentially, Gratefully Grateful, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking
I’ve been getting a few messages here and there about my decline in the number of Smirks I’ve been releasing lately… have you ever had a conversation in your head where you explain what is going to be happening and then you think you already had that conversation with someone that needed to know the information, but in reality you never did? So yeah, my mistake… sorry about that.
It was a result of the conference I went to in DC, out of the days and days of jammed packed information they shared with everyone there, the one thing that I put in my pocket and brought home with me to make a change was, “make a decision, and then stick to it.” I have an ever growing list of things that I want to write about, or do, or both.
I had felt myself getting spread a little thin, a lot like butter on toast for someone on a cholesterol free diet. With everything I wanted to do I tried to do as much as possible, an hour on one project, a few hours on my writing and recording Smirks, working on the novel, trying to decide which novel to work on, researching ways to share my writing with more people, hours getting Smirks rewritten into stories for submissions, so one and so forth. The thing was I had a lot to do and was working like crazy, but was making little to no progress in anything at all.
So the “make a decision” statement, be it simple and obvious, struck me as quite profound because that was the one thing I hadn’t done. Making a decision to do everything essentially became making a decision to not get anything done, at least for me. So I refocused, what was the one thing I wanted most of all in 2011… my novel to be a reality that I could share with those interested in reading. Once I got home, that is the direction I began writing. I’ve had a few people review volume one of my series and gave me some brilliant feedback, which has been the direction I’ve been taking the book… I’d like to think that rewrite number five is the charm.
The thing is it’s time for me to be done with volume one so I can get working on volume 2, or some of the other stories I have already outlined, or compiling my Smirks into a 2009 and 2010 collections, or… well you get the point. So I chose to limit the time I spent on my Smirks, making the novel my first priority until it is complete. This explains why my Smirks have declined to once (maybe twice a week), and will probably remain that way for a bit longer.
I have no plans on stopping my Smirks, it is something that I love completely. I do have to say that when I initially started it was because I wanted to share something that would make others smile and possibly laugh out loud to themselves. The thing I received that I didn’t expect was the exchange that it has become, the comments that people leave either on the blog, or on Facebook, or messages that are sent to me, they are stories from readers who have their own story related to the topic I Smirked about. From these stories, I am getting the exact same thing in return that I wanted to accomplish with my stories… I am given stories that make me smile and even get me laughing out loud to myself.
So thanks for reading and more than that, thanks for sharing. It’s been absolutely brilliant.
I think that covers it, a fair explanation of why your weekly dosage of Smirks has dwindled a tad. No worries though, they are still around and will be grazing here at least once a week. Cheers!
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: string around finger, surrounded by work, and laughing at computer.
by Richard Timothy | Oct 14, 2010 | Gratefully Grateful, Horribly Horrible, I Think There's a Point, Lightbulbs and Soapboxes, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking
My sweetie-baby-cutie-pie-wifey-pooh and I have a system for packing for trips. This system is fairly common practice for people that have attended, are attending, or may attend the ‘Last Minute School of Preparation’. Although for the record, we did not pack last minute for our Hawaii trip… we packed three minutes prior to last minute. I always look at last minute as, well, just that. The fact that Angela and I got to take a two hour nap before driving to the airport I feel shows you our proficiency at packing just before the last minute.
There are a few things that acting, or in our case packing, last minute enables you to experience. Here are a few of my personal favorites:
- The a fore mentioned two hour nap. I’m a fan of naps, and even though I will most likely be sleeping on the plane to whatever destination a waits, starting a flight with a nap that is just long enough to leave me sleepy is a nice preparatory event before I begin my on plane nap.
- No double-checking your luggage before leaving. It means that I will always have the Goonies adventure quality about my trip. Because I don’t have time to double-check my bags there is no telling if I remembered everything and it isn’t until I’m in the middle of a hotel room in a new city, country, planet, etc. were I discover if I am going to need to get creative about doing my hair because I forgot a brush, or that I need to get out into my new environment to experience my new surroundings and find a store that sells what I forgot. (I only used a plastic fork to comb my hair for the first day. When Angela caught me using it, she made us go to a store to buy a small cheap brush for the trip.)
