Cameras: AKA the World’s Greatest Liars

My mom is the biggest proponent of getting professional pictures of your children ever.  JcPenney studio should start paying her.  Seriously.  It’s that ridiculous.  She had very little money for this when we were babies, so now she insists on a pretty regular basis that she and I take my children and have them photographed and she always pays for whatever I can’t afford.  These outings are fun-filled hours of constantly getting onto/bribing/timeouting and doing whatever it takes to get four squirmy five-and-under children to sit still for a nano-second and also maybe smile.  Maybe.  But that part is optional.  They’re all looking at the camera, just snap the picture for the love of all that is decent!  The results are usually big fun though.  I posted my latest “perfect” pictures on Facebook to be lauded and praised about how adorable and angelic my children are.  It was delightful.

But really, cameras are such liars!  Now you can even use photoshop and increase the velocity of the lie.  Smudge out those wrinkles and zits.  Enhance your eye and lip color.  You can even make yourself look thinner. I’m dying to learn that trick!  I’m not saying you shouldn’t take pictures of yourself and your family.  Of course you should, and you should smile for them because smiling makes everyone prettier except for Vigo Mortenson.  Vigo, if you’re following my blog, you are much better looking when you’re  serious.  Anyway, where was I?  Smiling for pictures is good.  Remember life’s happy moments.  No one is a bigger advocate of keeping an upbeat and positive attitude than I, however, I sometimes wonder if I am too good at the show.  I do an excellent job at “smiling for the cameras” of my life.  Let’s get real here.  You shouldn’t go through pictures on Facebook and believe that they are the sole indicators of the picture taker’s happiness level.  So here is my unphotoshopped reality for anyone who looks on Facebook, this blog, or at my sweet kiddos and thinks, “I certainly wish my life was perfect … like Julien’s”.

1.  Sunday mornings

Camera version:  My four children arrive at church scrubbed and beautiful in lovely outfits.  The girl’s hair is usually fixed in some way.  My hair is fixed and I have makeup on.  My clothes are clean and my husband’s shirt is pressed and I sometimes even wear heels.  Jason and I teach our Sunday School class, smiling and laughing with our college and career group.  It is all just precious.

Real version:  I am up super late the night before trying to find SOMEthing clean that both fits and matches and is appropriate for church.  Special bonuses if the outfits include underwear and possibly socks.  Tights are the bane of my existence because they are always dirty, holey, too little or too big.  Who MAKES these things?  Sadists.  That’s who.  Baths happen before bed Saturday, or they may not happen at all.  Jason and I drag ourselves out of bed before the sun is up, feed our children something from a can (sweet rolls usually, but recently I’ve switched to biscuits from Immaculate Bakery, because I tell myself they are slightly more nutritious.  At least they aren’t leavened with aluminum,) and then we dress the children.  Even if I have stayed up late, this can be a real nightmare.  I scramble around for clothes while Jason catches little people as they streak through the house laughing and screaming with glee because they aren’t wearing anything.  We pull clothing onto their reluctant bodies and try to figure out why every shoe has no partner. I iron Jason’s shirt while he looks for shoes and then shake the wrinkles out of my own clothes and throw them on.  We yell a bit at the kids, sometimes at each other, then we gather up everything and everyone and throw them into the van.  I run back into the house to grab two cups of coffee that we can drink on the way to church.  Jason feeds the chickens and ducks while the van warms up.  My makeup bag is permanently in the front seat so that I can dab a little bit on my face as we drive, in an attempt to look like a human.  Jason glances at me, then does a double take and says, “wow, you look really pretty!” Translation:  I didn’t recognize you without the scowl and with your eyes all the way opened.

2. Homeschooling

Camera version:  Jack, Ella and I sit in our clean classroom with books opened and smiles on our faces.  I pray and start the morning with the pledge of allegiance.  I follow my carefully detailed lesson plans throughout our day.  Jack learns to read; Ella colors in the lines.  My two-year-old and one-year-old play peacefully in the corner with all the things in my “busy little hands box” that I got off of Pinterest.  It is such a blessing to homeschool my children… on days like this.

