Month: September 2010 Page 1 of 2

Miss Misery

On September 27, 2010

Miss me? I have been working my patootie off! Seriously, I’ve lost 5 pounds. I’m on the “Hard Work Diet.” Very effective.

I think someone is trying to tell me something – like I should be getting away from electronics and getting back to nature or back to bed.

Here’s what’s been going on in my life:

1. No internet again at my job. I did get it up for awhile but then it went down. I wonder if there’s Viagra for wireless connections?

2. I have a tech who is charging me $100 per hour so that he can explain to me the reasons I don’t have internet and he’ll have to come back tomorrow to fix it.

3. My Mac computer at home, the really nice and expensive iMac 24-incher, has dark streaks on it like it’s a worn out Etch-A-Sketch. I tried to rub one off but it’s under the screen. This does not bode well – and they’re growing.

4. The printers at work don’t work. Actually, all of them work except the one everyone wants to use. Everyone blames me.

5. Yesterday I spilled water on my daughter’s cell phone and it started going haywire. She ran through the house screaming, “Where’s the rice?” She buried the phone in a bowl of dry rice and it worked today. The rice absorbs the moisture. This is an old geeks’ tale but it does seem to work, and it’s the only thing working electronically around me – probably because it wasn’t mine.

Okay, that’s all except that I brought some work home to print and I got it half done and my toner went out. It’s been saying it would for weeks, but I didn’t believe it. Now that I really need those copies, I can’t get them because Xerox isn’t open at night and I didn’t plan ahead. Those “toner low” signals start about 2 weeks after you put in a new cartridge. How was I supposed to know tonight was the night, after all these months, that the toner actually did need to be replaced?

Yes, I’m as bored as you are about all this technical stuff. And since I must drive across town in the morning and meet that pricey tech at 6:00 a.m., I will bid you goodbye.

Oh, and I just watched Tosh.O again. Such a fun show. That’s what I needed tonight – to see how miserable the rest of the world is. Not that it takes any of my misery away, but you know the saying, “Misery loves Tosh Point Oh!”

Why I Feel So Stupid

By Suzanne Olsen

On September 25, 2010

In Computers

I realize we are in the dark ages when it comes to technology. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING works like it’s supposed to. I have neglected posting for three days because of technology. That I can write this post and you can read it because of technology is neither here nor there.

I have been sold technology that does not function, and the techs representing the people who sold it to me don’t know any more about it than I do.

You are thinking I’m about as dumb as a screen door on a submarine. Yes you are. I can feel it. You think, “How could that ditz fall for all these people making all these promises that are apparently all lies just to get her to purchase technology that will not only solve her problem but will make matters worse?”

I feel like someone left a bag full of crap on my front porch and lit it on fire, and I ran out and stomped it out and then realized I’d pounded crap into the ridges in my shoes so deep it would take a sandblaster to get out, and then the doorbell rang again and I ran out and stomped the fire out again, and then the doorbell rang again. Right now I’m sitting here with crap I’ve tracked all through the house because I’m too exhausted to take off my shoes. Figuratively speaking, of course.

I mentioned a couple of days ago that the internet where I work is gone, thanks to a smooth salesman from the phone company that rhymes with PEST. Then I got wireless internet and OH BOY it’s so fast on ONE of my computers. Unfortunately, I’ve got EIGHT computers that need to be on the internet.

I was told the new device would serve eight, and silly me, I believed it. When I could only get a signal on one, I called the tech support people at a company whose name rhymes with PIMP except their name has a “t” on the end. They said, in the first place, it could only provide internet to seven computers at the same time. In the second place, everyone would have to log in and out all the time. I kept saying, “Are you serious? We can’t just turn on our computers and go on the internet?” Nope. We’d have to go through a convoluted process that I kept making her repeat because I just couldn’t believe it. She started getting a little cranky, like not only was I a stupid oaf, but I had no memory and why did my call have to end up with her?

I’m pretty tech savvy about most things. I can set up wireless networks and troubleshoot computers. I know my way around Macs and PC’s. When I talk to these people, I ask all the right questions, specifically, “Now exactly how do I access the printers that are on our wireless network? This wireless internet still lets me access all my printers, right?”

“Oh yes, you’ll still be able to access your printers. No problem!” Well, it’s no problem as long as you don’t use your wireless printer and wireless internet AT THE SAME TIME. One interferes with the other. It is virtually impossible, according to the hour-long conversation with that tech woman, to print something off the internet. Hmmm, that’s not what the salesperson told me, and you’d think he would have known that.

