Friday's Facts

Boy, I'm batting a thousand here. I said something in a past blog that offended my intended tourist for the 23rd, and she cancelled, unsubbed to my group and let me know I wasn't her cup of tea. So, this Thursday, I rolled out the red carpet for naught. I fully expected Margaret to be here to entertain you, but something must have come up...or else I'm doing an award-winning job of pissing people off.

Anyhow...I guess we'll see if next week's tourist shows up. If not, maybe I should consider discontinuing that "show."

So, since we don't have much to laugh about these days, with the economy on the fritz and Swine Flu lurking in the air, I thought perhaps I'd share a bit of humor from "Life is a Bowl of Toilets..."



Expectations

When I was a teenager, I expected the world would end before I ever had my first date. After I had my first date, I knew for sure it would end before I had to chance to marry. When I got married, I was certain I would never have children because the world was going to be blown apart on a certain date. Television programs about the ancient predictions of Nostradumus convinced me I would never live to see twenty-five. When I got to be twenty-five, I read the Book of Revelation in the Bible and learned a whole new reason to worry. Well, I’m almost sixty now, and every day the news predicts something. I’ve stop setting my expectations by what other people say will happen and expect things based only on my own experiences—you never know!

We probably come into this world with very few expectations, but by the time you reach midlife you realize you have acquired a few. For example: I expect when I go to the cash register, the line I select will be the one in which someone ahead of me is trying to buy something that doesn’t have a price marked on it. I also expect that if I’m in a hurry or running late, all signals will turn red just as I reach them. If the sky is blue and I wash my car, it will rain. If there’s a single nail on a 300-mile stretch of highway, I can find it, or if I have something important to go to and only one pair of panty hose, I’ll run them no matter if I’m wearing silk gloves. If there’s a hemorrhoid to be had, a pimple you can get when you’re over fifty, or a stray hair that needs to be left in someone’s food plate…then I’m your girl!

I have good expectations too. I expect that people will treat me with respect. If they don’t, then screw ’em…who needs people like that anyhow? I expect that my friends will accept me, warts and all. So far they have, and I try to return the same respect and acceptance to them. Face it, we have no control over what happens us. We can plot, plan, try to steer in a certain direction, but it only takes one act of fate to change everything. I’ve decided to stop worrying about where my life will go. I just want to live it while I can. I used to want a big house—I don’t anymore. I used to want everything that everyone else in the world had. That’s called coveting and I don’t do that anymore either. I gave it up because it didn’t work. You can covet all you want, but you ain’t gonna get unless you earn it. Oh, sometimes I’ll see someone wearing something I wish I could wear, but as far as envying other people, I think my life is pretty great the way it is. I survived two children, two marriages, I’d like to say two affairs, but that would be a lie, and I have good friends, good family, and the good lord. What else could anyone ask for? But I do have one expectation that I detest. I abhor the fact that I’m expected to be the only one who cleans the toilets.

Author's Post Note: I'm now sixty-three and things haven't changed much except that most of the friends I thought would be forever, weren't, the family I thought would never become dysfunctional, did, and there are still things to worry about every day. My new motto is "don't sweat the small stuff." I pray I'm still here to report I've turned seventy-three and to announce that my grandson Spencer finally overcame his disabilities. Like I said...I still expect that true friends will accept me warts and all.