Reality version: Jack and I sit on my unmade bed with a stack of books that I’ve carried in from the classroom because it is piled high with clean clothes that need folding and putting away.  My two-year-old is planted firmly in front of the TV watching “Bug’s Life” for the millionth time with a pile of goldfish crackers in front of him.  My one-year-old is in her crib with her second bottle of milk which she has thrown onto the floor, while she screams at the top of her lungs in protest to her morning nap.  We dive into Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons  because I want to finish the book.  I warn Jack we can’t read his favorite book The Human Body until we have done our reading and math.  Ella runs into the room screaming and crying that Caleb hit her.  Caleb saunters in after her grinning while he says he’s sorry.  I tell them to go shut their bedroom door because I’m tired of listening to Lily scream.  Ella and Caleb fight over which one will go and then run to the bedroom to slam the door frightening the wits out of Lily who screams even louder.  I storm into the situation and order everyone to sit down and be quiet.  I get frustrated with Jack because when I come back into the room, he’s making paper airplanes instead of doing his work.  Jack starts crying.  It is such a blessing to homeschool my children… I mutter through my teeth as I google “Boarding Schools in Switzerland” on my laptop.

3. Being a writer

Camera version:  I sit at my computer and write in three hour increments, skillfully seeing to the needs of my children at regular intervals.  Every month I receive a large royalty check in the mail and my husband and I spend every summer in Italy while my children learn the language, have unforgettable international experiences and sink their refined palettes into every delicacy Europe has to offer.

Reality version:  I kick my children outside to play and run to my computer in a desperate attempt to “just write something today”.  Periodically I throw raisin boxes and peanut butter sandwiches at the kids.  At least I buy whole wheat or gluten free bread and natural peanut butter, so that’s something.  I add honey to the peanut butter because it is so dry and yucky on its own.  In the few precious moments of quiet I blog, work on my Twitter following, advertise and Facebook.  I get to spend about 15 minutes a day writing.  I actually recently received a small royalty check which was super fun and it almost covered the electric bill last month.  I also make spaghetti on a pretty regular basis and sometimes there is also salad to go with it.  So I feel all set in the refined palette department.

Conclusion: My children are definitely precious, but taking their pictures is an exercise in dealing with imperfection!  I do truly love homeschooling and some days are so fun.  I enjoy writing and reading and think it’s a fabulous way to pay the electric bill.  I show up at church one way or another and fellowship with my friends and family.  There you are.  My perfect life.  If you think I’m exaggerating, you’re a wonderful person and I want to hug you.  Friends, life is just life.  Everyone has the camera version and the real story.  And sometimes even the camera fails us!  That’s why most moms don’t even take pictures of themselves for the twenty years that they’re raising their children.  I think reality keeps us humble.  It keeps us manageable.  Can you imagine living with someone who is as perfect as they appear in pictures?  I can’t.  Thankfully, I never have to.  I only associate with real people.

My friend, Anna Stallcup (you can also follow her on http://www.thestonecups.com/) is a huge propenent of honesty in our Christian walk.  She calls it, giving people the gift of “going second”.  Being honest about our struggles is a present we can give to each other.  It allows another person to see that they aren’t the only one that fights against anger, depression, guilt, yelling at our children etc…  They get to “go second”.  We are honest first.  I love this.  I’m not very good at it.  I’m much better at smiling as if I’m being followed around by a 24 hour camera, so that everyone will think I have it all together all the time.

Of course we can overdo the honesty thing.  You don’t have to update your Facebook status every time you stumble.  Unless your friends are all medical professionals, very few people want or need to hear all the details of your health issues. For instance, if I can’t see the body part in a normal appropriate setting, I don’t want to know any detail about how it’s malfunctioning.  I didn’t go into nursing for a very good, very weak stomach related reason.  Just tell me it hurts.  I’ll get the point and be sympathetic.  I promise.  You know what I mean, if you’re ALWAYS having a bad day or everyone you work with are jerks or your life just never seems to go right for one reason or another, perhaps your perspective needs a switch.  I’m not a psychologist by any stretch of the imagination, but even I know that when someone has no friends at all, it usually isn’t everyone else’s problem.  That’s a whole different topic … for someone much more qualified than I at dealing with hurting hearts.  Of course we should find a good balance between being honest and wearing people out with our problems.

So, maybe we could go easier on each other.  Give each other less of a reason to pretend that we’re always looking into the lense of a camera.  Let people “go second”.  If you don’t buy into Christianity because you’ve met imperfect Christians, join the club. I’ve never met a perfect Christian.  There was only one perfect person to ever walk the Earth and we crucified Him.  There’s a cheery look into the human condition.