I’m convinced that all salespeople nowadays must first pass courses titled, “Principles of Unethical Salesmanship 101,” “How to Sleep Like a Baby Knowing You’ve Made A Commission on a Product that Will Keep the Customer Awake at Night Worrying About How to Make It Work,” and “How to Speak Very, Very Fast When Going Over the Fine Print,” and let’s not forget, “How to Fool Even Smart, Tech Savvy People, Especially When They Are Desperate for a Solution.”

I would write more, but honestly, I have many, many tech support people to call today. If you don’t hear from me for a few days, you’ll know I’m still on hold while they check something (tech speak for “while I consult the manual that will tell me what ridiculous answer to give this woman so she’ll hang up and leave me alone!”)

Tomorrow Has GOT to Be a Better Day

By Suzanne Olsen

On September 20, 2010

In Gadgets

Oh my goodness what a day. Things unraveled like the hem of a skirt when that one thread gets pulled and the whole hem starts coming loose and hanging down three-quarters of the way around and the little thread drags on the ground as you walk down the hall. That’s the kind of day it was.

First, the phones rang non-stop. For the most part, each phone call was someone wanting to explain something in the tiniest, most exacting detail, so that the receptionist was tied up and couldn’t get the other calls. The other calls called back which caused more calls.

Then the copier ran out of magenta toner and went on strike. It refused to produce even mundane black and white copies, like some diva who wanted everything just so or she wasn’t going on stage. No problem, because there was a nice pretty box of magenta toner sitting under the yellow and cyan boxes. I moved those and picked up the magenta. It was so lightweight I thought, “This feels empty.” It was!

I’ve only been at this job for about a month, and how was I to know that the previous person stacked two full toner boxes on one empty one to produce the optical illusion that there was, in fact, plenty of toner and no one should worry their pretty little head about it running out? It looked like we were set for a long time.

Come to find out, the toner had to be ordered online, and takes a while to be delivered. No one online would own up to how long it would take to arrive. One company said it usually ships in two days, but if you continued reading you discovered that it was two days AFTER the 1-2 days it would take to process.

I refused to let this waste of a morning finding toner get me down because I had the phone company trainer coming in the afternoon to teach us how to use the phone system. It is so complicated and no one knows how to program the phones, so we were all pretty excited. But the guy who came was over an hour late for his appointment, and he was determined to explain things to us that we had no interest in learning. This phone has about 150 pages of options that make absolutely no sense to anyone who is not a trained technician, and even this guy was scratching his head with the dumb vacant look of a man looking at an Einstein equation on a blackboard. He stared at the phone and cocked his head from side to side like a dog.

I finally asked, “Can we just get the phones to ring and go to one voicemail area, AND change the message to say, “Leave a message after the beep,” instead of saying, “if you want sales, press 108, if you want accounting, press 147, for customer service, press 896, if you want cream with your coffee, press 9432, if you want….” Customers had to listen to about 4 hours of options in order to leave a message, and then, since no one knew how to operate the phones, the messages just went out to space. This is a very convenient way to do business if your end desire is to lose all your customers, which I’m beginning to suspect was the former manager’s intention. That or drive his replacement crazy. It would help explain the dummy toner box.

The phone tech guy told me the instructions and I wrote them down, but before I could test it he had to leave because by now he was 3 hours late for his next appointment. We tried to record an outgoing message but the phone wouldn’t let us. So we called our phone company and they gave us the same instructions, and were baffled when the message wouldn’t record. Then they promised to call back and did not.

Meantime, I tested the phone by calling it from my cell phone, and I got the long, long message, and after waiting for 20 minutes for it to cycle from beginning to end, it said, “That is not a valid mailbox,” and started the whole recording all over again.

There were many more tragedies and mishaps today, but if you’ve stuck with me this far, I’d say you’ve been through enough. Tomorrow HAS to be better or there will be some phone and copier assassinations at work. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Hemorrhoidic Flaggers

By Suzanne Olsen

On September 16, 2010

In Uncategorized

I walk my dog every day at a park near my house. Today on the way I saw this humongous flashing sign that said “CAUTION.”

“Oh no,” I thought. “What mysterious, horrible fate awaits me ‘round yonder bend?” I braced myself for a giant pit in the road or a 10-car pile up.

Turns out that huge “CAUTION” was to alert me that a few yards down the road, four public employees from the Department of Transportation, commonly referred to as flaggers, would be at a four way intersection holding stops signs and standing right next to the stop signs that have been there for years.