- The giggles. In my experience it is inevitable that, at some point in the late night hours when I am tired and wanting to go to sleep but am still packing, I hit that loopy stage where everything is so much funnier than it would have been had I actually gotten some sleep. I’ve never felt bad about an uncontrollable giggle fit and packing three minutes to ‘last minute’ is always good for at least one of those… sometimes more.
The flight to Hawaii was in two parts. The first flight went to Phoenix Arizona. I slept through the whole thing. I attempted the nodding off routine of falling asleep in an upright sitting position, but when my head dropped down for the first nod it didn’t come back up until an hour later when the captain announced that we had begun our decent to Phoenix. It was grand. The flight from Phoenix to Maui on the other hand was a flyway to hell (feel free to sing that in your best AC/DC voice).
You know that feeling when you get an ice cream cone filled with two scoops of your favorite flavors and just as you step out of the store, even before you have taken a single lick, your hands fumble and you watch in Hollywood slow motion as your treat of creamy goodness falls to the ground to become completely inedible crushing your dreams that there is anything good in this world? Yeah, well I had that exact same feeling when I walked onto the airplane and saw two of the three seats in front of me being occupied by little kids. The mother sitting in the middle seat separating the two children is what gave me a false sense of hope that maybe it wasn’t going to be ‘that bad’. Damn you ‘false sense of hope’ and your deceitful ways.
The sperm donor, I mean father, was in the chair across the aisle. Actually scratch that, he was a donor because during the six plus hours on the flight I saw him do zero in regards to being a father. In fact I would give him negative points because at only one point during the flight did he remove his headphones and stopped watching movies on his iPad. It was during this iPad break that his wife actually told him, “I need some help. I am asking you to help me.” His response to this was to put his head phones back on and ignore her and the kids with even more vigor than he had done before.
The little boy was by far the more horrid of the two evils, er kids, mainly because he would not shut the hell up. Seriously, for the entire flight he did not stop talking once. And the extent of the mother’s parental ability was to remain sitting in her seat and say “shhhhh” repeatedly and then ignore the kids. At one point the little monster had to go to the toilet. He did this by announcing to the entire plane that he had to poop. Then, because there was a line to get to the toilet, he spent five minutes waiting for his turn standing in the aisle announcing that he needed to poop. He even informed the mother at one point that he was just going to poop in the aisle. The mother had the insight to hold on to his hand while they waited in line after his started to undo his belt after the pooping in the aisle comment.
You know, I miss the days when parents would beat their children. Not with the excitable vigor of Rocky Balboa taking on the USSR, but a nice heartfelt smack on the rump when the kids were being little shi… fecal matters. I mean I know it’s the parents fault, but perhaps if the parents had been beaten as children then they would have not grown up to be such worthless parents themselves. Besides, let’s say a kid throws a fit on a plane and is making the plane ride a horrific experience for everyone on the plane, I think that spanking the child in front of all of those people would be a nice way to publically apologize to everyone on that plane for your failure as a parent and your child’s lack of behavior. I know I’d appreciate seeing the little bastard getting a quick smack on the butt. I’d probably even say thank you.
Now even though I’m a reverend I’m not the type of person to bless people. However, if I thought it would do any good I would bless this family with infertility, sterility, barrenness, and unfruitfulness … and a lifetime of failures in the adoption department. I mean sure let them have a long full life and die of natural causes, but family lines go extinct all the time; I just happen to be of the opinion that this family is one that deserves be part of the family line extinction.
However, there was one positive thing that happened from all of this, the sheer nirvana I felt getting off of that plane and away from that family. Sometimes it’s the little things you have to take with you and that one lasted the entire time I was in Maui. Hell, it even got me through the two and a half hour delay and entire plane ride home.
What are your thoughts on the topic of bad kids and worse parents?
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: last minute, unpacking suitcase, bad kids on plane, depressed, bad parents, and happy day.
I tried to catch up to the next lit intersection in hopes I might recognize one of the cars, but by the time I got to the next intersection, which was also a red light. It was official, I was lost. So I pulled over and called my friend to see if he could give me directions. Guess whose phone was turned off because he was at his father’s funeral? I did drive around for about ten minutes and happened across a friendly older crosswalk guard, who was happy to give me directions to the nearest cemetery. 