Everyone is finally smiling, looking sweet and lovely … Lily is looking at the shelf full of props. *Sigh*

My world is a good one and even better when I realize that life, things and people don’t have to look like a magazine article to be wonderful.

People Boxes

I’ve always liked boxes.  Especially shoe boxes because you can sort things into them and stack them up neat and tidy.  They provide structure and organization, which the teacher side of me thinks is just awesome.  However, the artsier part of me takes over sometimes and goes for bags, you know?  They’re softer, so they don’t stack well, but you can fit more in them and they have a lot of “give”.

Our “people boxes” are an interesting conundrum.  On the one hand, it’s a very convenient organizational system.  It’s just easier to say, “you know, and then he went all ‘engineer’ on me,” instead of “it was two o’clock in the morning and he started talking about the compounding chemical structures involved in the formula for the bulletproof paneling they make at his company.”  You get what I’m saying of course.  Calling someone artsy, businesslike, teacherish, engineer, Christian, there’s nothing wrong with having a system … is there?

There was a particular guy that I grew up with who liked his organizational system, but maybe a bit too much.  The boxes he put people in were labeled, based on a first impression and pretty much permanent.  I was unknowingly in the “silly little girl” box for years with him, and never could figure out why he didn’t like me.  One night on a train ride to town we had a conversation about Edgar Allen Poe and the change in him was instantaneous.  All of the sudden, he talked to me like I was a human, not just then, all the time. It was so drastically different that I had to ask a couple of his friends what I had done to suddenly merit his favor.  They told me, he had put me in that box years ago, labeled it, and never thought of it again until the Poe conversation.  Really?  Yikes!

Here is my theory on people boxes (feel free to chime in with theories of your own,):  They are a byproduct of the fact that many people never mature past a high school mentality.  We still think of people as jocks, nerds, cheerleaders, etc. But I think people do better in bags.  Breathable bags of course, not plastic.  Something for people to stretch out in and have more than one facet.  I am a very cheerful person, which does sometimes translate to silliness, but I also love Dickens, Poe, diagramming sentences and reading my Bible.  I read this quote once and it has changed my perspective on people forever, “The most complex character in literature is far more simplistic than the most simplistic person in the world.”  I’ve read some pretty complex characters.  David Copperfield, Elizabeth Bennett and Harry Potter to name a few. Literature is full of brilliant characters and they don’t scratch the surface of a real live human being.

That “little old lady” who sits in the back at church, she was alive during times in history that we study about in books.  Her husband was killed by a drunk driver when she was in her late twenties, leaving her with three boys and an 18 month old baby girl.  She used the insurance money to buy a house so that they would always have a place to live, and she planted a garden so they would have food.  She raised those four children alone, keeping them in church and every activity in school that she could afford.  They had nothing, but she never complained, she was too busy to complain.  She taught her children that sometimes life was hard, but it was just life.  Her children grew up to be four of the most brilliant, hard-working, non-complaining, selfless people in my life to date.  One of them is my mother.  “Old people”: how did they merit only one box for all 476 million of them?  Horrifying.  We should fix that.

Should we even have categories for people?  We’re probably going to, whether we should or not, right?  So how can we keep our people organizing from being stifling? Of course we should burn the cruel categories.  That should be a given.  Obviously let’s not do the loser box, or stupid, or waste of skin.  I do think we should make an exception in the case of bad drivers.  Right?  Can we keep that one?  Okay.  Also, we could let go of the first impression rule.  Of course it’s lasting, but it doesn’t have to be permanent.  Otherwise, perhaps we’d be better off categorizing by lists instead of labels.  Bags not boxes.  Remember that homeless people have a story (one that you probably don’t even WANT to know), that artsy people have their mathematical side, and that rocket scientists sometimes play the piano.  Nerds make really good friends. The beautiful homecoming queen from high school that you thought was a snob actually grew up to be very nice!  I’m crazy extroverted and occasionally I just want to be alone and quiet.  Sometimes atheists believe in God, and sometimes Christians forget that He exists.  People are complex … and wonderful and they don’t fit well into boxes.

Also, you should never, under any circumstances, ask an engineer (out of politeness) how they are liking their new job at the bulletproof paneling place … just don’t.  Especially not at 2:00am.