Road construction a couple of streets over is causing a detour through this four-way intersection. Apparently the Department of Burning Through Taxpayer Money felt that the detoured motorists would not be able to manage to stop by themselves without the highly skilled assistance of four full-time (+ benefits) city employees.

To alleviate confusion, these diligent employees took cardboard and taped it over the existing stop signs to prevent people from stopping. This is no easy feat, because drivers can plainly see that there are stop signs under there. The octagonal sides stick out all around the square cardboard. This is a sleepy, local neighborhood street, and we are all used to stopping there. A man holding a sign that says, “Slow” just confuses the hell out of us. We have been given tickets, indeed very expensive tickets, on more than one occasion for going “slow” at a stop sign without actually making a complete “stop.”

So even though a man is holding a stop sign on a stick and it’s turned to the “slow” side, it still has a stop sign shape, and it’s right beside a real stop sign (albeit covered in scrap cardboard). Therefore, this morning, I approached cautiously (heeding the aforementioned big flashing sign) and when I got to the intersection, I stopped automatically out of habit.

The man with the sign did not like this one bit. He bent down and looked into my passenger window and signaled me frantically to keep rolling, his whole arm going round and round, as if I were the one-thousandth person to come to a complete stop already that morning. His lips were pursed, eyes bugging out, and he had a look of “you stupid woman” on his face, clearly indicating his impatience with my inability to comprehend the simple instructions on his “Slow” sign.

I looked all around, pretending to be afraid that someone from the other three stop areas might run into me if I proceeded, and this irritated him so much that I think he might have given himself hemorrhoids from the strain of trying to get me to proceed through the intersection. There were no cars within a thousand miles of the place, so I’m not sure what the big frigging hurry was, but I was absolutely in the wrong, and he wanted to make sure I knew it.

I got immense pleasure from the whole ludicrous thing. These employees have been there for months doing a piss poor job of standing in for stop signs. I’ve seen them delay people when no one was coming in any direction, like control freaks with a little power and no way to exercise it except to stop law-abiding citizens or force them not to stop, whatever their whimsy dictates at the time. Or try to make me personally feel bad because I wasn’t able to run the stop sign fast enough to suit them.

Twice a day I have to endure this for the sake of my dog. Twice a day I approach the empty intersection and have four people staring at me as they decide whether to make me stop and wait when no other car is there, or force me to speed through when everything in my being wants me to stop.

I hope they all get rhoids.

Subway Heat

By Suzanne Olsen

On September 15, 2010

In Food

My daughter and I got Subway sandwiches tonight. Both of us ordered every vegetable, including those blazing jalapeño peppers.

I love those things, but as soon as I eat one I start coughing violently. The peppers burn my throat so much I can’t even stop coughing long enough to drink cold water.

“Mom, you always do this,” my daughter said with disgust. “You always eat that hot stuff and gag for ten minutes.”

“But I love it so,” I said a few minutes later when I could gasp out an answer.

I ordered the entire assortment of vegetables, oil and vinegar, salt and pepper, mustard, cheese – everything you could think of, and all I could taste were those jalapeños.

“I don’t know why I get all this stuff, all I can taste is the jalapeños,” I said. “And they’re burning my mouth so much it hurts.”

“Why do you do it?” she asked with the interest of a teenager bored with her mother’s foolish habits but trained to be polite.

“I love them,” I said, like some junkie justifying my habit.

The bad thing about getting ALL the vegetables is that there is no physical way they can fit between two buns. The guy finishes loading the sandwich and flips the top bun over and it just sticks straight up in the air – it makes an “L” shape. He has to bear down with both hands – hard – to get the top to go halfway over the sandwich. Then he wraps it really quickly and stuffs it into a plastic sleeve to further insure its stability.

At home, when I try to open the wrap, lettuce springs out like confetti from one of those little pop bottle things you aim at people on New Year’s Eve. Chunks of green pepper and onions cascade to my lap in a veggie waterfall. The liquid ooze of all that vinegar and oil and mustard and smushed tomatoes drips out the bottom. If I don’t put a plate under there, and I usually don’t because I’m sitting in front of the TV, my lap looks like somebody tossed a salad on it.

Another thing. Subway needs to quit carrying those salt and vinegar potato chips. Those things are too good. While the guy was making my sandwiches, I grabbed a bag and scarfed down all 230 calories before he was done. Jared would be so ashamed of me. Man oh man are those things addictive. My mouth was puckered from the salt and acid from the vinegar, but it was worth it.

I believe I had better hit the hay early because I’m probably going to have the WORST nightmares after consuming all of those things so late at night. My my my, the little culinary delights in life make the days bright and the nights a fright, but that’s all right. Ahhh, goodnight.

Witchteria Lane

By Suzanne Olsen

On September 14, 2010

In People

I played a really fun game called Mexican Train tonight with some of my friends.

The evening was great except for one thing. Patty’s house, where we had it, is on a flag lot down a narrow lane. She warned those of us who hadn’t been there before, “Whatever you do, don’t park in the lane because the neighbor thinks she owns it and she’ll get really mad.”

I stayed at work too long so I arrived at Patty’s about an hour late. I drove up her long driveway but there was nowhere left to park, and it was too narrow to turn, so I had to drive the few extra feet up to the cranky neighbor’s. She had ample room for me to turn around.

When I got beside her house, I saw her coming out her door toward me, but I pretended I didn’t see her and started maneuvering my turn. She came up to my car and tapped on the passenger window. I rolled it down and said, “Hi!” all bright and cheery.

“Could you please tell Patty I don’t want any more of you people turning around in my driveway. There have been 5 or 6 cars already.”

“Oh, I’m SO sorry,” I said, turning on my southern charm. “I’m really late so I know I’ll be the last one.”

“Well, we’re expecting company tonight and I need this lane clear and I don’t want anyone else coming up here.”

Before turning I noticed a ladder next to her hedge, and an extension cord running from the house, across the driveway, to a set of electric pruners lying beside the ladder. Who trims their hedge at 7:00 at night if they’ve got company on the way? I decided not to bring this up because the woman gave me the creeps.

“Well, I can assure you that I’m the last one here because no one is ever as late as I am.”

“Well, you be sure to tell Patty what I said.” Then she looked at me and said, “I think I’d better go over there and tell her myself.”

I could just see this half crazy woman with her unnaturally black hair and her black flashing eyes twitching and blinking as she cussed sweet little Patty out in front of all of us. I wasn’t going to let that happen. Not on my watch. For one thing, this group of women might have pounced on her and stuffed her into a garbage can. We’re pretty feisty. The police would be called. Someone would go to jail.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” I cooed. “Trust me, I have always been the very last one to arrive every single time, and I can guarantee that no one else will come.”

She glared those black eyes at me and I could see that she thought I was no better than coughed up bile. I rushed out of her lair before she had a chance to get the hedge trimmers after me.

I found a parking spot a million miles away and jogged across the street carrying my brownies and a bottle of red wine. When I turned into the driveway I saw that the old hag had put that ladder right in the middle of the road so no one could go on her property.

Now there’s a welcoming sight for her alleged “company.”

I don’t know why people have to be this spiteful. If I hadn’t been so late, maybe I would have climbed out of my car and said, “Well! Since you don’t want me to turn around in your driveway I guess I’ll just leave my car here and you can have it towed. And by the way, that’s what you are. A warty old toad. Why don’t you get some civility and quit acting like a constipated badger?” But I didn’t. I smiled and told her to enjoy her evening, and left her to her private fuming.

Silence is often the best way to goad a toad.

Key West’s Moons

By Suzanne Olsen

On September 13, 2010

In Vacations

I wrote yesterday about how bad our priest sang and last night I didn’t sleep a wink I felt so guilty. Tonight I went to a school meeting, and afterward one of the moms came up to me and said, “I saw you sitting way across from me at church on Sunday. Did you see me gasp when the priest started singing?”

“Oh my gosh,” I said, “Can you believe his voice?”

“It’s horrible,” she said. “I literally gasped out loud, and I know I had a look of horror on my face. Then I saw you across the church and you were laughing and trying to cover it up.”

“His voice is shocking,” I said. We commiserated a few minutes more about the torture of hearing such a well-spoken man sing like a rooster with his leg being gnawed by an iguana.

I still feel a little guilty talking about him, but on the other hand, this now appears to be common knowledge and therefore is simply an observation and should not carry with it a stigma of guilt. That’s my theory anyway.

Not to change the subject, but I went to an open house yesterday afternoon and met a nice, older lady who retired to Naples, Florida. Talking to her reminded me of when I was 19 and spent the summer with two girlfriends near there, in Ft. Myers Beach.