A Eulogy for Dead Chickens …

My husband, Jason, and I are hobby farmers.  I mean by that, that we started out planting a huge garden every year, and we’ve recently added chickens.  So I feel we can upgrade our status from just gardeners, to hobby farmers.  I just think it sounds cooler.  Anyone can be a gardener, but it takes real skill to raise live things like chickens.  Cluck if you agree.

So, some sweet, well-meaning person I used to buy farm fresh eggs from asked me if we’d like their year old flock of 21 chickens.  I gave her an enthusiastic yes and Jason went and picked them up.  So exciting.  Of those 21, 17 are still alive. I think that’s fairly good odds … for us.  Just last Saturday I stopped for chicken feed and mysteriously came home with 6 new chicks and 2 ducklings.  Not sure how it happened, at least that’s what I told Jason.  Of those 6 chicks, only 4 are still alive.  So, see what I meant about the 21/17 odds?  You have a better shot at survival at my house if you start out full grown and somewhat able to fend for yourself.  Just sayin’.

I’ll come back to that later.  I actually want to talk about regrets.  I know, right?  Makes perfect sense with the way this post started.  Regrets are interesting little boogers.  We all have them of course.  Some people seem to handle them well, rolling with life’s punches and getting on with the good stuff.  Others can literally let regrets rip them to shreds.  Sometimes it’s the actual regret that is seemingly insurmountable, but a lot of times, it’s just in the handling of it.  I’ve seen people bounce back from some of the most devastating life choices.  People that God actually names as great leaders, prayer warriors and friends of God overcame things like murder, thievery, other things that were truly despicable and I don’t want to talk about them.  So, how do some deal successfully and some fly apart?  I have steps … of course.  These are just my opinions, my ways of dealing, or things I was taught by people who are smarter than I.

Number One:  Focus only on what you know is true.  Have you ever met someone who is suspicious of everyone?  They always think someone is mad at them.  No one has “liked” their Facebook Statuses lately.  So and so didn’t call them back when they left a message.  Their friend said such and such, but they really think they meant -.  You get the picture.  We all do it, so don’t be high and mighty.  Sometimes this is true.  Someone actually is mad at you.  Sometimes it’s made up in our minds, because we’re too sensitive, or because someone else isn’t sensitive enough.  I’m usually the latter.  Mostly we just need some chocolate.

I used to tell my college roommates the first night they moved in with me, “if I do something that makes you upset with me, please let me know.  You can ignore me for a week and I will never figure out what I did, or worse yet, I won’t even notice.  Also, if you think I’m mad at you, you’re wrong.  I’m not two.  If I’m mad about something and I know I won’t just get over it, I’ll tell you.”  Most of them took this to heart, did as I asked and we all got along swimmingly.  They’d tell me if I upset them, I’d apologize (not a lame, fake apology, but a real “I’m sorry, please forgive me,” apology) and we’d all live happily ever after.  One girl never did say what was troubling her, but we figured out that she was most annoyed when we didn’t keep our side of the room tidy enough.  We fixed that problem, and boom!  she was happy again.  Sometimes with quieter people, you have to do detective work.  It’s a thing with them.

Here is the solution to this that will absolutely work for you, because someone else smarter than me thought it up (God).  Focus your energy only on what is true.  If you know you said something to that person that would have hurt their feelings, then go to them and tell them you’re sorry.  If you know they are upset, but you don’t know why, go to them and ask if there’s something you can do to make right whatever has upset them.  Don’t give pathetic apologies.  The anger will only build from there.  An, “I’m so sorry, would you please forgive me?” will go a lot farther toward healing than, “I’m sorry I made you feel that way, but-” No!  Scrap the “but”.  Would you like to be apologized to that way?  You’re just making excuses for yourself.  No healing will happen as long as we excuse our behavior.  The flip side is, if you didn’t do anything and they assure you that they aren’t upset with you, act accordingly.  Don’t keep going back and making sure they really aren’t upset.  Life is really too short to waste in paranoia.

Number two:  Get out of the brain cycle of “if only”.  This takes practice.  When I was in my early twenties a renown psychologist in our area taught my Sunday School class.  Most of what he said was far too brilliant to penetrate my 21 year old brain, but a couple of things stuck.  One was, “When a negative thought pops in your head, stop it immediately.  You then have about 5 seconds to change the tape.  Refocus your mind and move on.”  I have practiced this since then.  I’m still not great at it.  But I’m trying.