One of them, Mary, and I decided to drive to Key West in her little ancient Opal Cadet – a perky little car with a lawn mower for an engine. We were on a backroad out in the middle of nowhere when we came upon a pickup truck carrying three hooligans. They stood up in the truck, which was going pretty slow, and started making obscene gestures. We slowed down, but they were creeping along and we would have had to stop cold for them to get out of sight.

We saw them give each other a look and pretty soon all three of them had dropped their shorts and started mooning us at practically point blank range. We had nowhere else to look! We slowed down almost to a stop, but so did the truck.

“Get us out of here, Mary,” I screamed.

“I didn’t drive all the way down here to have to stare at three hairy assholes,” Mary said. She downshifted that little Opal into second and started to pass. They sped up. She shifted into third and we started making headway. It was a straight, narrow road and we would have been doomed if someone had been in the other lane, but I don’t think Mary would have slowed down. Her face was red and her knuckles were white on the steering wheel. She had an East Tennessee hillbilly anger that was boiling like a whistling teakettle.

I started rocking back and forth to help the car’s momentum, coaxing it to go faster. When we were neck and neck with the driver, he turned and gave us a grin that showed all eleven of his stained yellow teeth. These were the kind of guys who’d run you into the ditch and laugh as they deflowered your maidenhood.

“Give it some more gas,” I screamed.

“I’ve got it on the floor,” she yelled. I rocked harder. We finally got far enough ahead that we could pull in front of the truck. Simultaneously we threw our hands out the window and let our fingers do the talking.

They didn’t like that and started gaining on us. I rocked faster. Mary started rocking too. “Come on, baby, come on,” we begged.

The chase only lasted a couple more minutes before the farm boys gave up.

What does this have to do with the singing priest? If you figure it out, please let me know.

Who’s the Judge of Judgmental?

By Suzanne Olsen

On September 12, 2010

In Religion

I have written before about how I don’t care for the current fashion trend of showing vast amounts of cleavage. There are some of you who probably think I’m just jealous. You’re right.

Perhaps this is why I get so TIRED of seeing cleavage all the time. And why today at church was a good day, because for some reason I didn’t see any at all. None. Caput. Zip. Nil. Nada.

I can’t tell you how happy this made me. It seems that the people with the most willingness to put their cleavage on display are overweight women, women who’ve had a boob job, and women wearing inhumane bras that squish breasts out the top like squeezed water balloons.

I personally find them more distractive than attractive. It’s rare to see just plain natural cleavage from a normal-sized person.

Thus, it was a dull morning in church since I didn’t have cleavage to scoff at. That was probably a good thing, because the priest lectured us about being judgmental.

The thing that bothers me about this churchy live-and-let-live, forgive-and-forget attitude is that it completely obliterates any kind of gossip. Where does a person draw the line when talking about people’s foibles?

For instance, if I want to poke fun at someone’s cleavage, that’s my opinion and I’m entitled to it, right? But if I talk about it to someone else, and describe it as sagging below the woman’s waist due to – at least – 80 pounds of bosom, is this being judgmental?

And if I happen to mention that this same priest, who has such a rich, full, commanding voice, if I say he couldn’t carry a tune in a wheelbarrow, is that also wrong? Because this guy opens his mouth and it’s like an actor who’s been paid to sing badly, except WAY worse. His voice is high, then low, then flat – all in about ten seconds. I’ve never actually heard a human sing that bad, paid or otherwise.

I wonder why he can’t hear his caterwauling through the microphone? Can’t he hear the poor organist switching up her music to try and harmonize with him? Doesn’t he see the grimaces on the congregation’s faces? Can’t he hear the dogs howling in the distance?

So it sounds like from the sermon today I have to be nice, and rolling my eyes toward my daughter and whispering, “He can’t sing,” isn’t the right thing to do. And yet, if I just report the facts, isn’t that okay? The facts being that it takes all my willpower not plug my ears with my fingers.

Now I’m feeling guilty about writing this, but I have waited too late and it’s bedtime so I can’t possibly start over from scratch. I’m hoping the Good Lord has a sense of humor…and is exceptionally forgiving.

Kiss My Glass

By Suzanne Olsen

On September 11, 2010

In Home Life

I won some really pretty wine glasses at a bunko game. There were four in the box and each had a different color and design. I found out where they came from and was thrilled to get another box at a great price.

I’ve had them a couple of years, and every time I use them I have to wipe them off – they get this little film on them. Does some filmy fog creep in there during the night? Some nasty little vermin spreading a dull cloud over my favorite glasses?

Many’s the time someone has dropped by and I’ve offered them a neighborly glass of wine. I reach for these first because they are front and center and they’re so pretty. I’ll pull one out and am appalled when I start to pour the wine. If the person doesn’t see the glass, I grab a towel and wipe it clean. If they do see it, I make a joke, “Well, you can tell my husband washed this one. Men, they don’t pay attention to detail. Ha Ha.” Then I scramble to find a “clean” glass.

I just washed these glasses a few days ago, and I noticed that they are fogged up again. There is something in these glasses – some chemical – that makes them film up like someone didn’t rinse the soap off.

Who in the heck makes a product like that? What was the conversation like in that manufacturing plant?

First day: “Pretty nice set of glasses we designed here, Bob. Ladies are gonna love ‘em. We’ll make a whole bunch of these.”

Third day, “Hmmm, boys, these glasses got a little coating on them like they’re dirty, better wash ‘em before you box ‘em up.”

Fifth day: “You can’t even see through these glasses. How the hell many did we make like this? EIGHTY-TWO BILLION!!!??? What the hell’s the matter with them? Are they fit to drink out of?”

Seventh day: “Okay, here’s what you do. Ship ‘em straight to the discount stores. At least we won’t have to take a 100% loss on ’em. I’d like to know whose brilliant idea it was to make these friggin’ things anyway. What did you say? Oh, shut up, will ya and get these sons of bitches out of my sight.”

I bet it happened just like that and you and I, the innocent consumers, purchased these products in good faith expecting that we’ve gotten a great deal and some real value for our discount store money, and then look what happens.

My daughter is a science whiz – wants to be a physicist – and she says there’s some chemical in the glass that is causing them to oxidize with the air. Since they have to be stored on the planet Earth where we are surrounded by AIR, I suppose there’s nothing I can do about it. Unless I move to Mars. But then no one would come visit to offer a glass of wine to, so what good would that do me?

The sad thing is it’s taken me two years to figure out that it’s not my husband’s lousy washing that’s causing these ugly glasses.

I wonder if I can return them to the store for a refund after two years? Probably not. Maybe I’ll donate them to my daughter’s chemistry class so they can experiment on them, because now I’m too chicken to drink out of ‘em.

Just Like My Momma

By Suzanne Olsen

On September 9, 2010

In inspiration

I was listening to a book on tape today and the guy was lamenting that he had become just like his father.

I am happy to say that I’m like my mother in many ways. Like her, I try to see the funny things in life. Lord knows there’s plenty of not-funny stuff to draw my attention away and make me grumpy, but I try to find things that will amuse me whenever I can.

For instance, my son and I happened to be looking at the two giant goldfish we’ve had for about six years. One fish is way bigger, and he’s a bully.

“Watch that big one chase the little one away from the food,” I said.

“Keep watching, he’ll do it in just a minute, he always does.”

“Any second now.”

“He ALWAYS chases the other fish, every time I feed them. Just because you’re watching he refuses to do it.”

Of course the stupid bully fish decided to be on his best behavior to make me look bad. Every time I try to show someone something, it doesn’t happen.

“That fish is just like the dog,” I said. “You tell that dog to do something in front of anyone and she absolutely refuses to do it until the second the person looks away.”

My son chuckled. Music to my ears – making someone else laugh.

It’s the little things that make life delightful. My dog was with me in the car today, and I have a bag I put her in and sneak her into places so she won’t have to stay in the hot car. It looks like a ratty old purse, and it’s got some holes in it. Today I was going around to planning bureaus getting permits for the solar company I work for. As I was walking down the hallway I happened to look at the “purse” and saw a huge wad of black, curly dog hair sticking out. I laughed and turned the purse around so that the hair was hidden. It wouldn’t have been funny if someone else had noticed and kicked me out of the building for having a dog in there with all those, “No Pets Allowed” stickers all over the entrances, but even then I could have gotten some laughs out of it when I told the story to my friends and family. Busted at the City of Gresham for having a contraband dog.

Don’t get the impression that I’m always jovial. I’m most certainly not. But I’m looking out for opportunities to laugh everywhere I go. There’s a line in the Bible, “Seek and ye shall find.” It makes sense. If you’re looking for trouble, misery, or a fight, you’re probably going to stumble on to it sooner or later. If you’re looking to be amused, delighted, entertained, or to make someone else laugh, you’ll likely find that as well.

This is what my momma taught me just by watching her – be on the lookout for amusements whenever they present themselves. It makes the bittersweet parts of life a little more sweet and a lot less bitter.