Number three: Remember just how important and valuable you are.  Whew!  I think this is the hardest yet.  The other thing that Dr. Myers (Sunday school teacher) said that stuck with me forever was that “Jesus would rather die than live without you.”  I realize it’s hard to focus on your eternal value when you’re doing twelve loads of laundry, stuck in traffic, staring at a computer screen for a living, but it’s absolutely true!  You are so valuable that the One who had the power to speak the world into existence would rather die a brutal death than live without you.  That’s some crazy love, friend.

Number four:  Because some of you just never will believe number three, here’s another starting point for getting away from the “if only” brain cycle.  Do something nice for someone else.  Make yourself more valuable.  Stick with a strength.  Our technology guy at our church, Bubba Stallcup, fixes computer problems for church members for free in his non-existent spare time.  When my mom felt down she always used to make banana bread or cookies and we would all take them to a nursing home.  If you can’t bake, just take them flowers.  People in a nursing home just want some love and attention.  Go hug them.  Nothing will make you feel more valuable than spending time with someone who literally has no one that cares about them.  Pay for the person behind you at the drive through.  Nice people have more friends.  That’s just a fact.  I believe the statistic is that the most reclusive person in the world touches at least 10,000 people in their life time.  Imagine if you’re actually trying!

Number five: Eat more chocolate.  This requires no further explanation.

What does all this have to do with my propensity to kill chickens?  Ah!  You smart aleck thing you, it doesn’t really.  It’s just my life.  No, honestly, the unfortunate chickens triggered this thought because I used to be devastatingly scared to try something new.  I was paralyzed by past failures (I have a surprising number of these for how young I am).  I let regrets and fear run my life and keep me in my comfort zone all the time.  If a chicken had died in my care back then I would have cried for days, given all survivors to a chicken expert with years of references and never tried anything new ever again for fear that I would stink at it.  What fun is that?  My lifetime friend, Sara Pullen once asked me, “what would you do if you weren’t afraid?” My current answer –  I’d start a blog, write my books, have a bunch of kids and homeschool them, hobby farm.  Accidentally kill chickens.  You know, the usual stuff.

 

I do feel that I should add here that the chickens and chicks died of natural causes.  I wasn’t negligent or anything.  Just in case you were worrying about the survivors.  We’re doing all we can here!

3 Steps to a More Positive Life

The term “pet peeve” has always bugged me.  I mean, aside from the fact that “peeve” just sounds weird and sets my teeth on edge, the term itself is just an excuse.  Someone is giving themselves permission to be negative because whatever just happened is their “pet peeve”.  As my sister would say, well, bully for you.

My Dad had chronic pain when I was growing up.  Rheumatoid arthritis.   Dreadful.  Anyway, in spite of this, he strove to raise us in an ultra positive atmosphere.  The things normal people disliked were usually my favorites because I didn’t know we were supposed to hate them.  I have crazy love for things like Mondays, broccoli, cats and rainy days.  I was homeschooled, so I didn’t know until I got out into the “real world” that there was something inherently wrong with this.  I learned how to keep this disturbing part of myself hidden for a long time so I could fit in with normal people, but various other abnormalities kicked in, and my plan failed.  So now, it’s just all out there in the open.

On the downer side, I am as guilty as anyone.  I watched a movie last night that wasn’t a cinematic masterpiece and the very next thing I felt the need to do was get on Facebook and gripe about it.  Seriously?  I should have just gone to bed.  It was late.  I even, despite Daddy’s best efforts, have pet peeves myself.  Don’t say “snuck” around me or mention that you drink Diet Coke.  Just don’t.  It’s super bad.

I have noticed our trend toward negativity really increasing here lately, (like, since slightly after the creation of mankind), and its severity is alarming.  So, here is my question for we complainers, critics, Monday haters and pet peeved … why do we feel the need to not only be negative, but also, share our negative feelings with everyone?  Why are there Facebook rants?  Do people really have to know that we aren’t happy with the service at the local car wash?  Do we need reminding that it’s hot outside?  Do we just want people to know that we’ve also noticed that Sally’s hair looks particularly bad since she dyed it?

I was looking for reviews on a book I wanted to read the other day and quickly wished I hadn’t.  There were several raves over the book, and one that I assumed was fairly negative from the title: “I don’t know why people think this book is good…”.  Guess which one I looked up?  The review itself was scathing, but then the comments section went on for ages.  I could have spent all day reading all the terrible things about this book including such gems as “the author doesn’t use big enough words” and “why would she name her main character that?” I finally got a little disgusted with all the “contributors” and decided to see how many award winning, best selling novels they had written … oddly enough, none.  Weird, right?  You’d think people with that level of expertise … but I digress.  I went back to the main page and noted that about three people total had pressed the little button saying that they found the positive reviews helpful.  The negative review’s little button had been pushed 126 times.  Sigh.

The answer to the question is not just that humanity has fallen.  That’s fairly obvious.  I think there is a level of peer acceptance involved.   We want people to know we noticed the flaws too.  We’re really smart, so we didn’t think it was great either.  Why has negative become synonymous with intelligence?  It’s true.  Just try telling people that Mondays are great, that you really like the restaurant they’re ditching, and start a conversation with the local gossip by saying, “we really need to pray for so and so, that something wonderful will happen to them.  They did the nicest thing the other day.  Let me tell you all about it!”  Read your Facebook newsfeed, or better yet, check out your own status updates.  Over 50% of mine are negative, because I’m so deep, so smart, so above people. Blech!  I need a new perspective.

So here is my plan and you’ll love it!  It’s step by step.  I love things that are step by step.  Give me ten things to do to earn more money in 2014, a five step plan to better health … you name it, if it has steps, I’m in.

Step One: Establish our “pet loves”

Okay, yeah I know that sounds shmucky, but do you want to be happier, or not?  I had a college professor who was a genius at this.  She was dying of cancer, and had battled it off and on for over 20 years.  She was the most joyful lady I ever met.  Ever.  She celebrated everything!  If someone got roses in the dining hall she would clap for them and sing, “Happy roses to you!” to the tune of Happy Birthday.  She walked down the halls, or was rolled down in her wheel chair, breathing life into people.  Telling them good morning, asking how they were doing, reminding them that she loved them, that God loved them.  She was so beautiful.  Her pet loves were redbirds, rubies and rainbows.  She wrote a book about all the times that God had gotten her through just from sending a red bird to sit on her porch, or putting a rainbow in the sky.  She absorbed happiness like we absorb Facebook rants.  I have gathered my pet loves already.  I am poised and ready to notice them everywhere, clap for people.  Sing more.  (Sorry in advance for that one.)

Step Two: Positive Social Media

I’m kind of a realist here.  I don’t think happiness is going to go viral.  If that were possible, the news would only tell us when wonderful things happen.  But, we can make a difference in our own social media.  We can stop ranting.  Stop posting every time something annoys us.  I intentionally unfollow friends who only talk about how terrible their life is, how sick they are, or how much people annoy them.  I have four kids, a house to keep up, homeschooling and writing to do.  I don’t have time to be depressed by the emotional vampires of Tumblr, Facebook and the Twittersphere.

I have a dear friend who did a thing at the start of the year she called “One Hundred Happy Days”.  I think it was a thing going around, I don’t know.  All I know is, I super love the idea.  She took a picture of herself enjoying one nice thing every day and all of her status updates were positive and ended with the hashtag #onehundredhappydays.  I’m going to try this.  I think everyone should.  Besides … it’s one of the steps.

Step Three:  Learning to keep quiet

This one is mostly for me, but ya’ll feel free to join in.  My mother spent half of my life saying things like, “you didn’t really say that did you?” and “Jules, just because you have an opinion doesn’t mean you need to share it.”  God bless her.  I still need the reminder sometimes.  So what would happen if we didn’t tell people the bad thoughts we had about that movie, hairstyle, book, parking job?  What if we did what our moms used to tell us to do all the time and “if we can’t find something nice to say, just don’t say anything at all.”  I can tell you that at least 126 people reading Amazon book reviews will find this philosophy unhelpful, but seriously.  Is our negative opinion necessary to anyone’s survival?  If you’re a doctor and, in your opinion someone has a brain tumor, you should probably share that, but otherwise, I think we could all stand to talk less and smile more. Yeah?

There you are.  So from now on, you can say snuck around me all you like and I won’t say a word.  I will even try desperately to keep my mouth sewn shut about Diet Coke.  I just read a super mean blog post bashing “food police”.  So now I feel bad about that one.  Sorry.

When you look for the bad in mankind expecting to find it, you surely will. Abraham Lincoln